Aquila had heard that a weapon speaks to its owner's temperament. The wielder of a broad sword can be imagined as a noble knight, a protector. The rapier's owner, one of cunning and charm; a weapon of quick wits and final chances. Cudgels were for brutes and bows for those with a single-minded purpose.
Daggers were for snakes.
Amos watched Darian push his into the side of his adoptive father.
He was the reason they went into the woods that night. The reason he was attacked by the wolves, mortally wounded, scarred, and left with severe blood loss. He would be the reason for his death now.
<
<
The dagger was long and thin. The sinister metal glinted in the candlelight. Rivulets of Kien's blood flowed down the fuller[1]; deep, red, and slow.
Darian was smiling with glee, almost laughing. Yakob was frozen. His face a mask of horror, indecision spelled across his features. Leila was much the same and Ink was too far. His tattoos moved like liquid across his exposed skin, coiling around the muscles then darting under his shirt only to repeat the process.
Sshhhhk.
The knife went deeper.
Kill him, Amos.
No mercy.
Amos thrashed against the restraining force of the undead behind him. Its atrophied muscles belied a strength that kept him in place, but he managed to free a hand. A single hand.
Power...
Amos thrust his hand out with a desperation. He hoped to channel the power of Cancer, though he had no control yet. He had only practiced with Aries, and only barely then. He didn't even know what he was capable of.
His mana responded obediently. There was a growing pressure from his core, pushing at the confines of his very body. Then, a release, all at once. The mana didn't so much as flow, but shot with an extreme pressure.
Darian's torturous movement ceased immediately. A transparent layer of golden energy wrapped itself around his wrist. Amos watched Darian frown in confusion, pulling and shoving with increasing strength. He looked up and met Amos' triumphant eyes.
"What did you say? Death comes for us all?" Amos spat from where he was still being restrained by the rotting corpse. "Can you smell it now, Darian? Can you smell your own death?"
Darian stopped struggling and let go of his dagger. Amos' golden energy gently tugged it free, then flowed over Kien's wound to stop the bleeding. Kien stumbled back and Leila rushed up to take him away. She gave Amos a meaningful look as she supported him on the way out - hurt, betrayed, but thankful. Her son was Drai, but her husband lived because of it.
"Yakob," Darian said, bending down to pick up the dagger and wiping it on the Aquilas' table cloth. "Arrest the boy already."
"Yakob, wait, this isn't what you think," Amos said.
"I'm sorry," said Yakob, "I'm Trenmir now. You're dangerous, Amos."
Amos searched his face. There was nothing there. Nothing recognisable, at least, the features choked by black cloth from below.
The plan. He had a plan.
You probably fucked it up.
No, he wouldn't let this happen.
The zombie holding him back melted away like it never even existed, dissipating like smoke in the wind. Amos had been straining against it and when the force disappeared he stumbled forward, falling to his knees.
Yakob stood over him, lips in a grim line. Darian stepped into view beside him. The dagger was sheathed now.
"Cancer," Darian mused, "interesting... The last Cancer crop was-"
"Five years ago," Yakob supplied. Darian cast a suspicious glance at him, but Yakob's steely eyes were trained on Amos. "How could you hide this from me?"
"Are you gonna arrest me or not?" Amos asked defiantly.
"With pleasure," Darian said. "Yakob, retrieve the Cancer Inhibitors from the caravan."
Yakob nodded and left with a final glance at his brother. The depth of his gaze was calculating. Sincere.
As soon as he was out of the door and earshot, Darian delivered a sharp kick to Amos' jaw. A shooting pain followed the crack of bone. Amos' vision blurred with his tears and he groaned softly. Darian knelt next to him.
"I thought I was a dead man walking, little Drai," he goaded.
Amos couldn't speak. He couldn't even spit in Darian's face like his heart burned with the desire to do. His jaw was too painful to move. He settled for a hateful grunt instead.
