“Fffff-,” Bryce looked down at where Bling had just inserted a dagger into his side, “uuuuuuck!”

The axe-warrior threw Vish from him and wheeled on Bling. He struck her hard with the flat of his blade, knocking her to the ground and dazing her. All ceremony was gone now, and pure rage took over. He held his axe upon high like a headsman at the block.

“Looks like we’re reshuffling the menu, Natasha,” Bryce tried to laugh but just ended up spraying Bling with rabid spit.

The blow to her head had been a bad one. Bling was in no condition to fight back. She didn’t even see the axe hanging above her, a portent of her doom.

It was a doom that was not written in the aether this day.

Bryce’s grip relaxed on his axe. The power and venom had been sapped from his arms, and the weapon drooped gently to the ground. He looked at Natasha, his former friend, leader and confidante, and saw a cowering girl, dazed and confused, half-buried in the dirt.

That wasn’t what had stopped him swinging though, oh no. Bryce dropped his axe because he had a bloody great big sword sticking out of his chest.

Gabriel couldn’t really believe he had done it. It was so… un-him! The slow and laborious threat of Vish’s death had not been enough to rouse him to action. Maybe it had just been too easy to imagine someone or something intervening. The sheer immediacy of Bling’s danger, however, had clearly pumped enough adrenaline through his veins to lend zest to his sword-arm, fleetness to his feet, and effectively scramble his flipping brain. It didn’t even happen as a thought process. There was no, ‘Natasha in danger. Stab bad man.’ Gabriel simply noticed at some stage that he had buried his blade between Bryce’s ribs. There was no plan, no mustering of fortitude. There wasn’t even a decision. The action escaped him like flatulence.

Bryce turned around slowly. It took every bit of his remaining energy. He was depleted. Life was fleeing from him rapidly, and with it, all care. Gabriel had clearly let go of the sword shortly after the unscheduled impalement, for the blade followed Bryce as he turned, hanging in front of him like a carrot dangling before a donkey.

Bryce looked at Gabriel and smirked, “You stabbed me in the back.”

“Not exactly heroic, I know. I’m not proud.”

Bryce smiled, and a trickle of blood dribbled down his chin, “It’s a start. You utter bastard,” he shook his head, “It’s a start.”

Bryce, the bold, bald, bad-ass companion from a time when life was a good deal simpler, expired before he hit the ground. Nobody would ever call it a good death, but it was a death that was due to him long ago.

“Did you just kill a guy?” Vish asked, halfway between impressed and actually asking.

“Yes, Vish, it would appear I did.”

“How did it feel?”

Gabriel exhaled, hard, “Let’s hope that’s the first and last time.”

“Look out!” Lydia shouted, as the snapped end of a halberd followed her warning.

The tip of the halberd caught Kyk in the shoulder as he snuck up on Gabriel, stopping him in his tracks. The magrain faltered, but his wound did not seem too severe.

That is, at first.

An arrow joined the halberd, and then a second arrow.

As Kyk stumbled back from the shots, Bling took out his legs. With the magrain lying on his back in the dirt in front of her, she stabbed at the creature’s comparatively soft and exposed belly. She stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed, until Gabriel and Vish finally managed to tear her from her massacring.

“Nooo! Kyk!” Vish cried out.

The mind-mapper was not given an opportunity to mourn. Holding Bling back from finishing a job, already pretty well done, was taking all of his and Gabriel’s strength. It was hard to think of Bling as a person at that moment. She had been hurt, and so she was doing what any wounded animal would do - she was fighting as if her life depended on it. She was purely feral.

Behind them, Lydia and the elf were bringing their dance to a close. Lydia streamed sweat and panted like a wolf. The elf was still as energetic and unphased as ever. A fancy bit of swordplay from Lydia had cost the elf his halberd, but that was no matter. The elf was a patient creature, and over a long enough period of time, his victory was assured. He hadn’t even bothered to draw another weapon. There was no point, he was wearing the warrior-woman down effectively enough simply by dodging her blows. He had, however, taken note of the casualties among his party. As he and Lydia circled, the masked assassin took the opportunity to glance over her shoulder. He looked first at Bryce, next at Kyk, and finally at Hubert. Nothing he saw appeared to bother him, but it did help him make up his mind.

After a few more dodges, dips, ducks, dives and dodges, the elf took a few steps back, apparently content that his services were now rendered obsolete. Wherever the elf’s loyalty lay, it clearly was not here. He wasn’t about to leave without a little parting gift though. When he was four or five paces from Lydia, he unlatched his crossbow, pre-loaded with a barbed bolt, and levelled it.

Lydia hated ranged weapons. If you were fast enough you could block the swing of an axe, or the jab of a sword, but even the quickest human warrior could not dodge an arrow or bolt. That didn’t mean she was defenceless. Lydia turned her body side on, making herself as small a target as possible, and held her bastard sword level with her face. At this range there was no question whether or not the elf would hit her, it was just a matter of how much damage he would do, and whether or not it would be fatal.

