He lunged, stabbing, and Bedeckt caught the blade in his partial fist, pulling it aside.
Bedeckt grinned ruin and chopped the man down, splitting his skull and neck to the breast bone. The corpse toppled away, dragging the sword with it. Three feet of razor sharp steel slid through Bedeckt’s hand like fire.
Kot stared at Bedeckt from atop Zukunft, small eyes unblinking. He grunted once and stood. Grinning—for the first time showing emotion—he stooped to collect his cudgel.
Shite. The idiot looks happy. That’s the last thing Bedeckt wanted to see. Apparently Kot liked killing even more than he liked rape.
Bleak fear shredded Bedeckt’s rage like a tornado through a tent village. Emptiness and devastation remained in its wake. He’d seen men like this before. Kot felt no rage, needed no killing frenzy. He never lost control. Kot was a cold, calculating killer. He’d snuff a man as soon as crush a fly and with the same lack of empathy.
Bedeckt’s axe hung heavy, tried to drag him back to the mud. His knees wobbled, threatened to give.
I’ve been run through the gut, kicked and beaten. I can’t fight this man, he’ll end me.
Bedeckt glanced at his side. Fresh blood leaked from under the leather straps binding his filthy sleeping roll over the wound. His own gore soaked him from armpit to knees. If he couldn’t smell the festering rot it was because that damned officer kicked his nose flat. Again. His head rang and buzzed, a hollow bell filled with swarming hornets threatening to drown his vision in black.
I can’t stand against this mountain.
Kot took his time approaching. He stepped over Zukunft, ignoring her as she kicked at him and grabbed at his legs, trying to slow him. He was stone, a wall of muscle with a hunting cat’s single-minded will to kill. Nothing would deflect him from his purpose. Bedeckt knew this man, knew his kind. Such a monomaniacal fixation defined its reality.
This was exactly the right fight to run away from. He’d done it dozens of times, more than he could count. He ran in Sinnlos, and ran from the Therianthropes in Neidrig. Sometimes, running was life.
Bedeckt glanced over his shoulder and knew helpless anger. Thick mud sucked at his boots. Kot’s attention was fixed. The bastard would follow. No way an old man with bad knees and a festering gut wound would outrun him. Returning his attention to Kot, he saw Zukunft huddled in the muck, collecting together the torn rags of her clothes. Once the brute killed Bedeckt, he’d return to have his way with her. He’d kill her. Not on purpose, and through no malice or forethought. She simply wouldn’t survive his attentions. Kot would literally rape her to death.
“It’s on my list,” said Bedeckt, hefting his axe. Gods it was heavy.
Kot cocked his head but said nothing as he moved closer.
“You don’t hurt women,” said Bedeckt. “You don’t hurt children.”
Kot looked confused, like he couldn’t possibly see the point of such a list.
But protecting women and children was never on the list.
Was it on the list now? Bedeckt didn’t know. The list had somehow become blurred, indistinct. It was supposed to be the few things he wouldn’t do, the few crimes he would not commit. It was easier than listing the ones he would. How had the stupid list brought him to this?
“Guilt, you goat-sticking moron,” said Stehlen.
“Shush,” said Bedeckt and Kot finally blinked, pausing in his approach.
“This is the best chance you’re ever going to get,” said Stehlen. “Turn and run you stupid old drunk.”
“I can’t,” said Bedeckt.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Nowhere to run. Nothing to run to.”
Kot watched Bedeckt through narrowed eyes, suspicious.
“More stupid old man philosophy,” said Stehlen. Then she spat on his boot.
Bedeckt threw his axe with deadly precision.
Kot ducked under the throw. Again expressionless he resumed stalking his prey. Tiny eyes watched Bedeckt, alert for tricks.
Sorry, that was it.
The cudgel, a bar of solid iron with a jagged and rusting iron head the size of Bedeckt’s meaty fist, swung in Kot’s hand like it was nothing. The brute grinned, clearly imagining what Bedeckt’s brains would look like spattered all over the nearby trees. He stopped two paces from Bedeckt, easily within killing distance. He examined Bedeckt’s skull as if deciding which part to hit with an eye for causing maximum carnage.
Lunge now, while he’s deciding how to kill you.
Bedeckt drew his long knife with his half-hand, fumbling, and dropping it at Kot’s feet. He’d drawn that knife that way a thousand times and not once dropped it. Glancing at his hand he stared in dumb fascination at what remained. Where the hells is my finger? He hadn’t felt its loss. Another part of me gone back to the mud. His forefinger and thumb were all that remained.