She waded through shadow and deeper shadow, the darkness so dense it was suffocating. She turned and turned, clawing around her, desperate. Her nails dug into her throat, scraping and tearing and blood flowed, hot blood seeping and dousing and drowning. The darkness hot as the coursing blood pulsing inside her ears, like a wasp’s mad droning.

Loud, louder yet loudest, overwhelming and overpowering. She spun again, no spot on her body unknown to the slick trace of blood. She looked at him, and his glazed eyes, now seeming so awfully awake. Madly leering. Desperately staring. Horribly accusatory.

“You killed me.” He gurgled. She had. Just look at the blood. Stained her red from toe to scalp. His body torn apart like a butchered carcass. The knife had made it easy enough. Easy to take a life so casually. No ceremony about it, no grand revelation, no heart.

Cos laid there too, waxy pale and his blood pooled around him, blotching her hands crimson. She had killed him too. Just look at the blood. It was smeared on her hands.

“Brother.” Whispered Syn, but she could barely say the word for a strange feeling, beginning in her guts and creeping up and down her spine to set her hair to tingle and her knees to shake.

She had killed them both. Just look at the blood.

It was everywhere.

-

Syn lurched upright, heaving, wheezing, hands pulling at drenched clothing, wet with cold sweat stuck to her burning skin. Strands of hair pasted to her face; the darkness was suffocating. Syn cried and whined, fingers tangling in the blackness and snatched and yanked, roots torn painfully from her head.

“What are you doing!?” A shouting. She flinched and recoiled at the loudness of it, cowering and hiding in the cloth wrapped around her.

“No, no, no, no…” She was whimpering. Scared of the hurt. Scared of death. Scared of the blame. She had killed them. Just look –

“Get a hold of yourself!” Syn felt strong hand holding her shoulders. Strong like the hand that had pulled her up. The knife leering in her face, gleaming madly.

“No!” She screeched, lashing out, felt her nails scrape against skin.

“Calm down!” The hoarse voice muttered, shaking her a bit. Her hand went again, but was held in a firm grip. There was a strange sensation, her hairs on end, skin pricking. Syn blinked, now staring in a pair of deep-set murky-brown eyes, staring back.

“Calm down.” Quieter, this time. Syn twitched as she felt alien fingers move the clutching hair from her wet face. Blackness made way for light and snow and forest. She remembered, now.

“Are you okay?” The Tyran asked worriedly, yet his face failing to really show it. So horridly carved up and gouged out and bludgeoned in, his nose bent at an odd angle, instead of a right ear there was just a hole, his skin showing a score of scars, each worse than the next. Fresh blood dripping slowly from the cut of her nails. She had killed them. All you need is to look.

“The blood.” She croaked, wanting to lift her hands to move him away but having neither the strength nor the will. The man paused for a spell, thinking, then closing those gazing eyes and shook his head.

“It’s okay,” he said, releasing his grip and wiping the trail of red away. But Syn wondered how anything was okay. She felt far from it, for a nasty feeling trashing inside her guts.

She gurgled, lurched over and wretched, thick chunks of food and sour bile spilling from her mouth and onto the frozen dirt. Her body trembled, vision blurry, a stinging in her nose. Syn heaved and out came another load spluttering down.

“Damn it!” She heard the man cursing in-between her gagging, throat feeling raw and swollen. Could hardly remember the last time she was able to hold down a meal. In it went, but it went out faster.

The back of her hand wiped the barf from her chapped lips, dry and sore. They had been on the trail for three days, riding horseback until the animal was foaming and swaying. Now, only she was riding while the man walked alongside them, guiding the horse by its reins.

She looked up at him, sighing and scratching his greasy and messy hair. Her savior looked nothing like was stated in the stories. Shining hair, pristine clothes, a gallant display and heroism coming naturally to them.

The Tyran’s clothes were worn through and through, blotched with grime and dried blood. He reeked worse than the gutters of Galean, his face more scarred than a butcher’s block, the only thing that would appear to come naturally to him was violence.

