The Wounded Guardian Read Online Free Page A

swords, putting all his anger, his frustration and his hatred into the double blow. His swords struck Edil’s neck from opposite sides and the man’s head spun off and hit the road, rolling into the bushes. The body stayed upright for a moment, pumping out blood, then collapsed onto itself.
    Martil turned, to see if there was any threat from the sons. There was none. Their dead eyes seemed to stare up at him, accusing him, their faces frozen forever in a rictus of shock and agony. He looked from one to another but there was no life, no movement, just the hideous wounds he had ripped into them and the stink of blood and opened bowels. He spun back and slammed his swords deep into the ground, then he bent over and vomited, a seemingly endless stream of wine and the bread and cheese that he had eaten that morning.
    He hurried over to where Tomon still waited patiently, ripping off his stained tunic and trousers as he went. He grabbed a waterskin and splashed it over his hands, using the clean parts of his clothing to scrub the blood off his face and hands. Then he rinsed out his mouth and spat.
    He stopped and stared at his wineskin, lying next to Edil’s body, started walking towards it but decidedthe red wine would look and taste too much like blood to him. He did not know what to do next, whether to just ride on or bury the bodies. He leaned against Tomon and buried his face in his hands. It had happened again. He had lost control and killed unnecessarily. He need not have killed the sons; he could have just wounded them. But once he drew his swords, all thought, all reason, was lost. As for Edil’s death…It was closer to murder.
    ‘He would have tried to avenge his sons,’ Martil told Tomon, but he could tell even the horse was not convinced. ‘He was given the choice to leave me alone!’ But not at the end, when he might have taken it , a voice inside him said. Telling himself that the man was a robber, who had obviously killed before, that by wiping out his family he had in fact saved the lives of other travellers was scant comfort. It did not change the truth.
    Martil shook with self-loathing. ‘He’s dead because I wanted to kill him. Because I wanted him to pay for making me angry,’ he told Tomon. ‘Because I lost control again. Like Bellic.’
    It was one of the reasons he had left the army, left behind his homeland of Rallora, even though he was a hero down there, at least to some of the people.
    ‘One of the reasons? It was the only reason, you stupid bastard,’ he told himself. Everything else was only part of the truth.
    Bellic. The one act of anger and revenge that had turned him from hero to villain. The town that would haunt him for the rest of his life. The years of war had robbed him of something, the ability to control himself—to control his temper. When he got angry, people died. Even here, in another country. And he did not know how to stop it.
    I cannot take much more of this before I go completely mad , he thought…he rubbed his face with a shaking hand. It will be different from now on. I shall change , he swore silently.
    Slowly he dressed in fresh clothes. But when he sat down to pull on his boots, a loud groan made him leap to his feet, heart pounding. He started towards his swords, before he realised the noises were coming from the black-bearded son he had gutted. He was trying to pull himself out of his own entrails and turn himself onto his back.
    Martil used his old tunic to wipe the handle of his swords, before retrieving them and watching the youth’s struggles. When he was sure it was not a trick, he walked carefully over. A man could not fight well with half his insides around his knees, but in sixteen years of bloody warfare Martil had seen too many of his friends, and later the men he commanded, die in unusual ways to take chances now. Martil knew what he had to do. The young robber could linger for a turn of the hourglass or more, in agony. He stepped forward and raised