Free Web NovelChapter 2: Blood in the Grass
As soon as the leader said that, the men who still wanted to argue shut their mouths.
Yeah.
They had already risked everything tonight. They had crossed the black forest and carried the Dragon Egg all the way to the capital walls of the Suncrest Empire.
They were close enough to throw the damn thing into the city.
No way they could let one small problem ruin it now.
No mistakes.
Not one.
The leader raised his hand and flicked his fingers.
The men carrying the golden egg gritted their teeth and pushed it out of the line.
The egg dropped onto the grass with a heavy thump. The grass under it flattened at once. It rolled half a turn down the slope, then stopped on the other side of the campfire. Mud and broken grass stuck to its golden shell.
The boy by the fire did not even look over.
The leader’s face turned colder.
"Go!"
The men in black rushed out from behind the brush.
Weapons in hand, they came out of the grass and shadows. Their boots struck the cold ground, one after another.
The fastest one reached Kael first.
He went straight for the boy’s back. His right hand dropped to the short blade at his waist. His thumb pushed against the guard, and steel slid free.
Before he got close, he had already lowered his body and pulled the blade all the way out.
Then he drove forward.
Fast.
Steady.
Sure.
The tip of the blade aimed straight for the back of Kael’s skull.
Got him.
The assassin almost relaxed.
Even if the kid heard him now, what could he do? Lean forward? Twist away by luck? Turn it into a messy fight?
That was all.
But the boy by the fire did not move.
He sat there with his head tilted back, still drinking from the wineskin. His throat moved once as he swallowed. He did not even turn his shoulder.
See?
The boss had been thinking too much.
There was no trap here.
No hidden expert.
No danger.
No matter how talented this kid was, he was still just some teenage brat.
How could he possibly—
...Huh?
Why can I see my own boots?
Pffft!
A white line cut across the edge of the firelight.
It was small.
Too small to notice until it was already over.
The next moment, the assassin’s body was still lunging forward with the blade in its hand.
His head was gone.
His sight spun as he hit the ground.
Grass.
Dirt.
His own feet, still standing.
Then his head rolled down the slope.
The headless body dropped to its knees. Its fingers loosened, and the short blade slipped from its hand, stabbing into the grass.
Blood sprayed from the broken neck and hit the cold air. A few drops landed near the campfire with soft, wet ticks.
The flames shook.
"Who gave you permission to step onto my land?"
Kael finally lowered the wineskin.
Somehow, there was now an old curved saber in his hand.
The blade looked ugly. The steel was stained, scratched, and worn down in places, but the edge was sharp enough to make the men in black stop breathing for a second.
Blood slid down the blade and dripped from the tip.
Kael turned and looked at them.
They were only a few steps away now.
His eyes were bloodshot.
Not scared.
Not surprised.
Just angry.
Like they had interrupted something that belonged to him.
Then he looked at the dead man beside him and spat on the ground.
The men in black froze.
It had happened too fast.
Their feet had barely stopped before their companion’s head was already rolling away.
One man gripped his sword so hard his knuckles turned white. Another swallowed, but no words came out. The rest stared at the saber in Kael’s hand, and the contempt in their eyes began to disappear.
They were not random cutthroats.
They were Shadowblade elites.
Men who slipped through army camps.
Men who killed commanders in their sleep.
Men whose names made border nobles lock their doors before sunset.
And the man who had charged first?
He was one of the better ones.
Yet against this teenage boy, he had not even managed to scream.
Cold wind swept over the grass. A few bloody grass blades bent and shook.
In the silence, someone clenched his teeth and growled, "Get him!"
That shout snapped the others back.
The men in black tightened their grips, changed their footing, and spread out.
This time, they did not charge straight at him.
They moved around the edge of the firelight, coming from the front, the back, the left, and the right.
Their steps were quiet.
Black cloth moved through the dark. Steel came in and out of the firelight. From a distance, it looked like ghosts circling a fire.
Kael showed his teeth.
