Awake the Cullers (History of Ondar) Read Online Free PDF Page B

not caring about the outcome. Either he would win and survive, or he would die, and this would all be over. With that in mind, Evan embraced what could be his last few moments of life. His senses grew sharper. He could smell the blood and sweat. He felt the sun beat down on his skin. His shadow formed strange shapes as he moved and swung the hammer. He heard the crack of bones breaking as his weapon finally hit. Following up with more attacks, he refused to give the other man the space to recover. He may die this day, but he would take as many of them with him as he could. The man’s finger blades pierced the skin of Evan’s bruised shoulder. Evan just raised a knee into the man’s stomach and followed with a wide swing at his head. Evan looked down at the blood on his hands, just like that night. The only difference was this time the blood belonged to him instead of the men he killed. He closed his hands and felt the blood squish between his fingers. Then the next man jumped into the arena, and he had no more time for thought.
    Fighting and killing. That was his existence , now. The dirt at his feet flew in the flurry of battle. His heightened senses and screaming pain made every moment surreal. As the third man lay dead, the fourth on his way to join the fight, Evan noted, not without a hint of satisfaction, how easy it was becoming for him to kill. These men, brutes though they were, each fell to his hammer.
    Standing over his latest kill, Evan looked around for his next opponent. No one moved. At the center of the arena stood the halfling girl. Her hair was blue now. Or was it purple? Evan’s grip on his hammer tightened. He wanted to crush her small skull and watch that playful grin die on her face. He ran toward her, but she stood, casually picking something from her fingernails. He swung his weapon, but she jumped, briefly touching off the end of his moving hammer and somersaulting over his head. He turned, but she slid between his feet and kicked him in the back. Evan growled and tried, unsuccessfully to land a blow. She was fast and small, much more so than his second opponent. And she was barely trying to fight. Her weapons were not drawn. She didn’t even use her hands to hit him. Other than the occasional kick, she didn’t touch him at all.
    “What’s the matter?” she quipped. “Can’t beat an unarmed girl?”
    “ I think he’s had enough for today, ” the announcer woman said. There were a few disgruntled moans throughout the crowd, but no one argued. The girl relaxed her pose, turning to face the woman, and Evan saw his shot. Running full speed the few feet between them, he swung hard. The woman in the top hat pulled out a small baton from her coat and shook it down into a long staff, catching him square in the chest and sweeping his legs out from under him. Putting one foot on his chest and pushing on the nerve in his wrist so he let go of the hammer, the woman leaned down and looked him in the eyes. “ I said, that’s enough. ” He opened his lips, but she put a finger to them and shook her head. “Shhh, not a whisper. ”
    Evan would have argued, but the combination of her hit to his chest, lying still on the ground and too much blood loss , finally took its toil, and he slipped off to blissful unconsciousness.
     

Chapter 3
     
    Kern loaded another body on to the pyre and headed back to search more houses. At least, what was left of the houses. This was how the entire morning had gone. There were too many bodies to bury, so they built a pyre. That left them each with the grisly task of carrying the dead. Lynnalin helped where she could, but they could all see the toil it had on her. The last house she explored was a bad one. None of them were ready to see so much death. Even coming from Suriax, where death was common and murder accepted, this was different. These bodies were brutalized. Some were missing limbs or even heads. Many were far too young. Even Suriaxians had a soft spot for