Chapter Fifteen #4
what was she doing, exactly? This information from Soren was inexplicable.
Why
spare the pirates?
Why
focus all her effort on Soren herself?
If the
necromancer had listened to all their thoughts in the necropolis, she would
have heard Zaria’s desire to spare the crew, as well as her insistence that
Soren was the most dangerous of the lot. This, in turn, would explain how she
knew to focus her efforts on the captain, but it would not explain why
the sorceress had decided to act this way at all. She had no reason to obey
Zaria’s wishes, let alone escort her crew to the
surface.
For
her, the crew of pirates would have represented a valuable source of energy and
nourishment. It was a way to prolong her parasitic life.
Why had
she spared them?
“My
crew’s abandoned me!” Soren yelled. “All I got is sword and powder! And you
know what? I ain’t stupid! I won’t be seeing daylight again!”
“That’s
your own fault, capt!” Zaria yelled back. “No one forced you down here!”
“Shut
your flappin’ cunt! If my fate is sealed, then I’m
taking you with me! You’ll never see that treasure so long as I’m drawing
breath!” One more knife slashed through the bones around them. “Face me, you
craven whore!”
“Zaria,”
Isaac said.
The
hyena turned to him.
“Say
what you want to your captain.”
She
blinked, splintered bone falling from her mohawk.
“Say
what you want to your captain,” Isaac said, “before I kill her.”
Zaria
gripped her poleaxe. “Soren! Captain! Listen clear, now!”
A rabid
snarl echoed across the chamber.
“Join
us!” Zaria shouted. She silenced Isaac before he could argue. “That’s your only
chance! If you want to live, stop being such a principled cunt and help us
fight! Fight the bones, fight the mages! We’ll make it outta here if we just
stop fightin’ each other!”
Soren
laughed, like a prisoner facing the gallows. “You gonna cut me in on the
treasure, are you? You think a hoard of gold’s gonna buy your life from me?”
“Fuck
that!” Zaria replied. “You’re lucky I won’t shove a goblet up your arse! You’re
getting your life, and nothing more!”
Another
knife stabbed into the desk, skittering out through the bone, tumbling over the
floor, and skittering down the hole of the elevator. Isaac was beginning to
wonder how many she had.
“I
won’t be insulted by your mercy!” Soren shouted. “Not after what you’ve done! My
last pleasure will be watching the light fade from your eyes!”
Zaria
shook her head, taking a deep breath.
“You’ll
never last!” the bunny screamed, her voice so hoarse it was like a rasping of
bone. “Even if I’m gone, the others will know! Every ship of the fleet will be
braying for your blood! That gold down there won’t protect you! You’ll be
hunted to the end of your days! You’ll never know a different crew again! Even
the sands will flay you for your crime! I promise, on my word, as a creature
born of the desert, the stain of your sins will blacken your soul to the last
putrid breath, you gutless wastrel!”
There
was a pause.
“Isaac,”
Zaria said. “Would you kindly kill this cunt for me?”
He
nodded. “Cover your ears.”
She
pressed her ears down as he cast a spike of ice, the frozen point sticking out
of his palm like the tip of a spear. He angled his hand up towards the ceiling,
aiming carefully. He loosed, and a thin stream of ice erupted from his arm,
fanning out into a flat, thin triangle, which formed a crust of crystal
stalactites on the ceiling. He made sure those crystals were large and sharp.
When he was done, the entire length of ice hung like a diagonal curtain from
desk to roof.
“What’s
this?” Soren said, almost laughing. “You trying to scare me, human?”
Isaac
did not reply.
“Come
on, love. Aim a little better. Poke that head out from cover.” There was a
click, a hiss of a burning fuse. “Let’s have that duel.”
Isaac
pressed an ear to his shoulder, pointed his finger at the ice, and fired a
burst of sound.
On the
ceiling, the ice exploded in a shower of glinting shrapnel. Isaac and Zaria
braced together as a hail of ice and stone sliced through the room, tearing
apart the skeletons on the stage. Underneath the blast of sound, Isaac heard a
scream of pain.
Ears
ringing, he leaped out from cover, pointing his finger like a cannon.
He
found Soren reeling on the circular stage, a hand clutching her face. There was
a grenade in her other hand, the fuse lit and shrinking. She flung the bomb
awkwardly, stumbling back, blind and deafened. Isaac marched ahead, ignoring
the grenade, pointing his finger at the pirate captain. Behind him, Zaria
cursed and ran.
He
loosed more sound. Soren ducked away, slithering down beneath a desk,
recovering with remarkable speed, and Isaac’s salvo of magic blew open a wall
of the council chamber, scattering rubble into the adjacent hallway. He could
see glimpses of her scrambling along the floor, snaking her way between the
desks. She was visible by the tall white of her ears.
