I got lucky. As I stumbled my way back to the third pit, none of the flying bugs assaulted me. Whether it was because the lures were finally doing their work, or because I smelled like explosive I didn’t know. Whatever the reason, I managed to make it back as a detachment of militia finished executing several parasites feasting in the meat-filled hole.
Initially, my arrival went unnoticed. I think it was one of the people atop the walls that realised first; my vision was swimming and sound didn’t seem to travel right, so I couldn’t say. I heard what was audibly a gasp, and then the only sound was the incessant buzzing of the lure.
“Gods, Orv… Your back…” someone said. I realised it was Erin after she began hovering around me, using one hand to clutch her pike and the other to fuss.
“I can-“ I coughed, my voice hoarse, and tried again. “I can walk. Captain?”
“What is it, Orvi?” Leek was in front of me. I hadn’t realised.
“Bombs’re gone.”
Silence, once again. It was impossible to raise my head.
“I’m sorry,” his voice quavered, “for sending you alone.”
The idea that he could’ve sent back-up hadn’t occurred to me. It still felt as if he were placing blame at the wrong set of feet.
“We’ll have to retreat back to the second pit.”
My head jerked up. Every single person present gaped at Leek.
“We can leave a detachment behind, to set fire to the pit. It should allow us to recoup some of our losses.”
“That’s stupid!” I blurted.
As if spurred on by my accusation, the air was suddenly full of protests.
“No way!”
“Thassa ’orrible idea!”
“No, no, no…”
“Absolutely not.”
“Whadda ‘bout the rest, hmm?”
“Can’t waste this…”
“We’re all dead anyway!”
Amongst a sea of other words, the last stood out, quietening the rest.
Leek calmly weathered the storm. “The reason we have three pits is for scenarios like this. One failure was not unanticipated. Our manpower would be wasted, here. If we stagger our withdrawal, we can exterminate a significant amount.”
“No!” My voice cracked. “We can still fix this.”
Our leader turned to me. “No, Orvi,” he said gently, “we can’t.”
“No, just listen! We just need another way of blowing things up, right? So… what blows things up?”
“Bombs.” Someone said.
“Does anyone know how to make one?” retorted Leek.
The answer, after some debate, was a resounding no.
Desperately, I waved my hands. “Uh, I mean, bombs aren’t the only things that explode, right? What about, uh…”
“Gas?” a woman with greying hair supplied.
“Right, gas!”
“Don’t know where no gas is.” Someone stated. After a long pause, everybody eventually shook their head in agreement.
“I was in a mine that exploded once.” This was from a short man.
“What made it explode?” I interrogated.
“Coal dust’s what we was told.”
“Does anyone know where we could find coal?” called a bare-chested young man.
Various answers were supplied – the general store, one of the city’s forges, a few houses. None were in high enough quantities to blow anything up. And an almost-geriatric man fervently insisted it would only work in an enclosed space.
“What about flour?” a thickset lady said.
“Flowers? Ox’s balls, woman, what’re flowers gonna do?” A chorus of ‘shut up’s immediately followed this statement.
“Flour, idiot. The white and dusty stuff? Had a cousin who’s mill went up ‘cause it was too fulla flour.”
“Our restaurant has flour!” I yelled. “Heaps of it!”
“Enclosed!” shouted the old man. “Enclosed spaces!”
“Don’t wanna blow up the Butcher’s place…” someone muttered.
“Stop being a sook. That’s her son, he sez it’s fine.”
I wasn’t actually sure it was alright with me, but this didn’t seem the time to bring it up.
“People!” Leek’s voice resounded, quietening most of us. “How will we get the parasites into the restaurant? It won’t be large enough to hold many.”
“We can take some to the restaurant.” I responded. “Not all of them. I’ll lead them over with the lure, and everyone else can keep setting them on fire here.”
“You can’t go alone, Orvi.”
The crowd supported Leek’s comment loudly.
“No, I’m going to fix-“
“It’s wildly impractical, for one. You need enough hands to execute the ones that survive. And with your wounds…”
“I’m feeling better already.” I wasn’t quite lying; the dust and sand whipping across the city embedded painfully in my back, but the sharp spikes of pain helped my focus return. “I’m a Lizardblood.”