"I'll bet you can hear the whispers of your pitiful 'God' right now. Poison in your ears, melting your mind. I'll bet they want you to kill me. You wouldn't want to hurt an officer of the law otherwise, would you now, boy?"
And he was right. Amos could hear the whispers, though they weren't loud enough to make any sense of. They came like tingles down his spine, two competing voices vying for his attention, garbled as if underwater. He could identify only two words: <
"Tell me how you entered Soul Space without the Eidolon. Was it the Vessel?"
Amos waited.
Darian turned to Ink. His hands were forming fists, clenching and unclenching. His nails dug into the flesh of his palms every time he tensed, forming uniform semicircular wounds. Tears of anger dripped down his cheeks. "Vessel, did you take him to Soul Space?"
"No," Ink said. "I'm not allowed there. You hurt Amos."
"He hurt me, Vessel. It is the way of the world."
"You hurt my friend. My best friend."
Ink's tattoos coalesced. His muscles swelled unnaturally, bubbling like yeast fermenting. He pounced across the room and grabbed Darian by the throat. In one smooth motion, he lifted the Putresco off the ground and slammed him into the wall. The foundations of the farmhouse shook with his strength.
Darian's eyes bulged and he let out a choking cough. Ink squeezed ever so slightly. "I could kill you now," he said. "It would be easy. So easy. I was made for this."
Darian slapped and pulled ineffectually at Ink's bulging forearms.
"The way of the world..."
Darian looked to Amos for help. Pleading with his eyes.
Pathetic.
"Amos showed me what life can be. I want you to have that, Putresco. To laugh and to love with a family. To work and feel the sun, to sweat, to give and take, to eat. All the Alchemists were wrong. Death is not the meaning of life. Let us live ours and I will let you live what remains of yours."
Ink released the man, letting him slide to the floor as he gasped for breath. Darian looked at Ink incredulously. Amos pushed himself up behind Ink. He approached and laid a hand on his shoulder. The twisting tattoos created a faint sense of undulation. Ink turned to look at him.
"We should go, Amos," he said.
Amos grunted.
Kill that evil bastard.
"You have places to go. You have to meet Xaemarra. I'll protect you."
Darian made no protestation. The colour was fading from his face as he massaged his crushed windpipe. Looking at him, Amos couldn't help but grin at the idea that crossed his mind, despite the pain it caused his jaw.
He stepped up to the Putresco and delivered a kick to his jaw, similar, if not stronger, than the one he had received. Darian slumped sideways instantly.
Don't let him live.
I have a no kill rule.
Amos nodded in satisfaction, and left the farmhouse behind Ink.
You're not Batman. This will bite you in the ass.
How do you know about Batman?
I can see all your memories up here.
All of them?!
"Who's Batman?" Ink asked.
Amos just shook his head and smiled wryly.
...
The night air was filled with a cutting chill. A heavy cloud cover obscured the moon and stars. It was dark.
Amos wasn't sure if he had made the right decision leaving Darian alive. It seemed likely that murdering a Trenmir Agent would bring scrutiny down on his family. So, while the Putresco's only grudge was with him, the natural course of action was to leave. Run away and stay there.
That way, there was no reason for Darian to hurt his family.
It was a gamble, of course. Darian was petty, that much was clear. With Yakob there to protect the Aquilas, though, Amos was mostly confident that they would be safer without him. The power he sought to protect them was what forced him away, in the end.
The Trenmir caravan was almost unmanned in the dark. A few flickering lanterns hung on the eaves of its rickety roof, casting a gentle glow that failed to pierce the darkness in any significant manner. Resultingly, Yakob only saw Amos and Ink when they approached the edge of his circle of light.
Amos rubbed his jaw, staying in the cover of darkness. It was well enough to speak now, but Yakob got there first.
"Where's Darian?" he asked. He was carefully holding a little stone pin between a thumb and forefinger. Amos was subtly aware of it, like a dullness in the air. He could see the pattern chiseled onto it and recognised it with ease: Cancer's constellation.
