Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(208)

“That,” came a voice from behind, “is an exceptionally large bird you’ve got.”

Valyn spun to find himself face-to-face with the knife-wielding woman—Pyrre, Kaden had called her. Skullsworn. Valyn eyed the assassin, gauging her quickly. She was breathing heavily, and her clothes were sliced open in a dozen places—whether from this fight or something earlier, it was hard to tell—but she seemed strangely relaxed. The fact that Yurl hadn’t managed to take her spoke well for her abilities, that and the blood on her blades.

“They went that way,” she said, pointing with one of her long knives. “I’ve got a score to settle with the unpleasant gentleman in all the armor, but you’re welcome to kill the other one.”

Valyn considered the offer. Pyrre had helped Kaden, but he didn’t like the idea of relying on an assassin he’d never met before to guard his back. Of course, there wasn’t much to like, and every moment he delayed was a moment Yurl could be slipping farther away or honing an ambush. “All right,” Valyn replied, nodding warily. “Ut’s yours. Yurl’s mine. Just don’t f*ck up.”

Pyrre smiled an easy smile. She didn’t look like a murderer. “I could have used that advice a few days ago, before we got ourselves chased into these miserable mountains.”

“Good luck,” he said.

“And with you,” Pyrre replied. “Be careful. That bastard is good.”

Valyn nodded grimly. For weeks now, for months, he’d been biding his time, waiting for just this opportunity, a chance to face Yurl one on one. So much the better that they had flown beyond imperial borders, past the aegis of law and the ambit of Annurian justice, into these unnamed peaks, where there were no trainers or regulations, no blunted blades or codes of conduct, no one to cry foul or stop the fight. It was just what Valyn had longed for, and yet the stark fact remained: Yurl was better with his blades. He was faster and he was stronger. When it was all settled, any blood on the ground was likely to be Valyn’s. It was folly to chase after him, and for a moment Valyn hesitated. He could go back for the rest of his Wing. The other man was alone now, on foot in hostile terrain with minimal provisions. It was pride and folly to pursue him alone. There is wisdom, Hendran wrote, in waiting.

But Valyn was through waiting. The man who had brutalized Ha Lin, who had tried to murder his Wing, to slaughter his brother, to end the Malkeenian line, was only a few paces away. Valyn had tried playing by the rules. For as long as he could remember, he’d tried to weigh his options, to think before acting, to make the wise choice. It had all ended in ashes: Lin dead, himself and his Wing traitors in exile. Yurl might kill him, but what did that matter? He would die eventually, either on the point of a blade or in his bed, and something inside him was stirring, a part of his mind older than conscious thought, quicker and more savage, whispering to him, rasping the same malevolent syllable over and over: death, death, death. Whether the death was his own or Sami Yurl’s no longer seemed to matter.

*

The sword came hard at his head—so fast, he barely had time to knock it aside. Were it not for the residual light of the flares flickering behind him, Valyn would have missed it entirely, and as he stumbled backward, trying to regain his balance, Yurl stepped from behind an outcrop.

The other Wing leader’s grin was gone. “You killed my men, Malkeenian.”

“As if you cared,” Valyn said, trying to gain time, to see a way through the other man’s guard.

“It’s an insult,” Yurl replied, swords flashing out as he spoke, one high, one low, probing, pressing. Valyn parried and launched a quick riposte, but Yurl swatted it down contemptuously. “You are an insult,” he continued, circling as he spoke. “Valyn hui’Malkeenian, son of the Emperor, Kettral Wing commander.” He sneered. “And any day I chose, I could have cut you down like grass.”

The swords whistled at Valyn again, a double-wing attack that folded into something else at the last minute. Valyn leaned back, tried to create space to parry just as the steel bit beneath his ribs. The wound wasn’t deep, but the blood was flowing.

“This is my point,” Yurl said, dropping his upper blade to gesture languidly at the wound.

Valyn started to lunge for the opening, then checked himself. It was a trap, just like in the arena, just like on the West Bluffs. Instead of pressing the weak guard, he took a step back, trying to ignore the blood sheeting down his side, trying to think. The blades might do the cutting, but as in all true swordplay, the real fight would be won or lost in the mind. Yurl’s words were as much a part of the thing as his footwork, those taunts as tactical as each feint and false position. Back on the Islands, Valyn always gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the distractions, fighting on in stubborn silence, refusing to be drawn in. Drawn in. He almost laughed. It was a ridiculous notion. He had fled the Eyrie, abandoned his training and his life to come here, to find Yurl and to stop him, to fight this fight. He hadn’t been drawn in; he had hurled himself.