Read Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 for Free Online Page B

armed with a long length of wood and a bit of sharpened metal at the end of it, are a match for the fiercest warrior who ever lived. It is also a fact that it is not so very difficult to make five men forget this truth, think of nothing but their own flesh and their own future.
    Bas’s blade arched above his head, the full rays of dawn blinding bright, then dashed in among packed flesh, heedless of wood or chain or steel. One wide sweep of Roost-forged steel tore the arm and shoulder off a pockmarked pikeman and a return stroke severed the top of his comrade’s skull from its bottom, leaving blood and brain to spray off onto the tight ranks of men. Two stray bladesmen, experienced enough to work in concert, attempted to do so, the first closing in tight with him, the second hoping to edge off to his side, and both dead in no more time than it would take a chick to peck seed, two swift motions leaving meat on the ground below.
    Bas’s soldiers, seized with his savagery, surrounded by the force of his presence, swarmed past him as well. It was too close for spears, it was nearly too close for swords, it was flesh against flesh, and the tide of the Aelerians overwhelming, continuing onward because they could do nothing else, the Salucians recognising this and scattering.
    Bas roared as he killed, and so he roared a great deal.
    The battle won, his men sprinted past him to take care of the few remaining defenders and to take their terrible reward among the beleaguered populace, the traditional seventy-two hours of plunder, rapine, savagery. Riches stolen and churches befouled and women dragged screaming from their homes. It was not the first battle that had been tipped by the appearance of Bas Alyates, the Caracal, the Killer of Gods, the mailed fist of the Empire. Had not he been the first to feel Dycian soil beneath his feet, climbing the siege ladders with two arrows sticking out of his hauberk and his left shoulder puckering from hot grease? Had he not carried the city of Eiben, in those series of grim half-wars against the border countries standing between Aeleria and Salucia, his sword work not yet masterful but his strength and speed without human comparison? Was he not, alone among mankind, the equal of an Eternal, no, not the equal, the proven better? Leaping back atop the barricade, the world, Bas roared at his soldiers and they echoed it back, near to fifty and still tougher than any man living; what he’d lost in speed he made up for in technique, and he had not lost a step in savagery, no he had not, and was she watching? Was she watching? By the gods, was she watching?

5
    H ammer had the bottle hidden below the wide sweep of his travelling coat, prepared a few moments beforehand. Pure alcohol or near to it, vile stuff – although Pyre had drunk worse when he had been Thistle. Years since a drop of alcohol had passed his lips, and he did not lament the interim, indeed the stink of the bottle from half a block away was near enough to make him gag. It was strange, how many of Thistle’s old pleasures seemed to Pyre not only foolish but lamentable, links in the chains that had bound him.
    ‘He’s awful new to be taking point,’ said Agate quietly. This was self-evident and verbalising it pointless, but Agate had the tendency to grow nervous in the moments before a job, edgy and irritable. In the moment itself he was very cool, he was a good man to have standing beside you, blade drawn and scowling, but then anticipation is often the worst part of a thing.
    ‘He’ll handle it,’ Pyre said with some confidence. ‘And so will you.’
    Agate nodded and smiled and tightened his grip round the hilt of his long knife.
    Not that Agate’s concerns were altogether misguided. Only a month and a half now since a boy named Seed had become a man named Hammer, barely enough time to hear the truth, let alone become a member of the Dead Pigeons. But it was Pyre’s belief – and he did not think this was parochialism, he