Page 34 of The Shadow of Breninsol
The sound of the girl’s hasty footsteps as she took off at a sprint down the alley momentarily distracted her. It allowed him to grab his discarded weapon and lunged at her. Eleanor jumped back to dodge his attack, and she collided with the wall. The impact jarred her, but she moved back and away from the stone wall before he could slam into her.
He turned and swung widely at her. He aimed low, which made her move backwards to better block the punch from his other hand. His cloak covered most of his clothes and head, and he had a scarf of some sort tied over his mouth and nose to hide his face, but no protective leathers. Whoever he was, he had thought picking up the girl would have been easy prey tonight. He was wrong.
The man repeated his attack, swinging with his knife in one hand and throwing punches with his other hand, making her continuously block and move backwards.
Eleanor kept the glint of silver to the edge of her vision as it slashed through the air, each time aiming for her chest. His predictable attack betrayed his lack of training and inexperience fighting true predators.
After she feinted a counter, she realised he had been herding her, moving her towards the mouth of the alleyway, where he’d be able to better see her under the pub’s lights and have potential allies to his cause.
His knife came down onto her again, but this time, she twisted to the side and dragged her blade over his bicep.
Regardless of his unskilled attack, his feet showed his experience, keeping his balance nicely weighted as he pivoted with his back to the pub brawl. Eleanor kept low and backed up, almost expecting him to turn and leave, but he made a growling sound in the back of his throat and followed her further into the dark alley.
She smirked under her cowl, knowing that she had angered him, and he’d make a mistake soon. He made a few jabs to test his arm, but she backed away from the hits. Eleanor hadn’t made a deep cut. It was enough for him to continue this fight, but he’d know and feel that she’d marked him.
Eleanor was caught in enjoying the fact that’d she’d made the first cut and momentarily forgot about his preference for a follow through with a punch from his other hand as she dodged his latest swing with a knife.
The punch landed on her jaw and something sharp pricked at her mouth. Eleanor’s head whipped back on impact, and she rapidly blinked her vision back from the dark spots. She lunged low, cutting into his thigh. It was deeper than the cut she’d made on his arm, but not deep enough to make him stop.
His eyes widened, as he hadn’t expected such a quick recovery from her. A mixture of panic and anger made him lunge high, which opened his body for her to slide low and under his arm, slashing her blade across his torso.
Instinctively, his arm went down to protect his fresh injury, but in a sweeping arc, Eleanor brought the butt of her blade down hard onto his temple, making him stagger sidewards.
She was disappointed he would not give her a better fight, as she pivoted and slammed her boot into his injured side, letting him collide into the wall with a crack.
While looking down at the lifeless body crumpled against the wall, Eleanor felt a sharp sting on her face. She touched her lips with the back of her hand. Blood.
Fuck.
Just what she needed was a split lip.
Eleanor let out an irritated huff, the sound sharp and explosive in the sudden silence. The fight hadn’t been enough to satisfy her, not for tonight.
Chapter Fourteen
Severed
A crimson trail of blood seeped into the scarf that was covering the lower half of the unconscious man’s face. This man didn’t deserve to live, preying on young girls—what was to stop him from doing it again?
As Eleanor took a step forward to finish him, she realised the sounds from the street beyond the alleyway had changed. No longer were there meaty sounds of flesh pounding on flesh. No cries or grunts that’d come from a punch or kick landing in a tender area. During her assailant being knocked unconscious, the brawl had stopped.
Eleanor silently cursed the night, hoping she hadn’t lost her mark, and edged to the end of the alleyway.
Men were staggering from the ground, with a friend or two helping them to limp back into the pub. All the while, they grinned through their cuts and bruises while thumping each other on the back. Somehow, the drunken brawl had ended on good terms. She thought that perhaps, she wasn’t the only one who needed a good fight to feel alive these days. She debated whether to enter the Grape, when a shout came from the pub. “Gary, mate, you coming for a pint?”
“Nah,” Gary hollered from the top of a street that led to the Barrow. “Gotta get back.”
“Don’t forget the order,” the man yelled.
Gary raised an arm in response and swayed down the street.
Perfect.
Eleanor smirked, thinking this job was proving simpler than expected. She’d been tailing Gary before being chosen for court and she’d found him to be a predictable mark, considering all he did was drink, gamble, and fuck. Eleanor had thought the latter was her opportunity to get close to him, but being selected as a courtesan had derailed that idea. His habit of spending several days at a time in the Grape also hindered her options. She hadn’t wanted to sit in the Grape all night waiting for him to leave, which was why she’d gone to Rummers. Admittedly, she’d sat there for longer than she’d intended, but Eleanor knew her target wouldn’t be leaving the Grape until the early hours of the morning, if at all tonight. She had resigned herself to killing him when he went to relieve himself, which was not ideal considering the consistently full pub, but the Fateful Stars were with her tonight, for once.
Eleanor crossed the broken cobbled street and concealed herself in the shadows lest anyone had been looking out thebroken window of the noisy pub. She slipped down the street she’d seen Gary go down, which led into the Barrow.
He hadn’t gone far as he was only halfway down the street, muttering to himself in the middle of the road as he swayed back and forth. He tripped on a broken cobble stone and grabbed onto a lamppost, swinging himself around it.
