The Wounded Guardian Read Online Free

was roaring in rage at the sight of his two dead brothers, but it had taken him precious time to get past Tomon and Martil was waiting for him as he charged in, axe held high. He aimed a huge blow,which would have split Martil open from neck to hip if it had landed. But Martil had been fighting axemen for years and simply spun sideways. His swords flicked out almost as an afterthought, first one then the second opening the young giant’s belly like a purse as he slipped past the axe. The young man blundered on for a few more paces, before literally falling over his own intestines as they spilled out uncontrollably. His feet slipped out from beneath him and his head slammed into a hardened rut of earth as he collapsed into blood and gore.
    Martil swung around again, this time to face a bewildered Edil, who had started forward but had been stunned into immobility by the slaughter of his sons.
    ‘My, my boys,’ he gasped, mouth sagging open to show blackened and missing teeth.
    Martil glanced down at the three twitching bodies and felt an enormous rage building.
    ‘I warned you. I told you but you wouldn’t listen!’ he snarled.
    Edil just stared at him. ‘But the wine, and the singing! No-one could behave like that and then be able to do this,’ he babbled, seemingly oblivious to the fact Martil was advancing towards him. ‘How could I let you ride by like that? You would have fed our family for months!’
    Martil ignored what he was saying. ‘Look what you made me do! I swore I was finished with this, I gave you fair warning but still you attacked me!’ The ground seemed to be tilting and Martil could feel the blood pounding in his temples. He knew that feeling. That was how he had felt before the assault on Bellic and it had only been washed away in a tide of violence and blood.
    ‘Now what am I going to do? You killed my sons!’ Edil moaned. The charm, the verbal jousting and the roguish smile were all gone.
    ‘Do you know how much blood is on my hands?’ Martil glanced down at himself. ‘And not just on my hands, but on my face and clothes as well? Do you have any idea of how sick I am of the smell of blood? How I’ve tried to get it out of my mind?’
    ‘W—what are you saying?’ Edil realised Martil, his two swords dripping blood, was only a step away. But he made no move to raise the axe he held loosely by his side.
    ‘Blood has a stink. Like you have a stink. Like your whole filthy family. I did you a favour by killing them. Now if you are a man, you’d try to avenge them. You were brave enough before, when you thought I was at your mercy. Come on!’ Martil spat into Edil’s face, and the man recoiled as if he had been struck. ‘You could stand there and give the orders, now finish what you started. Try and do what those stupid, stinking goats you called your sons couldn’t. Or are you as gutless as that one back there?’
    Martil hurled the words at Edil, wanting the man to attack him, enjoying seeing the shock replaced by anger, and then by fear. Part of him could still recognise that he was goading the man until he had no choice but to attack and be killed, but he was just too angry to want to do anything but take it out on the man in front of him.
    ‘Yes, I’m going to kill you, too. Slaughter you like the pig you are. You couldn’t live like a man, come and see if you can die like one, you bastard!’
    But Edil still made no move to attack; he was obviously unable to follow what had happened,unable to comprehend how a drunken fool had massacred his family. Martil felt his anger bubble over at the way the man just stood there, unwilling to finish what he had started.
    ‘Come on! I’ll slice off your face if you won’t fight!’ he hissed, then spat again into Edil’s face.
    This seemed to break the spell the robber was under. He screamed a wordless challenge and swung his axe at Martil; wild, crazy swings that only cut the air, then Martil stepped inside the axe’s arc and swung both