Garrod sheathed his knife. Lone green eye watched how the blood moved. Trails and pathways across a timeless shell. Like rivers through mountains on the moons. Like sacrificial sigils carved against his skin. Across cold stone floor.

Sympathetic suffering.

All that blood that had spilled from his throat. The old Buzzard's. The girl's. Daniyah's.

He pulled the thing on. Felt the blood inside squelch, and spread and gush. Seep into his scars. Set fingers to twitch violently. As if the bones themselves were fighting to be free.

Grit his teeth. "Belephus," Groaned the hiss through his throat. Grunt as the sliced leather of the gauntlet stitched itself back together. Pulling the viscera that flecked about its inner hull, and had trailed along the river mud. Knitting back together where the knife had split leather open. Tightened. Squeezed. Cut off all flow from his beating heart. And he beared it. Eye bulged and teeth flared, as green fire ate away at his wounds.

Twisted magick fueled by all the feeding.

Dead eyed, and smoking numb, Garrod emerged from the rushes. Stark white of the gauntlet worn like it had never been taken off. Its pale eye gleaming with delight.

Cold as he was. His eye tracked to Daniyah. Saw her mounted and heaving. Smelled the acrid ash. Stepped quick. Hands grabbed her up under the arms and plunked her to the ground.

"Your going to kill the both of you," he said, flat as a gravestone. Spied the burned mess. Saw the gashed side. Lingered. Half a breath was too long. Flicked his eye to the kid. Half beat to death, arm spilling. "Fuck," he hissed. The gauntlet's jewel gleamed.

Bent low, hands pulling free his own belt. Strapped it high to the shoulder. Pulled it tight as he could. Pulled free his knife. Butchered the arm clean with cuts and peels. Kid wriggled and shout back to life, and he pressed a knee to her. Grit his teeth.

"Hold her down,"
 
Daniyah snarled when his hands touched her, the smell of fiendish-taint and blood thick in her nose. “Don’t,” she spat. His shove sent her sprawling. Hot, pain lanced from beneath her knee, up through her hip, and she bit back a scream that wanted to tear free. Every inch of her screamed betrayal and pain.

Driftwood jabbed into the mud, and with a grunt, she forced herself up. One boot sliding in the muck, her ruined leg screaming protest with each shift.

She saw him, unhurt. The bastard. Fresh as a new morning. His little fiend purring again. The gauntlet gleaming like it had never hurt him at all, skin pale and clean while her own leg was a butcher’s mess. Her blood still painted the ground, steaming faintly in the cold. And he... was patching up the thief.

“Hold her down" he barked.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” A bitter laugh clawed out of her throat, dry and broken. “No.” The word was a blade. She hauled herself upright on the driftwood crutch. She bled half her life out saving his sorry arse and that foul gauntlet, and now he was playing nursemaid to that thief cunt. Daniyah pushed off with the cane, dragging herself through the churned mud.
 
Eye wide enough to split open tracked her hobbling off. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

What ever were you thinking, Oh Bearer Mine. It laughed. You know how you get. All drunk on my power.

The kid moaned. Green eye back to her. Hoarse and ragged as her blood spurted in weak pumps through the tourniquet. Grit his teeth. Pressed his weight down. Held firm in his clutch what was left of the ruined arm, up as high as he could with the bone-white hand. Saw the blood on the carapace. Slowly drunk away.

Raised the heavy headed hunter's knife. Chopped clean through the bone. Scraped it across the tines of the gauntlet. Brought green flame to life across the black blood on its edge. Waited for the metal to glow red. White. Orange and blue within that accursed fire.

Set it to the fresh clean maiming with a sizzle and pop.

The kid let out a scream that ripped through the woods. More strands of her mousy brown hair fading to white before she fell out of consciousness.
 
Her eyes scanned the churned riverbank. Crossbow. She crouched, fingers slick with mud and blood, and slung the crossbow over her shoulder.

She shuffled toward the mules. Her hands shook as she unstrapped his gear, one by one, she threw his gear off them.

Finally, she slumped against the pale mule. Fingers slick with her own blood gripped the mule’s reins. With a guttural hiss, she forced herself onto the saddle. Good leg first.

Finally, with a ragged groan, she slumped into the saddle, shoulder pressed against the mule’s neck. She perched there, half-dying, dripping her life into the mud below, eyes fixed on the treeline. The void sword, the black blade, was still at his side. She would not like to leave it with him... Her sword was worth near a king’s ransom, but arguing was a luxury for the living. She needed to drag herself to a healer before the darkness closed its jaws over her.

One day, maybe, if she survived, she’d hunt Garrod down, drag that black hunger from his hands, and reclaim what was hers.

But not today.

She drove her heels into the animal's sides and hoped it was smart enough to carry her to the nearest town.
 
Head over the shoulder. Eye watching her grow smaller and smaller up the trail as the scent of burning flesh still tickled his nose. Growled. Looked down at the kid. Sweat drenched. Ragged breath.

His own skin felt feverish. His eye pounded with each beat of his heart.

Too much time. Too many steps. He took his knife, all ruined by the fire. Heard the clatter and clank of gear slam against the earth.

Hissed as he stuck the blade in the muck. Looked about. The black sword's song louder in his head. Even there against the mud. Adrenaline. Movement. The need to do had kept its sounds from him, but there it was.

Crunch. Clank. Bang.

