Chapter 10:
The Marksman Odyssey
It takes us what feels like hours to follow the long, zig-zagging road to the top of the cliff. When we finally see the lights of the building at the summit just ahead, my legs feel like jelly, I’m absolutely doused in sweat, and the sky has slightly begun to light up, signaling the very early hours of the morning. Even my ankle that had almost completely recovered starts to ache anew.
“We’re nearly there, everyone.” Gunther says with as much good cheer as he can manage, but everyone, even him, is looking a bit drained, though a few of us more than others.
Don’t think I personally would have struggled so much if I could have made the hike at my own pace, maybe with frequent breaks every couple of turns in the road or so. But what we just did was an hour… hours… Was a hellishly long death march with no breaks, marching as fast as we could go without losing pace, no relief other than the occasional sip of water. Halfway up I couldn’t tell if my shortness of breath was the air growing thinner or just my lungs learning their limits.
Finally having the shackle off was a huge relief and probably would have given me some comfort if it wasn’t for the multiple bags full of water, canned food, ammo, and three spare, loaded pistols I ended up carrying in its place. Still, I definitely don’t miss it.
But at the end we reached the promised land: flat ground at last. Just a step onto that heavenly carpet and I keel over, resting my weight on my rifle as if it were a walking stick, wheezing. Rosa drops to her knees at my side, also struggling to draw breath. “Haah…” she gasps. “We made it. Most gracious Ariadne, matron of travellers, thank you for seeing us through.”
The others pause for a moment to breathe as well, though they don’t look quite as bad. “It’s been a while since our last march like that,” Siabahn comments, taking a sip from a canteen.
“Prison does wonders to one’s shape, don’t it?” Gunther replies with an edge of sarcasm that leaves me wondering what he meant exactly. “But alright, back to it. Siabahn, do you see any guards?”
He scans the front of the building and I follow his gaze. There’s a wide open entrance that seems made for vehicles. The wall alongside has a closed door and a big window just beyond. Light shines from within. I don’t notice any people or movement.
“Not from here, no,” Siabahn states. “The entrance looks deserted.”
“Let’s move up then. Luach, stay here and watch over Leo and Sister Rosa.”
“Nah, I’m good to go,” I interject, pulling myself back up straight.
“So am I,” adds Rosa, climbing to her feet too.
Gunther nods with a satisfied smile. “That’s what I like to see. Together then. You go first, Siabahn.”
The cat man advances and we follow him at a reasonable distance. Despite the exhaustion of our hellish hike, he moves effortlessly, staying silent and low, sticking to cover and angling his ears almost like natural radars. He reaches the door and, after peeking through the window, slides into the building through the vehicle entrance.
We go in ourselves soon after, first Gunther with a rifle and bayonet at the ready, then me with my own, followed by Rosa who excused herself from carrying a weapon but still has the magic glove with a single near-shattered power gem left, and finally Luach with a sword of her choosing.
We couldn’t find anything resembling the katanas she favors so much. There were machetes, which I thought she’d take for their curve, but she opted for a long sword instead. “Better range,” she said.
I thought swordfighters were married to their particular style of blade. It’s just like her to be pragmatic, though.
…but then why not a gun? She turned down even a backup pistol.
Nevermind. Luach might actually be more nerdy than I thought.
“Leo,” Gunther whispers, “stay sharp.”
“S-sorry.” I push the idle thoughts out of my mind.
We enter a big room full of containers, carts, ducts, cranes, the like; all the signs of a small industrial operation. If you pay enough attention, you can sort of infer how the place is meant to operate during working hours. A vehicle, likely a cart, must come in the same way we did, through the sizable entryway, to park right under the cranes. With their help, any cargo can be lifted up to the mouth of a funnel set near the roof, which feeds a duct that leads straight into a large bucket that hangs from a steel rope. The rope then carries the bucket out the back of the building and to who-knows-where.
In other words, this is a cable transport station. More importantly, however…
“There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.”