She should feel grateful to him, Syn knew. He had saved her from death and worse, yet she couldn’t thank him for a tugging at the back of her mind. Because he hadn’t saved Cos, and she felt an odd resentment for him because of that. She knew that was wrong, and ungrateful, and hated herself all the more for that. She felt dirty all over and wretched and mean. He may not be the hero from storybook, but she wasn’t the innocent damsel in destress either. She was a murderer. Just look at the guilt.

“if you keep on going like that, at one point you’ll grow so weak even riding will be too exhausting.” The man warned, sitting down on a fallen tree close to the smoldering fire. She didn’t know what to say to that; so she chose to keep her silence.

Syn pulled the soaked blankets from her clammy skin, though her clothes had been washed, most of the blood had remained in angry red smears. She retrieved them from the leathern bag, laying next to her make-shift bed. Nothing more than a spot cleared of the biting snow, some branches packed on top and a blanket to roll herself in to ward against the night’s unceasing chill. Though it helped little since she always ended up sweating it through when the dreams came.

“Are you listening?” The man asked. She was, so she nodded ever so slightly, not daring to look. To look at the fresh wound on his warped face. She had killed them. But had there really been a choice?

He grumbled something and started packing everything together, stowing it all in the horse’s travel bags. Syn didn’t bother removing her wet clothes, the warmth of her body and her dry woolen coating would dry it after a time. She realized it was time to leave again, and there was no choice but to follow. Seemed these days she was given no choices at all. Wondered if she ever had any, from the day she was born.

She hesitantly rose from the soil, slightly dizzy. Her head feeling faint and light. Carefully, she walked to the cold and tired mare, gazing about her vacantly. The Tyran turned to her, stretching out his hands, and she rose her arms.

“Up you go.” He breathed, placing her in the saddle. “Let’s get going.”

Syn remembered the days she had spent riding with Cos. Seemed all so long ago now. Tought off their endless banter as they traveled. Cos talkative and knowledgeable as ever. Felt throat tighten, tears welling up. How strange the silence felt.

He nudged the horse along and it started moving stiffly, hooves trudging in the snow. Syn swayed left and right, off balance.

“Ah,” couldn’t hold on anymore. Her legs failing, arms terribly feeble. The world spun, and her head whipped sideways. “Ah” She fell off the horse, limbs flopping. Arms caught her on the way down. Strong arms, used to hard work. Strong arms, used to dark work. “Ah” She breathed again, and her eyes fell shut.

Art looked down on the frail girl, her hair a dull black like aged ink. She felt dangerously light in his arms, had no weight to her. Little surprise when all she had been doing was barfing and springing awake in the middle of night, screaming and burning up. Why do I do this?

A question he had asked himself quite often in the week he had hauled her around. He’d tried his best to feed her. Pressed on when she refused, forced her at times to drink the broth he made. But she’d cough it up later no matter what. Why do I do this?

He could leave her at any time. He could leave her right now, even. Just drop her in the snow and be off. His blisters wouldn’t be such a bother anymore. Food wouldn’t go to waste, or what food he was left with, at least. And surely there would be a load off his mind as well. Why do I do this?

But he hadn’t left her. And he wouldn’t leave her now. She was little more than a burden, a curse to carry. Something to punish him. I do this because I deserve no better.

So, he shrugged the girl onto his back and continued, tugging the stubborn horse along the faint path through the snow. South. If he knew one thing, and one thing only, it’s that his goal was south. Easy enough. Getting there’s the hard part, though.

It should be more populated as you move away from the northern cold. Seemed somewhat wasteful, though. Going all that way, only to go back again. Seems like I am fated to wander in endless cycles. Repeating the same mistakes again and again. He peeked at the girl, her head leaning on his shoulder, hoping for something else. But hope does little good, mostly.

He needed to ask some questions, since the people of Blackshire didn’t have much answering left in them after the Northmen were done with ‘em. Saw the smoke trail for miles on end, looming dauntingly at the horizon. Memories flashing from when such sights were the norm. Hot, smoldering flames. Art’s hand traced the disgusting burn along the side of his face, to where his right ear used to be, all the way down to his shoulder.

