Reynald lifted the edge of the tarp with his sword, looked at the contents of the cart, and let the tarp fall.
The killer pulled off his cloak and tossed it aside. He was a hair shorter than Reynald, but wide in the shoulders and across the chest. His dark hair fell to his shoulders, parted in the middle to leave his face open. I couldn’t see his features from where I stood.
“It’s like this then,” he said. His voice was low and harsh.
Reynald stepped away from the cart, his gaze fixed on the killer.
“You think you’re a problem,” the Dog Market Butcher said. “You’re only an inconvenience. A slight one.”
Reynald said nothing.
“You think you’re good enough. You’re not.”
Reynald advanced. The killer moved back, maintaining the distance. They were stalking each other across the cobblestones.
The Dog Market Butcher was about the same size as Reynald, but he moved differently. Reynald never planted himself. He was always light on his feet, and even when he stood still, he seemed poised to strike at any moment, in any direction. By contrast, the Butcher’s footsteps were heavy and deliberate, and he held himself as if he expected Reynald to ram him head-on.
“I don’t know you, and you’re not on the list.”
The Butcher pulled a blade from the scabbard on his belt. It was a double-edged sword, simple, functional, very similar to what Reynald carried.
“Still, you clearly went to a lot of trouble arranging all of this.” The Butcher drew a circle with the tip of his blade. “So I’ll show you a thing or two before you die. The rest of you, stick around. I don’t want to have to chase you down. I still have real work to do.”
Reynald remained silent.
A slight uncertainty touched the Butcher’s face, breaking through the bravado. He saw himself as a predator. He was used to taunting his human prey, as they tried to figure out why he’d attacked them. He liked things to be on his terms. Suddenly he was being hunted, and his opponent was refusing to take the bait.
The Butcher struck.
He lunged forward, his sword parallel to the ground, the blade tip slightly angled down, and thrust.
Reynald parried with the flat of his blade, letting the Butcher’s sword slide to his right.
The Butcher reversed his swing. His sword cut upward and over and came down on Reynald like a sledgehammer. Somehow Reynald moved out of the way, and the blade carved empty air. Reynald took a step back.
The Butcher recovered and smiled, his mouth a slash across his face. “Somebody taught you something, boy.”
He must have read Reynald as a much younger man.
“Let me show you a little more.”
The Butcher charged, swinging his sword in a barrage of strikes. Left, right, left, left, right . . . It was very quick, just glints of reflected moonlight. He swung that sword like it weighed nothing, lightning fast, and Reynald was barely parrying. He took a step back, another, then a third. The Butcher drove him across the plaza, the sheer ferocity of his attack unstoppable and unrelenting.
Another blow. Another step.
Reynald kept backing up. Why wasn’t anybody helping him? Why weren’t Gort and the brothers rushing in there and stabbing the hell out of this bastard?
They were past the statue, and I moved, trying to keep them in view.
The Butcher shifted his stance, gripped his sword with both hands, lifted it above his head, and brought it down with all his strength. Reynald leaped back. The killer reversed his blade, spinning it, and sliced in a horizontal slash across Reynald’s chest. The blade caught the front of Reynald’s tunic.
He was cut. He had to be cut.
If I sprinted now, I could throw myself at the Butcher and it would give Reynald an opening.
Stay inside. Trust me.
I didn’t know if I had that much trust in me.