The elf stared Lydia down as she held her stance. She was shifting her body subtly with the twitches of his hand, ensuring she never left him a clean shot. He cocked his head, apparently amused by this, and then fired.

Lydia couldn’t believe it; the elf had missed! The arrow had darted straight past her hip, missing the opening at the side of her breastplate entirely. She couldn’t believe her luck.

That was that. With something that might have been a shrug, the elf returned his crossbow to his belt, and stalked away into the night. Within moments he was indistinguishable from the trees.

When she was quite convinced that the elf was not coming back, Lydia turned to the rest. The peaceful park was in disarray. On her left, Hubert was rolling around in agony, tenderly trying to keep his injured leg elevated without disturbing the arrow he didn’t dare touch. Across from her, Gabriel and Vish were restraining Bling, who was slathering over a pair of dead bodies. And in front of her…

“Oh no,” Lydia gasped.

The others didn’t hear her at first. They were busy with their own challenges.

“Natasha, look at me! It’s over, Natasha. It’s over!” Gabriel was saying on loop.

It took Lydia a few tries before she could make herself heard over the captain’s mantra.

“Guys!” the warrior shouted, “Guys!”

“What, Lydia? We’re kind of busy.”

“It’s Figo.”

“What about…” Gabriel frowned and looked over his shoulder, “Oh no.”

Gabriel and Vish both turned and ran back to the archer. The sudden change in atmosphere penetrated Bling’s madness, and she too turned to see what had suddenly demanded her brother’s attention.

Gabriel knelt down next to the fallen hunter, his pale face a mute imitation of the moon that still shone in the sky. His eyes were open to the stars, and his lips were the same ashen colour as his cheeks.

Gabriel was looking, but was incapable of seeing. He turned to Lydia for answers.

“What happened?”

“Shot through the heart.”

“And?”

“You’re too late,” Lydia shrugged gently.

“No. No, we can’t be,” Gabriel said, “Vish, do something! Put his soul in Hubert’s body or something. I don’t know. Do something!”

“I can’t, Gabriel,” the mind-mapper said softly, “He’s gone.”

Gabriel searched Figo’s face for inspiration. He was struck by how young the archer looked, and how innocent.

“The crypt keeper!” Gabriel said urgently, “We have to take him to the crypt keeper! He brought Lance back; he must be able to bring Figo back!”

Lydia’s voice broke slightly when she said, “No, Gabriel. You saw Lance. That man suffered every second he was here. That’s no way to live, and it’s,” she swallowed, “no way to die.”

“But Lance didn’t want to be here. Figo will want to be! And it hasn’t been all that long. It’s different! It’s different!” Gabriel tugged at Figo’s arm, trying in vain to lift his fallen friend.

“Gabriel,” Lydia placated, “let him go.”

Gabriel was still tugging when Bling appeared at his side. Far from helping her brother, Natasha looked down at the young man that had joined them back in Gladstone, and sunk to her knees. The tears on her cheeks were plain for all to see as she studied Figo’s face one last time. Then, content that the image was burned into her limited memory, she slumped forward on to his chest, and wept freely.

With his sister’s open acknowledgement of Figo’s death, Gabriel found it increasingly hard to hide from the truth. His friend was gone. He was lost to them forever.

Vish snorted from behind Gabriel, “Do you think his mum is still going to let us crash with her?”

Gabriel turned slowly.

He turned very slowly.

He punched Vish square in the jaw.

“Ow! What was that for?” the mind-mapper demanded, rubbing his face.

“You heartless, ignorant, bastard,” Gabriel said, hammering open-fisted blows at Vish’s chest and arms.

“Geez, cut it out!”

“He was your friend!” Gabriel said, tears flinging from him with each strike. They were not strong hits, and they lacked any technique whatsoever, but they were heartfelt. They were desperate.

“Stop it! I know!”

“He cared about you!”

“I know, for gods’ sake!”

Gabriel’s punches had changed to slaps now, and what little power they had was waning even further as his sorrow began to speak more than his anger, “Not everything is a fucking joke, you heartless, monstrous, psychopathic, soulless-”

“I know!” Vish snapped, and his words echoed off the manor behind him and cut deep into the night.

Gabriel realised then that this was the first time he had ever heard Vish shout. He let his arms swing to his sides, as lifeless as Figo’s.

Vish looked at the dirt, then into the distance, and then back at the dirt.

“I know, alright,” Vish said, “It’s just… It’s just I don’t know what to say. It’s too big, Gabriel. It’s too big. I can’t… I just can’t…”

The captain raised his fist once more. Vish didn’t flinch though, he just waited for a blow that never came.

Gabriel tried to hold on to his anger, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he knew that he felt the same. Vish had said it true.

It was too big.