All five kidnappers wore leather vests, protecting their chest only, buckled tight. Which meant there was no protection for their hips, legs, throat, face or arms. These men were not rich, they could not afford full armour made of iron or steel.
The rope fell away from M's wrists like a slithering snake. Sera's two-inch knife still in his hand. In a blur of black cloak and raw fury M was on his feet.
The four men around the fire quickly saw him stand. That was all.
"SWORDS TO THE READY!" Cael's command cut through the evening. He was on his feet before the words had finished leaving his mouth, sword clearing its scabbard with a metallic hiss. The others fumbled. Their hands, warm and slow from the fire, suddenly useless at their sides.
M turned his head to Pike. You. first.
Pike heard the shout. He tried turning, hand reaching for his hilt, when something ripped the sword clean from his belt. His fingers closed on nothing. He looked down at his empty hip and his expression shifted for the first time in a long while from a boring stoic look, to utter shock.
Then M swung from behind, Pike's own sword. Pike's own notched, heavy blade that had never once been properly sharpened because Pike always forgot and never thought it mattered. It caught him just below the jawline not clean, but with full commitment. The sword crunched, stopping deep in Pike's neck. Pike was already dead, but M wrenched the sword free in a savage twist and finished the cut, the blade carving through like a grim reaper's scythe. The sound was wet and structural. Pike's head left his shoulders with an expression of pure bewilderment still arranged on it, as if even then he was not entirely sure what had happened, his head tumbled into the undergrowth.
The body stood for one full second. Dark blood erupted upward in a single pressurised column, painting the grass red. M's left hand was already moving, reaching around the falling body, fingers finding a dagger strapped across Pike's chest, pulling it free before the corpse could fall. Then the knees went and the whole mass of Pike hit the ground with a thud that travelled up through the ground.
He… he beheaded him. Just like the eye ripper did to my father. Leo's chest tightened, despair clawing at him. His once angry face had vanished in an instant.
"Close your eyes, child." Sera looked at Leo, her soft, thin lips putting on a brave smile. A slight pity could also be seen in her bright purple eyes.
"Okay…" Leo's voice trembled, he did as he was told.
The hostages, Cael thought, his legs already moving. Get to the hostages. That's how we can end this. It was the most obvious choice. If Cael could reach the boy before M could cut him off, the fight would end the same way it ended the first time, knife at throat, sword on the ground.
They moved as one, all four of them scrambling toward the captive tree, leather armour creaking, boots churning the dirt.
But M had already finished with Pike. He had already turned and was running straight into the kidnappers charge, closing the distance before they'd covered half the ground to the tree. M wore nothing to slow him down, nothing on him but a cloak, a black tunic and black cotton trousers. He was already standing between them and the captive tree.
Solid like a wall of black stone. Three blades were in his hands. Pike's sword in his right. Pike's dagger in his left. Sera's two-inch knife tucked between the same fingers, adjusted without looking. His red eye pulsed in the dying orange sky.
The kidnappers stopped. They all stood now between the campfire and the tree.
He's fast, Edric thought, his sword hand tight on the grip.
Cael watched all of it unfold with eyes like still water.
"Stay calm, boys," he said. Low and unhurried. "Spread out. Bram, Wilas— flank left. Edric— right. Now."
All four moved without a word. Swords up. Cael straight ahead. Bram and Wilas angling out to M's right. Edric peeling left.
Cael had done this before. Sera could see it in the spacing, nobody too close to another, nobody overlapping their swing. A man who had commanded men before.
Leo's face shook heavily, eyes still closed but he could still hear everything. His hands still tied behind the tree.
Sera's mouth opened up in surprise, revealing her perfect white teeth, He'll die… he's outnumbered.
The one who hurt my horse comes last. He'll watch it all. M's rage was raw, absolute and unstoppable.
His red eye eerily locked onto Bram's face. The pulse of it slowed and held, fixed to Bram's eye.
M threw Pike's dagger. The blade left M's left hand and flew through the air, quickly burying itself in Bram's right eye. Not a throw of particular elegance.
Bram's legs kept running while his mind tried to understand what had just happened to his face. Then the pain washed over him, his legs noticed they were connected to a man who had a dagger in his eye socket. His sword fell from his hand. His remaining eye was squeezed shut. He went down into the dirt, screaming.
Martha, he thought as the pain intensified. Martha help. This pain—
M released Sera's knife at Wilas in the same breath. Two inches of blade. Too small to kill. The knife lodged itself into the side of Wilas's neck, not deep enough to hit anything vital. He dropped to his knees, one hand clamping over the wound, the blood came fast between his fingers, faster than he expected, running down into his collar and spreading through the fabric in a wide warm stain. He could feel his own pulse in the blade. Every heartbeat pushing a little more out.
"AH—" Wilas gurgled from his broken throat, pressing his palm flat against the wound. Blood ran hot between his fingers.
Wilas and Bram temporarily down. The other two still charging.
Cael and Edric reached M at almost the same moment. Cael's sword came in horizontally, level with M's ribs, a real swordsman's cut, controlled and surprisingly fast. Edric's swing came from above, also fast, shoulder-driven aiming for the skull.
