It was dark now, the knife of time driving its way into the very heart of the darkness, twisting its blade round and round and round, slowly grinding away at the wills of those hearty few who defied sleep’s call. It was dark now, and Knight Captain Robert O’Donnell’s hands were shaking.

They’d been doing that entirely too often as of late. First, in the office of Duke MacNeil, stained with the blood of common criminals. Second, in the barracks room he and Braxton had shared, stained with guilt borne of ill-gotten gains. Third, at the outset of the fight on the ship, stained with the desperate fear of a man not yet ready to die. Fourth, here and now, somehow stained with blood he had yet to spill.

Captain Robert O’Donnel’s hand shook more now than ever before as he planned to kill a man who’d been nothing but kind to him and his own during their imprisonment. A man who was willing to help instruct Ser Caj in the finer points of the Vencheng tongue, and the hallmark game of his homeland. A man who had laughed good naturedly when he began to lose those games to Caj, and outright applauded in delight when he found that he could no longer win against Robert himself. A man by the name of Sven Asplundh.

It wasn’t something that Robert was particularly keen to do, if he was being completely honest with himself. In fact, it was something he would much rather not have to do at all. He had reminded himself continually that he was a prisoner to a foreign invasion force that meant to wage war on his country, and threatened the throne he had sworn himself to. He had reminded himself and reminded himself that he had to break free, to bring news and intelligence to his king, no matter what. He reminded himself that there was only one weak link to the chain that was the defenses of the Vencheng. Sven Asplundh.

He’d thought it through seven different ways to the threshing floor in every spare moment he’d had over the last two days, since he’d seen the signal from Sergeant Major Bolindear in the trees. Since he’d palmed the knife when the guards weren’t looking. There was no other way. None at all. There were reinforcements, he knew, waiting in the forest around them. But they were waiting for his signal. For his indication to attack. The only way for him to give that indication was for him to get free. The only way for him to do that was to get a ring of the keys for him and the other prisoners. The only way to obtain that was from one of the leaders of the camp, and the only one of those three who trusted Robert was Sven Asplundh. Sven Asplundh, a man who graciously guarded against the rougher men in the Mercenary company. A man who protected the prisoners from guards who had taken to harassing them during their rest hours. A man who Robert had come to respect, and who he knew Caj had become rather fond of. A man, who in the grand scheme of things, seemed a decent enough fellow. Sven Asplundh.

He’d talked himself through it. He’d taken every tack he could think of that would lead to a different possibility. He’d eliminated those possibilities, one by one, each unworthy option adding a piece to the puzzle that was a plan, and pulling forward an image that he didn’t want to see.

He’d talked himself through it. He’d taken every tack he could think of that would lead to a different possibility. He’d eliminated those possibilities, one by one. But his hands were still shaking.

Robert took deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth. A leaf on a pond. Small ripples… Small ripples… What was a life? Robert wondered idly, thoughts floating. An existence? A mind? A soul? Just… Ripples on the surface of the pond. Small Ripples, getting smaller. Getting Smaller.

The Knight Captain looked down at his hands. They weren’t shaking anymore.

***

The Knight Captain stood, looking around the cage. The prisoners were huddled in groups, sleeping deeply, like most people would be at this hour of the night. No one to see. No one to hear. No one to scream. No one to alert enemies. That was good. The mission demanded that no alarm be raised until the last possible moment. It was fortunate that the Vencheng had lax security, apparently having trusted their separation from population centers to protect them.

The Knight Captain walked to the edge of the cage, slipping his right hand into his pocket, and gripping the handle of his stolen knife. He reached bars, and knocked softly, hissing out loud to the Northman.

“Běifāng rén. Northerner.” The Knight Captain hissed. “I need to piss.”

The big Northman sat up with a groan, cursing under his breath, but he got up and walked towards the door to the cage. The Knight Captain braced himself; he would strike as soon as the door was open, while the Northerner was still befuddled by sleep, and unprepared. The Knight Captain looked down. His left hand was shaking. The Knight Captain frowned. He took a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. The ripples lessened, and his hand stopped shaking. He nodded, ready.

The Northman walked over, rubbing at his eyes tiredly, and scratching at his crotch irritably. His big left hand moved from his eyes to his belt pouch, removing a large keyring from within. He fiddled with it for a moment, before finding the key he was after. To the Knight Captain, that moment seemed to stretch into an eternity.

