“You won’t survive this, Thaddeus!” one soldier bellowed.
Thaddeus twirled his blade, opening the healing wound once more. He squeezed his fist, dripping blood in front of where he stood.
The wind howled.
The soldiers stumbled and shuffled, trying to brace themselves against the sudden gale.
Making a show of licking his wound, he flashed them a biting smile that unsettled his quarry and satisfied the darkness whirling inside him. “I suppose you believe you will?” He laughed, the sound carrying over the winds. “Pity.”
He unleashed his dagger.
The blade glinted as it cut through the air, tip over hilt, whistling through the wind at an untraceable speed.
And sank between the eyes of a soldier.
The others gaped, precious moments lost as their focusflicked between Thaddeus and the dead man pitching backward and bouncing against the ground.
Thaddeus called his dagger back as one soldier made to grab it. The blade cleaved the dead Fae’s skull open before returning to Thaddeus’s palm.
The soldiers roared as one unit and charged toward him, pushing against the winds hindering their approach. Thaddeus watched, never once blinking, tapping the flat of his blade slowly against his leg.
Counting down paces.
Counting down seconds.
Ten feet. Five.
His eyes narrowed, his lips curled upward as the front line of soldiers raised their swords?—
He punched his boot down at the blood drop line, power blooming through his foot.
Rock spears shot up at an angle, impaling soldiers.
He kicked back his foot.
The spears retracted at lightning speed, folding and contorting four bodies into holes the spears had left behind.
The remaining soldiers lunged at him.
Thaddeus spun away from one sword’s swipe, dodged another, danced around their amateur offensive attacks. He deflected two strikes with his blade, a third with a block from his forearm against the soldier’s metal bracer.
“Give up!”
Thaddeus laughed. “You mustn’t know me, or my reputation.” He ducked, spun, lunged toward the soldier who spoke. Rose behind him, catching him off guard. Thaddeus snatched him by the throat and cocked his head. “Inevergive up.”
The soldier never saw the blade before it pierced his heart.
Thaddeus grabbed up his sword and went on the offensivewith the remaining soldiers, light on his feet, limber in movement. These foolish Fae never stood a chance.
It took him a matter of minutes to have a pool of bodies and blood at his feet.
Stepping over the scattered remains, he closed in on the door to the hall. ’Twas the last place standing, and would be the next to fall.
Standing to the side and using the tip of the sword he’d stolen, he lifted the latch and slowly opened the door.
A furious succession of magic sprayed against the tunnel wall across from the open door.
“Utterly predictable, you imbecile,” he muttered. He used the distraction to gather a quick surveillance of the hall with a tendril of magic. A small group of females huddled together in the far corner, whimpering and crying. A line of men, five in total, a mix of the last remaining soldiers and lower-caste Fae. A final barrier between him and his target.
