Daud found it sickeningly funny. He had spent months regretting killing the Empress. He had woken up in the night shivering underneath his thin blankets as nightmares filled his mind. The taste of bile had been ever present in his mouth. And then he was given a chance at redemption.
Delilah. It had taken him six blood filled months to track her down. He was still weary from dealing with the Brigmore Witches. He had saved little Emily Kaldwin from a fate worse than death. He had saved her from being a living puppet,and in doing so he had saved the empire. Only the Outsider and himself knew.
Corvo Attano had escaped from under his Whalers' noses, from under his own nose. He was creeping around the Flooded District. Daud had known where he would be heading. The bodyguard understandably wanted revenge.
Daud had killed the Empress, but he had saved her daughter, and his fate lay in the hands of someone who did not know that.
Corvo had come in while he was using the audiograph player. His mind was heavy with thoughts, and Daud had found that recording them helped tremendously. He had looked up to see Corvo stabbing a Whaler. A sense of déjá vu had filled him. Before being awoken to hear Thomas' report, he had had a dream with a similar scene. In it, he had killed Corvo. How would this play out?
They had both moved like shadows, traversing here and there. Had Daud been a romantic man instead of a practical one he might now be thinking about the way their swords swung through the air. It was a dance to the death, but it looked so graceful.
There had been moments when Daud thought that he would win. He didn't know what Corvo's fate would be if that happened. He didn't know if he would show the Serkonan the mercy he hadn't shown the Empresss. It didn't matter. He had lost. His blade had been knocked away by Corvo. They were so high up that he hadn't heard it clatter onto the stones below.
As the masked bodyguard approached him, Daud could not even think of using his wristbow. The only thing that filled his mind was the desire to laugh. If only Corvo knew what he had done. If only he could tell him that he had saved Emily, but the words wouldn't come out of his mouth.
Death stared him the face. Daud didn't know who had designed the mask, but they had the right ideas. Death, literally in every sense of the word, was staring at him. His throat felt suddenly dry. Terror was something he was familiar with, having inspired it on an almost daily basis, and he knew that he was terrified.
His voice rasped out with one last plea. "I've got one more surprise for you." It wasn't a surprise he had planned. It was a surprise for Daud and Corvo both. And then, after he had spoken, he could hear the Outsider's voice in his head. Yes, he had blood on his hands, but he had worked to wipe it away over the past few months. In some ways he had succeeded, in others he had failed. Now it was time to see if the blood in his hands would be his own or if Corvo would let him go.
Either way, the humor was still there. It was sickeningly funny in the way that a man heading toward the gallows would laugh at a change in breakfast. In getting hard boiled eggs when he had always told his friends that he would die with eggs in his mouth. It was funny in a terrible way.