While crossing the expansive desert, Mickie alternatively blamed himself for listening to Ziz and cursed the newborn primordial for ditching him in the middle of nowhere. Trudging up the steep slope of a dune, he could just make out the plateau as a distant rectangular blur. Miz-Mag had long since disappeared, so there was no one around to hear the long sigh he gave before descending the sandy incline. Which was why he found it strange, when the desert itself gave a sigh in response.
Mickie paused, tilting his head to the side at the sound. It was deep, yet distant, rattling through the confines of the cavern. He had heard something similar before, just after starting this trek. They had thought it was the roar of flying machines and fled accordingly. That sound had eventually vanished, leaving the branded man and his demonic partner wary but alone. After a surreptitious glance around uncovered nothing but desert, Mickie figured that might be the case this time too.
Only, as he trekked onwards, the sound did not disappear. Instead, as he grew closer to the plateau, the distant sigh in the wind gained definition. It shifted from a murmur to music, a strange rhythm that seemed to want something from him. The song of the Kindle Kin came to him like an old friend, familiar yet different in ways that were highlighted by contrast. As he tried to unravel the sound, Mickie’s steps became steadier, and his pace through the desert improved.
The branded man entered something akin to a trance, and as a result it took him far longer than it should have to notice the change in the air. It was only when he crested a small dune, and a sudden gust almost blew him over that he paused. The winds on the seventh were strong, but had never been powerful enough to knock him about. Now that he was looking for it, a rather large amount of sand was dancing along the dunes ahead. That gust had not been an isolated case.
A heavy seed of suspicion planted itself in Mickie’s gut, and he started up one of the nearby dunes to get a decent vantage. The broken plateau was close enough now that he could make out the general shape of the stone structure. It was as if someone had taken one of the pillars dotted about the seventh and cut it cleanly off partway up. A tapered platform of stone awaited ahead, unmarked but for a darkened line bisecting it. He could not see any ruins, but even still, it was good to confirm. That was definitely the broken plateau.
Remembering his true purpose for climbing the dune, the branded man scanned the stony horizon. When he found what he was looking for the suspicious seed blossomed into outright dread. Off to one side, distant but most certainly visible, was a roiling mass of deep crimson. It covered a good portion of cavern in that direction, crawling closer with each passing moment. A blood storm. Kalistra had said they were rare, and Mickie did not doubt her. The only problem was that they had spent far longer than intended on the sands. As rare as a storm might be, one was bound to eventually shown up.
Unwilling to waste any more time than he already had, the mortal darted down the dune towards the nearby plateau. The crack through the giant rock would provide ample protection from the coming storm, if he could only make it there in time.
As Mickie neared his goal he began to discern other colours within the widening gap of stone. Whites that twisted and stretched, jagged like the branches of the bone wood trees. Beneath that, at the base of the plateau, was a squat structure of dark steel. A building of some kind. He recalled Miz-Mag mentioning that the Sovereign’s forces knew there was something out here. Hopefully they had not received word of his approach.
As the storm neared, the wind became increasingly fierce, hot air buffeting Mickie and whipping the sand into stinging streams. Ziz was a creature of the skies, surely it could have sense if something as intense as this storm was coming. If it did, and still ditched Mickie so far from his goal, then he and the big bird were going to have words when this was over.
Glancing back, his vision was filled with the swirling greys and reds of the blood storm. A heaving wall of crimson cloud expanded from floor to ceiling, filling the cavern like the breath of an angry god. Occasional flashes of lightning within the furious mass flared red light across dune and stone. What struck Mickie however, more than the sight of the blood storm, was the noise it produced. Like a living creature the boiling clouds roared. A constant, ear aching sound that was punctuated by irregular claps of thunder. The sound was such that he found it increasingly difficult to think, difficult to see himself as anything more than an ant facing the titanic wash of a flamethrower.
Wrenching himself away from the looming storm, Mickie cast his attention back to his destination. He was so very close now. The plateau towered above him, a sight that felt underwhelming when compared to the storm on his heels. Just a little bit further and he would make it. Mickie could get to the squat building and shelter there. Whatever awaited him inside had to be better than the beast at his heels. The branded man threw caution to roaring wind and sprinted for safety. He was almost there, could see a door outlined in the grey steel. It was just then, when relief began to run calming fingers down his spine, that the storm swallowed him whole.
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Traxidill should have been above guard duty. As a key member of the scouting and reconnaissance division under sub-commander Lizalphus, it had far more important duties to attend to. It had been sometime since the pillar in the central city fell, taking all communication from the army with it. Rumours abounded throughout their little encampment about what had occurred. A communication from the sub-commander had been the last they had heard from the central pillar. It had mentioned Belphegor’s forces were encroaching upon the city, and as such there would be a delay to Lizalphus’ return.
