In the center of the slaughterhouse room where the Brotherhood of the Crawling Worm had raised the colossal worm, the cold pillars erected in Viryl’s exploit stood solid and crimson, topped by the corpses of the pigs. They looked like some bizarre and hideous art installation. Anker walked around them to rejoin his ally.
When he saw him, examining his face, he exclaimed, «Oh my God, Viryl! When we were fighting, I didn’t realize you were hurt so badly!»
«It’s just a scratch. And it can’t always go smoothly,» Viryl downplayed.
«But your eye…»
«It’s gone. I’ll get over it,» Viryl cut him short.
Despite the brief and concise verbal exchange, Anker understood much more than the mere words had conveyed. The stoic coolness Viryl was displaying was not a mere facade to hide his troubles and emotions, but rather a commendable approach to the adversities of life that he had had to internalize long ago in order not to succumb. Yet Anker could also sense his blood boiling in his veins, his determination unwavering. Viryl had not been joking when he had spoken of suicide: that man would die without batting an eyelid trying to carry out his revenge, and the loss of an eye was nothing compared to what he was willing to sacrifice. Therefore Anker could not help but renew his respect for that unflagging resolve.
«On a more serious note… I think our time is running out. When the knights of the Order of Libertas realize that the Brotherhood of the Crawling Worm has lost, they will storm in to finish the job. We must find a way to run away as secretly as possible,» Viryl added in a grave voice.
«But we haven’t learned anything about our target yet! Do you think there are any cultists we can question?»
«I’m afraid the ones who attacked us are all dead. But we haven’t finished searching this dump yet. Darlah spoke of a ‘Slimy Glory,’ and that Velthan’s son is being held prisoner here. So, all is not lost. While we search for an escape route, we must also learn the identity of the man we’re looking for. I’m just stressing that our time is limited,» Viryl concluded.
«I’ll pick up my saber and we can go,» Anker agreed.
*****
The unexplored rooms on the ground floor were blind and offered no source of light. They were doomed to perpetual shadow. To overcome this problem, Viryl and Anker were forced to summon a glowing orb each.
The central room, the one Anker’s drone had opened the way to, was a stable. It had one peculiarity: on the other side of the pig-dung-filled pen, torture instruments and hooks abounded. The trampled corpses of the two Crawling Worm cultists inside lay crushed on the ground.
To the left of the stable was a storage room. Anker recognized at first glance the crumpled aprons and hoods that constituted the cultists' uniform, but there was much more in that hovel. Scrolls, junk, shriveled relics and scraps of rotten flesh, ritual objects of tin and silver. Probably, if they had wanted to delve deeper into the cult of Vorxellon, they would have found everything they needed there. Obviously they did not have the time.
The door on the right was locked, and the surface was marked by a peephole. That wasn’t a good sign.
Viryl pushed through the shutter with his shoulder, and found himself in a hallway that led both to the upper floor via a ladder and to a basement via a trap door. There was no one in the room. Anker suggested, «There are no back exits, so whoever is up there is trapped. But that doesn’t mean our enemies haven’t come up with a new way to sneak up on us. The large windows overlooking the pavilion we broke into continue around the four sides of the building. That means the survivors could have used them to signal the knights of the Order of Libertas that they were defeated.»
As Anker finished speaking, a disorganized commotion came from upstairs. The sound of breaking glass and hurried footsteps. Gazing up at the wooden mezzanine above them, Viryl said, «I’ll go up and check it out, but if things get too bad, we’ll have to set the slaughterhouse on fire and take cover in the trapdoor. It’s risky, but for now creating a diversion and hiding down there for a few hours is our best option. Because of the flooding and the fire, the knights might stop the research and give us up for lost.»
Anker looked at his partner in shock. He had learned how to deal with crazy ideas, but this one was more desperate than anything else. Practically suicidal. The thought had been on his mind so often in the last few hours that he was starting to believe he’d never actually see the dawn of another day.
Viryl grabbed a paper bomb from his belt and nimbly climbed up the rungs, the clattering of feet continuing upstairs. The ladder was hooked to a gap that led to a long, crudely furnished hallway, lit by the shattered windows that surrounded the upper part of the building. There was no need to observe the space over the gap better, because Viryl only needed to peek in to realize that if he had exposed himself an inch further his brains would have blown out.
