Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) by Garrett Robinson Page B

teach me the way they taught you as a boy!”
    All the while, her voice played at a high, strident pitch. Guards up and down the line of wagons came closer, drawn by the commotion. She saw many of them smiling, amused by her ungainly swings. Best of all, Gregor still did not draw his steel. No one spied danger in her wild flailing.
    The guard came forward, and again Loren fled. She drew him farther from the wagon near the end of the line. Now no one stood close. A flash of purple told her that Annis had gained the wagon.
    “Come, Sir Lord Captain Commander King! Teach me! You will not find a more willing student.” Loren faced off against Gregor from ten yards away and swung the sword in two interlocking circles. “Meet me with a riposte, if you can, or whatever you call it.”
    She glanced over her shoulder to see if any guards approached from behind and was surprised to find Damaris. The merchant stood near her carriage at the head of the line, her eyes fixed intently on Loren. Her face broke into a small smile.
    “Your lady laughs at you,” said Loren. “You should defend your honor.” The other guard lunged again. She spun clear at the last second. The movement nearly made her drop the sword, but she rescued it before it fell.
    At last, she had chosen her words unwisely. She heard the sharp hiss of a drawn sword and turned to see the tip of Gregor’s blade.
    Steeling her nerves, Loren smiled. “At last! Do you mean to teach me, master?” She leapt aside to avoid another attempt by the guard to recover his weapon. Her foot lashed out, tangled with his, and sent the man crashing to the dirt. “I warn you, I will not go easy on you.”
    Gregor advanced upon her with measured, resolute steps. “I have warned you. Your fool’s tongue will not spare you.”
    Hate and fury heated his glare, the first true emotions Loren had seen in him since her arrival at the caravan. But over his shoulder, she saw another flash of purple cloth with gold brocade, this time moving away from the wagon. Loren had done her job. She dropped the sword, and it sank point first into the ground.
    “Very well. If you do not mean to teach me, I shall press upon you no further.”
    Gregor did not answer, nor stop. Loren scarcely had time to think, He truly means to kill me before the air whistled with his blade. She dropped to the ground, rolling away as it cut through the air where her head had been.
    “Gregor!”
    Damaris’s sharp voice cracked like a whip. Gregor froze as he stood above her, eyes snapping to his lady. He drew three deep breaths while Loren waited on her belly.
    “She makes you look a fool, and you allow it to anger you? Do you act upon the whim of a girl not yet come to womanhood?”
    I have, too!  
    She held the thought, knowing its voice might mean death.
    Gregor returned his sword to its scabbard in a single fluid motion and bowed to Damaris, his face an emotionless mask once again. “Of course not, my lady. I only acted because I thought her a threat.”
    “This one? A threat?” Damaris scoffed. “Return to your duties. All of you.”
    The other guards drifted away and back to their posts. Loren heard more than a few chuckle as they went. Her eyes rose to meet Gregor’s. She could not mistake the fire burning within him, or consider herself safe in his presence. But with any luck, Loren need not worry after today.
    “Thank you for the lesson, master,” she said softly.
    Gregor turned and stalked off without a word. Loren rose and went to find Annis.

fifteen

    They spotted the Cabrus walls as the sun hung low in the sky, bathing Loren’s right side in a soft orange glow. Nerves roiled her blood, and she hunched her shoulders lower.
    She walked near the carriages, in plain sight of both Damaris and Annis, under Gregor’s baleful glare. As the walls loomed taller, Damaris’s carriage swerved left to draw near. The merchant disembarked and walked beside Loren.
    “You will stay safe if you remain