Then the stone path through the circles had fallen, an event so titanic that it shook the sands even at their distant position. The aftermath of that was a blanket silence from the main force and an incompetent second in command fumbling its way towards inaction. Traxidill huffed and shifted a bit further away from the door to their shelter. It might not be able to see the blood storm through the thick barrier of steel, but it could certainly hear the accursed thing. Wind howled and rattled the building, scraping at every nook and cranny like a hungry beast.
It was unnerving to say the least, and every moment spent within the deafening roar only served to compound Traxidill’s darkening mood. There was no purpose to guarding the door at this moment, not with the storm scouring the dunes beyond. This was a punishment detail, assigned to Traxidill because it had the gall to suggest they act.
The second was a fool, and more than that, a coward. Hunkering by the communicator like it would suddenly come to life. If they were going to hear from those in the city, then they would have already. Action was required. They needed to take charge of the situation, establish control over what remained of the forces within the seventh. Traxidill was certain Asmodeus would reward them for it.
A sudden sound had the demon jumping out of its thoughts. A loud crash, coming right from the sealed door their safe house. Glancing towards the thick barrier, Traxidill thought that the metal was warped slightly, right at the point where the latch met the frame. The second explosive sound had the guard taking a few unintentionally steps backwards. It fumbled clumsily for its dangling rifle, shouldering the weapon and pointing towards a now visible gap in the steel. Blood spat and steamed through the small sliver, filling the air with a red mist as the storm howled like a wolf with a scent.
‘W-who goes there. Make yourself known.’
Traxidill meant for the words to sound authoritative and intimidating, but managed little more than a nervous squeak. The only response it received was the roar of the wind. There was a moment in which the guard hesitated, teetering between running to raise the alarm and holding its ground. Before it could make a decision, there was another explosive boom. The latch across the door sheared off, and with a victorious roar the blood storm swept into the building.
Droplets of fire sprayed across the demon guard’s body, striking its exposed arms and face. Traxidill screamed in pain and fired blindly into the shrieking blood. Another spray of superheated crimson took the fiend in one of its eyes. The agony of it was beyond anything Traxidill could even believe possible. With hardly a second thought the demon ceased firing and stumbled away from the storm’s torturous grasp. It gasped for breath between ragged sobs, burning its hands as it desperately wiped steaming blood from its eye.
Traxidill could only see out of the other now, and through a film of tears the guard noticed a shadow fall across the red glow from the storm. Blinking its vision clear the demon glanced up, and came face to face with a snarling wolf. Ruby eyes glinted above a yawning abyss of a mouth. The realisation that this was some form a weapon came slowly, dawning as Troxidill’s working eye traced up a sleek barrel to land upon the gun’s wielder. Covered in blood, crimson but for the whites of its eyes. It was a monster birthed from the storm to hunt those that would defy its grasp.
‘I… I…’
The demon tried to speak, tried to beg, but was cut off as the wolf roared forth flame and force.
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Sense returned slowly as Mickie stood gasping in the metal hallway. Behind him the storm raged at his escape, blasting bloody wind into the building. The branded man had almost lost himself in that violent sea of burning mist. Between the pain and lacking visibility, it was bordering on a miracle that he had stumbled upon the building at all.
The blood of the storm had been potent, though not to the extent of that within the boiling lake. With the added protection of his clothing, Mickie had just managed to hold onto sense for long enough to locate a door into the facility. Casting a glance at the dead guard, he turned towards the building itself. It was a plain thing of stark walls and glaring fluorescent lights. That was good, it would mean less places in which the demons could hide.
Taking off at a run, Mickie had hardly rounded a corner before stumbling into a squad. There was five of them, likely sent to investigate all the noise he had just made. The two leading the group had weapons held at the ready, and as such were the first to go. Mickie shot one as five sets of eyes widened upon seeing him.
Power flooded through him from the amulet over his chest and the barrel on his gun spun over in moments. The second demon went down just as it was firing off a shot. The bullet slammed into Mickie’s protected ribs, and he felt bone crack. The pain that blossomed as a result was nothing compared to the fury of the blood storm, failing to even slow his charge.
The remainder of the group were fumbling for their weapons and raising the alarm. That was fine. Having more of them come to him would make things faster. Mickie darted forward, grabbing the barrel of a gun as it swung up and slamming the demon behind it hard into a wall. It was time to get to work.
Ten, twenty, almost thirty fiends fell as the branded man carved his way through the metal facility. The storm outside raged all the while, drowning the shouts of the Sovereign’s forces in its roar. By the time he was done Mickie’s own blood had mixed in with the dried coating from the storm. His body ached from a plethora of bruises, though nothing was substantial enough to be debilitating.
