Chris A Jackson [Weapon of Fl Weapon of Vengeance (epub)

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.She’s shamming! The Grandmaster didn’t know of her runes.Her ruse gave them a slim and transient advantage.“You’re brilliant,” he whispered.Her feigned cry trailed off pitifully, but her eyes were clear as they met his.“Flip me.”Always thinking…lies within feints within subterfuge.“Yes,” he whispered back, gripping her beneath the arms.Two daggers…two targets.Who? “Hoseph.” The priest’s magic was a deadly unknown.Mya nodded minutely.The Grandmaster backed away, the tread of his hard shoes loud in Lad’s ears.“Kill him.”“Ready?” Lad asked Mya.“Always.”As the blademasters advanced, Lad flung Mya up in a twisting flip.Her voluminous dress fanned out like a crimson flower opening to the sun, detracting attention from the short, slim blades that flew with unerring accuracy.One struck Hoseph in the upper chest, and the priest staggered back.Another plunged deep into a blademaster’s eye.The man’s head snapped back, his sword clattering to the floor as he fell dead.Two more blades flew before Mya landed, but the advantage of surprise had been spent.Steel sang as one blademaster parried the flying metal.Another dodged so that Mya’s blade only scored a deep gash in his cheek.Bright red blood pulsed from the wound, but the swordsman seemed not to notice.Mya landed and drew two more blades, whirling to set her shoulders firmly against Lad’s.They assumed the opening position of the dance of death, perfectly mirrored.Her ploy had evened the odds slightly, with one blademaster down and Hoseph struggling to remove the dagger from a splintered rib.But four blademasters remained; a deadly circle of steel.“Kill them!” the Grandmaster shrieked.With blinding speed and perfect coordination, the blademasters struck.Mya flung her last two daggers with little hope of a lethal strike.The flashing steel did force her opponents to parry and dodge, however.Mya used the opportunity to crouch and sweep a leg out from under one of the swordsmen.Lad’s foot whipped past her shoulder as he spun high, striking Mya’s other opponent in the wrist hard enough to shatter bones.To balance his move, she spun low, tripping one of his opponents.The man turned the trip into a flip and slashed at her, his sword slicing frills from her billowing petticoat.Gods, they’re fast! Faster than any human she’d ever fought.Maybe they weren’t human.Maybe they were monsters like her.What gifts might Koss Godslayer bequeath to his warrior monks?As her spin brought her back around, Mya’s first opponent lunged again, not at her, but at Lad’s back.Mya parried the strike to Lad’s spine with the flat of her hand and lashed out with a foot.The hard heel of her shoe struck the joint of the blademaster’s knee with a satisfying crunch.The man went down, splinters of bone protruding from his torn trousers.Before she could finish him, however, his companion slashed.With a broken wrist? Mya dodged the surprising attack an instant too late, and the tip of the blade snicked through three corset stays.Warm blood flooded down her belly, and for once she blessed the restricting garment; it had saved her life by preventing her viscera from spilling out.Her wrappings slithered together over the wound even before the flesh healed.Two wounds already, and the fight’s just beginning.If she lost too much blood, she would weaken and slow.Against these opponents, that would be deadly.Wood and metal crashed behind her, and she hoped that Lad fared well.With her would-be eviscerator slashing at her throat, she didn’t have time to look.Mya snapped her head back, and the blade passed within a finger’s breadth of her nose.Lashing out with a twisting double kick, her first snapped her opponent’s elbow like a chicken wing, but her second, intended for his head, missed entirely.The man spun impossibly fast, ignoring his broken arm as he shifted his sword for a reverse thrust [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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