A second eternity passed as the Northman reached for the keyhole, and the Knight Captain breathed in deeply through his nose. A third passed as The Knight Captain’s breath whooshed out of his mouth, and the key made its inexorable turn in the lock of the gate, alongside the unfathomable and unstoppable gears of time. There was a soft click, and the door to the Knight Captain’s cell began to swing open, as the door to Sven Asplundh’s life began to swing closed. The Knight Captain sprung into action as soon as the door opened, springing at the unsuspecting Northman, knife glinting in the moonlight.

There was nothing particularly honorable, nor anything especially skillful about what happened next. The Knight Captain’s knife lodged itself in the much larger Northman’s throat, just above the man’s sternum, slicing through his airway and vocal cords, and sending forth a surprisingly small gush of blood, considering it was a neck wound. Before the Knight Captain could yank the knife out, a great paw of a hand had seized his, grinding the bones in his forearm together, and opening his fingers reflexively. The Northman’s mouth was open, blood bubbling forth in a silent scream of rage and terror, as he swung the Knight Captain around and into the cage with a mighty rattle, as though the officer weighed nothing at all.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Robert crashed back into his mind, full force, as his breathing was disrupted, and felt gorge rising, alongside horror at the sudden lack of air in his body. His grass-green eyes widened as they looked into the angry, black-flecked blue orbs of Sven Asplundh’s. Robert had never really been properly trained with a knife. Sure, he knew the basic techniques for dagger defenses that every knight in the King’s Own had drilled into them at the Knightyard. And it was true enough that stabbing a man really wasn’t that complicated of a business, once one got down to the bare bones of the matter. Mostly, as far as Robert O’Donnell was aware, the action consisted of ‘stick ‘em with the point, and keep sticking ‘em ‘til they stop moving’. If one were feeling particularly cautious, you might ‘stick ‘em a few times more fer good measure’ as Robert’s old drill instructor had once helpfully informed him.

Robert wasn’t quite certain what he had done wrong, but whatever it was, it had been very wrong indeed. Somehow, someway, stabbing the Northman in the throat wasn’t the end of him. The big man was still up and moving, albeit with difficulty. Asplundh’s movements seemed jerky and lacked coordination, probably because he had a knife sticking out of his throat.

The Northman was definitely slated for death, but it seemed that at the very least, he would take Robert with him. Then, there would be no one to send the signal and the attack would likely fail. This stiffened Robert’s spine some, and he tried to push himself toward the Northman in an attempt to fulfill his mission.

If I die in the doing of it, at least I will die well. He thought as fiercely as he could manage.

As Robert dove for the larger man, Sven slammed an open-palmed shove into his right shoulder, stopping Robert like he’d run headlong into a marble pillar, and sending him bouncing back into cage with another rattle. Robert winced reflexively, and when he opened his eyes, there was a fist the size of a bear’s paw hurtling towards his nose. There was nothing his could do. There was no time. There was no way out. There was no hope. He was finished. And then, the fist wasn’t there anymore. Instead, a figure hurtled, catlike, from the entry of the cage, knees flying up to smash into Asplundh’s ribs with a muffled cracking that heralded broken bones, and hands smoothly reaching for the knife in the big man’s throat. Dark auburn hair trailed in the moonlight, and golden eyes glinted in a face that was a mask of death.

***

Caj awoke, shoulders tight with a tension whose source he hadn’t yet identified, and nerves primed for a fight. He did a quick categorical check-over of himself, as had become his habit over the past several weeks of confinement. Narm would be proud, he was sure.

The First Question: Was he alive? Unfortunately.

The Second Question: What were his injuries? Malnourishment. Dehydration. Laceration on the lower abdomen. Heavy Bruising on left side. Probably at least one Cracked rib. Light Scrapes and bruising elsewhere. Strained left knee.

The Third Question: Any change in his physical status since he closed his eyes? No.

The Final Question: What woke him? …

This last finally gave Caj pause. Normally, over these past weeks, it was the pain of a kick to the ribs, or sunlight stabbing into his too-tired eyes that woke him. But there was no polished Vencheng boot pushing its way into his bruised gut, nor was the vindictive light of the sun stabbing its burning spear into his skull, awakening the migraines that seemed to need little prodding to come out and play merry havoc with his mind these last few days.