Having combed every room and chamber, from a large hangar to a cramped set of bunks, all that remained was a single, locked door. Beyond it, Mickie could hear the frantic rambling of a voice, able to make out the cadence but not the words. That likely meant at least two demons then, one of which he was going to want alive. At no point during his violent crusade had Mickie come across something he would judge to be a leader. He wanted to question someone about the Kindle Kin, and the head of this base seemed like the best bet.
Stepping to one side of the door, the branded man readied his weapon. It seemed that he had finally stumbled upon the limits of what his new amulet could offer. The power it pushed into him had grown sluggish, no longer able to keep up with his rate of expenditure. It was a good thing then, that he was just about done with the base’s demons. Dipping into the dwindling remains of his power, Mickie charged his gun. There was a gold flash partnered with a sharp roar, and the final room in the facility was suddenly accessible.
He expected some form of retaliation for the forced entry, and as such was out of any lines of fire. Yet there came no shouting or crack of gunfire from within the room. Whoever had been talking in there, they were silent now. Cautiously Mickie glanced through the door and locked eyes with the room’s single, speechless occupant. A chimeric cross with the head of a zebra and body of a panda bear, it certainly fell on the odder side of demons he had encountered.
The creature gave a startled bray and almost toppled from its chair as Mickie walked into the room. In one hand it held the microphone of something that resembled a large radio. A twisting cable connected to a bulky machine on the desk. He was not really sure how these things worked in Hell, but Mickie doubted there would have been much reception in the storm.
‘The creature has breached the command. I repeat, the creature has breached the command.’
Instead of attempting to flee or fight, the demon abruptly started shouting down the line of its radio. The act was so nonsensical that Mickie hesitated, unsure of what was happening.
‘Backup is required, please acknowledge receipt of this communication.’
The chimera finished its attempted transmission and the room fell silent. Mickie glanced between the demon and the bulky radio on its desk, waiting to hear a response. If there was someone else on the way, then he needed to know about it. All the machine emitted was static. As he had thought, the storm was likely blocking communications. Then again, did this fiend even have anyone to talk to? Belphegor had already more or less wiped the floor with the Sovereign’s forces.
A telltale thud from Mickie’s gun indicated the weapon had finished reloading. As such, when the chimera made to perform another transmission, the branded man put a blast into the body of the radio. Machinery and metal exploded outwards, and the demon gave an equine wail. Mickie dismissed his weapon and strolled forward. With one hand, he gripped the side of the table and heaved it over, clearing a path to the trembling chimera.
Common sense finally seemed to seep into the demon, and it fumbled for a holstered weapon. Far too late. Mickie was on the black and white hybrid before it had even grasped the handle. The fiend was large, taller than he was. It had failed to rise from its chair however, and us such could do nothing to avoid the foot he planted in its chest. With a grunt the demon toppled backwards to crash onto the hard floor.
Mickie stomped the hand still reaching for the weapon before pulling the small firearm free and tossing it aside. The barrel of his own recalled gun slammed hard into the head of the chimera, and it froze at the sensation of cold steel against its skull. The branded man let the silence stew for a time, tension building in the air. It was not long before the demon cracked.
‘W-what are you?’
What was he? That was a bit of an odd question, at least Mickie thought so until he noticed his own arm. Coated in sticky blood, dyed red by the storm and the violence within the building. It was not just his arm either, Mickie’s whole body had received a generous coating of visceral paint. He could feel it drying in places, a subtle tension pulling on his skin.
To this creature, he must be the one that looked like the demon. It was enough to make the branded man laugh. His chuckle was little more than a raspy wheeze, throat still sore from all the screaming he had done back out in the storm.
‘Don’t worry about that. Tell me if there are any more of you out here.’
His newly minted captor whimpered.
‘More of us, as in, within the building?’
‘Not the building. You and I are the only ones left in here.’
If fur could pale the chimera would have gone pure white.
‘I-I see. No, there is no one outside. They were all recalled for the storm.’
Small mercies.
‘What was your mission here?’
‘Mission?’
Even through its fear, the demon closed up at the mention of its task. Mickie wanted to sigh. He had already known why the Sovereign’s forces were out here. It just would have been nice to gauge how much they knew. He could drag the information from the chimera, it probably would not even take that long. Only, he was in pain, utterly exhausted, and did not really care how clued in these demons were to the Kindle Kin. Not when they could no longer pose a threat. As if on cue, his gun finished its reload cycle, the puma head thudding into place at the top. Mickie met the eyes of the demon, and it read the intent on his blood-soaked face.
