Nida moved through the shadows as if she were part of them. Her footsteps made no sound. Her breathing was controlled and silent. She was a ghost, a nightmare, death wearing the skin of a woman.
Benny waited in his own position, perched above the corridor on a stone outcropping near the vaulted ceiling. From this height, he had a clear view of the space below and his assigned targets. The drop was significant, maybe fifteen feet, but that would work in his favor.
No one would survive a blade they couldn't see coming. At least, that's what he hoped. Jumping from this height would create momentum that would be deadly for either him or the enemy. Using gravity to pull him down, surely a single stab toward the enemy's exposed parts would be lethal.
But first, the venom.
Benny positioned himself carefully, checking his angle one last time. His hands shook slightly. The fear was starting to crawl up from wherever he kept it buried, threatening to take control.
He forced it down. Controlled his breathing. Steadied his trembling fingers.
This was it. Everything depended on the next few seconds.
He threw the vials with explosive force, hurling them toward his intended targets. The glass containers spun through the air, arcing down toward the elite guards below.
At the same moment, he jumped.
Nida launched herself from her position as well, moving toward her own enemies in perfect synchronization.
The vials struck first. Glass shattered against ornate armor. The acidic venom splashed across the guards' helmets and shoulders, eating through metal and finding flesh beneath.
Benny had always been good at throwing things. It had been his talent since childhood, back when he'd practiced with stones and bottles in the streets. He hadn't used the skill for combat in years, but muscle memory guided his aim. The vials landed exactly where he'd intended.
The elite guards reacted immediately. They writhed in pain as the acid burned through their armor, melting metal and searing skin. One of them let out a strangled sound, part scream, part growl.
But the venom component did almost nothing. These guards were experts in plague and rot. Their bodies had been conditioned to resist toxins through years of deliberate exposure. The venom stunned them temporarily at best, nothing more than a minor distraction.
Still, it was enough. That brief moment of pain and confusion created the opening Benny needed.
He fell like a meteor, sword extended below him, using gravity and his full body weight to drive the blade down. The point found the gap between the guard's helmet and shoulder plate, punching through leather and flesh, piercing deep into the torso.
The rat man collapsed under the impact, Benny's sword embedded so deep it protruded from the other side of the body. Blood fountained from the wound, hot and thick.
Benny tried to pull his weapon free, but it was stuck. The angle was wrong, the blade wedged between ribs and armor plates.
"Fuck," he hissed, he tried yanking it harder. But the sword wouldn't budge.
---
Meanwhile, Nida closed the distance to her targets with lethal efficiency.
She made her first strike before they'd fully recovered from the acid, a quick thrust aimed at the throat of the nearest guard. But unexpectedly, impossibly, her blade was caught. The rat man's hand snapped up with reflexes that shouldn't have been possible for someone half-blinded and in pain, grabbing her wrist before the strike could land.
Nida didn't hesitate. She applied a close-quarter technique, a flowing series of movements designed to turn a failed strike into multiple attacks. It was the doce-pares system she'd learned from her previous master, a fighting art that emphasized twelve ideal slashing angles and joint manipulation techniques that were nearly impossible to defend against.
Her blade danced through the air in precise arcs. Wounds appeared across the gaps in the elite rat man's armor, her knife slitting through the tiny spaces between plates. She targeted tendons, major arteries, anything critical that would bleed profusely or disable movement.
The rat man's grip on her wrist weakened as blood flowed from a dozen wounds. He stumbled back, trying to create distance, but Nida stayed close, pressing the advantage.
The second elite guard, the one wounded in his eye by the acid, moved toward the sound of his comrade's struggle. Even writhing in pain, even half-blind, his training took over. He swung his massive halberd in a wide arc, trying to catch the assassin in its path.
The weapon was fast, terrifyingly fast for something so heavy. But Nida was faster.
She dropped low beneath the swing, positioning herself so the halberd's arc would strike the rat man's own comrade instead of her. The heavy blade connected with devastating force, smashing through the wounded guard's helmet and cleaving deep into his skull. Bone crunched. Brain matter sprayed across the corridor.
The guard's body collapsed in a heap, twitching once before going still.