“You’ll be fine taking ten with you. Unless your Lizardblood has made you Lizardbrained.”
I stifled the urge to tell him that I was, in fact, extremely intelligent and well-educated, and very much not Lizardbrained. With one arm supporting its counterpart, saluting was made almost impossible, so I nodded deferentially instead.
At my agreement, Leek immediately began assembling a group of volunteers. They were working out the specifics of the plan, and I wanted to get up and offer my two chits. However, the desire to let my eyes glaze over was far stronger.
It was cold. There was no sunlight. Sand, dust, and dirt sped across the city like a million tiny arrows. My arm hurt. I wondered if everything whipping towards Dure hurt it. How was Ma doing? How were my siblings? Would we-
A sharp pain emerged from my arm and I screeched. Leek was already walking away – he’d set my arm, after bandaging it and placing it in a makeshift sling, and somehow the sensation hadn’t registered with me. Quickly, I scrambled to my feet and my gaze fixing on a group of departing militiamen. “You weren’t going to tell me when you left?” Amongst them was Erin, who shot me a sheepish grin.
“Crazy boy,” said the old man from earlier, “none of us want Maja to-“ he drew a finger across his neck and made a clicking sound.
The group nodded. “Thought you could’ve used a break.” Exclaimed a wiry woman.
I swore at them, and, somewhat wearily, the rest of the group began the journey outward.
----------------------------------------
The plan was reasonably simple: myself and the oldie would set the flour bomb while eight lay waiting for Erin to approach with Vernon’s magic lures, at which point she’d run through the restaurant and ditch the lure. Once she had exited, we’d pelt it with fire-bottles until the place exploded. We’d mop up the surviving bugs and all would be well.
I didn’t truly comprehend that our strategy involved destroying my home until we were there, shuttering the windows. The place looked barren – it had been emptied of all our furniture – but it was still home.
In the corner was a stain shaped like a face – what it most resembled more contentious between the siblings and I than life itself. There; a dark splotch of blood from a customer refusing to pay and, as an additional service, eating Ma’s fist. There; an indentation in the floorboards where I’d pretended to be hurt by a toddler Sash, and become actually hurt in the process. These amongst countless others – stained pots, splattered walls, the stinking courtyard, a fractured shutter, my comb, Sash’s least-favourite hair-clip. A collection of rag-dolls my siblings and I used to play with, the small comb that was the first and most passive-aggressive gift from Blake, a tiny, ragged, poorly-made tunic. Ma’s work. My smaller, forgotten treasures.
If only I had arms wide enough to take them all with me. But one was broken, and the other was full making preparations to destroy everything. I felt mute, stagnant; like a puddle left in the dirt for too long.
Despite the oldie and I essentially being crippled – myself by injury and him by age – we soon emptied all Ma’s stocks of flour into the dining area. Several sacks were dumped inside by the remaining militia – scavenged from the few restaurants nearby, I assumed. By the time we ran out, there was enough flour floating in the air to feed a small family for a month. Neither of us was sure whether it would be enough.
Without warning, the sound of cracking wood broke through the white fog. The oldie was smashing furniture. I jumped, and barely managed to smother my instinctive desire to defend our home. “What the hell are you doing?”
The oldie raised a floury eyebrow. “Half the chairs ‘n tables are full of sawdust,” he grunted. “I’m getting it all in the air.”
“Will that help?”
“No clue.”
I opened my mouth to reply, to insist it wasn’t necessary, then closed it. Just like him, I had no idea. Propping one of our cheaper-looking chairs against a wall at an angle, I repeatedly stomped on it, splintering and finally splitting it into two. Then I did it again. And again. And again.
A sensation filled me; the ground beneath me was mud, and I was sinking further and further away from the world above. The oldie erupted into coughs and fled the building, leaving me alone. Even so, I kept going. I had no better ideas. Until the only things left were the pieces too sturdy to be broken. There weren’t many.
