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Brialise arrived later than Nico would have liked, holding no keys and glancing anxiously over her shoulder every now and then. She had a silver-edged dagger in one hand that Nico recognized: it was one of his own. Before he and Fish had been thrown into this cave, Taunus had frisked them both thoroughly, removing all their concealed weapons. Fish had been half unconscious, suffering from that crack against his head. Nico remembered Taunus’s leer, the intimate way he had slid a hand into Fish’s hair to shake him awake after finding every one of his hidden daggers, and felt his skin crawl. No, the sooner they were away from here, the better. This was no job they should ever have accepted. There was still a way out, however. Take Fish and run. What he should have done in the first place.
“No keys?” Fish asked, and the girl shook her head miserably.
“Master Taunus is keeping them. He—he speaks of coming down here soon, said something about his sister being delayed, said he needs to check on you himself.” She glanced fearfully over her shoulder. “I managed to snatch this without them noticing. Can you open the locks with it?” She proffered the dagger to Fish.
“Nico’s much better with that than I am. Better take it to him.”
The girl was much warier around Nico; she stepped delicately over the rocks and handed the dagger to him, wordlessly, at arm’s length.
Nico had long been familiar with the arts of burglary; when he’d first arrived in Ülhard, there had not been many opportunities for honest paid work. He had been too big to make a successful burglar himself, but he’d made an excellent look-out, and before long they had begun to hire him for other things.
The lock between his ankles clicked open and Nico rose to his feet, cursing as pins and needles erupted in his calves. He climbed down unsteadily, finding it difficult to balance with his arm bound in its sling, and made his way towards his partner.
After so many days of sitting yards apart, Nico was uncomfortably aware of the boy’s proximity and impatience as he worked the blade of the dagger into the lock between Fish’s wrists, then between his ankles. When he was done, Fish climbed down using the expedient method of putting his hands on Nico’s shoulders and swinging to the ground.
“We had better go fast,” Brialise said, and there was no more time for Nico to dwell on whatever it was that he was suddenly feeling, lust or love or fear. He tucked his cloak tightly around himself, keeping his injured arm close to his chest. He could feel the pain of the overstretched tendon keeping pace with him, twinging a little every time he took a step.
The cave had numerous exits, at least six that Nico had counted in the dim light whilst sitting in his chains. He knew which way they had come when they’d been put here: off to the left, through the entry Brialise normally used. The tunnel leading from that entrance ran uphill towards a desolate valley where wind continually screeched through imposing black rocks. But that way led past Taunus’s men, the captains who commanded over the necromes, and past Taunus himself. It did not therefore surprise him that the girl took the opposite entryway, down a narrow tunnel dark as night, with water trickling from numerous gaps to pool upon the worn rocky floor.
Brialise produced a single torch from somewhere in her furs, along with a steel-and-flint striker. Nico had to help her glean sparks from it. He wondered how long the route to safety under the mountain was, and whether this one torch would have to last them all the way.
They went single file up the narrow passageway, Brialise in front with the torch, Nico bringing up the rear. The footing was uneven, and they could go only slowly. Nico looked up and saw the roof far above, narrowing to a crack somewhere in the darkness. A thin spray of water seeped from that crack and misted their faces as they went.
“Does Taunus know this way?” Fish’s voice was low, yet echoes still magnified the sound and sent the words bouncing off the walls. Nico saw Brialise shake her head.
“We had better not talk until later,” she warned, and Fish fell silent. Nico could sense the urgency emanating from his partner, and knew that Fish would rather have talked away his tension, all the way to the surface. There were few things that could make Fish shut up, necessity and sometimes drunkenness and—Nico felt a twinge of something like regret—his own disapproval.
The narrow tunnel seemed to stretch on forever, hundreds and hundreds of paces. All three of them were damp from the continuous spray of water by the time it widened and led out into a straight, spacious tunnel that looked suspiciously like a walkway. Brialise halted at the exit and handed the torch to Fish, peered both ways into the darkness, then seized the torch again and crept to a crevice in the tunnel wall opposite, motioning for the two men to follow her.
