Gabriel looked back at the three people following behind him, pondering whether he really needed to bring them along in his quest to rescue Valerina. Common sense dictated that he try to put as many warm bodies as he could between him and the razatches - hence his travelling with this bunch - but he felt that he would be making better time if he set off on his own. After all, he and Vit could make quick work of any monstrosity that crossed their path.

Ellen huffed as she jumped off a pile of debris and landed within the house where Gabriel currently stood watching them clamber through one of the holes in the wall.

"You're surprisingly good at this," the silverhead commented, striding up to the prince and turning to watch Alver help Camilla over the collapsed wall. "We are yet to have an encounter with any razatche so far. Gods know I seemed to run into the buggers every five minutes before."

"I just have good senses," Gabriel deflected. "If you know what to look for, danger is rather easy to spot."

"Huh," Ellen emoted. "Is that so? Do tell, what is it you look for?"

Gabriel turned silent for a while, trying to cook up some inane crap to feed the princess when Vit pulled his attention.

She's moving, he said. Fast. Somehow.

Gabriel ground his teeth to stop himself from doing anything suspicious.

"Oh, just a couple things, none especially hard to find," he responded to Ellen. By then Camilla and Alver had reached them. "Come on, let's get going. If we try, we could return to the manor in a timely manner."

He turned on his heel and proceeded to lead them through the back exit of the building, avoiding the maze of spindly wires a hiding razatche had set up a couple feet up the street they had been walking down. The murderwork had definitely been busy, since the wires covered a rather large area - almost a mile, in fact. They would have to go around it to get to Valerina - or rather, they would have had to go around it.

"You said she's moving?" Gabriel whispered under his breath as he kicked aside a chunk of stone in his path. Something meaty and red with flecks of bone speckled within met the sunlight and Gabriel grimaced.

Yes, came Vit's reply. She's going straight with no deviation, heading deeper into the city. I think she's jumping across roofs?

Gabriel bit the insides of his cheek. Deeper into the city. Hells.

"City lord's manor?" He asked hopefully. At least that would make his life a tad easier.

No, Vit responded mercilessly. I don't think she knows to go there, but while she is not headed there directly, it is somewhere to her left.

"Right. I hoped for too much." He hopped over a wooden beam. "How close is she to us?"

Vit snorted. Far.

Gabriel let out a defeated sigh. Why would anything ever be easy? He glanced back at the people following him.

Dumping them would be relatively easy. The real problem though lay deeper within the city.

Anybody with enough brains to go around would realise rather quickly why the outer fringes of the island was practically devoid of razatches, at least relative to the number of people that had been scourged. Simply put; the Ward broke, humans ran deeper, the recently scourged that were being torn to shreds by their brethren followed the humans, the razatches who were doing the tearing followed their prey, while the cowardly - or the wise, depending on perspective - remained behind in a less brutal battlefield. What that meant was that the deeper they travelled, the more razatches they would meet and the more likely it was to run into stronger, more esoteric fellbeasts and their kin since the abhorrent suckers grew stronger and even more twisted upon feasting on their victims.

With the number of the murderworks gathered there, and the sheer time they'd had to go to town on each other and the general population, Gabriel was certain there was no fighting all the monsters that had popped up there even for him.

Gabriel's shoulder sagged. Things were not looking bright.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and focused on correcting their path tangentially to head deeper into the city. If it came to it, these three would serve well as a distraction if he needed to escape what he couldn't avoid.

....

Pain lanced through Valerina as her stomach connected with the edge of the roof, putting a rude stop to her momentum. Her arms scrabbled against the roof desperately, and for a fleeting moment she thought she would be falling to the gathering of surprisingly patient razatches that were, for some hellish reason, not ripping each other to little red ribbons. Just as she began to slide though, her elbow caught on a part of the decorative beam lining the edge of the roof and she used the little leverage it gave her to pull out a cracked tile just marginally enough to dig her fingers into the space it created.

A pair of feet landed on the roof just above her and she looked up to see Voscov holding out a hand. She pushed down on the beam with an arm and snapped the other outward quickly to catch the proffered limb.

Voscov helped her up and as she stood carefully on the slopping roof, she turned her gaze to the roof across them where Lynica battled against two razatches. It didn't look too difficult a thing to do since the creatures got in each others way more frequently than they saw any attack to the end, but Valerina suspected Lynica made it seem more easy than it was.

"I didn't expect for them to jump us on the roof," the Valerina said, breathing hard.

"Mm. It is what it is," Voscov replied. His gaze wandered down to the razatches on the streets down below that were gazing up at them with single-minded focus. "Any guess what is up with them?" He asked.

