Chapter Text
Tarfus Depinza was not having a good day, but that was nothing unusual. He spat blood and felt his captors recoil. Despite his situation, he couldn’t resist a smirk; damned highbloods were always so fastidious, so clean. It was like they thought even touching him or his blood would pollute them. If his tongue wasn’t swollen from him biting it, and his throat not raw from screaming for so long, he would’ve laughed. Here he was, about as broken and beaten as he could get, and those supposedly superior to him refused to leave him without two strong, healthy escorts and chains between his arms and legs.
What made it even funnier is that they were probably in the right to do so. Even now, he could spot flaws in their technique that, had he been able to stand under his own power, he could’ve exploited in less time than it took either of them to draw breath. The guard on the left’s stance was slightly too wide, and the one with a hand on his right shoulder was resting too much of his weight there. All Tarfus had to do was lean to his left to unbalance the right guard, trip the other with his leg, grab the guard’s weapon, block the swing coming from his right, gut the guard, and then turn and finish off the other one…
But alas, as he tried to move his body, all he got was a feeble twitch and lance of pain through his leg. A man could dream, couldn’t he?
He continued walking—it was more like being dragged, really—and tried to pass the time by sneering at the décor and passers-by. The low ceilings and dim blue lighting did nothing to ease Tarfus’ sense of claustrophobia. Though to be fair, that was more likely because he’d been captured, and was currently being dragged to meet Her Imperial Condescension herself. That or the way the interior designers insisted on surrounding every fucking light fixture in the complex with a globe of water, making every light source shimmer and ripple. Really, he got it. The royalty was water-themed. Enough already.
As for how he was currently en route to meet Her Royal Majesty in person, that was a tale in and of itself. He had been presented to the Grand Highblood in much the same state he found himself in now, sans quite a lot of abuse and, significantly, the chains. The Highblood had listened intently as the guards told the tale of a mutant-blood and his secret rebellion. How he had been discovered, and forced to move openly, or risk preemptive defeat. How his tiny band had been picked off one by one, and how Tarfus himself had only fought harder, until he at last stood alone. How he continued to fend off superior numbers alone for five straight minutes until at last he was overwhelmed by a cavalreaper charge.
How, as he had stood in the multicolored room in front of the Grand Highblood, he was so blood-spattered, that if he stood still he blended in with the walls.
The Highblood leaned forward, ever-present smile on his face and asked two questions. The first, was how’d he do it?
The second: where was the motherfucking punchline?
The guards glanced between themselves but said nothing. One visibly swallowed. They knew what happened if one failed to amuse the Highblood.
Tarfus looked up, stared the Highblood straight in the eye, and told him “Right here.”
He dropped to the floor, swept his right leg to the side and brought one of the escorts crashing to the ground. He snapped his left arm behind him and grabbed the second escort’s wrist in a moment of utter, blind luck. He rose, twisting and smiled grimly as the other troll’s wrist broke. Tarfus relieved him of his weapon and grimaced—a spear—standard cavalreaper fare but not his forte.
He ignored the injured and now weaponless guard to his left and turned just in time to narrowly miss being gutted by the other. He took a glancing slash along his side, tearing his shirt and staining it mutant candy-red along the gash. He gathered his own spear in two hands with the tip pointed skyward, and stepped inside the guard’s reach. That was the problem with spears, he thought, they’re utter shit when not used from musclebeastback. Just godawful weapons for foot soldiers used by pompous idiots, he mused, as he smashed the butt of his weapon into his attacker’s temple, knocking him to the ground and stunning him.
With both his opponents disabled or injured in just under ten seconds, it was a simple matter for Tarfus to finish them both.
Tarfus jammed the now-slick point of the spear into a gap between flagstones on the floor in front of him, folded his hands over the base, and rested his weight on it. He met the gaze of the Grand Highblood, still motionless on his throne, implacable smile still in place.
“Ba-dum tish,” Tarfus said. “That’s how.”
And while he’d been clubbed to the ground shortly afterward, he hadn’t missed the Grand Highblood’s widening smile, or what he’d said.
“Motherfuckin’ miracles.”