Chapter 17

Putting action to his high-pitched words, the lanky librarian booked for the door, gaining half a stride before his ill-fitting boots slid out from beneath him. Wind-milling wildly, he tried to regain his balance and failing this, his feet flew up toward the ceiling, his head smacking solidly against the stained linoleum floor.

“Is he alright?” James nudged their fallen comrade back away from the door with a steel toed boot.

Brita stopped bandaging James’ ruined hand long enough to give the unmoving Karl a cursory examination.

“He’s alive, but unconscious. He’s probably concussed.”

Naoise rolled his good eye, “Loki’s ghost. The man has some serious bad luck.”

Another thunderous blast of magical energy roared past the warped and smoking door.

“That’s it,” He scooped up the unconscious man, slinging him across a broad shoulder, “we’re moving.”

Helping Jim to his feet, Felix kicked the remains of the bathroom door into the corridor. Boiling out behind it, he had to duck immediately, barely avoiding another sizzling discharge.

Shuffling down the hallway toward Felix and his friends were a pair of disheveled women, their simple clothes dirty and torn. Tangled, greasy grey hair hung down over unblinking, bloodshot eyes.

Strangely, both women had thick leather muzzles covering the lower halves of their faces, studded straps running along their jaw lines to heavy metal rings at the base of their skulls. The rings were attached to massive chains, their links wrapped up in the clenched fists of a fully armored Green soldier.

With a twitch of his wrists, he kept the two ragged women plodding toward the fleeing would-be rescuers.

“Jim?” Felix shook his groggy friend, “You got him?”

The injured American squinted through a puffy, swollen eye. He was weak and dizzy. His target was in shadow, illuminated more by the chained women’s smoldering sorceries than the flickering light bulbs in the ceiling. His gun was heavy.

“Yeah, I got him.” He squeezed the trigger.

The Green soldier took a step forward. And then another. Felix and Naoise started raising their guns.

Before they could fire, the soldier slowly sank to his knees. In the flickering light they could see blood pouring down the front of his breastplate, running freely from the fist sized hole where his throat had been a moment before.

Releasing the gagged women’s chains, he toppled over sideways, quite dead. The women looked at their captor, and then back down the hallway. Madness filled their eyes.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to hurt you,” Felix began, “oh what the fuck!?” Together the women had sent another flickering barrage down the corridor.

“Why are you still attacking us!? You’re free now!”

The muzzled women’s only response was another fiery attack, this one blocked by some quick hocus pocus on Deirdre’s part.

“Take Karl and free the prisoners,” She directed her companions, “Brita and I will deal with these bitches.”

“Are you sure?” Naoise didn’t want to leave. Deirdre blocked another attack, this time redirecting it back at its mute source, knocking one of the rabid women off her feet.

“I’m sure! Magic can only get you so far against another witch. We’re going to have to finish this the old fashioned way. Now get going!”

Naoise gave her a nod. Felix started jogging down the hallway, supporting James. Cradling Karl to his chest like a small child, Naoise followed.

Jostled awake by the one-eyed giant’s pounding strides, Karl looked back in time to see Deirdre gyrating wildly, as if in preparation for a devastating magical counter, but it was really just a feint so that she could kick the downed witch across the face with her pointed leather boot. Beside her, Brita was alternately crying and slamming the other woman’s head against the wall by her hair.

Karl vomited a little. He told himself it was from the concussion.

***

“Dude!” Naoise was less than thrilled about the vomit coating his shoulder. “Gross!”

Karl shrugged apologetically, preoccupied with his splitting headache.

“Where are the stairs Librarian? We’ve got to be close to the top now.”

Karl cleared his throat. He was having a hard time focusing his eyes. “Umm, I think you take a right up here, and then they’ll be on your left.”

They took a right. The stairs were on their right. Karl shrugged again.

“Close enough.”

“We’ll probably have to fight when we reach the top floor,” Felix pressed in next to his brother on the stairwell, “Can you walk Karl? I’m going to need Naoise mobile.”

Karl nodded his head, and instantly regretted the maneuver. “I can walk.”

Naoise gently put him down, and immediately had to run after him when he began tottering down the stairs.

“Karl, we’re going up, remember?”

“Oh. Right.”

“What’s the top floor like?”

“It’s all one big room. There are rows of bookshelves against the walls, and tiny tables and chairs in the center.”

“Tiny tables?”

“Yeah, the top floor is where we keep the children’s books. At least, it used to be.” Karl had been irritable since seeing the condition of his beloved library.

“Illumination?” Naoise was all business.

“Umm, there are hanging lights in the ceiling, and small windows lining the tops of the walls.”