Nico and Fish sheltered beside her as best they could, and Brialise explained in a low voice: “This is where the necromes usually go. When Master Taunus sends them to hunt. This leads down—all the way down—to the valleys.” She paused. “I know another way, a safer way. It is longer, but unbeknownst to them.” She peered at their faces in the shadows, as they nodded their agreement. “We will have to go some ways down this tunnel.” She pointed in the direction where the tunnel began to slope ever-so-slightly downwards. “We will... we will have to go past some dead prisoners. They will not bother us.”
“Dead prisoners?” Nico repeated. Fish touched his arm, gripping him.
“Corpses that are being turned,” he whispered, and Nico saw Brialise nod in affirmation. “Into necromes.”
“Can’t—can’t we do something to help them?” Nico asked lamely, even as somehow he knew the answer would be negative.
“They’re difficult to kill, even in the larval stage,” Fish explained, looking away from him. “There is no true suffering in them, Nico. They’re already dead.”
Nico shuddered. “Well, you’re the expert.”
“We should go quickly,” Brialise said.
They nodded their assent, and set off. The floor was flat, compacted earth remarkably like a road, and the tunnel was wide enough for them to have walked at least five abreast. Nico disliked the openness, and wished he had a sword on him. His own had been taken by Taunus, and he supposed there was no chance of getting it back.
The plan was simply to get back to the hamlet, and then figure out what came next. Perhaps the whole village would have to help them fight off Taunus when he came looking for them, or everyone would have to flee. Nico found himself wondering how the villagers had reacted to their disappearance. He had liked and respected Harold Velman, and had been mildly surprised to find how easily the others, even the younger men of the village, had accepted him and drawn him into their company. It had been a little like going home.
Nico had never known a true family; he had been raised as a foundling in a monastery further north, in the shadow of the mighty mountain he now crept under, and this was the only thing that Fish knew about his past. What had happened to Nico after he left the monastery, at sixteen, was something he would never tell another soul.
The closest monastery to where they now were lay south, near Lake Mountaindale, where Nico had never been. Perhaps he would end up seeing it in passing. All roads from here led down the mountain: back to Von Dharen, which had too much of a Guild presence; north past Pine, where Nico would never return; or down the other way, around the famed high pass of Beerstana Peak and south towards the great lake and the plains of Vailana beyond. It would not do to pass too close to Armour City, not with what he now knew of Fish, but there was a highway along the southern slopes of Svanlyn, leading across the mountain from Greensland to Palace to Lynborder and Wolverton, crossing the lowest part of the mountains to end up in Sulshome with its famous port on the Sea of Calms. A lonely road, said to be infested with bandits, but a better hope than any other. They could take ship at Sulshome, sign on with a crew, become pirates perhaps. Or sail to Arven, that land of isles north of Svanfeld, where supposedly bands of marauders regularly made the crossing to old Novlaya and the faraway Zemlyan Empire, gathering riches and having adventures untold.
Or if they sailed the other way, they could find some sort of employment in the Eastern Empire, perhaps as caravan guards. Nico had heard all his life about the perilous trade routes that led in and out of the Eastern Continent, the savages who lived in the rainforest, the pirates who prowled the oceans. A dangerous life that would be, for sure, but it sounded a deal better than getting roasted by a vengeful dark sorcerer hell-bent on conquering the whole of his homeland.
Fish had not told him the reason for his brother’s presence here in Svanfeld, but Nico could make an educated guess. Arran Sylvaissen, the famed sorcerer tyrant, had conquered Vailana pretty handily and was probably going to overrun the Forest of the Morning any day now, if half of what was reported in Ülhard was true. It only seemed natural that he would turn his attention to the northern country across the mountains as well.
It seemed to Nico that it might be a good idea to not be here when the sorcerer-king finally came across the mountains. Doubly so since apparently Fish had betrayed him. For the past four years, Nico had been a constant companion to danger, but only fools invited it near.
Fools and the mad and those bent on vengeance, he corrected himself, covertly studying Fish’s angular features by the light of the flickering torch. The boy’s face showed nothing but calm determination. It was a ways away from the expression Nico had seen on his face when Fish had suddenly caused the whole world to burst into flame, that anguish, that near madness. It had frightened Nico more than the magic itself, if truth be told.
