"Shit. Kill him!" Charging behind Tonio, Kael pulled the knife tucked behind his back.
His limbs went colder than when the Quiet Hand's spawn had chased him through the mines. No matter what, they had to kill Joss, or he would sell them to Silma.
You're not getting Tonio! He gripped his weapon hard enough for his palm to hurt, his eyes locked on Tonio's descending nails.
They whistled in five dark streaks toward Joss' chest, but the wet tearing of flesh didn't echo... neither did Joss' screams. Instead, he stood on Tonio's right, both hands pulling out two machetes from leather holsters at his waist.
Tonio froze, his red eyes narrowed on his own hand as they had whenever he called Kael a traitor. Then, he tilted his head the way he always did when he couldn't understand something.
Even Kael's charge faltered for a split second. Not a dodge; a single stride—a heartbeat before Tonio began to swing... as if Joss read the strike's angle and let it slide harmlessly. Had Joss always been that strong, or was it his truth?
No time to think! Joss' machetes already glinted in the flickering light.
Kael stomped into a leap, slicing his knife at the man's throat.
Calm grey eyes reflected on his blade, and his target quietly stepped back the moment he entered its range. The knife carved air, a fist too far from Joss' neck. But he didn't fight alone.
"Tonio!"
At his scream, Tonio gave up on resolving the unsolvable equation of how faster nails missed a slower target, and swiped his left nails horizontally. He was fast, always fast, and he squeaked it. "Tonio faster!"
Before Tonio's hips betrayed the movement, Joss squatted under the swipe. An expression of bored contempt twisted his face as the dark nails rustled his short hair. He exploded upward, machetes out like a serpent's fangs.
Breath caught in his throat, Kael dropped beneath Tonio's arm and lunged in, arms spread, a single thought filling his mind. Destabilise him.
But Joss' feet spun out of his reach just as he closed his arms. He slipped around Tonio's side, wrapping an arm around the rat-man's neck and using it to swing himself onto Tonio's back without slowing.
Unable to stop after missing, Kael crashed into the junk wall headfirst. Instantly, he tried to get on his feet, but his legs buckled, and the shelter fractured into undulating patterns. Gripping the wall for support, he forced himself up. With a groan, he held the left side of his head, while his eyes darted for Tonio through the patterns.
At the back of the shelter, Els reached for something on the ground. Tears trailed, then distorted on her trembling arms. He barely glanced at her. He had to save Tonio before anything.
"Enough!" Joss' command yanked his mind.
Pain from the dripping gash on his forehead slapped the waves flat into walls and people slowly. His chest tightened when Tonio gazed back at him. His red eyes cried without tears even as two weapons pressed against his neck.
Pressed against Tonio's back, Joss smirked. "Well, well. I wanted to commission the freak to escort me out. Hahaha. It was the rat-man Garrick searched for all along! How did you hide him?" He nudged his head toward Kael. "Better, how did you hide yourself? I remember you. Kael, right? The lad who supposedly stole a chunk of the treasure that Garrick hired him to excavate. A lie, of course, confirmed by my men along with your death. Wait, let me guess."
"You became a binder that night. Truly impressive. No... the men who reported you..."
Kael bit his lip. Joss knew. Not yet, but he began to piece the clues together.
And it didn't take him more than five seconds. "You killed them a week later. Then you freed the rat-man from the sewers and pinned its disappearance on Fen. This whole war happened because of a brat who refused to die?" His trembling blades carved two thin lines on Tonio's neck.
Kael's fingers twitched on the wall. Except for the blame part he had no idea about, Joss nailed everything... Shit...
"There is something more. Garrick attacked my headquarters with a fraudulent accusation. Wouldn't you know what happened to two of his debt collectors, by any chance? They had been trailing a girl. Both died in an alley last week."
Not Els! Kael crouched, ready to jump. Screwed for screwed, he'd fight until the bitter end. And if Joss could piece events together, he could as well! Tonio was Joss' ticket out of the war, and he would never shred it.
"I saw one—"
Before Joss could finish, before Kael charged, Els' soft voice exploded across the room. "Don't touch them!"
A bowstring twanged.
Kael snapped his head toward the sound, to the pained grimace crumpling Els' face. She collapsed on her knees, clutching her right arm, the bow clanging on the ground. But the glint in her green eyes shone brighter than the arrowhead drilling toward Joss' head from the left.
Kael didn't hold his breath. Hope was the sweet lie that kept people dreaming. It had long been buried beneath the countless corpses that never found it in the burial pit, including his mom. It was an excuse for passivity, a variable he hated. Instead of hoping, he would tackle the future he wanted head-on.
Therefore, the moment the bow twanged, the moment Joss cut himself mid-sentence and shifted on his feet, Kael already charged.
Joss bent back, stepping in the same direction while dragging Tonio with him. It wasn't fast. The timing was perfect, calculated to the nearest millimeter. Or perhaps it was experience, instinct or his truth at play. Either way, Kael didn't strike. His knife lay beside the junk wall, dropped during the impact. But all he needed were his hands.
