While exhaustion swallowed Kael's consciousness, Els dropped to her knees.
Her hands refused to let go of the arrow shaft punched into Joss' neck, even as his blood stained her green sleeve. He gurgled wet sounds. Curses or threats that mattered less than the spasms jerking his muscles as if he would turn to gaze at her with his disgusting gray eyes.
Except for Kael's caring and Tonio's childish ones, every man's eyes were disgusting since that night. Just seeing them made her stomach churn enough that she holed herself up in the shelter for a week.
Joss beat them all by a mile. She would have chosen death over whatever fate he had envisioned for her. At least, she might have joined Kael and Tonio in Kraghor's divine realm instead of suffering. "You'll pay in due time." Even now, the promise kept her hands squeezed on the arrow.
It was Joss' body that finally forced them to release their hold. He tilted forward, wrestling the arrow free as he collapsed on Tonio. The wheeze of his breath faded beneath the buzzing of the flickering lamppost.
A hand pressing the small of her back, Els pushed herself from the ground. Did she kill him? She had never killed, never truly wanted to. Did she feel guilty? Wrong perhaps? No, she only shivered at the idea that Joss could rise again.
Carefully, she pressed her free hand against his back. It didn't heave. No heartbeat either.
Not enough.
With a huff, she rolled him to the side. She clutched her arms when he stared at her, his brow so creased that shadows dripped from his frown. The arrowhead punching through his broken teeth, the blood from his open left cheek, made her step back.
Joss' glare didn't follow. It stared at the makeshift ceiling of stretched blankets, frozen in hate, glassy. Lightless. He was dead.
She released the breath she didn't know she held, her shoulders relaxing. "May the gods throw you in a nameless hell."
She hurried beside Tonio. The rat-man lay on his stomach, a machete still pinning one of his wrists. Blood didn't flow from the wounds anymore. Hands trembling, she nudged his back. No reaction.
Her neck tensed as she kneeled in front of his face. Praying to Kraghor for his eyes to open, she pressed her palm against his nose. A warm breath met it, and his whiskers throbbed in annoyance.
Instantly, she cupped his furry face. "We did it. We protected each other!" Tears trailed down her face. "So, please, wake up..."
She shook his head. With each second crawling by, Tonio's lips twisted a little more. A sound left them, something between the wronged growl of someone forced awake and a pained wince.
"Bad man..." he mumbled with a yawn. Then, his red eyes shot open. "Bad man! No hurt Kael!"
He struggled, not even seeing Els before she knocked softly on his forehead.
His grimace eased, but he snapped his left eye shut. "Els? Head hurts... Where Kael? Where bad man?"
Sobbing, Els pointed at Joss' corpse, and Tonio's eyes widened.
"I'll check on Kael now." She gripped the hilt of the machete planted in his wrist. "He fought to protect you until he collapsed. We'll check on him together."
She pulled with both hands, her face red, but the blade stubbornly refused to move.
"Move." At Tonio's demand, she stepped back.
He leaned on his elbow, his free hand wrapping around the hilt. His lean but muscular arm bulged beneath gray fur, and he ripped the machete out.
"Hurts. Soon close." Grumbling, he pressed the back of his skull with one hand while licking the other.
Weird, but what wasn't with the rat-man? Smiling, Els walked to Kael.
His own blood didn't spare a single pale spot on his face. The broad, yellowed shirt of her dad was the same—dyed crimson, which slowly dried into burgundy. But her smile broadened instead of faltering.
On his back, a grin curved his lips. He had outsmarted Joss, leader of the Ragged Crown, exiled priest of Morvana's church. Of course, he had. He had scared her. She even thought they would all die when Joss hammered the ground with his head. But somewhere deep within her heart, she knew he would. Or perhaps hoped with everything she had.
Els kneeled on his right, while Tonio took his left. "You kept your promise to wake up together." She clasped his right hand against her chest. "We're only waiting for you."
No reaction.
Tonio pressed a palm against Kael's chest, then nodded when it heaved steadily. "Kael survive. Good endurance."
"We don't wake him up?" Els tilted her head, and Tonio shook his.
"Tired. Let sleep. And rat meat. Lot of rat meat."
"As long as he's fine..." Els glanced between Kael and the upturned blankets. "Bring them to me. And a canteen of water."
