CHAPTER 25 PORT
T he assassins are skilled fighters, just about as skilled as Max and me. We’re thrown into an evenly-matched battle with them, thinking nothing of our own danger, or Cory’s – I only think of protecting myself for Mili’s sake.
I engage the two assassins in close combat while Max rains down arrows from a slight distance. I don’t want to shift, I don’t know how Mili will react to see me as a dragon, I don’t want her to be scared of me. I know Max is thinking the same. I start with my daggers, trying to see if I can land a wounding shot on either of the assailants, but it’s tricky to maneuver such small weapons against two men at once. After a moment, I throw the daggers – landing one lucky shot on one assassin’s shoulder –and pull out my short sword.
Just as I unsheathe the blade, Cory comes sprinting in, screaming, with a war hammer held over his head. The assassins have mostly been relying on agility up to this point, and I realize it’s going to be a short, short battle for them against Cory’s style: brute force. No need for him to shift into dragon form.
The assassins seem to understand this, too, and one of them runs past Cory to try to get a hit on Max before the real combat starts. Max’s eyes go wide, as he’s entirely underprepared for close contact (for the Realm’s sake, he doesn’t even have a sword on him), and Cory’s voice booms across the clearing.
“Max, go!” he shouts.
As Cory is shouting, the second assassin aims for me, but as I whirl around to catch his blade with my own, Cory swings the war hammer into his torso. It makes a sizable dent in the assassin’s armor, and he stumbles backwards several steps before getting his bearings.
I turn to face the other assassin, who’s now sprinting back from where Max has run off (though I think I spy him in a tree a few dozen paces away). He launches himself at me with a terrible yell, and hits my short sword out of my hand.
It lands several paces away from me, and I dive under the assassin’s swinging blade to reach it. As my hand wraps around its hilt, I roll back over to stand and see my assailant standing above me, sword held high, ready to plunge it into my gut. I try to roll away, but his feet have me pinned, and I think I might be screaming, just as I see Cory’s war hammer make contact with the assassin’s skull.
His neck twists sharply as he falls sideways to the ground, sending a spray of his blood all over my face and chest, but I quickly get back to my feet to help Cory finish off the last fighter.