For help

“Excuse me s-s-sir,” it was the brother with the stutter that was doing the talking this time round, “b-b-but my brother c-can’t walk.”

As he met the stuttering brother’s gaze, it occurred to Brenan that a man could make a good killer with eyes like that. No matter how tough you were, there was no way you wouldn’t be petrified by blank eyes like that as he came at you with a knife.

Pushing that thought from his mind as quickly as it had appeared there, Brenan noted how the other brother was grinning badly as he tried to use both of his legs to support his weight, wincing with pain each time that he placed the ball of his left foot against the ground and quickly raising it again while leaning on his brother for support.

“Then head over there,” Brenan nodded towards a point where the slope looked a little easier to climb up, “and wait for on the top of the slope.”

“R-right,” the stutterer replied, and then helped his brother down along the shore until they turned in towards the slope.

Brenan had watched the two brothers go in silence, giving the man at his feet a quick kick each time that he tried to speak up and plead for him to “do the right thing,” whatever that entailed. He found himself liking the brothers for not urging him to kill the men who had seemed intent on killing them, even if a part of him wanted to view them as being hopelessly naïve for it.

“I want you to know one thing,” Brenan told the man sprawled out before him, the calmness of his voice only serving to further accentuate the malice behind his words, “If you come after me once your leg heals, if you gather up some of the cunts with which you socialize and decide to try and teach me a lesson, I’ll defeat you again, and then I’ll kill you. If you’re lucky, I’ll make it fast, but I’m not above cutting various bits off you and leave you to bleed out.”

Feeling that he had gotten his point across, Brenan set off down the beach, turning a deaf ear to the man’s **** cries for him to come back and help him. He had still treated him with more kindness than he and his friends had shown towards the Lantian half breeds.

Speaking of which, they were struggling to get up the slope, and it was partly due to his reawakening sense of humanity and partly due to a need to get away as quickly as possible that Brenan grabbed the wounded brother’s other arm and helped out in getting up the slope.

The horse that Davy had leant him was still tied to the tree were Brenan had left him, and it would be used for transporting the half-Lantian with the wounded leg along route into town that Brenan had decided that they would take to avoid running into any reinforcements that the two bullies that got away might bring their way.

For now though, the wounded man got lean against the same tree as the horse was tied to, with it being obvious that he took great relief from not having to stand any more.

Glancing down at the leg, Brenan pulled up the brother’s trouser leg until he could see a pretty nasty cut running several inches along the right side of his ankle, right below the calf.

“It’s going to hurt for a while, but you should be alright,” Brenan drew from his extensive experiences of receiving and seeing all sorts of nasty wounds to diagnose the injury as best he could.

“Thanks,” the brother nodded his head at Brenan.

“Don’t mention it,” Brenan meant it, he was already feeling quite embarrassed the two men’s gratitude towards him.

“I’m going to help you get back into town,” Brenan explained, being eager to move on, “but what were the two of you doing out here anyway?”