Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 15 of 57

Damian dragged the tall man into the trees while the yard roared behind them. Torches spread out along the wall. Rolo ran ahead, quick and low, kicking a rope across the path to trip the first men through the gate. Two fell hard. She flipped over a stump and vanished into the dark, then reappeared at Damian's side. "They'll spread out and box us," she panted. "Keep him quiet and keep moving." They reached a dry gully past the last torchlight. Damian pushed the master down against a rock and pressed the blade under his jaw. The pursuit had lost them for now. He heard boots fade left, then right. He had waited three months for this. His father dead. His mother scarred. The man who ordered it knelt under his hand. "Do it," the tall man said. His voice stayed flat. "You crossed all that road. So finish it." Damian's grip tightened. Then the man spoke again, quieter. "But know the truth first. I didn't hate your father. I never knew his name. A man paid me to send the killer. I took the coin. That's all it was to me. Coin." Damian stared. "You killed him for money." "For money," the man said. "Kill me and you kill a hired hand. The one who wanted your father dead is still out there, and you'll never find him without me." Rolo crouched close, watching Damian's face in the dark. "Damian," she whispered. "His hands are shaking. Look at him. Killing him won't undo your house." Damian looked. The master's eyes were wet. Not a mastermind. A tool. Damian remembered the ravine, the killer disarmed at his feet, how he had chosen to lower the blade then too. His teacher's words came back. Rage compromised the strike. A clean mind chose. He breathed the way she had drilled him. The yard, the torches, the fear all blurred, then sharpened. His hand steadied. He pulled the blade away from the man's throat. "I'm not your killer," Damian said. "I won't die a hired hand's death like my father did." He hauled the man to his feet by the collar. "You live. But you talk. You name the one who paid you, and you name the masked man who did it." The tall man let out a shaking breath. "There's a name I can give," he said. "But he's the reason your killer still breathes." Horns sounded across the fortress wall. The pursuit was regrouping. Rolo grabbed Damian's sleeve. "Later. They're circling back." Damian shoved the master ahead of him down the gully. He had spared the man who ordered his father's death. He had not gotten his revenge. He had gotten something harder to carry: a live witness, a road that ran further than he thought, and a name still waiting at the end of it.