Thyra rams her face against my shoulder as blood splatters acrossher.
My concern now is where the chain will fall. I prepare to yank her further backward, but she was smart.
She’s all pressed up against me, legs tucked in, her right arm extended to keep the chain as far from her body as possible, and only now I realize her hand is clamped around my left forearm, ensuring I don’t retract my arm and bring the chain’s triggered portion closer to either of us.
The man drops to the floor, and the chain falls with him, writhing across his shoulder, continuing to gouge deeply before becoming still again.
Fuck, that was close.
It all happened within heartbeats.
Up on the dais, Galla is screaming, her words unintelligible, but her wishes are clear.
She wants us dead.
“Stay down, Thyra.” My command is short and sharp, and I hate that I’m telling her to stay out of the fight, but she’ll be safer closer to the ground, and I’ll have free rein to move my arms without fear of striking her.
Rising to my feet, I inhale the scent of blood as the eight remaining lords come at me at once, including Quintus.
Knocking aside the first man’s sword with my axe, exposing his chest, I cleave to the right, then the left, rapidly slicing open his torso.
Without waiting for his body to hit the floor, I step left, closer to Thyra and into the path of the second man, cutting right through his upraised sword arm, slicing across his throat before swinging to the man now on my right, dropping my weight and slicing open his thigh, severing a major bloodline.
Sweeping upward, I narrowly evade the fourth man’s sword to ram my axe into his stomach, twisting and cutting him open before I step left again, grabthe fifth man’s oncoming sword in my armored hand, and wrench him into the arc of my still-swinging axe.
Behind me, Thyra gives a cry of warning.
I spin in time to deflect the downward cut of the sixth man’s dagger and slice my axe savagely across his throat, nearly taking off his head.
But the seventh man’s sword shrieks across my steel armor, his blade seeking and finding the smallest chink, the gap between my chest plates and my helmet.
The only weakness.
I jolt back before the blade can reach my neck, easily evading him, but my path takes me toward Quintus, who strikes at my back.
At the exact moment that I move backward, a shadow passes across us.
A quiet eagle, its path cutting through the increasing darkness as the sun finally begins its descent below the horizon.
From the bird’s back leaps a warrior dressed in leather armor, his stature larger even than mine.
Victor drops into the space behind me, landing neatly between Quintus and me.
Victor’s iron-bladed meat cleaver slices cleanly through Quintus’s neck, sending his head sliding to the floor.
With a roar, I open the seventh man’s chest with my axe, kicking his body away from me.
His body lands with athud,and silence falls.
The floor is covered in blood. All ten lords are dead.
Up on the dais, Galla’s mouth is open, emitting a strangled scream that twists and morphs as she stares at Victor’s exposed wounds, his face and arms fully visible, before she turns her face away.
Fuck her.
Across the room, Emiliana takes a quick step toward Victor,but now, it seems, the other ladies are determined to drag her back to the fold.
She shakes them off, punching at their arms, pulling herself free, her eyes filling with tears as she spits in Galla’s direction and then rushes to Victor’s side, a dangerous rebellion, but one I’m determined to support.
