The Bloody North (The Fallen Crown) by Tony Healey Read Free Book Online

crashed together. Metal rang out against metal. They parted. Rowan kicked out, caught the top of the man's knee. His opponent buckled to the left, made to swing his sword, snarling, his lips peeled back from his gums.
    Rowan pivoted, steel outstretched as he spun about, cutting the man's sternum clean open. His guts bloated out of the opening. He perched on one knee as if he were sacrificing himself for the good of the cause.
    A man roared to his right. Rowan turned to see Raul Bigfist fighting one of the Breakers with an axe. Through brute force alone , he got one of the soldier's swords out of his hand, knocked it to the ground, and as the Breaker stooped down to retrieve it, Bigfist brought the axe down and cracked the man's head wide open.
    A man in Lieutenant's garb co ordinated the Breakers' efforts to fight the rabble they'd invited into their camp. The pests they'd hoped to have slaughtered by now. Rowan knew him from over the years, more from talk than anything else. He hadn't been able to see him so well up on the ridge, but now he was down in the midst of it, he knew who the man was.
    Lieutenant Vrand stood with his steels out, one in each hand, yelling at his men to bring order to the chaos. Rowan heard him shout, "Get the Captain to safety!"
    Rowan's keen eyes scanned the battlefield. He spotted their leader. A scrawny streak of piss, his uniform adorned with the appropriate flourishes of a Captain. The one who'd stabbed Larch West in the stomach. The Captain ran to the other side of the camp flanked by a guard on either side while Lieutenant Vrand battled what remained of Larch West's Royalists.
    Rowan eyed West's body, face down on the ground. "Little bastard," he growled as he looked back to the retreating Captain.
    He gave chase, closing the distance in seconds, muscles burning as he pumped his arms and legs. Before either of the guards had time to turn face him, Rowan skewered the one on the right all the way through. The man gasped, absently reached for where the end of Rowan's sword poked through the front of his chest, then Rowan pulled his weapon free. The metal squealed against raw bone on its way out.
    The guard on the left lashed out with his shield. The edge of it caught Rowan just right, sent him tumbling off to the side, knocked off balance.
    "Run sir!" the guard yelled at the Captain when he saw Rowan regain his footing  – for the moment at least. "Get out of here!"
    Rowan dove toward the guard as the Captain ran, got to within a foot, tight and ready. Close as could be, their eyes locked on each other as they wrestled with their swords pressed together, spit flying from their mouths with the strain.
    They drew nose to nose. Rowan threw his head back and let his opponent have a healthy butt in the face for his trouble. He felt his forehead crush the bridge of his opponent's nose. The man staggered away, hands up to his face, everything else going on around him forgotten for the moment.
    With a deft stroke of his sword he hacked into the guard's arm, left it hanging by a few threads of sinew. The man let loose a blood-curdling scream, his eyes wildly expectant for the next blow about to cut his life short . . . but Rowan was already on his way after the Captain. Sometimes it's fashionable merely to maim.
    The runt looking man peered back over his shoulder as he ran, nose high in the air as he tried to keep ahead of his would-be killer. It brought Rowan joy to see his prey so scared as he gained ground, enough so the startled Captain looked back again, panicked this time, lost his footing, and fell flat on his face. Rowan hooked him by the back of his collar, dragged him away to a line of trees. Out of sight.
    He pressed the Captain against the trunk of a bare e lm. "Wha–!" he tried to cry but Rowan drove a fist into his gut that took away any ability to make further loud gestures.
    Rowan stood back, panting. " Dirty thing you just did there," he growled. "Larch West was a good man. The best.