“Ta, me,” Cann snarled. “You miserable,jaffingtraitor.” He thrust his bow at his son Severn. His hand dropped to the hilt of the blade sheathed at his hip, and he drew the shining blade from its scabbard.
“Traitor, am I?” Lord Sebourne snarled, baring teeth like alyrantissuing challenge. “Because Great House Sebourne is finally standing up to that puling Fey-lover of a king?”
“Because Great Lord Sebourne is a spinelessrultshartof an assassin, too cowardly to face his enemy in open battle.” Cann crossed the courtyard in a few long strides and took his battle stance, sword raised.
“I’ll face you—gladly.” Sebourne raised his sword. Torchlight glinted along the blade’s fine, gleaming length. “You killed my son. You and those Fey maggots—and that loose-legged slut you called a daughter.”
The insult to Talisa did not make Cann charge recklessly at his opponent as Sebourne had no doubt intended. Instead, all his anger, all his grief, shrank down into a hard, icy knot deep inside his core.
“Your son was a weak, spoiled bully,” he replied. “I should never have let my daughter waste herself on him. Even on his best day, he wasn’t worthy to kiss her hem.”
Satisfaction surged inside him as Sebourne’s nostrils flared. The Great Lord swung his blade with reckless force. Cann dodged the blow with ease and swung at Sebourne’s unprotected back. Dervas spun sharply, raising his shield in time to deflect Cann’s blow. He was no stranger to warfare and no easy kill, with reflexes honed by a lifetime of living in the wilds of the northern borders. Like Cann, there were few lords who could best him.
They flowed from one masterful form to another, attacking and counterattacking with blurring speed and steady, relentless prowess. Scissor Blades. Circle of Ice. Death Drop. Ring of Fire. Shield Strike. Helm Cleaver. Neither flinched or faltered.
Cann had appreciated Sebourne’s skill a time or two in the past, and they’d spent many a day sparring together in a friendly rivalry. Right now, he heartily regretted those days. Sebourne knew him too well, knew how he attacked, defended, which combinations came most naturally to him.
But, then, he knew Sebourne, too.
He watched for the patterns that inevitably appeared in Sebourne’s fighting. And eventually, it came. After a particularly savage series of attacks and parries, a panting, sweat-drenched Sebourne backed off into a lighter attack called Maiden’s Dance. The series of teasing blows, though swiftly delivered, carried much less strength behind them. They weren’t meant to kill, only to inflict numerous shallow wounds to weaken an opponent through blood loss and shake his confidence.
Cann took more of the wounds than he normally would, hoping that would encourage Sebourne to attempt his favorite next move. And there it was. Maiden’s Kiss… the glancing blow to the face intended to lay open the cheek or blind an eye. Not a killing blow, just a bloodletter like Maiden’s Dance, but to dodge the Kiss—which was often the instinctive response—put a fighter off-balance. The attacker could then deliver a hard blow and a sweep of his boot across the defender’s ankle to put the defender down on his back and vulnerable to Final Point, a sword buried deep in a vulnerable throat.
Cann didn’t dodge. He spun into the Maiden’s Kiss, taking the side of Sebourne’s blade across the cheek. He felt the sting, the warm spurt of blood as his skin split. But helm and chain-mail coif saved him from worse injury as he spun into and under the blade, ducking beneath Sebourne’s sword arm. Cann’s sword bit deep into Sebourne’s wrist as he went, while his left hand reached for one of the black Fey’cha strapped to his chest. He sprang up behind Dervas, dagger in hand, to deliver a slicing blow to the vulnerable back of Sebourne’s leg
Sebourne went down on one knee, his sword clattering to the courtyard’s paving stones.
Breathing heavily, Cann circled back around, kicked Dervas’s fallen sword across the courtyard, and thrust his sword under Sebourne’s chin. “You traitorousrultshart.I should kill you now.”
“Then why don’t you?” The defeated Great Lord hugged his injured hand to his chest and curled his lip in a sneer.
“Because you don’t deserve a quick death, Dervas. Our new king, whose father you slew, will want you punished as the traitor you are.” Cann nodded to the King’s Guard, then stepped back and sheathed his sword. “May the gods have mercy on your Shadowed soul.” Abruptly feeling drained and hollow, Cann turned to rejoin his sons.
“I won’t need that mercy, Barrial,” Sebourne called after him. Then his voice took on a Dark edge, and he added, “But you will.”
Cann saw Sev’s eyes widen. He heard Parsis shout, “Da! ‘Ware!” just as Sev raised his father’s Elfbow, arrow nocked and drawn. Cann spun and dropped to one knee, blade in hand, to see Sebourne lift his uninjured arm. The cuff of Sebourne’s sleeve had fallen back to reveal a small bow strapped to his wrist.
Cann’s sword, Sev’s arrow, and the King’s Guards’ swords all pierced Great Lord Sebourne in an instant. The poison dart from the wristbow bounced off the wall behind Cann’s head and fell harmlessly to the stone pavers.
Mortally wounded, Dervas Sebourne, the last of his Great House, cried, “Gamorraz!” then toppled to the paving stones. Bright streamers of blood spilled from his nose and mouth as his pierced heart pumped the final moments of his life away.
On Seborne’s chest the round moonstone in his necklace began to glow.
“What the—?” One of the King’s Guard bent down to examine the pendant. The white stone grew brighter.
Cann had no idea what the thing was, but he knew magic when he saw it. And if the magic was Dervas’s dying gift to them, it couldn’t be good.
“Put it down!” he cried. “Get back! Everyone get back!”
His warning came too late for the guard holding the necklace.
Bright light gave way to rapidly expanding darkness. The guard screamed in helpless terror as the growing blackness consumed his hand and arm and half his torso. The smoldering remains of his body dropped to the ground and convulsed. Howling shadows fell upon his twitching corpse with ravening hunger.
“Demons!” someone cried, and the Celierians scattered.
Screams erupted from all corners of the castle.
“Attack! We’re under attack!”
