Caine Black Knife

“So dented and rent that I can no longer wear it. And. . I’d rather do without. From what can it now protect me?”

Slowly, incrementally, I push the pain outside myself. “Our clothes?”

“Khryl’s Love is swift; in the dark, wounds may close with cloth inside-”

“Okay, I get it.”

How much does my life suck? Finally naked with Marade, and I’m too busted up to do anything about it.

Huh. Not entirely naked-my exploring hands find wet sticky cloth tied around my belly, and more around my right thigh. Sticky and crusty with the texture of burnt-on coffee grounds where it isn’t wet.

Clotting blood. A lot of it. I can’t find any dry cloth. Under the sticky cloth around my thigh, something hard and raggedly sharp like splintered bone sticking up-oh yeah-

I remember snapping off the head and flights but leaving the shaft in. No way to tell if it nicked my femoral artery; if it did, pulling the shaft could bleed me out in minutes.

I seem to be severely fucking broken, here. Which somehow doesn’t really bother me. Not really at all.

Huh.

If I didn’t hurt so goddamn much, that’d be kind of interesting.

“So these bandages have to come off, huh?”

“Yes. Khryl’s Love has Healed your skull fracture, but He will need both my hands for your belly and your leg, if you are not to bleed to death.”

Breathe.

And . . breathe. .

“I must ask you, Caine, and you must tell me truly: do you wish to be Healed?”

“Are you kidding?” Right now I’d trade my balls for a fucking aspirin. “Yeah,” I tell her. “Yeah, I want it.”

“Because you must know what we face. I can remove the shaft from your leg, and. . you understand. Bleeding out is a gentle way to die.”

I’ve already made that choice. “And leave you here alone? What kind of guy do you think I am?”

“I have discovered, tonight, that I do not know. And so I ask.”

Uh. I’m not ready for this. “Where are we?”

“Still in the vertical city. Deep in one of the chambers. A storm cellar, perhaps; there is only one door.”

“How many of us? Who’s here?”

“Just us. You and me.”

“Yeah, okay. Okay.”

Another few seconds of measured breath. I find that I have to ask. I have to know. It doesn’t matter that I don’t like them, or that they don’t like me. Like doesn’t matter anymore. If it ever did.

“Pretornio?”

“The porters’ formations were-not mobile. Seven dead. The rest-”

She doesn’t want to say taken.

“eah, okay.”

“Stalton?”

I know what she really wants to ask. She doesn’t want to know: she needs to know. She can’t stop herself. “Did you. . did you find him?”

Maybe she needs to work her way up. To talk around the question.

“He’s-”

Maybe she’s not the only one. Why is this so hard to say? “He’s dead.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Real sure.”

She waits for me to elaborate.

Finally: “What about Rababal-Rababal and, and. . Did you-I, ah, I saw a flash. .?”

“Yeah.”

The pain’s leaking back in through my wall of Control. I shift, trying to find a position where the cold burn in my guts doesn’t make my head swim. There isn’t one. “The last explosion-? The big one?”

“Yes.”

I shrug against her thighs. “That was Rababal. That’s why it was the last.”

Silence. I feel her breathe.

“Did he-?”

“He had three or four arrows in him. Couldn’t even stand up.”

Don’t think I’ll tell her how he cursed me as he lay bleeding into the dead weeds. “He decided to go clean.”

“Clean.” Her echo is tiny: comprehending. “The explosion was. . bits and pieces of bodies-a waterfall of fire- they rained all over the lower levels. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I’d tell her he went out with a bang, but she wouldn’t think it’s funny. “Some of those pieces were his.”

“Yes.” Her warm soft flesh rises and ebbs under me in a long sigh. “We may live to regret that we haven’t joined him.”

“Pretty likely.” Pain surges like vomit climbing my throat-

— oh, crap-shouldn’t have thought vomit-

“Marade?” My voice has gone thick. “Better move. Think I’m gonna puke.”

“You already have. Several times.”

Must be true: a spasm of retching that rips unnamable things inside my belly spills only thin acidic drool from my lips.

“Caine-” she says as I go quiet again. Her voice is thin, tight, hesitant, like she’s working herself up to ask something she doesn’t want to know the answer to. “Caine, I couldn’t find. . what about-what about-”

Yeah. Wish I had a better answer. “It’s not good news.”

Her breathing hitches. “They have her. That’s what you think. They have her, and, and-”

A bare whisper, half a breath from silence. “-and she’s alive. .”

“I don’t know. Probably.” I shrug helplessness against her thighs. “I was going after her when they took me.”

“Caine-what you said-what they do to thaumaturges-”

Her voice fails, and the hitch in her breath becomes faint gasping, and her arms tighten around me: begging me with her body to tell her I was exaggerating, that I just made that shit up, that it isn’t true and it’s not going to happen to Tizarre.

But I wasn’t exaggerating, and it is true.

“They might not know. She was armed. If she fought them blade and shield-if she didn’t use any magick-they might think she was there only to cover Rababal’s back.”

Best I can do.

A couple wet sniffles. “I was-I wasn’t-” I can hear her swallow. “You weren’t who I was looking for.”

Her voice goes solid again. Soft and flat and brutal. “I was looking for her. Finding you was an accident.”

“It’s all right, Marade. I know. It’s all right.”

“She and I-she’s my partner, Caine. You wouldn’t understand. You don’t. . you don’t need anybody-”

That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.

“We’ve been partners-forever. Even in school. Marade and Tizarre. We’re a team. Halves of a greater hero. That’s how we pitched it. To the bosses. We were going to be like, you know, like the female Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.”

She’s not giving away anything I haven’t figured already. But still, she should know better. “Marade, don’t-”

“Fuck it,” she says, harsh, freighted with loathing: the stinging emphasis you get from someone who never uses obscenity. “Fuck it and fuck them. What does it matter now? If they have a problem, they can edit this out.”

“Yeah. I guess they can.” I close my eyes against the darkness, open them again. “Anyone else? Do you