R. A. MacAvoy - Lens of the World 01 by Lens of the World

Author:Lens of the World
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-05-30T12:59:59+00:00

MACAVOY

An attack upon the king! Assassin! Slay that man!”

I spun in place, my exhaustion forgotten. In the doorway of another pavilion, outlined by lamps from within, stood a man in light field armor, and he was pointing at me with his sword.

The king’s guard did not obey, but instead moved into a defensive stance between myself and the leather tent flap. The men at the fire were mostly unarmed, and they approached me warily, but the sentry of the lit pavilion came forward willingly enough, his rapier ringing out of its scabbard, and others in a pack joined him from behind the bulk of the tent, half dressed but armed well enough.

My pack is made to slide off in an instant, and I leaped backward over it to make it a burden to my attacker instead of to me. I wanted my hedger but had no time to stoop for it. I threw one of my clogs and hit him over the eyes.

A man in a black-and-yellow house uniform shoved past the stunned sentry. His rapier was needle-fine and well made, like a sliver of light in the darkness. At the same time around the sentry’s other side came a man in underwear, trying to spark a flint on his harquebus. 1 darted toward him, as he was less ready, and used an elbow in his armpit to knock him into the fellow with the nasty blade.

There were many more of them, now, mostly in the black and yellow (I couldn’t immediately remember what marshal owned those colors; I couldn’t immediately think at all) but some in royal blue and white and many in white linen and bare skin. I remember that I ducked a sweep that would have taken my head and flinched away from another that wanted. my stomach, and then I had the chance to bend to my pack, and my hedger was in my hand.

The beautiful rapier was back in action, and the man who wielded it called for room to use it. He got his way, for the mass of soldiers edged back to circle us as he sent that long needle past the end of my short hedger and at my throat.

I moved my throat to the side and felt only the vibration of the slender blade against the skin, and when that blade was at full thrust, I broke it at, the base with the hook of my weapon, as once Powl had broken my own rapier blade. The soldier was as astonished as I had been, but immediately the circle that had formed collapsed toward me. I knew I would have to kill a Velonyan soldier to live a moment longer, and even so it probably would be a short moment.

But the squeeze of attackers backed off again, and all glances darted nervously in one direction. There was shouting again, but not in the bass voice this time. Perhaps it had been going on a while. This voice commanded all of us to halt, and as all the rest did, I felt it advisable to do so likewise.

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