Silver Blades: Plate Male

One

Warst 17, 3252

Riposte.

"You know," Pertuli huffed next to me. "If we had lackeys they could distract the lizards while we fetched the silver. Better yet, we could hire henchmen. Ooh! Men-at-arms! We could hire men-at—"

"Not now," I interrupted, my voice a warning growl. I wasn't as winded, and my voice sounded more bestial than intended. "You have no intention of hiring a servant."

"Ah," he answered, "but you would make a marvelous taskmaster, supposing you pledged not to eat the hypothetical fellow... and we could share! Again, for errands, not eating, I mean."

This time, the growl bubbling up in my throat was not unwarranted. Spots of red rage bloomed at the edges of my vision. I struggled to concentrate, to ignore my friend's jibes.

I visualized fencing stances, mentally slipping through the forms, attacks and guards. "First position: guard... advance... lunge..." I breathed to myself as we ran, feeling the movements in my mind as if practicing in body.

"Ya blokes are weird," Ivy griped, running at Pertuli's other side.

There weren't many who could be described as less verbose than I, yet Ivy was markedly silent during our rapid jog to the Market Ward. She smelled uncertain in addition to her usual scent of leather and ale, and she was tainted by the heady scent of Balina's perfume from their struggle at Orluz manor.

The reminder nauseated me. Could she really be dead? At my hand?

Yes, but surely Paolo deserved some of the blame; he'd turned us both into monsters. Thinking about it was like a scarlet rage blanketing my mind ... and yet I could still feel my sword driving into her twisted body; glancing off a rib and her spine as I stole her life. If her life was even hers, at that point.

My poor, sweet, rebellious Balina. Her fang-filled mouth gaped, a shocked expression on strangely dark eyes as she gasped my name with her final breath. "Koray?"

It was a nightmare from which I would never awake.

The rage closed around me, nourished by memory. I was barely aware of Pertuli's ceaseless commentary, and struggled to concentrate on the stances. "Second position; guard... advance... lunge..."

A mass of people surrounded us as we turned from Palace Wall Road onto Market Street. Their screams flooded over me as if they could see the images I saw, and the chaos was almost too much to bear.

What am I doing? The curse will make me a killer. It is inevitable. I want to kill. Need to kill ... myself, before I destroy my friends and my city!

I froze, feeling the gorge rising in my throat, and fought the urge to snap my teeth at passersby.

"Rip?" Pertuli called again, more loudly this time so his voice actually tore into my awareness. "D'Argent's shop is this way!"

I nodded and numbly stumbled toward the corner where he and Ivy had changed directions.

"How are we even going to find the cursed in this?" I growled, gesturing at the general chaos. The far side of the market was on fire and the brisk evening breeze was fanning the flames towards us, blinding my radiance vision.

"We'll advantage ourselves of your peculiar talent for drawing mayhem," Pertuli quipped, panting. "They're probably converging on us as we speak. Now, hurry! I saw radiance casting back there, and though it would be a blessing if the Wizard Guild got involved, even the Baron of Gilsetton himself would need our help."