Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Richard had already made his decision and had fully charged himself to the task. He now had a sliver of time that gave him an opportunity to alter the nature of the situation, to be the one to control the outcome. He would not let that small slip of time escape him.

But even that no longer mattered to him.

Now, powered by lethal rage, both the sword's and his own, he wanted the man's blood. Nothing else would satisfy him, nothing else would stop him, he would accept nothing less.

Richard twisted away from the threat, putting the back of his shoulders to the man with the girl, feigning that he was turning away, that he was backing off as the man had commanded. In so doing, Richard knew that, with so many things pulling for his attention, the man would discount Richard and direct his concern to the more obvious threat of the men to his sides and back.

With his fist tightly gripping the wire wound hilt of his sword, Richard pulled a breath. The world around him seemed to go silent and still.

As he reached the apex of his backward twist, he paused.

Richard felt his heart begin a beat.

With all his power, as people stood frozen, as the man with the knife stood at the brink of murder, as the girl's shrill scream drew out into a wire-thin sound filling the empty void in time, Richard unleashed himself in an explosive movement.

With all his strength he uncoiled. His blade erupted from its sheath fully charged not only with a wrath of its own but with Richard's deadly resolve.

At the same time as the Sword of Truth rang with the unique sound of its liberation, Richard released a cry of fury. As he spun, he emptied all his rage into that roar. With every ounce of effort he had, he drove the blade around with as much speed and power as he could put behind it.

In a crystal-clear instant in time, Richard's vision focused on the man with the knife standing rigid with surprise. Into that void in time Richard poured all his effort, all his muscle, all his wrath, all his need. That instant belonged to him alone and he used it to his singular purpose.

He could see the drops of sweat leave the man's face as his head snapped toward Richard. Yellow-orange light from the lanterns reflected in tiny points on those drops as they floated weightless in midair. Richard could count each point of light from each lantern in each individual droplet of sweat as his sword ever so slowly swept around. He could count each greasy strand of the man's hair as it whipped around, floating up into the air with the droplets.

Richard knew that eyes all around the stable were watching, that the eyes of the girl, too, were watching, but that made no difference. The only eyes that mattered to him were the dark eyes that at last met his glare.

In those black eyes Richard could see the initiation of thought. The tip of Richard's sword whistled through the dusty air. Lantern-light glinted off the razor sharp steel. He could see the blade mirrored in the man's dark eyes. Those eyes reflected the recognition of the full dimension of the threat.

Onward came the sword, sweeping like the crack of a whip toward those eyes, sweeping around toward the target Richard held in his own sight.

In that instant, the man completed his thought and made the decision to act. But even in the infinitesimal fragment of time that it took to come to the conclusion of that thought, the lightning arc of the blade closed most of the distance. Even as the man's decision was being made, flinching fear from Richard's battle cry caused the man to tense.

For that instant in time, the muscles of the man's arms paused as fear fought intent.

It became a race to see which blade would first bite flesh.

Losing that race would be irrevocable.

With his gaze riveted on the man's eyes, Richard at last saw his sword, flying at frightening speed, entering his line of sight. Seeing that blade again filled him with exhilaration.

Driven by thundering rage, the blade caught the side of the man's head level with his dark eyes, exactly where Richard intended it.

In that instant, the crystal-clear moment in time that had been stretched to the breaking point shattered in sound and fury. The world went red in Richard's vision as the man's head came apart around the blade crashing through his skull. The hammer-hard sound of it thundered through the stables.

Bone fragmented. Crimson droplets sprayed up and away. The entire top of the skull lifted as the blade crashed through living tissue. In a long trail across the wall, bone, tissue, and blood traced the route of the sword's sweep.

In that instant of shattering violence, the man's life was gone. Richard's remorseless rage shielded him from feeling the pain of any pity.

The force of the sword's impact caused the arm with the knife to fall away from the girl even before the swing of Richard's sword was complete. The man's body, like nothing more than boneless meat, began collapsing.