The music started without warning. Eerie and soft and whispering through the empty black around him. The melody carried an alien aspect to it, in the high waves of sound that may have been strings or may have been voices, in the soft beat that pulled him in, to the way it echoed from afar but sank into the base of his brain. It reminded him of death, of old age and his own mortality as nothing more than a blimp in the cosmic calendar, a flame like Penn’s, that would snuff out once he looked away. It calmed him, pulled him towards it, beckoning softly in the same way death beckoned everyone. Had he already died? Was that what this was?
Then came the lights. Similar to Penn’s but coloured in all ranges of the spectrum, they danced through the air with the music, weightless and drifting out of focus, blurring towards the sky. They drifted from a large bonfire ahead of them, wide and burning bright, but hard to look at. Asher’s eyes couldn’t focus, the flames blurring as they climbed higher, the hundreds of colours doubling and rippling through the air, joined with waves that might have been colours he couldn’t see, all of it collected into one place.
He didn’t see the monsters until he had almost stepped up to the fire, and Penn pulled him back, snuffing out the light in his hand as the creatures danced past. Hundreds of them pulled into focus, all moving around the fire slowly and languid, smooth and in time to the music despite their horrid bodies. A ritual.
Asher saw more creatures like the one that had attacked him, all teeth and disjointed limbs. He saw a woman in a performance dress, and when she spun a high string sailed through the music. She raised her arms above her head, and her skin fell away as though they were loose sleeves, showing only bone underneath. He saw a human shape covered in bandages, but the gaps between the cloth showed only a black abyss on the inside, and people who crumbled and cracked with every movement, as though they were aged dust being shaken free. The more he stared, the more monsters appeared, each more horrible than the last, a mix of putty-like skin, fur and scales, rock and metal.
He couldn’t breathe.
‘What is this?’ he asked Penn.
‘Questions later,’ Penn hissed. ‘The door is close.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Humans.’
Asher turned back to the monsters, to the light, his legs weak at the horrible sight in front of him. Crouched in the shadows, he felt like a little kid facing inner fears even his most active imagination could never come up with. Then he spotted a woman amongst the mass. She didn’t dance, but walked around and around the fire in a daze, her feet dragging as she followed the other humans with them, each of them keeping to a single file. He tried to focus on a singular face, trying to see if he recognised any of them, but the effort sent another wave of dizziness crashing onto him. She looked strange and other-worldly compared to her company. Her movements were robotic and unnatural, and her face was slack, glazed over and unfocused.
Asher gripped the sword tighter. He wasn’t going to die in here. He was going to do his job. It was all he had, and it was all he needed to do.
‘Can you get us out of here?’ he asked Penn. Whether or not he could even trust this stranger was another question entirely.
In the low light of the strange flames, Penn nodded. ‘Yes’
That was good enough for now. Ignoring another wave of pain as he got to his feet, Asher shook his head until the music wasn’t worming its way into the deep roots of his brain. He took a careful step towards the fire. If he only stared at the woman, not at the monsters or the fire, then he could do this. It wasn’t real. None of this could be real, and once he got out of here, it would disappear as a bad dream.
The woman came closer and closer, and Asher took a deep breath, pushing his panic deep into his gut, then lunged forward and grabbed the woman, yanking her from the circle and back towards Penn. The woman stumbled after him, but didn’t struggle. Instead she stared straight and empty-eyed, stumbling as Asher dragging her away. He shivered, then shook her shoulder. He was aware of the flame in his peripherals, of the monsters still dancing, but he forced himself not to look back. He shook her harder.
‘Ma’am?’
The woman blinked, and her head turned in his direction, still dazed and unfocused. She gave a soft hum, and Asher became aware he was digging his fingers into her skin. He pushed her towards Penn, who caught her easily. He was sure if he held the sword any tighter, it would crumble to dust.
Don’t panic… Don’t panic…
Come and play instead.
Asher cried out and he pushed his palms into his ears, blocking out the voice that had been his voice, but hadn’t come from him. The music grew louder, physically pulling at him, gripping his limbs and tugging, burning. He couldn’t give in, but at the same time he couldn’t fight it. His body was tense; he knew he had to dance, and there was no other option. An endless dance. An endless party where his feet would fall off before he was allowed to stop.
But it sounds so inviting, so calming.
Like death always is.
You’ll only be returning to an endless dance if they let you go anyway.
Why not just give in?
‘Shut up!’ Asher was on his knees before he realised, his hands pulling at his curls, his entire body screaming as he fought back. He wanted to scream, but his voice failed. He wanted to run into the darkness, forever and ever, keep running until there was nothing left. He wanted to take the sword and slash and stab at every monster here, to prove they weren’t real, that nothing was real. The only thing that made sense was the fire, that impossible spectrum of a fire that was so blurred and changed colours when he blinked, yet so solid and sure and real.
‘Stop!’
Asher’s eyes shot open and he cried out, pulling his leg from the fire as Penn grabbed his collar and yanked him back. The motion sent him spinning, and before he knew it he was stumbling around and around with the other humans. He could feel Penn still gripping his coat behind him. He tried to pull his thoughts together, but nothing stuck. How he had moved, when he had approached the fire, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he could feel his own body anymore.
