The spear pierced the leather helmet of the man climbing the siege ladder, sending him sliding down the rungs, clattering into his companions. The spear was whisked from Dren’s grasp as his foe fell, the weapon still embedded in his head, and Dren felt splinters entering his skin as the crude wooden shaft slid out of his hand.
He drew his officer’s sword, but the moment it was out of its scabbard another blade clashed with it. Dren turned. Before him stood Valentine Hawthorne himself, the leper prince, his scarred mouth grinning at him. Blood seeped from a gash in his forehead, but he paid it no heed as he struck for Dren’s chest.
He parried the first blow with ease, but the second came so quickly it sent him reeling backwards as he attempted to dodge it. He stepped backwards again as his sword clanged against the prince’s, and then he was under attack from above, the prince using the foot he had over Dren to deliver a vicious downwards blow aimed for his skull. The force of the hit drove him to his knees as he blocked clumsily. A boot connected with his face savagely and he collapsed backwards, blood trickling from his broken nose.
He heard a voice from above. “Is the pain too much for you?” The prince taunted, and Dren rolled at just the last second as the point of his foe’s blade clanged into the ground where his heart would have been. He groped for a sword, but his eyes were streaming and he could barely see. Another kick hit him in the stomach, and for a moment he felt as if he would die there and then. But his hands clasped around a sword handle which was sticky with the blood of its former owner and all his pain was forgotten as he drove the weapon upwards at his enemy with all his might.
Valentine Hawthorne blocked lazily and Dren rolled to his feet, on the offensive. His next blow seemed to send the prince stumbling backwards and he felt like victory was near as he stabbed at his exposed stomach.
However, it was all a feint. Hawthorne ducked and drove his sword beneath Dren’s guard, the cold steel slicing a deep gash up the inside of his arm. Dren screamed, dropping his sword and collapsing backwards. All his hurt came rushing back as the heir to the throne raised his sword for the finishing blow.
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