Hand of the Black City by Bryce O'Connor Read Free Book Online Page B

brown hair stuck her head out.
    "Roen?" she demanded, addressing one of the knights. "What's going on? Is everything—?"
    The words caught in her throat as she, too, saw Trystan.
    "Kathyln, NO!" one of the men shouted, likely the one she'd been speaking to. "GET BACK! GET—!"
    His words were cut short as the woman's head hit the ground, cleanly sheered from her shoulders by the razor edge of Trystan's saber.
    "NO!"
    A sudden flurry of movement accompanied Roen's heart-wrenching scream. The two men on horseback brought their mounts around to charge forward, yelling curses as they swung their blades at Trystan's head. Throwing himself into a forward roll, Trystan fell well below the arc of their blows. Landing on his feet he struck, left-right, in rapid succession. The saber blades sliced through the muscle and tendon of both steeds' rear legs like paper. As the lamed animals crashed the ground behind him, writhing and screaming, Trystan sprang forward to meet the rush of the other three men head on.
    It was a short fight.
    Catching a horizontal blow from either side with each blade, Trystan twisted, redirecting the knights' swords into the ground. In an instant one of the men lost both hands and the lower half of his left leg. He’d just fallen to the ground when his companion found himself on his knees, gurgling and choking as he clutched at his throat. Black blood ran free from between his gloved fingers, pouring from the vicious slash Trystan's blade had cleaved across his neck.
    The third man did no better. His overhead swing was cut short when one of the saber's pommels caught him in the gut, doubling him over. A quick succession of blows dropped him on all fours, severing the tendons in his ankles. Even as the man screamed in pain Trystan's final strike plunged a saber-point through the back of the knight’s skull and out through his mouth. The pinned body twitched in the bloodstained snow.
    Pulling his blade free of the man's head with a sharp tug, Trystan didn't stop moving. One of the riders whose animal he'd hamstringed was dead, partially crushed under the weight of the fallen horse. The other seemed, though, to have managed to make it out relatively unscathed. He stood on weak legs, sword shaking in both hands, and he stumbled back a step. Trystan followed him silently, so fluid he barely left so much as a boot print in the snow.
    "M-mercy, sir!" the man pleaded, tripping and nearly falling as he continued his backwards retreat. "Mercy, I-I beg you! I BEG YOU!"
    Trystan didn't reply, continuing his cool approach. When he was ten feet away the nerveless knight dropped his sword and fled. He bolted past the cart and scrambled over the uneven earth in his desperate attempt at escape. Trystan paused, studying the defeated form for a moment.
    Then, sheathing one of the sabers in a flash, he drew his boot-blade out again and threw it with a careful snap of his wrist.
    The dagger caught the fleeing man squarely in the back of the head, burying itself to the hilt in his skull. Impressively the knight managed another couple faltering steps before collapsing to the ground, his limbs convulsing weakly for a few lingering moments. At last, though, he stilled, and this time didn't rise again.
    Satisfied, Trystan turned his attention to the last of his charges. Silently he made for the wagon, listening to the panicked breaths inside paired with remnants of barely muffled sobs. As he came to stand at the back of the cart he caught a whispered ' shhh ,' and he paused yet again.
    It always paid to be wary.
    Standing slightly to the side, Trystan reached out with his saber and caught the leather flap with the tip of the blade, just above where the limp form of the woman he'd beheaded hung over the back of the cart. He had only just begun to pull it open when there was a heavy clunk, and in that fraction of an instant all that saved him from a lifetime's worth of agony was the brutal instinct instilled in him by the Iron Will.