‘No wait I can…’
A crack, and then silence. Steam vented from the oversized, intricate weapon. Mickie left the vapor fading into the air as he walked from the room without a word.
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It did not take long to find a stash of something that passably resembled water in the lifeless building. A steel barrel of it had been tucked away in a small storage room. For some reason he was unsurprised to find some, even though nothing he had seen so far required it to survive. It reminded him of something Miz-Mag once said when he had brought up the fact. The denizens of Hell did not need, they only desired, and who would not want water in the desert.
Mickie cleaned the thickening blood from his body as best he could. His clothes were dismissed and resummoned free of leftover viscera. By the time the branded man was done, he was clean but exhausted in more than just the physical sense of the word. A creaky hollow had come to occupy the inside of his chest. First Kalistra, then the blood storm, and now this. Mickie exited the room and made his way down the hall, stepping over a number of silent forms. Outside the wind continued its single-minded crusade upon the steel shelter.
It was going to be just him and the dead demons for the foreseeable future. It was strange how little he cared about that, how little he cared about anything at the moment. It was as if that calm emptiness he so often sought had swallowed him whole. It had all been too much, and so he had pushed it all away without even intending to.
Mickie worked his way into one of the rooms free of the dead. A moderately sized hangar, lit by the same bleak fluorescence as the rest of the facility. To one side of the large space was a single, oversized flying machine. It was into that he now climbed, sliding into one of the poorly cushioned seats. Mickie let his head fall back to thud against the top of the backrest. He closed his eyes, the lights above dance along his eyelids as the storm screamed at him to let it in.
His intent had been to sleep, fade away until Miz-Mag came back around and woke him up. Only, his exhausted mind refused to rest. Drained as he was, empty as he felt, oblivion apparently wanted nothing to do with him. So, Mickie sat slumped with eyes closed. Eventually the sounds of the storm became little more than white noise, and his thoughts began to shift and dance along paths he had preferred not to tread.
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He thought of his mother, long dead now. Was she down here? Mickie was unsure if he would be able to handle seeing her again. Not after all he had done, all he had become. Hopefully she had gone somewhere better when she died, or else moved on from this place. Mickie recalled the note that had been attached to the crown of thorns. Born of blood and vine. He had hardly thought of it following his revival from a stone statue. One of the few things positive about his arrival in this realm was that nobody knew who he had been while alive. That message said otherwise.
Now he thought of it, very few people Mickie had known would have gone to the lengths required to help him. His mother though… No, it could not be her. She would never use the family motto, even for a little message like that. If not his mother, then who? It would need to be someone with influence enough to get at his statue in the spire.
An image swam to the fore. Not of someone he had seen during life, but in the time since. A woman with features that, now he thought of it, matched those common to his family. Mickie had seen her infrequently, always tailing Belphegor when the demon visited him in the arena. At the time he had thought she looked familiar, and perhaps it was his own linage that he had been noticing. If that were the case, then who was she? Some ancestor of his that died a few generations back? Mickie could not recall seeing her in any of the old portraits and photos.
Perhaps he was just seeing things. Assigning a connection because he was searching for one. After all, had she not been serving Belphegor? It would pose an incredible risk to assist him. Mickie sighed, shifting his weight on the chair. He figured that if his hidden ally had wanted to be known, then they would have gone with something more distinct than his family motto.
It was sometime later that the storm finally began to clear. The first indication that it was easing up was the return of the music. Softly, almost tentatively, Mickie began to hear the steady rhythm, asking him a question that he could not quite grasp. The branded man’s eyes slid open, and he stared up at the plain metal ceiling. He felt no less tired than when he first planted himself upon the chair of the large flying machine. For a moment Mickie wished he could disappear like Miz-Mag, vanish into some unknown place and return rested. Sadly, he was not so fortunate. The branded man dragged himself from his seat as the roar of the wind slackened.
‘No rest for the wicked.’
He muttered, moving out of the hangar and into the corpse strewn hallway. The building had grown heavy with the scent of death while the storm raged, and Mickie was looking forward to getting some fresh air. By the time he reached the broken door to the facility, the branded man was sloshing through a thin layer of blood. The storm might be ending, but it certainly did not go without a fight.
The hall leading to the exit was painted red with viscera. It no longer burned to the touch, which was nice, but remained uncomfortably warm. Beyond the open door, Mickie could see the rolling dunes through an easing drizzle. He waited for the storm to fade completely before moving outside. It did not take long, the crimson cloud wall was soon a fading line in the distance. Sloshing through the remaining stretch of bloody corridor, Mickie stepped out onto the sands.
