Read Iron and Blood for Free Online Page A

heart that, at the very least, he wasn’t deaf.
    Five of the eight Dellorans were left. Tyvian tried to stab one of them before he rose, but the ring shot a lightning bolt of pain up his arm and he was forced to drop his sword. The Delloran in question—­Black Eye himself—­tackled him by the legs, and the two men were left to rolling down those damned cobblestone stairs in an awkward wrestling match. Black Eye had strength and size, but Tyvian knew a few dirty tricks. Chief among these was biting, and he dug his teeth into Black Eye’s nose as though it were a massive wedge of Leventry cheese. The guard responded with a few kidney punches that made Tyvian let go, but not before he took a chunk of nose with him. “Kroth-­spawned tit,” the Delloran growled. “Messin’ up my face.”
    Another thunder-­orb went off, blowing Black Eye and Tyvian up against the front stairs of a house. Tyvian felt his shoulder pop out of joint, and Black Eye cracked his own head on a stone and fell unconscious on top of him. Between his wounded shoulder and Black Eye’s bulk, Tyvian was trapped. From his vantage point underneath Black Eye, he could see that the battle, such as it was, was nearly over.
    Hacklar Jaevis had lost his hurlant and was fighting against the monstrous Gallo with nothing but his thin, curved saber. Gallo had a weapon that looked like a cross between spiked brass knuckles and a machete, and he used it in much the same manner. All of Jaevis’s artistry with his curved blades was irrelevant against the hacking, driving blows Gallo delivered to the bounty hunter’s guard with mechanical rhythm. Each block Jaevis made seemed to drive him back half a pace and sent shockwaves of force through his body to the point where he looked scarcely able to defend himself. Gallo pressed on until, eventually, Jaevis was forced to his knees. Gallo’s armored paw seized the bounty hunter by the hair, hauled his head back, and laid his blade against Jaevis’s throat.
    â€œSay good-­bye to your bounty hunter, Tyv,” Hendrieux said softly. He was crouching next to Tyvian’s pinned body, a long thin dagger in one hand. “I just want you to see this last ridiculous ruse of yours fail before I stuff a knife in your eye myself.”
    Gallo looked over to Hendrieux. His ruined voice betrayed no sign of fatigue or pain. “Now?”
    Hendrieux held up his hand. “I’m glad it will end this way, Tyv—­your body found beaten, dead, and dirty, pinned by a stinking oaf in some dirty Freegate side street. I bet they’ll think you were mugged. Won’t that be funny?”
    It was then that Gallo was knocked across the street and slammed into the second story of a carpenter’s workshop by some unseen force. Hendrieux stood up bolt straight. “What the—­”
    Tyvian had never heard Hool roar before. It was, in a word, terrifying. The volume and timbre of the bellow that escaped her lips was sufficient to make Tyvian’s bowels watery, and he at least knew Hool had no intention of killing him .
    The two Dellorans closest to Hool saw her copper eyes glinting in the dark and watched, open-­mouthed, as she rose to her full height. Her bulky silhouette towered over them in the dim light of the street. In her hands was Gallo’s heavy maul, which she had just used to propel the massive man through the air like a croquet ball.
    Sahand was said to pay well, but apparently didn’t pay that well. The men dropped their swords and fled into the night.
    The last remaining Delloran stood quavering before the mighty gnoll’s advance, longsword extended. He called to Hendrieux, “Orders, captain?” Hendrieux, though, was long gone. The lone Delloran glanced around him, saw he was alone, and then ran off in the direction the others had gone. Hool dropped the heavy maul as the man vanished from sight and began to sniff the air