Nightfall
"Wha- Whoa. . . What's that smell," Shaad groggily questioned, sniffing the air as he woke from his slumber.
"Food. I made a stew," came the rather terse reply.
"Mmph; this is good," Shaad beamed, sipping from the bowl that had been offered him. "This is real good. . . How'd you like to join my crew?"
Overcoming his initial surprise, the young man balked at Shaad's offer. "Thanks, but I already have a job."
"Okay," Shaad accepted with a shrug. "More. . . How long was I out," Shaad inquired as his bowl was refilled.
"A couple o' hours."
"Ungh, I must've expended more energy than I thought." Shaad paused as he handed his bowl back for another serving. "What?"
"Huh?"
"Not you. . . Who? . . Aah, wonder what they want," Shaad groaned, finally standing to his feet and adjusting his fedora.
"What's going on," the courier all but demanded, standing up as well, his gaze jumping between Shaad and the newly arrived Vega.
"There's apparently some city guards headed our way. . . Alright, leave them be. Just meet us at the rendezvous by sunrise."
"Want any stew," the courier asked Vega, extending a bowl to the masked fighter.
"He's fine," Shaad answered, grabbing the bowl and downing its contents in an instant. "More importantly, we need to head out." Shaad had walked past the courier to the pot of stew, Vega disappearing in the time it took to look from one to the other. "The sun's almost down, and the moon'll be unreliable at best in that forest," Shaad continued while consuming the rest of the stew direct from the pot.
"Today's a new moon."
"Just freakin' great. Well, this'll be fun."
"You seem calm for someone who earlier wanted me dead." Shaad's attempt at small talk was a bit glum, but he was getting bored and didn't really care.
"I'm used to forging temporary alliances with enemies."
Shaad smiled without turning around to show it, only glancing over his shoulder enough to get a cursory glance at the chest being lugged along. "Since we're friends, then how 'bout you show me what we moving?"
"No." The response was short and stern, briefly eliciting a frown from Shaad.
"I been wonderin': where you get all the cooking equipment?"
"Always prepared."
"Really?" Shaad groaned an exaggerated, exasperated sigh. "Two words? I'm trying to be nice, here, and that's all ya give me? At least tell me what happened. How'd a good little delivery boy like yourself get beat by some plants.
The wind around them whipped up, stirring the leaves scattered on the ground. The trees provided a hoarse cackle. "Calm down, you idiot!" Shaad snapped. The wind's intensity flared in time with his outburst. Calm soon returned, but not before a stray leaf zipped by the courier, cutting across his cheek like a small knife. "Now, I don't know how. But, certain elements of this forest sense killing intent and it defends itself accordingly. Stay calm, follow my lead, and we make it out of here. Don't, and I carry you out of here. . . Either way, by morning, we'll be out of this damn forest. But, if you make me work harder than necessary. . ."
"The city guards. My boat crashed onto the island's east coast. Somebody must've alerted authorities 'cause when I came to, there were multiple armed guards. I took down the one checking on me, and eliminated the two standing over the package. Forced to flee, I ran into the tree line. They only pursued so far, but I couldn't turn back and the forest itself was a threat, so I went deeper in till I landed where you found me."
"So, -"
"Ssh."
"Wha-, you're the one wh-"
"Ssh," Shaad repeated more directly, reinforcing the instruction with a sharp leer. "I hear someone."
"You sure it ain't an animal?"
"I've spent hours in this forest and haven't seen hide nor hair of - krunch - Nope, that's definitely the sound of boots. By the sound of it, they really over did it. They're moving in groups of two, and there are at least three groups, likely more. . . Stay close."
Shaad and the courier rushed through the forest as fast as they could while still keeping track of their pursuers. Timing it right, they managed to just slip through a gap in the containment net. But, there was no time to revel as Shaad heard a highly unwanted sound nearing them. . . fast.
"Da fuck? Who uses hunting dogs on people," Shaad half shouted in surprise.
"What," the courier questioned, unaware of the impending threat.
"Wait for it; you'll see."
Shaad stopped and took up a defensive stance upon finding even a small clearing, determining running to be a futile act in the thick brush against an animal with his scent and a better sense of their surroundings.