“Let’s wait for Siabahn,” Gunther advises. “He can see in the darkness better than us. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“No need to worry.” Siabahn emerges from a side door. “We are in the clear. Perhaps tonight’s watch did not feel like making the climb?”
Everyone relaxes, stepping out of cover. “That’s a lucky break for us,” Gunther comments, stepping towards the bucket hanging from the cable. “Where does this lead?”
“Let me check.” I follow the rope out the back of the building and find myself at the summit of a long, downward, dangerous slope. There’s still not enough light to clearly make out what I’m seeing, but it seems the rope cable goes down the slope, connecting to a few pylons set up along the path, and finally reaches another station at the very bottom of the valley. The station I can see only because of the lights shining through its windows, though I tilt my head confused when I notice several of the lights shimmering. “What is that…?”
“A river,” Siabahn answers, stepping next to me. Thanks to his clue, I finally make out the contours of a long body of water, which was what was creating the shimmering reflections. “They use this ropeway to ferry ore down to the river, where a boat collects it and ships it off to wherever it’s meant to go.”
“Then that’s our ticket out of here!” I exclaim, hopeful. “Do you see any ships down there?”
Siabahn offers me a steady smile. “Let’s look for one once we’re down there.”
My man, that's not reassuring in the slightest.
But we’ve come too far to give up now, so Siabahn and I quickly head back into the station and share what we saw with the others.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Gunther agrees. “But these buckets aren’t big enough for all of us. They’ll fit two, maybe three people at most. Let’s split up in groups.” He turns to Rosa. “Sister, you should go with the first group.”
“Eh?” she fidgets, looking around at each of us. “O-only if that’s okay with everyone.”
Frankly, I couldn’t agree more myself. “Yeah, go ahead. Luach, you should go too.”
Luach shakes her head. “I’ll cover us.”
“No, Leo has a point. You’re still injured,” argues Siabahn. “You are still in no condition to fight.”
“But-”
“This is not up to debate,” Gunther interjects harshly. “Just go. Keep Sister safe.”
Luach hesitates for a moment, though she finally nods and climbs in the first bucket next to Rosa. Despite being the first to take the ride down to freedom, both look a little distraught, so I try to cheer them up a little.
“Hey, here’s someone to keep you company.” I pull back the lid of one of my belt satchels and the baby salamander peeks out, sticking out his tongue in greeting.
He took a nap in there while we hiked up the cliff, lucky little bastard. I carefully take it out of the bag, letting him climb onto my palm, and gently hand him over to Rosa.
The baby slides onto her palms, but immediately turns around and looks at me. He looks a little upset at being handed over, but Rosa holds him close so he doesn’t try to jump back. “See you down there, okay?”
“Sure, we’ll be right behind you.”
“We’re sending you down! Be careful on the way!” Gunther pushes the bucket along the cable until gravity takes over, sending the girls down the slope.
I feel like I raised several death flags during that conversation alone. “Please tell me the guards haven’t caught up yet.”
“I could,” says Siabahn, his ears angling as they track some unknown sound, “but I’d be lying.”
My stomach suddenly feels heavy. “...how close? Too close for the next bucket to arrive before they do?”
“Common Leo, you’ve been through worse,” Gunther chimes in, poking my shoulder teasingly.
I wish I could be so confident. I’ve only been through two battles so far, and for both of them I had a knot in my stomach even with the Prisoner’s experiences backing me up. Yet what’s coming now feels so much worse already, flaring up a faint feeling of nausea the more I think about it.
Because this is my first battle against people. I may need to kill someone, and I don’t know if I can do it.
“How many, Siabahn?”
“Hmm, at least four,” says Siabahn, his ears angling towards the entrance and somewhere off to the side. “Three up front, the rest trying to flank.”
“Go get the flanker.” Gunther cocks back the hammer of his rifle. “We’ll buy time with the other three.”
Siabahn swiftly disappears through a side door, leaving Gunther and I to find cover inside the cable car station. He gets behind a pillar, while I duck behind a spare metal bucket laid against the wall.
