Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,205

me Cassius alive.”

To their credit, an order to capture the deadliest man in the Itreyan Republic alive didn’t stagger the men much. Perhaps prefacing the command with the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl made it easier to swallow. Ashlinn hung back, but the legionaries—a dozen in all—stepped forward, Centurion Garibaldi at the forefront. With prayers to Aa and pleas for strength from the Everseeing Light, they raised their shields and charged. And without a sound, the Lord of Blades stepped up to meet them.

Mia had seen some fighters who moved like dancers, lithe and graceful. Others moved like bulls, all brawn and bluster. But Cassius moved like a knife. Simple. Straight. Deadly. There was no flash to his style. No flair. He simply cut right to the bone. The shadows rose at his call, and, with a wave of his hand, he disarmed the first legionary to meet him, buried his blade in the man’s chest. The second fell flat on his belly, his charge tripped up by a snarl of shadows. Cassius dispatched him with a quick blow to the back of his neck, almost as an afterthought.

Mia was astonished how easily the man wielded the dark. Out here, even in the light of a single sun, a second almost rising, she was hard pressed to even hold up a few of the charging legionaries. But still, she managed to fix the boots of two of the bigger fellows to the floor, hurled the last of her ruby wyrdglass into another’s face, blowing his head clean off his shoulders. A burning sword sliced the air, hissing as it came. Mia bent backward, feeling the heat on her chin. She rolled into a crouch, somersaulting across the dust and hurling her last throwing knife in reply. It thudded quivering into the Luminatii’s neck, left him gushing and choking on the ground.

Mia rose from the dust. Eyes on Ashlinn. The pair faced each other across the shifting sands, the ghosts of two murdered boys hanging in the air between them. Tric. Osrik. Both unanswered. But for some reason Ashlinn hung back, loitering on the edge of the melee as more Luminatii charged at Mia, swords raised.

“You scared of me, Ash?”

Parry. Feint. Lunge.

“I didn’t want it to be like this, Mia,” the girl called. “I said you didn’t belong here.”

“Never picked you for a coward. Your brother put up more of a fight.”

“Trying to goad me into a little toe-to-toe?” Ash shook her head sadly. “Think that’s how this ends, love? Me stumbling into a swordfight I can’t win?”

“A girl can dream.”

“Keep dreaming, then. I studied under Aalea too.”

Mia parried a blow aimed at her throat, kicked a toeful of dirt into her attacker’s eyes. The man clobbered her with his shield, sent her sprawling in the dust. She slipped aside as his burning sword crashed into the sand beside her head, kicking savagely at the man’s knee. She heard a wet crunch, a strangled scream. Scrambling to her feet, all of Naev’s lessons singing in her head. Flaming steel cleaving the air, dust caked on her tongue.

Risking a glance, she saw Cassius was every bit the bladesman his reputation suggested. The dirt around him was littered with half a dozen corpses, another two men lying wounded and groaning in the dirt. Typical of most generals, Remus had hung back to let his foot soldiers do the fighting, but with his men falling like leaves, the man spat in the dust and waded into the fray. The Lord of Blades fell back, feinting with his shadows, the darkness flickering in the face of Remus’s burning blade.

With the dogpile on Cassius, Mia was left fighting a single opponent—Centurion Garibaldi. The man was relentless, battering away with his shield and landing blow after blow atop Mia’s guard. Mia was swift, but the man was heavily armored, and she found the few blows she managed to land turned aside by his plate. Garibaldi slammed his shield into her chest, sent her flying. She rolled away in time to miss having her head split open, scrambling up into a crouch and flinging her last globe of onyx wyrdglass onto Garibaldi’s shield. The arkemical glass burst, throwing up a swirling cloud of black smoke. The centurion staggered, coughing, and summoning up the last of her strength, Mia clenched her fists and took hold of the shadow at the centurion’s feet, tangling his boots as he charged again. The man teetered, arms pinwheeling as he fought for balance,