He did not know what he expected following the downpour, but complete lack of blood among the dunes was certainly not it. Sand softly parted against his foot, dry as it had been before the storm. Mickie had noticed that the blood seemed to vanish into the desert at a prodigious rate, but for it to already be dry… He shook his head and glanced back at the steel building. That, at least, had a glistening layer of red across it. A result of not truly being of the desert, he supposed.
Shifting focus, Mickie turned to the cracked plateau. He failed to truly appreciate it in that final dash to the building. First hounded by the storm, then unable to see at all once it caught him, sightseeing had been low on his priority list. Finally having a moment free of immediate danger, he took in the giant rent in the towering stone platform.
The plateau had been first described to him as ruins, and he now saw why. Within the shadowed gap was what appeared to be a city. Carved into the very rock that housed it, buildings were layered atop one another, stretching up to the plateau’s flattened peak. While the construction was impressive, it was not what truly captured Mickie’s attention. No, that award went to the jagged spines of bone erupting from the rock like organic crystal.
From windows and walkways, doors and balconies, the bleached white formations sprouted in all directions. Often crossing the gap of cracked stone, the bone crowded the open air of the carved city. It was as if Mickie was looking at the roots of a monstrous bone tree, exposed by the crack in the plateau. Well, he mused as he started towards the overgrown city, at least now he knew why they were called ruins.
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It was clear on approach that this place was where the Kindle Kin were to be found. As Mickie neared, the music rose in volume, echoing out of the split stone to roll across the desert. By the time he transitioned from sandy dunes to the rock of the plateau, it was more than just a background rhythm. The air thrummed with that unknowable question, and tired as Mickie was, the branded man found the music closer to irritating than intriguing.
Coming to a stop at the edge of the cracked stone, he discovered that the ruins also stretched down into the earth. Carved buildings were increasingly overrun with bone as the split stone stretched into darkness. From this close, Mickie could make out a glimpse through the bone spines on the far side of the split as well. The scope of this place was astounding. Had the plateau always been this way? Or had something carved this giant rent into the stone, cutting so deep that Mickie could not see the bottom. It seemed impossible to even consider, yet Belphegor had managed to topple an entire pillar not so long ago. If that could be done, then why not this?
No matter how the bone riddled city had come to be, it did not change what Mickie needed to do. It was apparent that the music rose from within the depths of the ruins, and so, that was where he would have to go. A sudden pressure on his shoulder had him stopping short, however.
‘By Satan’s smelly sack, what in all the nine is this place?’
The familiar weight of his companion brought an unconscious twitch to Mickie’s lips.
‘About time you got your lazy ass up, Mag.’
‘Come on kid, a specimen such as myself needs their beauty sleep.’
Miz-Mag stretched out its little arms as it took in the ruins.
‘So, don’t keep me in suspense, what I miss?’
Mickie began to fill Miz-Mag in on the time between his partner’s disappearance and his arrival at the broken plateau. As he covered the approach of the blood storm, Mickie examined the edge of the ruins for a way down. Rocky ground gave way to sheer cliffs as it met the cracked plateau. Buildings carved into the surface extended around to firmer ground, providing access to the vertical city. It was next to one of these that Mickie noticed the pathway. Creating a passage into the stone it looked to wrap around the back of the buildings and lead deeper into the ruins.
‘By the blood. A storm… well I… I’m sure glad I missed that one.’
Having finished his recap, Mickie barked a short laugh at the demon’s droll reply. He had reached the passageway into the city and was fishing out the orb lamp. The sides of the cracked plateau might be touched by crystal light, but their way into the ruins tunnelled into the stony cliffside.
‘Yeah, must be nice being able to jump ship whenever suits, come back later to find someone else has done all the work.’
‘Is that jealousy I detect, dear boy?’
‘Jealous? Of your scrawny hide? Couldn’t be.’
Mickie grinned as he felt a smack against the side of his ear. Stepping into the carved tunnel, he felt lighter. Sure, the exhaustion was still there, but at least he was not alone anymore. It was a strange realisation to make, that he had grown to prefer the company of a demon over solitude. Then again, he had always felt better when there were others around.
‘Those Kindle Kin sure are loud. Did you get anything out of the Sovereign’s lot on them?’
He had brushed over the fight in the building, and Miz-Mag seemed to have noticed the lack of detail.
‘No, I did not.’
Was all Mickie said on the subject. While it might have been a good move to interrogate the leader of that facility, he did not regret skipping the process. Miz-Mag picked up on the undertones in his response, and did not push further.
‘Ah well. They don’t sound all that far away though. Makes you wonder why they aren’t up here yet.’