It doesn’t take long for us to hear steps running up to the entrance, and as if that wasn’t enough, someone with a dog’s head and Nuren’s colors attempts to run across the entryway, probably to get another angle. He didn’t count on Gunther having his gun at the ready, however, and I flinch as his rifle cracks and the uncautious guard collapses with a pained yelp.
He didn’t even hesitate. Is that the resolve of a seasoned warrior?
“Don’t think that’s our only one!” Gunther yells. “We have guns to spare!”
A moment of silence passes. I half expected that if someone would reply, it would be Nuren, but to my surprise it’s a woman’s voice coming from just around the corner, out of sight. “Gunther! Is that you? Been a long time!”
It kinda sounds familiar, but I can’t place my finger-
“Well hello Glina!” Gunther replies. “Did Nuren not feel like doing the chase himself? Did he rather send his favorite bloodhound to do the job for him?”
Right, Glina, the hound werekin Gunther was concerned about, and also the woman that was at the entrance to Nuren’s fortress the day Rosa and I arrived. Figures she would be the first to catch up to us.
“Don’t count yourself so lucky! Nuren will be here soon. You have to realize you’re not going anywhere.”
The woman suddenly runs into view with her body held close to the ground, heading for another piece of cover, a metal trough by the entrance. Gunther shoots again, a pistol this time, but to my surprise the bullet only hits the dirt as Glina switches her momentum on a dime and slides out of harm’s way.
Though my heart is still uneasy about it, I rise from cover to take my own shot, but a glint in the air breaks my focus. I quickly jerk back behind cover just in time to avoid a thrown knife that shoots past me and clatters on the floor somewhere behind me.
She is fast, just like Luach.
Glina reaches the trough she was aiming for, while the other guard with her takes advantage of the distraction to move up as well, hiding behind a pillar like Gunther.
“Give it up!” Glina speaks again. “You know I’m more than a match for either of you. There’s still time to keep your lives if you surrender.”
“As tempting as that sounds, Glina, I don’t make a habit of negotiating with traitors.” Gunther takes out another pistol.
“What else was I supposed to do? The Empire abandoned us, the Legion broke apart. I made the choice that I had to in order to survive. What’s wrong about that?”
Glina steps out of cover again and Gunther peeks out to shoot, but this time it’s him that narrowly avoids danger as the other guard fires a pistol and the shot ricochets off the pillar just inches from Gunther’s face. I once more try to cover for Gunther by aiming my rifle at the woman as she runs to the next bit of cover closer to us.
But when my barrel hovers over the woman’s silhouette, I suddenly see Celmund. He is calmly walking towards me, a smug grin on his face, mocking me with each step he takes.
It’s just a memory, a trick of the mind. I know it cannot be real. My finger hovers over the trigger; all I have to do is shoot.
“Okay”, the vision speaks, just as he did that day, back when I was summoned. “Then shoot.”
I can’t find the strength to pull the trigger.
Glina swiftly slides out of the way, finding the cover she was looking for behind one of the loading cranes. Her partner does the same, running forward as he switches out his spent firearm and ducking into a nook in the wall close to Gunther. We’re running out of ground.
“What’s the matter, Gunther?” Glina calls out again. “I used to respect you a lot as a soldier, but ever since you came to Zedia, you’ve lost your edge. You haven’t been the same at the arena.”
“Heh, well, in the arena we have something called sportmanship.” Gunther pulls out a glass bottle from his belt. “But out here, this is war.”
He throws the bottle right at the middle of the room, completely shattering it and spreading the clear spirit within across the ground. “Siabahn!”
Fingers snap. A spark flies into the puddle which ignites instantly. The flames surge and dance more intensely than they have any right to, growing so bright that they dim out the artificial lighting of the room. My eyes burn just from the sight, almost blinding me.
For a moment I can only see silhouettes, but do see, a shadow, Siabahn, slips into the room from the side entrance. He brandishes a simple straight sword, but the flames bend to his every movement, wreathing him with their heat and glow. While Glina and her partner are blinded, he swoops towards them, reaching the unknown guard first and cutting him down with a burning slash.