"You idiots. You trash. So you’re working for those traitor nobles?"
The nearest assassin attacked.
A blade came down from the right, aiming for Kael’s neck and shoulder.
At the same time, another man stabbed from the left, the point driving toward Kael’s waist.
A third came in low, his short blade cutting through the grass toward the back of Kael’s knee.
Three attacks.
Almost together.
Kael did not step back.
His right foot dug into the ground. His cloak snapped behind him as he turned halfway. The old saber cut upward and knocked the right-hand slash aside.
Clang!
Sparks jumped near the fire.
Kael twisted his wrist and used the rebound to sweep the saber sideways.
The first attacker’s throat opened.
Blood burst out.
Kael kept moving.
The stab from the left was already close.
Kael did not even look at it.
The back of his saber smashed the attacker’s wrist aside.
Then the edge came back.
It cut from the man’s shoulder down into his chest.
The second man fell.
The third attacker’s blade was already near Kael’s leg.
Kael lifted his foot and stomped on the man’s knife hand.
Crack.
Bones broke under his heel.
The scream had just started when Kael drove the saber down.
The tip went through the back of the man’s skull and came out through his throat.
The scream turned into a wet choking sound.
"You cowards! You sons of bitches!"
He kept cursing.
His hands never stopped.
Only then did the rest of the men understand.
They had picked the wrong target.
This was not some foul-mouthed brat they could cut down in a few seconds.
This was not a drunk kid eating meat beside a fire.
This was not luck.
Kael was not barely dodging them.
He was letting their blades come close, then killing them from inside the gap.
A cut to the throat.
A hit to the wrist.
A stomp to the hand.
A blade through the skull.
Everything he did was meant to end the man in front of him.
The longer they fought, the colder their hands became.
They had spread out.
They had surrounded him.
Their blades came from different sides.
But none of it mattered.
Kael kept slipping away at the last moment, then cutting back before they could pull away.
One assassin came from behind with both hands on his weapon, stabbing toward Kael’s back.
Kael moved like he had heard the man step on the grass.
He shifted sideways.
The blade slid along the fur edge of his cloak and missed his body by less than an inch.
Kael cut back without turning all the way around.
The attacker’s head split open at an angle. Half his mask flew off with blood and flesh, landing near the fire.
Another man used the falling body as cover and rushed in from the front.
Kael kicked the headless corpse at his feet.
The body crashed into the man’s knee and broke his rhythm.
Only for a moment.
But a moment was enough.
Kael pulled the saber up.
The blade opened the man’s belly, then kept rising and lifted him off the ground.
Blood spilled across the grass.
Kael’s fur-lined cloak was soon covered in blood. The collar stuck to his neck, heavy and wet.
He did not care.
He stepped over a severed head near his foot and crushed it into the mud.
Bone cracked.
Blood, dirt, and brain matter mixed under his boot.
This was not a fair fight.
This was a teenage boy slaughtering grown killers.
They had come to erase a witness.
Instead, they had walked into his campfire like meat thrown onto a butcher’s table.
"Damn it—die!"
After several failed exchanges, the remaining assassins finally lost their nerve.
They looked at one another and stopped trying to fight him up close.
Instead, they jumped back in different directions and pulled away from him.
Several of them stopped on the far side of the fire.
None of them wanted to use the scrolls.
Those things did not come cheap.
And they did not take only blood.
Then, almost at the same time, they pulled old parchment scrolls from inside their clothes.
The sheepskin was yellowed and worn at the edges. Dark runes covered every inch of it.
As they opened the scrolls, the wind around the fire went still.
The fire burned lower.
Some kind of one-use magic.
Probably.
But there was no time to think about what it did.
"Dark God Vaelrath!"
The first man lifted his scroll and forced the words out.
"Hear our call!"
The second man cut open his palm. Blood ran down his fingers and dripped onto the center of the parchment.
"Life for life!"
The third dropped to one knee in the grass and slammed his bloody hand onto the runes.
"In exchange... grant us the power of the Abyss!"
