Lozen hit the ground before she heard the blade fly through where she had been crouching. A sharp pain shot through her legs upon impact, but with nothing broken, she scampered away into the machinery filling the bottom floor. At first her footsteps were a bit too loud and were already echoing between the walls by the time she managed to hide herself behind one of the rundown contraptions.
The sounds of footsteps rushing down the stairs on the other end of her room, but against her expectations, they seemed to dash away from her. She would have thought he was trying to put some space between them if he had a gun and as if turned out, he was doing something smarter than she expected. He closed the door. "We've had to burn down many places." She heard Florentines voice as the one light source she had was covered by the door. "Villages, prisons, forts. So forgive me if I have to ask which one you are from." The sound of blades being drawn from leather following the creaking of the door. After however, everything was plunged into a heart pounding moment of silence.
For a solid minute, not a single sound could be heard. Not the creaking of wood or even the subtle whispering of winds blowing through the cracks in the wall. It was a crisp, solid silence whose presence bore down on Lozens worse than stones compressing her chest. Every little sound felt as if it would echo to the moon and back and as irrational as that sounded, she wasn't going to risk such a mistake. She held her breath even when her lungs clawed at her ribs, but the sound she couldn't suppress was her heart. It beat against her chest like a beacon calling the madmen she was trapped with closer and closer. A part of her desperate to blend into that pure silence wished she could reach into her chest and grip it so tight it would never beat again. Her eyes were adjusting, but she knew she was at a disadvantage in here. She wasn't used to fighting in the dark especially against someone so skilled. And with that fucking pulse in her chest, she'd doubt he wouldn't take long to find her.
"If you have a gun, I don't recommend you use it. There are 134 armed men in the camp, most of which are asleep. They'll have no problem hearing you." Florentine continued, breaking the sacred silence with not just his words, but his tiny footsteps starting to crawl through the room. He was slow, careful, and in Lozen's eyes, posed and prepared. Even his words sounded sharpened to a point like a dagger hiding within an impossibly dark cloak trying to strangle her.
"But I don't want for this to end like that. If you're brave enough to come here, then you deserve a better treatment than drunks would give to dogs." Florentine continued as the striking of a match was heard and then a steady, flickering light steadily filled the room. Creaking steel tipped her off that he must have found a lantern somewhere, a fact that caused her heart to race even faster. "Come out and I promise I'll give you a fighting chance. It'll be the only guarantee I give you." His footsteps were light and sounded as if they barely touched the ground, but Lozen could just barely recognize them in the pure silence. She one the other hand stayed as still as possible and through the small wave of panic rushing through her, tried finding out what to do.
She had the hatchets, knife and her bow, but if Florentines could disarm her when she had a gun, she doubted she'd fair any better with a bow. However, she did have the element of surprise on her hands. Florentine was still looking for her and while his eyes would be peeled on the area in front of him, he'd be less focused on what was behind him. She needed to be quick, light, and more importantly, small. Her bow would have hindered her and swinging it back over her shoulder would have disrupted her outline. So for the moment, she gently laid it on the ground behind the long table she had hidden behind and drew the dagger holstered to her side. "I assume you saw what was upstairs. So I'm guessing you don't need to know what will happen if you stay in the shadows." He continued as he continued creeping towards her position, giving Lozen a better understanding of where exactly he would be coming from. From what she could tell, the rundown machines were arranged in such a way that there were only three paths they could have come from. Two on her right and one in her left, the latter of which he seemed to be taking. So she elected to taking the farthest pathway from him and started crawling down the corridor on the right.
It was only with painstaking precision that she managed to make it as far as she did. Given the state of silence engulfing the mill, even the crunch of dirt beneath her would have given her away. She had prepared for this however. There were other occasions she had to sneak around in an environment like this and in those instances, she had been hunting creatures with greater hearing than any human. An animal will panic at even the slightest step it hears. So how do you get close to something when it can even hear your footsteps? Step when it stepped. Whatever sound you made would be covered up by that of it's own feet. Thankfully Iscariot had unknowingly fallen into a rhythm with his steps, giving Lozen something to time her steps to.
But every one she took afterwards was accompanied by a burning pain in her legs. The stance she assumed forced her to stay crouched down behind a table barely taller than her knees and on the tips of her toes even when her feet and back felt like they were going to collapse. All the tension forced in them caused her to start trembling in place and making a tremor start rushing through s moment where precision was everything. There were times she swore she miscalculated her steps and caused her foot to hit the ground right before or after Florentine did, but the fact that he was still talking was comforting. "I am not mad nor am I a murderer. I have standards and one of them is to give all those worthy a fighting chance." He continued as she continued her delicate tightroping across the room. "I will admit, these lands are not the place to expect a fair fight. Thieves and mongrels outlive fighters and thinkers. I can not change this but I offer you a break from it all. Face me and fight and I promise you will receive a fair one. No tricks. No fear. No undue pain. I know how to make it quick."
