The toff wasn’t worried about the coin purse we’d lifted, because the card sharks had decided to cut their losses with his winnings. Rosie was shooting daggers with her eyes, but she needed to get in line. The door to Peggy’s office swung open, and somehow over all the noise, her wooden leg could be heard thumping across the floor. Everyone stopped right where they were.
Which gave us an opportunity to exploit.
I glanced at Dain, and he nodded, the two of us barrelling towards the door. The fact we were running towards the Executioner, not away, dimly registered, the fear powering my legs. Collide with the prick, shove him backwards, and then we were free. He might be death with a sword, but everyone knew a rat could be away and out of sight before he even drew his blade.
It seemed like a good plan, right up until the point it didn’t.
The Executioner’s eyes narrowed as he focussed on Kael. A scream built in my throat as the man’s hand shot out, ready to grab my brother.
Not while I still had breath in my lungs.
Dain’s bulk would be useful for once. He lunged forward, shoulder first, ready to knock the old man down. I was sliding across the floor, dropping down, knife in hand, prepared to hamstring the bastard if that’s what it took.
All our effort was for nothing, as the Executioner dragged Kael out onto the street.
“Let me go!” my brother shouted, and for the first time in so long, his voice became shrill. “Let me go!”
We came stumbling after them, all our momentum working against us now. Dain and I corrected fast, then spun around only to see the Executioner dragging Kael towards the Bone Box.
People said his steed wasn’t even a horse, but a demon who was tricked into service when he tried to bargain for the Executioner’s soul. His cart clacked as he passed, hence why it got the name the Bone Box. Anyone who went into the back of the coach never came out, which had both of us moving.
“Run!” Kael shouted at us. “Run for it!”
“Not on your life,” Dain growled.
Always go into a situation with a plan, that was Kael’s dictum, but he wasn’t here to provide that direction. Instead, we rushed forward as the Executioner dragged Kael towards the Bone Box. The horse stamped but didn’t even move when we yelled in its face. It just flicked its tail and stared on, utterly unmoved. Just as the Executioner opened the back of the coach and started to drag Kael in, we struck.
How could one old man be so damn fast?
My dagger was knocked out of my hand and then a fist slammed into Dain’s face. If it was any other time, I’d have laughed at my brother’s dazed expression, but right now I knew how dangerous this old bastard was. Kael was shoved into the back of the coach, the doors slammed shut, and then he advanced upon me. His boots crunched in the gravel as he jerked something off his belt. My eyes widened as I saw him swing the slapjack against his hand. Made of leather and weighted on one end, I’d made something similar from a rock and an old sock. Swung hard at the skull, it was lights out soon enough.
“Come on, now.” I held my hands, trying to ward him off. “There’s no need for this.” The bastard’s mouth became a thin line as he continued to advance. “I’ll give you a cut of the gold.”
I had no intention of doing that. The Executioner could rely on a hot meal and a warm bed, courtesy of the Duke of Harlston. We had no such surety. All this babbling was supposed to give Dain that chance to rise up and take the Executioner down. Instead, I watched him fall heavily to the ground.
So it was just up to me then.
“Lorien!” Kael slammed his body against the coach doors, the whole thing rattling with each blow. “Run! Just run!”
If I lost heart every time I went up against an opponent bigger and more experienced than me, I’d have died before I reached my sixth birthday.
“Can’t do that, brother,” I muttered, squaring up to the monster, weight on the balls of my feet. No knives left, but I was fast and nimble. I had to hope that was enough as I launched myself at him.
It wasn’t.
Just a little yelp, that’s all I heard, right before the whole world went dark.
Chapter 3
Dain
“Uuuh…”
The world was dark and painful, which was fairly typical. Trying to evade the city watch, stop ourselves from freezing to death, all to the sound of Lorien’s incessant yammering, was a fairly dire existence. Most of the time I had use of my eyes, though. As I blinked, blinked, trying to open my lids, the pain came rushing in.
“Hold still.”
My eyes flicked open to see Kael standing above me, holding his cloak to my nose, swaying back and forth in time with the coach.
