image [https://i.imgur.com/9JnFmXw.jpg]
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Fig gritted her teeth against the pain in her broken ribs and the dizzying effects of the concussion, as she dashed through doorways and around corners, trying to lead the Ragon’ta hunting party away from the Archives.
With her ether crystal torch, she lit the way, running through the dark halls of the Administrative Wing. Each turn was a gamble, each decision at a crossroads could spell death. A single dead end would leave her cornered and swarmed.
Blood and sweat dripped from her chin, and her balance wavered as she ran, both were the results of recent head trauma. Her first fight with a single Ragon’ta Hunter had cost her dearly. Now the entire pack was on her tail.
If she could just keep them busy for long enough, Dorian might be able to get Rick to safety in the Floating Chest. But that meant every remaining Ragon’ta’s attention was fixed on her, and from the enraged snarls echoing down the corridors behind her, it sounded like they were pissed.
Well, you did kill one of them. How would you feel?
‘Shut the fuck up,’ she hissed between painful breaths.
With their powerful hind-legs, the Ragon’ta could move a lot faster than her, especially in a sprint over open ground, but their bulk made it difficult for them to turn sharp corners at speed. The smooth stone floors throughout Vishrac-Uramis worked in her favour, making it difficult for their claws to find any purchase. She could hear them skidding awkwardly behind her as they clamoured to keep up. Manoeuvrability was her only advantage right now; if she lost it, she was dead.
Fig arrived at a corner, turning into a long straight corridor, and risked a look back.
Swaying yellow eyes gleamed at her from the darkness, reflecting back the crystal torchlight.
Shit! They were closer than she’d thought. Four of them, all scales and teeth, and not a single one less than nine-feet long from jaws to tail.
There were two Spear Hunters leading the charge, followed by the largest reptile of the group, who wore a mantle of caste bones, and carried a huge club with shards of sunglass studded into it. She assumed that big one was the Leader from how it directed the others.
Finally came their Archer, wielding a curved bow made of bamboo and some kind of cured horn. As she took in the details, the Archer reared up and loosed a sunglass arrow at her over the backs of the other running Ragon’ta.
Move, are you trying to get shot!
Fig cursed and ducked. The tip of the arrow shattered into sparkling shards against the stonework, mere inches above her face. Sharp fragments bit into her cheek, narrowly missing her eye. Each cut added a new trail to the streams of blood running from her split lip and hairline.
Fig broke into a dead sprint down the long corridor as the hunting party crashed around the corner behind her in hot pursuit.
She took quick glances back over her shoulder as she ran, looking out for more ranged attacks at the cost of some speed. Her watchfulness paid off. She saw one of the Spear Hunters draw a set of bolas, three spherical weights tied to connected lengths of twine, from the hide pouch on its bandolier.
Not breaking its bounding stride, the Spear Hunter wound up the bolas into a spinning blur and sent them whirling toward Fig.
They came in at waist height, perfectly positioned to entangle her legs and bring her to the ground where the hunting party could mob her.
She leapt, using her tall Mardin frame to vault as high as possible with her legs raised. Her broken ribs bent and crunched under the skin. She yelped in pain, but just barely cleared the spinning ropes as they whirled past below and clattered to the ground further down the corridor.
Fig staggered as she landed, fighting the pain, and almost lost her balance. Her shoulder scraped the wall and she pushed off, grazing her palms and picking up the pace once more.
Her lead grew smaller with each attack she had to evade and every moment she wasn’t breaking their line of sight. Down this long straight sprint, they had the advantage.
The end of the corridor split into a T shaped junction, thirty metres away and growing closer with each step. It was going to be close.
Come on, Fig! Faster, keep going!
The Ragon’ta were gaining. She could hear their jaws snapping, and their claws grinding on the stone floor as they closed in for the kill.
Some instinct made her drop and slide the last few metres towards the junction.
A sunglass spearhead slashed through the space where her back had been a moment earlier, followed by one of the Spear Hunters. The Ragon’ta had launched itself forward into the thrust. As it failed to find its mark, the reptile skidded and crashed headfirst into the wall at the end of the corridor, tumbling into a dazed mass of scaled flesh. Fig scrabbled and rolled around the corner to the left, narrowly avoiding the disoriented Spear Hunter’s grasping claws, and trying to make some distance before the rest of the hunting party could climb over their temporarily fallen member.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Fig ran onward, rising from her hands and knees. The reptiles were seconds behind, crowding and bumping into each other as they navigated the corner.
