CHAPTER 23
I sat on the barrel of pan oil and stared through the crack between the slightly open window shutters.
The crack let me see a narrow slice of the night-drenched plaza.
Prata, the largest moon, was full, enormous in the night sky, and its pale light encased the statue of the Knight Vanquisher, turning it silver. The night was bright.
On the other side of the window, Reynald waited, dressed in a plain tunic and trousers, his lancer’s coif resting on his shoulders. He hadn’t even bothered with armor. He’d brought his sword and that was it.
I had traded my gown for some dark pants and a tunic, and Gort had given me a short sword “just in case.” I was also presented with a lancer’s coif and told to wear it. Generic clothes and covered faces for everyone. Reynald was taking no chances.
The statue was in the center of the plaza, and the pan oil warehouse, in which we were hiding, sat west and slightly north of it.
If I leaned all the way to my right, I could see one of the northern streets.
Lute was probably hiding somewhere in there.
If Reynald leaned all the way to his left, he could probably glimpse the mouth of the southern street where Gort would be waiting.
The only roof accessible to Shana was on the most southeastern building, so she was lying in wait somewhere not too far from her husband.
It took Kaiden about five seconds to pick the lock. Reynald sent him home after that, and he obeyed without complaining.
Reynald and I had slipped into this warehouse just before midnight.
It had to be two or three in the morning now.
The sun rose at six thirty or so, and the first workers would be on the street half an hour before that.
The closer dawn crept, the higher his chances were of discovery. Our killer was overdue.
Reynald didn’t seem to care. Five minutes after we came in, he had straddled an oil barrel, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. He wasn’t asleep. If I stirred, he opened his eyes to check on me. He simply waited.
It wouldn’t be too long now.
Unless the killer got cold feet and decided to not show up. He should’ve been here by now.
A faint creaking squeaked through the night. I froze, sure I had misheard.
Creak, creak, creak . . . The axle of an old cart straining under a heavy load.
A lone man crossed the plaza from the north side, pushing a handcart. He wore an old cloak, and his hood was up.
My heart hammered a million beats per minute.
On the other side of the window, Reynald uncoiled soundlessly and moved to the door, pulling up the lancer coif over his face.
The man stopped and pulled back a corner of the tarp covering the top of the cart. He glanced at the statue, rubbed his chin, and took a rope with a pulley out of the cart.
It was him. It had to be him.
“No matter what happens, stay inside,” Reynald whispered. “Trust me.”
He opened the door and walked out.
The man turned to him.
Reynald kept heading toward him, his steps unhurried.
The man took a few slow steps back, glancing to both sides.
I couldn’t see shit. I got up and tiptoed to the doorway, staying in the shadows. I could see the southern street and the hulking shape of Gort blocking it. Will and Lute were probably blocking the other side. We had boxed him in.
Reynald lifted the edge of the tarp with his sword, looked at the contents of the cart, and let the tarp fall.
The killer pulled off his cloak and tossed it aside. He was a hair shorter than Reynald, but wide in the shoulders and across the chest. His dark hair fell to his shoulders, parted in the middle to leave his face open. I couldn’t see his features from where I stood.
“It’s like this then,” he said. His voice was low and harsh.
Reynald stepped away from the cart, his gaze fixed on the killer.
“You think you’re a problem,” the Dog Market Butcher said. “You’re only an inconvenience. A slight one.”
Reynald said nothing.
“You think you’re good enough. You’re not.”
Reynald advanced. The killer moved back, maintaining the distance. They were stalking each other across the cobblestones.
The Dog Market Butcher was about the same size as Reynald, but he moved differently.
Reynald never planted himself. He was always light on his feet, and even when he stood still, he seemed poised to strike at any moment, in any direction.
By contrast, the Butcher’s footsteps were heavy and deliberate, and he held himself as if he expected Reynald to ram him head-on.
“I don’t know you, and you’re not on the list.”
The Butcher pulled a blade from the scabbard on his belt. It was a double-edged sword, simple, functional, very similar to what Reynald carried.
“Still, you clearly went to a lot of trouble arranging all of this.” The Butcher drew a circle with the tip of his blade. “So I’ll show you a thing or two before you die. The rest of you, stick around. I don’t want to have to chase you down. I still have real work to do.”
Reynald remained silent.
