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

was just a slower way of letting the guards kill them. Back through the house, then. Sometimes the hard way was the only way.

“What is necessary is never to be regretted,” he told them, and then dove at the pile of pillows, burrowing underneath them. Surprised and confused, the soldiers cursed and advanced, weapons at the ready. My club is on the other side. I can cross the distance before they can throw two dozen pillows aside. Within moments he realized what a stupid idea it had been. They couldn’t see him, no, but that also meant that he couldn’t see them. From the muffled sound of things, the soldiers had circled the pile and were waiting for him to appear.

Shifting forward through the pile was almost like swimming. He nearly jumped out of his skin when a questing hand encountered cold flesh. At first he thought he had grabbed a soldier, but half a second later he remembered that there had been two prostitutes in the room. From the clammy feel of her arm, either Guyrin or an excess of drugs had taken this one home to her ancestors some hours ago. He let her go and burrowed further. Maybe if they start stabbing they’ll hit her first.

He couldn’t stay in the pile. On the other hand, the moment he stuck out a hand, he was likely to lose it. He spied light ahead and was able to wiggle forward enough to peer out through a gap with his one good eye. His club was right there, easily within reach. However, it lay directly behind two booted feet. The guard squatted down and looked in at him, stone-tipped spear ready to plunge in right where Kest lay. “Hello,” the unshaven man said. “That was a pretty dumb move.”

Then a toad hit him in the face.

The guard fell back with a cry of disgust, and Kest heard a low laugh that could only be Nira. He didn’t waste the opportunity – gathering his legs beneath himself, he lunged out of the mountain of pillows, cushions scattering in every direction. He grabbed the club and rolled to his feet, laying about himself with abandon. He caught one fellow on the shoulder and sent him sprawling, but the man on his other side had the sense to bring his pike up to block. The impact shivered down his club and numbed his hand, and he dropped the weapon. He threw himself at the man with an oath, catching him in the chest with a shoulder before he could deliver a killing blow. The man went down, clutching his ribs and coughing.

He was not so stupid as to face the others without a weapon. This is an escape, not a fight. There was no one between him and the suite doors, and he was gratified to see that Nira was already running into the hallway. He charged after her and left the three other guards behind flat-footed.

He rounded the corner into the hallway and nearly bowled Nira over – she had stopped dead in her tracks. There was another squad of soldiers advancing up the hallway. Kest took her by the shoulders and propelled her in the opposite direction past the open suite doors just as the three guards within were coming out. He swung a running haymaker at the foremost of the three, catching him right across the jaw and felling him.

“The stairs are the other way!” shrieked Nira.

“Just run!” he panted as he scooped up an obsidian-edged mace from still, silent Mackey. They’re probably dead. Renna wouldn’t care enough about saving some nameless guards to risk the mission by using a weak toxin. It made his blood run cold to think that he’d carried lethally poisonous bugs in his stomach for hours. Renna was not a nice woman.

They were running out of hallway, and the balcony overlooking the front foyer came into view, the great chandelier shining in the air before them. It was a dead end. “What do we do?” called Nira over her shoulder, not slowing.

No time for thinking. “Jump!” he cried.

She fetched up against the railing. “What?!” she panted, eyes wide.

He didn’t bother to respond. Instead, he dropped his mace, wrapped one arm around her ribs and snaked the other up through her legs, lifted her off the ground, and heaved. She flew screaming through the air and landed across the top tier of the chandelier, setting it swaying crazily. She wrapped an arm across the crossbar of the polished wooden frame. “Are you crazy?”

He snatched back up his weapon, put one foot up on the railing, and jumped into empty air. The guards were right behind him, and he felt a spear’s tip tug at his clothes as he jumped, leaving a line of pain in its wake. He barely managed to get his torso draped across the lowest, widest circle of the chandelier. A glowpod knocked free as he scrambled for purchase with his free hand, tumbling more than ten meters to smash on the tiles below, its glowing, viscous contents oozing forth. Servants screamed as they caught sight of the pair of idiots swinging from the lights.

The man with the pike jabbed at them, but the chandelier was just out of reach. “Knock it off, stupid,” commanded one of the others standing at the rail. “Go get the thorn throwers and my scorpion whip.” A couple of the guards ran off in response, and the senior officer regarded Kest with amusement from where he hung awkwardly from the chandelier. “Nothing but bad ideas today, huh, kid?”

I’m not out of bad ideas yet! Hanging on tight to his razor-edged mace, he caught hold of a cross brace and swung a leg up onto the circular beam he was balanced on. The movement made the contraption spin and sway dizzyingly.

“Stop it!” growled Nira above him. “You’re going to make me fall!”

“Actually,” he said, climbing up onto upper tier, “yes. Hold on tight. And I mean very tight.”