Completed Knives in the Dark

[Elijah]

He wasn't sure when he noticed that he had forgotten his coat but when he did he discounted the worry; in this weather it wouldn't have done much good. Just weighed him down more most likely. It was such a silly thought but it was that one that kept running through his mind as they trudged through the storm. Other thoughts stood outside the calm void that seemed to fill him. Like the troubling fact Bursars were able to command Assassin's without approval of the Dynast. He didn't know if it was his words which had made the woman hesitate and leave or if this really had been planned as a warning. Either way, she would report back to whoever had hired her.

There were also the thoughts of Lyssia that floated beyond the void. He watched her as they marched through the streets. Given her size by all laws of science he knew this wind should have been blowing her off her feet. He found himself ready to catch her if she did but that iron will seemed to keep her rooted to the ground. What would she do if this evidence was gone? What if this is what the assassin had wanted? What better way, after all, was there to find that which had been stolen and hidden than to get the thief to lead you to it themselves?

He wisely kept those thoughts out of his inner sanctum and, even wiser, to himself.

When they finally stopped just shy of the house Lyssia owned he pushed his hair out of his eyes and tried to blink away the streams of water that ran down the planes of his face. His gaze flickered to her.

"I'll go first," he insisted and started for the house. They had been caught out once already and he didn't intend for her to get another knife thrown at her from the dark, especially not in her own home.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

It was a measure of her unease and discomfort that she did not balk at his insistent demand, nor speak. She was still struggling to catch her breath; unlike the Captain, she was entirely out of shape, not accustomed to running through the streets in fair weather, let alone foul. Her dress weighed at her like a suit of armor, and one that was unfortunately entirely inadequate for protection against the kinds of threats her mind populated her home with. She followed behind him, pallid face pinched with the pain if the stitch in her side.

The townhouse was not in one of the better parts of town, and it had an aged, worn look to it that spoke of its age. It lacked the color of some parts of town, the weathered wood looking parched despite the fact that the ocean had been overturned and dumped on the city. The narrow home sported a pair of windows on each level, and the windows were dark. Nothing moved that they could see.

She slowed as they crossed the street; the door was ajar, the wood of the jamb splintered where it had been forced open. The image sent a chill down her spine, and she almost reached out to touch Elijah, to tell him that they should turn back. Cowardice reared its ugly head, the ball of ice in her stomach seeming to grow larger and heavier with every step they took. She was no warrior. This was not her place, but she had no choice. Need drove her, even though she might bolt at the first sign of trouble.

Elijah was first through, with her reluctantly following close behind. The flickering light of the lightning created lurid momentary scenes...of nothing. The door had been forced, but the cloak stand in the entryway remained untouched. The entryway bore no foot prints, surprisingly, and from what she could see of the lowest floor, nothing had been disturbed.

A veil of silence hung over the house, The distant thunder of rain on the roof could only just be heard, but of other living souls she could see or hear nothing. It was then that she reached out, and touched Elijah's shoulder from behind, gesturing upwards with wide eyes and face the color of paper.

 

[Elijah]

The Captain only paused briefly to examine how the lock was broken on the door. Tiny details such as that told a lot more about an opponent than people seemed to realise. For example, the fact the lock was splintered suggested that this person either lacked the skills to pick a lock or at least had little patience for it. His fingers trailed over the edges but he couldn't sense any magic or heat. It must have been brute force. Carrying on through to the hallway he stepped impeccably lightly for his size and stature. Not a creak or a groan was made as he prowled forward like a mountain lion towards the other rooms. A quick glance in each room showed no signs of movement or hidden blades.

He cursed himself for jerking when she touched his arm and followed her gesture to the stairs. The look of fear on his face made his jaw tighten and he debated telling her to stay here where it was safe, but then if there was someone above them and this was their only exit he would only put her in more danger. He gave a rigid nod and made a returning gesture for her to stick close then continued his methodical search up the stairs.

The second floor revealed nothing but an empty bedroom but the third...

Here, whoever had forced their way in and taken care not to disturb anything, had given up their small consideration to be tidy. Books had been spilled onto the floor and the draws of her desk yanked open. It looked a mess but it was an abandoned mess.

"Where did you hide the documents?" he asked only when he was sure they were alone.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

She flinched at his jerk, but said nothing. What was there to say? Regardless, speaking might only clue whoever was in her home to their presence, and she'd had as many close encounters with dying today as she desired. Unconsciously, she touched the nick on her throat, and shivered.

A tiny flicker of anger pushed back against the icy fear as they reached the third floor, and she saw the destruction. The place was thoroughly ransacked, and what little she owned had been tossed to the floor in the furious searching for the manifests and documents she had stolen. That they obviously had not found them was a small consolation. She looked around wildly when he spoke, but there were no threats.

"Not where anyone would look," she said in a thready voice. She hesitantly entered the room, and looked to Elijah again. The only thing standing between her and whoever might have been sent to dispose of the only evidence she'd found. With a shiver, she seized hold of the prim, reveling in the sweet taste of that power for but a moment. And then, she deftly wove elemental threads out of the chaotic power, and lifted the desk off of the floor. Even though it was a heavy, ancient thing, with magic she easily picked it up and set it aside.

