Author's Note:
Spoiler
I know it's a bit more than long, but I couldn't find any place to cut it without it seeming stupid. So, I'd like opinions on this, mainly with the story itself, but nitpicks are welcomed too (don't think there are too many of those, though, I'm the worst sort of Grammer Nazi on my own texts). And if you liked it, do press the little "LIKE" button up there; it really makes my day. Thanks and out. ^^
The corpse shifted once, then fell flat on its ruin of a face, its fall accompanied by a grunt. Damion stumbled out of the shadowy corner, dry-washing his hands over and over as if it could dispell the clinging stench of rot from them. He took a second to sneer at the corpse and send a nice spitball in its direction. He missed. Damion's sneer increased in intensity and he stalked out of the closet with a vengeance.
”Ryne. Ryne! Where the fuck are you?” he hissed into the darkness.
No answer came and the shadows seemed to be mocking him with the ease they concealed their secrets.
”Ryne, you bloody bastard. This isn't the time or place to be playing hide-and-seek. If I have to come find you, I promise you you'll shit multiple shades of red when you next rest your ravaged form on something even resembling a toilet.” The scowl on Damion's face enhanced the threat in his tone, but he knew Ryne knew he'd never do any of the things he mentioned.
”Can you keep your damn voice down? It's hard to concentrate on scouting for any possible threats when I have a lunatic screaming at the shadows next to my ear.”
Damion almost jumped as Ryne seemingly appeared out of thin air on his left. He had pulled out his Chimera which had come with the uniform and had his head cocked as he listened intently.
”First off, a lunatic wouldn't have come up with a plan like-”
”Yes, yes, your plan was fucking brilliant. You were right, I was wrong, jada jada. Now can I focus on my end of the trade?”
Damion saw the wisdom in his words and proceeded to focus on nothing but shutting up. His eyes closed, he heard Ryne gently slip off to the left, no doubt to eliminate something he perceived as a threat. No mind in getting in Ryne's way when brutal killing was involved.
Damion let his mind wander into lighter times, times when everything wasn't so complicated. Back when he and Ryne were mere children, with all the family responsibilty on their father. Father, who had done almost nothing but drank himself to sleep day after day. He said it was because Mother had left him and oh, how he despised that cruel witch and how drinking made it all seem fuzzy and funny and took the awful pain away. Damion would always boast to his friends how great of a father he had, how he was a survivor and how he let them do anything they wanted in the family mansion. But as the boys had grown up, they had seen their father for the miserable wrench he was.
They also happened to find out from a helpful colleague that Mother had left due to Father's drinking, not because of another man as Father had told them. Once they accused Father of this, Ryne and Damion found out how nasty a knotted stick could be on a bare back. Twice a day. Every week. Until a screaming eleven year-old Damion had rammed a splinter of a wine bottle through the old man's eye. A fitting end for a drunk fuckhead.
Damion's lips stretched into a content smile as the scars from the broken wine bottle tugged at the flesh of his palm. Yes. Back in the lighter days when you could murder a man without anybody giving a shit. Now if you even hinted at someone with a bottle of wine, you'd be locked away to die in some gods-forsaken cave.
A hard slap stung his left cheek as Damion came out of his dream-like state with a sputter.
”I said,” Ryne emphasised the two words, ”that the coast is clear. We should get moving as long as it stays so. You're the one with the ideas, what's the plan?”
He brought up his hand again, preparing for another hit, but Damion caught it at the wrist.
”Thank you for the nice wake-up.” The words were spoken in a way to leave no doubts about their real message. ”The plan? Well, let me see. We're standing in a tight corridor on the first floor. A screaming guard just ran that,” Damion pointed to his right, ”way as if the Duke himself were at his heels with a flaming sword. What could we possibly do?” Damion mocked his brother. Ryne was not amused. He flung a bit of the blood on his blade into Damion's face and bent down to clean the sword further with a rag he had produced from his breastpocket.
”Real funny. I'm pretty sure I figured out that we had to go left all by my lonesome. I meant after that, dipshit.”
Damion wiped the blood on his coat sleeve with a grin. ”After that? We find stairs leading up. Then we find another set of stairs. Once we find those, we keep looking for stairs until we find a means to exit this building, without dying if we can.”
Ryne growled and stood up, re-placing the now bloodied rag. ”So, no actual plan. Magnificent.”
