As soon as I’d heard the call from Toll, I dived straight for the edge of a pit, using the slightly elevated road for what little protection it afforded.
I felt the shot before I heard it, and did I feel it! The air pulsed as the bullet tore through, the bullet thumped the ground, then heat struck me like a wave. The world seemed to roar as fire traced out from where the bullet struck, etching and branching across the earth like a Hellish river.
Then the cry of the weapon blanketed the sky. Everything was screaming, and every scream echoed back to me louder than the first shot as the sound was amplified by the quarry. Even at this distance it deafened me. I covered my ears and let the heat, rumble, and flare fade away.
I risked a look up and was relieved to find the flames were nowhere near us. However, a sinuous line had formed along the pits in front of us, creating a wall of flame that blocked our way forward.
It didn’t end there, however. As the flames roiled within one of the greenish lithium pits, they began to spread outwards. A hint of sweetness tickled my nose as traces of lithium caught alight. It didn’t light up quickly as moisture and a layer of earth delayed the flames’ procession. However, the pits were gradually producing low flames.
Volce was the first to panic. He leapt up into the air and started screaming, “Shit shit shit! We gotta run!”
“No, wait!” I called.
Volce stared at me like I’d just grown horns. Toll and Enzi were both prone next to the road like I was and they both stared at me curiously. Markus, however, was having a casual conversation with the Sisters, like none of this was happening. The pleiades then waved their goodbyes and floated up into the sky where their equipment wouldn’t be damaged in the upcoming fight.
Markus strolled over and flopped down beside me like he was lounging by the pool.
He flashed his fangs at me. “What’s this brilliant plan of yours, Algier?”
Gritting my teeth, I spun around to Toll. “Is the gun that fired at us expelling vapourised ash?”
Without so much as looking, Toll answered, “It is.”
Oh, wonderful. We were fucked.
There are many rifles available for Participants to pop holes in each other from unreasonable distances. However, there’s only one that expels ash after it fires. Wrongtonk. And what makes that rabdos so terrifying is that renders cover meaningless.
I hadn’t expected such a powerful rabdos to appear this early in the Culling. At the very least, I’d gambled on us not encountering something like Wrongtonk so early when I’d decided to walk through the pits. Now that it had happened, though, all I could do was adapt.
Heart racing, I shouted to the demons, “We need to keep running forward until we’re out of sight. Don’t stay too close together. If anyone can keep our attacker in sight, do it. Markus, I need you to keep the fires at bay.”
“Why, what’s the rush?” Markus said. “It’s just a little bit of fire.”
My eyes were going to bulge out of their sockets. This demon was still playing games while we were under attack!
“For now,” I growled. “That weapon is Wrongtonk. It has three modes of fire. Only this one makes lovely warm flames for you.”
The haures rolled his eyes and let out a long sigh. “Oh, fuck.” He stood and made a show of stretching. Demons didn’t have muscles to stretch; he was just being a dick. “Well, time to get going, then. But I will say this.”
He snapped his fingers, the sound loud and echoing back to us. The fires around us died down until they weren’t licking any higher than my ankles. The demon faced me with his eyes glowing hot and red.
“Never tell me what to do again, human,” Markus spoke, low and thickly. If I wasn’t already juiced up on adrenaline, I would have felt a shiver down my spine.
“Alright. Let’s go!”
I leapt up onto the dilapidated road and started at a sprint. Sure enough, the demons followed, keeping their distance. I didn’t bother zig-zagging; given the flame had come crosswise, there were only two locations that the sniper could be. One was to my left where ruined buildings dotted the landscape, shadowed by the colossal wall that bound the Ring of Betrayal. The other was a hill just past the chasm of the abandoned quarry.
Another shot thumped the earth and flames roared to life right in front of me, creeping right. I didn’t even realise the sniper had struck until the roar of the gun arrived a moment later.
My heart had nearly stopped from the shock—this situation was not okay, not even close to what I’d imagined. However, I forced myself to keep breathing, and thinking.
I made a snap decision and leapt into the pit on my right. The sniper had fired from the left, from the ruined town. Now that I knew that I could use the road as cover, I figured it might prolong our lives for a minute, and only if the sniper didn’t know how the gun worked. The demons all followed suit and hopped into the pit on the right.
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Markus snapped his fingers and the flames just before us died down. I leapt out of the field and into the next one.
Another flame lurched up well ahead of the pack followed by an ear shredding cry. I resisted the urge to duck for cover. The shot wasn’t aimed for the road, however: the sniper had blasted the lithium pits directly and lit a number of them ablaze.
Markus was running near me, ignoring my orders to stay spread out, so I heard him click his tongue. He was too far away to put that one out, and by the time we got close enough the flames would have taken hold of the lithium fuel so firmly that he wouldn’t be able to put it out as quickly as the flames starving along the road.
I recognised the strategy right away. Our cover was, literally, on fire. If we stayed to the side of the road we’d get toasted as every pit ahead of us was gradually set alight. Furthermore, there was too much fire for Markus to put out in a timely manner. Smoke was pouring into the sky around us. I was already choking on the fumes. And what came next was going to hurt.
