Sam looked at Drake.
Drake looked at Sam.
Caine looked at the tree behind them in the area between the pair.
Both Caine and Sam had their hands up, ready to fire at whoever moved first. Drake just grinned, and continually curled and uncurled his whip hand. They were each waiting for someone to strike. No one was striking. No one was backing down. Tension simmered, but stayed stagnant. In short, it was a very boring fight.
And then it happened. Drake laughed. Immediately two pairs of flashing eyes were on him and the two things happened simultaneously. Drake folded under the tree, a knee pushed into the hollow of his burnt out chest and belly. Drake slumped under the tree, undead eyes glinting. The sides and stakes were indicated.
Drake's whip hand whipped out from under the tree and swept around their legs. Sam jumped, safe, while Caine went down, cursing. Sam didn't dare burn yet, incase he would burn the tree and let Drake out.
It turns out, he didn't have to. The whip hand receded and proceeded to hold the bole high enough that he could roll out before sending it crashing down again. Sam fired at him again, but this time he missed. The holes had started to heal up again, and Sam was worried. Caine hadn't risen yet, clinging to his ankle with one wrist. The other one wasn't bending the right way when Sam saw it. Not good. It looked broken. Sam guessed Caine had fallen on it. Another tree fell, but Caine couldn't control it, and it landed on Sam's back.
As Sam was watching, Drake's whip hand crept into view. Sam was still watching, with sick fascination, as the whip hand curled around Caine's neck and lifted him off the ground, feet dangling. Drake laughed as Caine's face purpled. His hands flailed about, useless. Then, with a sickening crunch, the hand tightened about the neck and unceremoniously dumped the body to the ground.
Sam shook himself out of the shock and ran over to Caine. One of the last things Caine had managed to do when he was flailing about was lift the offending tree from his back. Caine's face was still purple. He put two fingers to his cartoid artery. No use. Caine was dead. And he would soon be, if he wasn't careful.
As this happened, the whip hand had gone behind Sam. It wrapped about his neck now, but loosely. Drake wasn't going to hang him yet, but he did not want Sam to escape.
Sam cursed himself for thinking only of the future and not the present. He had gone stiff when the cold snake had touched his neck. He had seen Drake hang all too many people, and he was next. But when he was not lifted immediately, he turned around. Drake was there, smirking at him with a glint to his eyes. Sam met them for a long glance. Nothing was said.
Then, slowly, Drake tightens the whip hand and adjusted it so it was under Sam's shaggy hair. Sam was busy burning a hole into Drake, however ineffectual they both knew it would be. Once it constricted Sam's throat sufficiently, Drake lifted his nemesis into the air. Their eyes never looked away as Sam stood on his tip-toes. He couldn't say anything because Drake had thrust the tip into Sam's mouth as a gag. He did not seem pained by Sam's biting it.
Then his feet left the ground, and Sam kicked out, touching nothing. He couldn't scream, couldn't save Caine, couldn't save himself. A little later, Drake lowered the body and purpled face next to his brother, head at each other's feet. Then he skipped away, laughing with delight, towards the town.
When the wild animal kills the sheepdog, it's free to eat the sheep.
Time to the massacre: T-3 seconds.