There were soft and strange sounds ahead, the source too far to see in the small circle of torchlight that clung to Brialise as if it were afraid of the yawning darkness beyond. Grunting, perhaps—or snarling? Gnawing? Nico shivered despite himself, and tried to touch a sword hilt that was not there.
A few more steps, and the first of the figures came into view. Nico started, for all that he had been trying to prepare himself for whatever foul sight awaited. A narrow cage of wire had been strung along each side of the tunnel, wide enough only for a person to stand upright in. He could not tell whether the figure facing him now had been man or woman. It was still half dressed, rags of what could have been trousers or skirt hanging from the waist. The skin was not yet completely grey. Welts of pinkish red flamed over the heaving hide; a shimmering ichor covered it like a sheen of sweat. The ends of long, lank hair dripped with it as the creature shuddered and heaved. Nico could not see its eyes, but the end of the jaw hung slack. The lips were cracked and crusted in dried blood, yet mouthed the soft noises that had carried up the tunnel, a kind of animal mewling that set his hair on end.
Nico would have been the first to say that he had certainly seen more grisly sights than this. But he could not let go of the miasma of horror and fear that overtook him, especially when Brialise lifted the torch and illumined the path ahead, showing just how many there were straining against that wire cage. The noises they made were like nothing human, yet something in them was just familiar enough to creep inside him and chill his blood. He wanted to help them. He wanted to kill them. He wanted to run far away from this place and never come back.
The other two seemed to be holding up far better than he was. Nico sought for strength inside himself and, for the first time in a long time, found himself mouthing a prayer to the gods he’d known as a child. The god who watched over travellers and adventurers, Run, had failed Nico so badly that he would probably never utter the name again, but he drew his silver medallion out from beneath his leather jerkin and thought of Nursala, the god of foresters, Ynsa, the cold implacable spirit of the mountains, and Mother Thäle. Her above all. Nico had never known a mother of his own, but Thäle’s name had been taught to him since before he could walk. She stood for peace and mercy, two things he felt he sorely needed at this moment.
They slowly walked between the rows and rows of mewling corpses, Brialise holding the torch steadily aloft. Fish looked troubled, and Nico gripped his medallion and tried not to look too hard at any faces, somehow fearing what he might see. A few of the creatures snuffled towards them as they approached. Others shrank away from the light. One attempted to leap at them, snarling deep in the back of its throat, but was held back by the cage.
Fish stopped, so abruptly that he was nearly outside the circle of light before Brialise noticed. She stopped, too, and Nico turned to see his partner staring intently at one of the motionless, wretched cadavers, a grim and unreadable expression on his face.
“Brialise,” he said quietly, “bring me the torch.”
Frowning, she handed it over, and Fish thrust the light forward. The corpse he gazed at was a big one. It had probably been a strong man in life, but now it had been reduced just like all the others, whimpering softly as it changed slowly into something that was not human anymore.
“Nico,” Fish said softly. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Nico started forward. “What have you seen?” Apprehensively, he stared at the big corpse, and suddenly a chill washed over him.
It was hard to recognize individual features on the wasted face, to see in the slack jaw what he might have looked like in life. But the colour of the still-bushy beard was right. The height, the size. And he remembered that bearskin well...
Fish shifted the torch, and Nico recognized more and more of the muttering figures. The men and boys of the village. The very people he had found sanctuary with. The village where they hoped to go, to escape from here...
Nico rounded upon Brialise. “What happened?”
“These—they came looking for you,” she quavered. Nico felt the words as a blow to his heart.
The torchlight danced red in Fish’s eyes. “And you didn’t think to tell us?”
She didn’t answer, but Fish wasn’t done. “You agreed to this plan,” he snarled. “You agreed to take us back to that village. Pray tell me, how do we go back there when half their people are gone? How do we answer their questions? How do we convince them that we’re still on their side?”
Tears filled Brialise’s eyes, and she took a step backwards. “I—I don’t know.”
