Ethi realised, upon hearing the sound of impotent flint scraping without sparks, that the gunsmith named Lachlan had not, in fact, been joking. The room turned still as a painting for just half of a moment, a half moment that lasted an eternity.
Then the man’s hand was moving, aiming to point his weapon at Cut. Isla was reaching for hers, she wouldn’t be fast enough. But Ethi would be.
Already at the ready like a loyal hound, Ethi’s magic leapt to her will and strengthened her flesh. She put herself between the man and Cut, turning from the enemy in a primal, animal fear of facing his weapon. There was a loud bang, something hit her back and Ethi lurched forwards with the impact.
She was on the floor when the pain hit: red and hot like metal against skin, and sharp too, like the kiss of a blade on her flesh. Its source was her upper back, right behind the heart, Ethi had been shot, she’d been fucking shot.
“Fuck!”
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Isla shot the Ethi’s Killer in the throat, the side of it to be exact. She knew the effects of such a thing, it would be a slow death as he suffocated, drowning in his own blood. Slow deaths were the Goddess’ gift to bastards who killed children.
Or try to, she could still be alive.
Her eyes already ahead, Isla only heard thim drop. She had to imagine him squirming, but the pained gurgles reached her nice and clear.The room was moving. Lachlan, perhaps not for the first time in his life, was experiencing what it was like to face three men at once. He did so with his musket, unbayonetted tip thrusting and flailing to keep them at arm’s length while they tried to flank him, like starving dogs eager for a feast.
He wouldn’t be able to fend them off forever. Lachlan’s gun was loaded, and each of the men knew that the first of them to come within killing range would be met with its bullet, the moment he fired would be the signal for the two left standing to sink their blades into him.
And that’s if the useless thing fires at all.
Isla had more immediate problems however, the fourth of the Eksha gangers was charging at her, blade in hand, mind flooded with rage only a man could so easily fall into. Perhaps the one she’d shot had been a friend of his.
Isla pointed her palm at him and let her magic do the rest. Lightning, white and crackling leapt from her hand and caught him in the face. He seized up and shivered like a man thrown into freezing waters.
Lightning magic wasn’t strong, but it was fast. Faster than thought- faster, even, than the thoughts of another mystic, whatever their power. Its electrical touch was more than enough to keep the target convulsing for a moment.
Isla used that moment to plunge her knife into his neck. She dragged it across until it ripped free of the fleshy bed in a spray of crimson.
His death would be quick, but she couldn’t always be a perfectionist.
Isla turned to Lachlan, pleasantly surprised to find he was only fighting the one man now.
“MY ARM, MY ARM!” An Eksha ganger screamed as he stumbled backwards, a pouring red stump where the limb in question should have been attached. His eyes looked ahead with horror at the oldest of the girls. She had made her way over the counter, and clearly meant murder with her gaze.
It didn’t take long for Isla to see with her own eyes what had put the man in such a state.
The girl kicked at nothing, and the air twisted into an arc shaped around the attack.
It sang through the air and, when it met the man, rid his head of its upper half.
Another saw the tide of battle for what it truly was and raced for the door. Isla threw her magic at him and he stumbled, falling, he didn’t meet the floor however. Ethi barrelled into him mid-fall, no faster than she might expect of a girl her age, but with the force of ten men. A hundred.
His feet left the air and his back met a wall several feet back, crashing into a row of defective firearms. He didn’t even make a sound as he fell to the floor, already unconscious, twisted in all the ways a person wasn’t meant to.
Lachlan found himself on the wrong end of a choke hold as he fought the last of the gangers. Eyes red, face pink, he clawed, gurgled and struggled as hard as he could, but found no escape from the lock.
“Hey!” Isla called out to the last of them. “Look around you, how do you think this is going to end?”Isla thought the man hadn’t heard her at first, but then he let his gaze fall on the room. To the broken, torn and undone bodies of his allies. His eyes were wide, as if he’d only just now learned what death meant.
The shade of fear highlighted his youth more clearly. Young, but not young enough to not know better.
He released Lachlan like one might a bar of red hot metal.
“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t-”
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Isla didn’t hear what he would have said. The back of Lachlan’s gun cracked into his head and threw him to the floor. He laughed through his heaving.
“Fucking showed him, eh?”