A junction with several doorways was right ahead. She dove through one of them. By this point, she’d completely lost track of what part of the temple they were in. Where she was going hardly mattered, the monsters she was running from took up her entire focus.
Fig ran through a series of dark rooms, barely even registering her surroundings in her desperation to escape. The only things she cared about were obstacles to navigate, and things she could use to slow her pursuers.
She vaulted a table, then a set of sleeping cots, passed through doorway after doorway, back into a corridor, then an archway, then through more rooms, kitchens, offices, storage. She changed direction frequently and pulled down furniture to block the path she’d taken.
After a minute of rapid manoeuvring in tight quarters, her lead on the hunting party had grown considerably. She’d successfully broken line of sight, and then some.
The Ragon’ta were still close; she could hear them demolishing their way through the rooms behind her, but she’d gained some breathing room.
Fig doubled over, wheezing. She was exhausted. Her broken ribs screamed at her with every movement, but she just didn’t have time to listen.
Don’t stop, Fig. Your body will seize up. Keep moving.
Fig staggered through another set of doors. She needed a plan.
There was no way she could keep this up for much longer. The Ragon’ta could track her by just the smell of her blood and sweat, even if she broke line of sight, she couldn’t cover her scent trail down here. There was no way to lose them for good.
What was the alternative, fighting against bad odds when she was already injured? She knew exactly what Draad would say about that.
Fig rounded a corner and drew Whisper from its scabbard, gazing at it as she momentarily leant against the wall for support.
The enchanted blade thrummed with a magical energy she still didn’t fully understand. Each movement sent vibrations up her arm. Pale lights flickered along the edge, and the black stone in the pommel had a disconcerting aura. The only way she could think to describe it was the inverse of radiance. It swallowed light, leeching it out of the surroundings.
The odd magical effects had started the moment she killed that Ragon’ta Hunter, as if the death had charged it up somehow. It didn’t help that she had no idea what the charged enchantment might be.
‘Please turn out to be a magical super-weapon,’ she muttered, feeling a fraction steadier as she held the sword.
She kept moving, trying not to get turned around in the maze of corridors.
Who’re you kidding, you’re already lost.
The Ragon’ta were never far behind. She heard them spread out, each taking a different route and chattering loudly to each other, staying in constant contact as they closed in, forming a net of hunters that limited her options for escape. As before in the jungle above, she knew what it felt like to be something’s prey.
Fig hid in a doorway, smothering her crystal torch, and fished through her riding coat, spending precious moments to look for anything else in her possession that might be useful.
Her fingers closed on a small sachet lying against the bottom seam of a pocket. It was the pink trap powder Slimy Lez had used on his captives, the sachet she’d recovered from the trap on the long staircase when they entered the temple. She’d almost forgotten she had it. The container was some kind of clear waterproof material, sealed with heat. She squinted at it in the dimmed light.
If she could disperse this stuff into the air, it might slow down the hunting party, or even knock them out if Dorian’s account of its effects was reliable. But then she’d be in danger of inhaling it herself. Was it worth the risk?
It would have to be, since it was the only thing she had to level the playing field in a pinch.
The Ragon’ta had made a mistake by spreading out. It helped them herd and corner her, certainly, but it also stretched their line thin and meant each member of the hunting party was more isolated. They’d opened themselves up to a counter ambush, just what she needed to even the odds.
It was time for them to find out exactly who they were dealing with.
The reptiles needed no light to see in the darkness, which should have put Fig at a severe disadvantage against them. Her reliance on her torch gave her movements away any time she was within close proximity.
But it also allowed her to play with that expectation and lay a trap.
Fig broke off a small glowing shard of her ether crystal torch and smothered the rest in her pocket. Then she planted the light in the back corner of a nearby room so it shone very faintly out to the corridor, creating a false beacon to draw in the hunting party.
Fig swiftly snuck through the dark and lay down in the entrance to another storage room, a vantage point that gave her good visibility down the adjoining corridors. She covered herself with musty blankets to hide from view and partially cover her smell as the Ragon’ta hunt approached.