The branded man hummed in agreement, coming across a carved set of stairs in the dark passage. He started down them only to walk almost headfirst into a thick spine of bone. It cut from one wall to another, bisecting the tunnel like a poorly made boom gate. Mickie carefully ducked beneath it and continued downwards. He was unsure if this stuff was the same as the trees in the bone wood, but figured erring on the side of caution was the way to go.
‘Hopefully it won’t take us that long to figure out.’
He said, following the stairs as they curved back towards the cliff face.
‘You worried about our resident gorgon?’
‘Yeah.’
Mickie rubbed his eyes.
‘I don’t think Belphegor will kill her, that’s not really its style.’
‘Plus, she’s bonded with Ziz now. If she goes then the big bird goes with her. I’d say big Bel will want to use her as leverage.’
Miz-Mag mused.
‘That makes sense. I just…’
He paused, coming to the end of the stairs and stepping into another hall.
‘Belphegor seemed pissed. It might not kill Kalistra, but who knows what it’ll do to her instead. Especially if Ziz doesn’t come crawling back.’
Ahead light filtered through the passage ahead, indicating their tunnel was merging back into the cliffside.
‘Well, that’s the whole point of this exercise ain’t it? We get the singers to help us boot Belphegor out of the tower. Then you can finish figuring out those controls up top, and we can get out of here.’
Mickie had reached the end of the tunnel, stepping out onto a ledge of stone. His reply to Miz-Mag died on his lips as the ruins of the cracked plateau stretch out before him. From the edge of the carved city, he had failed to truly take in the magnitude of the place. Only nestled within the vertical layers of carved walkways and buildings did it truly hit him. Miz-Mag leaned forward and peered into the city’s depths, giving an appreciative whistle.
‘The bone sure does get thick down there.’
Mickie followed his partner’s gaze to a point that had to be the base of the ruins. He could not confirm whether it truly was however, as past a certain point the bone spines became so dense they formed a barrier. Shifting his head side to side, the branded man could not find an angle that let him peer past the white wall.
‘What’s the bet that’s where the Kindle Kin are?’
Miz-Mag flopped down on his shoulder and chuckled grimly.
‘With our luck? I’d say it’s just about guaranteed.’
The pair continued their descent through the bone riddled ruins, walking along paths that seemed to follow no discernible pattern. Narrow ledges curved back into wide passageways that bored deep into the plateau. Backtracking was not uncommon, and Mickie soon took to marking walls with a shot from his gun to aid them on the way out.
As they had observed from above, the bone spurs grew more regular as they descended. Passages became crowded with twisting spines, so dense at points that Mickie could not pass. In the open air of the cliff, entire sections of hanging walkways had broken away as the bone pushed through. It dragged their slow investigation down to a crawl, and Mickies frustration gradually mounted at the delays until he finally hit a breaking point.
They had come across yet another passage overcome by bone, only this time Mickie could see a staircase just past the blockage. It was not far now to the city’s base, if he could just get through this barrier, those stairs might be the last leg of the descent. He thought about simply shooting his way through, but recalled the acidic bone wood sap. If these roots were the same, then it would be a bad idea to blow open a hall full of them. Instead, the branded man took a moment to examine the barrier, judging just how tight of a squeeze it would be.
‘Kid, are you going to do what I think you’re doin?’
Miz-Mag gave him a nervous look.
‘I might have to. Squeezing through is probably a risk, but its one I’ll need to take. We’ve wasted enough time trying to find a way down, we need to get this done.’
The little demon sighed and hopped from its perch.
‘Alright, but if one of these things opens up to eat you, don’t expect me to run in and pull you out.’
‘I wouldn’t bother, you can hardly move a pencil, let alone me.’
Miz-Mag threw a rude gesture in his direction before ducking into the mess of bone spurs. His little partner had no difficulty scampering through the worst of it, and was soon waiting in the clear space by the stairs. Being small certainly had its perks. Following along, Mickie got on his hands and knees and started crawling through the dense bone.
Soon he was lying flat, reaching forward to grasp protruding bone and pull himself through. The twisting spines were uncomfortably warm to the touch and shuddered slightly when he laid a palm upon them. Mickie clenched his jaw against the rising disgust and heaved himself forward. Feet scrabbled at the floor; hips contorted to squeeze through a narrow gap. He reached forward to grasp a spur, almost free, when pain laced through his hand. Mickie yanked his arm away from the bone, leaving a read stain where flesh had met bone.
Without realising it the branded man had grabbed a section too jagged for safety, slicing a deep wound into his palm. That in and of itself was not a bad thing, his healing would have it sorted in a few minutes. The problem was that he was not the only one who had noticed the injury. The bone through though which he currently crawled also appeared to sense the blood. Mickie felt something sift against his side, slow but with incredible force. Cursing he scrabbled at the floor and reached for another handhold.
