Chapter 22: To Take a Life is to Abandon a Piece of Yours.


    The executioner’s axe caught Nero by the cheek as he twisted out of the way. It was a cut, but not a deep one, certainly nothing close to what he would have got were he even a half moment slower.


    The crowd was screaming, guards and hunters were moving and the Chief was barking out orders. There was so much going on all at once, but Nero wouldn’t be given the luxury of taking it all in.


    The executioner was coming at him again, and he was barely up on his feet.


    His cruel axe came down in an arc and Nero leapt back to avoid having his entrails spilled out. Everything hurt, most of all his shoulder where he’d been shot, it had not been a good few days for Nero and today would certainly not have been his first pick for one to fight for his life during.


    He looked up, expecting to see some conflict or desperation within the thrall’s face. There was none, only a cold, calm and resolute understanding of what had to be done.


    Silently, Nero thanked him for it. It made accepting the fact that he might have to kill this man far easier to swallow. It occurred to him that might be why he wore the expression in the first place, but he batted the distraction away from his mind and moved his body instead.


    Empathy was a luxury he could not afford without paying the heavy tax of his life.


    Nero came at him with a fury, hands alight, legs like lightning. His first dodge told him he was faster than his opponent, then the pain that radiated through his arm when he blocked an elbow from the executioner told him this was not an enemy to be taken lightly.


    The axe came again, this time with an upward swing, Nero stepped out of its way, batted the arm aside, stepped into his opponent’s space and slammed his burning fist into the man’s face.


    It was textbook, everything that Cain had taught him and it landed exactly as she’d instructed. The woman would have been proud, if she felt anything other than bitterness and malice.


    And yet it felt like slamming his face into a brick wall. The man was tough, tougher than anyone Nero had met but a nose was still an incredibly fragile organ.


    Nero felt something crunch and then his opponent was reeling. He grabbed his wrist, twisted it and forced the axe out of his grip.


    The man was still stumbling when Nero brought another glowing fist down at his face. It was Nero’s turn to miss however.


    The executioner recovered quickly, shoved Nero’s arm aside and met his belly with a fist right below the ribs. He hadn’t been expecting that, clearly the man was used to getting hit hard in the heat of battle.


    Nero on the other hand had been lucky enough not to have had much experience facing fighters that were physically on par with him. He almost puked.


    The executioner moved to capitalise, but Nero was already on the offensive. From the way the man’s eyes widened when Nero’s fist met his jaw, it was clear he wasn’t expecting such a fast recovery from him.


    Unlike the executioner, Nero’s cohesion was due to him simply due to having more toughness than the man did power rather than any skill in taking punches. It was an advantage, regardless of how Nero got it.


    A hunter stepped in between the pair and stabbed his blade at Nero’s face. Slow, incredibly slow.


    The man earned a foot to his face for his troubles, but that didn’t stop his faster colleague from coming up behind Nero with a lance.


    “Behind you.” Ember warned.


    He caught it by the shaft before it could stick him and broke it with a chop from his axe. The man turned to flee and Nero let him, not seeing much use chasing down an unarmed enemy.


    “The executioner!” The Imp screamed and Nero turned to face him as quickly as he could, but he was too late.


    The man’s forehead came down on Nero’s injured shoulder like a hammer. The pain was like acid, corroding his senses with agony.


    The executioner tore the axe from weak fingers and raised it to bring its blade down on Nero’s head.


    Nero could only raise a feeble arm to stop it, an arm that if he was successful, he would certainly lose in the process.


    His killer stopped mid wing and angled his blade to the side. Nero knew why a moment later when an arrow pinged off of it and lodged itself deep into a wall.


    Selvas stood below the pair. A new arrow knocked in her bow. Her cold eyes flicked between Nero and the executioner- her father. He could only think of what might be running through the woman’s mind.


    For the first time, he saw the executioner hesitate, then the shackle around his hand glowed a furious orange. He caught the scent of burning flesh, there was a hiss and he could see trickles of smoke bleeding off of the man’s skin.


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    He let out a cry of raw agony as his massive frame trembled. The man fell to his knees panting. He looked down at his daughter with resolute eyes. “Do what you have to do.” He whispered.


    Selvas nodded. “You too.” But she didn’t fire her arrow, not until he came running straight at her. He deflected that one too and swung his blade at her like a farmer scything weeds.


    Selvas barely dodged and began moving to put some proper distance between her and the man.


    Nero wondered what type of pain could make a man do that to his daughter. Then he stopped wondering and moved to save Selvas.


    He had barely taken two steps before Ember’s warning came. He turned to find something big, red and ugly charging straight at him. “I’ll kill you myself!” The chieftain roared.


    In that moment, Nero was suddenly overcome with a hatred he didn’t know he had ever had the capacity to hold within him. This man, this creature, was the cause of all this. He was the reason Nero had to hide like a rat, the reason he woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and struggling to breathe.