I hopped out of the pit without a word then continued my sprint down the road, gritting my teeth the whole way. I was getting anxious. The sniper was boxing us in: making us easier targets by keeping us on the road, slowing our path with flames. Soon they’d start taking shots for real. It was starting to look like I’d have to pair with Volce, to try outlive a direct blast via pure luck, and that was the last thing I wanted. There was too much riding on this.
“Algier,” came Toll’s voice from behind.
I craned over my shoulder to see the balaam just a short distance away from Markus, who himself was just behind me.
“Spread out!” I screamed.
Toll fixed me with a steady gaze, ignoring me. “Now would be a good time to ask questions about our enemy. For example, their location, how many, and—”
A shot sounded from behind Toll, more of a pop than the roar of a bullet in the distance. Heart leaping out my chest, I turned and saw Enzi holding what looked like a flare gun skyward. It took a moment to recognise it.
Mary, Jill, and Jane. Class 4: a general war rabdos. A tri-barrelled flare gun that sports three different colours: red, yellow, and green.
Enzi had fired the red barrel. A bright ruby spark rose out of the gathering black smoke and up into the sky. When it reached its zenith, the spark jolted abruptly in the direction of the ruined town. It shot through the sky with impossible speed until it came to a sudden halt over one of the buildings.
That was the location of our sniper. The red barrel of Mary, Jill, and Jane found an attacker, and when that person intended to attack, the flare gave a warning. We could use that to dive at the last moment. A few burns were preferrable than gaining a few new orifices. Enzi had pulled through. I decided against connecting with Volce for now.
The enepsi put the flare back into her inventory and flashed me a smile. “Should we approach?”
“No!” I called back. “We’re too far. Just spread—” I cut off as I broke into a coughing fit. I covered my mouth with the lapel of my jacket and kept urging myself forward, doing everything within my power not to falter.
Markus snuffed out a row of flames before us. Between billows of smoke, I saw the flare brighten, pulse slowly, then shoot off abruptly. Our attacker was on the move. Squinting, I made out a small figurine in the distance leaping from one building to the next. A stream of azure ash—ethereal, smoke-like, yet refusing to dissipate until it was well into the sky—spewed from the chamber of a long-barrelled rifle. It trailed the demon as they flew. And flew they did, because that demon had wings.
A koryf. A winged, autonomous demon that prefers high places and solitude. Their talent is in finding things. They use their flight to scan the ground from up high, and once their target is acquired, they hunt it mercilessly. That target could be something as ubiquitous as a lost coin or as macabre as a child of a father who hadn’t paid his debts.
Regardless, it looked like this koryf had found Wrongtonk, and then us.
They kept flying to shake off the flare, buying us precious time through the flames. Taking that opportunity, Markus caught up with me. He snapped his fingers and another flame died out ahead.
“So, Algier,” he spoke in oily tones. “This is quite the predicament you’ve landed us in.”
I said nothing. I was trying to preserve my voice and as much energy as possible.
The haures seemed to realise this and huffed out a laugh. “My, look at how much you’re struggling. It must be so difficult being a human. However, I have a few rabdoses stashed somewhere in my inventory that I’m sure could help to reduce those differences somewhat. Perhaps even save your life.”
“No deal,” I rasped.
Markus was taken aback. “But you haven’t even heard my offer.”
Just then, thankfully, the Sisters came diving down before us. They floated ahead of us and a little off to the side with that bulky camera aimed at us.
“Wow, Algier!” Clotho wailed. “You really look like you’re struggling there. Speak if you can.”
The microphone was shoved in my face and I ignored it. Markus, however, revelled in the attention. He leaned down to it.
“Oh, fancy seeing you again. I was just offering to help my human companion here.”
“Wow, there you have it, folks!” Atropos cheered. “Even in the midst of danger, Markus is always trying to get a good deal.”
“No wonder he’s a one name!” Lachesis said.
“Well, it’s no use,” Markus lamented. “Algier would rather die than accept a deal with me. It’s vexing, really. Did you know he used to work for me? Truly, we were so close before the Culling, even if we weren’t aware of the fact. It’s a shame that our relationship is now so fragile. But what to do? Humans are a fickle lot.”
The heat was overwhelming me, I was struggling to breathe, and I’d been steadily falling behind Markus. Alone, the haures was assuming whatever he would about me in front of the camera. Worse than that was my position: I was in the middle of the pack, making me an easier target for the next shot. When firing a weapon that could hit an area, it was best to aim for the middle of the pack to increase your odds of getting something. I was now in that something zone.
The koryf seemed to realise it was fruitless running from the flare and parked atop a roof. The red spark pulsed a warning beacon above. The vapourised ash stopped spewing from the gun as the bolt was slid into place, the remaining trail rising upwards until it blended with the sky.
I tried to shout, “Get down!” but my throat was parched from the smoke. It came out sounding like a croak.
There was little else I could do. I dived. Following my cue, Enzi, Toll, and Volce all went prone. Markus, realising something was wrong, turned and saw us all lying.
The haures came to a stop and a grin split his face. “Oh, bugger,” he said.
The next shot whizzed through the air. When it collided with the road, there were no flames. Instead, it popped and needles sprayed out from the impact zone. I desperately covered my head. A dozen needles pincushioned my arms, my shoulders, my flank closest to the detonation, my leg. I howled in agony but refused to remove my arms from my face, refused stop screaming as the reverberation of my own voice in my skull was the surefire proof that I wasn’t yet dead.