Warmth spread across Kael's chest. Els' gentle gaze, coupled with the sharp edge of her voice, reminded him of his mom.
Slowly, he began to nod, then shifted to shake his head. "Not planning to get hurt." He grinned. "But it's nice of you. Anyway, don't push yourself. Anchors, remember? You don't want to stress yours by running when you should crawl, right?"
Els flicked his nose. She chuckled at his grimace. "With how skinny you are, I bet even a breeze could wound you. Try to avoid windy days until I'm done crawling."
Kael glared at his arms. Dirty sleeves waved over his skin, too broad to touch it. "Crawl away from me, then."
Waving his hand to the edge of the shelter, he grumbled low enough not to be heard about how she blended into the crowd as a man just by changing her dress.
As Els moved away, Tonio stopped waving his candle. He folded his coat's sleeves, glanced at his lean but ripped arms, at Kael's, then nodded as if that single contrast explained everything. "No rat meat. Weak."
"You, too? Catch your rats and leave me alone." He threw relic 78 at Tonio, then buried himself beneath his blanket.
The frame of the round glasses sagged against the cloth, forcing him to peek out.
"Bad, bad!" His arm still raised, Tonio showed his teeth.
A deep furrow creased Kael's brow, yet he swallowed his retort. Instead, he picked relic 78 up and pointed it at Tonio. "Do you remember why we need them?"
At Tonio's reluctant nod, Kael pieced together what the rat-man failed to tell.
Four hours since he wore them. They feel worse. Mhh. We must recover before wearing them again, or our eyes will rot as if we hadn't removed them. But for how long? Only Tonio can feel when it's safe. The survivor's truth, or rat instincts?
Eventually, he lowered the glasses. "Put them on when they're not bad anymore."
Tonio's red eyes darted between the relic and the flickering lamppost outside. For three heartbeats, silence. Then, he coiled on his blanket with a conceding scowl. "Tomorrow hunt. Kael no stop. Okay?"
For a moment, Kael closed his eyes. They couldn't conceal themselves simultaneously. Trust Tonio? He did, as weird as it was. What he didn't trust was Tonio's mind. What if he ran into people, or worse, ran to a whore without money to pay for her services?
No, he remembers why we hide, his enemies. I can subtly remind him.
Until late evening, he disguised his lesson as a question-and-answer game. Each time Tonio's answers made him roll his eyes, he used names he couldn't forget. Strangers report to Garrick. Whores inform Sister Harrow.
Not true, but they both hated these two enough that pinning every problem on their backs lifted a weight he didn't know pressed on his shoulders. Somehow, he even found amusement in it.
"What would you do if a woman smiles at you?"
Tonio squinted. "If woman smile?"
Kael tilted his head. "Like the one from earlier."
"Pretty."
"And pretty people never betray?"
Tonio's nose twitched. "Sometimes."
"Who pays them to talk?"
Tonio paused. "Sister Harrow."
Kael nodded once. "Good."
When his eyelids couldn't resist the plea of sleep anymore, Tonio stared at him with a new shared understanding. Or rather, the same one he had in the sewers. No matter what happened down there, their enemies remained the same.
The sun didn't rise on the slums. Tons of iron made sure it never did. Vagrant sunrays struggled to filter through, only to meet the suffocating embrace of factory steam. All Kael had to measure time was his own exhaustion, the clock tower, and the unchanging glow of the lampposts.
Neither woke him up the next day. Instead, a man's voice, too loud, twanging in the chilly air, did.
"I tell ya, Jones. We'll butcher the hairy freak together. The booze's ours!"
Jake? Kael's eyes flung open as a dozen men cheered at his door.
Els threw him a worried glance.
"Hide!" He barked, searching for Tonio.
The rat-man, crouched on his blanket, let out guttural growls, ready to pounce yet hesitant. He returned Kael's glance. "Bad men. Like Dogs. Like Garrick. Kill dogs?"
"Let me talk first." Kael slid relic 78 on Tonio's face. This time, he only got a grumble from beneath the fog distorting Tonio's features. Between four and sixteen hours, he noted as he walked to the cloth hanging in the doorway.
He flung it aside, glaring at twelve men holding pipes and knives. Jake led them with another man he saw for the first time. His nose, reddened by liquor, twitched.
"By darkness and putrefaction, Jake. That kid smells worse than your sister's shit."
"Ya. And I almost lost consciousness when she farted last time." Jake chuckled. "Told you. Two kids and a freak."
Kael's brows twitched. Of course, he reeked after a week in the sewers, and water was better drunk than used for cleaning. He crossed his arms over his chest, hiding their shaking. "Didn't we agree you'd rent me this place for three weeks? How should I take it?"
"I don't give rat shit about whatcha think, brat." Jake pointed his knives at Kael, two blades glinting under the flickering lamppost. "Hand the booze and fuck off. I'll let ya moron leave if ya don't waste ma time. Am I not generous, Jones?"
The red-nosed man, Jones, let his pipe rest on his shoulder, nodding. "Jake's a nice dude. I'm not. And I know how precious booze is. Where did ya get it? How did you steal it? Do ya have more? Answer, before I change my mind. Now!"
"You couldn't hold back for more than a day. I guess there's nothing I can do to make you honor our agreement," Kael raised his hand, already beginning to lower it.
