My hands flash out with my blades in an X, the rasp of the muddied weapons dulled but still loud enough in the silent night to alert the vampire.
He spins, slashing a dagger—
Catching my longsword in his chest.
Growling, the vampire opens his mouth to yell—
As I duck, a presence materializing from my shadow behind me, Garroway lunging a dagger over my shoulder and spearing through the vampire’s open mouth.
A croak comes out of the vampire as he stumbles back against the railing of the high balcony, leaving Garro’s dagger lodged in his gaping mouth, fangs closing around it.
Somehow, he stays upright, despite the dark, coagulated blood spilling out of his mouth. Garro’s blade missed his spine at the back of his neck.
He jerks forward, dagger flashing—
Vallan’s axe head comes down to block the blow from scarring my face. With a quick twist of Vall’s wrist, the backhanded swipe of his axe cleaves the vampire’s lower jaw, sending it flying and dropping Garro’s dagger out of his mouth.
Garro ducks, catches the dagger in midair before it can clang on the ground, and plunges it into the bloodsucker’s foot, nailing him in place—
Just as the vampire backpedals to tip over the railing—
I inhale, lunge, and clasp the vampire’s tunic, pulling him into me so he can’t fall. We embrace and my shortsword stabs in quick, short jabs into his chest, finally piercing his heart after the third strike.
The vampire stills, collapsing wordlessly at our feet.
The event took ten seconds. Skar’s shadowwalking spit us out in a chain reaction: I emerged from the enemy’s shadow, Garro came from mine, and Vallan from his.
Garro crouches to inspect the vampire’s gray cloak, finding a telltale emblem across its shoulder. He lifts his head and nods to us, confirming this is one of Alacine Mortis’ scouts.
We rise as one to peer over the balcony. Look down into a wide expanse of Trithea Plaza, across the road lined by uniform lampposts. The streets are empty below and we’ve taken the spy’s position.
We’ve gotten the jump on the would-be ambushers.
Soft sounds of conflict erupt from various other sections of the plaza—a steel parry as swords collide on the balcony across from us; hissing and rustling from bushes below us on the street level; an arrow thudding home and sending a body catapulting off the roof of a two-story building, crashing down onto the street below.
The falling corpse begins the mayhem in earnest. Anyone hidden in the shadows in Trithea Plaza—which iseveryone, currently—doesn’t have to look far to see arms and legs flailing in the wind before crashing onto the road.
Vallan curses under his breath.
Our necks snap left at the sound of a bowstring being applied pressure—
An assassin on an identical balcony ten feet away fires off his shot at our mass of flesh.
Vallan steps in the way and takes the arrow in the shoulder, turning at the last second with a customary grunt as the arrowhead drives home.
“Vall!” I hiss.
The assassin loads a second arrow. From this distance he can’t miss.
Garroway steps onto the railing of our semi-circle balcony and launches across, throwing himself unnaturally far. The assassin lifts his bow and the arrow whistles, disappearingsomewhere in Garro’s body as he lands with a crash into the bowman.
My heart jumps to my throat.
“Go,” Vallan orders, standing to break off the arrow protruding from his shoulder.
I blink, turn, and move without thinking, my years of battle experience taking over. My swords find their way to their scabbards. I take the same hawk-like posture on the railing, stepping onto it with both hands and boots clutched on the banister.
There’s no time to judge the gap between balconies. If I mistime it, I’ll plunge thirty feet to the ground in pitch blackness—harmful for a vampire, deadly for a human.