Nida didn't waste the opening. While the surviving guard's weapon was embedded in his comrade's corpse, she moved in for the kill. But the rat man's instincts, honed through countless hours of brutal training, screamed danger at him. His senses told him something was wrong, that whatever his halberd had hit wasn't the enemy.
He ripped the weapon free with shocking speed and spun, trying to catch Nida in a backswing. The blade whistled through the air, missing her by inches as she rolled away.
They separated, circling each other in the blood-soaked corridor. The rat man's remaining eye tracked her movements, calculating, measuring.
This wouldn't be easy.
---
On the other side of the corridor, Benny's situation had deteriorated rapidly.
He'd killed the first guard, but his sword was stuck deep in the corpse. The second guard, smaller than her dead companion, recovered from the acid with alarming speed. She was a female, Benny realized, an elite squad commander judging by the markings on her armor.
She was nimble despite the pain that must have been coursing through her acid-burned face. The rat men's resistance to plague and rot extended to other forms of suffering as well. Pain was just information. It could be acknowledged and then ignored.
She moved with professional efficiency, her spear stabbing toward where she could sense Benny's presence. The weapon wasn't a halberd like the others carried. Commanders were allowed to choose their preferred weapon, and for her, it was the spear. Quick thrusts. Precise strikes. Maximum efficiency with minimal wasted motion.
The tip was tainted with something dark and viscous. Her own personal plague concoction, more potent and deadly than the standard toxins the other elites used.
Benny felt danger screaming at him through every instinct he possessed. His cowardly nature, the thing that had kept him alive this long, howled warnings. He jerked backward, abandoning his stuck sword and barely avoiding the poisoned spear point.
He needed a weapon. His hands closed around the dead guard's halberd, pulling it free from the corpse. The balance was completely wrong, nothing like the familiar weight of his sword. The weapon was too heavy, too long, the center of gravity all off.
But it was better than fighting bare-handed against a poisoned spear.
He hefted the halberd awkwardly, adjusting his grip, trying to compensate for the unfamiliar weight distribution. The female commander watched him with one good eye, the other ruined by acid. Her expression was unreadable behind the damaged helmet.
Then she attacked.
The spear came at him in a rapid series of thrusts, each one aimed at a vital spot. Throat. Heart. Eyes. Liver. She moved through a practiced kata, flowing from one strike to the next with mechanical precision.
Benny blocked desperately with the halberd, the heavy weapon barely fast enough to intercept the spear. Sparks flew where metal met metal. Each impact sent shocks through his arms, threatening to tear the weapon from his grip.
He was losing. The commander was too skilled, too fast, too experienced. Every exchange pushed him further back, closer to the wall where he'd have no room to maneuver.
---
Both battles had reached a critical standstill. Benny and Nida fought for their lives against opponents who were, frankly, better trained than they were. Elite guards. Professional soldiers who'd survived countless engagements through skill and discipline.
But Benny and Nida had one advantage the guards didn't expect. They had the advantage of perception although it was proving difficult even with such advantage and most importantly they had nothing to lose. They were already dead the moment they entered this castle. They'd accepted that fact. Now they were just fighting to take as many enemies with them as possible before the end came.
And they couldn't afford to let these guards call for reinforcements. If this fight went loud, if alarms were raised, the entire castle would come down on them. The mission would fail. Their friends would have to abandon them.
They had to win here. Had to kill these elite guards in silence. Had to do it before more enemies arrived.
Fortunately, there was one factor working in their favor. Pride.
The elite guards were trained never to call for help. Asking for assistance was beneath them. Their entire culture was built around self-sufficiency and individual prowess. The reasoning was simple: if the elite couldn't handle a threat, how could anyone beneath them be expected to handle it?
Help was a word that didn't exist in their vocabulary. They would win this fight through their own strength, or they would die trying.
It was a fatal flaw in their training. One that Benny and Nida desperately needed to exploit.
The battles continued. Steel clashed against steel. Blood flowed across ancient stone. And in the shadows of the rat kingdom's heart, two humans fought for survival against impossible odds.
The outcome would determine everything.
Win, and they had a chance to complete their mission. Maybe even escape alive.
Lose, and this corridor would become their tomb.
There was no middle ground. No retreat. No mercy.
Just kill or be killed.
The way it had always been in the labyrinth.