The roar of battle was all that existed outside the cell door, ninja guards fighting and dying under imperial pikes and javelins. They were forest warriors, and they didn’t stand a chance against an organised, overwhelming attack on their own soil like this.
Otto remembered the way a guard had laughingly told him that nobody had ever discovered the village before. What had changed, he wondered.
Mal was trying to break the lock on the door with her boot. She turned back to look at him over her shoulder, and the shadows from the barred hatch crossed her face.
“Help me with this, would you? We’re getting out of here,” she said. Otto stood wordlessly and went to help.
When the metal bolt ripped free of its home and the door swung silently open there was an eerie sense of calm. The soldiers had passed them by in the fighting, a fact Otto was glad of since he had no desire to cross paths with the Empire either. The sounds of fighting, metal and men clashing alike, were almost muted by the surrounding wood as though they were happening a long way away.
Mal picked up a sword from a fallen ninja and weighed it in her hand. “Too light,” she remarked, and decided it would have to do. “Pick something up.”
Otto opted for a short spear, averting his eyes from the bloody wound in the chest of its owner. He picked it up in both hands and swung it at the corner of the building until it snapped, leaving about a metre of wood which he hefted. Mal rolled her eyes.
“They’ll kill us if they catch us either way.”
“I know,” Otto said. “This way when they kill me I’ll have the moral high ground.”
There was no more time for hesitation. The two of them ran into the woods, not knowing where their path would lead except away.

Otto sat by a stream and wetted the blade of his small straight razor. His face was starting to itch, and the beard felt dirty down to the roots. He looked at the reflection below him. It was a more harrowed face than he had had before. That would pass, he thought hopefully. He raised the razor.
“They let you keep that thing in the cell?”
“They didn’t know about this thing, thank you very much,” Otto shot back, smirking.
Mal laughed. “Neither did I, I notice. What I could have done with that!”
“Exactly.” Otto started to pull the razor over the hairs at the edge of his beard, almost gingerly.
“Oh, come on,” said Mal. “You’ve got to attack it or it’ll be dark before you start. Give me that!” and she knelt down behind him and took the razor out of his hand. She dipped it in the stream, shook it off, and moved her arm around his chest to hold him in place. Otto suddenly became very aware that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
She was good at it, too. “Where did you learn to shave a face like this?” Otto said.
“I’ve lived many lives, Otto,” said Mal, and he heard a little smiling exhale of breath past his ear. “You never forget.” Her hand tightened on his shoulder and she shifted, and the warmth of her body pressed against his back made him realise that she was bare-chested too. He swallowed nervously and stared straight ahead as she settled her chin on his other shoulder.
“I thought – I didn’t think, that is – oh-” stammered Otto as she pulled the razor away. His heart was hammering so loud she could probably hear it now.
“Finished,” she said. “Take a look.”
Otto leant out over the stream and looked down. He felt her release his shoulder and heard her step back on the grass. Could he bring himself to look over his shoulder? Somehow, as much as she fascinated and enticed him, he knew it could only mean danger.
“Come on, don’t keep me waiting,” said Mal, and the edge in her voice cut straight through his misgivings and he turned around on his knees to bear witness to the Amazonian figure before him. Mal bent over until her face was close to his. “That’s good. Don’t get up,” she whispered, and stood up straight again.

Mal dressed silently, not looking at the sleeping figure in the bedroll by the fire. He was sleeping so soundly, it would be a shame to wake him. She almost laughed at that thought.
She knew they had a trail. Imperial soldiers? Unlikely. They would have marched right over them. She swung the sword through the air a couple of times. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. She glanced down at Otto, the silent, vulnerable, naked figure. A stab of guilt for using him like this entered her heart. Then again, he hadn’t complained. Now came the part she had to do by herself.

Glow-bugs fluttered around her as she made her way through the woods, following a suggestion of a trail that the assassin had almost covered perfectly. Not well enough to keep her away. She moved like a ghostly apparition, quickly from point to point without seeming to move much at all. Suddenly she would simply be somewhere else.
As she scanned the ground with cautious eyes, alert for the possibility of snares and traps, a bug settled on her shoulder. Illuminated by the faint light from its bioluminescent abdomen, a whistling sound passed her ear and she whipped round to follow it. The narrow shaft of an arrow twanged in the tree behind her. Instantly she threw herself to the ground as the bugs scattered. She glanced along the direction the arrow had come from. Was that movement? She sprang up and raced towards the figure in the dark as he lowered his bow and darted sideways and was lost in the shadows.
He could come from anywhere now. All she could do was try to protect as many sides as possible.

She nearly tripped over the root of a tree as she passed it: it was high, arched, and there seemed to be a hollow underneath the roots. Perfect. Her highly-trained ears heard the tension of a bowstring, and she dove down into the hollow.
A gasp of pain escaped her gritted teeth. She had scraped her arm on a root or a stone. She heard the thud of an arrow in wood and scrambled around, lunging out of the hollow again, determined to catch him before he could shoot one more time.

Round eyes with the whites visible all the way round. The assassin turned and ran, limping and staggering on the uneven ground, until he finally misstepped and went rolling down into a ditch ahead of the sure-footed Mal.
She stood at the top of the slope and shouted down: “You alive?” A groan answered her. She hopped off the root she was using for purchase and slid down, kicking up dirt into the assassin’s face.
“My arm… broken,” said Kirkbuzzer, unable to move.
“I’m supposed to be helping bring you in alive,” said Mal. “If I let you die here I don’t get paid. And I really need that money. I tried to make them promise to hang you, but nobody seems to be able to make a commitment to that. You see my problem.”
The assassin laughed painfully. “I won’t hang. You don’t know who I’ve got behind me, Waldo. I’m untouchable. Your copper friends will see to that.”
Mal cocked her head to one side. “I thought you might say something like that,” she said. “You’re right. Once you’re in the hands of the law I can’t do anything to you.” She sighed. “Do you see any of them here right now, by the way?”
The assassin squirmed, trying to escape. He pushed himself up on his good arm and scrambled for the top of the ledge, but the earth shifted underneath him and he found himself going nowhere fast.

The dark shape at the bottom of the slope lay motionless, barely distinguishable from the dead leaves and rocks around it.
“He hadn’t been long back on his feet after… his injury,” said Mal. “He tripped and… over he went. Must have broke his neck.”
“Must have done,” said Otto quietly. He glanced at Mal, standing on the edge with her foot up on a rock in a commanding posture. He held his crude club loosely. “Well, if it was an accident, there’s nothing to be done. At least he won’t hurt anyone again.”
Mal nodded, and looked straight into his eyes. She didn’t have her sword with her. Still, she had proved plenty deadly enough without it. The two stared at each other, daring the other to turn away first.
“That night by the stream… was it real?” asked Otto. Mal’s lips pressed together into a negative frown. “Alright,” he said, turning away. “Be seeing you.”