In the very weak light coming from her false beacon, she could barely see them, but she could hear them clearly as they closed in. Claws clicked on the stonework, and throaty clucks and hisses in their language darted back and forth as they alerted each other to the light, coordinating their approach.
One of the Spear Hunters passed by within arm’s reach, ignorant of her presence, and prowled further down the adjacent corridor, creeping towards where they thought she was.
Good. She’d slipped behind their search net, but only for a moment. As soon as they identified the false beacon, they’d double back and pick up her scent trail.
She could see the Ragon’ta Archer, stood at a junction in the corridors, keeping tabs on its party members as they advanced ahead in different directions. The Archer formed a relay point for communications between the edges of their search net as it closed around her false beacon.
She could faintly make out the Ragon’ta’s wary eyes, reflecting even the low light with a soft yellow sheen, but they didn’t spot her, too focused on the faint light in the distance, just as she’d planned.
Now!
Fig burst from cover and darted towards the Archer, unveiling her torch and thrusting it forward as she attacked.
Its eyes flicked to her, vast light sensitive pupils shrinking to pinpricks as they were overwhelmed by the sudden brightness being thrust in its face. A cry for help sounded from its jaws, even as it drew a dagger to defend itself. It was too slow, unable to properly read her movements behind the light source.
Fig slipped the Archer’s guard and brought Whisper’s blade, brimming with magical energy, up for a lethal thrust to the neck.
At the moment of contact, a freezing torrent of air rushed past Fig, flowing along her sword arm to the blade and chilling her to the bone. The ominous vibration that had been swelling in Whisper reached a violent crescendo, all in one instant, and an unstoppable force tore its way out through the tip.
The corridor lit up with a brilliant flash. Fig saw the Archer’s reflective eyes grow bright and wide with terror, a moment before its head sheared violently from its shoulders and flew away down the corridor beyond, bouncing and rolling to an eventual wet stop.
The Archer’s body staggered and fell heavily to the side, spurting blood from the neck across the walls and ceiling. Fig watched it with shock.
It was an impossible attack, a strike that extended beyond the physical edge of the enchanted blade to sever flesh and bone like they were nothing.
One down, three to go.
‘Holy shit!’ Fig exclaimed, looking down at Whisper, which had instantly regained its charge from the Archer’s death. Crackling lights flickered down the length of its blade, and the black gemstone seethed with aberrant darkness.
It felt eager to strike again, and that feeling echoed in her own chest.
The rest of the hunting party, who had split up down the nearby corridors to surround the false beacon, screamed in rage at being misled and ambushed. From the darkness, she could hear them rushing back to swarm her.
‘I love you,’ Fig said, kissing Whisper quickly on the guard, and spinning in the junction to face the oncoming reptiles. For the first time since the chase began, her head was clear. The pain in her ribs was just an insignificant nagging. She felt dangerous. There was something rejuvenating and intoxicating about this sword’s power.
The Leader sprang from one corridor, enormous and covered in jangling bones. It swung its great studded club at her head. Fig took a perfect step and swayed to the side as the attack whistled by, a hair's breadth from her. She went to retaliate, but backed off as she saw the Spear Hunters bounding in from another angle to try and flank her. She couldn’t let Whisper make her too cocky. Sword against spear, with no shield or armour, was a bad matchup for her at the best of times, let along vs two, with a heavy club wielder besides to press the attack.
The ambush went better than expected, but with her back to the wall and three Ragon’ta ganging up on her, it was just a matter of time before she couldn’t dodge a killing blow.
If Whisper needed a death to recharge itself, she should choose her strikes carefully. Getting mobbed and cut to ribbons would only result in her swift demise. Not worth it, even if she landed a great attack in the process.
So let’s create a better opportunity.
Fig jumped over a blow from the Leader’s tail that smashed against the wall, cracking tiles, as it whirled and swung, trying to pin her down. For now, she saved Whisper’s magical attack. She needed to create space and stop those spears being used effectively. As she landed she pirouetted and lashed out with one boot to kick the Leader in the eye, hard. Its head snapped backward with a screech and it stumbled into the path of the Spear Hunters, who pulled up short, unable to flank for a second. She used the moment to rotate to the other side of the junction, looking for the opening she needed to deal with all three in quick succession.
