Filed To Story: The Knight and the Moth Book PDF Free by Rachel Gillig
“You’re slow,” Rory called.
He stood at the top of a crooked stairwell that cut up the mountainside to a lookout. The steps were uneven and treacherously steep. If I lost my balance, the fall would be excruciating.
“And you’re an ass,” I shot back. “It’s not as if the Oarsman challenged me to a footrace. Besides”-I spat phlegm dangerously near his boot-“I think I can best a craggy old man.”
Rory looked down where I’d spat, nostrils flaring. He shut his eyes. Muttered an invocation of profanity. “The Ardent Oarsman is not old, Diviner. He’s ancient. We still don’t know everything that oar can do. He’ll have no obstacle sending it through your skull if your feet remain idle.” His voice hardened. “I don’t want him touching you like he did last night. I don’t want him within a fucking mile of you. Keep your steps light.”
I ran the stairs again, trying to keep my knees high. “I can feel you scowling.” I coughed and made a truly atrocious retching sound. “Knock it off.”
“Apologies if your heavy-footed lumbering puts a sour look on my otherwise perfect face.”
I pulled myself upright. Reached for his cheek-dragged the corner of his mouth up with my thumb until he wore an absurd half smile. “That’s better. Still foul and unknightly, though.”
“Just the way you like me.” Rory nipped the pad of my thumb. “Now run it again.”
The north wind picked up, and the rain with it. A storm was coming from the peaks-the clawed fingers of the mountains. I put a hand to my face and continued down the path to the village. “I suppose that’s an end to our training.”
“Hardly.”
“But it’s going to storm!”
“All the more reason to practice. If you’re thinking it will be sunshine and clouds three days hence”-he chuckled to himself-“you’re dreaming.”
The stairs were just the warm-up. The true training began on an upland about a mile from the village, away from the intrusive stares of fishermen or the curious knighthood.
Sparring.
“First things first.” Rory bit the finger of his glove and peeled it off. “How well can you actually see through that shroud?”
“I can see just fine-“
He threw his glove. It smacked me on the nose and plopped to the stones at my feet. “A vision issue?” Rory pondered. “Or just slow reflexes?”
I picked up the glove. Strangled it in my fist. “Neither.”
“Uh-huh.” He appraised me, rotating on the balls of his heels. “It’s a problem, obviously. Forget it getting wet like it is now-you get blood on it, it’s a blindfold, not a shroud. Then again, there’s an advantage to hiding your eyes in combat. Makes it harder for your opponent to anticipate your-“
I launched the glove. It struck Rory’s chin. He caught it as it fell, a flash of something wicked in his eyes. “At least your aim is sufficient.”
“I’m keeping it on,” I said. “End of discussion.”
“Fine-forget the shroud. Time for a happy encore.” He rolled his shoulders. Squared off with me. “Hit me, Diviner. Hit me as hard as you can.”
I ran my tongue along the inside of my mouth.
And rushed him.
There was a flicker of stone-the echo of a ping. Rory disappeared, and I crashed through air, legs pinwheeling.
He appeared three feet away. Caught his coin. Smiled.
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re about to go toe to toe with a creature far less courteous than me. You saw how the Harried Scribe attacked us even after he’d been defeated. No honor among thieves, and even less among gods. The Oarsman’s not going to fight cleanly. He’ll stand in that hall, near his pool, and spin you in circles. Even if you pull away from the water and deny him his advantage, that oar grants him substantial reach. He’ll use it to beat you down. Your job is to anticipate him.” The coin soared through the air. “Wrestle it away from him.” Rory was several feet away once more. “Once you’re in close-use that strength of yours and throw him down.”
I tried again and again to hit him. Every time I imagined I could anticipate his next move, Rory flickered away, slapping his glove against my arm or shoulder or back. “Think of it like dancing. Read your partner’s body-predict it.” The rain and the coin made a specter of him. “You liked dancing, as I recall. At Coulson.”
“I liked putting you in the dirt more.” I was gasping, knees aching, heavy on my feet, striking out wildly, wasting my strength on blows that met nothing but air.
It took no effort for Rory to throw the coin over my head, appear behind me-
And send me sprawling with a single push. “Come on, Diviner. Move those flat feet.”
When he sent me sprawling a second time, I slapped the ground.
“Again.”
But I couldn’t catch him. And the rage of that made me even clumsier.
“Are you embarrassed to be bad at something?” Rory asked. “Or just embarrassed to be bad at it in front of me?”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t take it so personally.” He flickered away.
This time I didn’t chase him. “But it is personal. The craft of Divination is a lie, and for ten years, I was its most devoted student. If there are no gods, then being their harbinger means nothing. I was never important-being scared and tired and ill was for nothing. I drowned for nothing.” My hands, my voice, shook. “And now the Diviners are gone, and it is up to me to find them, because no one else is searching. It’s all personal, this business with the Omens. You of all people should know that.”
Rory had stopped throwing his coin. He stood opposite me, hair in his eyes, soaked by rain, the muscles in his jaw bunching.
I sprang forward.
The coin never had the chance to leave his hand. I was already there, crashing into him, arms around his waist, shoulder in his diaphragm. I bared my teeth, muscles screaming.
And hurtled the both of us onto the ground.
I didn’t know where to put my hands. But there was a beast in me, and when Rory hit the stone with a sharp exhale, coin in his fist, I slammed his wrist to the ground, clambered over his body until I was astride his chest, took my other hand-
And pressed it over his throat. “Can’t you understand it’s all been personal?”
Neither of us did anything but pant, our breaths muting-or transmuting-the ire between us. I looked down at him through a rain-soaked shroud and he up at me through impossibly dark eyes, and for that moment we were his coin-two sides, perfectly balanced. His speed, my strength, like it was chance, only chance, that had determined which of us had come out on top.
Rory’s throat hitched under my palm. His wild pulse was everywhere. In his neck, his chest-in my own body.
“All right,” he said, his voice grating out of him. “It’s personal. If I was any good at talking to you, maybe I’d have already said that, because it’s personal for me, too.” His eyes dropped to my mouth. “It wasn’t for nothing, Diviner. You are important. You’re…”
He stopped himself. Looked down at my arm over his neck. Grinned. “You should know, if you’re going for the throat-“
Rory caught my arm with his free hand and wrenched me forward until it was my forearm, not my palm, pressing against his neck. “Up close is better. More control, less room for him to hit you or knock you aside.” Embers stoked his voice. “Lean forward.”
My thighs flexed around his ribs. “I’ll choke you.”