Goddess Of Ashes and Sun

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (Titus)

The soldier threw me into the wall, stealing my breath and trying to impale me with his filthy sword. I screamed a wordless cry, grabbing his forearms and trying with all my might not to lose my head.

He snarled a vulgar Northic slur at me and put more of his weight into his assault. I was either going to suffocate or lose my head. Panic started to crawl up my stomach and creep into my throat. I really didn't want to die like this.

The blade kissed my skin, a small trickle of blood pooling at my collarbone.

"A little help here!" I screamed.

Pharaoh whirled his Horseman's pick into the neck of another Aðal soldier but couldn't yank it out in time and was thrown into the wall near me by a large woman with a blood-stained helmet.

"I'm a tad bit busy myself, my dear!" he yelled back, trying to use the dead soldier as a shield.

"Screw you!"

I let go of the soldier's arms and grabbed the flat of the blade with both hands, my tired arms quaking in protest. Don't fail me now arms.

I reared my head back and slammed it into the soldier's flimsy helmeted face.

He yelled out in pain and the weight on me eased. I kicked at his knees, yanking the blade out of his grasp and sending it into his collarbone.

I quickly turned around and launched myself onto the large woman's back, wrapping my arms around her thick slightly armoured neck.

"She's all yours!" I growled as I was thrown back first into a different wall, my tailbone screaming in pain.

Pharaoh dislodged his horseman's pick and swung it into her stomach. He quickly let go of the handle and grabbed his Morning Star from his belt.

"Mind your arm, darling!" He smashed the spiked ball into the woman's helmet, cracking the metal and lodging one of the spikes in her thick skull, barely avoiding taking off my forearms.

As her body fell I jumped off her back, stumbling slightly from the pain in my back, and grabbing onto Pharaoh to steady to myself.

"You alright there?" he asked, out of breath.

"Fat lot of help you were," I gasped back.

He let out an airy chuckle. "I was busy, I knew you could handle yourself. After all, you are the assassin here." He wiped a trickle of blood out of his twinkling brown eyes and smiled.

I straightened. We'd cleared this hallway, time to go on to the next.

"Let's go. The dungeon should be right around that corner." I pointed to the turn in the hallway up ahead.

He nodded, pulling his Horseman's pick out of the woman with a yank.

We slowly, carefully, turned the corner, hoping there wasn't another squadron of Aðal soldiers.

Two soldiers stood in front of the doors of the dungeon, looking nervous and confused.

"I'll get them, you get the door," I hissed.

I sprinted out from our hallway, jumping up and kicking off the wall, my knee lodging into the first guard's throat and sending us both tumbling to the floor. I spun on my knees, grinding the guards throat into the ground, and grabbed the second guard's knee and smashed it backwards with the hilt of my dagger.

He let out a painful scream and crumpled. His head was chest level and I grabbed it, standing, and smashing it into the floor, his blood spilling across the polished stones.