‘Focus,’ Penn hissed the words in his ear. ‘Keep moving, but focus on your steps. I have found the door.’
‘How do we get all these people to it?’ Asher whispered back.
‘Slowly. One at a time. You break them from their trance. I will make openings.’
Asher nodded, feeling the grip lift from his coat. The strange noises – which weren’t music at all, but a cacophony of chittering and screeching and clicking from the monsters around him. Up close, none of them were moving at the same pace or to the same beat; each of them heard their own noise and moved to it. He wondered if he had found his way into Hell, if these creatures were the ones who were trapped here, corrupted beyond recognition and hungry for a victim in their depravity.
The dizziness took hold of him, and in an instant he lashed out and grabbed the arm of the woman in front of him. She gasped, tensing and stumbling, but he pushed her forward. ‘Keep moving,’ he whispered. ‘We’re going to get you out of here. Just keep walking and don’t say anything.’
The woman gave a frantic nod, and her head turned to try and look at Asher, but she staggered again and snapped back to the view in front of her. Slowly, they marched on, Asher keeping a grip on her arm for his own sake as much as hers, when he noticed a gap in the circle. It was small, but there was a point where the demons were a little further apart than the others. He willed the humans to move faster, the weary pace growing all the more frustrating, until finally they came closer and closer to the gap he had noticed.
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Asher shoved the woman through in one quick motion, and she fell into Penn’s waiting grip, and he quickly spun her into the darkness where she disappeared. Asher rushed to close the gap in the circle of humans, and as he did the other humans followed with him, drawing closer to the fire. He wouldn’t think about that now. Instead, he reached out and caught the shoulder of the teenage boy in front of him. In the corner of his eye, he saw one of the demons tear away into the dark and vanish, leaving a gap where it once spun.
One by one Asher pulled the others out of their daze, some needing a simple tap, while others needed to be shaken with a worrying amount of violence. One girl who couldn’t have been older than sixteen didn’t need to be snapped out of it at all, but rather had shakily been following the others to hide amongst them. Each of them were pushed through the opening made by Penn, and each one was sent off into the darkness.
Then a familiar face crossed his gaze from the other side of the fire. Caught in the same daze as everyone else, slowly rocking back and forth as he moved closer still to the fire, was Navarre.
The older man was caught in the same daze as the others, though his eyes were half-closed and his coat had been torn to ribbons, flashing his shirt and his chest beneath. Then, as Asher watched, one of the monsters knocked into him, pushing his direction towards the fire.
Asher cried out, and in that moment all his focus evaporated. His injury was scraping against bone, but he forced his feet into motion as Navarre reached the flame. He wasn’t going to make it. Navarre raised his foot into the flames, and Asher charged.
Leaping across the fire, he caught the Captain around the middle and sent them both skidding across the ground in a mess of tangled limbs. A blinding pain sent black spots across his vision as his injury came back in full focus, throbbing, angry and agonising. Asher gritted his teeth, ignoring the tears that prickled his eyes as he patted Navarre down, checking for any fire or burns, but there were none. Navarre was still in a daze. Not bothering to be gentle, Asher grabbed his shoulders and shook them as hard as he could.
‘Wake up!’ he cried. ‘Navarre! Wake up!’
Navarre moaned, and his eyes fluttered. ‘Asher?’ His voice was weak.
‘Wake up!’
‘I… what… what happened?’
Asher continued to shake him, panic forcing him to rattle the man by the collar until he was sure Navarre was okay, until his breathing calmed and the pain stopped. It wasn’t until Navarre moaned for him to stop did he realise the music had stopped as well.
All of the monsters had paused their dance, and were watching Asher with blank eyes. The only sound now was his own laboured breathing as creatures with one, two, four, seven, hundreds of eyes all stared at him. Some had no eyes at all, but he could still feel their gaze, empty and unreadable. He swallowed hard.
‘You are trying to take our prize,’ one of the creatures hissed. This one stood on two legs like a human, had the torso of a human, but long, insect like legs broke out of a shell on its back and curled around the front, the little feelers rubbing together. Massive, round eyes like a fly filled the shape of its head.
The teeth monster stepped out of the crowd then, and Asher could feel it staring at him. ‘This one is special.’
The creature stepped forward, and Asher remembered the sword in his fist. He leapt up and and pointed it at the creature, who only paused and tilted its head.
‘Stay away from him!’ Asher cried. ‘Stay back!’
The old-man creature only laughed. ‘If you expected to win, you should not have bought the Jaliti.’
Behind him, Penn growled, the sound beast-like and angry.
‘I’ve grown tired of the Warden, and the little soldier,’ the teeth creature said. ‘Kill them both.’
The dancer girl with the skeletal arms under loose skin pranced over to him, and Asher screamed - in panic or frustration, he didn’t know - and swung the sword wide. It connected with the bony arms, and they shattered into pieces. The monster screeched at him, but Asher couldn’t blink before another was on him - the bug creature with all six arms raised in attack. Asher swiped at it, and the sword bounced off the shell along the creatures back. He dodged as one of the feelers clawed at the air near his chest, then jammed the sword into its eye. Black, tar like blood burst from its skull as it shrieked in anger.
