I finally got round to doing a Six of Crows fic, and here it is!
Tell me what you think of it - if you want me to continue with Kaz's time afterwards (or before), just drop it in a review.
Kaz Rietveld died when he was nine years old.
He was counting. He did that sometimes, when he was lonely, when he was scared, when he was bored. The numbers fitted comfortably in his head, and he liked them. Numbers were always the same. They didn't trick or lie or hurt. They were just numbers, and they were reliable.
He shivered, feeling the cold blow right through his bootless feet. At least he had Jordie's new jacket. He curled up tighter against his brother, who seemed to be shaking uncontrollably even in sleep.
One, two, three.
He was scared. Jordie had always been there for him, but now he lay pitifully on the cold, wet ground with nothing to protect him but a shirt, and he hadn't moved for hours. He hadn't stood for three days. Anything he ate came back up in an instant.
And Kaz watched, because he didn't know what to do. It was meant to be Jordie's job to look after him when he was ill, not the other way round.
He was just the little brother.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
They had been huddled in their pile of broken boxes in an alleyway for four days. Twice they had hidden from drunkards or gangs who had wandered into their little hideaway. Twice the boys had gone unnoticed. Kaz knew they wouldn't last much longer.
Knew they wouldn't even survive the night, most likely.
Kaz knew, and he didn't say anything, because Jordie wouldn't listen. Jordie just lay there, staring or sleeping or shaking.
Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine.
He lay there for a very long time.
Four-hundred-and-twenty-five, four-hundred-and-twenty-six, four-hundred-and-twenty-seven.
The rain pattered on the cobbles, pooling on the floor and seeping through his clothing. The cold rushed up to meet him with a breath of wind. The night closed above his head as the light faded. The faraway belltower tolled eight bells.
Five hundred, five-hundred-and-one, five-hundred-and-two.
Kaz, still counting, managed to scare himself to sleep with thoughts of murderers and thieves and the Queen Lady's Plague.
He squinted into the scalding light. The sea of jurda that surrounded him was burnt orange, like caramel and tangerines and fire. It was warm and inviting and bright, so beautiful to Kaz, whose eyes had become accustomed to the dull greys of Ketterdam.
The jurda was orange, the sky was blue, and the sun was yellow. He relaxed. Home. He didn't wonder why he was there - he was just happy that he was, and that everything would be fine now.
It had all been a terrible dream.
He waded through the field of fiery crop, hoping to find Jordie or Da working.
"Da?"
He listened, but all he could hear was the rustling of the grasses.
"Jordie?"
And this time he heard something. A low rumble to his right, and a faint crunching, like leaves in Autumn. Was Jordie playing a game?
He tried to get there, but the jurda grew tall and tangled. He thrashed about, trying to throw it off him, to break free. He was drowning, and it seemed to just grow taller as he sunk into the papery grasses, and it cut his face and hands, little stinging pains peppering his skin.
"Da! Jordie!"
And then the fiery orange was real fire. For a split second he welcomed the warmth, before fear took hold and he screamed and screamed and screamed. The fire was raging all across the fields, a blanket on angry red flames that lit the air with showers of sparks.
And he couldn't escape. It clung to him with fiery fingers, trapped him inside its scorching cage, and scalded his pale skin.
The world was a blur of colour, and now the jurda had burnt away, and Kaz broke from the line of crop into a section that had already been cut. The fire burnt out behind him.
An old plough stood to his side, but was slightly off kilter, leaning like there was something beneath it.
Kaz ambled forwards again, and he saw something was underneath. It was a beautifully pure red, like the flower that Da kept on the windowsill, the blossoms spread across the ground.
He frowned. The flower hadn't been crushed, had it?
From this distance, he could see that the petals were scattered across a large area, and spilling from …
He stepped closer.
What was that? A new pot? A clump of earth? But it was a curious shape and was very big and it was wearing his father's overalls.
He felt his stomach lurch. "Da?"
The world went silent. For a moment the grass went still and the birds stopped singing and everything was cruelly serene.
