Free Darkened Blade: A Fallen Blade Novel by Kelly McCullough Page A

found this rug,
I sent.
It smells like the wrong end of a manticore.
It was my turn to carry our guests.
    Do manticores even have right ends?
    They certainly have
better
ends,
I grumped as I rolled my shoulders.
    We had covered about two-thirds of the distance from the outer edge of the city to the university. Normally, we’d have rented or bought some horses somewhere along the way, but the sudden and unexpected manner of our departure from the Roc and Diamond had cost us badly in both coin and gear.
    There had been a time when I might have addressed our lack through a bit of minor burglary, but I was trying to put Aral the jack and all of his bad habits behind me. I was, once again, First Blade, and however much I might wish the job belonged to someone else, I would do my best to do it right while it was mine.
    We all preferred to travel in the dark, so we had passed the walls of the city just shy of sundown—as late as we could push it before gate close. The night hunters were out and active by the time we arrived on their turf. Not that we worried about them attacking us. The local shadowside toughs had come sniffing around at first, but they’d veered away quick enough once they got a better look. Which is what you would expect given that Kelos all by himself is scary enough to make battle-hardened soldiers cross to the other side of the street when he gives them that one-eyed basilisk glare of his.
    That’s why I was so surprised when Siri cried out, “Ware the roof, Aral!” from her place behind me.
    I had let my guard relax, and it cost me then as somethingdropped onto the rug across my shoulders with force enough to slam me to the ground. Even as my forehead bounced off the cobbles, I heard the heavy sounds of more attackers landing around me. I’d have been in real trouble then if I were alone, maybe even dead, but I had the best in the world covering my back, and
my
shadow bites.
    I’m sorry, Aral!
Triss shouted into my mind.
I didn’t see—
    I lost whatever he said then when the whole street lit up with a tremendous booming crash. Two bursts of magelightning and a lance of black ectoplasmic energy all intersected at a point about three inches above the back of my head. Whoever or whatever had landed on me came apart rather spectacularly at that point. There was a noise like someone had caught a burst of thunder in a bucket and mixed it with a cartful of crockery going over a cliff, followed by a spray of red mist, and a sudden lessening of the weight on my shoulders.
    I slithered backward out from under the rug, and vaulted to my feet. My first instinct was to shroud up, but we were trying to keep our profile as low as possible, and vanishing like that would practically scream Blade for any who knew what to look for. Besides, there only seemed to have been about a dozen of them to start with, judging from what I could see—a mixed and very lightly armed group—and that number had already been halved by the time my swords cleared their sheaths.
    It wasn’t until the nearest lunged for my throat, hands hooking like claws, that I got a good whiff of rotting breath and realized that they were risen—either recently converted or mostly preserved by frequent immersion in fresh blood. I changed the target and manner of my thrust then, jamming my sword through the creature’s left eye socket instead of skewering its throat, while I hopped back and away. My point lodged in the back of its skull, as intended, halting its rush and keeping it well beyond arm’s reach.
    Torquing my whole body leftward, I twisted it off its feet and threw it to the ground. It landed hard on its back, and the true death took it as I slid my blade free. By that time,the rest were also dead. Kelos had cut down two, Faran had beheaded another, and Siri’s black ectoplasm had devoured the remainder.
    “You’re really going to have to show me how to do that someday,” I said as she approached. “It looks like it hits harder than