Once I had obliterated everything, we sat amongst the splintered remnants, saying nothing. The flour drifted around, casting a white haze upon everything. Something tickled at the edge of my awareness, my mind insisting that there was a puzzle I needed to put together. Yet try as I might, I couldn’t figure out exactly what the puzzle was. Distantly, I registered the buzzing in my head grow louder.
Then someone bellowed “They’re here!” and I was on my feet, muscles tensed. I drew my sword with my right arm, praying I wouldn’t need the shield I had left behind. Before I had properly registered what was going to happen, Erin was barging through the front door, her pike covered in meat and gore. She tossed a cylindrical object – the angular patterns covering every inch of it revealed it as Vernon’s work – into the pile of debris and halted beside me.
“Move back, move back!” she screamed. I hurriedly followed her orders. “We need to get as many in here as possible, Orv,” she stated, face grim. “But the doorway’s too narrow to let them rush in. And-“
A monster charged in, looking like an oversized beetle; body low to the ground and covered in what seemed to be protective carapace. Yet one stab from Erin’s pike saw its natural armour give way like film on hot milk – the rot inside of it destroying any hope of defence. Her thick arms bulged as she struggled to keep it in place, so before she ran out of strength I stepped forward and severed its head, my cheap sword stuttering as it caught on bone. With a heave, I tore its head off its body and felt its life fall away.
We live to eat and-
I swore and hurriedly wiped my forehead, nose dripping red as my willpower flexed against the overwhelming torrent. The vision receded, then fell away, leaving my vision blurry and my head pounding.
“Give me a second, Erin,” I yelled, dashing past the kitchen and up into the attic. She swore after me as another entered. I threw open my footlocker and snatched my horrid baby-tunic – patchier than a mangy dog – and tied it around my forehead. Unthinkingly, my good arm moves, grabbing one other thing: Babs’ backpack, a broken wing tied to one of its straps. Then I stomped back down, slinging the pack over my shoulder and arriving to find my friend holding a parasite back with her pike and another with a foot, while a third seized and flipped around the room, cracked mandibles folding around the lure.
I raised my sword above my head and smashed into the third. As soon as I made contact, I shoved the blade’s point downwards, piercing the bug’s skull and embedding in its tiny brain. Its lifeforce surged, attempting to heal the damage, but with a massive impediment still inside the wound, it quickly faltered.
Its stinking, noxious blood was all over me – except for the top of my head. I felt it die, yet no connection was established. I laughed, rejoicing. Erin’s yell broke me out of my revelry, and I returned to help her dispatch the remaining two, only to find another four taking their place. Erin impaled two simultaneously while my blade, superhumanly dextrous, snaked through muscle and ligaments, tearing them in half. I moved, unencumbered by injury or backpack or memory, indefatigable. Glee filled me at the violence and I spun, searching for more incompetent prey, only to see there were five more in the room.
The Fox’s sadism vanished, replaced by a pit of ice in my gut. Suddenly, I understood what Erin had been trying to tell me – we couldn’t run, because if we did the lure would be destroyed, the parasites would stop entering, and the trap would only kill a handful. So we had to stay, slowly letting them fill the room, as I desperately hoped that the many cuts accumulating on my comrade’s arms wouldn’t fester and kill her.
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The fight was arduous and disgusting, and frequently a monster I thought near-death would surge upright. The flour filling the air made the world seem surreal, as if our opponents were nothing more than spirits, but even as I deflected another charge I knew that was a lethal mindset to take. We were also, undoubtedly, giving ground. But the parasite’s bodies began to form a makeshift barricade in the tiny room, slowing their advance. With Erin’s strength and my ability to quickly dispatch the parasites, we may make it without being overrun.
Then Erin, knee-deep in pus and blackened guts, muttered something, quieter than a whisper.
“Huh?” I inquired eloquently, the Lizard’s relentless endurance keeping my breathing even.
“Orv,” she panted. Her hands shook, her previously collected demeanour having vanished. “You’re a Lizardblood, right?”
I nodded, wondering what plan she was about to present.
“That’s funny.” As the girl spoke, she turned, and even smeared with the remnants of dozens of dead monsters, I could still see the whites of her eyes. “Because you move like a Foxblood.”