“Alright Librarian,” Naoise grabbed his elbow, “Let’s get to it.”

With Naoise and Felix on either side, Karl plodded unsteadily back up the stairs. He could walk, but only just barely.

At the top they joined Jim, who was leaning against the banister, resting.

“Are the prisoners up there?”

Jim put his gun on the floor, and with his good hand chipped a sliver of concrete off the wall. Tossing it like a child skipping stones across a pond, he sent the shard bouncing and spinning against something metallic.

Silence reigned as the echoes died.

“Well? What do you think?”

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“Where is everybody?” Naoise was suspicious, “Where are the guards? The soldiers? They must have figured out what we were here for by now.”

Jim chanced a peek out into the cavernous room.

“Guys, I think it’s empty.”

Felix stared at Karl, who was growing paler by the minute.

“What do you mean empty?” The bearded northerner’s voice could freeze salt water, “What about the prisoners?”

“I mean empty bud. There’s nobody up here.” Jim had wandered out from the mouth of the stairwell. “I think they used to be here. There’s a cage.”

Felix and Naoise joined their friend. He was right. The center of the room featured a heavy metal cage, its bars bolted securely into both the floor and ceiling. Around its perimeter, the shelves had been pushed back, the open space filled with spot lights, all of which pointed into the cage. Judging from the state of the floor, many heavy boots had marched innumerable laps around the outer circumference of the cage, guarding whoever resided on the wrong side of the bars.

“Well Karl. Where are the prisoners? ...Karl?” Felix turned back to where the librarian had been hiding at the top of the stairs. He was gone.

“Oh God damn it! Somebody find Karl.”

Naoise stomped across the empty floor, the crash of his boots mirroring the sounds of the artillery fire rumbling across the city. Lieutenant’s offensive was still going strong.

“He’s over here Felix.”

Karl was roaming the deserted aisles aimlessly, muttering and wringing his hands in anguish. Catching up, Naoise collared their errant guide, pinning him against one of the empty shelves.

“Where the fuck are the prisoners!?”

“The books?”

“The prisoners you pasty son of a bitch! The entire reason we came here!”

Before Naoise’ frustration could turn violent, Jim placed a cautionary hand on his arm.

“Quiet big guy,” He pointed to the flaky drop tile ceiling, “I think I hear something.”

Naoise lowered Karl, putting a hand across his open mouth.

In the relative silence following, it was clear that Jim was right. A gentle scraping and some dull thuds could be heard above them, barely carrying past the roar of the battle engulfing the city.

Jim and Naoise shared a look.

“They’re on the roof.”

***

“Over here!” Karl was tottering across the open expanse of floor between the shelves and the cage, heading for a nondescript metal door. “This leads to the fire escape! It will take us right to the roof.”

He stopped beside the door and rattled the handle. “It’s locked!”

Felix unslung the shotgun Brita had caught in the elevator shaft. It was a tactical weapon, with a toothed barrel and chainsaw grip. “Like hell it is.”

The boom stick spat hot fire. The door refused to open.

“Oh hell,” Naoise pushed forward, unslinging the axe he kept habitually slung across his back, “I’ll do it.”

With a few titanic swings the doorway was breached, the splintered door slab hanging from one last twisted hinge. Naoise gripped it with one meaty paw, and tore it out of its frame, tossing it aside to clang noisily against the tiled floor.

“Mmm,” Naoise kissed his axe with pleasure, “key to the city.”

Bunching together, they all crowded out on to corroded metal balcony. Once outside the building, they were immediately surrounded by the sounds and smells of battle. It appeared that fully half of the city burned in the distance.

Felix glanced around. To his left, a metal ladder led up to the roof. To his right a square hole in the floor contained another ladder leading down.

“So this ladder goes all the way up the side of the building huh?” Felix poked Karl. “Why exactly did we just fight our way up through hell inside the damn building if we could have climbed up out here?”

Karl pulled the others to the edge, gesturing for them to look down. The ladder heading down terminated in a jagged stump a half floor below them. Beyond that there were no more balconies.

“The first thing the Greens did when they took over the library was block or destroy all the external access points. Unless you can leap tall buildings in a single bound Mr. Magnusson, you’re not getting up to here from the outside.”

Felix shook his head ruefully. “Point taken friend.”

He grabbed hold of the ladder leading up.

“Let’s save us some prisoners.”

Climbing as quickly as his aching muscles would allow, he hoisted himself over the lip of the roof, sweeping the area with his still smoking shotgun.

