Valor and Violence

Elizabeth charged through the narrow cobbled streets as a miserable drizzle drifted from the sky, a throng of guards hot on her tail. She shot around a corner and slipped on the slick stones, slamming hard into a shopfront door, the impact knocking the sabre from her hand.

“Halt, murderer!”

She looked up, grimacing against the pain lancing through her shoulder, to find a trio of watchmen before her. They were blinking hard against the rain, fingers tightening around their halberds as they advanced.

Fuck me.

It had been harder to shake the guards than she expected. It felt like every watchman in the city was actively hunting her. She had carved through dozens, but they just kept coming and she was slowing down, her blows growing sluggish as the individual pain from each cut and bruise coating her body had coalesced into a pervasive, distracting throb. With a hiss of frustration, she retrieved the sabre and lurched into an unsteady charge.

The trio broke into a run as well, poleaxes held out before them, presenting a wall of glinting steel. With a roar Elizabeth surged forward, anger and bloody intent lending her limbs a temporary burst as her strides lengthened, her boots striking the road kicking sprays of water into the air behind her. She didn’t slow as she crashed into the men, swiping her blade across the halberds and knocking them aside. She kept her momentum going, spinning as she darted inside their guard, her sabre sweeping across an exposed throat, a spray of arterial blood spurting from the wound her reward. She pushed past the dying guard as he dropped, but a poleaxe whistled through the air at her head and she threw herself backwards, time seeming to slow as the heavy steel axe shrieked past a bare inch above her nose.

She grunted as she hit the ground, rolling up into a defensive guard just in time to parry a thrust. She snatched the haft and pulled, catching the watchman off guard, and he tumbled forward onto her waiting blade. With a cry of effort, she threw the body at the remaining guardsman and he went down under the weight of his compatriot. Before he could disentangle himself, she leapt atop the mess, pinning his chest beneath her knees as she rained blow after blow onto his face. She didn’t stop until well after he had stopped moving, her chest heaving and knuckles throbbing as blood ran from his mangled face, mixing with the rainwater as it flowed into the gutters.

“B-bloody Pit, woman. You’re t-t-terrifying,” a voice said from somewhere off to her side. Elizabeth looked around, fatigue weighing down her eyelids as she peered through the haze to spot a shadowy figure lurking in an alleyway, just a few meters from where she was crouched. She took a second to steady her breathing, then clambered to her feet, squaring off against the newcomer. He immediately threw his hands up, shaking his head vigorously.

“Oh! No, no d-don’t do that!”

Wait a minute…

“You!” Elizabeth screeched, advancing on the figure. “You’re the little shit that stole my pistol!”

“W-well, y-yes. I s-s-suppose I d-did,” the urchin replied, his stutter growing exponentially worse as the panic rose in his voice. “I-I d-didn’t know what it was!”

“I’m still gonna gut you!”

“N-no! P-p-please! I came to h-help you!”

“What makes you think I want or need your help?”

Elizabeth knew her question lacked substance despite the venom imparted by her pain and fatigue. She was at the end of her tether. From the urchin’s silence and the way he awkwardly looked aside as he scratched at his arm, he could see that as well, but wasn’t sure how to say that to the supremely pissed off assassin. At least, in such a way that wouldn’t see him dead within seconds. Elizabeth sighed and pushed past him, the young man yelping in fear and surprise as she brushed him aside and stepped into the alleyway.

“Alright, I assume there’s an escape route back here somewhere?” she asked, looking around.

“Y-yes! Right this way,” he said, bustling a little deeper into the alley and dropping to his hands and knees. He started feeling around, trying the edges of a few different stones as he muttered to himself. Outside the alleyway, the sounds of the pursuing watch grew louder, and Elizabeth’s impatience peaked.

“Will you hurry this up? We don’t have long!”

“R-right you are. It should b-be- aha! Here it is!”

He strained for a moment, his fingers curled around the edges of a particularly large cobblestone before it came away from the road, trailing a length of rope fixed to its underside. With a lot of grunting and stuttered swearing, he dragged it aside, then stood and backed away, proudly gesturing to a small hole in the road. Elizabeth approached it, staring warily down into the black depths. No matter how she strained her eyes, though, she couldn’t see anything within.

“You expect me to just, hop in? I’ve got no idea what’s down there.”

“It’s nothing b-bad! Well, not as bad as the w-watch, at least. It’s a secret entrance to the… uh, s-s-sewer.”

Elizabeth fixed him with a blank stare.

“Please tell me you’re pulling the piss, mate.”

“It’s a-alright! The actual sewer channel is d-deeper than the walkway running alongside it. You’ll drop a couple of m-metres onto brick and then we can just stroll on our m-merry way. The watch will never think to check down there.”

As he spoke he gave Elizabeth the most endearing, beaming smile she had ever seen. She closed her eyes with a sigh and massaged them with her thumb and forefinger.

“Alright, but if this is a trap, I’ll make sure you die first.”

