Book 2 The Gods of Light and Liars

Chapter 37: Blades

Hawk ran back down the ground she had so lately won, shouting Kaiser's name. It didn't occur to her until later that she could have turned her back on him, left him to his fate. That'd be the easy solution to the distressing problem drowning her. Instead of thinking like Kaiser, however, she thought like Hawk, and went after the man who had caused so much trouble because even men like him were worth it. Even men like him.

Back, down across slick, wet rocks. She shouted, "Stay there. Keep going!" and hoped these contradictory orders would translate to "leave us behind". Down back to the moss-covered path, and brief flashes of embers, of burning flesh, of blood. Kaiser howled once, long and high, and Hawk had to redouble her efforts to pursue. But the Fleet Hare had chosen a path that was mostly rock, with a little bit of cliff. A steep incline would have been an improvement.

Then the Hare changed direction, leaping back up with Kaiser still firmly in its mouth. Steam rose around its feet; more steam and some smoke rose around its grip on Kaiser. It held his upper arm and blood dripped from an especially blackened patch that looked like the merciless creature's teeth. It leapt to the next ledge, forcing her upward, forcing her to keep up with it. Kaiser's ragged screams did not appear to weaken, so Hawk took some solace in his volume. She pulled herself up another ledge and cliff. About the fifth time it redirected itself because she could not follow, she realized she was being lead.

Well. We get to the next part and I get to find out why.

She slipped when the rocks under her feet collapsed. She screamed, though she strangled it as soon as she could, and clung to the cliff, and managed not to fall, but that was pretty much it.

And then there was a presence nearby, a bit behind and off to the left, and a voice whispered salaciously, "You look like you need some help, little bird."

Shadowmaster. She clenched tighter to the wall. "Maybe. Where's that fucking thing taking Kaiser?"

"Off for a confrontation with a God. I'm not sure which one. Argon would be your best bet, but sometimes he lets the others play with fire." He looked at her worriedly. That expression, when Alex wore it, usually meant he was scared to death.

Hawk was thinking. What would Alex do was a bit harder to play when Alex—or someone wearing his face—was here, but she got an idea. A terrible sort of idea, the kind that'd skin you alive to solve. But oh, it'd be beautiful if it worked, and she didn't think she was going to get another chance. "You want to help me get Kaiser back?"

"And here I thought I was going to save you. You've gotten rather high, pretty girl. I'm not so sure you can climb back down."

"I need a sword." She said. "Or a heavy axe. Something that can cut...and cut deep."

He looked at her for a long time, and said, "Why?" quite softly.

"Because I'm going to kill them. They owe me. I deserve it." And she let her grief come out. She let the Shadowmaster see the smallest part of it.

"No," He said.

The winds were starting to rise now, to blow the dew on the moss about like rain. Perhaps this was even the source of rain here, too, water pouring down from on high. It whipped Hawk's braids around her face, caught hell in his smoke-like hair. She could still see stars in it. Still see the promise of some other universe. Not hers or this one; there only promises here were dead, and kept pinned to cards.

"They killed someone I love," she said.

"They kill hundreds every day. You've seen it. Why is one life worth punishing them for, when all the rest may suffer?"

"You're right. It's wrong of us. It's short-sighted. But I don't have a way to know all those people. I know my husband and they..." oh, no. she couldn't say it. She looked in his eyes and found Alex there. He was there, in an alien gaze. He was reaching out to her like he would a trembling bird, and she was tempted to take it. She could take his hand and start telling him who he was, both to her and to himself. Tell him he had a life beyond this nightmare place, that he could leave it all behind. They were taking the Archon, he had nothing left here, but...