Demonkin Read Online Free PDF

blocked the blow but staggered back.
    Tania kept at him, each step like a dancer's, every motion flowing into the next. He could find no opening. His staff bucked in his hands as he blocked her thrusts, over and over, and what few thrusts he launched met nothing but air. He was already breathing hard. Not good.
    Tania did not seem at all winded and Aryn had to do something about that. He feinted, drawing her right, and then spun his staff over and across his forearm. It whipped toward her unprotected left side.
    She slapped his thrust away with the flat of her palm and spun her staff one-handed, balanced inside her arm. Her staff's tip brushed the tip of Aryn's nose and sent him stumbling. He barely kept his feet.
    No follow up came. Tania stepped back, snorted softly, and returned to a low guard. She let him recover. That showed how little she thought of him.
    The crowd cheered and yelled, thrilled by this display of martial prowess. Aryn edged forward, feinted twice, and thrust again and again. Tania laughed and stepped this way then that, toying with him.
    Aryn's breath burned in his lungs as he fought on, futilely. It reminded him of how it felt to crawl from the mouth of a demon. His lungs had burned like this as he emerged, weak and charred by flame, from a demonic underworld of spikes and torture. The Underside.
    Tania chuckled and knocked away his latest strike. Aryn snarled, charged her, and one boot slid on treacherous mud. Her staff slammed the other, taking his feet out from under him, and the dream world spun around him just before he slammed down hard. Defeated.
    “He's no demon,” Tania said, breathing loudly as she withdrew her staff, “but he did take your goods and skulk around your homes like some monster out of a bard's tale.” Her dream form head tilted. “He's not evil. He just didn't think through all the consequences.”
    Aryn scowled at her from inside his lowered hood, but did not dare rise. He wanted to stand, puff out his chest and declare her mistaken, but he could not think of a single way she was wrong.
    “So then...” Bart glanced at Zeb and the others with him. “Lady Tania?”
    “What do we do now?” Zeb's wife asked.
    “Nothing.” Tania lowered her staff and slung it across her back. “This man is leaving. I'll collect your payments and ensure he never troubles you again. Provided you're agreeable?”
    The mob murmured among themselves but none of them, even Zeb, expressed any disagreement.
    “Thank you,” Zeb's wife said for all of them. “Thank you for coming back to us. You're a good woman.” The somewhat befuddled mob dispersed.
    “I do try.” Tania casually waved off the villagers. “Five guard your souls.”
    “Five guard your soul,” a few murmured back, before hurrying off to safe, warm homes.
    “So.” Tania leaned forward and held out her hand. “Can I offer you something to eat?”
    Aryn stared up at her. Her dream form appeared relaxed despite the cold night and the emptying road. Then again, he had not lost a quarterstaff contest in fifteen years. With Tania's skill, she had little reason to worry.
    “You're offering me supper?” The cold mud all around him smelled like horse manure.
    “It's a bit late for supper. Consider it an early breakfast, one you won't have to skulk away with.”
    Aryn pushed up, clenched his jaw, and brushed dirt off the front of his robe. “You don't want a meal with me.”
    “Because of your burned and blistered skin? Or because of your missing eyes?”
    Aryn stiffened. “I'd thought the robe—”
    “It hides you well from other people.” Tania retrieved his quarterstaff from a stand of tall grass. “My neighbors didn't see it, thank the Five, or there'd have been no stopping their accusations of demon and worse.”
    Aryn's damaged skin flushed as she returned holding his staff. At least he could still blush, even with all his skin charred. “So why doesn't my appearance bother you? Why don't you think I'm a demon,