Infinity Blade 01- Awakening

thought. He’d let himself be caught without his helm. He came up from the roll with his back to the God King’s throne, putting it between himself and the windows behind it. Those would probably be the source of the attack. He pressed one hand to his cheek, stopping the flow of blood.
    The pain was nothing. He’d trained himself to ignore pain with a specific group of exercises that had earned him quite a bit of notoriety in the village. They had not been pleasant, but they had been effective.
    He remained still, pressing up against the stone of the dais. How many assassins were there? He needed his weapon. Making a quick decision, he let go of his bleeding cheek and scrambled up the steps to the throne, then grabbed the hilt of the Infinity Blade in his unbloodied hand and spun around the side of the throne to assess his enemies.
    A single figure in dark clothing had dropped on a rope from one of the upper windows of the vaulted chamber. Sleek and dangerous, the creature wore a long black coat that came down to its ankles, with dark brown leathers underneath. It had the characteristic mask on its face, one that he had come to see as a mark of being in the service of the God King—or, perhaps, another of the Deathless.
    The creature pulled a long, thin sword from the sheath at its side. Siris sighed, flexing his hands and gripping the Infinity Blade. His shield was on the table a short distance away, where he’d set his helm and gauntlets. He doubted he had time to grab them. Instead, he climbed down from the throne dais and fell into the stance of the Aegis, inviting the enemy into a duel of honor. In case of an emergency, the healing ring glinted on his finger.
    He didn’t use it on his wounded cheek. That was a simple cut, and healing had a terrible cost. Before, he hadn’t cared. He had expected the God King to kill him. Now, the potential cost weighed upon him.
    His foe studied him for a moment, then raised its blade.
    Here we go, Siris thought.
    The creature promptly lowered its sword and raised something from within its coat—a slender, dangerous-looking crossbow.
    “Oh, hell ,” Siris said, flinging himself to the side. The creature fired, and had expert aim. The bolt drilled into Siris’s thigh, where the metal armor plates parted. He grunted. This was not how a proper duel was supposed to go.
    Siris came up, stumbling, and winced. He yanked the small bolt from his thigh, awkwardly holding his blade and trying to watch for the creature’s next attack. As he did so, he felt a deadening of his leg. Poison.
    Hell take me! He had no choice now; he took cover beside the throne dais, then engaged the ring.
    The healing effect was immediate. He felt a burning on his finger as the magic was expended, and a shock ran through his body. His skin grew clammy, as if he’d dunked himself into an icy pond in the winter.
    It lasted only an eyeblink, and when he came out of it, his pains were gone. However, in that eyeblink, his hair had grown all the way down to his shoulders, and he now had a beard where previously he’d had none. His fingernails had grown long.
    The healing rings sped up his body in a twisted way. Though they made him heal quickly—wounds scabbing over, then becoming scarred—they also made him age as long as it would have taken to heal wounds naturally. As near as he could figure, each use of the ring took about a half of a year off his life.
    He raised a hand to his newly grown beard as he glanced at himself in the polished marble of the throne’s dais. He hated healing. The more he did it, the more . . . alien his own features seemed.
    He peeked around the side of the large throne. The assassin was slinking along the side of the dais toward him, obviously expecting him to be succumbing to the poison. The creature yelped in a quite undaerilic way as Siris dashed out from behind the dais, running toward the side of the room.
    The assassin raised its crossbow again, but Siris was ready. He ducked low and jumped in a roll. He came up beside the table and grabbed his shield, turning and raising it.
    The enemy scuttled away, taking cover. Siris gritted his teeth. Every beast he had faced in the God King’s palace—even the most foul of daerils and most primitive of trolls—had followed the ancient dueling ideals. Obviously, he was facing a different kind of evil now.
    “So . . .” a feminine voice called from beside the pillar where the assassin had fled. “You’re not dead