Nodding, Tonio brought everything to Els.
She bundled a blanket, gently lifted Kael's head, and slid it under. Then, she pulled at the collar of her dress. The shirt and coarse pants of her dad, blackened by the coal of the mines, hadn't vanished when her truth brought the dress back.
Good.
She ripped her dress and wet it with half the water from the canteen. Gently, she passed the rag over Kael's face. He grunted when she cleaned his broken nose. But it was straighter than a moment ago already. A scab formed on his wounded forehead, keeping his blood in.
Still, she unbuttoned his shirt and examined his chest and arms.
Beside her, Tonio covered his eyes. "Bad... Wait awake..."
Els turned to the rat-man's knowing smirk. For a moment, she frowned. Then, she shrugged. "Don't imagine things. I'm just checking for hidden wounds."
Finding no more wounds, she buttoned Kael's shirt with a heavy sigh. "What do we do now?" She glared at Joss' corpse. "With him, too."
"Kael smart. Wait wake up." Tonio crossed his arms over his chest matter-of-factly.
"I guess..." Els massaged her brow, then moved from Kael's side. She began to gather the arrows and bow and scavenged coal from the pit in the ground into her basket. "Get me the blankets above us. I want us to be ready to leave if he decides to."
Els crammed their belongings into her basket until the cloth, riddled with holes, that covered it bulged. Tonio shoved what he could into his coat's pockets and tucked the blankets beneath his armpits. Els circled the shelter three times for anything they might have missed before she nodded at the only thing they had left: the sheet in the doorway.
They were ready for whatever Kael decided.
As Els peered outside, she saw someone else who was ready. Not to leave, but to take down the Sump Dogs holed up in the tannery a hundred steps from their shelter.
Smoke had dissipated, revealing the blackened walls of the tannery and the twenty men approaching from the other side of the street.
Silma strolled at the front as if the street belonged to her, as if she had already won the gang war. She spread her hands across the building, her lips curved like a knife.
"I offered you time to lick your wounds and fortify your position. Don't disappoint me."
Her voice echoed across the street. Then silence. A second passed, then two. Els' hand trembled over the sheet. "Please, Kraghor, keep her eyes away from us."
Tonio wrapped his warm palm around her hand. She glanced at him, and he nodded, his eyes never leaving Silma.
"Mhh?" Silma tilted her head when silence thickened. "I expected a last barrage of curses. A declaration about surviving before your last stand would have done it, too. I get this... Did the proud dogs eat their balls in despair? Where is your sharp tongue, Joss? It might be the last time you can use it."
Another three heartbeats of silence.
Just as she sighed, Old Fen's voice thundered from the window. "Everything washes down to me. It always has and always will. Let me show you why Garrick surrendered the sewers, tunnels, and scavenging zones to me. Let me show you why I called my gang the Sump Dogs."
He whistled, the sound loud and clear enough that it might have reached the first beggar street. "Why this tannery is my last bastion."
Silma's smirk broadened. She raised her hand. "Bring me his—."
Before she could drop her hand, a howl interrupted her.
Els shivered and would have collapsed without the sheet's support when something emerged from the closest alley to their shelter.
Patches of grease and sludge stuck yellow fur to scarred sides, extending in four arched legs. Its head was raised as it walked, foaming lips cupped in a howl.
A stray dog.
At his call, another howl echoed, then another.
Nails scraped on pavement as dozens of dogs poured down every alley. They surrounded Silma's group, their ears perked up like arrows, their noses scrunched, and their fangs out.
"You might want to curse or make a declaration about surviving before your last stand, bitch." Old Fen's voice dripped with cold amusement. "Attack!"
The dogs barked as one and lunged at Silma's group, while men drew bowstrings from the windows.
Surely, Silma couldn't survive that... however, Fen controlled the dogs. His truth was more dangerous than Joss'; he didn't even need him to control the battlefield.
But Els' certitudes faltered with the sound of crumpling sheet.
Silma towered in the middle of the street with her men. Even as the stray dogs poured at them. Even as bows twanged from the tannery windows, their narrowed eyes glinted sharper than the weapons they drew.
No, it was their grins that forced Els to take a step back. They seemed eager.... for blood.