A disembodied arm flew at his face, and he ducked. It landed on the ground at his feet, then lashed out and grabbed his ankle, so tight the bone clicked. Asher cried out and slashed at the limb. A large section came free, though the grip didn’t loosen. Instead it grew tighter, squeezing, breaking through the skin and threatening to crush the bone. Asher beat at it, then slashed at another monster that pounced at him, unable to turn around and beat at the limb before another creature charged.
One by one, the monsters came at him, and it was all Asher could do to slash blindly, hacking and swinging wildly, forgetting any reason, shaking and shoving and thrashing wildly.
The limb around his ankle squeezed tighter, and a dull, impossible pain shot through his leg as something snapped and his weight crumbled. Asher cried out as he landed hard in the dirt, discarding the sword and throwing his hands over his head as even more monsters charged forward.
The limb finally released as Penn drove the sword into the fingers and ripped it free. With a shout, he swung wide and the stones around Asher’s knees burst into large, sharp spikes that caught the creatures around him and flung them back. Asher struggled to his feet, only for a horrible pain to send him falling back down. He grabbed his ankle, then cried out as another wave of pain shot through his leg. The bone was broken.
‘Where’s Navarre?’ Asher demanded.
‘I found the exit,’ Penn said. ‘You have to go now.’
‘Where’s Navarre?’
Penn didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed Asher’s arm and wrapped it around his shoulders, lifting him to his feet. Asher hissed in pain, pushing back against Penn’s hold, but he couldn’t move his leg and his side was screaming in agony. He scanned the area, desperate, sure he was going to be completely mad when this was over, or he would be dead. Despite that, he wasn’t about to leave Navarre - or anyone else - here.
He saw Navarre. The older man was lying on the ground by the fire, struggling to get up. Asher pulled towards him, and his leg gave out again, sending both him and Penn to the ground. The dirt around them exploded around them in another wave of harsh spikes that jabbed at the monsters, driving them back, but the creatures had lost interest in them. Instead they each turned and followed the monster with Navarre into the shadows. Penn’s eyes still glowed, but there were heavy bruises under them now, and blood cased his nose.
‘I can’t hold them off.’ Penn strained to lift Asher back up, and Asher saw Navarre move too, being picked up by one of the monsters in a strange echo of Penn’s movements. Asher cried out, but both men were struggling now, and he could only watch as Navarre was carried into the shadows. Penn, still trying to lift him, fell against Asher’s back in dead weight, and both of them hit the ground again.
Asher clawed at the ground, reaching for Navarre with all of his strength, but unable to move, unable to do anything except watch as his captain, his friend, disappeared into the darkness.
Navarre was gone.
Penn pulled himself up, and Asher strained against his injuries, clawing across the ground towards where Navarre had disappeared, but his strength was failing. His chest burned and squeezed at his lungs. His entire body screamed at the movement, his leg nothing but a dead weight. He couldn’t give up yet though. He couldn’t leave Navarre here.
A large black crow landed on the ground in front of him, its throat bobbing up and down as it gave a quiet trill. Another joined it, moments before a large shadow passed over him.
It was a woman who stood in front of him. She was tall, with shoulder-length ginger hair and strikingly blue eyes. Her dress was in tatters, revealing a line of star-shaped scars along her collar. Her hair covered most of her square face, but the single eye that remained visible was fixed on him.
‘You need to leave.’ The woman said. Another crow landed on her shoulder, cawing loud and angry. ‘They will gain interest in you again soon.’
Asher couldn’t stand even if he wanted to. He couldn’t feel his leg at all anymore, and Penn was dead weight next to him. Even as he tried to move, it took all his effort just to grab hold of her skirt, and the stranger made no attempt to pull away. ‘Please,’ the word escaped in a rasp. ‘My friend. They took my friend.’
‘You cannot stay,’ the woman said. ‘The door is about to close. You are dying, and you will die if you stay.’
The woman took a step back, and Asher struggled once more to stand, but he had no strength left. She raised one of her arms out straight, and a loud caw sounded as yet another crow came down and landed on her hand. The stranger clicked her tongue, and all of the birds rushed into the air, soon joined with more and more, until a massive swarm of them filled the sky. Asher screamed, but he couldn’t get up, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything as the massive cloud descended down on him.
They tore at his clothes and slapped at his entire body with claws and feathers, blinding him, their weight smashing into him over and over as their screeching filled his ears. All Asher could do was throw his arms over his head, but the feathers and the beaks and claws still managed to find his face, ripping at his hair and slashing at his sleeves.
Without any warning, they flew away, bursting into the sky with their screeches echoing out across the growing distance. Asher didn’t want to question why; he could still taste blood and feathers in his mouth, and he felt heavy and cold and horrible. He managed to lift his head enough to see the breaking mauve light of dawn, before it darkened and disappeared into the black once more.