| Ficbit Challenge 4
Thirty-Two
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| Luka sat sprawled in his father's throne. There was still a smear of
dried blood on the floor at his feet. Jowy didn't know if it was his blood,
or blood that Agares had coughed up when he died, or from something else
entirely. Blood on the floor in front of Luka Blight wasn't anything surprising.
"A surprise attack," Jowy repeated. He didn't even have to fight to keep his voice neutral any more. This didn't disturb him. It did, however, disturb him that it didn't disturb him more. In the corner, Leon Silverberg consulted his maps and said nothing. "By night," Luka Blight amended, baring his teeth in something like a grin and something like a wolfish snarl. "The scum won't even see it coming." "And if they do?" Jowy asked, absently. "If they anticipate you?" "Then I'll kill them. Or maybe I'll die!" Luka's laugh, howling and ragged, showed what he thought of that possibility. "Tell me, littlest Knight, whatever will you do if I die?" Jowy's face just barely changed. He'd learned a lot about schooling his emotions since he fell in with Highland, but he couldn't prevent just the thinnest sliver of a smile. "Then I suppose I'll have to take your place on the throne, won't I?" A risk. It was a risk. In the corner Leon's shufflings fell silent. But Jowy knew a thing or two about Luka by now, a thing or two that even Leon could not know--Luka bellowed with laughter and beat his gauntleted hand against the armrest of the throne, filling the throne room with thunder. "The littlest Knight thinks he could take my place! How rich! And how will you do that, Sir Atreides? Cry and beg?" Jowy laughed with him, easily, a light sound over the bull-roar of Luka. And just as easily Luka bounded off the throne and backhanded Jowy with his mailed fist. Jowy was thrown to the carpet at his feet, his cheek burning, his lip split, his eye stinging in a way that presaged a black eye in the morning. He didn't bother to rise, just stayed where he was. Luka liked people at his feet. Jowy knew that. "You scum," Luka hissed, clenching and unclenching his fists. "You'll never be good enough to rule Highland. Never." "No, your majesty," Jowy said, closing his eyes and not letting the smile inside him show. |
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