Page 61 of Captive
Ten guards appeared behind him, movements perfectly synchronized, their brass components humming in harmony, a death chorus.
Boarstaff set the child down, pushed her behind him. Seven against eleven. With two already wounded. Death awaited.
Zarek moved with unnatural speed, covering half the distance before they could raise weapons. His brass-tipped fingers extended like claws, each one dripping with something that hissed when it hit the floor.
Then footsteps echoed from behind the vampire guards, heavy, running fast, bare feet slapping against stone.
Sebastian burst from the shadows, slamming into Zarek with devastating force. The impact drove both vampires into the obsidian wall hard enough to crack the polished surface. A spiderweb of fractures spread from the point of contact. The child screamed. The acrid smell of burning oil filled the air as something in Zarek's augmentations sparked and leaked dark fluid across the floor.
"Go!" Sebastian shouted without looking back. "Now! Take her and run!"
But even as they moved, Boarstaff couldn't help glancing back at the brothers' clash.
The sound was nothing like the silent efficiency of vampire assassins. It was brutal, visceral, brass on brass creating a sound like forge hammers. Sebastian fought with fluid grace, but there was restraint in his strikes. He wasn't trying to kill, Boarstaff realized with shock. He was trying to disable, to escape.
Zarek showed no such mercy. His clawed hand raked across Sebastian's chest, opening deep gashes that wept dark blood. The wounds were precise, designed to cause maximum pain without immediate death.
"Traitor!" The word came out distorted through his damaged jaw. "Father will make you scream for this betrayal! He'll pull you apart piece by piece and rebuild you properly!"
Sebastian twisted away, catching Zarek's wrist and using his brother's own momentum to slam him into the wall again. More obsidian cracked. "I'm done screaming for Father," Sebastian said, his voice carrying an edge Boarstaff had never heard before, not anger, but something like pity. "Done with all of it. I'm sorry you can't see what we've become."
The vampire guards tried to intervene, but Sebastian slipped between them like water, his transformed body responding with speed that made even Zarek's mechanical precision seem slow. He didn't killthem either, just struck with surgical accuracy at joints and augmentations, dropping them without fatal wounds.
"He's holding back," Oakspear breathed beside Boarstaff, understanding dawning in his voice despite his own pain. "Against his own brother, and he's still holding back."
Zarek seemed to realize it too. "You're weak!" he snarled, launching another attack. "Corrupted by primitive sentiment! Father was right about you, you were always defective!" His blade, the one with the specialized poison, flashed toward Sebastian's throat.
Sebastian caught the blade between his palms, brass in his hands flowing like liquid to deflect the edge. The metal shrieked. For a moment the brothers stood locked, Zarek pushing with mechanical strength, Sebastian holding him with something that seemed almost effortless.
"Not weak," Sebastian said quietly. "Just choosing a different path than the one Father carved into us."
He twisted, and the blade shattered. Fragments scattered across the floor, ringing against obsidian like dropped coins. Zarek stumbled back, shock evident even through his damaged features.
"Impossible," Zarek gasped. "That blade was forged—"
"By Father's artificers. I know." Sebastian's hand shot out, faster than Boarstaff could track, and caught Zarek by the throat. Not crushing, just holding. "I know everything about Father's weapons. His improvements. His control." He leaned closer, and Boarstaff heard the next words even from the maintenance door. "And I'm done being one of them."
He released Zarek, who crumpled to the floor, gasping through his damaged machinery. Sebastian turned toward the escaping orcs, blood streaming from the gashes across his chest. The wounds weren't closing, whatever poison had been on Zarek's claws was preventing his transformation's healing.
For just a moment, his gaze found Boarstaff's. In it, Boarstaff saw not the predator he'd feared, but someone who had just made an irrevocable choice. Someone who had come for them, knowing the cost.
"Get her out," Sebastian said. Then he staggered, one hand pressed to his bleeding chest. Black veins were spreading from thewounds, the poison working through his system. "Go. I'll hold them."
More alarms. More guards converging. Zarek struggling to rise, rage and humiliation warring in his mechanical features.
The group rushed toward the maintenance door Thornmaker had kicked open. Sebastian's battle with Zarek created chaos, vampires scrambling to respond, alarms shrieking, the corridor filling with smoke from damaged mechanisms.
They plunged into the narrow maintenance passage; the child held tight against Boarstaff's chest. The tunnels wound through the citadel's inner workings, copper pipes groaning with pressure. The air was thick and hot, making breathing difficult. Behind them, the sounds of pursuit echoed, running feet, shouted orders, the clash of weapons.
The passage forked ahead, one path angling upward toward an exit, the other continuing deeper into the citadel's infrastructure. Boarstaff took the ascending path without hesitation, the warriors following close behind.
"Keep moving!" Oakspear's voice came from behind them, sharp with command but weaker than before.
Boarstaff glanced back to see Oakspear taking position at the fork, his spear held ready across his body. Blood soaked his entire left side now, his face pale as parchment. Their gazes met for just a moment, long enough for Boarstaff to see the determination there, the choice already made.
"Oakspear—" Boarstaff started.
"Get her out!" Oakspear's voice carried no room for argument. Then, softer, meant only for Boarstaff: "Three summers was worth a lifetime. Go!"