Feigning nonchalance, even as I speared another monster’s heart, I shrugged. “I guess I’m just-“
A gasp erupted from my throat as agony erupted from my left side. Weakly, I fended off a pair of clacking mandibles and looked down, just in time to see Erin’s pike withdraw from my side.
I looked up. She stared back, pupils dilated. Her thickset frame quivered as it clutched the weapon, now reddened with my blood.
“What-“
“Ravenblood,” she stated.
“What?” I could barely force the word out.
“You’re a Ravenblood.”
I wobbled backwards, giving ground to avoid my skull being pierced. “This isn’t the time…”
“It’s always the time!”
My eyes flicked over to her. Her long weapon was smacking the parasites, redirecting them towards me. Despite managing to push nearly all of the Lizardkins’ attention towards me, she still shivered, eyebrows tented. Erin didn’t look away for a second. Her mouth moved silently.
Abomination.
She flicked her polearm and something scraped across the ground. Four, five, six parasites swarmed me, and having completely lost control of the battle I weaved between their blows, grunting as the movements exacerbated my wounds. As I slid beneath a beetle’s legs, barely managing to keep my backpack from catching on them, I caught sight of the object Erin had sent over to me. It was the lure.
Through a sea of skittering legs and a haze of white powder, I saw her dive through a window, shuttering it on the way out. With supernatural clarity, I heard her give the order to ignite the restaurant. I was still inside.
The parasite above me shuddered as its peers began piling on top of it, pressing on all sides. A gap in the fray gave just enough space for me to kick the lure outside, and the horde moved like dogs chasing a ball. I scuttled on hand and knees between hairy, insectile legs, looking for the closest exit – the kitchen. Pans and knifes tumbled behind me; a pot of week-old food was upended, spilling its contents on the ground. I charged towards the courtyard.
Blood fell from my wound, mingling with the noodles strewn across the ground. I left it behind.
I was outside, the sound of dust and sand whipping above filling my ears. Then I was in the air, diving. I tumbled into the well, head glancing of its side, then I was beneath the water. Suddenly, everything was silent. Yellow light reflected off the walls of the well. Then there was a sound like existence ending.
Upwards, looking out of a tiny hole to the world, I saw countless monsters hang suspended in the air. My eyes picked out a thousand shards among them. The remnants of my home.
Then it fell.
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The well was blocked, with me still inside.
A beam covered its opening, and atop it lay a thousand splintered pieces of wood. Yellow slime slides downwards, transforming the well murky; unfit for human consumption. The backpack had filled with water, and it weighed me down enough that treading water became impossible. I shoved my boots into the well’s cracks and hoped they wouldn’t slip.
It was past time to start figuring out a way to leave. If Erin got her way, any would-be rescuers would set the well aflame. If the fire didn’t kill me, the smoke would. Both were opponents I couldn’t defeat.
Instead, I ran Erin and I’s conversation through my head, over and over. What could I have said to convince her? Each iteration of our exchange ran like a puppet show, the words changing slightly, myself searching for the exact combination that would persuade her. And at the end, Erin would say ‘It’s okay’ or ‘I was mistaken’ or ‘We’re still friends’. Every one of those responses sounded hollow. I had seen the fear and hatred in her eyes. The kind I saw in all of the adult residents when they spoke of the Raven.
She wouldn’t stay quiet, would she?
I should’ve been more subtle. But if I had toned down my kinaesthetic awareness, or my supernatural perception, would either of us have survived? Maybe I could have, with Dure’s power flowing through my veins, but not Erin, with her long and cumbersome polearm in such an enclosed space.
I was certain there had been a better way. Yet it evaded me.
As my skull rattled with innumerable possibilities, my good hand appropriated my headband to staunch the blood on my side. Despite my efforts, the water around me bloomed with tendrils of red. I braced my back against one side of the well and pressed my legs against the other, and began crawling upwards. After a few faltering steps, my head brushed the blockage above.
The possibilities I attempted to parse were cobwebs; I cleared them away. Tentatively, I pressed against the beam above me. No give. Something climbed from my stomach to my chest. The sandstone walls of the well distorted, shifting like a gargantuan gullet. I released my grip on the cloth – now soaked through with blood – and manoeuvred my sword out of its sheath. Water dripped from its blade. The well was less than two paces across; I used that distance to stab the side of the well, chipping a large piece off. It felt like the beast digesting me groaned, just a little. I align my blade’s point and do it again.
