Chapter Thirty-Four Blue #2
He’s stronger than me, but I’m faster. I hook my foot behind his ankle and drive my shoulder into his chest, sending us both
tumbling to the ground. We roll across the mushroom-lit earth, each trying to pin the other long enough for a killing blow.
I come up on top, axe raised, but he gets his knees between us and kicks. The impact launches me backward into a cluster of glowing fungi that crush under my weight, their light dimming as I roll away.
Brutus rolls to his feet, machete gleaming in his fist. “You always were trickier than you looked.”
“And you always talked too much.”
We close again, weapons clashing in a shower of sparks. His blade catches my axe handle, scoring the wood but not biting deep
enough to matter. I twist the handle, using the hook of my axe to catch his machete and wrench it aside, then bring my knee
up toward his groin.
He blocks with his thigh, counters with an elbow that catches me in the temple hard enough to make my vision blur. I stumble
backward, black spots dancing across my sight.
He presses his advantage, machete cutting through the air where my head was a second earlier. I duck, roll, come up swinging.
My axe catches him across the back of the thigh, opening a gash that sprays blood across the nearest mushrooms.
He roars, more rage than pain, and lunges forward with his machete extended like a spear. I sidestep, let the metal whistle
past, then bring my axe around in a horizontal arc aimed at his neck.
He drops under the swing, sweeps my legs out from under me. I hit the ground hard, axe spinning away into the darkness. Brutus
looms over me, machete raised for the killing blow.
“Should have stayed retired,” he snarls.
That’s when I hear Hans scream.
The sound cuts through the battle noise like a blade through silk—raw, agonized, ending too abruptly. I turn my head and see
him twenty feet away, a Crow’s machete buried in his spine between his shoulder blades. The chainmail that protected him from
slashing attacks can’t stop a thrust from behind.
Hans drops to his knees, sword falling from nerveless fingers. The Crow behind him—one I don’t recognize, probably backup
they called in—grins as he wrenches the machete free. Blood gushes from the wound, and Hans pitches forward onto his face.
The moment of distraction costs me everything. Brutus’s machete descends toward my throat, and I can see death approaching
with crystalline clarity.
Then Ash appears like a ghost, driving his shoulder into Brutus and sending us all tumbling across the bloody ground. We roll apart, and when I look up, Brutus is already on his feet, backing toward the tree line.
“This isn’t over,” he snarls, pressing one hand to a gash Ash opened on his arm and the other to his thigh.
“Coward,” I spit, getting to my feet. “Running from a fair fight.”
Brutus’s face twists with rage, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s beaten. He whistles, and the remaining Crow begin
melting back into the forest. Three, maybe four of them left alive.
“Next time I won’t be so generous,” Brutus calls over his shoulder before disappearing into the darkness.
The clearing falls silent except for our ragged breathing.
Victory, but I can already see it’s come at a horrible cost.
I spin around, looking for Hans, and my blood turns to ice. He’s on the ground twenty feet away, alive but barely, raising
his arms weakly to block the Crow standing over him. The bastard with the bloodied machete swats Hans’s feeble defense aside
and raises the weapon high, preparing to split his skull.
I’m too far away. I’ll never make it in time.
“No!” The word tears from my throat as I sprint across the corpse-littered ground.
The Crow brings his machete down in a vicious arc, and I watch helplessly as the blade bites deep into Hans’s skull with a
wet crack that echoes across the clearing. Blood and brain matter spray across what’s left of the mushrooms that haven’t been
trampled.
I reach the Crow three seconds too late, my axe taking his head clean off. Blood sprays across the clearing, but the damage
is done.
Hans is dead.
Hans is on his back, face turned toward me, eyes open but vacant. Blood pools beneath him, soaking into the earth. The chainmail
across his chest has been shredded by the machete thrust, and I can see white bone gleaming through the wound.
I kneel beside him, cradling his head in my lap. His face is peaceful, younger somehow in death than he ever looked in life.
Seven years he worked for me. Seven years of perfect loyalty, of following orders without question, of protecting the people
I cared about.
And now he’s gone.
“Hans,” I whisper, smoothing his blood-matted hair away from his forehead. “Mein treuer Freund.”
The grief crashes over me, doubling me over his still form. Hans, who died protecting people he barely knew because I asked
him to.
Gone.
I look up at the night sky, at stars barely visible through the forest canopy, and let the words come. Words that I’ve heard
Hans give over other fallen men in our past. It was always his ritual. His way to pay respect. Words I know he’d want said
over his body:
“Hear me, spirits of the night. Take this warrior from my sight. Hans the faithful, Hans the brave. Deserves far more than earthly grave.
“Seven years he stood with me. Now his soul flies wild and free. Blood and iron, steel and bone. He shall never fight alone.
“In the mist between the worlds. Where the ancient banner unfurls. Wait for me, you stubborn friend—this is not our story’s end.”
My voice cracks on the final words, and something hot spills down my cheeks. When was the last time I cried? I can’t remember.
But Hans deserves tears, deserves grief, deserves better than dying in a forest while protecting people he chose to call family.
I smooth his blood-matted hair one last time, then gently close his eyes.
“Wait for me on the other side, mein Freund,” I whisper. “See you soon.”