Read Online The Archon's Assassin by D. P. Prior - Free Book Online Page A

thumped him in the fruits, doubling him up. “See that? See this?” He grabbed hold of Magwitch’s ear and twisted.
    The wizard squealed, but green flames sprung up from his fingers. Shadrak showed no sign of having seen it, but Nameless did. He strode over, closed his hand over Magwitch’s, and squeezed.
    The flames fizzled out, and Magwitch whimpered.
    “Used to do a spot of arm-wrestling,” Nameless said. “Grip like this,”—he applied more pressure—“was enough to take the fight out of most men, even before these big boys came into play.” He raised the hand holding his axe and flexed his biceps. “Peaked like a mountain,” he said, though when he angled the eye-slit for a look, it was more of a rolling hill.
    He gave a double cough and released his grip on Magwitch. Suddenly, Aristodeus’s word hit him like an arrow to the brain: gymnasium, wasn’t it? Gym. Sooner he had one of them, the better. This shogging liquid diet the philosopher had him on was making his muscles waste away to nothing.
    “Shame you didn’t get to set foot inside Queenie’s,” Shadrak said. “I know someone who’d give you a run for your money. Best arm-wrestler in New Jerusalem, and just so happens to work for me.”
    “Sounds like a challenge, laddie,” Nameless said. “If you’ve the guts to wager, I’ll take the winnings instead of a loan.”
    Shadrak scoffed and turned his attention back to Magwitch.
    “How’d you know? And don’t lie.” His hand hovered above the blades in his baldric.
    Magwitch eyed him nervously, licked his lips, and said, “I worked for Morrow.”
    “What?” A dagger danced free in Shadrak’s hand. “You work for me, shogger, and no one else.”
    “I forgot,” Magwitch said in a pitiful voice. “By the time I ruminated, he’d paid for my services, and I was too scared to renegade on the agreeablement.”
    Shadrak closed a fist about the wizard’s collar and raised the blade to his eye. “So, you shogged me over.”
    “No, no. Not at all,” Magwitch said. “It was just obstetrics. Wizard eyes, that sort of thing. I could see him at all times, and warn him of danger.”
    “But you didn’t,” Shadrak said. “He ate the pie.”
    “Congruitious loyalties,” Magwitch said.
    “What?”
    “I think he means ‘conflicting’,” Nameless said.
    “Yes, that,” Magwitch said. “You were my first, Shadrak; and if I hadn’t forgotten, my only.”
    “Less you say about that, the better, laddie,” Nameless said.
    Shadrak sheathed his blade and flashed Nameless a look with his unsettling pink eyes. “You taking the piss?”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Nameless said.
    Shadrak stared at him long and hard. His fingers twitched above the handles of his pistols, and he worried his lip, like he was chewing something over.
    Nameless couldn’t say he liked the look much. He would’ve glowered back, but the midget wouldn’t see it through the great helm. Instead, he casually hefted his axe to one shoulder and let Shadrak’s glare burn out against the scarolite covering his face. Finally, Shadrak relaxed, as if by an effort of will, and he looked back to Magwitch.
    “Can you shield us from psychers?”
    Magwitch’s eyes widened. “In here, yes.”
    “Good, then we’re staying.”
    Shadrak started to push past, but Magwitch held out his arms to stop him. “Not here, you’re not. A wizard’s house is—”
    “Yeah, his sanctuary,” Shadrak said.
    “No. Dangerous,” Magwitch said. “There are arcane forces aswirl in the eaves. Shadow people lurk in every cornice, and a plague of curses seeps insipidly into the minds of visitators.”
    “Good,” Nameless said, barging by to take a look for himself. “Sounds like Kunaga’s Ale House back home. Oh, and laddie, it’s ‘insidiously’, unless you were talking about Ironbelly’s Special Brew.”
    He ambled into a ramshackle room with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a long table, upon which were all manner of wizardy