His words were the exact pleas she expected him to make. For all his lunacy, he did seem to have some strange code of conduct. However, what made her pause for a moment was how he sounded. She thought he had just been another emotionless voice in a state full of maniacs. Composed, cold, and not having much effort put into it so that he could spend his time on other tasks. But now, in the untainted silence, she could hear something else in his voice. He sounded as if he was struggling to keep that voice together and while he was doing a damn good job, the cracks became obvious against the quiet backdrop. It confused her at first, but wasn't enough to distract her from the pain coursing through her body and the task she still had to perform.
Her feet were burning by the time she managed to find a way to the end of the machine. She had passed right by Florentine a moment ago with the machine itself keeping her out of sight and ducked down a tiny corridor between the machine and the next. It opened out into the pathway Florentine was taking down the factory and from the look of it, his eyes were still aimed at the space in front of him with the lantern light illuminating the space around him. Perfect. "I know your still here. That fall has never killed anyone." He continued as she continued walking in synchronism with him. Inch by inch she got closer, her body uncoiling from while still keeping herself close to the ground. Not once did his eyes so much as catch a glimpse behind him as she stalked close by and for a moment, she thought this might actually work. Just a few more steps, one at a time, and one more nightmare could be-crunch.
One step. It was just one step. That was it. So she had gotten hasty and just stepped one foot out of sync. But one step was all it took. Just as the dirt was disturbe, both Florentine and Lozen slipped into a pure reactionary state. Florentine spun around, sticking the lantern out in a momentary mistake before he repositioned the blade in his hands in preparation to throw it as Lozen got ready to dodge. Almost in tangent with the motion the madman took to throw the blade, Lozen ducked her entire body almost flat to the ground and as her head almost smacked into the dirt, the dagger flew right over her head.
This was it. He was unarmed and just got finished with a failed maneuver. She rushed towards him, black dagger aimed right at his neck, but he was so much faster. In a blur of speed he had drawn another dagger from his best and sliced it out towards her own knife, the two blades clashing in mid air. Lozen felt a small shock wave rush through her arm, forcing her to wrap her other hands around her blade for fear it would be knocked out of her hand. Florentine has no such inexperience. He knew how to handle a blade and managed to push Lozen away from him, putting some space between the two.
Lozen swung her blade up in front of her neck and one of her arms over her heart in expectation that he would toss yet another blade at her. However, he seemed to go just as rigid as she was as if she would also toss a blade at her as well. "You're the one from the camp." He said, both of them bracing for when the other would make a move. "Did you come back for the right death?"
"Like those people upstairs?"
"Would you ever believe I killed so many without proof?"
"Why does there need to be proof?"
"You didn't come here for proof. I assume that would be revenge."
Lozen's eyes narrowed as she heard that and said "You burned down an entire village and ran down the people who survived. Did you honestly think no one would come after you for that?"
"Yes."
She paused at that and thought back to all the people hiding inside the cave, their lifeless eyes and soulless expressions. "Not anymore." She eventually said keeping her eyes scanning over the madman.
"Good." He muttered as he gently placed the lantern down on a nearby flat board of machinery. "Your people are a unique variety. In the midst of combat, some have shown considerable skill in hand to hand combat or at least the interesting ones. Afterwards however, you run and cower like frightened dogs."
"What did you expect? You killed their friends, family, and burned down everything they had for no reason at all."
"A tragedy, but one that didn't stop you from coming here."
"No thanks to you." She said before lashing out at the madman and engaging him before he could make the first move. Admittedly she was rusty when it came to knife works, but she knew just enough to at least keep herself alive. Keep him on the defense, keep attacking, but don't do something drastic enough that he could exploit it. Their blades clashed more time then she could have counted, carving quick lines through the open air before they both pushed away from the other.
"You were passing by when we came to that village. You come from somewhere else, but you're still fighting for them. Most would find that foolish."
"I don't care."
"But I find that somewhat admirable. Never letting the prospect of a fight get in the way of doing what's right."
She froze for a split second before saying "Then what are you doing?"
"Finding proof."
"Of what?"
"Of me." He said right before he charged at her. Lozen knew better then to try and engage him and so started scurrying back away from the man's lunges. His hands were swift and tempered, the blade in hand spinning through the air as if it could fly and only missing her skin by hairs lengths. There were times it scraped by just enough of the mud covering her to send a small red streak of red rushing through the air, but it was impossible to tell if it was blood or not. The adrenaline rushing through her as they continued their fatal dance down the narrow strip of walkable ground was blocking out the pain she felt from her crawl. Whether she was injured or not was unknowable, but as long as she just kept moving, she could lower the chance of that happening.