She ducked and wove, trying to avoid getting stuck between the half blinded Leader and the wall, even as she kept its body between herself and the other Ragon’ta. Damn it! This was a worse position than she’d thought. Even with the Leader’s vision compromised, dodging the wildly flailing club and the jabbing spears around the sides meant she couldn’t do much more than play defence and evasion.
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New tactic; she needed to split up her opponents. The Spear Hunters finally jumped past the Leader, who was still staggered and holding its eye tenderly, and pressed their numbers advantage with a series of coordinated jabs that made Fig back off again before she could even consider dashing in for a strike.
Draad always told you to run.
‘Yeah… yeah, I fucking remember. Don’t have much choice though, do I?’ she muttered as she skipped backwards.
She was slowing down again, getting too tired, and her injuries from before were re-emerging. She needed to finish this soon or luck was going to turn against her.
Fig spotted something to the right, and made a snap decision. She dashed through a doorway into a long room full of old hanging sheets on lines that stretched from wall to wall, just above her head height. There was another door beyond, and some boxes of clean linen stacked against the walls.
The Spear Hunters followed, leaving their Leader behind and spreading out to attack with a pincer formation as Fig ran between the sheets.
One of the Spear Hunters was missing a patch of scales above its shoulder, so she labelled it Patchy in her head and the other Not-Patchy.
How original. You have the soul of a bard, should I call you Bilberry Rattlestaff?
‘Can you fuck off until I’m done here!?’ she spat.
Patchy went right and thrust at her chest, centre mass, trying to skewer her on the sunglass tip, while Not-Patchy ducked left and swept the long shaft of its weapon at her knees. They had great reach and knew how to use it. These two were a good team, clearly experienced at hunting as a unit. They attacked simultaneously, in such a way that she couldn’t engage one without getting stabbed by the other. She fell back, barely evading the spear strikes and ducking behind a line of pale cloths to create distance.
A normal fighter in her position might find themselves overwhelmed. But she had Whisper, which gave her a whole set of different options. Finally she was in a position to strike.
Choosing her moment, she grabbed one of the hanging cloths from its line and threw it forward so it flared in the air and tangled up around Patchy and its spear, taking the Ragon’ta’s attention off attacking her for just a moment while it clawed the cloth away.
Fig capitalised on the distraction to dash forward, breaking through their pincer formation to get in close. She crouched and lunged, bringing Whisper up to send a severing strike at Not-Patchy, feeling the eager power in the blade waiting to break loose. Her strike was obvious and easy to deflect. Bait, which Not-Patchy took.
The Ragon’ta gave her a grin full of sharp teeth, and raised its spear to skilfully redirect her overly telegraphed attack.
‘Bad luck,’ she shouted, as Whisper flashed with cold light and wind flowed along the steel. The intercepting spear burst, and Not-Patchy took the severing strike directly to its shoulder, instantly amputating its left arm and continuing halfway into the torso before slowing.
Two down.
Fig kicked the reptile off the end of her blade, and danced back, ready to round on Patchy for a follow up attack with a recharged Whisper.
But Whisper didn’t recharge.
Fig stared mutely at the blade, her head spinning as she waited for magical power that didn’t arrive. Shit! Had she made a wrong assumption about how its enchantment worked?
Patchy freed itself from the cloth and leapt forward to slash at her, snapping her out of her confusion as she was forced to deflect the strike and back off.
A motion from the floor caught her eye.
Not-Patchy was still alive.
The Ragon’ta, with a ragged line cut halfway through its chest, was clawing itself away from her with one arm.
‘Why are you reptiles so fucking tough to kill!?’ she cursed as she tried to advance around Patchy and finish the job.
The gears of Fig’s mind turned, trying to figure out the specifics of the enchantment while she battled back and forth across the room.
She couldn’t keep relying on Whisper’s ability if she didn’t know exactly how it functioned. That would only get her killed.
The severing strike didn’t make it all the way through the torso. Why? Was it just not strong enough? It looked like it had juice to spare when it tore the Archer’s head off. No, that wasn’t it. The enchantment seemed to activate when the blade made first contact with whatever it was striking.
Fig grunted to herself, grasping the problem.
The magical part of the severing strike must have limited duration or swing range, and it triggered when Whisper contacted the deflecting spear, quite far out from the Ragon’ta’s body. That meant Not-Patchy only took the last little bit of the magical cut before the enchantment ran out of charge. The Ragon’ta got cut deep, but not fully in half, and somehow it fucking survived.
