The Prince's Bargain - K.M. Shea Page 0,49
shout when Arvel leaned in and forced his arm up, his dagger biting at the man’s wrists.
The attacker did scream, though, when Arvel shifted from a lean to a lunge and used his right hand and dagger to stab the man in the quad and savagely ripped the dagger out, attempting to inflict maximum pain.
The last attacker carried a long sword, which he whirled around him in a show of skill.
With the longer blade he was able to keep Arvel at bay, pushing him back as he swept his sword in a vertical slash and then thrust it down with a cutting movement.
Arvel barely dodged, the tip of the sword passing so close to him, it cut through the shoulder of his jacket.
No—Arvel!
Myth’s heart thudded painfully in her chest, but she made herself keep shouting as she helplessly watched.
As he gained confidence, the attacker made bigger cuts and thrusts. Arvel, to Myth’s untrained eyes, scarcely kept up. His jacket was sliced several more times, and the way he jolted twice made Myth suspect at least one or two of the cuts managed to graze him. Eventually, Arvel was driven so far back he was only a foot or two away from Myth.
The sword wielder snickered at Arvel’s retreat and made another diagonal slash.
This time, Arvel moved much faster, dodging with a slight step back. When the sword passed him, arcing wide, Arvel darted forward and slammed his shoulder into the sword wielder’s stomach.
The attacker staggered, his air leaving him with a wheeze.
Moving almost faster than Myth could track, Arvel straightened and grabbed the man by the back of the neck, swinging his head down so he could ram his skull with his knee.
The man collapsed in a heap with a gurgle.
Myth wildly peered up and down the corridor, trying to get a location marker of any kind to shout a more precise location.
Ah forget it. As long as I can keep screaming, they’ll follow my voice.
“Three armed men, attacking Prince Arvel!” Myth kept rotating languages, even though her throat painfully squeezed from the shouting. She pressed herself against the wall—staying out of Arvel’s way and the armed men’s reach.
In the time it took Arvel to deal with the last attacker, the first two men stood again, keeping a wary distance as they circled him.
Distantly, the pure tones of an Honor Guard whistle echoed across the gardens.
Help was on the way…if they could hold out long enough.
Myth plunged her hands into the biggest interior pocket of her translator jacket. She grabbed the book she had stowed there for reference—A Social Translator’s Pocket Guide to Interpreting—and yanked it out.
One of the men tried to circle back behind Arvel and attack him in his blind spot. He also aimed a kick at Myth—who hadn’t stopped shouting—but she edged down the wall in time, evading it.
The man growled and refocused on Arvel as Myth adjusted her grasp on her book.
I am not at all physically trained, so I need to make sure I hit a weak spot.
Myth ruthlessly rotated the book so its pointed corners faced out, then she slammed the book into the attacker’s temple, aiming to jab him in the eye.
She missed the eyeball, but she still hit him with enough force in the eye socket to make him topple backwards and shout expletives Myth only recognized from Blaise’s mumbles during her worst magic explosions.
The whistle blew again; this time it was so close Myth could hear the rasp to the whistle’s shrill tones.
“Yes, this way!” she shouted first in Elvish then in Calnoric.
“They’re here—split off!” growled the attacker whose arm Arvel had wrenched.
The man with the newly rattled head managed to stand. He and the one with the wrenched arm split off in different directions just as guards poured out of the garden.
The one Myth had attempted to blind with her book staggered a few steps—his leg already weakened by the thigh wound Arvel had landed on him—then took off after one of his comrades.
A set of the guards from the Rosewood Park peeled off, chasing after the two attackers that fled together. The rest jumped the low barrier that divided the corridor from the garden grounds and fanned out around Myth and Arvel in a protective formation.
Myth rubbed her raw throat and coughed. “Why didn’t they head after the remaining attacker?”
Arvel was panting and his jacket was cut up, but he nodded down the corridor. “Because of that.”
A squadron of Honor Guards rushed up the corridor, their weapons unsheathed. “For