Gunther rushes forward as well, using the glare of the flames as cover to charge at the crane behind which Glina hides with his rifle and bayonet at the ready. The hound woman doesn’t hide either, emerging from her cover to meet Gunther halfway. When he thrusts his bayonet forward, she parries with a short sword and attempts to slide forward into Gunther’s guard where she can attack him.
But that’s when I come in, following everyone’s example and joining the fray. There’s still a knot in my throat and I’m gnashing my teeth in frustration, but whatever doubts I feel are no excuse just to sit back and let them handle everything. With a swing of my own bayonet, I force the hound woman to step away from Gunther, and both of us press the attack to overpower her together.
To her credit, Glina holds out against us for a fair few moments, but then Siabahn joins in as well, rushing around her to strike at her flank. She tries to jump away from his reach as soon as she notices, but that takes her eyes off me for a precious, fateful second.
I step into range and swing my rifle around, driving the stock into her collarbone, letting out a fierce yell. “Oraaah!”
My strike slams her straight off her feet and she falls on her back with a grunt. Her sword lands a moment after, clattering on the ground a short distance behind her. I waste no time turning the gun back around and aiming at her as she crawls backwards to her weapon.
“Give up or I’ll shoot!” I warn her.
She scoffs back, “No you won’t!” and turns around to reach for her sword.
But Gunther stops her by stepping on the small of her back, right over where a short tail sprouts. “Gah…!” She moans, frozen from the pain, and Gunther knocks her with a well placed bash of his own rifle to the back of her head.
The chamber falls silent. The last embers of Siabahn’s fire are already fading. The skirmish goes to us.
I sigh a breath of relief, but Gunther interrupts it with a harsh push on my chest. “Why didn’t you shoot?” he demands, and I feel my blood run cold.
“I-I uhm…” I stutter, trying to think of what to say. Any excuse I come up with will only make me look worse, but the truth is too shameful to state.
“Do what you have to,” he says, unrelenting. “Someone will end up dead. Don’t make it us.”
I look down, feeling completely worthless. I had thought the last battle at the arena had been a breakthrough, that despite my distaste for battle I could more or less handle myself when necessary.
How wrong I was. Fighting people is something else entirely.
“We have to move,” Gunther says, walking past me.
“Another bucket is coming in,” Siabahn mentions, checking the incoming cable. “And not a moment too soon. I hear their reinforcements approaching.”
—
It was a good idea to stop for mounts. Whatever time we lost with the detour to the stables was quickly made up by the animals on the climb. The crack of gunfire in the distance above us was all I needed to know that Glina had caught up and was pinning the bastards at the station.
But then there was silence and I didn’t know what to think. They say no news is good news, but just in case I urged everyone faster, me and three of my lieutenants, the strongest fighters among the Wardens. There’s a whole troop of grunts climbing the path as well, but we left them behind; they can clean up after us once they eventually arrive.
Several of our mounts collapse from exhaustion as soon as we reach the summit, which tells me we made it in record time. I run into the building ahead of everyone, anxious to see the result of Glina’s handiwork.
All I find is disappointment. Two of her men lie dead outside the building, not good enough to even make it inside. But the last guy and Glina herself did not fare much better, already lying defeated. As for our targets, there’s not even a corpse; all of them made it through.
“Boss, she’s alive,” one of my lieutenants says, checking on Glina.
“Good, I don’t want her to get off easy from this. But leave her, our priority are still the escapees.”
I notice that the mechanism which moves the cable is turning. They’re already riding it down. “Is there a break to this thing?”
“It’s here, boss-!” grunts another of my men as he pulls on a lever set under the moving contraption with all of his might, yet the thing refuses to budge. “B-but I think they broke it! It’s… stuck!”
“Move aside!” I command, pushing the man aside to grab the lever myself. I take a deep breath and pull, squeezing as much power I can out of every muscle in my body. “RAAAH!”
