The Boy Who Wept Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

Dino.
    ‘And knock them out, every one,’ replied Massimo.
    The screaming began.
    ‘All this for a glass of wine no better than piss and vinegar,’ grunted Virmyre.
    A figure in grey lunged across the street toward Dino but there was something wrong with the motion. More of a lurch than any considered movement, awkward and lacking the fluid assurance of a seasoned fighter. Dino met the charge with a strike of his own, slashing down at the man’s knee with a force lent urgency by adrenaline.
    His opponent blocked it. Almost.
    A wooden club was smashed aside as Dino’s blade bit deep into rags and flesh. The smell was overpowering, the cloying musk of an unwashed body, the acrid stench of urine. The attacker stumbled, momentum carrying him past Dino, who stepped in behind and neatly slashed across the back of his thigh. The man screamed for his severed hamstring, flopping down into the dirt. He proceeded to shriek and writhe as if on fire. Dino skewered him, feeling the tip of his blade catch on ribs before slipping through. The man coughed and trembled. Dino twisted the blade and tore it loose.
    Massimo had also felled one of the grey men. He looked up from running his opponent through and locked eyes with Dino, a frown on his fine features.
    ‘What in nine hells is happening here?’ asked Dino.
    ‘First Anea, now Virmyre,’ replied the swordsman. But Virmyre remained untouched, shaken but unharmed.
    ‘I don’t think they even noticed me,’ intoned the professore .
    Two of the attackers were already departing through the crowd, hands full of plundered meat from the butcher. The last of them was wrestling with Angelicola, who gasped and sank to his knees, clutching his arm. There was a pitiful cast to his haggard features, part confusion, part fear.
    Dino surged across the street, blade reflecting brightly in the sun, teeth bared, heart kicking loud and strong. Angelicola hinged forward from the waist, face down in the dirt. His attacker need no further encouragement, fleeing with the dottore ’s basket hooked over one elbow. Dino followed, body bent low, sword parallel with the ground, eyes fixed on shoulder blades dressed in filthy rags. There was a dull roar in his ears, a bitter tang of adrenaline in the back of his throat that sang for blood like a dirge.
    Suddenly the figure lifted off the ground as if plucked by an unseen hand, bounding up to an overhanging balcony. Dino snarled in frustration, turned the corner, taking the building’s wooden stairs two at a time. Cittadini stared after pursuer and pursued, eyes glazed with shock, unsure of what they’d seen. Elsewhere in the town were occasional screams and shouts, becoming more distant with each passing second.
    Angelicola’s attacker had reached the end of an adjoining balcony when Dino caught up with him. A woman hanging out her washing had been knocked aside amid a scattering of garments. She looked up at Dino with unfocused eyes, nose a red ruin.
    ‘Going somewhere?’ Dino snarled, closing the gap with his prey. He fastened a hand on the basket, wrenching it back. The thief turned and lashed out with a knife, ripping through Dino’s sleeve and the bandages beneath. Metal skittered from something hard, then snagged in the shorn material. There was a moment’s confusion and then the basket fell apart, tumbling olives, vegetables and bread down into the street below. A clay pitcher of milk fell for long seconds only to shatter, a shock of white across the grey cobblestones. Angelicola’s attacker slammed into the balcony rail and bounced back. Dino mashed the pommel of his sword into the grey man’s face on instinct, hearing the wet snap of something beneath the hood. The momentum of the strike lifted the man over the rail, pitching him head first to the street below.
    Dino gasped, watched the descent, heard the muffled thump. Silence.
    The Orfano hopped over the rail and landed nimbly, rolling as the fall stung the balls of his feet. The chase