And again. And again. And again. And again. By the time it broke through to the other side, my weapon was entirely blunted; no more than a chunk of scrap. Even so, the hole wasn’t wide enough to fit me. I continued. Both arms wept with pain – one the dull throbbing of exertion, the other of mangled bone and muscle. The task engulfed me.
Eventually, I managed to fit my head through. Babs’ pack was shoved ahead of me, its fine black material scored with several marks. My good arm gripped the outside of the well as I hauled myself from it, tearing open blisters on my back and jostling my broken limb painfully. I bit my lip to keep from screaming and continued wiggling my way beneath the debris. Feverishly, I wondered if all worms hurt this badly.
I kicked aside the chunk of wood above me. Metal jangled as a pot fell off the pile. I rose, blinking, and spat out a splinter. The sand and dirt above whirled dangerously. It felt like I had been underground for days, yet the sky’s colour had remained unchanged.
Every part of my body felt heavy. Slinging the bag over my shoulder felt like lifting the horizon. I looked around. Sandstone, mudbrick, and wood filled the area almost evenly. An occasional hunk of wood or stone stood out from the shards that littered the ground. Several Lizardkin crawled and chittered, most of their bodies missing. Yet, besides the devastation that was my home, the Foot’s architecture continued unhindered. Like nothing had changed.
For a time, I stood, attempting to muster the will to move. Pain was slowly ebbing back into my body. Exhaustion penetrated every aspect of my being. I hadn’t felt this level of fatigue for eight years.
Sounds and sights crossed my awareness, yet by the time my mind brought them into clarity, it was too late. Ten people surrounded me, pikes levelled at me. I was too tired to register their expressions. Nothing moved.
“You know me…” I mumbled. “Let me go.”
“It’s not about you, kid,” said the oldie. “You won’t be yourself forever. The corruption won’t let you.”
“I’m not a killer…” I muttered.
“You’re the son of the Headsman,” growled a middle-aged woman. “And wily enough to trick the whole city.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone…”
“Ye’ve killed, what, twenny monsters?” a swarthy man squinted at me. “Don’t matter whether it’s human – ye’ll fall all tha same. Issa rot.”
“I can control it…”
“Can’t take that risk,” growled a short man.
“No, I’ve got…” I searched my memory, finding Ma’s words to me after I nearly killed the Leydenese Dolphinblood. “I’ve got a good nature…”
A young woman snorted.
“I’m not ambitious…” I paused, struggling to find the words. “I don’t want anything…”
“It’s not about nature, boy,” a large, dark-skinned man rumbled. His eyes were surrounded by smile-lines. “Because no nature is unchanging. The stuff in you – it’s not right. I’m sorry, boy.”
“No…”
“We should kill him,” yelled a wiry woman. “He’s dangerous, just like every cultist. He’s got that same putrid, disgusting rot! You saw him. You saw them. How many people have to die before we learn?”
“I’m not…”
“She’s right,” a young man said. “Let’s end it.”
“Why can’t you just listen to me?”
“Because there is no you!” screamed an greying woman. She was weeping. “There’s only the blood, and it’ll swallow you.”
“I don’t want to die,” I said, even as I recalled how many of my old family I had seen succumb to madness. “I’ll do better. I’ll be better. Just watch me.”
“That’s not how Ravenblood works, Orvi,” spat Erin. The fear had left her eyes, replaced by a bitter hatred aimed somewhere beneath the horizon. “Avri’s power is twisted. It’s insanity. Better you die while you’re still you.”
I entreated the ring around me with my eyes. The people who were, just a few moments ago, my comrades. But my secret was out. I was a Ravenblood. Everything flowing through my veins was toxic. They stared back. I looked at Erin. She looked at me.
“You all know what I can do,” I bluffed, attempting my best impression of Ma. “You know what I am. Do you really want to do this?”
My sword was a blunt hunk of iron. There were ten of them. I didn’t have enough left in me to run very far. I didn’t even have enough left to hold back. If we fought, people would die. But all they did was tighten their grips on their spears.
