Banques stepped forward, forbidding it. “Absolutely not! You’re the king. You will not parry in the street with a common criminal—”
“I am the king and the best swordsman on this continent. I say who I parry with! Step back!” Montegue ordered.
KAZI
I remembered Montegue boasting about Banques’s tutelage. I think it’s fair to say that the student has surpassed the master.
Was this what he had trained for? That moment when he would extinguish the last Patrei himself and take his place in history?
Montegue and Jase circled, their swords bobbing with threat, their gazes fixed on each other like wolves waiting to pounce.
Jase struck first. A test. Feeling for his enemy’s strength. Montegue was strong. But his deflection was clumsy and his push-off slow, his return loud but ungraceful, unmindful of his stance.
Jase backed off. He knew what he needed to know. They circled again.
Banques looked on, terrified—the master caught in a lie.
Montegue came at Jase first this time, his blows unrelenting, hammering Jase backward. His face and neck were blotched with red, his mad desire driving him and flushing through every part of his body.
And then Jase whirled, ducking low, and Montegue’s strike was unmet. He stumbled forward, and Jase swung again, his sword hitting the heavy pauldron on Montegue’s shoulder, shoving it upward, and the tip of Jase’s sword struck Montegue’s forehead—the first blood of the battle.
Montegue was stunned for a moment, staggering back, wiping the trickle of blood from his brow, appearing shocked that it was even there. He looked back at Jase, no longer a king but a fierce wounded animal.
Banques drew his sword.
“Now!” I yelled. Our throwing knives whistled in a straight furious line toward the archers and then we drew our swords.
JASE
For a few seconds, I was battling both Montegue and Banques. Montegue was as incensed with Banques as he was with me, yelling for him to back off. He wanted no help.
And then the street exploded with a roar. The archers were down, and I heard the thunder of footsteps behind me.
Wren, Synové, Kazi, and Priya were at my side, fighting back Banques and the soldiers who had rushed forward to help the king. Truko, Gunner, and Paxton were on my other side, fighting back Garvin and more soldiers. Citizens flooded past us, taking on mercenaries and traitors alike.
Montegue came at me again and again, wielding his sword like it was an ax, rage more than skill driving him. Juddering blows burned in my shoulder, every sinew on fire as I met strike after strike, but he was easy to predict. Left, right, left, right. Whatever training he’d had, it was obliterated by his anger. Before he could pull back with his next strike, I slid my blade along his, unbalancing him, then swept low. My blow across his chest barely cut through his breastplate, but it knocked the air from him. He stumbled back, weaving from side to side, stunned, then tripped over his feet and fell.
I stepped toward him. I wanted to kill him, almost more than I had ever wanted anything. Preferably with my bare hands, so I could watch his life seep away as he looked at me, choking it from him breath by breath as he had done to so many I loved. I wanted to watch him suffer. But I remembered the papers I had signed. If circumstances allow, you must offer the enemy the chance to surrender.
“Submit to arrest, Montegue, and maybe I won’t kill you. That is the law of the Alliance, and Tor’s Watch is poised to be one of its kingdoms. And in case you haven’t heard, I am the named head of that kingdom, as I have always been.”
He gulped in a hoarse breath and struggled to his feet. “I am the king,” he answered. “The only king. The gods have ordained it.” His eyes were molten, like everything inside of him was consumed with fire.
The cords in his neck stood out like sharp, hot blades and his chest shook with rage, but then a loud scream bellowed from his lungs, his eyes shining with triumph, and he charged toward me.
KAZI
Priya’s back was to my back, Wren’s to Synové’s, all of us shoulder to shoulder. No Neck’s blows were bone-crunching as Synové and I took him on together. He was like a tree, his stumpish body planted in the earth, unfazed by our strikes against him. I thought his steel blade would fail before he did. Synové and I were only getting worn down—and he wasn’t. This was the kind of unstoppable army Montegue intended to create with more of his magical stardust. No Neck had no armor though, and even a raging bull has a soft underside—if I could just get to it. He was backing us up against the wall. I had to move soon. “Breaking,” I said to Synové, warning her she would have to take his next strikes alone, and I rolled. He was not prepared for this and my sword sliced his exposed underarm while my dagger stabbed his kneecap. He staggered, screaming in pain as he turned and aimed a blow at me, but I rolled again and his sword rang against the cobble. He limped toward me, raising his sword again, but now Synové was in position to finish him. Her sword plunged into his back and out through his sternum. He swayed, looking down at the river of blood seeping from his chest, and I moved out of the way as he fell forward, like a massive fallen tree.
But there was no time to relish victory. A scream behind us made us both turn. It was Priya. Blood gushed from her upper arm, and Black Teeth was about to strike again. Wren was already spinning, closer to Priya than us, and she planted her razor-sharp ziethe deep in Black Teeth’s gut, but now Divot Head was advancing on Wren from behind. Syn and I leapt to stop him, her sword stabbing low and mine high, his spine crunching beneath our blades. He teetered for a moment, as if unaffected, but then tipped backward. He was dead before his enormous body thundered to the ground.
The street was a swirling mass of bodies, swords, and axes, the chaos loud and frenzied. The ping of every kind of metal clashed around us. The smell of sweat, blood, and terror permeated the air. Nowhere in the bedlam did I see Zane. I was separated from the others, and suddenly I was facing Banques again, the true swordsman and master. Blood spattered his face like a macabre lacy mask, and the victories he’d already claimed glowed in his eyes. Anticipation of another win glimmered in them when he looked at me. He swung, his thrusts fast and calculated, and unlike the tree stump soldiers, his feet were swift. I met his attacks, but I only had one good shoulder. The other was on fire with strain. I tried to undercut him, feint, set him off balance, but he was relentless and anticipated my moves, pushing me back again and again.
“Still think Montegue is going to make all your dreams come true?” I asked, trying to distract him.
“We’ll rebuild our arsenal. We will come back stronger than before. It’s not over.”
“He killed his own father. You deserve each other.”