Chapter Text
Drothe’s breath was like fire; each gasping one he took charred the inside of his throat just a little bit more. His feet were leaden, muscles screaming, and his bones felt brittle - at any second now, Drothe was sure his left fibula would shatter and he’d go down like injured rabbit in a mutt’s jaws.
But there was no other choice but to keep running. Keep twisting, keep his feet moving. There was no time to look to his left, but he knew even Degan would be breaking a sweat at this point. He’d been leading the way, but Drothe knew the maze of streets better than Degan ever would - Degan treaded the occasional back-alley, sure, but Drothe breathed the grime and soot of the inner-city. It just went to show how much Drothe needed him, if not only because his legs were marginally longer than his were. Marginally.
He’d been on their tail since midday, but he’d barely managed to nip at them since then. One little mistake, one wrong turning, and suddenly everything had gone to shit. Five Cutters coming in from the right, three to the left, and him in the centre - not so much pulling the strings of the chase, rather using them to strangle the air out of Drothe’s lungs.
They didn’t call him Wolf for nothing. What an arsehole.
Two steps in front of him and three to the left, Degan’s pace began to slow. He was lost. Perfect.
There was no time to come to a complete halt, so Drothe veered off to jog at Degan’s side, breathing still ragged and fierce. The taste of copper was thick on his tongue and fist-bruised lips. “We can’t keep running like this,” he said. “We’ve been running for half the fucking day. We need to hide.”
Degan grunted only once in response. They had hardly taken a break since the sun had set, and Drothe could see the tell-tale signs of exhaustion creeping up on him - on Degan, of all people. He didn't know when they had taken a wrong turn, but none of his surroundings looked familiar. Drothe turned his head to find Degan looking down at him. His thoughts were written clearly across his face, scrawled in the furrow of his brow and the purple bruises marking his cheeks: I regret bringing you into this, Drothe.
Drothe sniffed and turned away. Now, with all of Steel's people coming after them, this wasn’t the time for such regrets.
"Where?" Degan brushed the sweat off of his brow with his free hand, the other gripping his sword until his knuckles were flushed with white.
Trying to keep up with the purpose in Degan’s long strides was keeping the breath from Drothe’s lungs. After this, he thought, he either needed to grow taller, or make shorter friends.
If they survived, that is. And there was a good chance they wouldn’t.
Drothe jerked his head up to rooftops, the sharp angles faintly glowing gold, but he knew it would be nothing more than a murky silhouette in Degan’s unaltered eyes. “Up there,” he said, after taking a short moment to catch his breath. “Tip over a flower pot, make it look like we went left, and then leg it up there. It’s getting dark, if we’re quick, they won’t see us. Sound good?”
Degan nodded. In Drothe’s night vision, his blonde hair shone with a soft light, brighter than gold but not quite white. Even where the wide rim of his feathered hat set the angle of his jaw in shadows, he could still pick out each faintly shining scar and freckle, like stars in the night sky.
"As good a plan as any," Degan said. He could barely see the outline, but Drothe hoped it was still visible enough for him to climb it with minimal difficulty. Reaching out with the blade of his sword, Degan nudged a pot off of the window ledge and winced when it shattered. Had they had the time, Drothe might have flicked a copper owl or two onto the broken pot as an apology. But time wasn’t exactly a luxury they had right now, and by the time the crash of it reached him, he was already pulling himself up onto the wide overhang above the doorway, and readying himself for the final leap onto the roof. Nothing he hadn’t done before.
With Degan still some way behind him, Drothe chanced a look over his shoulder - and regretted it instantly.
Armed thugs, racing towards them, their weapons bright even in the low light and their figures ringed with brilliant, dangerous crimson. No sign of Wolf just yet, thank the Angels. Still, the Angels could go screw themselves for letting them get into this mess in the first place.
Drothe leant down from the overhang where he perched and thrust out a hand to Degan. “Hurry,” he hissed. “They’re coming. Quick, before they see us.”
He watched Degan quicken his pace in those last few meters - the plea in Drothe’s voice had been enough to feed the fire under his heels. They could hear the footsteps getting closer, an ever-growing threat on the horizon like the distant rumble of thunder or the burble of noise in the back of a beast's throat before it pounces. From here, Drothe couldn't tell how many of them there were but he doubted it was a small number. Wolf never left things half finished, Degan had made that clear. Even if that meant coming down himself to finish the job.
With Degan safely (or safely enough, given the circumstances) on the roof, Drothe chanced another glance at their pursuers. Since he’d last counted, Wolf had added more onto their tail - three Arms and seven more Cutters to his already overflowing gang.
Saying they were outnumbered, at this point, would have been the opening line of a comedy act. And, by the Angels, Drothe hated actors.
He related this information to Degan, careful not to allow his voice to be too loud. He could see their figures, glowing with fire in his night vision, studying the broken flower pot, and found he could breathe again, just barely, when three of them disappeared into the street to the left.
Degan let out a quiet chuckle at the words. He followed Drothe’s footsteps further along the roof. Drothe looked up just in time to see Degan quirk his head to the side. "Where next?"
“Away from them,” Drothe said on the instant. There was no time for consideration. There was barely time to breathe. “We might be able to pull the dodge on a couple of Cutters, but Wolf’s - Steel -” he corrected, glancing at Degan, “he’s not so dumb. He’ll realise soon enough, and he’ll be up here chasing us until morning before we know it. If we make it until morning, that is.”
Degan looked over to where the rooftop ended, and Drothe followed Degan’s gaze, at the pathway of tiles stretched out before them.
"Can you make that?" Degan asked, but Drothe was already nodding as he gestured to the opening.
