Bloodoath

“I, Eva, vow to never allow death to take you.”

Stupid words, I thought ruefully as I felt the instinct to move, run, as fast as I could to my master’s side, an instinct as familiar to me as hunger or thirst. I followed the urge from the edge of the rock where I had been sitting to the direction of the beach by the lake, the need to aid him welling somewhere in my ribcage, where my vow bound heart squeezed with apprehension for what would happen if I was too late. Seven years of this is too long.

Seven years ago, Fabian had taken me in, away from the orphanage where I had grown up for twelve years. Not even a teenager yet, and unknowing of the world outside my lifelong home, my trust had been easily earned by my new father, and the vow I made for him over my own lifeblood seemed little to pay for my new home. Fabian was a kind man, and for a long time I never had to dwell on the vow I had made.

As my poorly shod feet plodded through heavy sands, a group of three people came into view. Two stood ankle deep in the waves while the third seemed to be crawling away from the water. The closer I came, the more audible the hum of voices became, until I could distinguish the shouting of the stranger and the harsh, laughing tones of Fabian. The unfamiliar one was tall and had a light frame, but I recognized the stance and arms of someone accustomed to some kind of fighting. Judging by his expensive-looking clothes and muscled legs, he was probably a swordsman. The crawling form in the deeper sand was distinguishably female. Her hair and clothes were wet, and granules of the ground beneath her clung to her dark hair. Even before I knew the exact circumstance of what was going on, I felt my fists clench.

Fabian’s true nature had shown itself soon enough. Soon enough, I found myself planting my feet between two fighting people to protect my master from people he’d harmed or people intending to protect people he’d harmed. Much as I sympathized, I had no choice.

True to schedule, I was between the man and my master when the man lunged. Before he struck me, I saw surprise flash in his eyes, and the blow that flung me to the hard mud beneath me was much softer than what Fabian’s newest opponent was clearly capable of. Tiny, almost invisible veins of red blossomed, planted from above by my nose. I had barely begun to regather my senses before my chest gave a painful thud from the interior, and I was up and intercepting again, this time on the receiving end of a punch aimed for Fabian’s crooked nose. Being shorter than the man I was protecting, the fist glanced off the right of my forehead, making me flinch backward, but when I was pushed to the ground and out of the way I grabbed the swordsman’s ankles, catching him off guard and sending him face first into the water. Laughing, Fabian came and put his booted foot on the back of the man’s head, preventing it from surfacing to breathe. Without hesitation I released his legs, and I watched as his left knee immediately came up to help him push himself to the side and knock Fabian off balance.

I stood, but didn’t move as the swordsman punched my master in the jaw. Despite his frantic, angry glances in my direction, I didn’t move immediately to help him, for, due to the lack of my own reaction, I knew the blows being dealt weren’t life threatening. However, when Fabian was sent off his feet and into the water, that very instinct returned, and as the man fastened his hands around his throat, I leapt and landed in the middle of his hunched back, clawing at his arms with my pitiful fingernails, purposely chewed to the quick. When he was distracted enough to use an arm to try to dislodge me, Fabian’s hand came up and yanked his hair until we were all three thrashing in the water. My invisible binding forced me prematurely to my feet and between the two, though my own discretion kept me from lashing out at the swordsman to further the protection of the man I shielded. Now he turned on me, and his two hands stretched for me, one in my hair and the other around my neck. My own instinct to protect myself was remarkably small compared to the one to protect the creep behind me, and it was easy to fight down. Focusing on keeping my hands and feet still in the water kept me from thinking about how my death would possibly lead to my master’s death, for if I thought about that as I had in the past, I would be forced to prevent the death I desired, rather than the painful one that breaking my oath would entail.

The hands’ relinquishing of me shocked me into breathing, and the surprise enabled a momentary numbing of any instinct other than the instinctive breathing I was doing above the water even as my former brief captor rose and punched Fabian again in the jaw with what seemed to be renewed anger. The blow stunned him, and the swordsman ran onto shore and knelt next to the woman before getting up with a naked sword in hand. With what was obviously his choice of weapon at his disposal, he seemed content not to rush anymore as he waded back into the water, coming within mere feet of his original target.

Again, that need welled in my chest anew, and as I moved forward between the two men, my master shoved me forward into what would have been the blade had the man not moved it. Before I could make sense of that action, something solid struck me in the head, sending black into my vision even as I heard the death cry of a man who seemed ages away.