Shadow Knight's Mate Read Online Free Page B

the chest. Jack fell backward, onto the ground, catching himself so his hands were down on the concrete floor. His opponent’s eyes smiled. Jack would not be able to rise from that position, in this small space, without making himself vulnerable for all the time his opponent would need. Jack just sat for a moment, but that was dangerous too. The attacker’s foot reached out and pulled Jack’s foot forward, so that his legs were extended, making it even harder to rise and leaving Jack even more exposed. Then, his fastest move yet, the man pivoted on that foot and brought his other one around in a roundhouse kick Jack didn’t even have time to fall back to avoid. He cringed, beginning to slide away from the blow, hoping to evade enough of its force to stay alive and barely conscious.
    The swish of flesh past his face was so close that Jack could smell the dirt under the man’s toenails. One of the nails, very short, sliced Jack’s nose, opening a trail of fire. Jack screamed.
    Then he leaped back and up to his feet. His opponent hadn’t been toying with him. He’d been interrupted by problems of hisown.
A
problem, that is. Chun was back. He stood behind the attacker, having pulled him back just enough to keep his foot from connecting with Jack’s head. Then he had dropped him. Chun stood there smiling slightly, hands up loosely in front of him, bouncing on the balls of his feet, looking a little ridiculous in his jeans and Mickey Mouse t-shirt and martial arts pose.
    The man on the ground moved so fast he was airborne as he was turning, both his legs and hands aimed at Chun. He came at him like a rain of knives.
    And Chun spun, closing momentarily through those arms and legs, inside the other man’s defenses, where Chun cracked him in the nose with his elbow. There was a flurry of other moves on both parts, mostly defensive, Jack thought, and then the two fighters backed apart.
    The attacker didn’t shake off Chun’s blow as he had Jack’s. He appeared obviously dazed, blood spurting down from his nose, covering his mouth and chin. Chun began to move again.
    The root of Chun’s reputation in the martial-arts-gaming world, even before he’d designed a game, was that he had been North Korean and then southeast Asian karate champion three years in a row when he was eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. The digits in his
Deadly Digits
game were his own.
    Jack had not struck up a conversation with him by random.
    â€œTake the other one!” Chun yelled as he spun in to attack the man.
    Jack turned to the woman, who had stayed back from the action. She looked panicked, he thought.
    This lithe blonde martial arts woman was such a gaming convention. They were always turning up in the kinds of games Chun designed. In real life there were very few, and Jack didn’t think whoever was following him had come up with one at short notice. The woman was just along as a distraction while the man came in for the kill. Jack gave her an appeasing look, as if to say,
Just don’t do anything stupid and you’ll get out of this okay.
    And the woman spun on her heel and kicked him in the head.
    â€œUnghh.” He had had just enough time to turn with the blow, slipping some of its force, but his head still rang. He jumped back, trying to gain time, and she rushed in to him. Jack still had half the broken stick in his hand, and he thrust it at her face like a knife, its jagged end capable of doing a lot of damage. She evaded it smoothly, though, twisting back and to the side, which gave Jack the opportunity to sweep his own leg behind hers and pull. This move didn’t knock her down, just made her lose balance and stumble back. Jack didn’t press his advantage, afraid she’d hit something vital the next time she closed with him.
    â€œChun!” he yelled. “I can’t take this other one!”
    The woman smiled. In a strange accent, sort of British-Chinese, she