The Boy with the Porcelain Blade Read Online Free PDF

Giancarlo said. The novice scuttled forward, equipping the second man with a short blade, then withdrew. Even across the room Lucien could tell it was a well balanced weapon, the hilt wrapped in deerskin. Lucien laid his sword on the dais with reverence. He looked up to find Giancarlo gazing down intently. Neither of them spoke.
    It was unusual but not unheard of for students to be tested on the knife. It wasn’t regarded as a noble weapon but a crude tool for thugs and petty thieves, the domain of desperate women and assassins. If Giancarlo had wished to insinuate something through his choice of trials then he was making his message admirably clear.
    The man circled Lucien and regarded him with cool grey eyes. He was weatherbeaten, olive-skinned with a large aquiline nose. His right eye bore the purple-yellow of severe bruising. The knifeman’s left hand extended forward, fingers spread wide, the knife held up next to his face in his right hand, ready to be thrust into unprotected flesh. His knees were bent slightly, weight over the balls of his feet. Lucien hadn’t conceived there might be dangerous criminals in the lands surrounding Demesne. He quickly revised this opinion.
    The punch from the left hand caught him off balance. Clattering into his jaw and knocking him to one side. There was a twinge of panic as he realised how quick his opponent was. Lucien purged the feeling, holding a picture of Virmyre’s most admired sharks in his mind. Deadly, implacable, attacking without reserve or hesitation.
    Lucien slashed across the man’s torso, making him leap back, then directed a backhanded blow with the hilt of the weapon, cracking it across his opponent’s nose. Blood spilled in a torrent; the criminal stumbled and swore. Lucien attempted to kick his feet out from under him, instead walking into a wild swipe that opened the right breast of his jacket. The flesh beneath remained whole. The man grinned, his teeth a foul shade of yellow. He launched in with a series of staccato jabs, using the point of the blade to drive Lucien back across the chamber. On and on, his attacker pressed forward, not pausing for a second, each thrust faster and more ferocious than the last. He punctuated the knife thrusts with strikes from his left hand. Lucien batted the blade aside with his knife held in a reverse grip, watching the knifeman’s left hand warily. Much more of this and he’d be up against the wall.
    A split second, a realisation. The man had overextended himself. Lucien bent his knees, punching with every ounce of force in his body. Using the blunt handle of the knife he mauled the man’s ruined nose. The criminal howled in pain, staggering back, blinking away tears. The farmer, if indeed he had ever been a farmer, slipped on the spattering of blood from his own nose. He hit the ground with a muffled yelp, his right hand concealed by the weight of his body. He attempted to stand, then exhaled noisily, an awful shiver running through the length of his body.
    The training room pitched into silence.
    ‘Get up!’ roared Giancarlo, who cuffed the novice soundly across the back of the head. The novice ran forward, in turn giving the criminal a generous boot to the ribs. The man didn’t flinch, a deadweight. The novice looked to the superiore with an edge of rising panic on his face. Giancarlo approached and rolled the body over. The man had fallen on his own blade, betrayed underfoot by his own slippery blood.
    ‘This at least you have managed to get right, bastard boy,’ said Giancarlo eyeing Lucien. ‘Let’s see if you’ve really got the nerve to wear the sashes of House Fontein.’
    Lucien stepped forward to the dais to retrieve his cherished blade. Giancarlo calmly laid one boot down on the scabbard and folded his arms. A cruel smile twisted on his lips.
    ‘You’ll not need this. The last fight is hand-to-hand.’
    ‘What?’ said Lucien, outraged. No testing had ever been conducted in such a way. ‘I have to