M leaped to Edric's right while ducking. Both blades passed behind him from his upper right, cutting nothing but air. In the same downward motion M drove Pike's sword sideways in a short vicious arc at Edric's right leg. The leather armour stopped at the chest. Below the waist there was nothing.
The steel blade went through his cloth and flesh cleanly, catching bone near the knee. Edric's right leg folded wrong. He collapsed and hit the ground, screaming, the limb still attached by strands of muscle, blood pumping out in erratic spurts. He dropped his sword as he fell. M grabbed it without breaking stride and came upright.
I told my boy it was honest work, was the last coherent thought Edric had. I told him it was… honest work.
Wilas was back on his feet. Jaw set. Hand still pressed to his neck. He looked at Edric on the ground, at the leg barely attached to him, at the blood spreading dark and fast through the soil.
M threw Edric's sword like a javelin.
It was not a dagger. It was not built for throwing. It was more of a shove as if he was pushing open a heavy door. The sword left his hands in a flat, wobbling arc, heavy and slow. Wilas saw it coming. He tried to duck, hand still pressed to his bleeding neck but the blade caught him high on the right side of his forehead.
The blade punched through bone with a sound like a boot heel cracking ice. Not deep, four inches, maybe five, the brain stem untouched, the man still standing. Wilas blinked once, both hands rising to touch the hilt now jutting from his face, his mouth opening to speak or scream. Nothing came out. His legs gave up. He fell straight back, the sword still in his head.
This is how I die… fuck, am I going hell? was his last thought.
"NO! NO! NO—" Bram was up. Pike's dagger still lodged in his bleeding right eye, blood sheeting down his face, sword back in his hand. The grief and pain had grown into something that looked almost like courage. He couldn't see from his right eye. His whole body was shaking. He charged anyway.
Martha, he thought. Martha I'll get you a house, I'LL KILL HIM, AND COME BACK HOME.
Cael was now slyly smirking, he could have charged but decided not to. He stepped back two paces, watching M's positioning, waiting for the opening Bram's suicide rush would create. Sword in one hand. His other hand found the dagger at his belt, the one that had been inside K's flank, dark at the tip still.
Bram's wild swing came first. M lunged back. But M's ugly rage was about to cost him now, his speed was depleting. The tip of the sword ran across M's chest, just enough, a brief red line opened across his sternum through the cloak and tunic. He felt the burning, nerve endings racing to catch up.
Bram's sword had carried past him now, momentum pulling the big man's whole body to the left, his ruined eye weeping dark blood down his cheek, sword arm extended and briefly helpless.
Cael threw his dagger at the same time. No windup, just a practiced flick of the wrist from a man who had done it before in worse conditions, it was obvious. The dagger came exceedingly fast, aimed at M's heart, Cael's accuracy was exceptional.
M twisted his body to his right, but it wasn't enough. The dagger caught his left shoulder, burying itself deep, opening a deep channel through the green fabric and flesh. The pain was immediate. M staggered one step, his left arm going numb from the pain. Good thing his sword hand was his right.
I'LL KILL YOU ALL. He wasn't thinking about the pain. He'd watched K tremble and bleed, and that was the only pain that mattered.
He stepped forward, inside Bram's blind side. M swiftly drove Pike's sword through the side of Bram's throat, then wrenched it free in one swift motion. Bram's enormous body lurched. He made a sound that was indescribable. Bram then stopped moving, paralysed by pain, swaying.
Bram fell, still thinking about Martha and the unborn child as he hit the ground. "M—" His lips moved. The one remaining eye found nothing. "Mar—"
Bram now dead, face in the dirt.
M stood over him, breathing hard through his nose. The red eye blazed. His left arm hung uselessly, blood running down to his fingertips. The shoulder wound was deep. He could feel the numbness spreading, the muscle crying.
Cael's face showed nothing. Not grief or fear. His sword was up in proper guard, weight forward, eyes tracking M with complete calmness. He'd watched everyone except Edric die, and that made Cael somehow calmer, more focused. It was not natural…
I've seen men die before, Cael thought calmly. I've seen men die in worse ways than this.
Edric was still alive. His right leg was barely attached by a few strings of muscle. He was crawling away from M, away from all of it, fingers clawing at the ground, dragging himself forward through the dirt. His leg leaving a wide dark trail through the soil with every pull of his arms.
"AAAAAAAAAAAA—" He was screaming in pain, just raw sound tearing out of him with every drag of his arms through the dirt, loud enough to reach the treelines.
Sera silently watched M. His speed, accuracy and strength were all impressive, but not impossible. Any one of the king's sword could have cleared the camp up by now without getting a dagger inside their arm and a wound on their chest. But they had armour. They had years and years of structured training. They had everything. M on the other hand, had nothing, he had done all that with no armour, no sword in the beginning. Sera's eyes didn't leave him. She wasn't used to looking at bodies. At men dying. At the particular smell of opened guts and the way blood turned dirt to mud. So she didn't. She locked her eyes on M, his black cloak, his red eye pulsing, and let the rest blur into meaningless colour at the edges of her vision. She looked at him only.
Now it was just Cael and M left standing, staring at each other, six feet apart.