So reads the elegant scripting engraved into the flat of her schiavona: the words that Coran D'zir can never be told; the phrase that is prolonged gibberish most of the world, and plain wisdom to its Dauntless population. It translates literally to 'A Regretful Necessity', but its meaning is far more complex than this: it describes a philosophy that describes the nature of inevitablity, the hatefulness of necessity, the regretfulness of both. It tangles the three concepts into a bleak whole that is far more than the sum of its parts, and it is in the spirit of this philosophy that she will one day take D'zir's life -- as he'd sworn her to do.
It's in the very same spirit that she'd sold her sword's services, years and continents ago. Illiterate, near innumerate -- having, in short, nothing else to offer -- she'd thrown herself into the market which existed for her only real skill. She hadn't been the only one, of course: in time they'd been a fine gang of murderers, she and Gallandry -- and Avi, and Maeghan and cunning Santiago -- and they'd weighed men's lives in terms of currency and threat.
In those two years, she'd learned more about flesh and its frailties than even a Dauntless childhood had prepared her for.
***
All men have their price, the saying goes. All acts have their cost, the universe counters, and perhaps that is why she she's approached at this very minute by these ghosts of misdeeds past. They are an offering, perhaps: slay them again; if taking their lives once pleased you, then satiate yourself a second time. They might feasibly be a condemnation: this is what you must suffer, when you murder a man not for passion's sake, not for hatred, not even for vengeance, but for nothing more noble, more humane than coin.
And not even very much of that.
Ermid Andreas, who'd guarded the gates of Gormonston, and hadn't the sense to step aside when they stormed them. Twenty guilder had bought your death, and now you advance as if you meant to reclaim them.
Howell Baern, who had taken liberties with a fop's favourite plaything, and paid for it with his life. Sixty to beat you senseless; sixty more to slit your throat afterwards, and now that sword in your hand is demanding a reckoning.
Iona Kelyn, whose cost was forty ryalin; Nestor Llyr for seventy, and thiry feet away, Agnieszka is screaming as if her heart were breaking; Kerrak is no less enflamed. These very real ghosts stand between her and them, and all the world demands to know if there's still a price for which these men must die --
Yes. For friendship. For the thirty feet of ground that separate them. Yes.
Now, as then, she marches upon them, a juggernaut clad in living, writhing steel. Now, as then, they engage in a flurry of blades, and these are fast battles, at least; let no-one say that she toyed with them. Her advance is with a shoulder leading and the knife lifted high; it devolves into a dashing lunge across the last few feet of ground, her stubby blade sliding across Kelyn's longsword with a squeal of metal and just enough force to push it inches aside.
And that's all the space in the world.
Down under that deflected blade, knife drawn back sharp to stab, lodging down through the armpit with force enough to drop him. A bludgeon catches her armoured spine and staggers her; she's on her knees when she grabs at Kelyn's sword, and on her feet when she's swinging it by the blade to catch Baern's bludgeon in the crossbar hilt. It's a tug-of-war that she cannot win, and Andreas is already nearing, and Llyr with him -- and this is no fairytale, understand; the heroes of such stories battle five men and emerge victorious -- hah, they massacre legions of them! In reality...
Two, she can take. Three, if the armour holds, and her luck as well. Four --
She frees the bludgeon, throws a fist for Baern's face instead; the first punch from that gauntlet knocks him staggering, but the second strips ribbons from his face. There is a chaotic tangle of bodies and weapons then; there is a pained shout that might be hers; there is blood -- oh, a great deal of that.
And when she emerges, it's with the sword forgotten, and bloodied silver trailing from her body as her furious fingers strip it away. Great handfuls are torn away with each step that she takes, so that by the time she's running, the stuff trails her in a thin, glittering stream. And oh, she is running, because the last thing she'd seen in that clutch of corpses was a glimpse of what had begun to climb from their eyes.
