His blades met their cuts and thrusts, but he couldn’t find an opening. The clash went on for several seconds, becoming more and more dangerous as the men fanned out to his flanks.

Until Shield arrived. She launched herself from atop me and hurled herself at the blonde man on Ugly’s left flank. Her kite shield rang like a bell as it smashed into the side of the blonde man’s face, clearly shattering his cheekbone and his jaw. She followed this up with a vicious swing of her mace, an archaic looking thing made from wood and steel, smashing down on top of his collar bone. His bone broke with a hideous cracking sound. He fell hard to the muddy ground and sat blinking as Shield stepped over him.

Ugly was having a better time of it with only two opponents. They tried to take him from left and right simultaneously. He blocked a swing from the left, stepped in deep, and sliced the inside of the swordsman’s upper arm with his second blade. Without pausing for a kill strike, he whirled to the right in time to deflect the second man’s attack wide to the side. Ugly took this kill, shattering ribs audibly as his blade sank deep into the center of the man’s chest. Without pausing, Ugly wrenched out his blade and spun one more time, slicing the throat of the first swordsman.

Across the alley, Vapor dropped to one knee and slapped her hand down into the mud. The alley turned brutally cold, my breath pluming in the air. Cracking ripples formed around her hands, radiated outward at incredible speed, and froze the mud ahead of her. The remaining three opponents panicked and started trying to wrench their ankles free. Shield leapt over Vapor, landing on the ice. She nearly slipped but managed to keep traction with a nimble grace. Shield began the work of disarming and smashing each of the stuck enemies into submission.

“Get up, scribbler,” a deep voice rasped from a scratched throat, like gravel rubbing against sand paper.

A huge, meaty hand clamped onto the shoulder of my jacket and hauled me to my feet. I turned and came face to face with a massive, scarred visage. Intense, deep-set eyes that would have been more at home in a nocturnal predator looked me over, probing for weakness. It was Ugly. My heart eased its frantic pounding.

He must have judged me well enough to stand, because he released his hold on me and turned to survey the alley. It was a mess. But the squad was intact, and the work was done.

His terrible voice rumbled again: “Let’s get the leftovers back to the Captain.”

Chapter 2

Not a bad intro, right? Pretty exciting stuff. And all true. All of this book is true, unfortunately.

Hello there, reader. My name is Belkan Candor.