“Wait! Stop!” Heads snapped around as I stepped out of our hiding place. “Can’t you see she’s not even armed? You can’t draw your sword!” Sure, I’ll admit that at first it was just a thoughtless action spurred on by the unfairness of the impending fight, but as I kept speaking, there was a nebulous idea forming in my mind. I was betting on either one of two things: either Karu did have an honorable streak hiding somewhere beneath all that arrogance, and wouldn’t really fight an unarmed opponent, or he was at least proud enough that he wouldn’t want to be seen as a coward who’d fight someone unarmed, even in front of enemies.
Or, I was completely off the mark, and we were all just screwed.
I breathed an internal sigh of relief as his arm froze with the sword still only halfway out of its sheath. “You obviously sought out this confrontation,” he said almost warily. “Your presence here is no accident. Am I really to blame that you came unarmed and unprepared?” He leveled a stare at me, which I almost didn’t even notice under the weight of the death glare Kiasis was giving me, and for an awful second I thought he expected an answer. I didn’t have on; I was fresh out of witty dialogue. After an interminable silence, he finally spoke again. “Fine.” The sword slid quietly back into its resting place, and, to my relief, he slid the belt from his waist and dropped it to the ground. “Is that more acceptable, your highness?” There was a surprising lack of derision in the title, but before I could respond, his attention was focuses back on Kiasis.
“Well?” He eyed her expectantly. “If this combat is to be unarmed, hadn’t we better get it started? Personally, I would like to get this over with so that my brother and I can fulfill our obligation to take the princess here to meet her eager step-grandmother, and we can finally go home.”
Kiasis’ answer, after a brief pause to give me another glare that did not bode well for our future relations, was to launch herself at the elf, planting her foot squarely in his stomach. He rolled to his feet, looking a bit winded but none the worse for wear……and then he grinned.
The two of them erupted into a flurry of punches and kicks that my eyes could barely even follow, despite the fact that I was rooted to the ground trying, wincing every time I saw a splattering of blood fly out from one of them to hit the floor or the wall. I might have stayed right there until the fight was over one way or another if not for a sharp elbow to my ribs.
“The boy, stupid!” Tallana reminded me sharply, jerking her head at the figure on the other side of the meelee, huddled against the side of the ship and staring in shock much as I’d been. “Now, while he’s distracted!”
We tried to make it around the fighting pair without notice, but our only path was visible enough to make that a lost cause. Luckily, when Karu’s eyes locked on us, Kiasis landed a punch to his jaw that made his eyes briefly roll back into his head, and he could no longer afford to spare us any more attention.
Our quarry, however, proved less than cooperative once we reached his side. “Little late for a fucking rescue, isn’t it?” He snapped as Tallana moved to free his bound wrists. “My sister’s already fucking dead.”
“Yeah, well, you’re still alive,” Tallana pointed out, taking his elbow in one hand and tugging him towards safety. “At least for the time being, unless you insist on being a stubborn little fuck! Tengu’s bound to notice all the noise out here eventually, you know!”
“Fuck him! Let ‘im come!”
“Oh, sure, then we can all be dead, I’m sure that’s just what your sister would want……what’s your name, child?”
“Victor. My name’s Victor. And I’m not a fucking child, and I don’t need you to fucking rescue me! I’d rather stick around here and finish off those murdering fucks as soon as I get a chance!”
“Oh, and I’m so sure they’d let you have that chance!” Tallana snapped. “Do you really think your poor sister would have wanted you to throw your life away? Because that’s just what you’re going to do. She’ll have died for nothing, protecting you, if you throw away your chance at getting out of here in one piece, you stupid child.”
It was probably a more caustic attempt at persuasion than I would have used, but it seemed to work, because Victor reluctantly allowed us to lead him back towards our hiding place with no further argument. Still, once we were back in the shadows, he fidgeted uncomfortably as we watched the fight rage on in front of us. “Why don’t we just go out there and end it now?” He demanded angrily. “Kill the worthless piece of shit, grab your idiot friend and get the fuck out of here?”
Tallana snorted. “Yeah, and she’d likely show her appreciation for your interfering with a broken jaw. It’ll be over soon enough, it’s never smart to step into a fair fight and try to make it unfair. Especially with that one.”
