Ryckel broke free, the bits of shadow in his mouth dissolving.
Hood followed with a horizontal slash, Ryckel saw the thread and dodged the shadow-blade whistling so close he felt the unnatural chill of it.
He was tired.
He could feel that was low, and Hood was pressing him back, step by bloody step.
I need to end this quickly!
Ryckel thought, his mind racing back to the dark vault.
The Knight... the form... how did I reach it?
His mind focused on it. But he still couldn't transform.
Ryckel forced his body to move like a ghost, weaving through a storm of shadow-blades. He landed slash after slash with Vega's dagger, but every time he opened Hood's skin, the shadows would crawl over the wound like living tar, stitching it shut.
"You... can't stop me!" Hood wheezed, blood spraying. "I'll just... patch myself up... until you're exhausted. Then I'll find a healer... and I'll find your so called family..."
Ryckel paused, his eyes narrowing.
Patching himself up?
A realization struck him. Hood was a Confessor, a master of shadows, yet he was only using them to close wounds and make small blades.
Why not form a full suit of armor like the Knight? Why not a massive shield?
Because he can't.
Ryckel deduced.
Hood is tired as well.
"You're not patching yourself up, Hood," Ryckel said, his voice cold. "You're just delaying the leak."
The fight resumed, but Ryckel was no longer aiming for a killing blow. He was aiming for volume. He danced around the captain, inflicting dozens of shallow cuts.
Every cut forced Hood to expend more shadow-energy. Hood was now a grotesque tapestry of black shadow and red blood. He whimpered, his movements becoming jerky and slow. He let out a final, ragged shout and threw his
shadow-dagger with everything he had left.
Ryckel saw the thread flash toward his chest. He flicked his own dagger upward, the metal pinging as it deflected the construct into the dark.
Hood collapsed. The shadows on his body began to loosen and evaporate like smoke in the wind. He quivered, gasping for air that his lungs could no longer hold.
"Your plan was stupid," Ryckel said, keeping his distance. "Studying you... watching how you all fought while you were busy treating me like a dog... it paid off. You underestimated me."
Hood tried to lift his head, but his neck lacked strength.
"The poison," Ryckel continued, "you had a tolerance, but not an immunity. It weakened you. The blood loss did the rest. It was inevitable."
Hood didn't speak. He just stared at the corpses of his men, his breathing becoming a faint, wet rattle.
"I want to return something," Ryckel said. He planted his feet, feeling the last of his energy flow into the metal of the dagger.
He took a deep breath, visualizing the target, and threw it in one fluid motion.
The blade hummed through the red mist and buried itself deep into Hood's skull.
The captain's body gave one final twitch and went still.
"Tell Vega I'm sorry I took his knife," Ryckel whispered.
The adrenaline vanished, replaced by a crushing fatigue.
"I-I did it…" He whimpered.
But then fell down to the ground, into a dreamless slumber as the Bleeding Hour surrounded him.
---The End of Chapter 17---