Chapter Thirteen. Eban
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EBAN
Damn that Zagar. Two-timing pisshead. I leap to my feet and flip the table on its side, providing a brief shield from the onslaught.
But I wasn’t fast enough. I yank an arrow out of my thigh, grunting with pain and fury.
As Gin ducks behind the barrier beside me, an arrow flies right past her shoulder.
She retaliates by throwing a dagger that strikes the guard square in the eye.
“Let’s see you try that again,” she growls.
I turn to give her a victorious smile, but my face falls.
Vergel stands right behind her, still, a horrible expression of shock frozen on his face, the arrow meant for Gin sticking out of his chest. Pierced right through his heart.
My mouth opens to scream, but nothing comes out. Another arrow whooshes by and hits Vergel in the arm while I watch, powerless to stop it. And then immediately another one makes its mark, before finally, to my horror, Vergel slumps into a tangled pile on the ground beside Gin.
No.
Not Vergel.
This is the end. What I’ve been outrunning for years.
We’re outnumbered, outmatched. Outsmarted.
I stare at Vergel as memories of the past few days fly through my mind, then the past few months, then years.
It all flashes before my eyes: How I’d met Vergel after I lost the only family I’d ever had, the two of us barely more than children, striving for something better than going back to the pest-infected orphanage, where we were beaten every day.
How much I’ve wanted to escape this life of toil and misery.
And how badly I’ve failed. I failed him.
We were brothers, not by blood, but brothers nonetheless. And just like that, he’s gone.
Gin hasn’t looked—or won’t look—directly at Vergel.
I’m not certain she knows what just happened.
She’s focused on the enemy surrounding us, throwing arrows back as quickly as they shoot them.
Meanwhile Zagar, who tumbled over when I flipped the table, reaches over the makeshift barrier, and attempts to grab Gin by the shirt to pull her up.
I lunge at him, blade aimed straight at his neck.
I miss, just barely. The two of us tumble onto the ground.
I raise my blade again but he grabs my hands.
I’m losing my grip. The blade is about to slip from my hands when all of a sudden, there’s a loud pop.
I’m thrown backward from some great force while Zagar is thrown the opposite way.
The House Eternal guards are all scattered as well.
I search for Gin and find her standing amid the chaos, holding a tiny glowing bottle aloft.
The one she grabbed from the gong barrel.
She’d opened the stopper—that’s what caused the explosion.
Now a small blue light seeps from the bottle, growing larger and larger as it rises.
Within the glow is the faint outline of an ethereal silvery figure.
Everyone in the room freezes, transfixed by the sight, even the guards who are left standing on the other side of the room.
They’re all still as statues now, mouths agape.
“Please, help us,” Gin calls out to the spirit.
A ghostly voice answers, one that feels like it’s speaking directly into my mind. Who calls upon me?
“My name is Gin,” she answers. “Gineth Strong.” Then she adds desperately: “Help us!”
There are proper ways to court a spirit of Ophir, and this is not one of them, the spirit replies. But whatever, I’m bored.
All at once, a blinding flash of light fills the room, followed closely by a thunderous boom that ripples from the place where the spirit hovers, then spreads throughout the entire space, pushing the remaining soldiers back as if they’re hit with a tidal wave that throws them against the walls with great force.
There are awful cracking sounds as bones break; shrieks of metal swords bending. Zagar screams.
And then, as quickly as it begins, it’s over. The spirit leaves the room like a wind funnel, disappearing behind silence and destruction.
“Come back!” Gin yells after it.
“It’s all right,” I say. “Maybe it’ll come back.” I clutch my leg. Blood soaks through my clothes. A sea of dead men surrounds us.
Including my friend.
No time to think about that now. “Come on, we have to get out of here.” I grab Gin’s hand.
There’s debris everywhere, scattered amid the hideously mangled bodies—the flipped table is split in half, chairs and stools are broken and scattered around the room, glass from broken bottles and mugs litters the floor, cracks run down every wall.
The front door is blown open, swinging in the wind, and the large front window is shattered into a million pieces, like a crystal spiderweb.
With some satisfaction, I notice that Zagar is one of the dead men piled on the ground. Good.
Gin looks down at the dark red stain on my pant leg. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. It looks worse than it is. Didn’t go deep,” I insist. I pull her toward the back door.
“Let’s go.” I can’t think about Vergel lying there.
About leaving him behind. I have to block it out of my mind.
This is what happens in the Sleeve. It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. There will be time to mourn later.
I lead her around the dead bodies, careful not to step in any of the blood spreading across the floor. We flee out the rear exit of the bar. My leg radiates with pain, but I can ignore it until we get somewhere safe.
The two of us run down the putrid alleyway behind the bar and its neighboring shops.
We dodge a trio of wild dogs digging through rotten refuse, too distracted by the promise of raw meat to bother with humans.
Swarms of flies buzz around us. Gin gags and uses her free hand to cover her mouth and nose.
I almost slide into something slick and unrecognizable.
Gin pulls me up just as I’m about to go down.
At the end of the alleyway, we turn into a narrow walkway between buildings that takes us back to the main thoroughfare.
Down the street, we see a curious crowd forming around the destroyed bar.
“This way,” I say, yanking her nearer the last shack at the end of the main road.
We slip around the corner, boots crunching in the gravel.
“I have a boat,” she says. “It’s waiting for me at the south pier.”
“Why didn’t you say that before?”
She shrugs.
“Where are you headed?” I ask.
“I told you, same as you, the Lashing. Let’s go.”
A few more feet and we make it, breathless, out of the Sleeve proper and onto the brush-lined path that leads to the shore.
We trample through the burrs and follow the ditch along the side of the path.
I almost turn to say something to Vergel, then catch myself.
Vergel is gone. Killed like a dog on the street by House Eternal.
Anguish and fury flame up in my chest. I stamp it down, deep, where I keep the rest of my hidden pain. There’s no time for that now. Vergel, left on the floor of the bar, along with our enemies. I shake my head. No, I can’t allow myself to think about it. I have to focus on surviving. Me, and Gin.
I’m all alone with a girl I don’t know, and don’t trust.