She’d have to watch out for that in future, and make sure the trajectory of her severing strikes definitely dealt killing blows.
That was if she ever got the chance to use it again.
Fig sidestepped a flurry of furious spear thrusts from Patchy. The Spear Hunter was standing over its fallen companion, trying to hold its ground against her assault.
Fig was so preoccupied with breaking through that guard to finish Not-Patchy, eager to get Whisper charged again, that she got tunnel vision.
She didn’t even see the Leader coming until it was already too late.
Recovered from its kick to the eye, and very angry, the largest reptile barreled into the room at a full sprint and crashed into her with a brutal head-butt into her right side. Fig screamed as the bones in her sword-arm shattered under the impact. Whisper slipped from her numb fingers as she flew sideways. Her body flailed in the air, getting tangled up in the hanging sheets of cloth which slightly slowed her fall before she slammed against the back wall.
Immediately, her organs felt like they’d been tenderised, and she couldn’t breathe as her diaphragm locked up.
Not good.
Patchy was on top of her in an instant, spear discarded as the Ragon’ta resorted to its more primal weapons of claws and teeth. Fig tried to kick the Hunter away, but a moment later Patchy’s huge jaws clamped down on her right shoulder, teeth sinking deep into the flesh.
Fig tried to scream but very little sound came out. Instead she just gasped and spluttered in agony.
Really not good.
Without Whisper in her grasp, all of the effects of her concussion and broken ribs rushed back in, combined with the overwhelming agony of her shattered right arm and the teeth piercing into her. She barely kept herself conscious as Patchy started shaking her. It turned and swung her body from side to side, slamming her into the floor and tearing the flesh across her back and shoulder with its jaws.
She could see into its enormous eye right beside her face as it savaged her. In that yellow pool, her own busted up pale face was reflected. She looked defeated. That couldn’t be her, surely. She was Darrowfig Sable, she couldn’t die like this!
The edges of her vision darkened, then suddenly snapped back to clarity as an inexplicable second wind burned through her veins, like her body had discovered some new store of adrenaline. Burning determination filled her soul, the face in her reflection turned into a mask of proud rage.
Fig’s working hand flattened itself into a blade with her fingers outstretched, unclipped nails sharp and jagged. With a roar, she plunged it into Patchy’s eye. Jelly and goo spurted out as she cracked the surface like an egg. Patchy’s jaws loosened. The reptile screamed and tried to pull away, but she held on, digging her fingers deeper to grab the tip of the optic nerve, which she yanked free with a wet ripping sound.
Just like that, Patchy was out for the count. The Ragon’ta fell back, dropping Fig to the floor and clutching its ruined eye with a harsh reptilian screech.
The Leader rose from where it had been checking Not-Patchy’s dying form, and grabbed its club from the ground
Fig scrambled painfully backwards into the corner as the Leader snarled and advanced for a killing blow. Her eye-jelly covered fingers fished in her pocket for the sachet of pink trap powder. It was her only hope.
She raised it to her teeth and barely tore off the top without spilling it in her own mouth, then flung it up right into the Leader’s face, where the powder puffed out and drifted in the air.
She managed to take the enormous reptile by surprise. It snorted, inhaling the powder without meaning to. The effect was almost immediate. The Leader’s enormous pupils dilated to different sizes, and it staggered sideways where it collided heavily with the wall. The club dropped from its fingers.
Fig held her breath, and dragged herself to her feet. One arm hung limp, and blood was dripping from her torn up right side. She only had a few moments before she ran out of oxygen and inhaled the pink powder. She needed to leave the room quickly.
Not-Patchy was bleeding out in the far corner and barely moving. Patchy was down on the ground, shaking and holding its face, in so much pain it was not paying any attention to her. The wounded Ragon’ta’s whimpering eased as it inhaled the pink powder and fell unconscious.
The Leader pushed off the wall and took one shaky step towards Fig. It reached out with its claws, before falling to one knee, breathing heavily. Each inhalation sucked more of the pink powder into its lungs, slowing it down. But it resisted the drug with all of its might, refusing to be knocked out.
Blood covered every surface of the room, and filthy torn cloth was lying everywhere in crumpled piles. Fig’s mind felt gummed up and halting. She could barely make decisions in this state, but she needed a weapon. She looked around frantically as her lungs started to burn; where was Whisper?
