“Burnt, battered, beaten, and bruised.”

“Bruised and beaten, yet not broken.”

The crystal spun through the air— glinting like a mirror catching the sun as it flew towards me. On my periphery— the ponytail-girl spun and ran, and my gut screamed at me to move. Instinctively, my spear began raising, my Shroud thickened, I spun on my heel—

and fire. Fire engulfed my vision— the heat lapped at my Shroud like waves beneath a cliff, and I could feel bits of it crumbling. The force of the explosion threw me off my feet, hurled me scraping and rolling and scrambling across the ground— it put most of the fire on me out, but the parts of my Shroud that had fallen away had burst in a spark of disfiguring pain, before falling numb.

I stumbled to my feet, staggering as my vision shook and my arms felt weak, to thankfully find myself not on fire. My ears pounded, and with my vision slowly filling with smoke, I caught the three people we’d been chasing approaching the ledge again.

No escape. My mind whispered, and I took a shaky step forward, coughing though a nettled throat and stinging eyes. My legs shook, and I barely caught myself as I stumbled into the ground

I choked out a breath, grumbling as I swept a numb arm to brace myself against the ground— the point of my spear shook, and I tightened my grip as I moved forward. The black-haired mage glanced back, before whipping her gaze back to the ledge. I took another step forward, breathing out as I briefly saw double.

I could do this— this is nothing.

Then, in a move that left me stumbling forward to the edge of the railing— the three of them linked hands, and tipped over the edge. I bit out a gasp, leaning against the edge as I stared into the dark. The trio jerked to an abrupt stop mid-air, before continuing their descent, albeit slower— then, in the next moment, the second girl— the mage… let go of the other two before beginning to tumble into free fall.

I caught her gaze as her eyes widened, and then she vanished into the dark below.

The other two were still falling, the ponytail girl, had become still, gently floating into the dark. I couldn’t see her expression. The boy beside her was moving— spinning and turning, shouting something I couldn’t hear, expression twisted into a wide, frantic look of horror.

Briefly, I considered throwing my spear at them— but we were meant to capture them, and even if I did hit one, there was no way we would be able to bring them back. I sank to the ground, the final remnants of my strength dwindling, and my ears finally beginning to ring. My lungs felt choked and bruised, and my vision warbled at the edges. My spear soundlessly clattered to the ground beside me, drawing my eye to the blade that the boy had been using: slick, dark-gray, and— briefly nudging it— improperly weighted. It was something at least, maybe we could send it in for divination if the Boss felt like pursuing them further after this.

After this? What would happen after this? My eyes slowly shut, the adrenaline from the night slowly simmering, and the aches in my body slowly making them known. My mind felt slow, as if I were marching through muck. Though, I reached the same conclusion regardless. We’d captured them on separate occasions, with the hopes to extract some information, or get them out of our hair forever— but turned out they knew each other, and helped each other escape before we could get anything meaningful. Then, when we’d tried to recapture them— they’d escaped, but not before collapsing nearly the entire workshop over us. Then they only proceeded to evade us again, but not before launching another explosion at us. The only thing left was to perform damage control.

My eyes opened when my hearing returned.

Moans of quiet pain, whimpers and choked coughs filled with smoke, the sound of crumbling wood and staggering, crunching snow. I heard quiet swears, and some strangled calls of pain. The air smelled of damp, charred stone and molding wood, and curdling flesh.

For the first time since the explosion, I looked back towards the small team I’d taken with me. The large bridge of cobbled stones now had a sizable chunk of it missing, with chunks of blackened stones lying in crumpled walls dotting the snow around me. The snow had been almost instantly cleared— and the explosion had left things damp and moldy. A grim part of me acknowledged how well the mage had placed her spell— to funnel us between two buildings before triggering it.

A man— Remi— was chucking rocks from a warehouse that had collapsed. My eyes caught on the number of people that were lying motionless. I couldn’t tell if their chests were rising or falling.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and began barking orders through a raspy throat as I stood, tucking both my spear and the boy’s sword away. “Report. Remi— report.”

He continued digging through the rubble and debris, and his voice was pained as he spoke. “Whale and Rex got caught in the building collapse— they were going around…”

I clapped him on the back. “Yer good, Remi. Retrieve them.” I turned to the rest of my team— about half who were sitting, bruised and wounded and burned— but alive. “Right— we gotta get outta here. Pick yerselves up— and let’s get moving. Anyone able to— pick up the guys who can’t. We can’t afford to leave anything behind.”

I stepped over to my second— Geri— and hauled him up, reassuring words spilling forward before I could stop them. “C’mon. Up, steady now, Geri. Yer good. Yer fine.”

