Lucian dropped flat.
Six Royal Guards were already sprinting across the cobblestones, their silver breastplates catching the grey morning light.
Raziel grabbed the heavy practice sword off the ground where it had landed when the Override threw them out and kicked the nearest door open, and the first guard hit him in the doorway.
The man swung a regulation longsword at his neck and Raziel's body did something his mind did not consciously order.
It dropped low, left foot back, blade angled down, Drakon's Second Stance, and the incoming longsword skated down the flat of the practice sword and buried itself in the doorframe instead of Raziel's throat.
Raziel drove his blade upward into the guard's exposed ribs with the full weight of his hips behind it and the breastplate caved inward with a short flat crack of metal and the man went down gasping.