Three Crawling Worm cultists were struggling on the attic floor, impaled by deformed metal nails similar to the one that had been used to anchor Darlah’s wrists to the wall of her apartment. A fourth man, bespectacled, elderly and plump, dressed in a sumptuous red velvet robe, with a thick gold necklace around his neck, was dragging his wounded body forward, clutching a crumpled newspaper in his hand. A nail flew through the window behind Viryl and lodged in the skull of the old man with the newspaper, who fell to the floor in convulsions that shook his body.
Seizing the situation, Viryl lit the paper bomb, threw it blindly, and dropped down the ladder, screaming, “Get out, get out, get out!”
Anker was shaken by a jolt and threw himself toward the trap door to open it. The deep darkness he peered into was disturbing, but given his partner’s reaction, he understood that it was not the right time to be picky. Viryl was behind him in an instant, grabbed the ladder that sank into the unknown abyss, and barred the hatch over his head, even before hearing the explosion of the thrown device.
The new room was dimly lit by the incandescent globes conjured up by the knight and the fallen. It was an immense crypt, supported by two rows of rough stone pillars, surmounted by pointed vaults. The walls had been plastered, and it was not possible to say whether they had previously been frescoed. Although it must have originally been a place of worship, it had been repurposed into a sort of infirmary. The benches had been replaced by camp beds, and the niches that opened into the walls were now riddled with shelves on which drugs, surgical instruments and the necessary materials for carrying out dressings had been stored.
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Despite the role of infirmary, the room did not seem sanitized at all: bloody bandages and broken vials were scattered all around, and a pungent smell of algae and excrement hung in the air.
Anker and Viryl walked along the central nave. The dim light from the incandescent globes outlined the profile of a body lying on the bed furthest from them, in the center of the apse, where the altar must have originally been.
As they approached, new details of the inert, naked body emerged, revealing a certain familiarity. It was slender and sinuous, with provocative feminine lines. The skin was a marbled white, almost cadaverous, and bandages were applied to the ankles and chest. The basilic vein of her left arm had a cannula inserted, connected to a vial of clear medication that was still dripping into the intravenous tubing.
Anker felt uncomfortable looking at the limbs of the sweet, naked girl, yet he could not look away.
About ten yards from the bed, he could discern her breathing. Her modest, barely sketched breasts, whose shape could be seen under the bandages, rose and fell with difficulty. Her short black hair, barely reaching her shoulders, seemed to leave no room for doubt: she was Velthan’s son.
Anker’s eyes fixed on her half-closed lashes and her shapely face. Hesitantly he put his hand to the hilt of his saber. He hadn’t even heard her melodious voice, and yet, once again, he was already mesmerized by her charm. He had to banish those licentious thoughts and take advantage of the golden opportunity that had presented itself to him to avenge Madja. He remembered well the words of the mayor of Valacqua: Velthan’s son was vulnerable only in his sleep.
«Don’t even think about killing him, boy! He’s the only one left in this filthy pigsty who can lead us to our man!» Viryl thundered, bringing Anker back to his senses.
«Kill… him? Him?» Anker thought to himself, as his eyes moved to the girl's groin. A soft, velvety penis hung down in the center of that broad, hairless female pelvis.
«What the hell?!» Anker exclaimed, completely taken aback.
«Son of Velthan, remember? How did you think they could impregnate the virgins of the Oiran Basin without a glorious little wiener?» Viryl asked caustically.
«That’s not the point! She’s… she’s… she’s an abominable creature!» Anker stammered in astonishment, struggling to find words that could hide his embarrassment and gesticulating like a madman: «Do you really want to bring this freak of nature with us?! What if she suddenly has a fit and bites your head off?! We have to kill her here and now!»
«No. Darlah cared about him, and I will save him, even if it’s the last thing I do. And then I repeat: without him we’re back in a dead end,» Viryl reiterated adamantly.
«Do as you please. For now, we’re stuck here with her anyway.» Anker conceded.
A creaking sound came from the trapdoor they descended from. The knights of the Order of Libertas were probably examining it and deciding who should go down to explore it.
«Oh, damn, never a moment’s peace! Fire and flood, of course!» Anker barked, «We should call off the incandescent globes and hide!»
«No, maybe there’s a better option,» Viryl considered as he quickly removed the needle from Coronice’s arm and hoisted her onto his shoulders. Then he added, «Do you smell that sewer stench?»
