Angelborn

1. A Place For Thieves

I tried to stay calm, but when the man touched my blade, I broke. I let my anger course through me, let it fill my every vessel, and I became the vessel.

With speed, I knocked his fingers away with my other hand, hitting him with a force that pushed him far back enough to have him let go of my arm and step a few paces away, stunned.

"That's more like it!" He cheered after regaining his balance, "You've got quite an arm on that one!"

He looked up to me, his face beaming with the adrenaline of a fight, but as his eyes met with mine, all the color drained from his cheeks. As his friends also noticed, they drew closer, cautiously reaching for weapons of their own.

"Now I didn't really mean nothin about that!" He stammered, "I don't really want your sword, you know. You can go, girlie. A nice girl like you shouldn't be here."

But he had already done it, had already broken me too far. I smiled, the Bloodlust unstoppable once it had began. The bood-red glow of my eyes wouldn't leave until I was sated.

In mere seconds I had lunged forward, drawing my Kingsword from its sheathe.

The man had no time to react, we Angelborn were ungodly fast.

I swung the blade up, coming at him with my chest exposed. But I brought my sword down swiftly, cutting him cleanly down the front in the same time that he had taken to pull his dagger from his belt. He was deeply injured, but I was sure to make a cut that wouldn't kill him.

The man coughed, the front of his vest now covered in his blood, and he fell forward onto the ground. His dagger clattered a few feet away. Useless.

I felt the pulsing begin to subside, my blood draining back into a slower state, but the brawler's friends had begun to step forward, and the anticipation of another fight had me boiling again.

There were four others. Two were unarmed, one had a small blade, and the fourth, towards the back, was drawing knives from his belt, poised to throw.

I smirked. Too easy.

I raced forward, taking the armed one by storm. I slipped my blade under his and twisted it, knocking the sword from his grip and sending it into the air.

An unarmed punch was thrown at my side, but I ducked low and laughed as it struck the first man across the jaw. He was sent backwards, staggered by the blow.

Feeling a bit bored, I sheathed my Kingsword and continued the fight with my fists. I slipped past the first three and towards the fourth, but a throwing knife flew past my face and grazed it, cutting a stinging line across my cheek.

I stepped to the side, dodging a second knife, and then reached low, barreling into my attacker's legs. I sent him down, with me on top of him, and gave him a swift punch to the face before I rolled over him.

I sprang back up with a coiled kick, reaching my leg out and cracking it against the ribs of the second unarmed brawler. He tumbled to the ground, gulping for air.

The last two ran at me, and just before they were in reach of me, I slipped between them and twirled around, knocking their legs out from underneath them.

I jumped on top of the one nearest to me, taking hold of his hair and repeatedly slamming his nose into the ground.

The other man, who was just now making it to his feet, turned and hesitated for a moment as his eyes locked with mine.

I'm sure I looked like some sort of demon to him; my eyes suddenly glowing a fiery red, my body moving faster than sound. Maybe I was a demon.

"Go," I said to him, his friend's head still held tightly in my fists, "and tell them to never bother me again."

He nodded dumbly, his eyes wide like he was a frightened animal, and he scrambled away, tripping over another one of his friend's prone bodies before he fled through the crowd.

As I stood I wiped the blood from my hands, smearing it on my leather jerkin. A small circle of people had grown around me, and as I looked up to meet their eyes, they backed away, creating holes in their circle for me to slip through.

Veneticci, I thought,  you had better have a good excuse.

I ducked my head, pulling my hood over my eyes, and silently brushed through the crowd around me. I felt a slow drip of blood ooze its way down the skin of my cheek, but I didn't wipe it away, because I held my hand tight around the hilt of my sword, the blood still pulsing too fast for me to let go.

The back door of the slum was open, and so I slipped through it quietly, headed out into the open night and away from the throng of people within the seedy place. But a part of me wished I hadn't, because I was already dreading my painful return to King's Castle.