He grimaced, not meeting my eye as he stumbled to his feet, and I wasn’t sure if the words for him, or myself. As we got ready to move out, Remi finished fishing them out of the rubble. He met my eye from across the charred blast zone. He shook his head, and I swallowed the frown. The eight of us who could still stand— Remi, Geri, Blair, Kinsley, Crow, Colin, Hughes, and myself— carried four people between us; Nadia, Gus, Rex, and Whale. I couldn’t look at them, their faces joining Patches in my head.

Soon— someone spoke up, Remi: “… the hell went wrong?”

“… Looked like one of ‘em shot off a spell,” Blair mumbled, wincing as we walked.

Why the girl hadn’t done something that grand in our first fight— I wasn’t sure. I turned my mind from any guesses and tuned out the conversation— that could come later, right now, I needed to focus on the next step. As we passed the gate that had barred our path, I turned to Crow. When I spoke, my voice stayed level. “Cover our tracks, Crow. Then meet us at A6.”

“Aye— understood.”

I turned back to the road ahead of us, and let out a deep breath. Our losses here are just drops in the bucket, compared to the workshop.

[][][]

The safehouse was not meant to be a sick room. It fulfilled all the roles of a safehouse; the metal-latticed windows facing the streets made it easy to see anyone approaching— or would’ve been, if the glass wasn’t cloudy from age, and there wasn’t a blizzard outside. The singular door— our exit and entrance— was old, but hardy. It squeaked and groaned and whined as Geri and I shoved it open, but we got it open. The walls were bare, stale concrete, but thick nonetheless. The bare-bones furnishings were nothing to write home about; the wood was molding and cracked in a few places, and the frames creaked ominously when we sat down on them, but they held.

It reminded me of an abandoned, stripped down housing project. It reminded me of the Underhollow.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

But, even then, despite the moderate square room’s space, it had never been meant to house twelve people— eleven, after I’d sent Crow off to scout and report. Especially, the injured. There weren’t enough places for everyone to lay down and rest— we’d done our best; stripped down the threadbare mattresses, stole away the dusty blankets, pulled apart the cobweb-ridden curtains we could spare, and shucked off some of our ruined coats and jackets, but we’d still come up short. The tiny bathroom without a working toilet had running water, but the water came out brackish and muddy. There was no clock to keep the time.

I stoked the flames in the stove that took up the center of the room, watching as the logs crinkled and cracked. My breath clouded in front of me. I did my best not to glance at the covered mounds in the corner of the room, stuck behind the frames of stripped beds as if to hide them.

"Boss!” Blair yelled, peaking her head out of the bathroom. She held up an unlabeled metal can in her hand. The top was open. “I found food! No spoons though.”

“That’s fine,” I responded, beckoning her over. “What’re they?”

“Beans.” Blair pressed the can into my hand, before turning off for the bathroom again. “There’s some more cans— I’ll get them.”

I hummed, before setting the can onto the stove’s top. My hands fell back into my lap.

“Doin’ alright, boss?” Hughes piped up, sitting up against the wall. My eyes flickered to the arm he had tucked to himself, and the destroyed crossbow beside him. He patted the dusty, wooden floor beside him. “Can lay down with me if you feelin’ tired.”

“Someone’s gotta watch the food.” My gaze went back to the fire. “Someones gotta watch, too.”

“I can take over… my wounds don’t hurt too bad.”

“Yer injured.”

“Don’t hurt too bad. If you don’t want me to do it— get Colin or Kins to. They’re up.”

Colin was sitting down, leaned against the wall, his soot-stained shield in his lap. His sword lay sheathed beside him, and he was rubbing the soot off his shield with the sleeve of his coat. It wasn’t working, and at his name, he glanced up, catching my eye. “I can if you’d like, boss.”

Colin had taken the brunt of the explosion with his shield, and while he said he was fine, I’d caught him clenching his hand to steady the tremors. My own hands clenched and relaxed in response.

Kinsley was keeping herself busy, like she usually did, rifling through the cheap wooden nightstands, massaging her arms, stretching and pacing the length of the room. Kinsley hadn’t been hit by the explosion itself, simply the shock wave, which had only given her a few bruises and scrapes. She was wordless as she checked a drawer again, as if checking it a fourth time would magically create something from nothing. She paused.

“Kins?” Hughes muttered.

Kinsley reached into the drawer, before removing a false-bottom and setting it to the side. She gruffed, “Found some candles.”

“Oh! That’s great, lets light some, yeah?” Hughes said, groaning as he got to his feet.

At that moment, Blair came back out of the bathroom with a bundle of cans in her arms. She brought them over by the stove, before gently setting them down. “I got no idea whats in these cans.”

Colin strode over, picking one up and shaking it beside his ear. “It’s food, right?”

Blair shrugged. “Hopefully.”

“Hopefully,” Colin echoed, trying to pry the can open.

Blair swiped the can from the stove, tipping it back to taste it, before I stopped her. “Blair.”

She paused. “Yeah, boss?”