She hurried over, kicking waterlogged skirts as she did, and kicked aside the rug covering the floor. Kneeling down, she worked the prim again, slipping thread of magic between the floor boards. With as little effort as she'd moved the desk, she pried the boards - flush and seemingly undisturbed - up and away. Exposed as the space between the floor and the ceiling below, and there in the hollow lay a thick bundle of papers, tied together with string. The faintest shimmer of magic surrounded them.

"They didn't find it," she breathed out. The tension had not left her body, though; if anything, she was more tense. Nearly to the point that she trembled with it. "We need to be away from here, or-"

Or the door downstairs would get kicked in, the splintery sound marked by it either banging off the wall or hitting the floor. The sound of booted feet, clearly unconcerned with stealth, clomped into the house. These were to the assassin in Elijah's house what a firework would be to garrote wire.

Lyssia froze, staring at the door to the hallway. Their way out was blocked; the only other way out was a three story drop out the windows on this lfoor.

 

[Elijah]

The blade snickered free of its sheath in a whispered hush of steel against steel. It was like a sweet kiss to Elijah as he settled back into that calm state of mind where nothing mattered but cold, calm reason. In three strides he was by the window which he threw open. The wind had eased somewhat but the rain still hammered down and rushed inside once the glass was gone soaking the oak panel floor. He leaned out to peer down at the door from this vantage point and caught sight of the last of the men entering. There was nothing discernible about them to give him any help on identifying what their training might be or who was their leader. Ducking back inside with his hair soaked he turned his ice-chipped eyes to her.

"Stay under the desk, when I say so jump out of that window," there was no room for argument in his tone as he turned his back on her and made his way to the door. Feet were hammering up the stairs now and he could hear muffled shouts followed by the sound of crashing furniture. Searching the bedroom, he thought calmly to himself as he quietly took up a position behind the door. His eyes scanned the room. If she got under the desk the room looked undisturbed and as though nobody had been up there yet.

He put a finger to his lips and then faded into the shadows.

Not long after the first of the men burst into the room like a headless bull. A gruff curse and he spat onto the floor at not finding anyone straight away. Two more piled in after him and Elijah silently shut the door. When handling a larger group, he thought calmly as the three spun to the figure emerging from the darkness, split them off from one another.

The lock snicked shut and then chaos erupted.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Anxiety swelled within her until she thought she might burst from it. Elijah was nothing more than ice, as calm as a summer day while being simultaneously as cold as the depths of winter. Unlike him, she was not a fighter - not, at least, in the same manner that he himself was. She darted round the desk, papers clutched tightly in her hands as though they could prove to be a shield to hide behind. She easily fit into the space below the desk, and cringed against the wood with her eyes tightly shut, whispering words to any deity that might exist.

It brought her back to another night, quite like this one really. Thunder, rain, and a beast made of flames. She remembered pissing herself in that fight, the swell of cowardice and terror almost undoing her. There were no pleasant memories that night, and likely there would be none here, either.

The men that burst into the room had a certain look about them. They were not, per say, villainous thugs off the streets. They had the look of hardened veterans, but not the look of any military unit that she could have thought of. Not that she could see them, huddled under the desk and trembling in fear as she was.

To Elijah, they likely looked like what they were. Mercenaries, and not the kind that sold their services for coppers or silvers. That much was apparent as they scanned the room quickly and professionally, only somewhat marred by the momentary widening of eyes at the appearance of the captain. They immediately fanned out, hands dropping to the handles of their weapons. Two wore heavy gambisons studded with steel, and the third - the one in the center - wore light leather. The two outside men wore swords, while the leather-clad fellow, tall and willowy, had two heavy knives at his hips.

The ones flanking him bared an inch of steel, grim faces locked on the Captain.

"Where is she, Captain?" The one who looked like a narrow blade asked in a surprisingly pleasant voice. "Either the girl, or the things she stole. We are not going to leave until we have either one, or the other." Somewhere else in the house, something crashed with a heavy, splintery sound. Lyssia clenched her hands tightly, trying not to move, not to breath.

 

[Elijah]

"Long gone," Elijah replied as calmly as if the man in front of him had asked him for the time whilst out on a pleasant walk. He was barely paying attention to the words or how he said them. What he was paying attention to was the three men and the way they stood. Mercenaries came in all shapes and sizes and differing levels of skill. It was easy enough to spot a merc who had done little more than see a few brawls in a bar and those who had survived bloodied battles and tough campaigns that had spanned more than a few days. These men had the look of the latter category. There was no nervous fiddling with their weapons or boastful gestures. They knew their job and they knew it well enough. He could sense them sizing him up in a similar fashion. Dressed in just his sodden shirt he was the least protected of them all but that meant he had speed and agility on his side, though by the looks of the one to his far right he seemed to be considering his age might counter that.