He pointed his finger.
Her
grenade exploded.
The
eruption struck him hard, mere feet from where he was standing. Only the cover
of a bony desk saved him from evisceration. Even still, he was slapped like a
bottle from a shelf, the breath knocked from him, the mnemonic activation of
his magic disappearing as he stumbled and fell to the floor. Dirt and stone
rained in his eye.
As he
blinked the dust away, Soren leaped into the air. For a moment, with his mind
reeling in shock, time seemed to slow.
A
flashing sword.
A
nimble speed.
A
screaming fury.
Isaac
regained himself, rolling at the last possible instant. A cutlass scraped over
stone, missing flesh. Both of them scrambled. She was faster. Back on her feet,
Soren dashed for him, moving like a knife, one of her eyes as black as death.
“Captain!”
Zaria yelled.
The
bunny paused. An entire desk sailed through the air, tumbling end over end, and
Soren stepped easily to the side, letting the furniture crash against the
nearby wall. Zaria stood a few rows away, her hands now empty.
“Nice
try,” Soren said.
“Same
to you!”
The
bunny turned, and Isaac blasted her with wind.
Soren
was blown off her feet, sailing halfway across the room, bouncing, rolling,
smashing through several desks, her white ears tumbling like leaves in a
breeze. Isaac picked himself up, threading a path through the chamber. Two
hurricanes balled in his hands. By the time Soren managed to stand, he slammed
his wind into the floor, creating a surging wall of force, flipping over every
desk and chair in its path.
The
bunny flew again. When she stood, a sharp blast of wind knocked her down. Isaac
did not stop marching. After a breathless snarl, Soren attempted to sluice between
the desks, using her short stature to her advantage, dashing low through the
chairs and walkways. He lost track of her. He caught a few movements. After a
few blind guesses, he approached the sound of a scuffle.
A
grenade was on the floor, the fuse burning away.
He
flung it forward with a gust of wind, and the bomb exploded in the air,
damaging nothing but furniture. Soren dashed from the side. Her ambush had almost worked.
“Fuckin’
die!”
He
turned, coiled a gust, and flung her away.
“You
first,” he said.
By now,
most of the room was a debris field of masonry, spilled rock, jagged metal, and
an ocean of splintered bone. Soren went spinning through it all, unslowed by
any obstacle. By the time she tumbled to a stop, her body was just at the edge
of the elevator. For a moment, she coughed and sputtered, unable to rise.
Zaria
stood up from the cover of the desk. Beside her, Isaac came forward, a small
tornado of wind cocked in his hand.
The
bunny continued to groan, her cutlass still in hand, one of her white paws
gripping the edge of the open hole. Now that she was immobile, Isaac could see
a field of shrapnel embedded in the burned flesh of her face, all of it made
from ice and stone. Blood leaked over her armor of bones.
Slowly,
she met his gaze. Her black eye reflected his face, the glass as perfectly dark as the chasm beneath her.
“Least
I wasn’t gonna cheat,” she said.
“You
should have,” Isaac replied.
He shot
the wind from his hand, and Soren tumbled off the edge, disappearing into the
massive cavern below. She did not scream. There was no sound of her body
bouncing against a support beam, the missing carriage, or any other structure
hidden in the dark. She disappeared into the inky black like a sailor lost at
sea.
Isaac
sat down on the floor, panting. He kept his hand aimed at the dark hole of the
elevator, even though his limb felt as heavy as lead. After a few moments, a
pair of hands wriggled under his arms, pulling him back to his feet.
“You
alright?” Zaria asked.
“Sure.
Catch my breath.”
She
nodded, walking over to the edge. After a moment, she spat into the darkness.
“Goodbye,
captain. ‘Twas a pleasure, for the most part.”
There
was a pause. Nothing emerged from the pit. Somewhere behind them, a piece of
debris crumbled from a wall.
“Are you
alright?” Isaac asked, panting.
She
looked at him. He could see that her expression had been solemn. An instant
later, it was back to a grin.
“Never
better, squire.”
He
glanced around the council chamber. Most of it was now lying in pieces, and all
the untranslated titles and ornamentation had been lost, along with the
research notes on the lectern. It may now be impossible to discover whatever
had been presented here.
Isaac
didn’t really care. He stood up, took one last heaving breath, made sure the
dagger Zaria gave him was still in his pocket, and led the way out of the room.
The
hallways continued on, coursing beneath the colossal pelvis above their heads.
They passed through military barracks, dust-covered offices, chemical storage
closets, vast prisoner complexes. The more the rush of battle faded from his