The One-Eyed Man, Part 6

Fourthmonth, 9996 DK

A time came when I could no longer put the deed off. Nakmander set his plans into motion and my men that had been named disappeared from the streets of Hell. I had managed to keep my presence within the city a secret and l heard rumors among the patrons of the Jigging Jackass about the fate of those men. They said that their removal by rebels was a plot to wring favors from the master of the reavers.

Callifay and I sat in our suite doing little. My armor and dozen bronze swords were put away. I would not be taking them with me when I left the room. Their presence here in the Jackass would add to the mystery of my death and show I had come to the city in secret. Callifay had taken his possessions and booked a room at a lodging in another district days ago. He would leave the city before nightfall and return at a later date to find me.

"I," Callifay began. He cleared his throat and rubbed an eye with the heel of his hand.

We sat next to each other on the bed and I put one arm across his shoulders and leaned close to him.

"I will be fine," I said.

"I know that, I have seen you wounded and near death before. Nonetheless, I desire very little to see you broken and bleeding on the floor."

"Nakmander's agents will retrieve me and deposit me into the proper place. We will be reunited before the week ends."

He nodded, "Find me when you are whole, I will not see you as a corpse. I have seen you bleeding and wounded before, mobbed by warriors, or laid low by Loria and her guardians. I cannot see you as a corpse. I will not. Thinking of it sickens me and brings tears to my eyes. I will not find you, you will come to me when you are as you are now, whole and handsome."

I cleared my throat, my tongue felt thick, I stood.

"I cannot put it off any longer. I grow more hesitant the longer I wait."

He rose from the bed and we smiled at each other.

"We are fools," he said.

I nodded and our lips met and time paused briefly while we said goodbye to one another. I left the room. It was silly for us to be so emotional, we had been apart for longer stretches of time before and I would not truly be dead. I suspected that might be impossible, it would still hurt though.

It was dark outside when I exited the Jackass, Callifay had leapt out the window of my room so that he could avoid the sight that was to come. The nearby streets were noisy and the air stank of shit and dead plant life left too long in the sun, it was an odd smell that had always been ever present in Hell. I took a long drag off my pipe and closed my eyes as I exhaled. I opened them and heard their armored boots crack against the brick road. They were quiet and stealthy, but they moved with a purpose. There were ten of them armed with pistols and various swords and knives. Callifay had hired ten bards to kill me. At least it would look real.

Their first attack as they approached was to lob a pot of lamp oil at me that broke against my face. It tasted foul and stung my eyes. The next impact I felt was an automatic match of brass that bruised my cheek. The lamp oil made a hissing noise as it lit. I grimaced, it would take some time, but eventually my flesh would begin to run like wax.

My brow split and I could hear my blood begin to boil and hiss as the lamp oil truly blazed. I caught the first knife that arched towards my throat with my fist and broke it and the arm it led to. Four pistols roared and lead hammered into my chest, my bones creaked under the blows but they would not break. I clenched my fist and its impact broke the throat and neck of the bard that had first tried to stab me.

Three swords cut at me, a knife whistled through the air, and four more guns roared. The knife struck my thigh and I could feel fire burning along my veins as whatever it had been slathered in tried to lay me low, the pain was my body's defenses boiling it away. The bullets hit my chest again and I could feel my ribs crack, not broken, but hurting more than I cared to admit. One sword caught against the bone of my upper arm, the second skewered the meat of my thigh, and the last one was torn from the grasp of its owner by my bloodied hand.

I impaled him with it and swung the steel blade in an arc that had the bards leaping away from me. Now it was my turn. I rushed in among them, whipping the blade about with a speed they couldn't match, I impaled three more and roared as the fire finally began to melt my face and eyes. My left was gone before I could blink and as the pain drove me mad all I could feel was the agony and ecstasy of my brow splitting wider and wider and my grin stretching painfully across my face.

All I felt was the fire melting my flesh and burning right down to the bone, I could feel dull impacts against my flesh but my mind ignored it all as I tore three more bards limb from limb with nails that were suddenly black daggers and the twisted ruin of a broken blade. A sword smacked against my back and bent as the bony plates of my shoulders refused to give in, I whirled around and the jagged stick of metal in my hand split his torso from clavicle to abdomen. The metal that had been a sword twisted out of my hand as the bard fell to the pavement.

I could still almost see out of what was left of my right eye, the last bard was bloodied and had a broken nose. As I was turning from his comrade he put a heavy revolver to my chest, I could see the massive rounds, the cylinder only had room for four of them. I moved and the hammer came down just as my fingers grazed the gun.

I couldn't hear the thunder of the round flying from the gun but I felt the weight of it against my chest. My ribs had already been broken and even if they hadn't, this bullet would have torn through them with ease. I thought he was aiming at my heart, it wasn't where he thought it was though, but it was close enough. I jolted backwards from the force of the impact and stumbled to the ground. He shot me again and I didn't even have the strength to groan or bellow, my forehead was going numb as the flesh was eaten and my grin sagged into a tired scowl.

I could feel an itching sensation everywhere at once, the phantom pains of a broken nose and a shattered skull. My body was at work attempting to heal me, but my reserves of Gifts were far less than they had ever been before. If I was to be reborn, it would take time and almost certainly longer than a week. The bard shot me again, in the face I think, and I passed out. My last thought was of Callifay waiting and wondering, not knowing where my half-corpse lay in the catacombs of Hell and not knowing how to find it.

...and so it was that the reaver Cenn was put down like a rabid beast by the dogs of his arch-nemesis, Smiling Jack.