I pointed to Geri in the corner, sleeping on a bed of stacked blankets. Like me, he’d been caught in the blast. Unlike me, he couldn’t Shroud. The only saving grace was that he’d been farther away than I had, and while he’d been steady enough on his feet afterwards, the moment we settled down, he’d fallen asleep. Blair understood without another word, and she carefully set about waking the man and helping him eat something. Colin and I began opening the cans, setting a couple onto the stove.

In another corner, Blair and Hughes were struggling. Hughes quietly swore, trying holding on side of a bundle of candles while Blair held the other. The two of them were pulling away from another, and the bundle stayed stuck. In the end, I motioned for them to come over, and roughly cut the candles using Colin’s sword. Before long, we had slowly candles set up around the room. None of us found disks to hold them, so the melting wax slowly pooled up on the floors.

My gaze fell on the covered mounds again. First Patches— the aftermath of that fight would give me nightmares— then Nadia, Gus, Rex, and Whale. All lost within the span of half-a-day. Nadia would never sing again. Gus would never bawdily recite drunken poetry anymore. Rex and his stupid, tiny pocket-harmonica. Whale and his obsession with birds, his constant protests to his nickname.

Patches.

I swallowed, and silently, swore revenge on the mage. It hadn’t been personal— I told myself it wasn’t personal— but after this? It was. It was certainly personal now. I steadied my shaking hands, before turning away.

Kinsley and Hughes shuffling around the room, setting up candles. Blair and Geri, the former having helped the latter sit up. Colin at the stove beside me, who gave me a funny expression when he saw my eyes on him. Remi, in the corner, solemnly staring out a crack in the curtain, waving off Hughes when he approached with a candle, muttering about how the light would give us away.

Kinsley, Hughes, Blair, Geri, Colin and Remi.

The ones who lived. The ones who’d lost someone tonight. The ones who needed someone to guide them.

When Kinsley prodded me to take a rest, I listened, taking up Colin’s old spot. Kinsley took watch near the window— if she could even see out that window— and Colin took over the stove, occasionally stoking it, checking the slowly cooking cans.

[][][]

Eventually, I woke up.

A gentle prod on the shoulder, a hand pressing a hot can into my hand, and a hot, sickly sweet smell. I wrinkled my nose, opening my eyes. Colin, Blair, Kinsley, Hughes, and Remi were sitting around me, cross-legged and solemn faced, but eating. Behind them, the fire was dimming.

Colin laughed as I looked down at the can in my hand. “Told you he wouldn’t like it!”

“What is this?” Something dark and gushy red with chunks swirled within. The only thing that came to mind were tomatoes— but the couple times I was afforded that luxury led me to believe that these were not tomatoes.

“They’re cherries, boss.” Hughes supplied.

“Yeah— yeah! Be grateful, boss,” Colin chimed in, still grinning. “Not often us Underhollow folk get to have fruit!”

“Often?” Kinsley glanced up, a brown viscous… something, in her mouth. “Try never.”

“She gotcha there, Colin,” Blair said. “Only the nobles get fruit.”

Remi cut in, mournful over a similarly can with red paste inside. “They can keep their fruit— I just wish we’d get some kind of meat other than the fatty crap they feed us all the time.”

“That stuff’s good!” Colin protested.

“Your tastebuds are as refined as your sense of humor.”

Despite our situation, I smiled at Colin. “Kinsley’s right— I don’t see ya nursin’ a can of cherries.”

His face scrunched, before he held out a hand. “Let’s swap then.”

“Done.” I received his can of warm beans, and he my can of “cherries.” Colin took a frowning sniff, before tipping it back. Remi watched with wide eyes.

Colin lowered the can, widely grinning. His teeth were coated in viscous red. “Positively awesome!”

Somehow, I doubted that, and from everyone else’s expression— they did too. No one called him out on it though, and things fell silent. Soon, we finished eating, stacked our cans in a corner, and resumed the places we’d taken up. Geri fell back asleep. Kinsley took up watch, and Remi sat cross-legged on the wooden floor. The fire sputtered and crackled.

Remi broke the silence first, saying: "What’s the plan, boss?”

I felt four other pairs of eyes on me.

“We can’t move till Crow comes back,” I said, stoking the flames. The heat was finally beginning to settle in. “Keeper’s’ll be swarmin’ the place in the morning— maybe earlier.”

“So we’re sitting ducks,” Colin said.

“Just means we gotta be patient, right?” Blair chimed.

“Yeah,” I said, standing up with a groan. “We’re waitin’ on orders. Just gotta be ready.”

Kinsley spoke up from beside the window. “I’ll take first watch, then.”

Hughes, Colin, and Blair chimed in similarly, and I nodded, before closing the whining grate on the stove, and slowly extinguishing the candles one by one. When I laid down to get some rest, I saw Patches’ face— looking like strips of pasty red meat and peaking bone that had been hollowed out by a hundred maggots.