Something seemed to have come over Fish, something more than just shock. The hand that held the torch was shaking. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he repeated loudly. She still didn’t answer, only shook her head in tears. “I’ll answer for you! Because you only care about yourself and your own safety! Isn’t that right? Who cares what becomes of us, as long as we’ve served our purpose on your behalf?”
“No,” the girl whispered. “I—”
Fish took a step towards her, and she recoiled. Nico moved forward, reaching for his partner’s arm.
“Fish, calm yourself.”
“That’s rich coming from you!” Fish snapped as he whirled round. To Nico’s dismay, he saw that the boy was glowing.
“She meant no harm,” Nico remonstrated. Fish only glared at him. There was something unhinged in his eyes, something which matched the fiery magic he’d done on the mountainside.
“We can’t go back there,” he whispered to Nico, and gave a mirthless laugh. Turning away, he strode down the passage towards the very end of the cages. Nico caught Brialise’s arm and kept pace, half-dragging her along behind him.
Fish reached the end and turned, facing the cages, holding the torch aloft before him. Propelled by some instinct, Nico edged back until he and Brialise were both well behind him.
Fish threw the torch overhand, flames outlined in a red welt as the torch spun, and moved both of his hands in a quick, simple gesture. The flames expanded, reverberated from the walls, filled the whole passageway and swallowed everything. Nico could no longer hear the soft squalling of the would-be necromes; the fire roared like a living thing, and he felt a sickening heat rush up the tunnel towards them.
Brialise screamed and Nico stepped in front of her, shielding her from the blast of heat as best he could, keeping his own face turned away as the blaze rolled over him. Fish stood in the roiling light of his own destruction, apparently not feeling any ill effect. Nico wanted to yell to him, but didn’t dare turn his face towards the fire. He could feel the heat scorching the back of his cloak.
Then the radiance of the fires and the searing heat dimmed, and Nico dared to turn around. There was nothing but ash and red-hot metal and the charred stink of the burned dead. Fish was breathing heavily, his eyes glazed, his curls stirring in a hot dry wind. Nico reached out to him, grabbed his arm, and recoiled with a cry. His hand burned as if he had dared to touch a red-hot sword straight out of the forge.
“Now,” Fish said, ignoring Nico and facing the girl, “take me to Taunus.”
“What?” Nico resisted the urge to grab the boy. “Fish, no! Are you mad?”
“As mad as ever I have been,” Fish replied without looking at him. His hands were still shaking, Nico saw. “I have just enough left in me to make an end of this. Do the job that we came here to do. To wipe these slavers—my brother—from the face of the earth. I understand if you want to leave, Nico.”
“Fish—” Nico’s voice almost failed him. “I don’t understand. We should run. Get away from here together. Come with me.”
“No.” He turned to Brialise, and seized her by the wrist. Nico gasped, but the girl seemed to be immune to whatever it was that had burned Nico. She faced Fish steadfastly. “To Taunus. Now.”
Wordlessly, Brialise turned and took a path into the darkness, leaving Nico behind. He hesitated, cursed, sent up yet another prayer to his gods, and followed in Fish’s wake. Leaving the boy had never been an option.
––––––––
Outside, the world was white. Brialise had not lied about the storm. It raged and howled before them as they stood a few paces away from the cave opening. Fish was still glowing with some kind of eerie power, and Brialise’s outline was grey and slumped beside him.
This high in the mountains, it was worse than any winter storm Nico had ever seen. The cold blew in with the wind, setting his arm to throbbing and frosting the very breath that blew through his nostrils. Nothing could be seen from the mouth of the cave, only a screen of white. Supposedly they were facing Taunus’s valley, but for all Nico knew, they could be on the other side of the world.
Fish stared out into the snow, but there was no sign of dismay or remorse on his face. “I can feel him,” he said. “And he knows what I’ve done. Must have felt a surge like that.”
“Fish.” Nico came up beside him, stepping closer to the cold. He did not dare to touch his partner as he normally would have, and tried to put all of his meaning into his eyes. “It’s not too late. We can still run.”
For the first time since they had escaped their bonds, Fish looked directly at him. He lifted his hands, and gave a grin that seemed empty of all sanity. “And where would we run to, Nico?”