A slight uncertainty touched the Butcher’s face, breaking through the bravado.
He saw himself as a predator. He was used to taunting his human prey, as they tried to figure out why he’d attacked them.
He liked things to be on his terms. Suddenly he was being hunted, and his opponent was refusing to take the bait.
The Butcher struck.
He lunged forward, his sword parallel to the ground, the blade tip slightly angled down, and thrust.
Reynald parried with the flat of his blade, letting the Butcher’s sword slide to his right.
The Butcher reversed his swing. His sword cut upward and over and came down on Reynald like a sledgehammer. Somehow Reynald moved out of the way, and the blade carved empty air. Reynald took a step back.
The Butcher recovered and smiled, his mouth a slash across his face. “Somebody taught you something, boy.”
He must have read Reynald as a much younger man.
“Let me show you a little more.”
The Butcher charged, swinging his sword in a barrage of strikes.
Left, right, left, left, right . . . It was very quick, just glints of reflected moonlight.
He swung that sword like it weighed nothing, lightning fast, and Reynald was barely parrying.
He took a step back, another, then a third.
The Butcher drove him across the plaza, the sheer ferocity of his attack unstoppable and unrelenting.
Another blow. Another step.
Reynald kept backing up. Why wasn’t anybody helping him? Why weren’t Gort and the brothers rushing in there and stabbing the hell out of this bastard?
They were past the statue, and I moved, trying to keep them in view.
The Butcher shifted his stance, gripped his sword with both hands, lifted it above his head, and brought it down with all his strength.
Reynald leaped back. The killer reversed his blade, spinning it, and sliced in a horizontal slash across Reynald’s chest. The blade caught the front of Reynald’s tunic.
He was cut. He had to be cut.
If I sprinted now, I could throw myself at the Butcher and it would give Reynald an opening.
Stay inside. Trust me.
I didn’t know if I had that much trust in me.
Gort wasn’t moving. There had to be a reason he was staying put.
They must’ve had a plan, but nobody had bothered to tell me.
Right now, the plan seemed to be to let Reynald get hacked to pieces while we all stood around like brainless jackasses who filmed their friends’ fights with cell phones instead of breaking them up.
Strike, strike, strike.
Reynald turned to his left and took a few steps. The Butcher followed. They were in profile now, with Gort behind them, watching, motionless, like some kind of referee.
The Butcher squared off for another attack.
Reynald waited, both hands on the grip of his sword, its blade resting on his shoulder, point up. The Butcher also clasped his sword with both hands, propping the blade on his right shoulder. For a moment they were mirror images of each other.
The Butcher swung. It looked like another devastating overhead strike, and it started like one, but then he rolled the sword off his shoulder and to the right, stepping forward as the blade sliced through the air.
Reynald stepped to his right and thrust straight at eye level.
As the Butcher’s blade completed its arc, it should have taken Reynald’s head off.
Instead, it slid against Reynald’s sword all the way to the cross guard.
The tip of Reynald’s blade sliced the Butcher’s left cheek.
The killer stumbled back, shocked. With a flick of his wrist, Reynald dropped his sword to the side and down, sliced the Butcher’s left thigh, pulled back, and thrust. The blade bit into the Butcher’s side, just above the hip bone.
It was so fast, Reynald barely seemed to move. Cheek, thigh, waist, the whole left side of the Butcher was bleeding. He backed away from Reynald, holding his sword in a high guard.
“Who are you?” the Butcher growled.
Reynald started toward him. He said nothing. He just advanced on the Butcher, and it was terrifying. Like watching Death coming.
It wasn’t just me. The Butcher saw it, too. His stance shifted from confident to guarded. He bared his teeth like a cornered animal and snarled. A faint purple light sheathed his body.
The Butcher blurred. He actually blurred, swinging out of focus, encased in a shivering purple outline.
Reynald struck, too fast to follow. Metal clanged—the Butcher parried. Whatever that blur was, it made him faster.
They clashed, slicing and blocking. There was no way to parse what was happening. They had devolved into human shapes and swinging swords, colliding to the beat of ringing metal.
Blood wet one of the swords, bright red blood, and I couldn’t tell whose blade it was. I only saw it for half a second. Was it Reynald’s blood? Was it the Butcher’s blood?
My chest hurt from the grip of fear.