“You certainly did Lach,” Isla smiled in the way she had learned was best to when training dogs… and men.
“It didn’t fucking fire!” The older girl yelled, with the voice of a man.
“Listen lad- lassie, whatever you is, I told you-”
Lachlan surely didn’t mean to groan so loudly, but his kind were rather more fragile than women in matters of mastering their emotions. Certainly, they tended to express themselves when a foot was slammed between their legs.
He fell to the floor and stayed there, curled up in a ball and letting out tiny little mewls of pain.
And that is why the Goddess entrusted child-birthing to the maturer sex.
“Didn’t fucking fire!” The girl repeated, began walking away, then stopped as if remembering something, finally turned around, and spat on Lachlan. “Didn’t fire! Fuck!” She kicked him again, this time in the kidney. Accurately. A fighter then. And one who might just rupture something.
“Hey, you shouldn’t-” Isla began, but when she turned to face the girl, her eyes were affixed on the dying leader on the floor.
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Cut watched the killer writhe and wriggle in pain. He pressed his palms against his wound, but that only slowed the bleeding. His life was still leaking out past the fingers, wearing thinner with every second.
He didn’t look like Cut knew she had when her end was coming, there was no trace of the same fear that Danny Eksha held. In fact the opposite, only relief.
When you lived a life terrified that every shadow had your penance waiting within it, she supposed it didn’t take long to wish they’d just get it over and done with already.
The waiting was worse than the end.That was what Cut imagined, at least. It still pissed her the fuck off.“How’s Toothpick?” Cut asked, he gurgled. “You killed him, yeah?”
He nodded slowly.
Five men, they’d been. And in the end, after what Cut had seen of them, she knew that she could’ve saved Toothpick if Ethi and her had rushed in with surprise on their side. It hollowed her out.
“You know I could kill you too?” Cut knew what it was like to kill for survival, the net had taught her more than she ever asked for about that. What she felt now was an altogether different sensation.
She wanted to kill this man for the sake of it, his pain would be her joy, his screams would be her laughter. She nearly did it too. That would be what you want eh?
Cut shook her head. “But I won’t, you’re going to die anyways, might as well let it happen slow. Let you think about it.” For a moment, she saw panic in his eyes, desperation, a whisper of wants and never coulds. She almost thought some were audible, rising up from his ruined throat alongside the bubbles popping in his blood. They weren’t. It was only more choked gurgling.
Drowning truly is the worst way to go out isn’t it? You Fuck.
Cut watched him die, then someone called her name, she ignored it, and continued watching him. They called again, and again, and-. “What?!”
Ethi flinched and she felt a stab of guilt. “You- you said there were about ten of them.”
“Yes, and?”
And there were only five of them here. Think Cut, moron.
She made an effort to clear the fog of rage from her mind.
“They probably spread out, didn’t think you’d get the help you did, likely just intended to flush you out.”
The woman named Isla spoke quickly, confidently. She wasn’t a noble, even if she had the skin of one. She spoke ‘Bam like the rest of them, wore faded colours like the rest of them but carried herself like stories of their kind said they did, it unnerved Cut.
“Which means they’ll be back when they can’t account for five of their men.” Ethi said.
“So lets get the fuck out here before they return, eh?” Lachlan suggested, meeting everyone’s eyes and half glaring at Cut. He was on his feet now. Still limping.
Isla nodded. “Gather your shit,” She ordered, and the pair began moving.
Cut caught Ethi wince and raised an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”
“No I’m not, I was fucking shot!” The girl replied almost petulantly as she reached over her shoulder.
Shot saving me, Cut realised.
“Understandable,” Cut noted. “Want me to check it for you.”
“Once we’re on a boat off of Udrebam. The last thing I need is to be shot again-” The door swung open and Ethi’s words died on her tongue.
The hair on Cut’s skin rose the way it always did when magic touched the air around her. A figure stood at the door, a woman, large as a boulder, arms like tree trunks. Her skin was as pale as they came, as if made out of snow flakes and glaciers.
Magic brushed against Cut again and she didn’t know if it was Ethi’s or Isla, but both stepped forwards. Probably both.
Lachlan pointed his musket at the intruder, perhaps planning to distract her with the bright light and loud noise.
“Name and reason he shouldn’t shoot you in the face.” Isla growled.