That would’ve been my first guess myself, but I had to wonder how much longer the fight could go on without attracting unwanted attention from the ship’s other occupant. There were loud crashes and the occasional yelp as one or the other of the combatants slammed the other into the ground, or the wall, or a nearby vessel. The floor was spotted with blood, and I couldn’t imagine that it would be long before Tengu himself would hear the tumult outside, even through the thick walls of the ship, and come out to investigate.
I was right. Preoccupied as they were, neither Kiasis or Karu heard the ship’s door slide open, but I did, and my eyes flew immediately to the emerging figure at the top of the ramp.
He looked terrible, even I could see that from as far away as I was. His face was pale as snow, there were bags beneath his eyes, and he held firmly onto the guard rail for support. Whatever Tengu h ad been up to since our last encounter, it had taken a definite toll on him. I couldn’t bring myself to muster any sympathy, though, and I had a definite feeling that it would have been misplaced if I had—the cold gaze that locked onto the scene before him had lost none of its strength, and neither had his voice when he spoke sharply. “What the hell is going on here?”
I was sure, for an instant, that Kiasis was going to be in the horrifying position of having to deal with both brothers, a prospect that really didn’t leave much hope in my mind for her survival. Before the ramifications of that possibility could even form in my mind, though, I was shoved roughly out of the way as Victor yanked out of Tallana’s grip and pushed past us. “Murdering bastard! About time you showed your fucking face!”
He was brought up short as Tallana latched all four arms onto him and dragged him to a halt, but Tengu barely spared the boy a glance before his gaze locked onto a new and far more unsettling target: me. Pale and exhausted though he might have been, that gaze still froze my soul, and his voice was just an added layer icy derision as he hissed at me through bared teeth. “…. You…!”
I had no real doubt that if he really set his mind to it, there would be at least one of us who wouldn’t be making it out of here alive. Now, I was still pretty far out of his reach, and Tallana had managed to drag Victor back even further into the shadows. But Kiasis was a mere few steps away, and her attention was still pretty well occupied…Hell, from the blood smearing both their faces, I doubted either she or Karu had even noticed Tengu’s sudden appearance at all. The rest of us had a pretty good shot at escape, but there was no way Kiasis would be able to fend off both of them on her own; I still remembered the incident on the ship pretty vividly, and I could recall the power I’d felt before flowing through Tengu’s touch.
I couldn’t leave her to that.
I took a few steps forward, and I was forced to stop and clear my throat before my voice would even work. “Let my friends go.” I hated the quiver in my voice, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. “If you let them go, I’ll come along with you.”
I heard a sharp denial from behind me, probably from Tallana, but I wasn’t paying too much attention; I was watching Tengu. His eyes narrowed sharply. He probably thought it was a trick. I couldn’t blame him there, I probably would have too, in his shoes. I couldn’t see any other way out though, not for everybody. Everybody but me, anyway, and I got the distinct impression that Tengu wanted to present me to his mistress alive and kicking.
Finally, he smiled faintly and nodded his head.
“Call off your brother,” I demanded, my voice gaining a little more strength as I forced my feet to move me closer. “My friends all get out of here safe, or no deal.”
“Very well.” His smile widened, and the sheer malice in his eyes was so totally incongruous with the expression that I felt my stomach churn. “I promise, no harm will come to your--“
“Tengu!” Kiasis’ bellow cut sharply through his words, and I could see his eyes widen in an expression of horror even as he turned to face her.
Still some distance away from us, the fight had come to an unnoticed halt. Karu leaned against the hull of the ship at an odd angle, a strange, shocked expression on his face as Kiasis held him there, pinned to the metal by the long sword protruding from his gut.
“I don’t like the terms of your deal,” Kiasis said calmly. “I’d like to propose a new one.” She lifted the sword, slowly slicing through flesh, and Karu let out a strangled scream. “Watch your brother die an agonizing death, or spend your energies on him and let us all go.”
I don’t think there was any real choice to be made in Tengu’s mind. With an outraged scream he launched himself down from the ramp, and I would have won any bets I might have made about him managing to find energy from somewhere if he really needed it, because Kiasis went flying away from Karu’s bleeding body without him ever laying a hand on her. She hit the far wall with a sickening crack and slid to the floor, as did Karu, the hilt of the sword hitting the floor with an almost musical clink.
There wasn’t time to check her over to see how badly she was hurt. As soon as we scrambled over to her, Tallana and Victor each grabbed one side and we half dragged her out of there as fast as we could before Tengu could turn his attention toward us again. From the look of fury on the healer’s face, I wasn’t too sure any of us would have survived if we hadn’t.