But she was smart enough to know she couldn't win this. Florentine was clearly more experienced and in his element at the moment while the most she could do was stay alive. She needed to find a way around this. Maybe she could collapse the machinery or get her hands on some other weapon or....his words. They had been trembling under their own weight. He was and there was a splinter in that armor of his. One she could use. Lozen has seen what people became when unbalanced and that sort was something she could beat.
"I couldn't take their heads and I had to make due with the scalps. Judging from the reactions, the implication is understood."
"Is that all you want?" She replied after she managed to put some space between them again. "Sounds shallow."
"As is revengeance and yet here you are."
"No. I'm here to make sure those people come back from this and show they're worth fighting for. All you wanted to do is be known as a killer. Quite pathetic if you think about it."
It was after that she noticed the first sign she was onto something, subtle as it was. A small section of unscared skin right under his pale eyes twitched, a sign that stuck out like a bloody thumb against his constant, stoic expression. She didn't have long to relish in the sight before Florentine rushed at her once again, pushing her further back down the path with a series of swift, unrest into strikes. Lozen found her grip around her own blade slipping as the shockwaves sent from the strikes wretched havoc on her wrist and the pressure that had filled her legs and back with pain returning. She wasn't going to hold out for long, but something was off about Florentine's movements. They were wild, even if only slightly whereas before they went without a single second of purely chaotic action.
He was slipping. Good.
Lozen ducked down the pathway she had used to sneak around Florentine and managed to get some more space between them before she could continue. "If all you wanted was to be seen, you could have just slathered yourself in moss and called yourself the Tree Whisperer. People would certainly have noticed you and you wouldn't have to murder so many."
"You're right. I don't chase eyes so easy to catch."
"Is Iscariot one of those?"
He lashed out at that again, lunging at her with a tad more ferocity than expected. Lozen tried her best to lunge back away from his attacks, but more and more of them were getting too close for comfort. Pain prickled across the skin on her arms as slash marks started creeping up her and blood started slicking her knife's handle.
"Is your village one of those?" He snapped back between his wild, powerful strikes.
"He's not someone who needs you if you didn't notice." She commented in the momentary chances she had to do so only for those chances to vanish as Florentine increased the ferocity and frequency of his assault. It took another moment to push him back long enough to get more words in, but she didn't waste it when she did. Not after his reaction had told her so much.
"No matter how powerful you are, it won't matter. You're one man and eventually, you'll die like everyone else. He has an army which can be restocked and reused as much as he likes. He won't need you for long. It's only a matter of time."
She was onto something. His attacks were continuing to become more and more like primal hammering with his face starting to break apart in tiny, but increasingly frequent. However, the other edge of the sword was making it hard for her to keep staying out of his range let alone blocking the many attacks that came her way. He was going to slip up. He had to be judging from how angry he was getting, but she wasn't sure she'd survive until then.
"Look again. I have killed more than any of them and I never needed a gun. Bullets run out, but a good dagger tempered and sharpened, will never fail."
"Is that what happened to you?" She asked, glancing once again at his scars. "Were you sharpened?"
"More so than those people in their little villages ever could. I assume you understand that. You just forgot to take off that mask."
"Maybe I don't need someone to see my scars."
"Then you never had any."
It all started clicking in her mind as she heard that. Though, her realization caused her to pause long enough for Florentine to land two more decent slashes across her arms. One scraped across the bones in her forearms and the other was far too close to her worst for comfort. A tiny screech rushed past her teeth as her bones cried out in sheer agony. Still, she had to keep going.
"Is that what you want? To know you're scars. Get a mirror." She said once she put some more space between them, but never had more than a split second to do so.
"Why do you think I have him?" He snapped back, knife work slowly losing the perfected edge it had before.
"So he's your prescription? Taking a bottle of him every time you need to feel like what you went through meant something? Pathetic."
He didn't say anything after that, however, his entire body froze solid like a statue. The mistake. Lozen lunged at him like a shark to blood as she saw him hesitate and lashed her blade or right at his lung, but didn't get far. Florentine blinked away his hesitation and lashed his blade out once again with his expertise re-emerging for that single move. His blade spun around in his hand and was raised right in front of her own, the obsidian daggers point stabbing right down into the flat side of the knife. It was an awkward block, but effective nonetheless.
Florentine pushed her back away with what little leverage he had and unknowingly separated them once again. Lozen was surprised that had been his reaction to that word and half considered just choking it up to a bad guess, but there was something about his expression that made her pause on that assumption. That way he had broken, it was more than just from insult. It looked more mournful. Like something was missing or long since gone.