But the only thing that yields is the lever itself as it snaps right off its hinge. I toss aside the useless thing with growing frustration.
Guess it will have to be the hard way, then.
I hurry out the back of the building and peer down the slope at the suspended cable stretching from pylon to pylon until it reaches the bottom. Carts are riding along in either direction, and the ones going down are carrying the cargo we’re after: the witch’s fighters, hitching a ride to what they hope will be their freedom.
One of my men walks up beside me and aims a rifle at them, but I slam the barrel up as he pulls the trigger and the shot blasts off into the dawn-colored sky. “No! I want them alive! Line up! We’re taking the next cart down!”
“Boss, look!” says the man with the rifle, pointing down not along the cable line, but along the river. A steam boat is coming in to collect the morning cargo, right on time to be taken over and paddle away before we even get a chance to get down there ourselves.
“Then fuck it! We’ll go down as is!”
“Boss…?” My underling gasps as I climb the railing at the edge of the slope and grip my favorite pair of hooks, one on each hand. “Don’t tell me you are…”
“I’ll be damned if I just let those bastards get away, so shut up and follow my lead!” I jump towards the cable above me and hook the length, letting gravity accelerate me towards my targets.
—
Holy shit what is he doing?!
Just as we saw the boat sailing in and thought we could cheer victory, we heard a blast coming from above and spotted Nuren standing in the station above us. “Don’t worry, I jammed the break,” Gunther said, “and we will make it down far enough ahead of him to sail away before he catches up.” For a moment, I found comfort in those words.
But then Nuren jumped off the ledge and began riding down towards us, clinging to the cable himself. The rest of his men followed his example right after, hanging from belts, chains, whatever they had on hand.
It’s insanity, but they’re catching up.
On instinct, I shoulder my rifle and aim at Nuren. He is sliding down in what is almost a straight line towards us, making for an easy shot. My finger hangs over the trigger, ready whenever I am.
But once again, my finger locks in place. Gunther gives me worried glances. “What’s the matter, Leo?! Shoot!”
“Then shoot”, echoes Celmund’s voice in my mind. Whether it’s Celmund or Nuren, even if it’s Celmund or Nuren, the thought of the bullet piercing their head makes my blood turn to ice. Part of me screams that I should pull the trigger, while the other resists, clouding my mind with terrible, chilling noise.
“Leo, hand that over!” Gunther demands as he virtually rips the rifle out of my hands and takes aim himself. I don’t even have the guts to look at him.
Yet a fraction of a moment before Gunther pulls the trigger, Nuren swings to the side and detaches from the rail, flying off the bullet’s course. He hooks the opposite cable and keeps advancing, while the man that was sliding behind Nuren is the one that catches the shot, slipping from the cable and dropping several meters to the slopped, craggy ground. We see his body tumbling the rest of the way downhill.
“Dammit!” Gunther exclaims, standing up and taking out his last pistol. His next shot simply misses, puffing into the dirt slope behind Nuren. “Pass me yours!” he demands and I hand my pistols over to him one by one, though each shot he takes is either dodge by Nuren or simply scatters out of target. Meanwhile, I reload the other rifle we have on hand, realizing we’ll probably need the extra shot.
There’s no denying that a proper rifle meets a smoothbore pistol any day.
With only two pistols left, Gunther holds his next shot, waiting for Nuren to slide so close that there isn’t a chance he could miss. But once Nuren slides close enough, he throws his free hook and swings it with the attached chain. Gunther flinches to avoid the flying tip, but his pistol goes off, sending the shot in a random direction.
I may not have the guts to shoot but I still hold the rifle I just finished loading at the ready. If Nuren tries to jump onto our cart, he can stick himself onto my bayonet.
Nuren speeds into range to jump and… doesn’t. He simply shoots past, giving us a mocking salute as he continues on his way down.
“He’s going after Rosa and Luach!” I stand up and shoulder the rifle, aiming at Nuren’s back. My finger rests on the trigger.
