Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
He’s good. Better than I remember. But he’s also angry, and anger makes people stupid.
His next swing comes in too high, leaving his ribs exposed. I step inside his reach and drive my axe toward his heart, but he’s already moving, catching my wrist with his free hand. For a moment we’re locked together, struggling for control of our weapons.
He’s stronger than me, but I’m faster. I hook my foot behind his ankle and drive my shoulder into his chest, sending us both tumbling to the ground. We roll across the mushroom-lit earth, each trying to pin the other long enough for a killing blow.
I come up on top, axe raised, but he gets his knees between us and kicks. The impact launches me backward into a cluster of glowing fungi that crush under my weight, their light dimming as I roll away.
Brutus rolls to his feet, machete gleaming in his fist. “You always were trickier than you looked.”
“And you always talked too much.”
We close again, weapons clashing in a shower of sparks. His blade catches my axe handle, scoring the wood but not biting deep enough to matter. I twist the handle, using the hook of my axe to catch his machete and wrench it aside, then bring my knee up toward his groin.
He blocks with his thigh, counters with an elbow that catches me in the temple hard enough to make my vision blur. I stumble backward, black spots dancing across my sight.
He presses his advantage, machete cutting through the air where my head was a second earlier. I duck, roll, come up swinging. My axe catches him across the back of the thigh, opening a gash that sprays blood across the nearest mushrooms.
He roars, more rage than pain, and lunges forward with his machete extended like a spear. I sidestep, let the metal whistle past, then bring my axe around in a horizontal arc aimed at his neck.
He drops under the swing, sweeps my legs out from under me. I hit the ground hard, axe spinning away into the darkness. Brutus looms over me, machete raised for the killing blow.
“Should have stayed retired,” he snarls.
That’s when I hear Hans scream.
The sound cuts through the battle noise like a blade through silk—raw, agonized, ending too abruptly. I turn my head and see him twenty feet away, a Crow’s machete buried in his spine between his shoulder blades. The chainmail that protected him from slashing attacks can’t stop a thrust from behind.
Hans drops to his knees, sword falling from nerveless fingers. The Crow behind him—one I don’t recognize, probably backup they called in—grins as he wrenches the machete free. Blood gushes from the wound, and Hans pitches forward onto his face.
The moment of distraction costs me everything. Brutus’s machete descends toward my throat, and I can see death approaching with crystalline clarity.
Then Ash appears like a ghost, driving his shoulder into Brutus and sending us all tumbling across the bloody ground. We roll apart, and when I look up, Brutus is already on his feet, backing toward the tree line.
“This isn’t over,” he snarls, pressing one hand to a gash Ash opened on his arm and the other to his thigh.
“Coward,” I spit, getting to my feet. “Running from a fair fight.”
Brutus’s face twists with rage, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s beaten. He whistles, and the remaining Crow begin melting back into the forest. Three, maybe four of them left alive.
“Next time I won’t be so generous,” Brutus calls over his shoulder before disappearing into the darkness.
The clearing falls silent except for our ragged breathing.
Victory, but I can already see it’s come at a horrible cost.
I spin around, looking for Hans, and my blood turns to ice. He’s on the ground twenty feet away, alive but barely, raising his arms weakly to block the Crow standing over him. The bastard with the bloodied machete swats Hans’s feeble defense aside and raises the weapon high, preparing to split his skull.
I’m too far away. I’ll never make it in time.
“No!” The word tears from my throat as I sprint across the corpse-littered ground.
The Crow brings his machete down in a vicious arc, and I watch helplessly as the blade bites deep into Hans’s skull with a wet crack that echoes across the clearing. Blood and brain matter spray across what’s left of the mushrooms that haven’t been trampled.
I reach the Crow three seconds too late, my axe taking his head clean off. Blood sprays across the clearing, but the damage is done.
Hans is dead.
Hans is on his back, face turned toward me, eyes open but vacant. Blood pools beneath him, soaking into the earth. The chainmail across his chest has been shredded by the machete thrust, and I can see white bone gleaming through the wound.
I kneel beside him, cradling his head in my lap. His face is peaceful, younger somehow in death than he ever looked in life. Seven years he worked for me. Seven years of perfect loyalty, of following orders without question, of protecting the people I cared about.