"He never has, has he? He doesn't see your scars?" She said, her heart skipping just a tiny beat in sympathy, but she mostly found herself grateful that she managed to make him freeze. A few more instances like that and she might have been able to pull off something fatal. He indeed froze again, but she was hesitant to get close at this instance considering the damage he had done last time and simply let him waver in place for a second. "He's the only one who can. I don't expect you to understand." Florentine added before he lunged at Lozen once again, but this time, he missed. One of his swipes was far too narrow to be anything from an experienced fighter and it was at that moment Lozen found an opportunity she felt comfortable taking.
She slashed her own blade out and managed to drag a gash across the back of the hand that held his knife. It wasn't anything serious, but it sent enough pain through his hand to cause him to drop the dagger. Hearing that blade come clattering against the loose parts covering the ground sent a rush of excitement surging through Lozen that jumped on. She rushed forward, jabbing the jagged black glass right at where Florentines neck had been right before he took his turn to back up.
"I understand enough. You're not a madman. You're just another dancer even if you're performing for one person and I've had enough of people like you." She said, riding the wave of adrenaline rushing through her and continuing to try and land a solid strike on Florentine before he could draw another one of his blades. However, almost as if it had been conjured from mid air, another dagger was suddenly in the hands lacking a hindering slash mark. He turned his entire body so that his injured arm was safely tucked away and Lozen was only confronted with his new knife.
"And I see you've only just stepped onto the stage." Florentine replied, resuming his assaults and pushing Lozen further back into the rusted jungle. "You need to stop waiting for someone to come and validate your pain. That has to be you. It's your pain. You decide what it is in the end. But no. You keep chasing after a man who won't notice you and leaving bodies in your tracks."
He froze again as she heard that and this time gave her a chance to push him back again. Not by much though.
"That is not our choice to make." He said as she pushed back, blades interlocking for a split second, but his actions were clumsy once again. Too much so this time. Far too much. His one good hand seemed to tremble once again as the blades met and the swing he had made was far too weak to push back against her. This had to be it. If only she could remember how to do this correctly. She doubted he'd fall for the same trick twice even if he was starting to look more unstable.
Lozen dragged her own blade down the edge of Florentines until she managed to find a way down towards the knife's guards. There was a tiny groove where the blade met the guard that her dagger slid into and gave her the leverage she needed. She twisted her wrist around and managed to wrench the blade out of Florentine's hand. His arm flung to the side in a desperate attempt to catch the dagger before it was sent spinning off into the iron thicket. "Then you'll die waiting." Lozen muttered before lunging right at Florentine one final time and driving the blade right into the madman's heart. She feared she might have misaimed at first as she felt the blade come into contact with what felt like bone before it ground against the stone like protrusion and found beating flesh. Her entire body weight had been thrown into the lunge, causing her to smash into Florentine with enough force to cause them both to crash down onto the dirt.
Lozen didn't stop there. She wrenched the blade out of Florentine's chest only to bring it back down over and over again, filling his lungs with holes until he had started coughing blood. His coat grew bloated with the crimson liquid and sent sizable splashes of the substance splattering into her mud stained clothes. He was dying, thankfully, but he was still fighting even as he looked like he knew what was coming. Blood trickled down across the creases carved into his face and his hands were desperately clawing at her arms as if he was trying to stop her despite the fatal blow having already been delivered.
"You..." He muttered through the blood pooling in the back of his throat. Even through the scars eclipsing his expression, she could see that he looked rather desperate, but not in that way she expected. He wasn't clinging to life. He was trying to get her attention. His fingers dig into her sleeves and managed to pulled her down just enough for her to hear him spit out as his eye bulged from the mere strain of his actions. "Spare..." He sputtered out, arms trembling as their strength drained away. "Him." The last word was barely a whisper drowning in his own blood, but it was all there was before Lozen saw his one good eye empty and his body collapse back onto the ground.
She expected to feel more when she saw him finally fall without a shred of life in him. He had to be the only one of Jebediah's old gang that actually put up a fight, but in the end, he was just as big of a prima donna as the rest. Even after all he did, he was just another fool dancing in the spotlight and that only made it worse. All this death and brutality was caused by the equivalent of a child begging for it's parents attention. It made her want to stab the bastard again just for how petty of a reason he had done all this, but it was eclipsed by the feeling of sheer pity directed at the upteenth idiot. All this time, all that effort, all those lives, and all it amounted to was this. A fool covered in invisible scars. It was sad in a way. If only he hadn't killed so many people in his attempts.
"Cry your own tears next time." She muttered as she wrenched the blade out of his chest and pushed herself off his body. Blood dripped from her clothes as she stood back up and started geysering from the holes covering the fool as she walked away from the corpse, not sparing another word. There was no more left to say and that was a tragedy in and of itself. She only wished she cared enough to cry.