Free Immortal and the Madman (The Immortal Chronicles Book 3) by Gene Doucette

To attempt it would be madness.  But don’t worry, we’re already madmen.  We can do this.  Trust me.”
    She looked into my eyes, beautiful and angry and defiant, probing—I guess—for some kind of weakness of resolve. 
    “All right, fine!” she said, finally, grabbing the duke’s arm.  “Come with me, my lord.  Don’t argue, or I’ll put you over my knee.”
    “I don’t… understand.  Knee?” he stammered, as she dragged him off. 
    Meanwhile, Mr. Sinclair was still trying as hard as he could to damage Mr. Corrigan, and failing utterly.  It would have been easier to pin water with a fork.
    “Stand still!” Sinclair shouted.  He fell back and lowered his sword, dumbfounded at having missed so spectacularly so often.
    “Why would he do that, when as you’ve already pointed out, he doesn’t have a weapon?” I asked.
    “And who might you be?”
    “I’m nobody of import,” I said. 
    I glanced once more over my shoulder.  Joanne and the duke had gotten out, and so had all of the guests. “I’m only another unarmed man you will have to kill in order to take your ransom.”
    “Ransom?  This is not for ransom.  That boy is leverage, do you have any idea who I represent?”
    “No.  Don’t really care.  John, do you care?”
    “I am fully unconcerned.”
    “There you are.  Neither of us cares.  What we do care about is that the young man you’ve come for is a guest of this house, and as the lord of the manor is absent we will have to hold you off at least until he arrives.  Which should be soon, I believe.”
    About 90% of this was bravado on my part, and the other 10% was just my trying to stall.  I hadn’t been in an actual fight for a few years, and the last time I picked up a sword it was to defend a lot of people against an imaginary dragon.  I had every reason to think my skills were still intact, but my familiarity with reality was self-evidently horrible.
    “The master of this house is going to find a building full of dead women and children if you foolish men do not stand aside and hand him over!” Sinclair said.
    I looked behind us at the empty room.  “Alas, it appears we have no duke to hand over.”
    Sinclair laughed, in part because he was genuinely amused by what I had to say, but mostly because as I was saying it eleven men were entering his side of the banquet area, turning a two-on-one swordfight into a two-on-twelve situation that was unpleasantly different.
    “We shall find him,” he said.  “It won’t take long.”  He stepped back, and to his men said, “The boy went through the servant door.  Rush these fools and let’s be on our way.”
    The banquet hall, as I said, was large, but not quite wide enough to allow for twelve men with swords to attack us at once.  There was plenty of room for six at a time, though, and given we had no weapons, that six should have been perfectly sufficient.
    “John, I could really use a sword,” I said.  “Can you get one for me?”
    “Stay exactly where you are,” he said. 
    I was only a few paces behind him, and to his left.  Any frontal assault would reach me only seconds after reaching him, but he told me to stay where I was so I did, even when three men came charging directly at me.  This was something of an act of faith on my part, to put it mildly.  If I stepped back they could either surround John or just continue past us to the servant door.  But staying where I was with nothing in my defense but harsh language wasn’t going to work well either.  It might have been different if any of the men appeared wanting when it came to basic swordsmanship, but I didn’t see any weaknesses on first sight.
    While I tried to work out all of my possible defensive options that didn’t include losing a limb, John lunged forward to meet the first man on his side, ducking under a clumsy overhand, spinning around and driving his elbow into the man’s throat.  While the man gasped for air, John slammed his