"Da?" His whispered voice cut through the silence like a scythe.
He ran forwards, kneeling at the body.
Then he realised that this had already happened. Da had died months ago, under a plough.
Kaz hadn't been there at that time, though.
And then there were the screams.
Ma's screams, like when she had been very ill and before she'd gone. She had screamed on and off for days and days. At the end, she had screamed all night long - high and piercing and crazed - and then it had stopped and Kaz had never heard her again.
Da's screams joined the cacophony, lower and twisted and so full of pain and surprise and sadness. Like when Kaz had been playing in the fields, and they'd heard the sharp screams from a mile away. Those screams had stopped, too. Kaz had never heard his father again either.
Then Jordie. Why was Jordie hurt? He moaned and cried out and it was dull and dreamy and feverish. But Kaz had never heard Jordie scream before. Why was Jordie screaming too?
And then the sun stopped burning and the jurda sunk into the cobbled ground and the sky faded to a stone grey. The plough became a pile of broken boxes and the tickle of the grass became the unpleasant chill of rainwater on skin.
And Da? Da became Jordie, and he was screaming, screaming, screaming.
He was screaming the same screams from the dream, and it rang through the cold, wet air, echoing off the grubby walls of the alleyway.
He screamed for what felt like hours. At midnight, the plague bell sounded, more urgent and harsh than the usual low ringing of twelve bells.
It mixed with Jordie's shrieks and together the air was full of sounds of pain and death.
When the bell ended, Jordie was silent.
Jordie wasn't even shaking anymore. He wasn't feverish anymore. He wasn't moaning or screaming - he hadn't since twelve bells last night. Kaz wondered why Jordie's flesh was so cold and hard. Kaz wondered if he'd ever hear Jordie again - maybe, like their parents, the screams had silenced him.
Kaz liked Jordie's voice. It was round and smooth and full of the slightest dips. He spoke so reassuringly. Jordie's voice was the only voice that really made Kaz smile.
But if he didn't speak again…. would he disappear? That's what happened to Ma. The screaming for days and days and the fever and then she had stopped and was gone. Would Jordie disappear? Kaz hoped not. Then he'd be alone.
Though he did hope to find Saskia again and give her the ribbon back.
Kaz leaned back onto Jordie, shaking.
He felt cold, but was sweating, and he couldn't move. His throat itched, and he'd tested his voice - it was all raspy, a nasty grating voice like a villain from a story. He had tried to eat the piece of old bread he'd saved, but found himself throwing it back up.
What was happening?
He didn't know, but he wanted it to all be over.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep against Jordie's cold chest and didn't notice the bodymen as they hauled him away.
Slosh, slosh, slosh.
Splish, splash, splosh.
Pitter patter, pitter patter.
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeaaakk.
Kaz didn't open his eyes. He listened to the sounds, and he liked them. They were soft and soothing, and he was surrounded by soft objects, like rubber cushions. It was like when Da read him stories - full of funny noises and accents.
He smiled. Had Jordie finally woken and found some blankets for them? Was he reading a story? He was very good at the noises.
"Jordie - oh."
He couldn't speak. Not very well, anyway. Yet again, it came as a painful rasp. His throat had swelled up, and he could feel itchy patches on the skin of his neck. he could only just bear to breathe.
He opened his eyes. There were indeed some soft objects around him, and -
Oh.
Oh, Saints.
He yelled, but it sounded like a croak.
He screamed, but it sounded like a grunt.
He cried, and the sobs were great wracking things that shook his body…
And the bodies around him.
All types. Short and small. Zemeni and Suli and Shu. But most were Kerch dockworkers, or thugs, or guards. He spotted the purple stadwatch uniform and what looked like a prison jumpsuit.
And they were pressing into him. Above and below and side to side. He was drowning in them, and they were forcing him down. He struggled for breath. He croaked out another yell. He tried to push them off, but the dead woman on top of him was huge, and the Kaelish man beneath him was rotted and slimy so he kept sinking downwards.
He wept as he lay there, the bloated flesh pushed up against his. His skin crawled at their touch. He shivered when the boat swayed and they knocked into him.