Nico would have liked to answer that, to tell him of the high road that led past Lynborder and the ships at Sulshome and the adventures that they could have together, but his words failed him. The wailing of the wind in the valley drowned out his very thoughts.
Fish furrowed his brows together as if in concentration, and the glow around him receded somewhat. He moved closer to Nico, and touched the silver medallion that hung around his neck, caressing the embossed symbols with his thumb, looking at it and not at Nico’s face. “You go, Nico,” he finally said. “Anywhere you want. Escape from here. You deserve that much.”
“You’re my partner,” Nico said. “Remember? I’m not leaving without you. Wherever we go, we go together.”
Fish looked up at him. There was a queer light in his golden eyes. “Together,” he repeated. “Then let’s finish this together.” And without hesitating, he turned towards the storm. He spread his arms wide, glowed for a moment so brightly that Nico had to shield his eyes. When he looked again, he gave a gasp of fright and disbelief.
The sky had cleared. The ground beneath was carpeted with snow, but a thin and pale sun shone from heavens that had opened blue over the valley. It must be around midday, Nico thought absently. Even as he watched, the rage of the winds was dying in the distance. Fish had walked out into the snow and stood in a pose of acute concentration, face turned up to the clear sky.
Nico ventured towards him and spun round, trying to make sense of the kind of power he wielded. There was a vortex in the valley, a blue hole in the midst of the grey storm. The winds had been set at a distance, blowing in a circle around the valley, and where they stood was enveloped in utter calm.
Nico could now see that the valley was teardrop-shaped, hedged in by high cliffs that rose to the front and sides. He shaded his eyes against the sudden snowglare and looked around. The only approach to the valley seemed to be at a point behind him, where a narrow passage sloped between two peaks. Everything was covered with fresh, wet snow. Nico felt the weight of it when he moved his feet. The air was sharp, the watery sun doing little to warm it.
Fish’s focus had shifted, and he stood as if at attention, facing towards the end of the valley where it was swallowed up by the cliffsides. The storm raged there beyond the restraints of his power, a wall of grey that disoriented Nico. He turned, trying to see what had become of Brialise. She had disappeared. Probably gone further inside the cave, he thought. The girl wore shoes with paper-thin soles, was singularly under-equipped for this kind of cold. She would be safer under the mountain, in the tunnels she seemed to know so well.
Could she get herself out? Nico wondered. If she were inclined to flee, this would probably be a good opportunity. Let Fish distract the sorcerer, and run whilst his attention was focused elsewhere.
She was, most likely, gone. But Nico had pledged to stay, and he hovered a dozen paces or so behind his partner, wishing he had some better weapon than a single silvered dagger. His heart seemed to be beating very loudly, and he could hear his own breath as it frosted in the air. All was still.
As it had always been just before all hell broke loose, the assassin felt no fear. There was a calm that lay just beyond, after one made the decision to walk into danger, and he was there now, wading into the waters of battle-madness. He tested the weight and balance of the dagger in his hand, made a disgusted face. He was comfortable writing and eating with his left hand, but he’d favoured his right from the beginning when it came to holding a blade. That had cost him dear, during the battle with the necromes. He had never learned the motions of fighting with his left hand alone, and had been off-balance, unsteady.
Something to learn, if I survive this. Nico stowed the thought away, and knew that he could not risk that unsteadiness again. He cut the sling that bound his right arm, stretched it out and flexed the fingers, flinched in pain as a spasm shot through him. The arm was still tender, hot to the touch, but the balance of the dagger felt right in a way that reassured him. He could endure the pain.
Something stirred at the end of the valley. Nico shielded his eyes from the white-hot glare of the sun on the distant snowdrifts. Five figures. The one in the middle could only be Taunus, a bulky man with a reach to match Nico’s. The other four must be his lieutenants, the human soldiers who kept the necromes in line. Nico watched their movements carefully. Their swords were unsheathed, held in ready hands. Taunus alone had left his sword in its scabbard by his side, and all his attention was focused on Fish.