As for Elijah his main focus was on the man in the centre. It took considerable skill to be able to wield two weapons at the same time and was a deadly combination even to a swords master. The smartest move would be to eradicate the others and focus on him, get all three dealt with before whatever was crashing around downstairs made it upstairs. His feet began to move in slow, measured steps to keep as many of them in his focus as he could. He had never been one for all the talking others seemed to enjoy between the bouts of fighting; in his experience it had never solved anything just delayed what both sides knew was coming. So without waiting to hear how they might respond to his lie, Elijah lunged towards the man on his right and began to display quite clearly why he had managed to rise so high in the Dynasts' ranks.

He glided through different steps as though it were a dance and he the only one who could hear the music. His blade slashed for the other mans ribs, his thigh, his face. One after the other, forcing him to defend or retreat. The first goal was to try and even the numbers.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Elijah's answer was met with a strained. grim smile. The man with the knives did not reply to the obvious lie; they had seen the girl enter the place, and no one had seen her leave it. She was here, somewhere, and so long as the Pegasi Captain did not manage to kill all of them - an extremely unlikely event - they would achive their goal. The Iron Rams had gained their name and their reputation legitimately on the fields of battle, and in small scale conflicts in the middle of nowhere.

The man that Elijah went for first jumped back at the opening assault, taking a glancing blow to the arm that the layered cloth of the gambison dulled and turned aside - mostly. The man growled as he got the weapon at his hip fully out, in time to deflect the next attack, fading back only too late to avoid the third. Blood flew, a shallow gash torn across the bridge of his nose to his forehead, and the cursing redoubled.

The other swordsman circled wide round, his weapon out, and he attacked the Captain from the rear. Honor was a fools errand, and in a fight to the death there could be none, and every advantage taken meant another breath stolen, another second earned. Everyone here knew that.

Knife guy moved, as well, quickly and as silently as the blade he looked like. He noted the missing floor board, drew his heavy knives, and vaulted over the desk to stand on the other side of it in a ready position. The melee was too hot for him to get into the fray at the moment, and so he scanned the room, looking for anything out of place.

Lyssia cowered right in front of him, only just out of sight. The urge to vomit was terrifyingly strong, but by some miracle she managed to keep it in, and to stay dead silent.

 

[Elijah]

Pivot, block, pivot, block, slash, pivot, thrust.

Sweat began to bead on the Captain's forehead as the two swordsmen pressed him. Mercenaries they might have been but these were no copper purses. The youngster might have seen less battles than the other two but that made him no less of an opponent and whilst Elijah had drawn first blood , it wasn't long before his own skin was stinging with his own cuts. Under pressure from two opponents he found himself forced on the defence more often than he liked and risking his own attack often meant taking the risk he wouldn't bring his blade round in time to defend himself against a stab towards his chest.

Out of the corner of his eye he had spotted the fireplace and carefully been working his way back towards it, forcing the other two to follow suit. The numbers might have been against him but he knew the room better than he did. Five minutes of examining his surroundings before they had arrived was a trump card he had no intention of squandering. Once he was closer and could feel the faint heat coming from the cold-appearing coals he bided his time for the moment in which to pounce.

The younger swordsman with the nasty gash across the face which would no doubt scar beautifully if left much longer lunged towards him. Eli made a clumsy appearing block and cursed when the steel sliced across his ribs. He feinted a fall to one knee as though his wound was far worse than it actually was and as he turned as though to grasp at the bloodied slash he instead put his hand into the ash of the fire. Before they could raise their blades again to deliver a more costly blow, however, Eli turned and blew the nasty concoction of embers, ash and soot straight into both men's unshielded eyes then swiftly stood and made as if to run the more experienced of the pair through the heart.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Steel on steel.

It rang out in a staccato fashion, a frenzied flurry of attack and defense, and with each metallic clash, she cringed a little further in on herself. She was not equipped to deal with violence like this. The ego was a fragile thing, and she'd had hers bruised more than once in fights. She held no weapon, never had, and certainly never desired to. The one time she had stood against a foe - one far beyond her in strength - she had buckled, wet herself out of crippling fear, and been left wandering an icy hell within her own skull with every recollection of that moment.

Even as now. She could hear the roar of the flames, feel the intense heat of the elemental as it swept an appendage across the street with the inevitable impetus that would see her immolated, turned to ashes swirling in the wind after a singular moment of mortal agony...

A triumphant cry from the younger swordsman, while in the same moment a pained gasp from the other. The mercenary twisted at the last moment, avoiding an immediately fatal wound - not entirely falling for the feint - but receiving a mortal wound all the same. A burst of air from his mouth carried a mist of blood; the blade had slid in far to the left but had still pierced a lung. The younger man danced back, a little taken aback but not cowed, not bothering to scrub the ashes from his blood-covered face.

Footsteps, thundering on the the wooden floor in the hallway. Still other sounds of destruction elsewhere.