It was getting around midday when he heard voices in the distance. Faint in the vastness of the northern forests, bouncing off trees and dampened by pines. Faint, but not faint enough for Art to miss them.

He roped the horse to a tree seeming sturdy enough for the job. The animal would only do to give him away. The sleeping girl he propped up against another after clearing the ground of snow. Now, I am ready. His cold fingers curled around Silver’s grip. Now, I am death.

He slid through the underbrush, so scarcely dressed, and moved from shadow to deeper shadow, so used to it he felt secure in its darkness. Clutches of snow tumbled down and crunched underfoot as his target moved without any apparent caution. Fools, do you have nothing to hide? Or nothing to fear?

Art eased around an ancient pine, sticking close enough to have the bark scrape his cheek. Slowly, carefully he peered around, Silver eager to be released like a mad hound. And there they were, milling about a small campsite, cutting into some venison.

Five in total, far as Art could tell. Though more could be off scouting or patrolling or simply taking a piss. One was donned in aged armor, dented and damaged, chipped and cut, gleaming with that practical dull shine. Aged, but well taken care of. Something to keep in mind. Its wearer was a middle-aged man with a traveler’s stubble, short hair and a tired look in his eyes. But an alert weapon dangling from the waist. Weapons are always ready.

Next to him, squatting down and scraping curls from a branch onto a small pile, sat someone who looked the hunter’s part. Bow flung across his back, with the quiver aside it. The deer had probably been killed by him, judging from the arrow sticking from behind its shoulder blade. A sharp shot. Should take him out first. Swords may be dangerous in the right hands, but an arrow in the back will kill me just as well.

The wind turned, some wood-chips blew away, snow stirred, and now Art was upwind. Shit.

The hunter’s head whipped up as the smell reached him, the bow halfway drawn before the cold metal was pressed against his neck. Cold and sobering.

“Wait!” Art hesitated, eyes darting to the woman who had screamed it, to the armored man at his flank, sword hissing from its scabbard. Doubt in his eyes, doubt and resolution. Should’ve killed him. Killed him and gone to the next.

“Wait!”

But the momentum was gone, and another had risen to his right, a heavy knife half-way to a sword drawn and held firmly. Could’ve killed all three in this span. Fuck.

“Wait!” The woman yelled again, loud enough to wake the dead this time. They all hesitated. Only the wind stirred. That, and a lick of cold sweat running down the archer’s back, no doubt. Having metal kiss your neck for long enough does that to a man.

“Just wait and put down your weapons, damnit! Yorik, and Jubair too. Please, my husband’s life is weighing on this matter.” Doubt, Art could see it. Now’s the time. If I want to kill, I need to make it happen now. He licked at his lips. But do I want to kill? Why do I do this?

The two looked at each other for a moment, then slowly, as if the sky would fall if they moved too fast, there weapons were stowed away. That just left Art, with Silver in one hand and the hunter’s scuff in the other. He looked down at the blade’s dull sheen; horrible, disgusting, tempered by blood and forever yearning for it. Made Art sick.

The sword’s tip moved away from the man’s neck and with practiced ease it hissed back into its sheath. The hunter seemed mighty relieved, then. Breathed a great heavy sigh as he slumped onto the ground, all strength leaving him.

They all gazed at each other, a fragile silence held between them. An awkward one, surely. The woman shifted nervously, fidgeting at her sheepskin poncho, trying to look him in the eye but failing and twitching away. She finally opened her mouth to speak, and a desolate shriek sounded.

Art spun round, mail clattering, cloak clacking. The girl! He rushed through the undergrowth, lashing at him with cracking frost. Heard the horse’s panicked whinnying too. He jumped through the stubborn briar and saw the girl writhing and squirming on the soil, ice clinging to her body.

“The blood!” She wailed. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Art grabbed her, trying to hold her still, caught a fist or two but there was no force behind it.

“there was no other way!” He hugged her tight. “I couldn’t do anything!”

And neither could he. Nothing but pressing her with his scarred arms. For all his skill in killing, ages spent wading from one fight to the next, he’s got real good at it. None better.

“I killed them!” she sobbed. “Just look at the blood!”

It follows me wherever I go.