Closer they moved, and Nico readied himself, trusting Fish as he always had. It was different now, yet the same. Nico had never guessed that his partner could call up sorcery, but he now trusted Fish to handle the magic Taunus threw at them, and readied himself to deal with the physical attack.
They were within range of hearing, now, and Taunus halted, the four flanking him stopping just behind. He raised his voice and said something to Fish; Nico did not even register the words, so intent he was upon the four guardsmen. They threw lazy glances at him, seemingly secure in their numerical superiority. Fish did not answer his brother.
There seemed to be something humming in the air, something Nico could not place. It was difficult to look at Fish now, and Nico turned his full attention to Taunus’s guards. The sorcerer barked an order, and the four swarmed around Fish, going wide as if to avoid something Nico could not see.
They made straight for him, spreading out in a circle, grins on their faces, swords out and ready. Nico gripped his dagger and stood his ground. The boldest, closer than the other three, came up with a swagger. Five paces away. Nico counted. Four, three, two—
Quick as a snake, he struck the man in the face with the same hand that was holding the dagger, laying open his cheek and sending him down with a scream. No time to recover; Nico swung past a glancing swordstroke and seized the second swordsman’s free arm, pulling him sideways with his greater weight. He collided hard with the third man, grabbed his wrist.
Nico wrested the guardsman’s sword away, passing his dagger quickly to his left hand as he raised the purloined weapon in his right. The fourth had come up behind him; Nico met his stroke on the backspin, came up inside his guard, whacked him on the side of the helm. His world narrowed to the action before him; he barely noticed the abrupt growl of thunder, the eldritch green streak that flashed across a sky suddenly grown grey as lead. He fought in a tight circle, desperately staving away blows that came for his unprotected head, ignoring the strokes that bit into his leather armour. His dagger found purchase, more than once, slashing at wrists and faces. One of the guards lost his helm, and the other could not see through a face dripping with blood.
Then something in the world shifted, the ground suddenly sloping away from his feet where it had been level before, and Nico gasped as a disorienting sensation filled him, a feeling of being struck like a gong and having the vibrations run all through his being.
Nico stumbled, but kept his footing. The four around him fell to their knees, and for the first time in this fight, he looked for Fish.
There was not much to see. Fish and his brother stood ten feet apart, Fish looking tired and windswept. Taunus had lost his helm, and nursed some kind of hand injury. The sky above had changed, leaden clouds swathed across it thick as a woollen blanket, and forked green lighting swept across the clouds as Nico watched. The clear vortex, which had so sharply separated the storm from the valley, seemed to have blurred. The winds were still howling around the crag, nearby the snow still fell on the mountains, but it all seemed closer than before, the valley smaller.
Fish raised his hand, and Nico saw something like a flicker of desperation in Taunus’s eyes. His own spirit answered that fleeting moment, and he went for the stumbling guard nearest to him, swatting the uncertain sword away, then swiftly opening the man’s throat with his dagger. Taunus’s guards seemed a lot more disoriented than Nico was, and he ruthlessly capitalized on that advantage. They had abandoned their coordinated attack, and came at him one by one, sluggishly.
Nico finished them one by one, batting aside their swords to bury his dagger in their throats. He stood for a moment, catching his breath, and his arm gave a wrench that caught the breath in his throat. The pain blinded him, and he felt the sword in his hand drop from nerveless fingers.
He started as he felt a flake of snow settle on his head. He looked up into a sky that was still tinged with green, snowflakes spiralling lazily down towards the world. There was no wind, but the storm was no longer barred from the valley.
Fish was twenty feet away, swaying slightly as the snow fell. Taunus still stood opposite him. The two seemed to be grappling with some invisible force that lay between them. Fish’s curly hair was soaked through, sweat dripping from his face, and his brother’s features were strained with exertion.
Then Taunus, with an effort as if he were wrenching a great weight from himself, made a cutting gesture with his right hand. There was an audible snap, a smell of brimstone in the air, and Fish cried out in real, physical pain and fell to his knees.
Nico gazed at him desperately. Get up, Fish! His own limbs seemed to have turned to ice where he stood. Get up! You can’t fail us now!