“Watch your back, Leo!” warns Siabahn, jumping to his feet to parry the blade of Nuren’s underling as he drops into our trolley with a sword drawn. Then comes another underling, a smaller, foxy man that lands on Gunther’s shoulders, locking them both in a struggle to grapple each other into submission.
Our hanging bucket becomes crowded in an instant. All the fighting swings us ever more and more wildly, until it seems we might decouple from the carriage at any time. There’s precious little I manage to do as I’m pushed around by the chaos, struggling merely to avoid being crushed or falling off the vehicle for several confusing minutes.
Finally, I see the chance to grab the fox man atop Gunther by the back of his collar and pull him off balance. The man snarls, falling out of pace long enough for Gunther to catch him by the arm. But before he can be pulled off, the fox man slams his elbow into my face and I stumble back, toppling right over the edge of the bucket.
“Leo!” I hear Siabahn’s voice cry to me, but it quickly fades under the noise of rushing wind. The world spins around me, erasing all semblance of direction. I see glimpses of the sky, the mountainous terrain, the river, even the ship we were hoping to board, all shooting past me at a nauseating pace.
Then I hit the ground. I don’t pass out, or at least I don’t think so. The pain radiating from every corner of my body is too crisp, too immediate. I hope I can at least take that to mean my neck wasn’t broken.
I lie still for a moment, eyes facing the wide open sky. It’s morning now; the sun hangs high in the firmament, painting the sky with a myriad colors. Somewhere in the back of my head, a small voice wonders why the sun is set so high as if it was noon, but I sternly silence it. The only thing on my mind should be the others, Rosa and Luach most of all.
My hand slides over what seems like a wood and finds my rifle resting next to me. I turn over as quickly as my pained body can afford and look around. A flat wooden floor, railings along the edge, two large chimneys pumping out smoke and steam side-by-side, sailors knocked unconscious on the deck…
I think I landed on the steam ship.
There’s a clang of clashing metal, followed by a woman’s screech. I turn in its direction and spot Nuren in the middle of a fight with Luach. She is on the defensive, struggling to hold her ground, yet she is clearly struggling with her injuries, desperately missing the use of her left arm.
Seeing this, Nuren shows no mercy. He easily controls Luach’s sword with his hooks and wrestles her guard open again and again, overwhelming her with a vicious barrage of punches and kicks. He could easily deliver a killing blow with how rattled Luach is, but that doesn’t seem to interest him. He is smiling, relishing the rush of his own brutality.
Luach stumbles back, bruised and bleeding from her lip and forehead. Even so, she glares at him, showing with her eyes the hatred that her battered body cannot put into action. To this, Nuren laughs, hanging his arms open mockingly. “So you are capable of expression! If only you had shown that spark in the arena! I just needed to push you a lot more!”
“AAAAH!” Luach screams, charging at him with the tip of her sword aimed at his heart, but he parries the lunge aside and grabs Luach by her neck. “Guh-!”
Nuren lifts her and slams her against the railing, hard enough that the metal seems to bend. Luach gasps, but no sound comes out, her breath completely stolen. “And now, seeing herself cornered, the Drakki woman will use her secret technique!” As if on cue, Luach forces in as deep a breath as she can take and blows out a few puffs of white mist.
But with a simple turn of his hand, Nuren adjusts his grip to clutch her mouth shut, pushing her once more against the railing. “Predictable! So fucking predictable! You’re a joke of a fighter, but I will find a use for you yet!”
“Get your fucking hands off her!”
Nuren looks up and glances at me. I’m standing a short distance away, rifle to my shoulder, aiming directly at his head.
He finds this amusing. “Oh? Or what? Will you shoot me just like you did up on those rails? Hehe.” He pulls Luach away from the rail and holds her between us. “Will you shoot her?”
I can’t even describe the feeling that runs through my body. Anger, fear, rage, hatred, doubt, frustration, hopelessness, anguish… It’s a nauseating, burning, roiling mix of them all and more. If only I’d pulled the trigger before he pulled in Luach, if only I’d done so when I had him up in the cable, if only I’d managed back after the fight with the dragon…
If only I’d had the guts to do good on my threat and blast Celmund’s face to pieces.
