Of Blood And Fire by Ryan Cahill (best classic books of all time .txt) 📕

his leather armour like soft butter. Calen shuddered at the shrieks of pain.

In his mad rush, he hadn’t noticed Kira standing in nothing but the skin she was born in. She held a long, thin axe in her right hand. Even in the heat of the moment, his chest heaving and the blood pumping through his veins, Calen’s cheeks coloured. He took perhaps a moment too long to shield his gaze.

“Now is not the time for modesty, Draleid.” Despite the fact that she stood there in her bare flesh, moments from an assassin’s blade, her voice was still steel.

Calen couldn’t bring himself to raise his eyes. A dark shade of crimson painted his cheeks. “Your Majesty, there are more assassins in the city. Aeson and Asius have gone to check on the other members of the council, but we must go to Belduar. If they are here, then the king is in danger too.” Half of him wanted to take a second look, but the other half of him refused to tear his gaze from the stone floor. “Will you be all right?”

“Yes, boy. I will be fine. Go!”

Calen didn’t need to hear anymore. With a grunt, he dashed from the room, his eyes never rising above knee-level. It was not right for him to see her like that. She was a queen. Even if she were not, it would not be right.

He cursed himself as he weaved his way through the labyrinth of streets and walkways. Every second turn was the wrong turn. He would die of old age before he reached the Wind Tunnels. The streets were quiet. He had not seen nor heard a trace of any more of the Hand. That could only be a good thing.

“Fuck!” he shouted when he realised he had just spent two minutes running to a dead end.

“Calen?”

Calen did not think that there would be a point for the rest of his life where he would be happier to hear Oleg Marilyn’s voice. Falmin was with him. Sweat dripped down both of their rouged faces and Falmin’s shirt clung to his chest, revealing the lean muscle that hid on his wiry frame.

“Oleg, by the gods, your timing couldn’t be any better! We need to get to the Wind Tunnels.” Calen couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Five more minutes trying to escape that maze, and he would have descended into madness.

“This way, Calen. We’re close.”

By the time they reached the Wind Tunnels, Oleg’s chest heaved. He bent over double, trying to drag air into his lungs. Calen couldn’t help but be impressed. The rotund man had matched both himself and Falmin for pace. Although, he was paying the price for it. “Falmin—”

“Give me five minutes, and she’ll be good to go, Mister Bryer.”

The gangly man leapt up onto the platform of the Crested Wave. Calen had resigned himself to the fact that he would not get to finish a sentence that night. He tapped his foot on the stone platform. Aeson and Asius should be here already.

As if he had summoned them, the man and the giant loped around the corner of a high wall. One or two fresh cuts stained the front of Aeson’s shirt, but they were otherwise unharmed.

“How long?” Aeson asked as he scaled the stone steps of the landing. He might not have let on, but Calen saw his chest dragging a bit more than it usually would. There was a wound somewhere causing him more pain than Calen had first thought.

“Less than five minutes. Falmin is making sure the Crested Wave is ready to go.”

Aeson nodded. “And Queen Kira?”

“She is okay. Though, I cannot say the same for her guards. The others?”

“They’ll live,” Aeson replied. “Hoffnar will have a few new scars, but that’s nothing he isn’t used to.”

Calen wanted to say more, to ask questions, but he knew Aeson wouldn’t answer them. The man simply nodded, then turned his attention to Asius, a questioning look in his eyes.

“How bad?” the giant asked.

Aeson shrugged, wincing. “I’ll live if I stay here. But I’ll die if I take it up there.”

The giant’s lips made a grim, thin line, but he nodded. He placed his hand on Aeson’s ribs, where a large red stain had begun to form through the brown fabric of his shirt. Calen felt Asius drawing from the Spark, pulling at threads. Air, he thought. Spirit. He missed the rest – it was too fast – but he saw the relief in Aeson’s eyes when the giant pulled his hand away.

“Thank you.” Aeson’s next breath was a deep one as he tested out the results.

Calen still hadn’t learned anything of healing. Therin had warned him it was dangerous for someone who did not understand it. Even then, he saw Asius’s eyes were a bit darker, his breaths longer.

“Falmin, are you nearly ready?” The frustration in Calen’s voice was cut short by the thunderous sound of footsteps. How many, he couldn’t tell, but there was a tremor in the ground and a ringing in the air.

Coming over one of the four stone bridges that connected to the main platform, ten abreast, were dwarves, armoured from head to toe in that familiar thick plate, with the nose-bridge helmets. Each carried a wicked, twin-bladed axe, with a short sword strapped to their hips. Each wore a thick crimson cloak that billowed behind them.

Queensguard.

Sure enough, marching at the front of the column was Kira, in full plate armour. Silver and gold rings laced her flowing blonde hair. He couldn’t tell how many Queensguard she had with her, but they were still pouring over the bridge, and the ground still trembled.

There was a smirk set into Kira’s face. “You didn’t think we were going to let you take all the fun for yourselves, did you?”

Something about the woman unsettled him. He wasn’t sure what it was, and he wasn’t sure if he enjoyed it or despised it.

“Your Majesty… What are you doing?”

“Showing you our character.” Her smirk deepened, but then