In the dim light of a single candle, with the aid of a small silvered mirror held in one hand, Acerba Banu was trying to shave.

From the mirror, the face of a middle aged man stared back at him. A long scar, that started at the corner of his mouth and ran down to his neck. He looked rough and unkempt, in that reflection, looking much older than his thirty seven years.

The reflection showed the many nicks he had already given himself, trying to shave in the dark one handed.

Acerba Banu sighed, and put down the blade.

Despite what his grizzled appearance suggested, Acerba was a very fastidious man, who took a quiet pride in his appearance.

A creature of habit was he, Acerba. He liked everything just so. A lifetime of being sent wandering around the edges of the Imperium had left him with a strong urge to control the small things he could control in his own life.

Once an Imperial tessarius, once a soldier of fortune, once a sergeant of the city watch.. now he was reduced to what amounted to a common thug, serving Ambrose Gurdia.

Acerba ran a hand down his face, feeling the stubble there. Three days.. three days he'd been stuck here...

He was a man of simple pleasures now. He liked his little flat, where he lived alone, confirmed bachelor that he was. He liked his comfortable bed. Most of all, he enjoyed the simple amenities of a bath and a shave in the comfort of his own little bathroom.

..Instead, he'd been here, sleeping in the dormitories - until that animal, Rirrik, was done with his fillthy work.

Rirrik..

Acerba shuddered. Everything about the man was unsettling. His off-putting sallow skin, his pockmarked face.. The way he seemed to obsessively arrange his torturer's tools while seeming not to notice the blood that spattered across his own face.

Acerba closed his eyes. He knew Rirrik was in the other room, sitting patiently, hands in his lap, waiting for guards to bring back the watchman. Any minute now, the screaming would start again.

It would start any minute now..

...

Elrik stalked along the cold stone floor.

He held a sword in his right hand. He'd carry two, but his left hand was still a mess from the treatment the sallow skinned torturer had given it.

Behind him came Sherlot, limping along, as quietly as he could.

Occasionally irasik lamps lit the walls, but they seemed to cast more shadows than light down here. This was a true dungeon, Elrik saw - it was no mere house basement. His eyes were long adjusted to the dark, but still - everything around him was lost in a murky morass of shadows. Running on a hair trigger as he was, he couldn't help but twitch as he turned every corner.

There!

Elrik heard an indistinct muffled exchange. Two people were walking towards him, round the corner, speaking to each other.

Elrik gestured to Sherlot to stay where he was. Then he put his back against the wall and raised his sword in anticipation.

When the two men came around the corner, the first thing they saw was Sherlot, standing in the middle of the hallway. The boy just stood there unsure what to do. For a fraction of a second they froze, just staring, before they started say something.

But that was time enough for Elrik. The tip of his blade darted out like quicksilver, in two quick, deadly strikes. Before they could make a sound, or move, he'd torn out their throats.

They fell, toppling over each other.

Elrik suspected even if there were screams down here, it would attract little attention. He doubted any squad of guards would be would be summoned if anything was heard from down here. He'd screamed enough on the rack himself.

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Still, 'twas better to be carful.

Elrik nodded to Sherlot and they began to walk again.

...

Acerba frowned at his face in the mirror.

It had been some time. He should have heard something through the wall by now - from interrogator's chamber.

He walked out of the small room he was in, into the larger chamber.

As he had expected, Rirrik, that freak, sat there, hands in his lap. The torturer looked up when he heard Acerba come in.

"Yes?", he asked, his face as monotone and wooden as ever,

Acerba gestured to the rack, "Where's the watchman?"

But the sallow skinned little shit just shrugged, "Someone is collecting him now. I will start my process in a minute"

Acerba grunted and walked back into the smaller room.

...

Elrik stopped when he saw the door. He knew this door. He knew what lay behind it. His jaw clenched.

For a moment he considered going through it.. then he thought better of it, though he almost had to physically fighting the urge to go in.

What they needed to do now was get out of here, and in one piece.

As tempting as it was to tear through this place, they had focus on staying alive.