A few short moments later, a brownish-black blur shot from the bushes, headed straight for the courier. Those extra few seconds gave Shaad's eyes just enough time to adjust to the different granules of black that dominated his vision. The courier reflexively pulled up one end of the chest, barely blocking the sudden lunge. The dog-like animal, though, shifted its weight and redirected the charge to Shaad. Shaad's fingers rapped against the hilts of his swords as he instinctively crouched to better confront the agile animal. The young pirate braced for impact as the flickering black mass drew closer in the darkness. But, suddenly that slim shadow Shaad was tracking began to grow in midair. In less than a second, Shaad was looking up as nothing but that shadow monopolized what little he could see, and it was all he could do to remember to cross his swords in front of himself. Still, he was blasted back, a thick tree knocking the wind from him as he was brought to a stop.
In no time, Shaad was back to his feet, and in less time, he lay flat on the ground, shades of black dancing before his eyes, mocking him. It was his own fault for being unprepared, and as he again hopped to his feet, frustration built and anger seeped. Shaad lashed out. His lack of sight rendered it little more than a blind rage, and as his rage increased further, his senses invariably dulled, outside sounds rendered inaudible by the rushing wind.
If not for his tumultuous temper, Shaad would've heard the encroaching footsteps of armored soldiers, but as it stood, he was soon surrounded with more closing in. All the while, the raging winds trapped the men in a whirlwind of leaves more reminiscent of a violently circulating cage of knives.
Kneeling in a field of high-stalked flowers, blood dripped from two gunshot wounds on his right arm. The first, a through and through, ripped through his flesh so fast, he barely felt it thanks to the adrenaline flooding his system, but the second struck bone and floored him. Despite the intense pain, being shot did help him with one thing: to slow down and take inventory of his situation.
It was often an exercise in futility to keep his anger from running amok under normal circumstances, but in this strange wilderness that hot temper was a runaway freight train with no brakes. Shaad kneeled on the ground, fists clenched around the hilts of his two swords, with a heated glare scanning the suffocating darkness. Hearing what sounded like a twig being crunched underfoot, Shaad exploded off the ground with such force that indents in the earth were left behind. Flashing out with his swords, he felt the resistance that only a human body could offer against his blades and heard the satisfying screams of a wounded prey. Experience told him, the job wasn't finished, though. Crossing his left arm to deliver the finishing strike, a bullet struck the raised blade, costing Shaad precious seconds before he was unceremoniously bulled over by a precise rising shoulder into his ribs.
The person didn't feel all that big, but angle and unpreparedness were nonetheless enough to send Shaad careening into the swirling leaves surrounding them, cutting into his back like barbed wire before punching him back into the fray. He was trapped with enemies in front, and a barrier behind. The feeling reminded him of being locked in the cage fighting Vega. It got his blood boiling, but also prompted a deadly calm to descend onto him.
With his foreboding, newfound focus, Shaad heard a distinct bang, muffled to no more than a whisper in the ever-raging wind storm, from his right before feeling the familiar sting of a bullet grazing his arm.
'Four shots, three hits,' Shaad mulled, flexing the fingers of his wounded arm to keep the blood flow running smoothly. 'Somebody's not shooting blind.'
Shaad naturally wore his emotions on his sleeve, a trait that was quickly beaten under control by his dad. Emotions made sheep of men; all control was predicated on emotional control. In line with that idea, Shaad's early life under his father's tutelage was largely built on learning to control his baser instincts lest he be controlled by them. That intense 'tough love' (though neither Shaad nor his father would use that term) did little, however, to curb the youth's temper.
But, while Shaad remained quite susceptible to his temper, he no longer lost himself to it, anger instead serving as an unmatched source of strength and focus aimed at the nearest target. In the darkness that surrounded them, however, the nearest target wasn't such a simple thing to discern. While there were probably any number of ways to sniff out the enemy given time and a plan, strategies weren't a hallmark of Shaad's when flustered. Instead, he tended towards the direct route, and with his own anger and killing intent plus that of the others in the area being somehow turned back on him by the plants and pollen floating about, he definitely wasn't going to delay gratifying his rising bloodlust worrying about a strategy. Instead, he considered simply indulging his base desires in that instant.
'This forest reacted to physically protect itself from me when I was alone, right,' he mentally asked himself.
'Yeah. Why?'
'Now that there's multiple sources of killer intent, it's content just letting us kill each other off. That must mean it's not as worried right now.'
'What are you thinking?'
