Information on the mysterious Glint had come slow and tedious, demanding many hours of prodding what spies remained to Kaiosyni. But only seconds more to dispatch his hunters.

Lichos might have remarked on the Princess’ apparent distress at handing the job over, but caught himself. She’d been in a particularly foul mood of late and he didn’t want to push it. Not when she seemed so close to forgetting what had passed between them.

They’d left in the last hours of dwindling sunlight, Pyrhic seeming unnerved by the gloom but saying nothing. To Lichos it was like a blanket, no cover would defend from gunfire like obfuscation. If they were to reach and interrogate as dangerous a man as Glint he wanted every advantage they could get.

Carriage took them the first few leagues, stopping only as they neared the outskirts Leaving it seemed to bring shudders anew to Pyrhic, and not for the first time Lichos considered trying to leave the woman behind.

He decided against it, reluctantly. Knew he’d need her if anything were to come of the killer’s questioning.

Still, the sight of her trembling steps disqueted him. Lichos found himself hoping an end would come to their investigation sooner rather than later. He was growing fond of the dula, damn him.

Their destination soon loomed, a great warehouse bigger even than most of the others around Udrebam’s docks and factories.

“You sure that’s the place?” He’d asked, not bothering to hide his scepticism. It seemed far too grand an abode for any secret killer.

Pyrhic said nothing, merely nodded hastily. A second appraisal revealed no greater sign of habitation, but as Lichos thought about it he found himself unsurprised.

It was appropriately inappropriate, for an assassin’s nest.

They approached quietly, Lichos strangling all sound from his steel lined footsteps, Pyric making as great an effort as she seemed capable of to do the same.

Smaller than Lichos, lighter than him by far, the woman’s steps still rang clumsy and loud. Perhaps quiet on the city’s scale, but nonetheless a harsh sound measured against the night’s silence.

He feared the worst as they walked, found his guts tightening in a growing paranoia, rifle almost unslinging itself as he prepared for whatever conflict might come of their search. Awaiting the worst.

Lichos was proven right when the rolling wave of heat arced towards them from ahead.

There was only an instant to think before the energies descended on them, hot enough to leave the stone red in their wake, fast enough to outpace any reaction Lichos might have mustered without the magic burning in his nerves. But arcane, clearly, by the lack of sensation they inflicted upon his skin. The arcane was no threat at all. With a scalpel-sharp thought he unleashed the nihil waiting within, pressing it outwards in a directed cloud to match the attack.

Magic met its antithesis mere feet from them, inhaling the toxic energies of Lichos’ essence and dying a choking, ignominious death. In an instant the blast was stifled, air cooling rapidly as residual heat dispersed. Smoke and steam persisting in thinning wafts, the only evidence any clash had occurred at all.

Pyrhic was frozen by the sight of it, her senses seeming dead. Body unmoving as the figure shot along the warehouse’s roof ahead of them.

Lichos was too seasoned to stay by her side. He tore away from the woman in a full sprint, legs beating the ground beneath like raining mortar shells.

It thrilled him to see how quickly the space shrank, then he was at the building. Leaping and climbing up onto it just as his quarry dropped down.

He crossed the roof in heartbeats, staring down over the ledge and just catching a glimpse of the mystic as he disappeared around the corner of another building fifty paces away. A technicoloured gleam in his sight.

It wasn’t until he’d already jumped down that the fall even occurred to Lichos, twenty feet passing by slower than a hundred. He barely felt the impact, didn’t let it halt him at all. Merely took off running once again, magic still dancing with delight in his veins.

Lichos wasn’t sure how long he chased, knew only that he was no small amount faster. The distance closing quickly and surely, chase ending as the man stopped entirely and turned to hurl magic at him yet again.

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There was no need to even release his nihil.

Without Pyrhic by his side, Lichos was able to leave the suffocating energy beneath his skin, let it break the magic down as it hit him even while the world surrendered to its might all around.

He charged through the violet energies without hesitation, soon falling upon the mystic, widening eyes with his approach and raising his gun.

The bayonet blade was a fine steel, and it struck the enemy straight. Flesh surrendering quickly to the metal, apparently not toughened at all by magic.

Blood dribbled from the wound as flesh swallowed a foot of metal. Lichos wrenched it free with a twist of his wrists, turning the stream of ichor into a spray.