The roof of the city library was flat, with a knee high lip running along the circumference of the building. Contained within this area was a plain of smooth gravel, densely covered in a tangle of rusting razor wire, placed there to deter paratrooper assaults back when both sides still had an air force.

Centered within this maze was a cage, similar in almost every regard to the one they had just recently discovered dominating the level below. The only major difference between the two was that this cage had people in it.

Most were garden variety prisoners of war. Grey uniformed and malnourished, it was clear they had been imprisoned for a long time.

A small group stood out from the herd. There was some sort of argument going on in the pen, and judging from the heavy bruising on one man’s face, it had already gotten physical. The knot of fighting men was being judiciously avoided by the others in the cage. While equally as dirty and disheveled as the rest of the prisoners, the long haired, bearded fighters were all significantly larger and better fed than their Grey uniformed neighbors. These were Felix’s missing sailors.

Felix and Naoise threaded their way through the barbed wire maze, stopping at the cage’s only gate. Jim and Karl remained on guard at the ladder.

The fight was drawing everybody’s attention; nobody had yet noticed their audience standing outside the bars.

Felix fired his gun into the air. That got their attention.

“Naoise? Felix? Is that you?” The sailors moved to the gate. The Grey prisoners shuffled further away.

Naoise gripped the bars. “Boys. Is the captain with you?”

A sailor shook his head sadly. “It’s just us left sir. The bastards figured out who our officers were.”

Naoise took his hands off the bars. “Fuck. What are you all doing up here?”

“Whenever there’s a big push out in the city they lock us on the roof. They think it will keep the Greys from shelling the building. To be honest, I don’t think either side is actually aiming anymore.”

Felix pushed another shell into his shotgun. “Step aside fellows. Key to the city coming through.”

The gun roared again. Another locked door opened.

Felix rattled the bars. “Everybody out! We’ve got a ship to catch!”

His men raged out of the cage. After a moment’s hesitation, the Grey soldiers followed. Felix snagged one of the last to leave the cage.

“Hey, what were they fighting about?”

“I’m not certain sir,” the dirty old soldier refused to meet his gaze; “I think one of your men claimed he saw an angel flying around the city today. Another called him a liar. He took offense.”

Felix scanned the skies. “An angel? I wonder what that’s all about.”

***

When the freed sailors hit the bottom of the stairs, they were greeted by a smiling Deirdre and Brita. The men broke into a raucous chorus of cheers, excited to see their Raven.

Although they didn’t cheer, the Grey soldiers were clearly in awe of the women as well. Pretty faces were very welcome after their long imprisonment.

“Gentleman,” Deirdre had a captive audience, “Let’s go home.”

That was a declaration everyone could cheer to. With a roar the mob sprinted for the stairs. Caught up in the rush, Deirdre and Brita roared right along with them. Any Green soldier unlucky enough to have not been killed in the initial raid through the building was set upon and ripped apart by the vengeful horde. When they reached the basement the brick barricade was attacked with equal enthusiasm, slowing them only slightly. A few picks and hammers stacked in a side room joined with Naoise’s great axe and the prisoners’ bare hands to rip a tunnel wide enough to crawl through.

With much grunting and scraping the freed prisoners made their way through this narrow egress, their numbers dwindling on the library side until just Brita and Karl remained.

“Go ahead,” Karl gestured to the dark opening, “I’ll follow you.”

Nodding her appreciation, Brita crawled into the hole. When her feet had disappeared into the darkness Karl turned around, heading back up into the library. He hadn’t lied, he would follow her out. There was just something he had to check first.

***

The gunner checked his field glasses again. He had been right, the roof cage was deserted.

“Feldwebel Steinbrenner, target 17 is clear.”

The NCO raised his glasses. “The rescue must have been a success then. Good. Deny the enemy his hiding-hole soldier. Fire at will.”

The gunner crammed another shell into the howitzer’s smoking breach.

“With pleasure, Feldwebel.”

***

“There you are,” Karl whispered. He had been worried that no books remained. He caressed the edge of a pile of dusty tomes with gentle fingers. The books were in a sorry state, piled haphazardly from floor to ceiling in an out of the way conference room, but at least they were there. He was sure if he kept looking he would find more stashed throughout the building. Books were too valuable to destroy.

He rummaged through a fallen pile.

“Botany books! Perfect!” Seating himself atop another stack of leather bound manuscripts he began paging through his find, looking for the photo of a familiar plant.

“Here we go,” he murmured, “Hepatica Nobilis. I can’t wait to tell Brita!”

He paused. He could hear a strange whistling sound. It seemed vaguely familiar. Karl shrugged. Whatever it was, it was getting louder. The librarian returned to his reading. At the last instant, he realized what the whistling was.