business outside – Vocho could hear the click and clang of blades, and Kacha flinging barbed insults that the stoic and ever-so-noble Egimont wouldn’t deign to answer – the magician would have had time to prepare. He didn’t seem drunk like the rest, in fact he seemed distressingly alert.
Vocho approached, blade ready in the Icthian style. Free form and ready for anything seemed best at this point, and besides it was his favourite. He advanced slowly but not especially carefully – his forte was the sudden, impulsive move that was frowned on in the guild but would also catch his opponent off guard.
The magician, if that’s what he truly was, held up his bloodstained hands in a gesture that looked like a yield. Vocho didn’t trust it for a second. Another step forward and his blade hovered over the man’s throat.
“My money or a hole in my head, I understand,” the man said. Odd sort of accent, sort of hard and sibilant at the same time, the voice soft but with a crackling undertone that shivered all the hairs on Vocho’s neck.
“That’s the idea,” Vocho said and arranged his feet so he’d have the perfect balance should he need to thrust. He’d never been one for killing for killing’s sake, but he’d not shy away if it was necessary. And a magician – it could be very necessary, if he wanted to live out the night. “What have you got? No, no dipping in your own pockets, thanks. I’m a thief not an idiot.”
The magician inclined his head in agreement. “So I see. I have nothing that would be any value to you, I assure you. A few papers, the clothes I wear. Quills and pens and scalpels for my work, you understand.”
A quick movement of his hand that drew Vocho’s eye, a hand scarred beyond belief but in a bizarrely beautiful sort of way. Dark patterns flowed across knuckles, symbols etched there by who-knew-what sorcery. They seemed to move on their own, those patterns, a flow that took the eye and caught the brain, made him follow them like a starving dog following its master. An itch started between Vocho’s shoulder blades, familiar and yet not, and turned to a burn.
“Nothing for you,” the magician said. “Except I may have to kill you. With the utmost regret, of course.”
“Of course.” The patterns shifted, became scenes of blood and murder, of headless bodies and sightless skulls, of days of glory in the guild sparring arena that led Vocho’s head off into odd, dark dreams. The voice sounded more and more familiar but he was past caring, too wrapped up in what the hands were showing him. The burning on his back grew worse, made sweat pop up all along his lip and his hand slick on the hilt of his blade. Frighteningly familiar, yet he couldn’t remember – and did it matter, when those patterns were drawing him in?
A shout from outside, a curse from Kacha and then Eggy calling out an odd word, a name perhaps? A plea for help, certainly. The sounds snapped Vocho back to himself, just in time to see the magician dip a pen into a pot of… of blood. Let’s not be shy here, that’s blood… and begin a new pattern on his outstretched palm.
The magician was quick, but Vocho had made his name being the quickest man in the duelling guild, so fast he could stab a man and put away his sword before anyone had seen him move. Well, almost that quick. Maybe the magician wasn’t expecting him to be so fast, maybe he thought Vocho was still hypnotised by the flowing patterns, maybe he didn’t expect anyone to attack him at all – magicians were renowned for their arrogance. Whichever, he wasn’t expecting a sword to run him through. Even so, he surprised Vocho by almost getting out of the way – so fast he blurred, but the point still caught him. Just not in the neck. Instead, the sword went straight through the meaty top part of the man’s shoulder and pinned him to the side of the carriage.
The magician let lose a stream of words in a language Vocho didn’t have a hope of understanding. Blood bubbled from the wound – Vocho needed to finish this and quick, before the magician used the blood to finish Vocho. Another thrust, quick as the first, and the magician was too busy grabbing something out of a pocket to move. The blade