The man standing in front of the desk leapt back as Elijah scooped a handful of soot and embers, cursing aloud as he did so. He landed a few feet back, and it was then that he noticed the girl hiding under the desk. With a snarl, he stooped to grab her even as she noticed that her cover was blown.

There was fire. A sudden surge of magic twisted in the air, as Lyssia instinctively (and with little control) drew upon the prim and hurled it at her attacker without much thought. It was an attack that should have done nothing, but by some miracle it took the form of a fiery wind, and threw the blade-slender man back with a curse, beating at his face.

A single, heavy blow took the locked door from its hinges. Beyond it was only one man, while below the mayhem continued. "Captain?" said the fellow as he stood beyond, surveying the scene. He carried a hand axe and a shield, unusual weapons but effective nonetheless. Sweeping left to right, he saw the Captain staggering back, the one man bleeding profusely and down on a knee, and the younger swordsman backpedaling from the Pegasi captain.

And Elijah himself.

"Decided to fight rather than do the smart thing," he muttered to himself, then stepped forward to join the fray. Unlike all the others, the man was built like a tank, thick arms and legs corded with muscle and bound in studded leather. He moved a considerable bit more easily than would have been expected for a man his size, and Elijah was about to discover that the other two had merely been a warm up.

 

[Elijah]

Elijah aimed a smartly placed kick to the bleeding man's wound to add insult to injury and lay him flat out on his back. A dead man was less threat than an injured man but it would buy him some time if he couldn't get up for a while. With that cold thought he ground his heel into the wound before stepping off his prone body to meet the youngster. Outside of the calm mindset of a fighter he felt a brief flickering of sympathy for his opponent. He knew the feeling well when a fight began to turn and you realised that even though you were good, the man with death in his hands was ever so slightly better than you. Fear made a man sloppy and that only made things worse. As if to demonstrate his detached assessment the kid swung wildly for his shoulder. Ensuring to add a bit of casualness to his swing, Elijah rolled his sword over in his hand in a full circle before bringing it up to catch the attack, spinning the lads sword out of his hands with a forceful shunt. The shove sent the lad wheeling back into his stumbling Captain and brought Eli the precious few moments he needed to turn his attention to the new threat.

The much larger threat.

Eli caught the downward arc of the axe as it came down towards the top of his head but the move left his chest exposed enough for the fellow to ram his buckle shield straight into his chest. With an oof he went flying back against the desk.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

The larger foe was very precise in his attacks, efficient and utterly ruthless. Elijah might have evaded the first blow, but the weapon the larger man wielded was designed to be quick and concise in its attacks; it lacked the reach of a sword, but that was what the shield was for. Knocked back, the heavier man stepped in quickly to take advantage of his foe's moment of weakness, and put all of his strength and weight behind the blow.

Elijah was not there, of course, when the axe crashed into the top of the desk. The blow was so colossal that wood shattered and the top splintered, individual boards shattering. The axeman was already spinning to keep a shield forward, axe at the ready. The defensive posture was not held for long; the man then surged into a series of calculated, swift strikes. The goal was to put Elijah on the defensive, never over extending his reach but aiming for any easy opening - not that the Pegasi captain was offering any for free.

There were still a rook, a knight, and a pawn in this chess match against the bishop that was Elijah. The odds were still not in the Captain's favor, but his stoic determination and unwillingness to bend to each little wound, his calm and focused demeanor...well, some things could even the scales.

The young man gathered himself, and got to his feet again, but his nerve had been broken. There was far more caution in him than in the older fellow he had landed on, whom was now out cold and would likely bleed to death ere long.

As for the other...

The slender man - the mercenary captain, as it were - had nto been badly hurt by the hasty spell, if such it could be called. Skin reddened in part by fire and in part by anger, he reached for his knives and drew them, or tried to. Lyssia was already crawling out from under the table - the jig was up, and it was just as well that she extricated herself from that place, because the blade of the axe cut a foot of the way into the hiding hole and would not have done her any good had she been there.

One knife. The other lay on the ground, dislodged when he had been reaching for it to knife the girl on finding her. It did not really matter; he only needed the one, and he had it out and in his hand quick as a snake, and was striking for here every bit as quickly.

For her part, she was as slippery as an eel. She could move quickly, far more quickly than he could, and she dropped below a cut that whistled through the air with a mewl of terror. She scurried on hands and knees between his legs as he slashed down at her, and squealed as the knife cut through her dress and scored a viscous cut across her back, dragging across the back of her ribs and sending blood flying. She stumbled at the pain of it, landing on her back and pushing away with her feet with her arms raised protectively across her face.

Once. Twice. Three times, the cold bite of steel into her raised forarms, and she bit her lip so hard to stop from screaming that blood filled her mouth and ran down her chin. She was going to die, she was going to die and she knew it. There was no salvation; what the fire elemental had failed to do, this man would finish. She could burn the man to ashes where he stood...and yet, she could not muster the calm needed to seize the prim, could not bring and image to mind of what she wanted. Magic fled her every grasping attempt, eluded her, frustrated her.

