For What is Bought in Blood

Not Won With Words

The shrieking of a rapier being drawn is all I hear as I launch towards the leader, keeping my head low. Reagan rushes barely a heartbeat behind me in a flash of metal.

Angling my dagger against my forearm, I drag the blade across the first man's stomach. The metallic scent of blood fills the air and splashes onto the packed earth beneath him, but I'm already upon the next man. He is larger and had a few seconds more to prepare, and he swings a poorly maintained sword, aiming for decapitation. When his sword misses its mark it causes him to stumble, the uneven sharpening causing the weight to be completely off to one side. One large slice of my dominant arm across the tops of his knees almost entirely severs the muscle in both legs, causing him to fall to the ground with a grunt.

There is no clashing of metal. Reagan and I are whispers in the night, striking each man before the next has enough time to react. I don't look to see if Reagan drains their lives, and I find myself not caring. These men outnumber us greatly. They did not intend for us to live, so the idea of sparing them feels idiotic.

My dagger gets stuck in the spinal cord of one of the men and he drops too fast for me to retrieve it. I curse inwardly but do not pause to switch the remaining dagger to my dominant hand, instead opting to throw punches with one and stab with the other. The one man left standing hesitates, and I throw the power of my run into my punch. He falls to the ground with a yelp, and I am upon him before he can get his footing.

His sword, slightly nicer than the ones with the other men, lay discarded next to him. I kick it away, angling my dagger to stab the soft area of his stomach. He pushes my arms, my shoulders, even my thighs, but I am digging my knees so forcefully into his sides that I barely shift at the impact.

"Please, please," he breathes, and his voice sounds so youthful that my eyes snap to his face. It is a face full of youth but one I recognize enough of to pull my blade back. The dark brows that shadow his eyes, the dark color of his lips against freckled skin, the beginning of braids that only the winds off the water can produce. I do not release him immediately, debating his worth to me as he continues to attempt to free himself.

"Tell your father that I spared you," I demand, feeling Reagan's eyes on me from a few feet away. Finnigan's son nods beneath me and I stand, allowing him room to rise as well. He will have a nasty black eye, but otherwise be unharmed. He rises slowly, eyes trained on me and wide with terror. He looks to the men on the ground with internal turmoil, but a slight jerk of my chin is enough to send him on his way.

Reagan silently hands me the dagger that was embedded, and as I reach for it, I look up to him in question. His sharp features are calm as always, but I can feel the hesitation behind his green eyes. Something haunts him. He only nods and breaks eye contact. I pull my hood over my head and sheath my daggers.

My first kill. He was attempting to rush Reagan from behind and without a second thought I threw my dagger. Should I labor over it? I feel my chest, ensure the hard lines of the boxes are still secure against my skin. No. He threatened my life, they all did. I've faced large groups of men before, but never with such a blatant death wish.

I look upon the other men littering the ground, seven in total. Beneath the gentle light of the moon I can see the blood draining down the narrow street towards the river. The delicate descent of the liquid is all the movement I sense, and I realize they have all been fully dispatched. By my hand or Reagan's, I'm not sure. Maybe the look Reagan gave me was an acknowledgement of my attempt to spare them, but also a confession on his fulfillment. None should have been spared, I know that deeply somewhere within me. Still the echoes of my sorrow over losing my father makes it almost impossible to look away, impossible to not think of their families.