When Demons Walk by Patricia Briggs Read Free Book Online Page A

overshadowed by Hirkin’s full-throated cries: Her father had done the same in battle. Kerim fought silently.
    Slowly, Lord Hirkin backed to the corner where Scarf waited and for the first time since the initial strike, Sham got a clear view of the fight.
    Time after time the blades struck and sparks flashed inthe flickering torchlight. Lord Kerim moved with the lethal grace of one of the great hunting cats—unusual in a man so large. Sham no longer wondered how such a burly man had won the title of Leopard. Though Hirkin was without a doubt a tremendous swordsman, it was obvious he was no match for the Reeve. Hirkin stumbled to his left and Kerim followed him, leaving the vulnerable side of his throat an easy target for Scarf’s knife.
    Sham waited until the guardsman pulled his arm back before sending her tool spinning through the air. It slid noiselessly into Scarf’s good eye at the same time that a knife buried itself to its haft in his neck.
    Startled, Sham raised her eyes to meet those of her fellow Southwoodsman, who raised his hand in formal salute. Near him the Cybellian who had supported Kerim was wrestling on the floor with Hirkin’s remaining henchman. Satisfied that the situation was under control she turned to watch the sword fight.
    Hirkin’s sword moved with the same power that Kerim’s did, but without the Reeve’s fine control. Again and again, Hirkin’s sword hit wood and plaster while the blue sword touched only Hirkin’s blade.
    Both men were breathing hard and the smell of sweat joined the smell of death that lingered cloyingly in the air. The blades moved more slowly now, with short resting periods breaking up the pace before the furious clash began again.
    Abruptly, when it seemed that Hirkin was certain to lose, the tide of the fight changed. The Reeve stumbled over one of the old man’s slippers, falling to one knee. Hirkin stepped in to take advantage of Lord Kerim’s misfortune, bringing his sword down overhand angled to intersect the Reeve’s vulnerable neck.
    Kerim made no attempt to come to his feet. Instead, he braced himself on both knees and brought the silver-edged blade up with impossible speed. Hirkin’s sword hit the Reeve’s with the full weight of its wielder behind the blow.
    With only the strength of his upper body, the Reeve took the force of Hirkin’s blow and redirected it, slightlytwisting as he did so. Hirkin’s sword sliced a hole in the Reeve’s surcoat before embedding itself in the floorboards.
    Still on his knees, Kerim stabbed upward as if he held a knife rather than a sword. The tip hit Hirkin just below his rib cage and slid smoothly upward. Hirkin was dead before his body touched the floor.
    The Reeve wiped the blade on Hirkin’s velvet surcoat. Showing little of the litheness he had displayed in the battle, he slowly regained his feet.
    â€œThought you might be slowing down, Captain.” The Eastern guard who’d supported Kerim spoke casually from his position on top of the man he’d been wrestling. He held the cadaver’s twisted legs under one knee and used both hands to secure an arm he’d pulled up and back. The position looked uncomfortable for both men to Sham, but she seldom indulged in such sport.
    Kerim narrowed his eyes at the man who addressed him and then grinned. “It’s good to see you again, Lirn. What is an archer of your caliber doing working in Purgatory?”
    The guardsman shrugged. “Have to take what work’s offered, Captain.”
    â€œI could use you, training the Castle guards,” offered the Reeve, “but I have to warn you that the last man to hold the post of captain quit.”
    The guard’s eyebrows rose. “I wouldn’t have thought that Castle guards would be that difficult.”
    â€œThey’re not,” returned Kerim. “My lady mother, however is .”
    The guard laughed and shook his head.