She was going to die here.

And then her back ran up against something cold and sharp, sharp enough tp poke through her dress and draw a little more blood. She fell back at the sharp pain and, completely involuntarily, snatched at what she had hit, falling back and avoiding a stab that would have pierce her throat. The knife. It was the knife he had dropped, cutting her palm as she grabbed it, and without any though, with a sobbing cry of despair, she picked it up and lunged forward, knife leading, and felt the biting pain of his steel tooth pierce her again...and resistance from the thing in her hand.

 

[Elijah]

A favourable chunk of braid floated to the floor after the axe cleaved it from his head. Without it to keep the front of his hair off his face, a curtain of silky hair fell into his eyes that was now too short to push behind his ears out of the way. He didn't have time to look at the splintered desk where his head had been only seconds ago. Nor did he particularly want to. The ghostly remaining feeling of the air parting for the blade above his head was enough of a haunting reminder as to how close he had come to death and with Lyssia to hers. Lyssia. His concentration slipped momentarily as he heard the shrill shriek and glanced over to see her hastily beating a retreat away from the oncoming mercenary. His lapse in attention cost him a nasty slice across his chest which split his shirt in a bloodied mess. He gave a roar of pain but instead of leaping back reached forward to grasp the man's wrist.

It cost him more blood and flesh besides as the axe dug further into his peck but it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up. With the heavy infantryman's wrist in his slippery grip Elijah yanked him forward and off balance in the hopes he would fall heavily into Elijah's well placed upward swing of his fist which was still clasped around the sword pommel. In these close quarters it would be hard for either of them to swing their blades enough to get a good hit.

He just hoped the merc didn't notice the lightning wrapped whip around his knuckles until it was too late.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Moments like these are fleeting and live brief lives.

The heavy mercenary did not crow or gloat or express any glee at the successful blow. This was work, a soldiers work, and while he himself had no high ideals - that was for the people that paid him coins, as his ideals were literally the coin they offered - even had he, there would be no joy in this. Some mercenaries were blood thirsty, but the reputation of all of them being greedy or immoral people was misplaced.

And, in any case, there was no time to gloat. Elijah, every bit the fighter that the others in this room were, used the momentary success to shift the scales and come out on the upper hand. The lightning did not matter as much as the grip of his blade, and the heavy crunch of Elijah's fist connecting with the man's temple carried a certain finality to it. The heavy fellow collapsed as though his legs had been kicked out from under him

The rattled youth danced back, and decided that he did not want any part of what Elijah was. He turned and fled, heavy boots beating a hasty retreat back the way he had come. He did not raise his voice to call to the others that were obviously still in the house.

Lyssia stood transfixed. The mercenary captain opened his mouth, maybe to speak in defiance or to call her some other foul word...but the only thing that came was a flood of bright, hot blood. Lyssia recoiled, releasing her grip on the mans own knife as his blood flooded across her face, staining her clothes as she collapsed forward and landed atop her. The knife in his hand popped out of her shoulder and clattered to the ground as the two hit the ground together.

The sidhe did not remain still. Frantic, nearly wild efforts went to get out from under the slender corpse, and once she managed to get free she kept pushing herself away until her back came up against a wall. Eyes wide, locked on the man she had just killed, breath coming in thready gasps as her blood flowed to mingle with his, luminous red mingling with the mundane.

She said nothing, only stared.

 

[Elijah]

It wasn't often that a person could physically see the junction they had reached in life but Elijah could see the two roads before him painfully clear.

Lyssia, and the open window beyond.

The storm had quietened enough now that the rain was no more than a soft pattering barely visible against the dark sky. It would be easy enough to leave her, even with three bodies littering the floor. Nobody would batter an eyelid if he claimed he had been assisting a woman home and had been set upon by thugs. He could plead ignorance for their real reason of being there. But if he stayed, if he helped her... The road that curved towards Lyssia was dangerous and could land him on the gallows next to her if it all failed. He listened as the lads footsteps went crashing downstairs whilst the voice of reason calmly told him the smart thing would be to pursue him and eradicate the threat before it came back with reinforcements. Tiredness pushed at the void he clung to and, putting a hand to the bloody wound in his chest, he walked to the window and whistled. The shrill, loud noise pierced the air and faded over rooftops. He lingered there at the edge of the other road for just a second more and then turned his back on it and went to Lyssia.

"We have to go," he said far more gently than a gruff man had right to speak and he crouched down to get into her eyeline. The first kill was always the worst. He gripped her chin between his fingers in a hold on the edge of bruising. "Lyssia. Is this everything you need to take?"

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Stared, off into a place that was not here. Her name washed over her, touching nothing, passing through her as though either she or it were a wraith. Looking only at the crumpled form of the man she had killed as his blood slowly spread across the worn boards of the floor.