The enormous Ragon’ta Leader rose shakily back to its feet and picked up its sunglass studded club. It advanced, eyes bloodshot and full of fury, fighting to remain conscious. With slow and terrible control, it raised the tip of the club to point at Fig.
No words were necessary. Its intentions were clear. The Leader would not stop until she was dead. It would avenge its fallen hunting party.
That was enough for Fig. She fumbled to grab her crystal torch from the floor as she fled from the room, taking heaving breaths when she got to the untainted air outside.
The Leader followed, moving slowly and crashing into the doorframe as it came, but unstoppable in its determination. Fig could feel its eyes burning into her back as she limped away.
Anyone watching would have called it the most pathetic chase they had ever witnessed. Neither Fig, nor the Ragon’ta Leader, could move at any speed above an awkward shuffle, but each was possessed of a single minded drive, one to kill, the other to survive.
Fig didn’t have a clue where she was going. Where could she go? She wheezed, limping through the corridors, and finally found herself emerging into the vaulted cavern of the Great Hall, full from wall to wall with mummification altars.
The Leader followed, growing more steady as the minutes passed and it began to shrug off the effects of the knockout drug. It emerged from the archway into the hall, steadily gaining on her.
‘Fuck off and die!’ Fig gasped weakly, but it was futile. There was no escape. She just couldn’t move fast enough with all of her injuries. The Leader cackled back some sharp response in the Ragon’ta language, its footsteps growing ever closer.
Fig stepped out onto a walkway that ran between the rows of altars. Her fingers were trembling. Her crystal torch fell from her blood slick grip, and she couldn’t even pick it up. She felt like she was going to collapse at any moment.
Unarmed and helpless, she turned to face her approaching death.
At least it was a fitting place to die, here in Vishrac-Uramis, under the watchful eyes of the Shepherds and the many ancient murals of Sumat. It almost felt holy somehow, which was more than she deserved.
She hung her head, waiting for the Leader to finish her. Rick and Dorian were probably safe inside the Floating Chest by now anyway. They’d have to figure out the rest on their own. She could just rest now. It felt like she’d been fighting these fucking reptiles in the dark for so long.
That’s when she noticed the glint of her old rusted cutlass, the one she’d lost inside Slimy Lez. It lay in a gutter between the altars, discarded and partially hidden from view until the light of her crystal torch revealed it. Only, the cutlass wasn’t tarnished any more. Slimy Lez’s acidic body had stripped off the rust and left it gleaming like new, ready to be grabbed and wielded.
What’s more, lying right next to it was Rick’s old driftwood walking stick.
The flood in the Archives had washed them away and deposited them both directly beside where she was now standing.
Fig couldn't believe it.
What are the fucking chances of that?
The Leader broke into an unsteady run, winding up its club to crush her.
Fine. What’s the harm in one more mad grasp at life?
Fig dove for the cutlass.
It was more of a stylised collapse really, but the club still missed her, barely. Instead, it crashed into the altar above her so hard it cracked. Fig landed badly in the gutter and let out a wail of excruciating pain as the impact made many of the splinters of broken bone beneath her flesh pierce into the surrounding soft tissue.
Her left hand reached out and scrabbled for the hilt of the cutlass, just barely getting a hold of it as the Ragon’ta Leader grabbed her by the back of her coat and lifted her up.
She was slammed down on the top of the broken altar, with the Ragon’ta looming over her, wickedly long claws raised to disembowel her.
Those claws stabbed down.
At the same time, Fig brought the tip of the cutlass up under the Ragon’ta Leader’s jaw, with every ounce of remaining strength focused into that dull, cheap old sword as it pierced a mighty strike through the reptile’s mouth and palate, and up into the skull.
The Leader stiffened, then its knees buckled as it fell out of view. The cutlass was wrenched from her grip, stuck inside the dead reptile.
Fig lay gasping atop the broken altar.
She looked down and felt her abdomen with her hand. Blood welled up between her fingers, flowing from a deep series of gashes beneath her ribcage. The Ragon’ta’s claws had struck true.
‘Oh fuck,’ she wheezed, ‘That’s really bad.’
Have I ever told you how wonderfully articulate you are?