Eyes widened in the mystic’s face, then shut with surprise as Lichos struck the man’s jaw. He watched the mystic fall, watched some more as he lay unconscious and exsanguinating. Cautious, as ever, for a trick or counter.

When he was satisfied there was neither, he seized the man by his leg and began dragging.

Pyrhic seemed to have regained some measure of composure when Lichos brought the mystic to her, wrapped in the invisible shackles of nihil and enfeebled by his emptying veins. The woman wasted no time in kneeling down beside him, tying a tourniquet about his arm even as she shuddered.

Lichos admired her bravery. Many Wrathman sparks had reacted worse to his power than that.

In under a minute she rose again, stepping back from the mystic and eying him as she spoke in the same foreign words Lichos had found himself hating for a day. Cutting him from the conversation once again.

The mystic had the tell-tale sleepiness that came from leaving a fifth of one’s blood to stain the ground, but Pyrhic showed none of the irritation that marked her whenever her questions went unanswered. Lichos could only imagine the presence of a magiphage had loosened the man’s tongue.

Sluggish through the filter of his hastened thoughts, Pyrhic’s interrogation seemed to take an age and a half. His body had digested all but a fraction of its stolen magic by the time she finished.

The mystic’s head lolled back as the questioning ceased, eyes growing empty and vacant. Death or unconsciousness, Lichos didn’t know.

After the attempt on their lives, he didn’t care either.

“Report?” He asked, still keeping his eyes on the fallen mystic. Guard sensibly raised.

“We’ve found Glint.” She said, watching the slumbering mystic just as Lichos did. “Though I suspect you’d deduced that already. More importantly, though, we know who hired him.”

“Do you know why that Shroud bastard didn’t tell us he was a mystic?” Lichos asked, already knowing the answer. “Because I think I’m going to go back to wherever he is and gut the fucker.”

Pyrhic cracked a smile at that, though it was fragile beside her trembling shock. Forced.

“We have more important concerns than a clumsy attempt on our life. This one was hired by the Guillotines.”

Lichos didn’t bother to hide his grin. He popped his neck with a grunting motion, vindication coming so sweetly that he almost didn’t notice the sluggishness of Pyrhic’s voice.

“Well I can’t say I’m surprised.” He smirked. “Don’t feel too bad about doubting me, you’re not the first nobby officer to get in the way of good old-fashioned Wrathman knowhow. I suppose we’re going back around to hang those buggers now?”

Pyrhic’s face didn’t move at his display, her eyes still hard as they rested on the mystic. Voice quiet and soft when it rang out.

“He thought we were working for their employer.” She breathed. “That’s why he was so terrified. A mystic powerful enough to heat stone to glowing, easily stronger than most fully sanctioned war mystics, and he was terrified when he felt us approach.”

“Fuck.” Lichos cursed. It took a moment for the full implications to sink in. “Fucking shit. Their employer, as in the ganger’s employer?”

She nodded.

“So there’s a bigger fish after all.” He muttered. “And I would’ve played right into their hands if I’d had my way.”

Lichos allowed himself a moment to curse before Pyrhic spoke again.

“Nobody predicted this, I doubt anyone could have, with what we knew. Koros Kaiosyni was merely being cautious and diligent. This time it proved well worth the effort.”

His amazement was scarcely diminished, quickly turning to leave him wondering what kind of experience had instilled such perfectionism in Taiklos’ Princess.

“So we’re heading back to Kaiosyni?” He asked. Pyrhic nodded, turning to make her way from the warehouse. Lichos went to follow, then paused for a second, glancing at the assassin lying back feet from him.

Almost as an afterthought, he drew his rifle and took careful aim at Glint’s head. Squeezed the trigger a moment later, recoil disappearing into his strengthened wrist like death rattles into war.

Steam joined powder smoke in the cold night air as magical brains decorated the pavement. Lichos studied the pulverised viscera for a moment before turning to meet Pyrhic’s eye, finding no judgement in the woman.

“I figured we could trust that perfect memory of yours enough that he wasn’t needed any more. Seeing as you were about to leave him there.”

She nodded again, walking once more as Lichos fell into step.

The night cooled their heat-scarred battlefield behind him.