The Dragon's Path

used. The blade itself had a blood channel running down its center. Dawson reached out, plucking the sword from the air. The remaining club man swung at him, and, still on his knees, Dawson parried the attack.
    The fallen attacker groaned, lifted himself with one hand, then slipped back into the spreading pool of red.
    Dawson rose. The two assassins glanced at each other,and Dawson read the fear in them. True, he was hurt and his rescuer now unarmed. True, the numbers were merely even. And still, to go so suddenly from three men and a victim to an almost equal battle shook their confidence. The club man took a step back, half turning as if he might flee. Dawson felt his lips curl. These men were cowards.
    He swung his borrowed sword fast, low, and hard. The man danced back, parrying awkwardly. To Dawson’s right, the knife man shouted and leapt for Dawson’s unarmed ally. The pain of Dawson’s wounds faded, the chill of his own blood freezing on his chest brought a feral grin to his mouth. The club man fell back a step, and Dawson pressed in, his knees bent, his weight low, his body balanced and ready. When the weighted club made its next swing, Dawson pushed inside its arc, taking the blow on his ribs as he thrust the blade forward. The club man’s breath went out of him in a white, feathery rush. There was armor under that overcoat. The assassin wasn’t dead, but he was staggered. Dawson turned, brought a heel down on the man’s instep, swung the pommel of his sword in a short, hard jab at his face. The unmistakable crunch of breaking cartilage transferred itself to Dawson’s wrist.
    The assassin bent low and rushed him, trying to bowl him over by main force. Dawson slid back, his boots finding little purchase on the icy street. The thug weighed more than him, and he was counting on that to save him in the grapple. He had misjudged Dawson’s character.
    Dawson dropped the sword, grabbed the thug’s dark hair in his left hand, not to pull the man’s head away but to steady it. He drove his thumb deep in the man’s eye socket, bending at the knuckle. Something soft and terrible happened, and the man shrieked high and pained and frightened. Dawson pushed him away, and the man stumbled tohis knees, hands pressed to his ruined eye and shattered nose.
    The knife man and Dawson’s rescuer were circling one another. The rescuer’s arms were spread and weaponless. A cut on his left arm bled, scattering droplets of scarlet on the white ice and black cobbles. A crowd was gathering on the street. Men, women, children with eyes wide and hungry taking in the violence without daring to intervene. Dawson kicked the mewling club man to the pavement and pulled the strap of his club from around his wrist. The knife man’s glance spoke panic, and Dawson drew the weighted club whirring through the air, testing its balance and weight.
    The knife man bolted, dark boots throwing bits of snow up behind him as he pelted away. The crowd parted, letting the thug escape rather than risk a swing of his little blade. Peasants, commoners, and serfs making way for one of their own. He wanted to feel some outrage that the simple citizens of Camnipol would allow the man to flee, but he didn’t. Cowardice and the safety of the herd was the nature of the lowborn. He could as well blame sheep for bleating.
    The first assassin to fall lay perfectly still, the blood around him steaming. The second club man was growing quiet too, slipping into shock. Dawson’s rescuer squatted on bent ankles, considering his wounded arm. He was young, thick arms and shoulders and rough, knife-cropped hair. The shape of his face was familiar.
    “It seems I owe you my thanks,” Dawson said. To his surprise, he was out of breath.
    The new man shook his head.
    “I should have come sooner, my lord,” the young man said. “I stayed too far back.”
    “Too far back?” Dawson said. “You’ve been tracking me?”
    The man nodded and would not meet his eyes.
    “Why is that?” Dawson asked.
    “Your lady wife, my lord,” the man said. “She took me into service after you turned me out. She tasked me with keeping you safe, sir. I’m afraid I’ve done a poor job.”
    Of course. The huntsman from the kitchens who’d returned the bit of horn soaked in dog’s blood and insult. Vincen Coe, the name had been. He’d never asked Clara what she’d done to see to the boy, but of course she couldn’t simply reinstate him over her husband’s express words.