By Divine Right by Patrick W. Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

saw his eyes widen in surprise and pain before going dark with anger.
    His other hand darted for his robe, groping.
    My boots scrabbled against the ground as I shoved, rolling his weight onto that arm. His knee found my groin and breath exploded from me. I clenched my knees together and head-butted him on his broken nose.
    But the move shifted my balance, and he threw me off to the side, drawing a second dagger. I rolled, searching for my sword.
    I saw my blade behind him and growled my frustration. Pulling the dagger strapped to the inside of my boot, I darted forward. Suicide. One dagger against two. I worked to his left and saw him smile beneath the ruin of his nose.
    Left-handed.
    And he’d tried to hide it.
    I ripped my cloak from my neck and spun it around my left arm as he closed.
    I thrust my left arm at his face and dropped. Kicking as hard as I could, I swept his feet. His dagger stroke went just over my head, and I saw his eyes widen as he fell.
    Switching my grip for an overhand thrust, I leaped toward him for the kill, but he kicked out even before he hit the ground, one boot taking me in the knee and the other hitting my wrist. I watched as my dagger sailed away. I staggered, struggling for balance.
    By the time I’d righted myself, he’d rolled back to his feet and came at me again.
    I took a thrust that sank through most of my cloak, but he wrapped a leg behind mine, pushing. I fell to the stones of the alley with his weight on me.
    Pinned with the point of his dagger against my chest, I locked my hands around his wrist, struggling to keep it from me.
    I couldn’t get any leverage. His weight kept my arms pinned at my sides. A smile split his face as the tip inched closer. I could have put my thumb through his eye, but the moment I let go with either hand, I’d have eight inches of steel in me.
    The heat of his breath washed over me as the tip of his dagger pushed against my jerkin. Any second the thick leather would give way, and then the blade would slip right through me.
    I slammed my knees into his body, trying to make contact with something sensitive. He smiled at the weak blows, and the pressure on my jerkin increased. Somewhere in my mind I whispered the prayer for the dead. For myself.
    The pressure eased. I blinked, saw my attacker staring through me, trying to focus. Then the flat of my sword blade swept down, hitting him again. Custos.
    My attacker shook his head, trying to clear it, and the blade lifted from my chest. I shifted, extended my arms, and turned his wrist until something popped.
    I covered his mouth as he drew breath to scream, grabbed his dagger and put it through his heart. The look of victory that had been in his eyes turned to shock as he looked down. By the time he fell to the side, he was already dead.
    Custos stood over me and the dead man, holding my sword like a club, ready to strike again. “Is he dead?”
    The abstraction I always felt in the presence of death came over me again. I brushed dark hair back from his forehead as I turned his face toward me and caught a hint of reflection off a glassy stare. The eyes. The gaze of the dead man captivated me, looking through me, focused on something so impossibly far away only eternity could comprehend it. “Tell me,” I whispered to him. “What do you see?”
    “Willet?” Custos said in a voice that could have come from the next kingdom. “Is he dead?”
    I blinked, the trance broken. My attacker, like all the others who’d died in my presence, hadn’t answered. “Yes, old friend. He’s dead.”
    “It’s a shame you killed him,” Custos said. He flopped on the ground next to me, breathing heavily, sharing my exhaustion. “You could have questioned him.”
    I shook my head. “Too dangerous for that one. I don’t think I could have gotten anything out of him that he didn’t already tell me.”
    Custos’s eyebrows, the only part of him that hadn’t gone gray, rose in surprise. “He spoke to you?”
    I shook my