"Back there," Amos indicated with a thumb, "not getting up anytime soon."
Yakob visibly relaxed. He put the pin back in a box and secured it within the caravan. "That lackwit stabbed Dad."
"He's your boss," Amos said. "You didn't tell me the Trenmir were going to be this dangerous."
"You didn't tell me you were Drai," said Yakob indignantly. "Kind of threw a spanner in the works, so they say."
"Well it only just happened!" Amos exclaimed, "Was I supposed to come running and meet you on the road?"
"Don't lie, Amos. You're a Cancer Drai. You've been Drai for five years."
"No, I-"
Ink held out a hand. "Amos is special. He is strong like my master. He became Drai very recently."
Yakob rolled his eyes then turned on Ink. The lantern light behind Yakob cast an even deeper shadow onto the muscled boy. "What are your ties to the Trenmir? Who are you really?"
Ink bristled.
"It's ok, you can tell him," Amos said. "He has a plan."
Ink nodded slowly, taking his time before answering. "I was created by the Eidolon of the Tomb Order. My purpose is - was - to serve his ascension to the Heavens. I have no ties to the Trenmir because I did not want to die. I was supposed to meet you here. Shanty brought me."
"Oh, fuck me," Yakob said. "That was the old plan. You're clearly not safe here anymore."
"We need to leave, Yakob," Amos said. "Please don't arrest me."
"I won't arrest you unless I have to, Amos. But Darian can't know that I let you go. He has to trust me completely for the plan to work."
"Are you a double agent?" Amos asked with excitement creeping into his voice.
Yakob looked behind him, like there might be someone watching, then turned back to Amos and Ink. "I'm Drai too," he whispered.
Dangerous...
"What? You can't be in the Trenmir if you're Drai," Ink said, "They would know!"
"Shh!" Yakob insisted conspiratorially. "My Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Modifier hides my mana signatures. For all intents and purposes, I am not a Drai until I start using the powers."
I wonder what my Eclipse Modifier does...
"But why are you doing this?" Amos asked.
"It's too hard to explain right now," Yakob said. "Darian might wake up any moment. You both have to leave. Go to Port Ryndem, find Xaemarra in the Avidia Institute. She can keep you safe, but you have to be quick. Darian will make you fugitives."
Amos and Ink nodded in unison. Amos was eager to have a direction other than 'away'.
Yakob turned to the box of pins and tossed them around in the grass. He stomped around in circles, then reached down and grabbed some dirt, smearing it over himself. "Now," he said, "punch me."
"What?"
"Punch me. We have to make it look like I tried to arrest you."
Amos nodded and took a deep breath.
"Do a real one, Amos," Yakob said. He offered the side of his face.
Amos wound his arm back and loosed it like a spring. There was no anger in the blow, only desperation. Fear. It gave it a force that he hadn't meant to impart.
Knuckle connected with bone and skin split. Yakob grunted and stumbled. Amos rushed forwards to steady him, but Yakob pushed him off.
"'m erkay..." he mumbled.
Yakob's hand came away from the side of his face red. The skin had split ever so slightly and tiny droplets of crimson blood were welling at the surface. His eye was red and swollen. It would definitely bruise to match his uniform by morning.
"Good," Yakob said to himself, "that was good."
"Sorry..." Amos said.
"Go. Port Ryndem. Avidia Institute. Don't get caught."
Amos nodded. Ink began walking towards the forest where the wolves and fire had ravaged Kien's health. "Thanks, Yakob," Amos said.
"I'll meet you there," Yakob replied. He gave a wide grin. One of his teeth looked like it might be loose, but it could have been the light.
"This isn't goodbye," Amos said.
Yakob's smile turned sad. When he didn't say anything else, Amos turned to follow Ink into the charred forest.
[1] The divot/groove in the centre of a blade.