This met a raised eyebrow. ”You think of a better one, oh mighty intellect to whom I scrape and bow. May I lick your shoes?”
”Fuck off, Damion. I guess you're right.” Ryne sighed. ”Let us find ourselves a pretty set of stairs to climb. Follow me.”
”Lead the way, my liege.”
Ryne cast a withering glance at his smiling brother and took up a small, yet quiet trot. Near silent as his footsteps were, they still sounded like hammer blows to his hightened senses. He made every effort to lessen the drum of his heels and didn't at first notice when fourty feet ahead they came upon two dead soldiers sprawled on the dusty stone floor. At the questioning look from Damion, Ryne just shrugged and said, ”Oops.”
”Shouldn't we drag them somewhere... less obvious?”
Ryne didn't even bother to slow down. ”And leave bloody tracks and a trail of disturbed sand while wasting precious time? I think they're better off where they lie,” he shot over his shoulder.
”Fair enough,” came the huffed answer.
As strong as Ryne's stamina was, the dust particles shining in the murky light were really irritating his lungs. They'd have to find stairs leading up before the crappy air suffocated them. Usually stairs were located next to corners in fortresses, seeing as they provided a means to easily surprise infiltrating enemies or to slip away from said nasty people. So, by all logic, one should be just around...
A sudden warning from Damion caused Ryne to glance back at him questioningly. This small movement started up a chain of reactions.
Ryne's head bounced back off of something hard and unyielding and he found himself sailing through the air. Damion's Chimera lept out of its scabbard with a scrape of metal on blackened leather. Ryne's head bounced off something else that happened to be hard and unyielding as well with an ugly crack. Pain blossomed in his skull as his brain vibrated against its confines, bringing Ryne close enough to unconciousness that the world started blackening around the edges. He heard an odd gurgle, as if someone was trying to breathe underwater.
Ryne forced himself onto hands and knees; he shook his head in an attempt to clear it, but the pain quadrupled instead. Gritting his teeth, Ryne watched the once steady stone swim around him, trying to discern his up from his down. As if from another world, Damion's voice reached him. Something about stairs...
A sharp crack of flesh on flesh snapped the world into focus. Ryne turned towards the commotion behind him. Damion was hunkered over the body of an elderly man, probably a care-taker of some sort, a pool of blood spreading steadily at his feet. Ryne groaned and swayed to his feet, shambling towards the odd couple.
”Just at the end of what?” Damion's voice was high pitched with rage as he shook the corpse like a terrier a dead mouse. ”Just at the end of fucking what, you heap of rotting shit? At the end of-”
Ryne's fist connected with Damion's temple, finally shutting him up; the throbbing in Ryne's head lessened substanially and he sighed in relief. Two seconds later the tip of a scythe-bladed sword scored a faint trail across his cheek. Ryne shouted a curse and reflexively stomped on Damion's sword hand; the Chimera clattered out of his fingers. A frantic kick caught Ryne in the belly and he stumbled backwards, bent over his ill-treated midsection.
”Damion, calm the fuck down! It's me! Ryne! Your partner? Your brother? Ring any gods-damned bells?” Ryne managed to wheeze out.
Damion's thrashing calmed somewhat and eventually stopped. He glanced up in bewilderment and then visibly collected himself. Ryne watched in amusement as his brother got up with an air of hautiness, as if the reason for his current state were naught but an ill-mannered horse. Acting every part the ruffled noble, Damion stated, ”Why, certainly, my dear brother. And the whole point of this sudden outburst of your's was..?”
”Well, I only thought that it would be far easier to get the whereabouts of a certain set of stairs from me than from someone, ah, unfortunately departed.”
”And the location of said stairs would be where? Seeing as you had no idea two minutes ago – or you just decided it wouldn't be worthwhile to share with me – I highly doubt your opinion is valid, ” scoffed Damion.
Ryne well knew Damion was intentionally steering his attention away from Damion's burst of aggression with court-talk (as they called it), but he didn't mind; let him have time to compose himself. It would be worth the short time to have Damion back at full wits. So, Ryne said, ”I just had a most intriguing streak of brilliance. I asked myself, 'Now where would be the most advantagous location for a bunch of wide stones set at differing hights?' And would you care to venture a guess as to what I came upon?”
”Normally I would go as far as to suggest a whore, but I would be slightly amazed if you had managed to accomplish such a feat in these conditions,” said Damion with a rueful grin.