Now, however, something else woke him, a curious sound that seemed to resonate in his skull. A grunt. A gurgle. A rattle. A hiss of pain.

It was less physically jarring than a kick, true; More unobtrusive than the shooting pain of sunlight stabbing into his eyes. Quieter than the abrasive bark of the mercenaries’ voices. And yet, this sound was louder in Caj’s ears than any shout or scream of anger he had heard over these past weeks.

Caj knew those sounds. He’d only had cause to hear them a handful of times in his life, but they had imprinted themselves on the ears of his soul nonetheless. It was the sound of dark work with sinister consequences. It was the sound of an ominous tragedy in the making, one with a nefarious plot and damnable ending. It was the sound of one man bearing another to their grave.

He was up in a moment. Caj wasn’t even conscious of standing, or moving towards the sound. His response to violence was so well conditioned that he had no need of thought. Narm’s quiet voice calmly spoke direction to his mind, while Bietre’s accented hiss reminded Caj’s body of lessons long learned. Caj nimbly and numbly navigated the field of silent forms that were currently slumbering on the floor of the enclosed space, moving quietly but with great speed.

Three shallow breaths in total had passed by the time that Caj cleared the door to the cage that had been his home these past weeks. His golden eyes took in the sight before him. Rob was pinned to a wall of metal bars by the meaty fist of Sven Asplundh, which had contrived to wrap itself around the Knight Captain’s throat. The Northman’s other fist was drawing back, preparing to fire forward into Rob’s face, which was currently twitching with pain and fear. Blood covered one of Rob’s hands, although it was streaking down the Northman’s barrel chest. The flow originated from the knife lodged in the center of the big man’s throat, a spigot in an ironbound cask of wine that had not quite closed, and was now tragically letting trickles of the precious liquid stream down into oblivion.

Questions rose in Caj’s mind, as the moment crystalized into the subtle amalgamation of stunned silence and incredulous disbelief that precede and pervade unexpected violence. Why was there a knife in Sven’s throat? Why was The Northman about to kill Rob? Well, those questions sort of answered each other, now didn’t they. Other queries rose in a tide of confusion, but they were just as quickly cut down, quelled by a ruthless pragmatism that Caj embraced. Those questions, and their answers, were not relevant Narm’s voice asserted. Those questions, and their answers, were not necessary, Bietre’s voice concurred.

Rob was Caj’s ally, both as an individual, and in his duty to protect the Noblis’ Heirs; Sven, as much as Caj liked the man, was not. Caj welcomed the ruthless devil that seemed to make its home in his chest. It was after all, the only weapon he had left to him in this strange prison. Bietre’s voice seemed to snort at that, even as Caj’s body coiled like a spring in motion, moving to do violence.

Lesson Number Three, Solnyshko: You are never without a weapon.

Sven was a big man. Not the biggest Caj had ever tangled with, but not all that far off by any means. The man was also no stranger to brawls, or grappling, unless Caj missed his guess. Caj might have the man beat in speed and reach, given that Caj’s arms were abnormally long, but Sven easily outclassed him in weight and strength, and maybe in skill too. Caj needed to first prioritize moving him out of range of Robert, and then putting him down fast. Second, he needed to try and do it quietly, as saving Rob’s life here and now wouldn’t be worth much if he woke the whole camp in the process of doing so, and got them both killed anyways.

Caj’s tackle took Sven from the side, slamming into him with all of Caj’s weight just as his fist was about to crash into Rob’s face, pulling both of them away in a violent, spinning embrace of death. Caj wrapped his legs around Sven’s waist, bearing them to the ground as smoothly and softly as possible, although they still landed with a thud that would’ve made him wince if not otherwise occupied. On the way down, Caj’s left hand snaked up behind Sven’s head, cradling it as he slammed his elbow into the corner of the Northman’s left eye socket three times in rapid succession. On the last pass, his right hand snapped outward, ripping the knife free of the Northman’s throat and then rapidly slamming it back home into the same place. He plunged the blade in, and then yanked it out again, over, and over, his face an oddly composed mask. The Knife was a needle, and Caj was worst sort of infernal artist, grimly weaving a bloody tapestry of death, an embroidery of unrelenting violence and forgotten friendship, destined to hang in the halls of the Reaper, forevermore.