Read The Sunset Warrior - 01 for Free Online Page B

bright scarlet. He flung the dagger from him so that it cartwheeled in a bright arc and stuck in the floor, quivering. He turned his hands over, staring at the backs, fingers clenched, knuckles white. He slammed them together.
    ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered.
    The adrenalin was not quite gone. ‘I am trained,’ he said slowly and softly, ‘to kill and to stay alive. All Bladesmen learn this, some better than others. But those years with the Salamander were different, and now there are times when instinct takes over—very pure and very lethal—because there is no time to think: Hesitate and you are dead.’ He paused and spread his hands, and, perhaps, at that moment he was not aware of her at all. ‘I almost killed him—it was so close. He was defenceless and terrified at what he had done.’
    ‘I know,’ she said.
    His back arched slightly as he felt her breasts press into him as she leaned over. Her fingers worked. ‘To see you in Combat,’ she whispered at his ear. ‘I want that.’ She moved her hands up to the nape of his neck and began a circular motion that drew the tension from his tired muscles, ‘I think about that.’
    ‘Somehow I cannot imagine you spending your free time that way.’ His body relaxed.
    She moved her breasts from side to side against his back. ‘I am full of surprises,’ she said with a light laugh. Then her fingers moved down along his spine, slowly circling. The stroking became rhythmic. ‘Do you win?’
    ‘Yes. All the time.’ He was aware that she very much wanted to hear him say it. It was something she already knew.
    Her fingers moved lower and again he felt her presence more closely. He breathed her perfume. Strands of her unbound hair brushed lightly against him in concert with her hands. He heard breathing in the silence of their attenuated conversation; became aware that it was his own as well as hers.
    Her fingers were at the base of his spine; she touched the tops of his buttocks. Her lips were so near his ear that he could feel her warm breath. ‘You fought magnificently. You fought and you bled and through it all I was thinking of only one thing.’ Her fingers made wider circles on his body; the pressure more insistent.
    He felt his blood pounding. He said nothing.
    Her lips touched his ear. They were moist, and she made a sound.
    He twisted then, oblivious of his pains, and pulled her into his lap. His hands were lost in the night forest of her hair, clung there. He pressed his lips savagely against hers. Her mouth opened. His hands moved slowly, sinuously down her body, and she moaned into his mouth. And he reached for the fastening of her robe.
    They were thin and tall and quite young. The hilts of the triple daggers across their grey shirts shone dully in the cold lights of the Overheads, still in reasonably good condition this far Upshaft. One said: ‘Freidal wishes to see you.’ He seemed very sure of the identification, although Ronin had seen neither of them before.
    He felt a brief worry as he thought of Borros. It was very early, first Spell not half gone, and he was back on his own Level. They had got him as he had walked to his quarters, appearing abruptly from around the far turning, stepping in front of him before he reached his door. Important to remember, he thought, in this Stahlig was right: Freidal is very dangerous.
    ‘At once,’ the daggam said.
    Security had an entire Sector Upshaft. He had never been there, but for as long as he could remember there had been stories told and retold along the Corridors Up- and Downshaft of the strange and secretive doings there. He had automatically discounted most of that talk; now he was not so sure.
    He was surprised, however, to find that the forbidding dull grey exterior, with its massive doors and gates manned by faultlessly garbed daggam, gave way to quarters remarkably bland in appearance. Cubicles that were lit contained daggam pursuing innocuous functions: stacking tablets, desk work, and