The urchin’s smile disappeared, replaced with pale shock as Elizabeth stepped into the hole. Just like the street rat had said, she dropped for a couple of metres before her feet hit smooth brick. In a drastic departure from what he promised, however, her feet broke through about a foot of water first.

She gagged as the stench of a city’s waste assaulted her senses, the urge to puke becoming almost overpowering as something softy and spongy bumped against her leg, pulled along by a surprisingly strong current. She took a couple of sloshing steps forward to allow her incompetent saviour to drop in as well. He slipped through the hole, then dangled from the cobblestone’s rope for a few moments, kicking his legs as he tried to shift the heavy rock back into place. With a thunk, it slotted back into its original spot, and the urchin let go, his triumphant chuckle giving way to a groan as his feet splashed into the river of effluent.

“Oh, s-sorry. I think the rain might have flooded the d-drainage channel,” he said, the apology clear in his voice even though Elizabeth couldn’t see shit through the sudden impenetrable darkness.

“You think?” Elizabeth said as her eyes brimmed with tears at the smell.

The urchin gave a half-hearted chuckle in reply. “Y-yes, well… Anyway, if you’ll give me a m-moment.”

There was the sound of clothes rustling in the dark, then the click click of striking flint before light blossomed in the tunnel. Elizabeth blinked against the harsh light, her vision quickly adjusting to reveal the thief standing proudly before her, a nervous smile on his face illuminated by the torch in his hand.

“There! M-much better!” he said. “Shall we?”

He turned and started slogging against the current, but Elizabeth stopped him by snatching his collar.

“Not so fast. First things first, where is my pistol?”

“O-oh, r-r-right. The ‘p-pistol’. That I s-stole. Yes.”

“For your sake, I hope you aren’t about to tell me you sold it.”

“N-n-no! Not at all! I just d-d-don’t h-have it, right now.”

“That’s unfortunate. It’s also unfortunate I’m unarmed at the moment, as I’m going to have to drown you in sewerage. Nasty way to go, you have my condolences.”

“W-w-ai-”

His protests were drowned out, quite literally, as Elizabeth kicked his feet out and threw him into the water, deftly snatching the torch from his hand as he fell. He splashed about, trying to regain his feet but Elizabeth planted a boot on his chest and pressed down hard, driving his head back below the surface. His hands scrabbled against her leg, his fingers curled into claws as he dragged them against her trousers, trying to find purchase. It was honestly a little sad.

This must be what it feels like to drown a puppy?

Elizabeth sighed. This wasn’t her. Sure, he had stolen from her, but he had also saved her. And she wasn’t a murderer. Well, actually she was. Technically, she was a mass murderer, but she wasn’t a sadist. Drowning the lad in shit? That was poor form, even for her. Her face twisted up in confusion while the boy thrashed beneath her foot. Why was she doing this? It wasn’t like her to get this angry. Her chin dipped, her eyes staring sightlessly as the water frothed below her.

A phantom pain started in her cheek where the Master had struck her, and she raised a hand to the smarting skin. Somewhere in the back of her head, a chorus of voices snickered.

Poor dog. It’s not fun being struck by the hand that feeds, is it?

Elizabeth shook her head, wishing the voice away. Was that really why she was so unbalanced? Because the boss hit her? It was just a little tap and a harsh word; he had even apologised after! They were good, she was good. He was good. There was nothing to worry about, she just had to clear her head, maybe knock the top off a few frothies and get a good night’s rest. The job was done. She could head home, and he’d be so happy everything would be forgiven and forgotten.

She gave a resolute nod and decided she would stop moping about the misunderstanding. First thing first, though, she had to stop drowning the poor lad who had saved her. She looked down at the water, gently undulating with the echoes of his struggles. Struggles that had ceased sometime during her navel gazing.

Oh, shit.

“Uh… you alright down there, little buddy?” she asked. She tentatively lifted her boot off the still chest and bent closer to the water.

There was a spray of water and a flash of movement as the urchin seized the opportunity, turning her own tactics against her as he swept her feet out from under her. She had enough presence of mind to keep the torch raised as she fell, though she almost dropped it in shock as the first burst of icy, grubby, particulate filled water shot up her nose. The jarring temperature change as frigid sewerage flooded over her body caused her to inhale, filling her throat with the disgusting fluid. She was on her feet in an instant, doubled over and coughing up the rancid mixture as she swore to the Pantheon on high.

“You’re dead!” she spat, then looked up to find the rapidly retreating form of the urchin disappearing down the tunnel. She took off at an awkward approximation of a sprint through the sludge. “Oi! Get back here!”

“Nooooo!” the boy wailed back. “D-d-don’t kill me, please! I have your pistol at my h-home!”

Elizabeth stopped in her tracks. Was he fucking serious? He had told her he didn’t have anywhere warm to go to. It was why she’d given him the money!

“You mean to tell me you aren’t even fucking homeless!”

The urchin yelped and redoubled his efforts as he slogged away through the sewer. Elizabeth growled, a deep, primal sound in her throat as she set off after him.

“You get back here!”