"Go in and grab him!" Krell bellowed. "Drag his ass out!"
Three shadows wavered against the canvas, thrown there by the firelight. Then boots crunched on the gravel. They were coming in.
Kael lay prone in the dirt, revolver raised, sights fixed on the tent's only opening. One hand gripped the support rope. He watched the shadows grow larger, sharper in the firelight.
They didn't rush the flap. Only one came straight on.
Kael saw the hand slip through the entrance—
Steel hissed on both sides at once. Blades slicing canvas, left and right.
Kael saw the hand first. Five fingers, right hand, slipping in from the side as it pulled the canvas aside.
He raised the revolver and fired where the head had to be.
The shot hit. The body folded forward with its own weight, collapsing into the opening. The canvas sagged as the man came down, pressed flat from the outside.
Blood soaked through the cloth.
A human shape slumped there, wrapped in canvas, twitching once before going still.
No time.
Kael kicked out with his good leg, slamming it into the central support. SNAP. Wood cracked. The pole snapped.
The pole snapped.
The tent collapsed inward, canvas dropping fast as dust and broken supports gave way, dragging everything under it.
The two bandits who had just leaned in were swallowed whole, heads and shoulders dragged under as the canvas folded over them.
"Fuck!"
"Get it off—get it off!"
Panic broke loose. Guns went off at random beneath the canvas, shots tearing through fabric as men thrashed and cursed in the dark.
Kael stayed low in the collapse, every fold of canvas mapped in his head.
The screams and curses gave him direction.
He crawled toward the sound, hand sliding through dirt and cloth until his fingers closed around a bare ankle.
The man shouted and jerked upright in panic.
Kael aimed by sound and height alone and fired twice.
Bang.x2
A body went limp.
A rifle went off toward him, blind and panicked. The rounds tore through canvas and dirt, missing him by luck alone.
Kael moved anyway.
He crawled under the sagging cloth, dragging himself toward where the shots had come from. The canvas shifted—and a leg suddenly appeared in front of him, planted, unguarded.
Kael drove forward with his good foot, shoving hard. The push carried him straight into the man's space.
He looked up.
The bandit's face was right there, eyes wide with sudden terror.
Bang.x2
One round tore through the neck. The other punched into the lung.
The man went down choking, his throat was ruined. Blood bubbled up instead, thick and wet, every breath turning into a choking, retching sound as he tried to swallow it back.
It leaked out anyway, gurgling, spilling across the canvas.
[Aether: 2.9]
Then—BOOM
A massive force slammed into Kael's back, hard enough to drive the air out of him. Crushing—like being hit by a charging animal. He was shoved forward, face-first into the dirt, vision flashing white.
The canvas beside him ripped open.
A huge hand tore it aside. Fingers closed around the back of Kael's collar and lifted. Not carefully. One-handed.
Kael was dragged out from under the tent, his body scraping over rock and dirt. Blood smeared wide behind him, streaking the ground as his feet bumped uselessly along. The night air hit him all at once.
Thud.
Krell stopped near the fire. He loosened his grip and let Kael drop, then stood over him, blotting out the stars.
The giant looked down at him, eyes wide, unblinking, burning with hatred and something disturbingly familiar.
"Hell of a thing," Krell said, low. "You used to light up every room."
He nudged Kael's ribs with his boot.
Kael's breath broke. Blood leaked from his mouth as the cloth at his side darkened, soaking through under the pressure.
"Number One. Golden boy." A short huff of a laugh. "Wherever you stood, eyes followed."
He crouched a little, closer to Kael's level.
"I came up different." A shrug. "I learned early—the safest spot stayed right behind you."
Krell glanced off to the side, seeing it again.
"When you broke loose, you went straight through." A brief pause. "You kept moving. You cut through whoever stood there."
He looked back down, stretched a leg out and planted his boot on Kael's face. He ground it in, slow, deliberate.
"I went flat."
Krell bent at the waist, leaning close, studying Kael's expression from under the brim of his shadow.
"I stayed still. I held my breath."
A faint smile touched his mouth. It didn't reach his eyes.
"I saw the whole thing." Another pause. "You cut your way through them, left the floor soaked red."
Krell stood up again.
"When there wasn't anyone breathing anymore, " A nod, like admitting something small and ugly. "I followed the trail you left and walked out."
He lifted his foot. Hawk—Ptuh. Spit dropped onto Kael's face, warm and thick, sliding down through blood and dirt.
He looked at Kael now. Really looked.
"So yeah." A beat. "You walked free."
Something tightened in his jaw. "And I walked out on your back."
He let that sit.
"Funny part?" he said softly.
"You never saw me."
He squatted down next to Kael.
Kael lay motionless. His eyes were half-closed, glazed over. His chest barely rose. One arm was twisted under him.
Krell grinned. He reached out and touched Kael's right leg—the good one.
"I'll start here," Krell whispered, the knife tip tracing a line on the denim. "I'll peel the skin off in one long strip. I want to hear you scream, Kael. I want to see if you break this time."
Krell leaned in closer, eager, hungry. He wanted to see the fear in the eyes of the monster who had haunted his nightmares.
He looked up at Kael's face.
He saw clarity.
Kael's eyes were wide open—blue, cold, dead calm.
The same look as before. Exactly the same.
And between them, resting right against Krell's temple, was the cold steel of a revolver barrel.
Kael had saved one bullet.
"It's over. "
Krell's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, like something was about to come out.
Click.
BANG.
The shot was deafening at point-blank range.
The bullet entered the temple and blew the other side of Krell's skull out. The giant body jerked once, violently, and then collapsed sideways like a felled tree.
The knife dropped from his hand.
Silence reclaimed the canyon.
The text burned in the air, gold and violent.
[Aether: 5.9]
Kael let the gun fall from his hand. It hit the dirt with a dull thud.
He lay still beside the corpse of his "brother," eyes fixed on the smoke-choked sky.
He was still bleeding, but the flow had slowed. Three points of aether, taken from killing Krell, were holding it back—barely.
He thought back to how this mess started. The tent. The woman. The crying man. If he hadn't stopped to listen to their drama, he might have cleared the camp without taking a scratch.
Kael coughed, a spray of blood flecking his lips.
"Damn it," he wheezed, closing his eyes. "I'm never listening to gossip again."