"No idea," Valerina shrugged. "For all I know, an evil mastermind could be controlling them - a razatche maybe, gods forbid. Or..."

Just then Lynica kicked one of her opponents off the roof and it tumbled to the streets. All the razatches down in the street tensed for a moment, their eyes leaving the two figures on the roof and shooting to their falling comrade. Valerina shut her eyes, already knowing what she would see and she was glad she did because a shrill scream rent the air moments after before shutting abruptly with a loud gurgle.

"Oh," Voscov commented, opening his own eyes. "They were waiting for a weak prey within themselves and decided to feast on us first I think. That is certainly troubling."

Valerina spared the prince an annoyed glance. In the name of the gods, how was he still sounding so neutral and aloof? She was barely keeping it together as is, and he didn't even sound bothered.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Lynica jumped off the roof across them, landed by their side, and turned to put a dagger through the head of the razatche that she had left behind and had tried to do the same, all in one smooth motion. The corpse landed limply at her feet and she pushed it down to the streets below where it was swarmed by its fellow razatches that were, thankfully, now back to their senses and were doing their very best to pull each other's throats out. Despite not normally being the sort, Valerina quietly cheered them on from the side. Ideally, none of the psychotic buggers on the street would survive.

Lynica wiped a blood splatter from her cheek with her wrist and regarded the deadly melee that was going on below them for a while as she caught her breath.

"Why do you think none of them tried to climb to the roof?" She nudged Valerina.

"....They are still just plain stupid?" Valerina offered reluctantly. She had zero idea why none of them had attempted to climb the roof yet, and that was the only thing that came to mind. The two that had ambushed them on the last roof were an oddity and were the only bit of resistance they had faced since they began their journey. That was not to say that the three of them were the only living beings on the roof though - far from it. It was only that the twisted creatures that hung around the rooftops were easy to maneuver around and never came after them.

"Mm," Lynica acknowledged simply and backtracked carefully up the slanted roof before turning around at the top. "Let's get a move on before one of them gets any ideas then," she said.

The other two followed the aide's lead and stopped at the top to scout out the next few roofs. Like she had been doing so far, Lynica pointed out the path they would be taking across the rooftops and Valerina was pleased to find that there was a rather glaring lack of slanting roofs in their way. Small blessings.

Soon they were jumping across the streets - not quite speeding along, since some jumps required Valerina and Voscov both to work up the courage to attempt, but they were making good time.

They soon came to a stop at a particularly wide, flat roof in order to catch their breath and Valerina was relieved to see the Gildspur inn not far off, its sign somehow still intact.

"There it is," she notified her companions. "The three-story to our right. We can get the salves there. Also, some manner of fellbeast is trying to get the jump on us from behind the chimney."

Lynica gave a light nod and sat down on the roof, wrapping her arms around her knees while palming a knife in her right hand. Voscov squinted at the building before shrugging and following Lynica's example to sit.

Valerina gazed at both of them tiredly for a while before sitting with her face to them and her back to their destination. She was acutely aware of the fellbeast behind the chimney, but she wasn't the person with a knife was she?

She took the slight reprieve to calm her heart rate, steady herself, and ponder whether Rowe was still alive or not. If he was then he was probably worried sick about her, but it wasn't as though she could have clued him in on what she wanted to do. He just wouldn't understand and would have tried to stop her. On the other hand, if he was dead... well, Valerina had no idea what to do in that case. Or what would happen. Or what to feel. Or-

"What is that?" Voscov said, breaking Valerina away from her thoughts. The prince gestured at the sky behind her, and she turned around and squinted against the sun. Some manner of flying creature was quickly approaching their location. The girl couldn't make out much but she was certain that whatever it was, what was coming was not a bird. Her breath caught in her throat and she tensed up. If that thing was a fellbeast then they were done for... unless, of course, either the Voscov or his aide were some sort of battle prodigy able to defend against a flying foe. Despite the many rumours circulating about the prince, Valerina doubted he would be able to contend with a flying fellbeast without the liberty of using his manipulation.

There was a screech and the clickity-clack of bone on mortar followed by a dull, solid thud and Valerina turned sharply toward the sound just in time to see a flash of silver bury itself into the head of a fellbeast with far more eyes than was healthy. The creature skidded to a stop and, in total disregard of the blade no doubt buried deep into its brain, reared up on four double-jointed legs to screech and brandish a pair of rapier-like arms.

But by then Lynica was a blur, her body low to the ground and streaking toward the screeching beast with a knife in each hand. Valerina wasn't quite sure what happened next; not because it was too fast to follow but because it seemed... impossible. Or rather, it was just spectacular in a gory kind of way and Lynica made it look so easy, like taking down something half again as tall as her was an everyday thing.