‘Oh, by the blood, it’s starting to move! Kid you got to hurry it up in there!’
Miz-Mag screeched as the spurs intersecting the tunnel came alive. Having gotten a taste of fresh blood, they were suddenly eager to sample a bit more. Mickie felt the pressure on his hips rising as they closed on his body, threating to crush him. Desperately, he hauled himself forward, feet shoving against bone. The branded man slid an inch before coming to a dead stop. It was too late; the spurs had barely needed to shift to lock him in their grasp.
Pressure built as he was squeezed tighter, his own bones threatening to break. Gasping, Mickie called upon his last resort and a gun formed in his hand. Pumping power into the weapon, he slammed three shots into the various spurs closing upon him. There was the crack of bone, and suddenly the pressure on Mickie lessened as something sloshed across his lower body.
Finally able to move, the mortal dragged himself free of the tangle, scrambling on hands and knees to gain some distance. Only a growing pain in his arms, hips and legs stopped him short. Mickie glanced down at himself to find thick red viscera eating away at his clothes. Where the gloopy substance managed to work its way through it burned his skin, dissolving that to get at his flesh.
Swearing in a steady stream, Mickie dismissed his clothing, dashing backwards to avoid the acidic viscera as it sloshed to the floor. Desperately, he called forth his shirt and wiped the excess blood from his legs. It only took a few moments, but by the end of it he gasping, naked, and smarting with burns all over.
‘Welp. That uh… That sure was something kid.’
Miz-Mag made its way over to him, rolling the orb lamp along like an oversized toy.
‘Next time.’
Mickie ground out.
‘I’ll just shoot the damn things.’
He resummoned his clothes, free now of the acidic viscera, and examined the fresh cut to his hand. It was deep, but already his accelerated healing had slowed the flow of blood from the wound. He doubted it would take more than a couple hours to mend itself. Clenching his fist about the ragged slice Mickie turned to the bone spurs that had caused it. From the outside it was hard to tell that they were moving. Small shifts in position and the soft grinding of stone was the only indication that the spines were anything more than they seemed. Mickie supposed such small movements would have been enough to take him, surrounded as he had been by the accursed things.
‘Shall we?’
Miz-Mag had rolled their lamp to the edge of the stairs and was now casting its partner a meaningful look. Getting the hint that it was time to go, Mickie threw one last glare in the direction of the bone spines before turning away. He scooped up the glowing ball of light and started downwards as Miz-Mag reclaimed its usual perch. This deep into the abandoned city, it was uncommon to find a space not overrun by bone growths. As such Mickie was unsurprised when not a few meters down the staircase he came across a spine hanging from the ceiling. Not paying it much heed, he shifted to walk around the jagged obstacle. There was a sudden creaking of rock as the bone started to move, slowly reaching sideways in his direction.
‘What in all the nine!’
On his shoulder Miz-Mag was close to the bone, and nearly leapt off Mickie in its bid to get away. Cursing, the branded man leant to one side and hurried past the slothful spine. In truth, it was too slow to actually reach them, but the fact that it had even tried was disconcerting. Stupidly, Mickie has assumed that the shifting bone was a self-contained event, and now that they were past the blockade things would return to normal. Reaching the end on the stairs and stepping out into the open air of the cracked plateau, he was presented with plentiful evidence to the contrary.
A blur streaked past the corner of his vision as a loose chunk of stone fell, crashing into the mass of slowly shifting spurs. Looking up, Mickie beheld a sea of twisting bone spines. Hundreds of white growths that cast a web of moving shadow as they reached downwards. As they reached, Mickie realised, for him.
‘In all the stinkin’ circles… What have you gone and done now kid?’
Mickie said nothing as a deep sense of foreboding settled upon him. They still needed to climb back out of this place once they found the Kindle Kin. He was going to have to head right into that sea of grasping bone. A warm trickle from his sliced hand drew Mickie’s attention to the wound. The branded man glance down just in time to see a droplet of red fall from the knuckled of a curled finger. It hit the stone balcony, and he could have sworn the bone throughout the plateau shuddered as it did.
‘Let’s find the Kindle Kin and get the hell out of here.’
‘No need to convince me, kid.’
They were close to the dense cluster of bone at the base of the crack. From this height the slowly writhing mass appeared to have gaps between the spines that he could slip through. Getting in would not be the issue here, the spines were slow, and Mickie could dash past them. The problem would be getting out. Given enough time the bone could close in upon him, blocking his routes of escape to then gradually crush him. However, as much as Mickie might want to, there would be no turning back. He needed the assistance of the Kindle Kin, and their music was emanating straight out of that grasping bone cluster.
