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The bolt hits the wooden target with a loud thunk, just like the last five fired from the arbalest. It isn’t his grip that’s the issue—Gortash holds the arbalest like a man accustomed to doing so—but the bolts never seem to quite hit the center. The last three stick out at the edge of the bright red circle, with each successive shot drifting closer to the center. Jack watches the Banite lower his weapon with a scowl, then turns to the wooden table next to him covered in all manner of notes and designs. Another shot fired, another number recorded in his neat, precise hand.
Jack has come to realize that this is how the other man works. He sits cross-legged on one of the several wooden crates in the warehouse, watching this process with his hand propping up his chin. Gortash takes great care in testing his creations, collecting the data, and making improvements based on them. He has an eye for detail that the Bhaalspawn finds at once impressive to observe and irritating to sit through. Does the tool not do its job as it is? Even if the arrows drift from the center, it isn’t as if they wouldn’t kill someone as it is. It wouldn’t be a clean kill, but Gortash is no Bhaalist. Jack doesn’t expect precision and care from someone who doesn’t follow Father’s teachings.
“It needs to be lighter,” Gortash comments. He sets the quill aside and raises the weapon to look down its sight, dark eyes squinting through the looking glass. “The riser is too heavy. It’s causing the angle to drop when I pull the trigger.”
The Banite turns his head to him with a raised brow. Jack looks back at him through narrowed eyes, perfectly happy to remain where he is. What is he looking for? His input? His approval? Staring down at the arbalest in the other man’s hands, Jack’s mouth twists in disgust. So much work where a knife across the throat would exsanguinate a man in seconds.
“Perhaps the balance isn’t quite right,” he grunts.
The expectant look vanishes and is soon replaced with a scowl. Gortash lowers the arbalest back down, taking his finger off the trigger. “Speak your mind, my friend. We’re supposed to be partners, are we not?”
Friend, he says. Partners. Jack's mouth twitches with the effort to hold back a sneer. “I think your toys are useless.”
Gortash huffs, the corner of his mouth twitching into a wry smirk. “You're not one to fight from a distance, are you?”
“I prefer a more intimate experience, I suppose,” Jack concedes.
“And that speaks to your lack of imagination.” The other man turns toward him, the weapon cradled in his arms. “I’m sure it’s perfectly satisfying to poke holes in someone with your knives, but one should always leave their options open—if you’ll allow me to demonstrate?”
“Is that not what this is? A demonstration of your cunning and brilliance?” Jack removes a hand from beneath his chin, gesturing at the warehouse and the bolt-riddled target. “I really hope you're not about to tell me that you've been wasting my time.”
Gortash smiles with too many teeth, but Jack can see the barely contained frustration behind his eyes. Any of his subordinates would turn and flee the room at sight of it, but the Bhaalspawn is not one of his lackeys. He returns the look with unblinking eyes, the very picture of bored composure from his perch atop the crate.
“If you consider it a waste of your time, you’re more than welcome to take your leave,” the other man says at last. He gestures with the arbalest, giving Jack an expectant look. “Come stand here, won't you? In front of the target.”
The command—and it is a command, even if the Banite attempts to phrase it as a request—gives him pause. Jack lowers his leg down to the floor, eyes narrowed. “If you try to put holes in me, I'll only return the favor, little lordling.”
“And I would expect nothing less. Now come.”
With a roll of the eyes, Jack slides off the crate. While Gortash has learned not to try and order Jack around like a dog, he has not yet learned to keep his mockery to himself. And that’s what annoys him more than anything—his open disrespect. That ought to be reason alone to cut him open and put a premature end to this little alliance of theirs. Jack comes to stand between Gortash and the arrow-filled target and imagines the Banite’s corpse dangling from a meat hook. His fingers twitch where they hang loose at his sides.
“Kneel,” Gortash orders.
Jack arches a brow at him.
“Humor me.”
His gray eyes drop to the floor, then back up at the other man. He shouldn’t, but he wouldn’t have moved at all if curiosity hadn’t pushed him to his feet. But what does he gain from obedience? Give him an inch and the Banite will learn to take that and more. If the other man thinks he can command a son of Bhaal, he will learn to keep pushing.
One should always leave their options open.
Jack exhales through his nose, then lifts his hands in a vague suggestion of surrender and lowers himself to his knees. If his curiosity damns him, so be it.
