Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 52 of 57

The killer knelt on the fair ground, bleeding from his sword arm. Damian stood over him with the blue stone catching the morning light. "There is one above me," the man had said. Damian needed the name. But the killer's eyes had gone hard and quiet, the way a man's do when he has decided to say nothing more. Rolo crouched near the stakes, watching the tree line. "He talked once," she said. "He won't talk again for free. Look at him." Damian pressed the point to the killer's collar. "The name of the man who sent you. Give it, or you die here." The killer laughed through his teeth. "You think there was another. There wasn't. I give the orders. I answer to no one. Kill me and the trail dies too." He was testing Damian, feeling for the second thread, the master above him. He wanted Damian to believe the chain ended at his own throat. Damian held still. He had chased handlers and masters for months. He knew the pattern of a lie that hides one more man. The killer's earlier words had slipped out in defeat, before his pride recovered. "You already told me there was someone," Damian said. "You don't decide alone. You take coin like the rest." A soft sound came from the brush. A cat stepped out between the ropes, gray and long-furred, its eyes bright green. Faint green lines glowed along its coat in the dim light. It walked to the killer and pressed against his leg, unafraid of the blood. The killer's face changed. For one breath, he reached to touch the animal. Damian saw the crack in him. "That's his," Rolo said softly. "A man alone doesn't keep a thing he loves." Damian lowered his blade a finger's width. "You lie about the man above you. You don't lie about who feeds this cat." He crouched to the killer's level. "I don't want your life. I want the name. Give it, and you keep breathing. You keep the cat." The killer's hand curled in the gray fur. His shoulders dropped. The last of the fight went out of him. "There is a house," he said. "North and high, past the ridge road. A man in it pays for the runed blade to fall. He gave me you. He gave the marks their coin too." He looked up. "His name is not mine to sell cheap, but I've bled it away already." He spoke the name. Damian held it in his mind and did not repeat it aloud. Damian stood. His raven dropped from a branch and settled on his wrist. He looked at the beaten man, the cat, the ropes he had refused to fight among. "You live," he said. "Ride away and stay gone." The killer gathered the cat and limped into the trees. Rolo let out a breath. "One man left," she said. "The last one." Damian turned north.