Killed. It echoed in her skull, reverberating from side to side and rising to a crescendo that soon filled her head with a roaring that drowned out any other thought. Her pain was distant, awareness of the hurts not even as potent had they been someone else's to witness. She heard her own damning accusation in her head, a recrimination borne of her own unspoken voice. Murderer. Killer. Even when Elijah gripped her chin, there was little response; her breathing was still as rapid and feathery, eyes as wide as they could go and pupils unfocused, fixed on the body or, perhaps, beyond it.

A gentle shake yielded nothing. Her eyes remained devoid of life, at least until the shaking grew hard enough to elicit a response, a gasp of pain that seemed to pull the curtain in her eyes aside. What was there, deep in her eyes, was not something pretty.

"Hmm?" The response seemed almost dream-like, as though she were rising from great depths and that only slowly. "What?" The look in her eyes changed from some clouded, half-wakeful haze to rising panic. She blinked rapidly, and seemed to see everything for the first time. "What? What?" She shook her head, and then absently patted her chest. The crinkle of paper was a reassuring sound. "I...I think so...," she said finally. Her eyes kept drifting back to the dead man, the dead men in her office. Thunder rolled through the heavens, distant now.

A moment, and she tried to stand, swaying as she gained her feet. Fresh blood ran down her back, dripped from her dangling arms. She made no further move, though; simply turned and looked at the dead in her office, eyes clouding again.

 

[Elijah]

"Good, we need to go," Eli let her go as she began to rouse herself and crossed back over to the splintered door of her office. With a grunt he pushed it back into place as best it would go what with the lock busted and pieces of the door frame being nothing but a splintered mess on the floor. They crunched under his boots as he worked. Once the door was propped up he moved to the bookcase that stood to the left and braced his shoulder against it. His wounds screamed at him and blood pumped more furiously into his wet ragged shirt but he gritted his teeth and clung to that cool calmness as he begun to push it over the entryway. The weighed down feet screeched across the wood flooring and shattered wayward shards of doorframe that got in its way. Sweat was pouring from the top of his skull within seconds as he started his Sisyphus task and by the time he was finished and the bookcase was securely in place, his arms were shaking.

He could feel he was reaching his limit.

"Lyssia where are you hurt - Lyssia!" She hadn't moved the entire time he had worked and was staring once more at the dead man at his feet. He shook her harder in an effort to get her attention, his jaw set in an angry clench. It was hard to tell what was her blood and what was his. Both filled him with rage. He should have been quicker, better, he should have never let her deal with an opponent like that. With an exasperated sigh he dragged her towards the window.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

You have to move.

The whisper in the back of her head went unheard until, at least, Elijah took her by the shoulders again and shook her. The pain cleared her mind a little bit, and she blinked. Everything felt...wrong. Off. Dreamy, in a nightmarish sort of way. I killed someone... The litany was growing faint in her head, but would not leave her. The other voice, the one of reason, still whispered to her, too...a familiar voice, another that had fallen in defense of her.

The stab of pain had little to do with her hurts now.

Wordlessly, Lyssia raised her arms. A half dozen deep cuts on the backs of her arms, going clean to the bone in each and every one of them, oozed blood in a worrying amount. No arterial bleeds, though. The hole in her shoulder should have been obvious, since he had grabbed it three times already. The slash in her back ached awfully, wept blood as badly as the ones in her arms did. "All over," she said in a dead voice.

It was well that he took her by the arm and forced her to follow; her senses were still clouded, shock settling on her like a lead coffin. Physical and emotional. She could see his wounds, and could not comprehend them any better than her own. The physical act of dragging her hurt immensely, though, and caused fresh blood to flow...but it was necessary. The lucidity was limited.

Down below, something heavy crashed to the floor. A moment later, a few shouts rang out.

A few moments later, the smell of smoke, acrid and sharp, drifted up from the lower floors.

 

[Elijah]

Another shrill whistle cut through the rain.

"Anything serious?"

Years ago, when he had taken his first lives and had sat on the edge of the battlefield staring at his bloody sword with the haunted expression he could now see in Lyssia's eyes, the then general had not given him soft words or pity. She had ruthlessly barked orders and asked questions until he had fought through the fog that shrouded his mind and found himself able to at least pretend to function like a living human and not some wasted shell. He had never forgotten her or her technique and had deployed it himself several times since with the new recruits. Some might call it harsh but every soldier had looked at him with new found respect and admiration a few days later, when they had realised what he had done to help them.

He pushed open the window and the wind snatched it from his hands to slam it against the house's outer wall.

"Up, we've got to get onto the roof," Elijah's hand slid from her shoulder to her elbow and he gave it a rough shove to help her up onto the wooden windowsill. From behind he could push her up at least, but he could also defend any pursuers they had. He just hoped Gypsy got to them before the flames did.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

She did not want to look at the hurts she could see. The one on her back ached abominably, especially when her dress ran across the cut or when she moved an arm (or ye pulled on her). The stab she'd taken when she'd k....when she'd killed the nameless man, that hurt and she could feel blood running down her chest in a thin trickle, but she couldn't look at that if she'd wanted to, and she didn't.

