Too wide! Cerise almost screamed. Too wide, William.
Spider swayed and lunged into the gap in William's defense. His blade dived for William's left armpit and William stepped into it.
The curved knife sliced like a metal claw.
Cerise choked on her scream.
William's arm clamped down Spider's blade. Spider jerked at it in disbelief, but the curve of the blade held it in place. The knife was wedged in William's armpit.
William clasped Spider's elbow with his left hand and stepped close. His right arm embraced Spider, as if they were two long-lost friends, whispering a secret into each other's ear. William clasped Spider to him. His knife flashed and William sliced deep across Spider's spine.
Cerise knew they were too far for the sound to carry over, but she could've sworn she heard the sickening crunch of metal severing the bone.
Spider's mouth gaped in shock. Blood poured from his back in a red stream.
He won. William won.
"Damn, that was a fine move!" Richard screamed by her side.
The Hand's agent jerked back, pushing at William with both hands. William's bloody fingers slid off Spider's shoulder. He raised his knife to cut the man's throat, but Spider toppled backward, blond hair spilling, his face a pale mask, and plunged into the black water of the pond. His body vanished in the peat.
William watched it sink. His eyes found Cerise. He smiled, staggered back, and fell.
No!
She scrambled up the slope. The slick mud gave under her fingers in handfuls, and then Richard grabbed her and hoisted her up. She caught a root and pulled herself on the slick grass.
William slumped against a tree. Spider's knife lay on his lap. Blood slicked the edge. William looked at her, his hazel eyes soft. His whole side had turned bright red.
Cerise dashed to him. He opened his mouth, trying to say something. Blood gurgled from his lips and spilled on his chin. She sobbed and clutched him to her. More blood poured, wetting her fingers. His pulse fluttered weaker and weaker beneath the fingers she pressed to his neck.
"No," she begged. "No, no, no ..."
"It's okay," he told her. "Love you."
"Don't die!"
"Sorry. Live. You . . . live."
She kissed his face, his bloody lips, his dirt-smeared cheek. William brushed at her hair with fatigued fingers. His body shuddered. His eyes rolled back in his head.
"You can't leave me like this!"
His heartbeat shivered one last time and vanished like a snuffed-out candle.
The world screeched to a halt, and Cerise skidded through it, lost and alone. A terrible pain tore through her and squeezed her heart in a steel fist. There wasn't enough air to fill her lungs.
I love you. Don't leave me. Please, please don't leave me.
Richard's soft voice came from behind her. "He's gone, Cerise."
No. Not yet. She struggled to pick him up. Hands took her by her shoulders. "He's dead, Cerise," Ignata whispered. "Let him be."
"No!"
Cerise pushed to her feet, dragging the body up. Richard grasped her shoulders. "Cerise, let go ..."
"No! Let me!"
"Where are you taking him?"
Frantic, she wrenched herself free. She wasn't thinking at all, her head full of fragmented thoughts and pain, and it took a lot of effort to spit out two words. "The Box."
"That's insane." Ignata blocked her way.
"The Box will heal him. Get out of my way!"
"Even if it does revive him, he will come out mad. He has no protection like you do. He didn't have the remedy!"
"I'll go in there with him."
"Why?"
"The burial shroud in the Box, it will take my fluids and mix them with his. Whatever the remedy did, it's still in me."
Ignata jerked her hands up. "What if you both die? Or he comes out crazy? Richard, help me."
For a long moment Richard froze, caught between them. Then he bent down and picked up William's legs. "She deserves it. Because she deserves to have this one thing go right."
Cerise gripped William's shoulder and together they wrestled the body down the hill. "Help me! Please help me."
Ignata bit her lip and spun to the family gathered below. "Pull the Box ashore!"
WHEN William awoke, the world was red and it hurt. It hurt so much; he panicked and thrashed, trying to break free of the red mist. And then a woman's arms closed around him. He couldn't hear and he couldn't see, but when he brushed her face, he knew it was Cerise and she was crying. He pulled her closer, trying to tell her that it would be okay and they would get out of here, but pain drowned him and he went under.
THE scent of blood permeated the battleground. As Ruh walked along the hill to the black pond, he read the savagery of the fight in the churned mud. Crimson pooling in footsteps, dog tracks, the corpses of murdered clays blended into a vivid, cohesive picture, a map he read and navigated. Here Karmash fell, dragged down by corpses. They lay lifeless now, little more than heaps of bone and rotten tissue. The white-haired brute survived. Somehow he always persevered. Ruh wrinkled his nose at the stench emanating from the decomposing flesh. The peat had preserved the corpses of the thoas, and now, exposed to open air, they rotted at an accelerated rate.
He stepped over Veisan's corpse. Her footprints told her story: violent struggle, lightning-fast attacks, and then a single devastating blow. All that violence rolled into a small package, constantly straining at its fragile wrapper, ready to burst free. She was at peace now.
The enemy had come and gone. The ropes hung abandoned on the cypress. They had taken Spider's treasure with them. No matter. He would find them. None escaped Ruh.
Ruh reached the shore and crouched in the mud, careful not to step on the small spike spheres of magic bombs scattered in the sludge. They weren't his, nor did they belong to anyone from Spider's crew. Tentacles whispered from his shoulder in a rush of ichor. The magic licked the bombs. They tasted foreign. They tasted like the Mirror.
He stared at the mud marks. Interesting. Someone had stripped a body here. The clothes lay in a soggy pile. The bombs must've fallen from the pockets as the clothes were pulled off the corpse. The enemy wasn't above looting the dead. Even the Mirror's dead.
He scooted closer to the black pond and dipped his tentacles into the water. The cilia within them trembled, eager to taste the scents and flavors, but he kept them hidden. They were too fragile for this task.
He sank the tentacles and felt them snake their way through slick water, combing the pond.
Something brushed against them. He held still. A hand gripped them, and through the sensitive tissue, Ruh perceived a familiar taste. Familiar yet odd, as if something wasn't quite right with the magic the person generated. The hand released him.