"Honor? Did that wimpy shit say honor? Honor doesn't feed. Honor only kills men. They thought themselves virtuous, close to the gods' words?" Jake spat on the ground. "There's only one god, and he said Pay."
Kael's hand froze mid-movement. Pay? Which of the eight bastards said that? Not Kraghor's rest, Kythra's burning revelations, or Morvana's lacework of fate. The Quiet Hand's secrets couldn't be bought, and Theda only cared for personal strength. The three others were mostly the same, so what twisted junk did Jake come up with?
It didn't matter. They glared at his arm, and he lowered it. "Tonio!"
A dark blur surged beside him, coat flapping behind Tonio. He stood beside Kael, his back straight, his head towering over every man facing him. He lifted his palms, his dark, elongated nail, warped by relic 78's power.
Jake stepped back. Not Jones. He studied Tonio's grey, bushy beard. "So, ya're the freak? I'd be the king of this street if I were like ya. Leave the kids. Join me. I can give ya more than he'll ever can."
"Hey! That's not what we agreed on!"
Ignoring Jake, Tonio locked gazes with Jones. Then, he shifted to Kael.
A bead of sweat trailed down Kael's temple. What if Tonio walked away? He was still in the gray, a potential traitor for the rat-man.
So, when Tonio asked, "Kill?" Kael let out the breath he had been holding.
"Twelve men..." He bit his lip. "That's a lot."
"No. You help. We fine."
Without giving Kael a second to process, Tonio lunged at Jones.
"Shit..." he chased behind, but Tonio's palm already clashed with Jones' pipe.
Metal bent under flesh. Wide-eyed, Jones tumbled back. "Kill the freak, ya morons!"
His men charged, yet he remained behind, hiding the trembling in his voice.
Tonio didn't back down. He swiped upward at the fastest man. His nails should have been too short to touch. A miss that would blow air at most. But Kael knew their real length. And so did Tonio.
Five bloody lines sliced the man's hips to his clavicle. Blood cascaded down, taking a morsel of intestine to spatter on the wet ground.
The man's pupils constricted. He let out an agonising shriek, like a man burning from the inside. Before his voice reached its highest note, he collapsed on his knees. Not from his wounds, but to vomit blood made dark by the diseases Tonio carried.
An uncontrollable warmth spread across Kael's chest, an inferno that remembered what had almost killed him, even though he chose to ignore Tonio's lethality. Beneath the broken sentences and childlike amazement, he was an undying calamity, delivering death sentences from a single scratch.
But undying as he was, eleven men would wound him. Kael couldn't let it happen, not when the survivor's truth constantly overrode Tonio's normal state without care for his mind or body.
He collapsed against a man inching on Tonio's back. The shock made him reel back. He was lighter, lighter than any adult, or even kids his age. But the man stumbled on his feet, his knife grazing Tonio's coat.
"You little shit—" the man turned.
Kael already jumped, his fist slamming into his chin. The impact sent a tremor through Kael's arm. His groaning knuckles held only because of his endurance, but skin tore, and blood burned his fist.
Even worse. The man shook his head, spat a tooth, then lifted his knife. "Dumb brat!"
The blade fell, reflecting in Kael's blue eyes. He lifted his arm, gritting his teeth before pain cut across him.
Yet, it never did. A coat fluttered faster than the blade, and a hand swept across the man's face. For a moment, the clawed skull stood bare. Then blood sprayed from the gashes.
The man collapsed face-first, and Kael stepped to the side. "T-Thank you."
"No speak. Knife. Kill!" Tonio didn't gaze at him; he jumped at his next prey.
The beggar instantly swung his blade down. With a spin, it passed beside Tonio harmlessly before five nails eviscerated him. And before the man fell, he moved again.
"Surround him!" Jones roared from behind.
Kael's fingers trembled around the dead man's knife, just as Jake shoved his knives at Tonio's spine. Without thinking, he hurled his weapon.
The edge dug into Jake's neck. He turned, his hand closing on his neck. His lips moved, but only let wet gurgles out. But his eyes spoke for him. They watered, pleading for mercy as if he could still be saved.
Tonio answered by gripping the hilt and sliding it until his head dropped to the ground. In that brief moment, something twitched in Kael's mind. A familiar sensation, one he hated—the sensation of stress pressing his anchor.
"Run!" Jones commanded, but his men already scrambled, screaming that they were up against a monster, that Tonio was a spawn of Kraghor himself, and that they had provoked the god of the frozen peace through him.
Kael's gaze left Jake's head to follow Tonio, who simply caught them one by one. A swipe of his nails, and Jones reeled on the ground feverishly with his men, foaming at the mouth or suffocating in dark blood.
When Tonio returned, his coat unstained, he scratched his head. "Well... did you even need me?" Amidst the carnage, a smile blossomed on his face. "Thank you for staying."
But his lips twitched when Tonio shook his head.
"Kael suck. Weak. Eat meat!"
"Alright..." Kael massaged his brow as his gaze met a man peeking behind a wall, a woman crouched by the tannery, and the sparkling eyes of a teenager observing Tonio. More likely watched from the cracks in their walls or roofs.
Twelve men. He had miscalculated. They could have dealt with five before anyone noticed. Now? Corpses littered the street. Might as well use them, so he coughed once, then screamed. "You've witnessed what happens when you mess with us! Carve it in your minds and tremble in your beds, for you'll join them in the burial pit if you disturb our peace!"