The Mosaic

Chapter 35

"Run!"

There was one path left, one they didn't block, one Giacinto could shield long enough for her to dash away.

It was six of them. If they had wanted, they could've spared one or two men to go after her. Giacinto could never occupy six assassins at once. They didn't even spare her a glance, slowly advancing on Giacinto.

They were better fighters this time, he could see it. The others had been pathetic, really. Tossed at him like chew toys. These men were experienced, taught faces and steady hands, littered with scars that didn't manage to kill them.

There was a strange silence between them.

Giacinto drew a dagger, as long as his forearm. His injured hand sneaked to hide a small throwing knife. His arm ached, the suture stinging when he tightened his fingers on the hilt. "You know, he doesn't want me dead." Maybe he could distract them. His eyes flitted up the walls to his side -- high and smooth, no windows, no balconies, no columns. The reaper had chosen the place well. With his injured arm, he had no chance of climbing.

"Paid us 100 gold florins for your head," a tall one said. Lanky, weathered skin, quick eyes.

"Nice sum," Giacinto whistled. The architect of the city's cathedral made 100 florins a year. But of course, Luca didn't plan on them staying alive and keeping it. "I'll double it."

The men looked at each other. A short, broadly built man leant over the lanky one, whispering something.

Giacinto knew they wouldn't accept. But it bought him time to find a way out of here.

"Nay," the lanky one said, rubbing his red beard. "Betraying the reaper is a death sentence."

"I'm afraid," Giacinto said, rolling his shoulders with a smile, "That was the wrong answer."

They didn't see it coming, the flash of silver spinning towards them.

A gasp. The lanky man swayed, confusion furrowing his eyebrows. He started leaning to the side. A dull thud. He crumpled to the ground.

There was only a breath between the men staring at their leader on the ground, dark blood seeping into the dust between their boots, and them charging at Giacinto.

Enough to draw another small knife and send one of them down before they reached him. He just hit his leg. He didn't need to kill them, just slow them until --

The short man barreling into him knocked the breath out of his lungs. He couldn't keep them away. One good arm wasn't enough. They knew, kept lurching at him from his weak side.

He spun, ducked, vaulted over them -- trying to never stay still enough for one to get through. But they did.

He was better than them, even with a bad hand that trembled from trying to stay closed around the knife's hilt, to not let it slip away into the dirt. But then it did.

It was the broad one, a fist slamming into his arm. He could feel the thread ripping. The pain shooting up his arm and flashing through his brain was blinding. It felt like his arm was being torn in two. The blood on his hand was his own.

Luca could win.

The need to run was overwhelming, washing over him like a riptide. But he couldn't, the three men left inching closer wouldn't let him. Not when they could smell his blood.

Giacinto wanted to run. Pathetic, he thought. He wanted to run. Hide. Clutch his arm and curl up in some nook where no one would ever find him. Until he had forced that grin back onto his lips. Until his eyes were sharp and teasing again, not wide with terror the moment the wound had opened a passageway to the past. Run away.