The backs of her arms, though, she could see. Pink-white bone gleamed in the dim light that made it through the clouds, meat and fat moving in a sickening away every time she moved her hands or her arms. They would leave scars and, she believed, could kill her in combination with the other injuries if they did not receive attention.

Attention she was not going to get here. "...," she said, or rather did not say, in reply.

She blinked in a lack of comprehension at his words until he pushed the window open and shoved her up into it. This was three stories up, and her stomach dropped out of the bottom of her as she found herself looking down at the street below. No activity out there, now; despite the obvious sounds of ransacking, none of her neighbors had dared to show their faces.

Not that it crossed her mind. She wanted to throw up, to fall back into the house and huddle there, bleeding arms wrapped around her knees, and just let the flames take her. Wanted to, but did not allow herself the luxury of. She was frantically searching for any reason to keep going, and frantically struggling to find the courage to keep going. She was a coward, and knew it for truth; standing in the window three stories up, she trembled like a child.

But she reached up and took hold, and found that she could not lift herself. Not one inch; it was all she could do to hold tight and not drop into the yawning voice below her. The pain in her arms and back was so intense she thought she might black out there and then, and yet somehow she managed to retain consciousness, even as Elijah struggled to help her gain the roof. She managed that, almost entirely by his efforts and not her own; blade ran in a veritable stream off of her body, and she could feel weakness stealing into her limbs as she clambered onto the roof, sprawling across the wet slates and watching the crimson wash away with the rain water the way she had come.

 

[Elijah]

Concern dragged at him when his hand came away covered in fresh blood. Her blood. He was trying to ignore the gashes in her arms and across her back that had turned her clothes to bloodied ribbons or he feared he might leave her up there to go and hunt down the remaining mercenaries. Anger swam within him without an outlet but the biting words of encouragement he said to her to get her up the tiled roof. Every step he reprimanded himself for not keeping her safe like he had promised her. She had come to him and he had promised her and he had failed. Again. The word reverberated around his skull like a gong. Again. Failed again. Again, again, again.

The tiles were still slick with the monsoon rain and the smooth leather soles of his boots slipped when he wasn't concentrating. Without grace nor dignity he hurled himself up onto the flat rooftop where Lyssia was already collapsed and barely managed to stop himself from doing the same. The opaque river of blood and rain that dripped into the gutter steeled his resolve and instead of sprawling next to her he crouched to examine the worst of her injuries. The gashes down her arms looked the most severe but he daren't peel back her shirt to look at the one across her back.

White wings alighted on the horizon as Elijah tore his own ruined shirt from his torso and begun to rip the cleaner bits into strips which he tightly bound about her arms. It was in no way perfect but a soldier couldn't complain on the battlefield.

"We're going some place safe," he told her with a touch more tenderness than he had shown up until now, his hold on that mental calm beginning to fray now he could make out Gypsy soaring towards them. As she got closer he bent and scooped the small, frail woman into his arms so that when the pegasus landed he was ready to clamber onto her back. The white winged horse gave him a stare that could have peeled skin from bone as he settled Lyssia between her withers. She would have to learn to fly the hard way without a saddle but Eli was confident he could keep them both upright until they got to their destination.

"Fuwei," he ordered as he heaved himself onto her back. She have an impertinent stamp of her hoof but didn't protest as she took a running leap off the roof and took to the skies.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Each tug elicited a soft mewl of pain, but Lyssia did not pull away or refuse the help. She knew what was needed, and dreaded what was to come later - if there was a later - almost as much as everything that had led up to this point.

Her mind swirled. Her body was beginning to send in complaints at all the abuse it had received, but even with the cacophony rising to a crescendo, those pains and hurts seemed unable to pierce the center of her soul. She could still feel blood pouring over her hand, flooding across her face. Hot enough to scald, hotter than she had thought any liquid contained within a person could be. A person, who was now...not.

It could have been her. She could have as easily wound up the one laying on the floor, glazed over eyes staring at nothing. But it hadn't been, and the relief at survival warred with the shock at having committed the highest crime there was. Murder.

"Is there anywhere that is...safe...?" she murmured as he lifted her. So much blood, gone, and with it most of her strength. She was weak, a coward, and now apparently a killer as well. Shame mingled with the horror. "Their reach..."

She trailed off into silence. For the first time, she noticed his wounds, and quailed. Another soul attempting to sacrifice themself in her name, for her sake. The memory of her brother in her arms, his life leaking away, came back to her with all the strength of the world. It was like being hit between the eyes, and for a moment the world spun as Gypsy leapt over the edge of the building, gaining height.

She had to struggle a great deal to reach the prim. The source of all things lay there, just beyond sight, but she struggled to muster the strength to reach out and grasp it. When she did, finally, manage to do so, it was hardly a pleasant experience. She drew in a sharp gasp at the pain - muted by her thoughts, her distractions, and now rudely shoved to the forefront - and very nearly lost contact with it then. She fought on, though, soldiering on in her own way to wrest the ancient power that drove the universe into her mind.