Turning away, Gortash picks up a metal piece and braces the arbalest against himself. That’s the other thing Jack doesn’t like about it. It requires a completely separate tool to pull the string back onto the nut before a bolt can be loaded into it. Gortash does it quickly and efficiently, but he can’t imagine most men would have the skill to fire more than a single shot before being taken out. He’s not even sure Gortash could, if he really had to. Resting his hands atop his knees, Jack watches him ready the arbalest with feigned patience.
“Imagine for a moment,” the Banite begins, lifting the loaded arbalest, “that you’ve hunted your prey through the streets. You know where the corners are, where the alleys lead to dead ends. They’ve exhausted themselves and now…” He smiles, staring down the sight at Jack. “...Now they are cornered. Now there is nowhere to run.”
Jack’s fingers curl into fists until the leather gloves creak. Some nameless thing creeps through his ribcage and curls around his heart like a thief in the dark. Fear? No, not fear. He fears only one thing in this world, and the Banite does not come close to Father’s wrath. If not that, then what? What is this sensation snaking through his chest and filling his lungs with ice?
His eyes dart from the Banite to the bolt leveled at his head. The metal tip of the bolt gleams in the light, just a breath away from piercing a hole through his eye socket. He can move faster than the Banite can pull the trigger. Couldn’t he? His jaw clenches tight. He doesn’t move, but neither does Gortash. The other man’s mouth twists into a cruel smile that Jack yearns to rip from his face. With only a few words and the weapon poised to strike, the Banite has placed him at a disadvantage—and it is only now when it is too late to move that Jack realizes how foolish he was to fall for it.
“I would think even someone like you would find that compelling,” Gortash continues. His open eye all but sparkles with excitement as he speaks. “The intimacy of the hunt.”
Jack laughs. It melts the ice creeping into his lungs and the tension from his shoulders. The intimacy of the hunt? The laughter bubbles out of his throat before he can stop himself, even as that nameless thief flutters strangely in his chest. This is foolish. Why should he be afraid of the other man? He isn’t afraid, of course. That isn’t what he’s feeling. It’s irritating, plain and simple. He is annoyed at the Banite for saying such ridiculous things, leading him on, making him think that there’s a point to any of this.
He braces a hand on the ground to push himself back up to his feet. “You’re not going to—”
The bolt whistles past his left ear.
The mechanical click of the arbalest's trigger registers only after the thunk of the bolt slamming into the wooden target behind him. Jack stills. His mouth parts around the unfinished sentence, trailing off with an undignified catch of breath. He hesitates, then slowly turns to look over his shoulder. The bolt wobbles in place and settles, the space of Jack’s head separating it from its kin at the center of the bullseye.
He turns back around. Gortash lowers the arbalest, inclining his head with a smug smile.
“Not going to what?”
Jack lunges. The warehouse distorts until there is nothing but the space between him and the Banite. He does not feel his legs unfold or his crouched body spring upright. He does not feel the ground moving beneath his feet. In the blink of an eye, he leaps across the gap between them until slams the other man back against the workbench. One hand grabs a fistful of dark hair. The other draws a dagger from his belt. The arbalest tumbles from the Banite’s hands. Jack doesn’t hear it hit the ground over the sound of his pulse in his ears.
Now the little lordling is cornered. Now there is nowhere to run.
Gortash’s dark eyes flit between Jack’s face and the gleaming metal held to his throat. One false move and it slices clean through his carotid. It won’t take long for him to bleed out—Jack can hear the Banite’s heartbeat thump thump thump in the dead silence of the room. Or is that his heart, trembling with the excitement of spilling blood? The snake coils around his heart and constricts tight. His hand trembles on the hilt of the blade. Is this a trap? He stares back at Gortash, staring back at him. He is calm. He doesn’t so much as blink.
Jack’s fingers uncurl from Gortash’s hair. The dagger dances away from his skin. Jack steps back from him, trembling fingers spinning the blade in a practiced rhythm as is their habit in his idle moments. Killing him would displease Father, he tells himself. They’re supposed to be allies, after all. He would never dream of defying Bhaal’s wishes. He makes these excuses to himself and sheathes the blade.
“If you’re going to shoot, you should make sure you hit what you’re aiming for,” he says, returning to the top of the crate. Jack pulls his leg up to his chest and wraps his arms tight around it, resting his chin on his knee.
“And maybe think twice about who you make prey.”