Crouching low on the roof, Kael crept toward the second thug. On the street beneath, bulky men pushed the line of dark shields toward the doors of the tannery under a deluge of arrows.
At the center, Silma still smirked. Split arrows piled around her unstained broad shirt. She didn't turn toward the roofs. Instead, her light brown eyes never left the building as if all she wanted was to spring in and dismember Old Fen and Joss Renn. Anyone beyond these two didn't enter her eyes, not even her own men.
At least, that's what Kael felt. He didn't care whether he was right or not. All that mattered was her inattention, the clangor of metal against metal, and the roars of fighting men that deafened his approach.
Each step toward the thug made his heart drum faster. The man drew and released his bowstring without pausing. His arms didn't tremble, and he towered two heads taller than Kael.
He glanced back, not in hesitation, but to confirm his safety. Tonio hunched three steps behind. Beneath the dark frame of relic 78, his red eyes narrowed, and he clenched a fist that told him he could do it.
He would.
His hand closed around the hilt of the knife tucked under his shirt. With a swift pull, he leapt at the back of the thug.
The sound of his stomp, barely audible before the tumult of whistling arrows swallowed it, somehow alerted the thug. Instantly, the man turned, his mouth snapping open in warning. And his bow blurred in a downward arc.
Clenching his jaw, Kael jabbed his knife. The tip dug into the thug's throat before a sound came out. The bow still inched over his left shoulder.
I'll hit him first!
He pushed the blade further. Flesh snapped until the sensation faded when the tip punched through the back of the man's neck. Blood gushed down his distorted mouth, smearing Kael's hand a warm scarlet. Still, he glared like a beast about to take its adversary with it to the grave.
The bow slammed Kael's left shoulder.
The impact pressed him down from his leap. His bones groaned. They should have shattered. They persisted. He grunted, keeping the scream tearing at his throat in.
But pain struck, sharp and immediate as the thug pushed with both hands, letting out wet, enraged gurgles. Kael tried to resist, to stand up, but his knee buckled.
HOW IS HE SO STRONG WITH A KNIFE IN HIS THROAT? GET UP! GET UP OR DIE!
His eyes widened at the blood dripping from the wound—dripping, not pouring. The knife in his throat!
His good arm blurred up, his trembling fingers wrapping around the knife. A sharp pull, and he freed the wound of the obstruction, letting it weep all the blood it wanted.
The thug covered his neck with one hand. He tried to speak; he only made the hole in his throat convulse, spewing his life out faster.
You won't kill me, bastard!
The pressure pinning Kael down halved, and he exploded upward. The bow flew up, and the thug with it. He crashed on his back, still holding his bow. Still glaring at the huffing teenager as if he couldn't understand how that skinny brat had killed him.
A last wheezed breath, and his fingers stilled around his bow.
The light in his eyes dimmed. Kael squeezed his knife, breath coming out in ragged gasps, his hand trembling. Blood spread to his feet with its metallic tang.
Only after it was extinguished and the familiar sensation of wrongness clawed at his anchor did he spit on the corpse. Anyone working for Garrick deserved death. No remorse. Not more than when he killed Tovin and Ash.
But no satisfaction either...
If the thug had noticed him before, if he hadn't thought about the knife plugging the wound... In his constricted pupils, the thug's corpse shifted into his own.
A week of training made me faster? Don't make me laugh. Idiot. Fool! They're stronger. More experienced. And you thought they wouldn't fight to their last breath? You're weak. You hear me, weak!
A soft pat on his back yanked him out of his thought. He lifted his bloody knife, then lowered it when he turned.
Tonio smiled beneath the bushy beard twisted from his fur by relic 78. He gently pressed Kael down until they both crouched on the roof. The simple movement tore a grunt out of Kael's lips. "Bad man dead. One hit. Good."
"Not enough..." Kael bit his lip as much in delusion as to remind himself of where he was. In the middle of a battlefield. Wounded. Vulnerable.
His eyes sifted across the other roofs. Thugs still shot at the tannery, cursing the Sump Dogs. An arrow struck a man in the leg, and he crashed into the street. Just another corpse in this gang war, like the two they had killed.
"More meat. More time. More fight. Faster." Tonio rubbed his back. "Hurt?"
Kael grimaced when he failed to lift his left arm. "Yeah. Not broken, though."
For a moment, Tonio's lips quivered as if torn between revenge and something else. Then, his red eyes softened, and he nodded firmly. "Wounded heal. No fight. Come home."
Kael's brows shot up. "What about our revenge?"
"Kael more important. No die. Els sad. Tonio sad." Tonio dragged him by the arm.
"I'm fine. Really. We can kill a few more. And I didn't even camouflage this one's death." Kael waved his right arm with a crooked smile. But Tonio squinted as if he wouldn't accept excuses.
"Alright. Listen, Tonio. I'll kill one more—then I'll stand down." He grabbed Tonio's forearm. "Didn't you say I needed more fights? I get you didn't step in because you trusted I'd kill this one, so trust me with one last. The others are yours as long as they don't notice."
Tonio's eyes darted between the blankets drawn over their shelter below and the thugs on the roofs. A second passed, then two. Eventually, he growled. "One. Wound lesson. Remember."
"I promise." Kael held Tonio's gaze for a moment. He was right. Pain had to be a lesson etched in flesh he would neither forget nor allow again.
Exhaling from his nose, he moved to the corpse. He jammed an arrow from the man's quiver into the wound, while the seven others joined those of the first thug at the bottom of the alley.
A bow vanishing after a war could happen; he would definitely notice two. One was enough, anyway. Money was the same. If he could notice the empty pouches, the others would as well. So, he pocketed four copper crowns and gave up on the other four.
Once done, he gestured to the next roof, one narrower from which a single thug shot. As soon as he did, Tonio's arms wrapped around him, and he leapt over the third street.
The old thatch faded beneath his feet, and wind whipped his dark hair against his face. He landed on the next roof in Tonio's arms, a brow raised in silent question. Tonio missed it, or didn't bother to answer. In any case, he unwrapped his arms.
Kael focused on what mattered: improving.
He approached the thug silently, as he had. Tonio followed a step behind, ready to protect him. Once almost in range, he didn't leap.
Even in the cacophony of war, a trained man would react to any sound entering his range. This was survival. This was the mistake he wouldn't commit again.
Slow steps, breath kept in. Though his shoulder hurt less than a minute ago, it still did. He wouldn't need to move it. One strike to kill. Nothing else.
The shadow of the man covered him. An arrow flew from his bow toward a barred window. And Kael's eyes narrowed on his chest. Neck too high. The heart, then.
The moment he raised his knife, the archer shivered—he didn't let him understand why. A hand wrapped around the handle, the other pushing the butt, he drove the knife into the man's back. Bones crunched and flesh tore. A tremor shook his left hand. He kept pushing until he pierced the throbbing organ.
A painful yelp tore his target's throat as wide blue eyes snapped toward him. A hand clasped an arrow from the quiver.
He drove the knife out and jumped three steps back. No plugging of the wound this time. No mistake.
Crouching, he watched the arrow slip from the man's fingers, watched his eyes beg for at least an explanation, and watched him collapse on his face.
Better. At least he could assassinate a man. But the tremors of Brannick's punches against the spawn's giant tentacles resurfaced. Tonio's frontal battle against twelve beggars followed.
That's how strong he wanted to become... And the fastest way... No...
The stress on his anchor built steadily with each kill. As much as he wanted Garrick to pay, another truth would mess up the process. Revenge was secondary, barely an afterthought to his real goal. The same goal he had when he convinced Giovanni to break his anchor in the sewers.
To break his own and mutate his truth.