What did I have to do? Fight, and kill? Let them kill me? Neither of those options were right. But, were they wrong?
They were waiting. If I moved, they would lunge. My eyes flicked around. Broken things. Wood. Sandstone. Mudbrick. Pots. Knifes. A doll. And a Lizardkin, a few paces away, bereft of any legs.
I closed my eyes and waited to die.
Then something screamed.
I heard the wail, like a thousand men dying agonising deaths. I saw it, as the dust whirling above reversed direction, flying back the way it came. I smelled it, almost as if a thousand alien scents crashed into my mind, far too quickly for me to comprehend. I tasted it, hot and cold and foreign on my tongue. And I felt it, as it shuddered up through my bones and flesh, emanating from my veins.
The Lizard was in pain.
I blinked, fatigue once again filling my legs. Nine of the ten around me frantically twisted their heads, watching as the parasites let loose hundreds of bizarre clicking sounds. Then there was Erin, shaking, quietly groaning.
I had heard this kind of sound before. Nearly non-stop, for two days and two nights. There, a god had wept.
And because I had heard it before, I recovered faster than Erin.
I stumbled past her and bashed the legless parasite with my weapon, thrusting the hunk of metal into its skull. Its lifeforce reacted, and I jiggled my implement, finding the spot that killed it quickest. Then I ripped a handful of stinking blood from its hollow and slapped it on my forehead.
You are born amongst thousands of others, into agony, rot, and indefatigable life. There is no thought; no consideration. Only instinct, pain, and unending hunger, briefly sated by sinking your throat into the island you live upon. It’s constant, yet with every ounce of flesh you consume, the hunger only grows. But the ground beneath you always grows back, fanning the flames of your agony.
The channel between boy and monster opened, even as I began dragging my unresponsive body away. Images flashed past as I stumbled forward. Despite that, I did my best to ignore both my body and its soul. Instead, I focused on the link between us and dissected its anatomy.
Your life is unending, and more are born every day. The space runs out, so you eat those beneath you. The pain is exquisite, excruciating, everything, and all you can do is consume.
Phantom pain fills me. An image overlays itself over my vision: my arms and legs rotting away, skin and flesh falling onto the floor only to surge back, impossibly generating from nothing. But it was nothing to me; I was clamping metaphysical fingers around the link, trying to find an answer before it was too late.
You are pain. You are hunger. You are everything. You en-
Then I find it and squeeze.
The memories fell away, and the Lizardkin’s power slowed to a trickle; just enough to vanquish the fatigue from my limbs. My stumbles transformed into steps, and then into leaps, fire-bottles and yells following in my wake. I tuned out the words, focusing only on the sounds of my pursuers’ movement. I placed my feet with perfect precision, straightening my torso to maximise airflow and breathed with a perfect cadence. Blood squirted from my sides with every step, but I ignored it all. The derelict shacks around me fell away with increasing speed.
With an exertion of will, I sealed the link, the only evidence left in its wake my assured steps and the gout of blood flowing from my nose.
I risked a glance backwards. The men and women trying to kill me slipped further and further away, until even my supernatural vision could no longer distinguish their features. Only a girl – a friend, or so I had thought – remained close. Steely determination was writ across her movements, like a hunting hound chasing its prey. Yet as our distance grew, her expression transformed into horror. As if she were watching her own death unfolding.
Then I left her behind.
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For most of my life, I’d been an excellent runner. Any other child that attempted to compete might have been faster, but after a short while they would be left in my dust. It seemed perfectly natural to me. But that hadn’t been the case my whole life. Before I was Orvi, I had been slow. My memories of races and games of tag during that time contained mostly other children’s heels. Or the cool floor, after I had collapsed in exhaustion.
I hadn’t been quick, or enduring. Even so, the adults always commented on how clever I was. How well I could memorise stories of the Raven. How quick I took to numbers, arithmetic, geography – whatever skills my carers could rustle from the crowded depths of their souls.
That doesn’t sound like Orvi, does it?