    Terrified, always terrified that someone will get him for the simple crime of existing


    “I’m going to fucking kill you.” The words were calm, far too softly spoken for Nero to believe that he was the one who had spoken them, but he knew every part of it to be true in his heart of hearts.


    The lights in his hands, which had died when the executioner had hit him, were suddenly glowing once again.


    He met his enemy’s charge with one of his own. The two moved on the offensive, each raised a fist to meet the other, but his enemy’s reach was greater and Nero knew he would be marked with the first blow of their fight.


    He’d just not known how devastating the hit would be.


    The demon caught him in his ribs with enough force to drive the air out of his lungs and lift him off the ground. The world was a stream of disconnected shapes and colours, all marked by the sound of the wind rushing past his ears.


    He clipped a building, tore a chunk of it off with his momentum and came to a skidding stop on the ground.


    There was a frantic wheezing in the air, the sound of his breathing he soon realised. Everything hurt, yet the pain in his side made it feel like nothing hurt in comparison.


    “Nero! Nero! Are you okay?” Ember panicked.


    He tried desperately to think of a quip to reassure her he was completely fine. Only agony flooded his mind. With every ounce of focus he had left, Nero crawled onto his knees, pressed his palm against his side and mewled in pain at the misery that followed.


    Crouched, he looked up to see the Demon coming again. The Chieftain was fast, but not nearly as fast as Mercury, even in his injured state Nero reckoned he might still edge it out in speed against the monster.


    Can I still do that with my rib like this?


    Strength though, that was another factor. Nero had never been hit that hard in his life, He’d felt his teeth rattle, bones quake. He doubted he could survive another direct blow like that.


    It was a miracle he survived this one, even.


    But his enemy was still coming, and Nero was running out of time.


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    Selvas let loose another arrow, this one aimed for the target’s jugular, just like she’d practised, just like her father had taught her when he was a little kid.


    Her father, the executioner, her target, swiped the arrow out of the air with a yet another well timed slash of his axe.


    He was big yet agile, injured yet unimpeded. She found herself blaming Nero for that last part, the bastard could have at least done some real damage to him before their fight was done.


    He’d done some to her in their fight, and she could still feel the pain even now.


    The target closed the distance between them, swung its blade at her face and Selvas ducked, dropped her bow and drew out her dagger. She slashed at his ribs but caught cloth instead of flesh as he twisted out of the way before she had even begun to make her motions.


    He had taught her everything she knew, she realised. It only made sense that her attacks would be less effective against him. Still, she’d be lying to claim a lack of surprise at just how big the disadvantage was.


    He raised a foot faster than she expected and Selvas earned a knee to the side for her sluggishness. She hunched over reflexively and a fist caught her jaw for that.


    Getting hit by the executioner was like getting hit by a hammer, for a moment everything went white- Selvas could only assume that was the colour of agony.


    A quick roll let her dodge his ferocious axe, but not without getting a cut across her shoulder. She scrambled back, not panickedly, Selvas rarely panicked, did she even know what that even felt like? But she was still hasty, too hasty.


    The same way she was hasty when she closed the distance between her and her father to make sure the shot hit its mark. She should have shot him dead when he was on his knees in agony. She wasn’t thinking clearly, she’d not been thinking clearly throughout this entire fight.


    It made sense. She cared for Nero and her father even more so, and now she was forced to fight the latter to protect the former.


    She’d gotten so used to fighting with a clear head that she was failing to recognise her emotions clouding her judgement when it was.


    She couldn’t afford to do that anymore.


    Selvas looked at the man before her, large, muscular and dangerous. Her father. She didn’t want to kill him, but she was going to have to.


    This time she closed the distance, so swiftly that he seemed to only register it when her foot had cracked him across the jaw.


    He was Toughest man she’d ever met, and that was including Nero, but she reckoned getting a foot whipped across the face would still hurt.


    And it did, did well enough to send him a step backwards.


    Selvas came again, knife out. She swung for his neck, saw him bat her hand out of the way and recognised the relief for what it was.


    She forced herself to focus on the frustration instead as her second attack came. This one was a downwards arc, certain to hit, but she stopped midway to dodge his incoming axe swing.


    That left him open for a stab and Selvas took the chance, she put her full weight behind her attack and plunged its edge forwards, towards his heart.


    Her father twisted out of the way of death and won himself a stab to the arm instead. His thick bundle of muscles resisted, but Selvas forced the expertly runed dagger down all the way into its hilt.


    For her efforts she was rewarded with a fierce backhand that sent her stumbling, and an arm around her throat before she could gather her wits.


    When her vision returned, she was pinned up against a wall, her father’s fingers wrapped like a vice around her throat and her head and a cold look of resolution in his eyes.


    She raised a foot and with all the strength she could muster, kicked the bastard in the chest, but he reacted less than she would expect of a boulder.


    Selvas raised her foot again and struck the man once more.


    Kick, kick, kick.


    Nothing.


    Her head was pounding, her vision was going dark at the sides.


    ‘Huh, been a while since I’ve felt that.’ Selvas thought distantly.


    She was scared, scared that her life was going to end.