'I'm thinking we should do a little experiment. Things are about to get real interesting,' Shaad mused, a sinister smirk playing on his lips as the malice and killer intent he exuded suddenly spiked, inciting a violent reaction from the forest around them.
Left with an unconstrained rage and no clear direction, Shaad's mindset was reduced to that instilled in his very instincts. However, due to his very peculiar upbringing that was more helpful than one might initially figure.
《《《 • • • 》》》
"Hah; got ya," a skinny, young Shaad confidently declared from behind a tall figure dressed in a double breasted, black three piece suit with matching hat.
With one sword aimed and ready to pierce the target's heart from behind and the second sword, crossing over the first, rested with blade against the foe's neck, Shaad wrongly let himself revel in the satisfaction of success before a coarse voice resounded from behind him.
"Fail."
Shaad's shoulders slumped, a dour expression taking hold. "That's not fair," the young boy solemnly whined as the dark figure withered before his very eyes, unfazed by the diamond handle of his father's cane pressed firmly enough into his neck to draw a sliver of blood.
"Life's not fair. Now-"
Shaad smirked, the tips of his blades pointed at his father's stomach forcing the cane away to otherwise block the surprise attack. But, the smug self-assurance was short lived as a closed fist slammed onto the top of his head.
"Don't get cocky," his father snarled, though a hint of pride shone on his face. "You still failed to eliminate your target and half his entourage," the older gentleman scolded while the 'dead' men -having easily blocked what otherwise would have been lethal strikes - stood up and relaxed alongside those left untouched.
"My target's a hair's breadth from the end of my blades and the ones I didn't get are in no position to do anything," Shaad defended himself. It was indeed true that from where Shaad was, his father stood between him and any would be enemies without even a clear line of sight. "With my speed, and this close together, anybody else in your position would be as good as dead."
That declaration earned Shaad another swift whack upside the head, this time hard enough to leave a lump and make him forget the situation.
"Ouch!"
"Of the people standing here, you're the weakest one by far. And, even if they were closer to a level where you could take them, it was the flanks you left untouched. . . Okay, say you do kill the leader, then what? While you do that they'll be getting in better position. You already can't attack one without the other striking you from behind."
"Human shield?"
"There's two of them on opposite sides. Even if you could keep the target's dead body between you and one of them, you've lost the element of surprise. Head-on won't be so easy for you."
"Run," Shaad questioned, even more unsure of himself after the terse takedown of his first guess.
"To where," Shaad's father's voice boomed as he spread his arms out wide, motioning to the area around them. "You picked this pass because of the narrow pathway and dearth of escape routes: a rocky hillside to the right and densely packed trees to the left. Try going back and they can cut you off. Take your chances in the trees, and you'll run into the river behind us, the cliff edge deeper in, or be funneled back onto the path up ahead. They can easily circle around either way and wait. That leaves you the option of running straight ahead. Tell me, do you know what's up there?"
The expression on Shaad's face spoke volumes even as he lowered his eyes and dare not speak.
"Exactly," the Baron almost shouted, gripping Shaad's chin and forcing the boy's eyes to meet his. "You've officially become the hunted."
"B-But," Shaad's voice was wrought with nerves as he tried to speak up. "Couldn't I use the moment of surprise after killing the target to split the enemy and make a dash back. There's a dead end ravine just past the bridge and to the left. If I can lure them there -"
"You're assuming they'll hesitate just because you killed the presumed leader. Hired guns won't give pause just because the charge is gone. Besides, any surprise would come after the first body drops. By this point. . . You. Have. Their. Full. Attention." The Baron's words were deliberate. This time, he didn't bother wrenching his son's attention back to him. When he spoke again, though, his voice was softer and his words encouraging.
"You're a smart kid; that's what you got going for ya. You've already internalized all the basic squad formations as well as how to exploit any given one. You just need to learn to read the psychology of people. Take out the head, the body may sputter or it may fall. But, there's not a man on this Earth who won't hesitate when everyone around him -"
《《《 • • • 》》》
"- drops dead. You're all alone now," Shaad taunted the gunman. Pushing his legs to their limit, Shaad literally ran through every squad pattern he knew until he found the right one. Then, the bodies fell one after the other. Even if the gunman could track him in this darkness, the two men each impaled on one of his blades provided perfect cover as he crouched by a tree near the edge, his back to the field, but his ears listening intently.