Gort wasn’t moving. There had to be a reason he was staying put. They must’ve had a plan, but nobody had bothered to tell me. Right now, the plan seemed to be to let Reynald get hacked to pieces while we all stood around like brainless jackasses who filmed their friends’ fights with cell phones instead of breaking them up.
Strike, strike, strike.
Reynald turned to his left and took a few steps. The Butcher followed. They were in profile now, with Gort behind them, watching, motionless, like some kind of referee.
The Butcher squared off for another attack.
Reynald waited, both hands on the grip of his sword, its blade resting on his shoulder, point up. The Butcher also clasped his sword with both hands, propping the blade on his right shoulder. For a moment they were mirror images of each other.
The Butcher swung. It looked like another devastating overhead strike, and it started like one, but then he rolled the sword off his shoulder and to the right, stepping forward as the blade sliced through the air.
Reynald stepped to his right and thrust straight at eye level. As the Butcher’s blade completed its arc, it should have taken Reynald’s head off. Instead, it slid against Reynald’s sword all the way to the cross guard. The tip of Reynald’s blade sliced the Butcher’s left cheek. The killer stumbled back, shocked. With a flick of his wrist, Reynald dropped his sword to the side and down, sliced the Butcher’s left thigh, pulled back, and thrust. The blade bit into the Butcher’s side, just above the hip bone.
It was so fast, Reynald barely seemed to move. Cheek, thigh, waist, the whole left side of the Butcher was bleeding. He backed away from Reynald, holding his sword in a high guard.
“Who are you?” the Butcher growled.
Reynald started toward him. He said nothing. He just advanced on the Butcher, and it was terrifying. Like watching Death coming.
It wasn’t just me. The Butcher saw it, too. His stance shifted from confident to guarded. He bared his teeth like a cornered animal and snarled. A faint purple light sheathed his body.
The Butcher blurred. He actually blurred, swinging out of focus, encased in a shivering purple outline.
Reynald struck, too fast to follow. Metal clanged—the Butcher parried. Whatever that blur was, it made him faster.
They clashed, slicing and blocking. There was no way to parse what was happening. They had devolved into human shapes and swinging swords, colliding to the beat of ringing metal.
Blood wet one of the swords, bright red blood, and I couldn’t tell whose blade it was. I only saw it for half a second. Was it Reynald’s blood? Was it the Butcher’s blood?
My chest hurt from the grip of fear.
I took back everything I’d thought about swords and poetry. This was terrifying. There was no beauty in it. It was brutal and horrible. I didn’t want to watch it anymore. I just wanted it to end with Reynald still standing.
Something moved behind Gort. I was so focused on the two fighters, I didn’t even know how I saw the flicker on the edge of my vision. It was a man in a gray assassin’s outfit running down the street toward Gort.
Oh please no. Please, please, please no. Anybody but him.
Solentine sprinted.
I pulled the door open and jabbed my hand at Gort.Behind you!
He spun around, his axe swinging before he even saw anything. Solentine’s footsteps ignited with silver. He veered away from Gort to his right and ran up the building, two long daggers in his hands. Gort hurled his axe. It slammed into the wall, missing Solentine by a couple of inches. The head of the Shears twisted his body and dashed across the vertical wall, his body parallel to the ground.
The Butcher saw him. His blur flared with purple, and he slid away from Reynald and Solentine, to the west and toward me, covering twenty-five yards in an instant.
A crossbow bolt clattered on the cobblestones, a quarter of a second behind him. Shana had missed.
The purple light died. The Butcher stumbled, still running but no longer blurring. He was out of juice and running straight for Lute’s street. Of the two Magnar brothers, Lute was the weakest. The Butcher would kill him, hurt him, or use his morr beads, and we would never find him again. He had a head start and Reynald was across the plaza.
Morr beads transported whoever broke them, but never more than one person or a heavy load.They must have a weight limit . . .
I shot out of the doorway toward the Butcher.
He didn’t see me.
For a terrifying second I was flying toward him. The plaza seemed to stretch into the distance. I just had to tackle him and wrap him up. No matter how strong he was, I could buy us at least two or three seconds.
The Butcher’s head whipped around, and I saw his face, an angry cold mask.