Ryne pulled a shocked expression. ”My, my, such profanity stains your otherwise flattering appereance. But as I happen to be of noble heart, I shall reveal to you that said stone steps rest just around the corner, by any logic,” he said, looking down his nose at Damion.
”Then we shall embark on a quest to-”
A series of shouted orders cut through their conversation like a razor. Damion tapped his nose and smiled. ”Told you so.”
Ryne looked truly astonished. ”It worked. It actually worked,” he said wonderingly.
”Of course it worked. Things like that do exist down here, even though they are rare and few between,” said Damion. He continued, ”But now I suggest we turn the corner to see if you were indeed correct.”
Ryne nodded his assent. He cast a final sad look at the dead care-taker.
Would've probably retired in a few. Shame.
He didn't voice his opinions though, and followed Damion as he rounded the corner. There it was. A sturdy wood-and-steel door. Ryne grinned at Damion. Damion shrugged with a smile and pushed on the door; it didn't budge. He tried again, but the door was locked. Damion turned to Ryne.
”Any ideas?”
”Isn't that your job?” scoffed Ryne.
”Well, yes. But!" Damion held up his index finger. "One might always ask other people's opinions first.”
”Yeah, sure. So you can steal them afterwards. But I actually do have one. The old-timer you stuck. I think he was a care-taker of sorts. He's bound to have a ring of keys on him. I'll go check.”
Ryne went back to the dead old man, keeping silent. No sense in alerting the men coming to inspect the supposed Tress. The fact that the corpse they had used wasn't moving anymore wouldn't be suspicious at all; Tress could enter and leave dead bodies at will.
He reached the care-taker with no accident, but he could hear the sounds of multiple footsteps intensifying. He hastily rummaged through the pockets and finally found the keys latched onto his belt. He had to turn the man over as he was lying on them. The wrinkled flesh of the throat was ruined by a neat, crimson line. Ryne closed the hazed-over eyes of the deceased, offering up a prayer to Kassandra, Mistress of Life and Death, the One Ruler.
”I know I'm no priest of thy's, but please hear me out. This man was not supposed to die; ill fortune was at work here and I humbly beseech thou to weigh him more than fairly on thy Scales. Thou may exact the penalty from mine once I find myself in thy Divided Realm. Bless the Darkness,” he muttered. It wasn't good, but it was better than nothing.
Damion's hissed warning reached his ears, ”What's taking you so long? They're closing in.”
Ryne set the man down; he could do no further. Scrambling back to Damion, he tried to sort out the jangling keys. There were about twenty of them and they all looked the same.
Figures.
Damion gave him an odd look as he walked past him briskly, but Ryne gave it no heed. He tried one of the keys in the lock. It didn't turn. He pulled it out and, carefully holding the one he already tried aside, he placed another one in. That one didn't work either. Neither did the third one. Damion was shooting nervous glances at him and Ryne himself was getting frustrated. As he was trying the fourth key, the ring slipped out of his fingers. He cursed audibly as the resulting impact let out a sound too strong for his taste.
He hurriedly retrieved the keys, ignoring Damion's stream of curses. He tried to figure out which one's he had already tried, but shrugged and began randomly stuffing them down the key hole. A trail of sweat snaked its way down his back as key after key failed. A pair of heavy booming steps was closing in on them. Finally a key caught the teeth of the mechanisms and turned smoothly, without a sound. A bit wierd, as one would think that doors would be better left a bit creaky. Ryne wasted no time pushing the door open, though, and the resulting metallic grate made his hackles rise and he bared his teeth.
”Damion, now we've gotta be fast! Damion?” All stealth was gone out of Ryne's movements as the steps came louder and at smaller intervals.
A shout was lifted somewhere down the hall and it died abruptly together with the footsteps. A heavy thump echoed a moment later. Damion came rushing down the corner two moments later, a bloody knife in hand.
”Good idea,” he said with no humor and flew through the half-open door.
Ryne went in after him, dragging the wooden frame shut behind him. He re-locked it with shaky hands and only after that relaxed. He leaned his broad back on the hard surface and sighed.
”That was too close. Now we just have to hope these were the only keys,” Ryne attempted a joke.
As Damion didn't answer, Ryne looked at him, annoyed, then froze himself.
”Oh. Fuck,” Damion bit out.
)