Drothe snorted. “Of course,” he had been about to tell Degan, but the clamour of hard boots on wood and a cacophony of shouts from down below - and getting dangerously closer to them - cut his words short.
He could feel Degan tensing behind him, could feel his own body overcome with a chill. His already-sore feet started throbbing merely at the thought of more running and heavy landings from roof to roof - the climb up here had been more than taxing, and Drothe had scaled far more for far less.
But Wolf would never let them run far. He’d proven that more than enough. At this point, it was quite literally fight or flee, and Drothe dreaded the choice he knew that Degan would inevitably make.
Now, even in the shroud of darkness, pockmarked with stars hidden behind a haze of city smoke, Degan could see the outlines of the Cutters. If Degan could see them, then they were in close proximity.
Drothe swallowed - Degan had taken up his guard. He knew what was going on in Degan’s head; he always did, and he didn’t like it. Maybe I could hold them off long enough for Drothe to escape. Hell no. Not on Drothe’s watch.
Degan was already gripping his sword. Drothe was close enough to see a glimmer in Degan’s eyes - Degan had explained it once as liquid fire dancing in his veins. Even after all these years, he still didn’t look completely used to it.
By the time Drothe looked up at Degan again, Degan’s feet were sliding into position. He shook his head. “No - Degan, no. We can’t fight him, not all of them. We agreed to hide! And you can bet your ass that I’m not hiding alone.” A tug on Degan’s arm, but the man was like stone. “We need to move. Now.”
"There's no time," Degan said as sternly as he could. He glanced back at Drothe. "They're here for me, Drothe."
“What, so you think I’m just going to run off and escape by myself? You can fuck right off if you think that. You think I’m going to let them tear you apart?” This was a long shot, Drothe knew - in fact, they both knew that it would be Degan commanding the bloodshed, at least until Wolf stepped into the scene and gave him an equal target to swing at. But he was getting desperate. “We’re both going. Fuck the Order, and especially fuck Wolf.”
The whole Order was a mess, but Degan was dead if he thought he could sort it out by himself.
Drothe growled when Degan still didn’t budge, expression as stern as the steel he was about to face. Drothe pressed his lips into a thin line. Three more seconds and Wolf and his cronies would be on top of them.
“Fine,” he said firmly. He drew out his rapier. “Have it your way. So we fight.”
"Drothe -"
Drothe gave him a warning glance. Degan stopped himself. He knew better than to argue.
He nodded once and got into position.
Drothe frowned. Did Degan really think Drothe wouldn’t notice the way he angled his body, just enough to protect him from any full-frontal attacks? It was ridiculous, really.
Then Drothe eyed the Cutter that fell limp on Degan’s bronze-edged scimitar a second later, gushing red at the throat where he’d been pierced. He looked like a big man, easily large enough without the bar of iron that some brutes might call a sword in his ham-like fists, to knock him out with one punch. Perhaps he would thank Degan for taking the man out later, after all…
Another, having foregone the stairway of crates and simply used her nimble frame to clamber up the opposite wall and bound off onto their roof, swung at Drothe from the side. He barely managed to dodge the neat arc with a stumbled sidestep, and swing back his blade to meet her next attack. The song of steel on steel echoed through the night, and suddenly Drothe found himself wondering if they would be waking up any family members inhabiting the house they had turned into their battleground.
Having stepped off to the left, Degan dusted another two before managing, just barely, to grab Drothe and pull him in time for his attacker's blade to miss. It was a close call; had he waited another second or two, the blade would have cut. Drothe only saw a crescent of silver as the blade sliced through the empty space he had occupied just a moment before.
Degan had already turned his attention back to the others, but it had taken Drothe a second to realise that it was Degan who had grabbed him, and not Wolf - who had been steadily making his way towards them. The endless flow of thugs had them cornered like mice in a room full of cats. Wolf was clearly taking his time; it was almost mocking. Drothe didn’t need his night vision to see the expression on his face, to see the horrid triumph that lingered in his grimace of a smile.
While the shouts and clash of weapons was deafening, Drothe caught glances amidst the blur of bloodied steel and cloth and flesh of Wolf’s lips moving. “…nuisances,” he was saying, or something of the like. He was looking at Drothe, and it was only his last dregs of stubborn pride that had Drothe meeting his gaze full on. “I’ll get rid of you first, Kin, and then the grownups can talk.”
Drothe felt one of his feet move backwards, the balls of the feet slipping on the dust of roof. His balance was teetering, a world of brick and dust beckoning him from below. Wolf - Steel - Drothe couldn’t keep up with his names anymore, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to - he prowled towards him. Drothe could feel his hands shaking, his feet stumbling as if the ceramic tiles had turned to ice, and then, suddenly, there was only emptiness beneath his feet. Wolf’s claws coiled around his throat.
Whomever had given the degan his name clearly knew what they were on about - Wolf’s grip was like steel around his throat, his fingernails knives that dug into the soft flesh. Wolf had him hoisted up by the neck - kicking out his feet madly, Drothe tried to get his leverage back, but he was being held too far out. Drothe suddenly found himself not wanting Wolf to let go. Letting go meant his face meeting shit-slicked stone slabs almost fifteen feet below.
There was a blur of blonde somewhere close to Wolf’s left shoulder, but it could just as easily been another one of his Cutters - his hand was like a vice and the black ring slowly inching it’s way around Drothe’s vision was making it hard to tell the different patches of gold and red apart.
Somebody was shouting something - directly down at him now, it seemed, and desperate enough to carry above the rest of the noise. It might have been Degan; it might have been his name.
There was just enough time for Drothe to realise that Wolf’s grip had disappeared, replaced instead by a uncomfortable floating sensation. And then his hair was wet with blood before his vision flickered with black and bright lights.
He’d been wanting a nap anyway...