To start things off, the creature stabbed down with one of its arms. Lynica dodged to the right and then ducked under a swipe from the second limb. She danced around the abomination, kicking one of its legs as she passed it by and making it wobble unsteadily. Next thing Valerina knew, the aide was fully behind the creature and had detached its arm from its shoulder with a single swipe of the knife - no, not knife; more like a short scimitar. The abomination screeched and began to turn only for Lynica to carve two bloody lines along its back, cutting through the half-dozen eyes that sat there.

The fellbeast turned quicker, trying to get its attacker into a position where its main weapons of assault could damage her, but the girl moved with it, easily keeping to its back and taking out a leg in the process. The beast screeched in pain, screaming to the sky, which prompted its tormentor to cut out another leg and kick the detached limb aside.

The fellbeast, now unbalanced, tilted to one side and in so doing sealed its fate. Lynica lunged at its head, brought down the two curved daggers around its neck, and sent it flying with a powerful tug. The single remaining rapier-like limb came around to impale her and she sheared off the limb as the head of the beast flew away and tumbled down to the street below.

Breathing hard, Lynica walked away from the fellbeast that was still twitching like it was in throes of pain and looked toward the edge of the roof where the head had tumbled off.

"That's another knife lost," she said with a frown.

"It is a griffin," Voscov declared suddenly.

"What is what now?" Lynica groaned, turning to Voscov with a frown. "Are you certain you know what a griffin is, your highness? I lost a knife, not a -"

"Not that, that." He pointed to the sky. The two girls looked up and Lynica's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. A large shape flew through the sky, its shape indeed vaguely resembling that of a griffin. Their eyes locked onto it as it flew over them before banking to the right and sweeping across the sky in a gentle curve.

"It's coming back," Valerina murmured.

The griffin began to circle the roof, getting lower and lower in an ever-tightenng spiral. As it got closer, the three were able to make out someone riding the beast and Valerina's lips tightened as she smelled trouble. She shot a discreet glance at her companions. Voscov, as always, looked indifferent and unbothered, but Lynica was less intense and there was a glint of hope in her eyes. It was highly probable that she knew whoever it was riding the beast.

Needless to say, that displeased Valerina greatly. She would not have come so far without the prince and his aide and while the griffin was certainly big enough to accommodate all three of them, the inn was not far off. She doubted that they would oblige her the chance to get to the book she sought once they mounted the griffin.

Certainly, she could simply ask them to, but she did not believe they would agree.

The griffin landed heavily on the roof, shaking the building as it did so, and a young man with a mop of unnruly brown hair vaulted over its sides.

"Have you seen her?" He asked even before his boots hit the floor.

"Not a hair," Lynica replied immediately. "Voscov is-"

"Who are you looking for?" Valerina interrupted.

The newcomer spared her a glance and answered: "Maeser Ellen."

Valerina's eyes widened in shock but she pushed past it when she saw Lynica about to speak and power walked toward the young man.

"Oh, I have an idea of where you might find her," she said, desperate to send him off before Lynica or Voscov could speak. "Just head straight to the edge of the island from here. I had spotted a group of survivors on their way to the port area not too long ago. If she is still with us, it's highly likely she's among them."

"Okay then," the man said and raised a hand to the neck of the griffin. "Do you think you can continue on or you need a hand back?"

"Prince Rao-"

"Sure!" The brunette exclaimed, raising her voice to drown out whatever Lynica wanted to say. "We've gotten this far on our own, we can manage the rest on our own."

He nodded, grabbed a handful of feathers protruding along the side of his mount's neck, and vaulted onto its back.

"Take care," he called as the griffin jumped into the air and caught the wind with its wings. It gained height quickly, banked to the side, and soared away from the roof.

Valerina gazed at its retreating behind, a relieved smile on her lips. Then she carefully fixed her countenance and turned about to face Voscov and Lynica with her eyes bright and innocent naivety upon her cheeks.

"Let's go ahead?" She asked then blinked in surprise as she took in Lynica's expression. While her prince's countenance remained unchanged, the girl was unquestionably angry.

"What?" Valerina queried.

Voscov turned away, walked to the edge of the roof and leaped over to the next. Valerina watched him go while Lynica walked up, eyes narrow and teeth clenched.

"When, inevitably, we meet something we cannot deal with," she thrust a finger at Valerina. "By my name, you would get thrown to the dogs."

She walked away from Valerina, leaving the girl to digest her words. Unfortunately the brunette was not concerned by the threat. A situation like that would not come to pass. Right?