Lucretia’s totemic body was not his own. Llyr had transformed into it maybe twice or so before. Her build was smaller in most regards, the bone structure more delicate, though the difference in her ample chest and hips forced his momentum in directions he wasn’t accustomed to. He couldn’t move like he could if he were settled in his own lanky, athletic body. He couldn’t find the lift in the totem form’s muscles to flip or somersault. Yet as the vicious assailant raised the wooden plank above him… above Lucretia… its rectangular shadow hovered over her exposed skin. The air whistled around the board -
- and she forced every ounce of remaining energy inside of her limbs to roll aside, at the last moment before impact. The wood smashed into the cobblestones, where her head had been a trill before. Splinters jutted against a portion of her shoulder. She didn’t stop, however, and continued to roll until she got to her hands and knees, then scrambled to get away from a reachable distance.
Tossed aside, the ruined board clattered next to the motionless, maimed figure of Mister Kiwi. Llyr wanted to wake him, to find help from him, but all she could see was the dark gleam of jagged obsidian where Kiwi’s face used to be. Beneath her knees and palms, she felt chips of stone that had once been inside the abrogant's punctured stomach. The shards embedded into her skin. She crawled past her silently still companion and teacher.
Now, she only aimed to gain as much distance from her and the brute, who had done such a thing to Kiwi, as she could.
The Becomer didn’t get far.
She felt a meaty hand grab her by the ankle. Yanked, her stance fell out from under her. She hit the ground face-first. The stranger dragged the biqaj closer with a frustrated growl.
Llyr pulled to resist. She dug her slender fingers into the road, but it was useless. Her nails chipped, broken against the cobblestones. Her body was too petite and weak. Without ether, she didn’t have any exceptional powers. Naked, she had no weapons, not even her defensive dagger. Without Kiwi, she was alone…
...but Hazel was nearby. She couldn’t let anything happen to her adopted daughter. There was no one else to care for her. A deep realization sunk into Llyr that if she died in the skirmish, the little girl would be at the mercy of whatever this murderer had intended with Hazel in the first place. Llyr couldn't allow that to happen.
“Let go,” shouted Llyr. She kicked out with her free leg, wildly, and landed the heel through the layers of patchwork clothes. It hit a portion of the man’s groin. He yelped, grip tightening on her ankle. She sat up and tugged the hood of his cloak down to block his sight. Her heel landed again, this time harder and more on target. In a fleeting trill, she retreated her ankle from the man’s momentarily distracted grip. Free, she hurried to her feet. Her calf burned, cracked open from the blow landed earlier when he’d thrown her to the ground.
“You mage bitch,” snarled the stranger. He fixed his hood, recovered, and grabbed her arm before she got far enough away. “Where you gonna go, huh? Die here nice with your boyfriend.”
“Stop it, stop.” She slapped at his hands while he grasped her shoulders. He forced her to the ground beside the abrogant. Back pinned to cobblestones, Llyr looked over at Kiwi. He was so still… no motion, no breath, no… life. A strangled cry sounded from her. Not only from grief at the realization of Kiwi’s deathly state, but at the thick hands cupping her slender neck. Her cheeks flushed hot. Her eyelashes fluttered. Her windpipe bent under the murderous squeeze. The assailant was going to choke her dead, right next to her maimed… friend.
She tried to shove him away, but to no success. Her arms fell down when he jostled her, a motion that threatened to simply snap her neck instead. Her hands weakly felt around the stones, obsidian chips scraping into her skin. A large shard jammed into her thigh and she felt the stone slice through her flesh.
She tried to kick him away, but only swiped at the multiple layers of coats that the man wore. Llyr tried to speak, but only a gagged noise resulted. Her irises flashed gold and started to roll behind her eyelids. She couldn’t breathe. Her legs weren’t lifting like she wanted them to. She was losing strength, energy, consciousness... She was losing. And fast.
Her fingers traced over the hilt of a knife: Kiwi’s blade that he’d tried to take the assailant out with, but had failed. She quickly gathered it in her hand. She forced her gaze to focus, to fixate on the ruddy expression of the cutthroat above her -
- in a swift motion, she stabbed the knife into the stranger’s eye. No blood sprayed, not yet. The man shouted and reeled from the blinding pain. She held onto the hilt, followed as he moved away, and dug the blade deeper into the socket.
The stab had connected. She wouldn’t allow the opportunity to slip past. Legs wrapped around the stranger’s waist, she kept tight against the many layers of clothing. Her hand eased its grip. Red-tinged fluid trickled down his cheek like rancid jelly. He angrily moved to shove her off with a crude push -
- but she swiped her other hand along the back of her thigh. From the skin, she dislodged the large fragment of Kiwi’s obsidian. Silver blood poured from the open wound. The jagged edges dug into her fingers and palm as she held tight. She eluded a swipe of the killer's bulky fist, aimed to punch her head, and -
- she sunk the obsidian fragment into the man's other eye. The blinded foe roared. He got a hold of her by the waist, but instead of throwing her off, he slammed her against the street floor. She squirmed underneath, the sickly stench of sweat and blood suffocating her constricted inhales. His weight was heavy. The young biqaj mage felt acute fear as the man fondled around his coats in obvious search of something, likely another weapon.
With a grunt of strained effort, Llyr released her legs' hold. Desperately, she grabbed the simple knife that remained stuck in the man’s eye. She tore it out. Scarlet blood spattered over her dainty face.
The assailant stumbled back, no longer held fast by Llyr's legs. He knelt in front of her instead and his anguished shouts echoed in the empty street. His hand went to his eye, an attempt to stop the gush of life force, the obsidian shard still stuck in the other eye.
Llyr stood in front of him. Hand quick and merciless, she pulled out the obsidian shard. Another spurt of blood and the eye came with it, snapping off from the tenuous connection to the brain. Llyr tossed the fragment and organ aside.
She switched the angle of the knife. Though Llyr had never taken a life, never killed anyone for good reason or not, she knew the correct hold of the blade. The biqaj had seen her father perform the nasty deed a hundred times over. Many of those incidents had involved the use of a knife or dagger.
One strike wasn’t enough, however.
The razor-sharp edge cut through skin and tendon. It partially exposed the foe’s throat to the open air. But Llyr’s hand hesitated in the last moment of strength required.
Now the blinded man wasn’t dead, but gurgling from the shock. Llyr grabbed one of his scarves. She pulled him closer, to steady him. With a wordless shout, she sliced the knife the other way with a backward swipe. It exposed the other side of his throat, the artery severed and drizzling crimson.
Another slice connected the first two.
Another cut dug into the viscous throat.
Another rend of the flesh sent blood spraying over Llyr’s nude female form.
Another, another, another: deeper, deeper, deeper: slash, slash, slash -
- for no reason other than the youth couldn’t stop.
The heavy body fell back with a thud. Still holding the scarf, Llyr tripped along with the fall. Fresh blood coated her hands and wrists. Tears welled in her eyes. She felt nauseous. Her body shook from a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather or her distinct lack of clothes.
Llyr held tight to the knife. She stared down at the assailant turned victim, almost confused by how brutalized he looked. So much for atonement. So much for distancing from death. So much for her desperate grasps at morality. She looked at the knife in her hand. Her body shuddered. She could almost hear the macabre pride in her late father's voice as the torturer commended her, his ghastly echoes inside her own mind. The Becomer quietly laughed.
Continued here