She did not ask him, anymore than he had her. No need to lay a hand upon him; she was held in place and that contact was enough. She sent the chaotic power into the man, giving it shape and form as it went. Went, seeking through his body for all of his hurts, his wounds, and then doggedly went about mending all of them.

A moment of frozen time for either of them - she, lost in the concentration of directing the flows, of forging them into light, earth, water, fire, and a smattering of other elements outside the cardinal ones; he lost in a single moment of exquisite pain, as though every single wound had been made all at once, over and over again. The uncomfortable feeling of flesh writhing to knit itself together, of muscle and sinew reconnecting.

And then it was over, and she let all of the breath out of her lungs in a single gusty sigh, and went mostly limp. Below, she could see the fire rising in the house, consuming it like a hungry lion on the plains after catching a gazelle. "That should...help," she said faintly.

 

[Elijah]

Her healing shattered the last of his resolve like a fragile glass bauble. He gasped in shock and in pain as her powers stabbed at him like a thousand spears. His first thought born from the blind panic and incomprehension of what she was able to do, was that she was trying to kill him. Betrayal and anger warred with one another like vicious serpents that coiled about his neck and squeezed the air from his lungs. Then, just as suddenly, the magic released him into the cold water of the waking world which was in some ways as painful as the healing itself. It took a few minutes to reorient himself and realise that she hadn't been trying to kill him and had failed, but had actually sacrificed her own energy to heal his wounds.

A fresh, different kind of anger reared its ugly head.

"That was foolish," he snapped and tightened his arms about her waist to dig his fingers into Gypsy's mane. He hoped she would take it for a gesture of fury rather than what it really was; weakness. He suddenly felt as though he had run a marathon and he swayed dangerously on Gypsy's back. If he had been looking at it from a Captain's point of view he wouldn't have called it foolish; it made sense to heal her only form of protection. But Elijah the man, who had grown to know this hot-tempered, mule-stubborn woman couldn't bear the idea she had made herself more vulnerable in the process. "We're not going anywhere Bursars of their kind have been for years - hundreds of years," Fuwei barely merited the scratch of ink it cost to put it on the map. It was one of the furthest and most rundown outposts in the Dynasty and a place most considered not to be a part of it at all. Samantha had been the only person he had ever known to give it more than a second look.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

"Mmm," she said, if that was the right word for it. Dreamy in quality, right on the cusp of unconsciousness and yet refusing to yield to the demands of her body. The bleeding had dramatically slowed since the stop-gap measures the captain had taken to stymie the worst of it. She noticed the increased grip, but could attribute it to nothing. Or, rather, attributed it to what it was: the aftermath of a healing, and was more then familiar with the results of any such actions. She was a natural at the healing arts, and at increasing the strength of those she favored with her gifts. Not that she could understand it, but a large part of that was similar to the concept of warlocks among other fae.

But the fae of the courts were seen as daunting, nearly immortal creatures of terrifying power, dangerous in their antics and their pursuit of their own natures. She was a slip of a girl that looked as vulnerable as she was, at that moment.

"You need to be able to...to..," she began, struggling to find the words through the fog. "Need to be able to stand and fight," she finished at last. The fact that she had killed someone screamed in her head again, but despite it she did not see how she could personally protect herself like that again.

The haunting scent of smoke had picked up the coppery tang of blood, now. She shivered against his chest, where she lolled with the wing beats of the pegasus like a drunk, nearly boneless and only just able to keep her seat.

"Until now," she breathed. "They will come here...now." She made to reach up and touch her chest, where the papers had been rudely shoved into her dress, but halted before her hand got more than a few inches from Gypsy's mane. The lurch in her guts as her balance shifted would have led to her throwing up, but she didn't have the strength for that, now, and contented herself with a low moan of discomfort.

 

[Elijah]

"Let me worry about that," he frowned and shifted his position to be more comfortable for her to relax against. How long had she been holding on to all of this? When she had turned up at his door it had been clear she still was in half a mind to turn and not drag him into this mess, but how long had her debate gone on before that? What dangers had she been putting herself in without him there to help? The thought that she could have died and he wouldn't have even known until he had gone looking... Something odd tightened in his chest.

A few more powerful beats of Gypsy's wings and they soared up through the clouds to the morning sunshine beyond. His bare skin glistened with the residual dew from the white mists below Gypsy's hooves but they soon dried under the uninterrupted rays of late summer. He let out a quiet sigh and found himself relaxing just a fraction; unless they had someone within his own guard that sought to kill Lyssia and now him they would be safe up here. He was confident enough in his women that they would side with him; he had earned their loyalty through blood. That was a loyalty the Dynast could only hope her subjects would give her.

Subjects like Lyssia, who she had thrown away.

He frowned down at the top of her head where it lolled against his shoulders and tried not to dwell on the idea there would be more casualties like her. If her evidence was true, it couldn't be just her family being quietly removed from the playing field. How long till his Dynast was without any loyal friends and alone in a bed of vipers?

"Thank you," he said quietly after they had been flying for an unaccountable amount of time.