New Order by Max Turner

Author:Max Turner [Turner, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443406321
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2015-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 32

TRIAL BY COMBAT

VLAD DID NOT have time to draw his sword before Death was on him. He raised both arms and stopped a stroke that was so fast and hard it made my shade ripple. Sparks flew. Ophelia cried out. Vlad skipped back and pulled out the Dragon Blade.

“Go, love,” he said to Ophelia. “I will meet you in the tunnels.”

She hadn’t moved from behind the table. Baoh was gone. I was angered that he would leave, but he was over twelve hundred years old and had probably survived to that age by avoiding men like Vlad and Tiptoft.

They began to circle each other.

I spread my wings to block the view from the dais so Ophelia could leave unseen, but she didn’t budge. You have to go, I said. We can’t leave until you do.

Ophelia looked at me, confused. Until that moment, I don’t think she realized I was really there. Perhaps she thought I was a trick of Vlad’s. Some phantom conjured up to distract his enemies.

You have to go, I said again.

Her eyes shifted from me to Vlad. A feeling of sick disappointment came over me. She wouldn’t leave him. It didn’t matter what I said.

Vlad was perspiring heavily. And he was losing. Tiptoft was faster. More precise. As their weapons sang through the air, punctuated by clangs and bangs and sparks, I realized that Vlad was the stronger of the two, but he was too exhausted for it to matter. The energy he had used to self-immolate had drained him. His chest heaved and his shoulders sagged. When Tiptoft took his next stroke, a clean overhead, Vlad brought his sword up too slowly to block it, and the edge nicked the bridge of his nose, opening a deep gash across it. Blood poured in thick ribbons down his cheeks.

I glanced back at Ophelia. Her eyes were locked on the Countess. The two were waging a silent battle. I moved between them, thinking it might release Ophelia from Famine’s gaze, but it made no difference.

Pestilence took notice. He backed into the corner then dove into the shadow of the bench, emerging an instant later in the tiered seats behind Vlad. I shot across the room to attack him, but all I managed to do was cover him with my shadow. It was about as effective as smashing someone with a flashlight beam.

Pestilence leapt at Vlad’s back, his hands stretched out for the Prince’s neck. Vlad spun and grabbed him by the throat, then hurled him into Tiptoft. The taller man moved aside deftly. In one fluid motion, he switched his sickle to his other hand and caught Pestilence as he was tumbling to his knees.

“Stay out of this,” Tiptoft snapped. “You insult me with your cowardly antics.”

“If he shadow-jumps again, meet him in the darkness and kill him,” Vlad said to me.

I wasn’t certain what he meant, but it didn’t matter. Pestilence wasn’t the threat. Death was, and after a good half minute of fighting, he didn’t have so much as a crease in his crimson cowl.

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