Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

shin into the younger man’s ribs from the back. Kest spun away, gasping, trying not to overbalance. The pain shouting from all quarters of his body did wonders for clearing his mind and steadying his step. He reached up and pulled off his sling, freeing his hurt arm. It hurts to move it, but he’ll hurt me far more if I’ve only got one hand in the fight. He swung his arm experimentally and found it no more painful than the rest of him.

The flow of pedestrians steered wide of them and only the sea serpent’s gargantuan skull watched them. None of the fancy folk stopped to gawk or shout as normal people might do; they all hurried on their way as if fearful of catching a stray punch. Riches, it seemed, engendered cowardice.

Kest skittered wide of the raging monk as he approached, wary of being flanked again. Seeing the maneuver was unlikely to succeed twice, the old man waded in, beard wagging, eyes dark. His fists struck like thunder at Kest’s torso, darting into the gaps between elbow and hip as the Beast Rider tried to protect himself. One, two, three, four times knuckles thudded into him, driving the air from his lungs. He’s too fast.

Pretending to slump into his opponent, Kest changed his fall into a lunge as he came close, wrapping both arms around the taller man and lifting with all his strength. He felt something in his broken shoulder give as he pushed, but with a scream he mastered the pain, lifting the warrior monk clear of the ground. Whatever trick the man had used when Puldaergna had fought him failed now, and Kest slammed Gamarron’s back into the walkway, landing on top of the old man with all his weight. The breath rushed from the black-clad monk, and his head bounced off the hard surface.

Not wanting to waste his advantage, Kest levered himself upright over his enemy’s torso, kneeling on Gamarron’s upper arms and latching on to his throat. “You will not rule me,” he rasped, dripping blood onto the monk’s face and beard. “I am my own man!” He squeezed with all his might.

It took a moment for Gamarron’s eyes to clear, but as his face began to turn red from lack of air, his focus snapped to Kest’s face. Another moment or two and he’ll start to thrash. Thirty seconds of that, and he’ll go limp. Kest decided he would let go when that happened. He didn’t have to kill the man – just to best him. That was enough.

But Gamarron did not thrash. In fact, the redness faded from his face, and he drew a loud, clear breath despite the tremendous pressure Kest’s hands put on his throat. The flesh seemed to harden under Kest’s fingers. The savage looked him in the eye, unconcerned.

“I can kill you at any moment,” Gamarron said quietly, his voice unstrained.

Disconcerted, Kest bore down more heavily, but it made no difference. This is impossible! His knees shifted as the seemingly impervious old man raised his arms from the ground, ignoring the weight of ninety kilograms that pressed on the nerve right beneath his biceps. With fluid grace the monk moved his arms in toward his torso, making Kest’s knees thump painfully onto the walkway. His hands snaked up from between Kest’s thighs to clamp on his wrists and Kest grunted in pain. The old man’s grip was crushing.

“You live at my sufferance,” Gamarron whispered. “Any disobedience will be punished immediately.”

Slowly, inexorably, Kest’s hands were forced back from the monk’s throat. He screamed defiance and gave every last ounce of his strength into pushing against the greater power of Gamarron’s hands. Still his arms moved out and away.

“You will obey.” The monk’s voice was soft but inescapable.

Kest’s collarbone was screaming in pain. He couldn’t keep up the pressure. Instead, he let his arms go limp and drove his forehead into his opponent’s face. The hard ridge of his skull hammered directly into the crystal jutting from Gamarron’s headband. Both men cried out in pain, and Kest found himself suddenly airborne before crashing to the paving stones. The older man had thrown him clear. There was a new, blazing star of agony in his forehead. His good hand flew to it, feeling sticky blood. As he sat up, he could feel the trickle of wetness gather in his left eyebrow and course down his cheek.

Relentless, Gamarron came at him, his own face streaming blood. He crouched over Kest and grasped his head in both hands, forcing him to look the grim graybeard in the eyes. There was a fey glimmer there Kest hadn’t seen in him before, but he recognized it instinctively. It was the hunger for the kill.

“I need you to know, always and forever, that I have beaten you. I am your better. You serve me.” Gamarron’s hands clamped down painfully, the palms covering his ears, the fingers like stones digging into the rear of his skull, the thumbs pressing into his cheekbones. “Serve me or I will crush you.”

Kest laughed, long and loud and harsh. People stopped and stared when they heard that laugh, even the rich ones. It was a grating, mocking sound with more than a touch of insanity to it. He reached up and took the savage’s wrists in his hands, looking deep into those killer eyes, and snarled, “NO.”

Then he made the rats attack.

He’d found their nest burrowed beneath the walkway only a minute before. They were such simple, feral things that he almost didn’t notice them, but as he cast his feelings at the tiny sparks of intelligence, they responded. They didn’t think in the same way that the great beasts of Pacari did, but they heard him, and they came at his call. They coursed over the monk’s boots and up his legs by the dozens, biting and clawing at what they had been told was a threat to their nest. They might not have been the cat-sized rodents of