Just up the way. Trail of blood too easy to follow.

Worked himself up with a grunt. The fiend's fire still humming in his veins. Whispering as it swirled toward that sword's vorpal edge.

Grew quieter as he marched up the path and saw her, sitting there, half dead and in the saddle.

"Where the fuck are you going?" Didn't even see the gear on the ground.
 
The world was thin as gauze around her.
Everything moved too slow or maybe she did.
Her heartbeat was like a drum in a far-off room, uneven, fading between strikes.

Everything, the trees, the mist, the mud, the thin mist of blood still lingering in the air, looked washed-out, like an unfinished painting left out in the rain.

She swayed in the saddle, fingers white on the reins. Her leg throbbed, but that was dulling. Numbness was creeping in where pain had lived, like a soft, but treacherous mercy.

The wound on the leg was not that serious, it was not a killing wound. But the spell had pulled to much out of her. Blood, strength, will. All had bled out. If she were one of the leeches, she could’ve just drunk it back in. But she was no damned corpse, and humans bled out.

Oscar, the pack mule, caught the scent of the fiend before Garrod was even close. His long ears flattened tight against his neck, muscles rippling under his hide. The whites of his eyes flashed wide and wild as Garrod drew nearer, a low, trembling bray rumbling in his throat. The brown mule shifted his weight, hooves grinding in the mud, one hind leg lifting just enough to promise a kick if the fiend-bearing bastard took a step in his direction.

Garrod’s voice reached her through the haze. Where the fuck are you going?

Daniyah turned in the saddle. “Lost too much blood,” she muttered. “I need a healer." She forced herself to stay upright in the saddle. Her gaze lingered on him, the gauntlet, the healed skin, the monster burning behind his eye... and something black and bitter twisted in her chest.

“Stay with your little thief,” Daniyah rasped. Her eyes slid to the thief, the one-armed bitch sobbing in the muck. The mule shifted beneath her, uneasy from the scent of blood. Her leg trembled as she nudged the mule forward. Am I walking away from something I should be running away from? Daniyah knew the answer well enough. His fiend had already tried to kill her. Fool woman, that was the truth of it. She’d let her guard down, let him in. Trusted the broken smile, the soft words. Trusted a man who made pacts with darkness. Should’ve known better. Should’ve seen it the first time he looked at her with that hollow stare, half-man, half-abyssal creature.

“Don’t come after me. I mean it, Garrod. You and that cursed thing of yours, stay the fuck away.”
 
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A jerked step forward. Bristled hairs and folded back ears enough movement to have him twitch back. Eye wide and feral on the mule. Snarl twitching at his lip. White hand all claw and twitch.

"Lost too much blood,"

Eye narrowed to knife point. "I can fucking see that," the words ground through his teeth. Fucking saw it when she fucking saved him. "Just let me-"

Stay with your little thief,

Like a slap in the face. "What?" he bit back. Shook his head, stepped closer. "She's just a fucking kid!" he spat arms all up, hands clawed at the air by his head before they snapped down. Heart too loud in his ears. "A pissling thief!" Fiend fire too hot in his veins. Stepped closer "I'm not-"

Didn't hear the scrape of gravel, or the bray. Just felt the hard crack against his chest. Whole world set to spin. Bite of gravel against his skull. Stars dancing above him as his lungs clawed for breath. Felt cracked ribs stab at each pump. Grit, grunt. Groaned as he forced himself up. Felt the fire whispering in his skull as the dust swirled.

Don't come after me... Stay the fuck away.

"Wait," he choked. Hardly a sound over the wheeze and rattle between his ears. "WAIT," he called out all growl and gravel. Couldn't see straight. Two mules. Three. Four. "Don't fucking die," he wheezed. Clawed at the earth to try and get up to his feet.

Couldn't breath enough air to get himself up. Felt the gloom about his single eye's dying light. "Daniyah," he croaked. Knelt, crumpled and ruined.

Oh how Belephus laughed.
 
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Oscar shifted restlessly. His ears pinned back, his muscles bunching like coiled rope as Garrod stepped closer. His tail flicking with agitation. The animals felt it, how the fiend burned like a pyre in Garrod's veins. The old mule’s breath hisses through flared nostrils.

“She didn’t hesitate,” Her voice hoarse, throat raw from screaming spells and pain. "She saw power, and she took it. Same as you.” The words came out like broken glass, jagged and sharp. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have walked past her like she was nothing. She’d spent her blood on him once. Never again.

The crack of hoof meeting chest echoed through the mist like a hammer against an anvil. Garrod went down hard, air ripped from his lungs, skidding across earth and blood. Daniyah flinched. "Ah, shit..!" For a moment, her eyes softened, watching him gasp for breath, sprawled in the dirt.

But then she reminded herself that he’d rather tend the bleeding thief than look at her. That was loyalty, wasn’t it? He’d let the world bleed anyone dry, so long as his conscience stayed clean. Maybe she deserved it. Maybe that was the lesson. Daniyah turned back to the trail. The mist ahead looked endless.

Her breath came shallow, her chest tight, and every beat of her heart felt too slow, too weak. Her vision blurred dark at the edges. Still, she tugged the pack-mule toward the trail. “Come on, boy,” she whispered to the agitated Oscar. The mules obeyed, hooves squelching through muck and ruin, leaving Garrod gasping in the mud behind.
 
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