‘Not the time,’ she whispered as she slumped down into the gutter.
She could hardly think straight, but her body started working anyway, going through the motions to try and save herself. She took off her coat and wrapped it around her midriff as tight as she could with one working arm, trying to stem some of the bleeding.
‘I think I’m going to die,’ Fig gasped, leaning back against the broken altar.
It’s looking like a real possibility.
‘I don’t want to die.’
So do something about it.
‘Fuck you.’
I’m you, remember.
‘Well fuck me then.’
Fig groaned and reached over to try to pull the cutlass free of the Leader’s skull. She finally wiggled it loose and stuck it through her belt.
Leaning heavily on Rick’s walking stick, she managed to climb to her feet.
Blood soaked through her coat. It seemed doubtful she could make it anywhere before she bled out.
But she was going to try.
Fig retraced her steps through the temple, barely conscious, but somehow mustering the strength to keep going.
First she followed her own blood trail back to the room where Patchy the Spear Hunter was lying unconscious with its eye torn out. The pink powder had dissipated, leaving it safe to enter. She finished the unconscious reptile with a weak stab to the neck that produced nothing but a spasm and a wet gurgle.
In a daze, she finally found Whisper, poking from under a pile of bloody cloths. As she touched the hilt, she felt just a fraction stronger. Perhaps it was just the blood loss, but she was almost certain it purred with affection when she picked it up.
Fig collapsed twice on the way back to the Archive. Each time, she crawled back to her feet and kept moving forward, with her vision growing darker each second until she found the Floating Chest. It hovered in the centre of the magic circle Rick had prepared for the transportation ritual, undisturbed, like nothing had happened.
‘I’m here,’ Fig tried to say, but the words dried up in her mouth.
She leant on the Chest and tried to bang on the lid, but her working hand was so weak she could barely make any sound. Would they even hear her inside? It was a weird enchanted extra-dimensional space. Could sound travel through the box?
‘Let me in. Rick! Dorian! I’m dying out here!’ she cried out weakly, hammering on the lid with the last of her strength. Then she collapsed again and everything went strange as her head bounced off the side of the Chest.
She lay there in half darkness, vaguely aware of her body aching with the collective pain of so many injuries, until a soothing light passed over her. The pain faded, and she drifted on the rippling surface of a dark ocean without end.
A presence spoke, ‘My my! You held out far longer with those awful wounds than I would have thought possible.’
The presence was warm, friendly. It wrapped her in soothing blankets of relief.
‘Come, Darrowfig. It’s time,’ the presence said, and she knew it was true. She felt strong hands lift her.
‘Wait!’
Suddenly there was a second presence, intruding, interrupting, similar to the first but harsh with urgency.
Fig felt her ascension stop.
‘What are you doing here?’ the first presence demanded.
‘There’s been a change of plans,’ came the response.
‘What? But… There can’t be a change of plans, that doesn’t happen.’
‘It has.’
‘Why!?’ anger seeped into the first presence, and the small part of Fig that was aware shuddered at the depth of power in that single word.
The second presence swelled and boomed, facing down its counterpart as it roared, ‘Our instructions are not for you to question!’
Fig felt a titanic battle of wills rage above her. The waters on which she drifted roiled and vast waves threatened to break over her, until the first presence backed down in submission and the dark ocean calmed once more, though she could still feel the ripples of the recent clash dissipating away across the newly choppy surface..
The second presence continued, firm and clear, without aggression, ‘An exception has been made. This one is granted more time before we act. She may yet live, if she can hold on just a little longer.’
‘I don’t understand this,’ the first presence muttered.
‘Nor do I. But, as ever, our understanding is not required, only our faith.’
The presences faded from her perception, and were swiftly forgotten as Fig sank down to drift in dreams at the border of death.
She had flashes of images and sensations, confusing and full of pain, like echoes from a misremembered nightmare.
A burnt man with a flaming green eye loomed over her, chanting awful words she didn’t understand.
Hands awkwardly dragged and lifted her broken body, sending lances of pain that found her even in these subconscious depths. Someone with a silly moustache dropped her, and she hated them for it.
There were bright lights and glowing symbols, and a roaring flash that shattered the world around her.
Then the briny smell of the sea, and the cries of gulls circling overhead.
Then nothing, for a long long time.
[End of Chapter 10]
[End of Act 1]