It did not take the duo long to locate a path into the broken plateau’s base. Narrow stairs carved into the nearby cliff face wound their way down and through the bone. Mickie took them at speed, slipping past the curling spines before they had much of a chance to react. Soon enough the faint light filtering down from the plateau’s top weakened, becoming little more than a twilight haze. Mickie’s world shifted into a place of rock, bone and shadow as he held up their orb lamp. They went deeper and deeper, the Kindle Kin’s song growing ever louder, until finally the stairs levelled out.
Mickie paused as his bare feet touched upon a flat expanse of stone. From one sheer cliff wall to the other, spines punctured the ground like hairs on a head. He was like a flea, one that was actively being hunted by the space it occupied. Even now the bone shifted in his direction, lured by the promise of his blood. Unsure where to go next, the branded man simply decided to follow the music. He weaved in between bone, darting forward like a fish through waving reeds. Ahead a shape began to emerge through the forest of white. Shadows swam up to form a shape, angled and blocky, but standing tall amidst the bone. A building came into view, the first standalone structure Mickie had seen within the carved ruins.
Something about the stone structure’s magnitude and proportions tickle the mortal’s brain. The slant of the roof and imperious cut of the two towers crowning it felt vaguely familiar. He had no time to dwell on the architecture however, as the spines of bone were growing thicker, and, if he was not mistaken, more urgent in their movements. The building appeared free of any shifting growths, and Mickie hurried for the safety offered by a doorless arch of deep shadow. He could hear the grinding of bone on bone over the growing music as grasping spines buffeted one another in their quest to take him.
With a final, desperate dash, Mickie closed upon the building and ducked inside. He quickly got away from the entrance in case anything followed him in, then leant against a nearby wall to catch his breath. The building’s interior was a strange mixture of gothic and austere, constructed with sharp angles and contours that were grandiose in construction, but lacking any significant affectation. It was also not quite as bone free as Mickie had been led to believe.
Near the wall opposite the door through which they had entered, across the single, vaulted room, was a disturbing hole in the ground. The unmistakable white of bone flowed out to seamlessly blend with the uncanny curves of the room. So deliberate and uniform was the join between the two, that it was as if the building had grown around the sinister formation.
‘Just when I thought things couldn’t get any creepier.’
Miz-Mag glanced about with trepidation at the eerie.
‘I’ll bet.’
Mickie muttered, wondering if it might not be preferable to head back outside and face down the shifting spines. There was something inherently wrong with that hole. It was like an open wound in the side of reality, something which Mickie’s instincts told him should not exist. He did not want to spend any more time in the same room as it, let alone approach the accursed thing. So, of course, that meant the song of the Kindle Kin was echoing straight out of its darkened depths.
Releasing a sigh that was half tension and half a tired kind of dread, the branded man started across the room. Light played strangely off the surrounding architecture, casting shadows that shifted and moved like the growths outside. Mickie reached the point where stone shifted to bone and hesitated.
‘Second thoughts kid?’
His partner sounded almost hopeful.
‘No, I… no. We’re doing this.’
‘And if that tunnel comes alive and decides our blood would make a nice coat of paint? It could squish us like a bug.’
Mickie winced. That had been the exact thought that caused him to pause.
‘The bone outside is pretty slow, and this hole is pretty large. Even it starts to close, I can run back out.’
‘Uh huh.’
The demon made a distinctly sarcastic sound.
‘You’ll bet our lives on a running race. Sounds on brand for you kid.’
The mortal gave his companion some serious side eye as he took a slow step onto the bone floor. It was warm to the touch, almost hot, and shuddered ever so slightly at the contact of his bare foot. Mickie almost stepped right back off it, probably would have if not for Miz-Mag’s snark. Instead, the branded man soldiered through his discomfort and continued towards the hole. Like the mouth of a whale in the deep it swam into the light of his lamp. First the curve of a wall, then a hint of a slope. Mickie came to a stop when he could finally see into its depths.
A lumpen cylinder of bone burrowed into the rock of the plateau, leading deeper than Mickie’s lamp could illuminate. He had held onto a wisp of hope that they would reach the hole and find the Kindle Kin waiting. They could all get out of these accursed ruins and go give Belphegor what for. Except, nothing was ever that easy. Mickie could tell from the volume of the music that the grey singers were close, and likely had been for a while now. Something was keeping the Kin from the seventh circle, and if he wanted their help, then Mickie was going to have to go find out what.
‘You ready Mag?’
‘Not even close, dear boy.’
The branded man nodded, took a slow breath, and stepped into the gloom of the tunnel. The bone beneath his feet seemed to shudder with expectation as it welcomed him.