He looked to Sherlot. The boy seemed confused. He didn’t seem to know this place. Perhaps he had not received the torturer’s tender attentions.

Sherlot looked at him in askance, but Elrik shook his head and gestured ahead.

But, just as he started to turn, the door opened.

The sallow faced man walked out of the chamber, “What’s taking you idiots so-“

The sallow faced man blinked seeing Elrik there, the words he’d started to say dying on his lips.

“You-“, He started, but that was as far as he got.

A dozen thoughts streamed through Erik’s mind - white hot rage - vengeance - and to his shame - terror at the sight of that sallow, pockmarked face. But before he could bring his mind to bear, he saw his sword was already sweeping up, cutting clean through the torturer’s femoral artery.

The man gurgled, the blood pouring out of him, then sat down and slumped over.

Elrik started down at the dead man, fighting back the urge to pick him up and shake him, or stab him again and again and again..

He knew that face would haunt him.

[keep moving ]

I know! Elrik growled to himself, before dragging Sherlot on down the passageway.

…

Acerba stopped, perking up his ears. For a second, he’d thought he heard something.

He waited, but there were no more sounds.

He could go out and check.. but then he would probably see Rirrik, sitting there, waiting patiently.

Or worse.. he would see him working

Acerba returned to shaving.

…

There! A set of stairs up!

When Elrik saw the stairway that led out of this dungeon, a wave of relief washed over him.

Silently, he thanked all the gods he could remember.

Just as they approach it, though, Eric heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

He didn’t know exactly how he knew, but something about the way those footsteps sounded raised his hackles.

“Get back”, he whispered to Sherlot.

He stood back, readying his sword. In his other hand, gingerly, as it was still injured, he held one of the daggers he'd taken.

Carefully, with Sherlot behind him, he moved to a side, so that the newcomer would not see him before he emerged from the stair.

Elrik saw the man's boots before he emerged. Soft deerskin leather, well made.

Elrik he held the dagger above his head, waiting.

In the split second that the man showed his face, Elrik threw the dagger in a short sweet arc at his eye.

Like a bad dream, the man did the one thing Elrik hoped desperately that he would not do. From a dead stop, the man simply blurred, wrenching his sword out from its sheathe and cutting the dagger from the air.

Fuck

Elrik cursed silently.

A school trained blade. Impossibly fast. Impossibly deadly

He'd run a hundred, no a thousand scenarios in his mind, of how it would go, if he ran into one trying to escape from here. It never went well.

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Fuck.

He had one contingency. Half baked. Untested.

Elrik made himself ready - sending a silent mental command.

Elrik felt his heart speed up. He felt that strange effervescent feeling in his gut.

So this is it then. This is how I die.

If this doesn't work, I'll never even see it coming.

Despite himself he felt his lips curl back in a feral grin.

Now that he saw him properly, the school trained blade was young. Perhaps just a year or two older than Elrik. He gave Elrik a nod of acknowledgement. Then he moved.

As Elrik brought his sword up in a guard, the windblade blurred. For fraction of a second he moved ridiculously fast in a straight line at Elrik.

For that fraction of a second, the world was speed.

When the world came back, the school trained blade stood scant feet from Elrik, having come to a dead stop.

Instead of attacking, the man was looking down at a slim dagger embedded in his own stomach. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.

Elrik exhaled with relief. He didn't know how, but it had worked.

Concealed beneath his clothing lay a thin tube and an uncoiled spring. This was his contingency - molded with his mind through that magic metal - titan. Loaded with the dagger he'd obtained.

It was a clumsy mechanism, sketched in his head, on the fly. A clumsy mechanism to fling a dagger using a simple compressed spring. Not very efficient, but it had the one thing he needed - the element of surprise.

It was slipshod, throwing a dagger with a spring loaded tube. It hardly fired the dagger faster than he could throw it..

but the windblade moving fast enough the other way - and not seeing dagger till it was too late - with his great speed - he had simply impaled himself on its blade.

"let's go", he whispered to Sherlot, and they headed up the stairwell.