Little Kaz Rietveld was locked into the embrace of an army of corpses, and he wasn't getting out any time soon.
It took a while, but eventually, the boat had swayed violently, and Kaz shoved at the same time as the tide, and finally the woman above him was thrown off.
Her skin came away when he dug his fingers in, breaking apart in his hands.
He retched the moment he broke the surface of the bodies, his already-empty stomach ejecting any last traces of food.
It was then, leaning off the side of the Reaper's Barge, that Kaz looked around, and realised two things.
One: he was standing on a floor of the dead.
The barge was massive, the size off a proper ship - it probably had been a proper ship once - and it was filled with corpses. As he moved, the delicate flesh fell away, and he could feel the rubbery consistency under his bootless feet.
He felt his heart sink when he became aware of the second thing.
The sea stretched out in all directions, a dark splash of colour that hid depths of coldness and despair.
Kaz stared out to sea, and he felt the slightest semblance of hope that he had left drain out of him. He was stuck on the Reaper's Barge, far away from Ketterdam.
He sat down, planning to rest, to sleep, to die, but then he saw.
Jordie.
Jordie was on the top of the body pile, his body just as pale and bloated as the rest, and that's when Kaz knew.
He needed to get out of there, and he'd take Jordie with him.
He choked. He spluttered. He growled. He didn't cry.
He was frantically kicking with his nine-year-old legs, striving for the splodge of black smoke that was Ketterdam, and he would get there. Nobody could stop him.
And Jordie was helping. Jordie had always been there, even then, and he was gone. Dead. Kaz knew that.
In his hands was the body of Jordan Johannus Rietveld.
He rested his elbows on the corpse, and they dug into the puffy flesh, sinking deep into the waterlogged body and securing his hold.
Kaz tried not to think about the fact that his arms were covered in diluted blood. He tried not to realise that the flesh came away under his hands in flaky folds, disintegrating under his touch.
Kaz didn't know how long he had been asleep, but Jordie's body was already beginning to rot, the smell crawling up his nose and the body's skin was slimy and mushy and …
Yes, he tried not to think about that.
He was positive his hands would be stained forever with the blood of his brother. He was sure he'd never be able to touch skin again. He was certain that he'd never live without Jordie.
Kaz didn't think about that. Not much, anyway.
And he wasn't scared. He had to do this, and if he did, he would live. For Jordie.
He counted to himself to pass the time. One, two, three...
He reached the shore after hours and hours; he counted to seventy-thousand-three-hundred-and-eighty-one.
He paddled into the dock. A ladder led out of the empty ships' berth. He climbed up, limbs aching, stomach rolling. He lay on the dock and sighed.
But Jordie's body! He spun around. It was floating off; he would lose it forever. But he knew that if he climbed back in the water, he wouldn't be able to get out.
Jordie was gone forever. He wouldn't receive a burial, not even a burning. Nobody would know of Jordie Rietveld. And Kaz couldn't even bring himself to cry.
A part of Kaz had died with Jordie. He no longer felt the need to think about these things. He just pushed them away and settled a mask on his face. A cold, emotionless, unforgiving mask that he was sure no boy his age should have.
But he wasn't a normal boy. He had changed. He didn't really want Jordie back, because he knew it wasn't needed. He didn't think of his mother's screams, how they had stopped forever - he was long past that. He ignored thoughts of the red blossoms spreading from beneath the plough, his father's body.
He didn't care. It couldn't help him now. Now, he would survive, and he would avenge Jordie.
He would destroy the life of Jakob Hertzoon. Coin by coin. Piece by piece. Brick by brick.
Yes, he liked that. That would be his purpose. Brick by brick.
And he couldn't be Kaz Rietveld anymore. No, that name would remind him of pain and love and other unnecessary things.
He looked around and saw some building equipment with a name printed neatly on the side.
He smiled, and it was cold and unnatural and new. He liked it.
Kaz Rietveld was dead along with his brother. Kaz Brekker had risen out of the ashes.