“Hmm, not her?” Nuren asks with a sickeningly playful tone. “Then how about this one?” He reaches behind a ventilation pipe and pulls up Rosa, holding her by the back of the neck. She flails weakly, but it’s no match to Nuren’s grip.
“Aack…” she grunts, struggling to breathe. “L-Leo…! D-don’t worry… about- guh-!”
Luach is desperately trying to claw at Nuren’s hand over her mouth, but her weakened claws cannot cut into the hardened gauntlet he’s wearing. She looks at me, and I don’t like the way they plead at me.
“Hmm, who would it be?” Nuren keeps talking as he pulls both girls between him and me, using them as cover like a coward. “Whoever it is, the bullet will likely pierce through and hit me. It’s just a matter of who you care about less: the boring Drakki woman? Or the weakling support girl?”
Nuren must think I’m not noticing that he’s slowly approaching me. Of course I notice; it’s just that there’s nothing more I can do but stand here, steadying my breath little by little so my barrel remains trained on the small opening between both my friends’ heads. There isn’t margin for even the slightest deviation, but my gun refuses to sit still, my hands trembling.
“Huh?! Are you listening to me, Leo?!” Nuren booms. “CHOOSE!”
The baby salamander suddenly runs up Nuren’s shoulder and bites his ear. His eyes go wide in surprise and the gap between him and them opens up enough for my shot.
“Then shoot.”
The bullet flies true and pierces Nuren’s right shoulder. The burst of pain shatters his grip on both girls and they drop to the floor safely. I yell my battle cry, charging in. “ORAAAH!”
I reach Nuren and thrust the tip of my bayonet, stabbing it just below his ribcage. Blood bursts from his lips, but I keep pushing, driving him further and further back until he hits the furthest railing and leans over the edge.
Yet he grits his teeth and clutches the shoulder of my shirt. “Fine! We go… together!” Then he lets himself fall, pulling me along with him over the edge and plummeting together to the deck below.
The hit briefly stuns me, but it’s not as bad as the first drop. My rifle is a short distance away, but I still feel the weight of a pistol hanging from my chest. As for Nuren…
He makes himself known by landing a kick on my ribs and pushing me to my back. “You fucker! You could’ve had everything!” he yells at me, delivering another crushing kick to my side. I think I hear something snap. It hurts to breathe. “I could’ve made you a star! We could’ve climbed to the very top!” He kneels atop my chest, pinning my pistol and crushing my lungs with the same movement. “But you threw it all away!”
He punches me in the face. My head feels like it cracks against the floor. “Yet that’s fine!” Another strike. “I will just feed you to the monster pen!” One more blow. My left eye swells shut. “You’ll make a real special pile of shit!”
He winds back to deliver another punch, but his hand snags on something. He looks back and finds his wrist wrapped in a clear, watery tentacle. “The fu-?”
“Leo!” I hear Rosa’s voice. She is standing above us on the upper deck, her hand wrapped in the mage gauntlet with one last, shimmering magic stone. “You can do it!”
My hand finds and grips the barrel of my rifle. With all the strength I have left, I stab the bayonet into Nuren’s neck while he’s distracted.
He coughs a huge mouthful of blood, eyes growing wide once more. He stumbles off me for a moment, pulling the bayonet out. Fresh blood gushes out, flowing down his shoulder and chest. After a few shuddering, uneasy steps, Nuren collapses on his knees, gasping and wheezing in incredulous confusion.
I cough, spitting out a mouthful of my own blood, and slowly climb to my feet. I pull out the pistol from its sheathe and aim at Nuren’s forehead.
He can say nothing with his words trapped in his bleeding neck, but his eyes nonetheless defy me, appealing to all the doubts and fears that have led me to tiptoe around this line for too long.
But as my finger rests on the trigger this time, I feel nothing.
“Go to hell, Nuren.”
And finally, without effort, I pull the trigger.
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