Anker frantically rolled his gaze all around, then pointed, «There, the right aisle! There’s a manhole!»
After exchanging a knowing look, the knight and the fallen ran to the cast iron grate, Anker lifted it, and they lowered themselves into the narrow shaft. Two knights of the Order of Libertas had just begun their descent into the crypt, and they only managed to catch a glimpse of a glowing orb before it disappeared into the sewers.
The labyrinthine canals that wound beneath Meridania proved to be an exceptional hiding place. Anker and Viryl, with Coronice on their backs, ran at breakneck speed, splashing their pants with filthy sewage. They took random detours in their escape, turning first right, then left, then right twice, then left again, then right. Anker even found time to release an automaton bug to spy on the steps of the pursuers, despite the sympathionic cover down there not being optimal.
The only safety was in flight: it was impossible to predict what tactics the Knights of the Order of Libertas would use to catch their prey. They certainly knew reptilian vision spells to identify heat sources, but they had almost certainly more aces up their sleeve. Hearing or perception enhancement, remote viewing, summoning spirits, tracer darts. Any of these would have left no escape for a fugitive who hadn’t gotten far enough away.
After about a mile and a half, Anker activated the bug’s transceiver, which had been set to track subjects capable of emanating a strong sympathetic flow. The signal was garbled, but the snatches of conversation Anker managed to pick up allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief.
*****
«... really need to kill... fucking old man? You know... he won't be satisfied. He was... important to him.»
«He told us... got rough, we would have had carte blanche.»
«... that bad? They were trapped, damn it!»
«Sure, and in fact... in the sewers. What would have happened... captured? They... fucking cowards. They enjoyed torturing those miserable pigs to death, but... they could boast a great resistance to pain."
«Don’t give me that crap. The truth… fucking hated them. And anyway... monster: they must have kidnapped him... identity from him."
«What a drag... we'll kill them as soon as they step foot out of this shithole.»
«... are we going... like this?»
«There's no point in continuing... take hours!»
«... old Jawbreaker: Viryl from Zelfiria... his. You're underestimating him.»
«... moron. You know how it works, you do what I tell you to do.»
«I tell you… can’t leave them alone!»
«… and don’t be a pain in the ass. Where the fuck do you think they can go? The sewer… out.»
*****
«Viryl!» Anker called, slowing his pace, «You heard him, we’re safe now.»
Viryl stopped his run and turned to his companion, then said with a frown, «I didn’t hear a damn thing, just my footsteps and the splash of shit hitting our heels. You could have turned the volume up, genius.»
«It was all the way up,» Anker justified himself.
«So, what do they say?» Viryl asked, adjusting his grip on Coronice’s motionless body.
«That they’re waiting for us outside. And that Melfis… well —» Anker replied, trailing off with a hint of bitterness in his voice.
«Great, what a son of a bitch. Let’s wake this guy up and see what he has to say,» Viryl concluded nervously.
«Wait, I repeat, I don’t think it’s a good idea to wake her up. What if she attacks us down here? Where do we run to?» Anker protested. But his words were lost in the void. Viryl stubbornly continued on, looking for a dry recess where he could take a break.
After about ten yards, Viryl spotted a low brick pedestal that served as a framework and a connection to the outlet of four pipes that drained into the main conduit. On the upper surface of the construction, wide and clear, three rats were preening their fur. As soon as they saw the three strangers coming, they fled into the shadows, giving them their place.
Viryl placed Coronice’s body on the pedestal, sat down himself, and finally rested her head on his thighs. He began to slap her gently to wake her up, but it did not seem to have any effect.
Anker reached his ally, and tried again to convince him to stop before it was too late: «You wanted to save her? You did. Let's leave her here, her wounds seem almost healed. She'll recover and find a way out on her own.»
«Sure, let’s say we leave him here. Where do we go instead?» Viryl replied annoyed. Then he continued: «His master abandoned him to the torture of those bastards because he wasn't able to kill us. If he's not a complete idiot he'll take our side.»
«Should we ally ourselves with Madja's assassin?! You're out of your mind!» Anker shouted, «And how can you be sure that this will be enough to break her loyalty to her old master? What if he decides to bring him our heads as a peace offering?!»
«Shut… the fuck… up… Anker of the Black Moon,» Coronice sighed, turning her head slightly while resting on Viryl's lap.