Eight years ago, the moment I buried a spear in that lieutenant’s throat, my steps had become firmer. My will stronger. My wit duller. There’s no six year-old in the world who could put that puzzle together, and no adult alive who had enough pieces to do it for me. But I wasn’t a child anymore. The disconcerting feeling – the terror of the nature that flowed through my veins – came into clarity.
Bile rose in my throat. For every soul I gained, I lost more of my own. But who was Corvin, anyway? And who was Orvi? Were either of them… less whole?
I didn’t like the question, so I threw it into the back of my mind. What a fool I was.
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By the time I made it back to the warehouse, my injuries were catching up with me. The former tunic I pressed against my side continually slickened with blood. My broken arm felt like it was stabbing into flesh with every step, and my back had gone numb. Previously steadfast steps had regressed back into awkward stumbles. The pain was everywhere, like I’d been stripped of skin and forced to roll in sand. But I’d made it.
The corpses of the parasites filled the streets, and more often than not were in multiple pieces. If even one was alive, I would be in for a bad time – I had ditched my mishappen lump of a sword some time ago. But the Lizardkin had been defeated – they had swarmed into the pit, attracted by the stench of meat and Vernon’s lure, and it had detonated. Here, at least, the plan had been successful. Somehow, the warehouse still stood – missing two of its supporting walls yet still towering two storeys above everything else.
Nothing moved. I couldn’t see any human bodies – or anyone at all. We had won. I had to keep telling myself that.
Climbing the warehouse in my state would have been impossible for all but the most seasoned climbers. I’d scaled my fair share of buildings, but I wasn’t at that level. My heightened perception made up for that; I knew exactly where to place my feet, what handholds would give, when to lean into the wall and when to lean back.
It took some time – I needed to use a route that didn’t rely on arm strength. Still, I eventually made it over the lip of the building and sprawled on top, preparing to wait for Ma.
There were two Blooded there already. For whatever reason, I didn’t feel like getting up to meet them. Two figures leaned over me. Aston; eyes replete with orange sclera, face adorned with faint sideburns and mouth contorted in a rictus grin. Serl; pale skin robed in black, one hand still covered with bandages from when Ma had interrogated him. A Foxblood and Dolphinblood, respectively. It was difficult for me to care.
‘Ah,’ I thought. ‘I get it.’
Bashing my broken arm against the sandstone beneath drew a howl from my lips, however it returned enough of my will to allow me to roll aside, Aston’s club clipping my chin instead of temple. With a heave of my good arm, I propelled myself from a tumble into a squat, but sluggishness still permeated my form, allowing the club to catch me in my chest. I grabbed the weapon as it impacted, barely preventing myself from falling off the roof. Aston’s wiry arms strained, and he yanked me back onto the roof.
I let him fling me towards Serl, and smashed into the Dolphinblood, hooking his leg with my own. He smashed a palm underneath my chin, but as short as I was compared to him the blow lost most of its impact. Something hit my wounded side. I wheezed, and the two of us toppled to the ground.
Sensing Aston’s club whistling towards me, I rolled to the side, letting it crunch into Serl’s head, however the Foxblood managed to flick the blow into my bad arm. I screamed and someone cackled. I managed to bat away another swing, only for Aston, grinning like a pleased child, to slowly scrape it across my bandaged back. I felt blisters break and my teeth sink into my tongue.
The madman gripped me by the hair and dragged me to my feet. A wild fist was halted as he transferred his hold to my good arm. Somehow, he was stronger than me. Aston drew his face closer to mine, and instead of speaking anything comprehensible, he laughed, animal eyes arresting my own.
Internally, I groped for something, anything that could beat him. Before I could concentrate on anything else, I resorted to my most foreign of senses. The Dolphinblood’s lifeforce was radiant beneath my feet.
I spat blood in the Foxblood’s eyes. Then, in one fluid motion, I ran up his body, twisting my arm from his grip, and flipped backwards, my boot smashing into Serl’s face on the landing, sending his blood into the air. I leaned forward, catching several droplets on my forehead, and moved to stomp the Dolphinblood’s windpipe, crushing it.
And then I remembered a man’s throat, and how it had taken him too long to die, and all the memories I still held within. And I stopped.
Something impacted against the side of my head.