Taunus began to laugh. Nico started. The sorcerer paced forward, made for Fish. The boy seemed to be in too much pain even to move, yet Nico could see no wound.
Taunus stopped in front of Fish, grinned, put a hand to the sword at his side.
At last, Nico moved. There was no real plan; he simply rushed forward and attacked the sorcerer as if he were a tough in a street-fight, brandishing his dagger and yelling at the top of his voice. Taunus started at first, surprised, as if he had completely forgotten Nico’s very existence. But his mailed arm came up and engaged Nico’s stroke, swatting him away.
Nico came around again, met another blow. The sorcerer was skilled even at hand-to-hand fighting. The dagger flashed again and again, but Nico could not find the opening he sought. From the corner of his eye, he saw Fish slump down in the snow.
The sight gave him pause, and a mailed fist struck the side of his head. He reeled backwards, felt himself lose the dagger, spat out blood. The sorcerer came forward, pressing his advantage. Nico fell, crawled to hands and knees. A steel-tipped boot hit him in the chest, came in again to meet his chin. Nico had just enough presence of mind left to grab it and pull.
Taunus came down on top of him, obviously no stranger to grappling, steel gauntlet meeting Nico’s face in a blur of pain and blood.
So this is what it comes to, Nico thought dully, as he fought back in desperation. Two men grappling in the mud, winner takes all. And they were not free yet. Nico could not imagine why Taunus had not brought his necromes to the fight, yet they were nowhere to be seen. Was it his own hubris, as Fish had implied? Or were they waiting in the wings even now, ready to move in and end this farce of a battle? And what of Taunus’s magic? He half expected to feel the searing blaze of fire at any moment, to find himself roasted before he even knew he had lost the fight. But Nico had noticed, already, that both Fish and his brother appeared to need at least a moment to think before actually managing to cast a spell, and he did not intend to give Taunus that moment if he could help it.
Taunus managed to get the upper hand, and he slammed Nico hard against the ground. But in doing so, he had left an opening. Nico’s fist found his jaw, connecting so hard that his head snapped backwards. Nico felt something in his own hand shatter. With grim amusement he remembered the pair of trusty knuckledusters he’d once owned, useful things when engaging in street fights.
Despite the force of that blow, Taunus was nowhere near done for. He recovered quickly, still pinning Nico to the ground with his armoured weight, and Nico saw the flash of silver and iron in his hand.
He could do nothing but throw up his hands to defend himself, and he felt the blade of the knife cut deep into his palms. Madness overtook him, and he closed his hand on the blade, feeling the bite and not caring, grappling for his life against Taunus’s grip. Somehow their faces were close together now, and years of practice at dirty fighting distilled in Nico. He brought himself forward in a rush, smashing his head into Taunus’s face. There was the crunch of something breaking, and more importantly, the feel of Taunus’s grip loosening on the dagger. Quickly Nico yanked it out of his hands, and with his last strength, defying the pain and the fatigue and the thought of what’s happened to Fish, buried the blade in the sorcerer’s throat.
Blood burbled, last breath rasped, and Nico found himself crouching over a corpse. Not the first time this had transpired, but usually, he had been in much better shape afterwards. A wave of disorientation shook him, and he edged away, wanting to vomit. He could not feel his own face. It hurt to breathe, whether from the cold or some injury in his ribcage, he could not tell. There was fire and ice all along his right arm, and he found that he could not put his weight on it as he crawled through the snow. The flakes were falling fast now, the storm had caught up with them. Fish lay all in a heap, face turned downwards, no way to tell whether he was still breathing.
Nico left a red trail as he crawled through the snow towards his partner, no thought in his mind but to reach him. He turned the boy’s face up, scrabbled clumsily for a pulse but could not find it. Numbly, he gathered Fish into his arms, having no thought but that perhaps the heat of his own body would revive him. The boy was very cold. Nico wrapped his cloak around both of them, closed his eyes against the pain. He could hardly feel anything. Fish was solid beside him, one bulwark of comfort against the howling chaos. Darkness was waiting.
Nico did not want to go into the darkness, but there was no help for it now. Exhaustion overtook him, and even the snow did not feel cold anymore.
