Free Book 3 - All Darkness Met by Glen Cook

fbibles of fourteen-year-old boys who have been feuding with their brothers.
    Every night Ragnar booby-trapped his door certain that some morning Gundar would again sneak in to steal his magic kit....
    Water fell. A bucket crashed and rattled over an oaken floor. From the master bedroom a woman's frightened voice called, "Ragnar, what the hell are you up to?" Low, urgent discussion accompanied the rustle of hasty movement.
    A sleepy, "What?" came from behind the booby-trapped door, then a frightened, "Ma!"
    Ragnar didn't recognize the man in his doorway.
    The intruder pawed the water from his eyes. His followers threw themselves toward the master bedroom. The door was locked, but flimsy. They broke through.
    Inside, a man desperately tried to get into his pants. A woman clutched furs to her nakedness.
    "Who the hell... ?" the man demanded.
    An assassin flicked a bit of silken handkerchief. It wrapped the man's throat. A second later his neck broke. The other intruder rushed the woman.
    They were skilled, these men. Professionals. Murder, swift and silent, was their art.
    Their teachers had for years tried to school them to react tothe unexpected. But some things were beyond their teachers.
    Like a woman fighting back.
    Elana hurled herself toward the bodkin laying on a nearby wardrobe, swung it as the assassin rounded the bed.
    He stopped, taken aback.
    She moved deftly, distracting with her nakedness. Seeing him armed with nothing more dangerous than a scarf, she attacked.
    He flicked that scarf. It encircled her throat. She drove the dagger in an upward thrust. He took it along his ribs.
    Gagging, Elana stabbed again, opened his bowels.
    Ragnar suddenly realized that death was upon him. He scrambled to the shadowed corner where he had hidden the weapons Haaken had been training him to use. They were there by sheer chance. He had been too lazy to return them to the family armory after practice, and Haaken had forgotten to check on him.
    He went after the assassin in the wild-swinging northman fashion before the man recovered from the drenching. His blows were fierce but poorly struck. He was too frightened to fight with forethought or calculation.
    The assassin wasn't armed for this. He retreated, skipping and weaving and picking up slash wounds. He watched the boy's mad eyes, called for help. But there would be none. Through the door of the master bedroom he saw one of his comrades down. The other wrestled with a woman.... And someone was stirring upstairs.
    The man. though, was dead. He lay halfway between bed and door, silk knotted round his throat.
    The night was almost a success. The primary mission had been accomplished.
    The leader fled.
    Ragnar chased him to the front door before he realized that his mother was fighting for her life. He charged back upstairs. "Ma! Ma!"
    The house was all a-scream now. The little ones wailed in the hall. Haaken thundered from the third floor, "What's going on down there?"
    Ragnar met the last assassin coming from the bedroom. His mouth and eyes were agape in incredulity.
    Ragnar cut him down. For an instant he stared at the bodkin in the man's back. Then he whipped into his parents' bedroom. "Ma! Papa! Are you all right?"
    No.
    He saw the dead man first, his pants still around his knees.
    It wasn't his father.
    Then he saw his mother and the disemboweled assassin.
    "Ma!"
    It was the howl of a maddened wolf, all pain and rage....
    Haaken found the boy hacking at the assassin Elana had gutted. The corpse was chopped meat. He took in the scene, understood, despite his own anger and agony did what he had to do.
    First he closed the door to shield the other children from their mother's shame. Then he disarmed Ragnar.
    It wasn't easy. The boy was ready to attack anything moving. But Haaken was Ragnar's swordmaster. He knew the boy's weaknesses. He struck Ragnar's blade aside, planted a fist.
    The blow didn't faze Ragnar. "Like your grandfather, eh, Red?" He threw another punch. Then another