He grabbed Tonio's forearms and tugged the gasping rat-man in the opposite direction.
As Kael expected, Joss' calm grey pupils shrank to pinpricks. He twisted his wrists, the flat of his machetes pressed against Tonio's neck, not to behead him even as his head snapped back into the arrow's trajectory. Not because Kael was stronger. No. Kael himself knew he was far weaker. What he had understood, however, was that Joss' movements didn't seem effortless; they were. No speed or strength behind them, but reading strikes in advance.
He smirked when the silver streak of the arrow reached Joss' head. They had beaten the leader of the ragged crown!
A grunt shoved the celebratory thoughts down the sewer.
Between the moment the arrow kissed Joss' skin and the moment it would have punched through his skull, he snapped his head to follow the projectile's trajectory. The arrow tore through his left cheek, teeth visible before blood coated them red and stained his white shirt.
A shiver ran down Kael's spine. Joss glared at him, cold, calculated rage replacing calm, a haunting smirk on his lips. How... It was definitely his truth, one that allowed him to react to any threat the moment it formed.
Wind brushed his scalp before Kael recovered. A machete would split it open in a second. No!
"No!" With a roar as desperate as his own thought, Tonio kicked him in the stomach much faster than Joss' strike. He was flung back, the air knocked out of his lungs. He crashed into the junk wall, pain bursting in his back, bile shooting up from his stomach. For a breathless second, the entire shelter trembled. Then, he folded over his knees, puking and trying to breathe in a suffocating paradox.
"No hurt Kael! Friend! Family!" Tonio screamed in a distorted voice. No, his ears buzzed so much that he barely understood his broken speech.
"Leave them alone... Please..." Els' sob tore at his chest. He searched for her through the locks of hair veiling his vision, but everything was a mess of blurs.
And Joss' brutal answer petrified his angry stomach.
"You don't need limbs, just your life."
He fought the pain to lift his head, only to see the man slice Tonio's ankles.
"ARGH!" Tonio collapsed on his knees.
Don't... He wanted to plead if it was what it took to save Tonio, his friend... family... All he managed was a choked gurgle.
Tonio screamed again when Joss' machetes severed his armpits. His arms fell limp, and Joss stomped on his hands. With a twist of his wrists, he held his weapons upside down and shoved them into Tonio's wrists, nailing them to the ground.
Tonio's face twisted in agony. But his red eyes didn't shed tears of physical pain, but of reopened scars. The haven he chose to forget because becoming stupid hurt less than remembering every lost friend, Giovanni and Riccardo... Now, him and Els, without even realising that he would suffer most. Or perhaps he already understood that watching another friend die was the worst he could suffer...
Stop... leave him alone...
Joss would never. He threw his head back, wiping the blood oozing from his left cheek with his sleeve. "Ah! Me? Wounded by a bunch of brats?!" He craned his neck to gaze through Kael's hair. Mocking. Superior. A predator watching prey.
Kael hated this feeling... But he... was done for.
"We'll enjoy our time until Silma's attack, Kael. Trust me. I'll keep your head, though. Proof I caught the heretic. I'll give you that, slum rat. You're smarter than the others. But also dumber." Joss' words made no sense to Kael. Only the sound of his approaching steps did.
"Want to hear a funny one?" Joss gripped Kael's hair, his face close enough that his breath smeared the bile at the corner of his lips. "I watched you pause at every place your whore of a mother begged. I watched you push the Black Cask doors open, then watched you walk to your death with Brannick as I watched the dozen brats before you."
W-What? Kael bit his lip, his mind freezing.
Joss didn't care. He pulled his hair, forcing their gazes to meet. "Information is the only currency, and they need sharp and fast minds. Did you think I believed a clueless brat like you stole from Garrick? No, I knew you were a distraction he wanted dead. I could have warned you, but I watched. I could have ignored you, but I sent your own 'friends' to kill you. Hahaha!"
The revelation struck Kael's frozen mind like a hammer. He shivered in Joss' grip, every vein burning. Joss knew! He knew from the beginning, but actively schemed to kill him using his friends! Kael glared at the man. Right now, he hated him more than Garrick.
And Joss hated him as much. He yanked his hair, his scalp burning, before his nose slammed the ground. The bridge shattered, blood smearing the cracked pavement. Before he could even scream, his face rose and crashed again.
"You chose your end when you pushed the Black Cask doors. You chose your end when you became Garrick's scapegoat. And you chose your end today again when you went against me. Even your truth is pathetic, a tool to prolong your suffering." No more calm, only Joss' enraged voice overwhelming sobs and pleas Kael couldn't even hear.
Everything spun incomprehensibly except for pain. Pain remained, sharp, wet, and warm from the blood replacing the bile on his face. He would die...
A bestial howl shattered the darkness that blurred the edge of his vision.
"TONIO BREAK! NOT WANT TO LIVE! DIE. FAST DIE!"