Chapter 4 #2
“Leave you fool! What are you waiting for?” She leaned against the wall. A moment. She needed a moment to regain focus. Her mind felt fuzzy against the sudden deluge. She blinked away the lingering tears and breathed deeply, gagging on the stench of blood, garbage, and ash.
“We’re waiting for you, you flaming dewberry! Get off your ass and get out here!”
Tal steeled herself and rejoined the chaos. To her dismay, the death of one mage did little to tip the scales in their favor.
“I can’t carry her and fight them off!” Sybil held the girl over her shoulder and struggled to keep her safe.
“I can.” Carrick reached for the girl, but Sybil stopped him.
“No, we need you at the front. It’s too dangerous for her there.” Sybil ducked under a swinging arm. She kicked the figure in the knee and shoved her knife into its neck.
“Go! I’ll hold them off,” the stranger yelled, stabbing a figure where its face should have been.
“Suit yourself!” Sybil adjusted her hold on the girl, hiding behind Carrick’s wall of a body, the stranger protecting her back.
Talwyn hurried to Rainier’s side, his movements slowing. His knife-work grew sloppy, and his breath labored. She made to put an arm around to steady him, but he pushed her off.
“I’m fine,” he growled and kneed an assailant between the legs, causing him to double over onto the knife Rain held upright, slicing the creature’s throat.
Carrick swore ahead of them. More apparitions blocked their exit.
Sybil hefted the crying girl higher on her shoulder and searched for another. “This way!” She rushed down the opposite corridor, away from their escape route.
“There’s too many, we’ll never make it.” Carrick backed toward the direction Sybil pointed.
“Go,” the stranger said, clearing a path for them.
“Don’t be a fool. You’re no match for all of them,” Talwyn said as she headbutted an especially annoying apparition who didn’t react to any of her slices across his chest.
“I held them off just fine before you four showed up,” he grunted, using his second blade to kill two apparitions at once.
“Even if we heed his advice,” Rainier blocked a downward strike and shoved his knife into the assailant’s ear, “he wouldn’t be enough to let us get away.” He relied strictly on physical attack now—the wound to his side rendered his manipulation useless.
Conversation halted while they continued to fight. Sybil said nothing, an answer itself.
“Take the girl,” Talwyn commanded. “Go. Now.”
“Tal, no!” Carrick reached for her.
“Get them out of here, Carrick.” She spared her friend a glance while waiting for Sybil, who searched through Talwyn’s possible futures from this one decision. Tension and worry filled Carrick’s features. Tal hoped Sybil saw a future that lasted more than a few minutes.
Sybil nodded, indicating the right decision had been made, one that didn’t necessarily guarantee their survival, but the right one, nonetheless.
“The roof,” she said. A clue for where Talwyn and her strange companion would find an escape. “Don’t unleash it,” she said as a farewell before putting forth her full effort into their new path, Rainier behind her.
“Dammit Tal. You come back to us. You hear me?” Carrick shoved his shoulder into Talwyn’s nearest attacker and gripped her arm.
His chest heaved, and adrenaline shook her arm in his grip.
The intensity of his gaze held her for a breath until he broke eye contact and released her to punch an apparition in the head.
“Go, you big oaf. They need you!” She pushed him, too pumped with adrenaline to wonder what type of good-bye this was. She didn’t watch them go. They would be safe with Sybil guiding them. Instead, she threw herself into the fight, screaming, stabbing, punching, anything to gain an inch.
“Are there stairs?” she called to her new companion.
“How the blazing hells should I know?”
Of course he has no clue, she thought. What kind of a fool runs into a fight with two mages without a plan?
She ran through what she knew of the incinerator.
The chimney, she thought. If the incineration rooms were like her Kiln, then every room had a large chimney for smoke to escape.
She could climb up there and find a way off the top of the building, but first they’d need to lock themselves into a room without any apparitions. Fantastic.
A blow to her head knocked her to the ground, and four apparitions descended upon her. She punched, stabbed, and kicked, but they persisted. She screamed out of sheer frustration, wondering how Sybil saw her out of this mess.
Three of her attackers were knocked to the side with the fourth being sliced across the middle. A hand reached down, and the red swordsman pulled her to her feet.
“What’s the plan, princess?”
“We lock ourselves in one of the rooms, and don’t call me princess,” she growled and threw a high elbow behind her.
“A little forward don’t you think? At least tell me your name first.” He side-stepped and let an apparition stumble forward, then thrust his blade behind him, stabbing the attacker in the back.
“You don’t need to know my name.” She ignored his humored comment and searched for a door.
“No?” He guffawed. “I like a woman with a little bit of mystery.”
“I liked you better when you didn’t talk,” Tal shot back, taking a slice to her forearm.
“Dammit!” She sheathed one of her daggers and grabbed the man by the arm, ducking under a swinging blade and pulling her companion into the nearest room.
They thrust the door closed against an incursion of assailants, stabbing and shoving hands, arms, and legs until it closed.
There weren’t any locks for a room that held burning trash.
She searched for something to wedge against the door and found a slim piece of metal nearby.
Using her toe, she dragged the metal close enough to grab and jammed it between the door and its frame.
It wouldn’t hold, but it helped. She prayed the remaining mage didn’t start creating assailants directly within the room.
“Get that grate down.” She pointed at the center of the ceiling where a flimsy vent covered their escape.
“Flaming hells.” He pulled down his mask. “You won’t be able to hold them back,” he warned. His full lips were set in a line, and his green eyes met her glare with concern.
“Watch me.”
Still leaning against the door, he put his hand to his chest. “Oh dear. I think I’ve just fallen in love with you.”
“Blazing pigs, get on with it!” she yelled, and he jumped into action. The door shook behind her, and the metal wedge slipped the slightest bit. She swore under her breath and placed her hands against the door frame.
No red. No gold. No fire.
Forgive me Syb. It’s the only way, she thought.
Sybil’s cryptic message before she left had warned Talwyn not to unleash her elemental magic, but she had to do something to buy them enough time to climb to the roof.
She flicked a quick glance to her companion to ensure his attention remained occupied.
His back was to her as he sized up the distance to the grate. The leather suit left little to the imagination. He put his hands on his hips and his back flexed against the material.
Tal blinked to regain focus. With a deep inhale, she turned back to the door.
As carefully as she could manage, Talwyn placed the palm of her hand against the latch and focused her element into the steel, welding the door to its frame.
The weight of her limbs grew with the effort as if the magic turned the blood in her veins to stone.
She hadn’t had enough time to rebuild her stores since Pochette’s death.
A fire hot enough to melt steel sapped too much of her energy, especially one concentrated in such a small area, and she still needed to climb the chimney to the roof.
She made quick work of the hinges and rested her back against the door, exhausted.
Perhaps the gods would finally send her good fortune and let her sprout wings.
She huffed at the thought, which caught the attention of her companion.
“Care to share?” he asked. He removed his belt, and Talwyn’s brows drew together. “I need to loop the grate to pull it down.”
“You ever think of jumping?” Talwyn’s voice was haggard, her exhaustion ready to devour her.
“A good fighter and smart. I’d ask you to marry me here and now, but I’m afraid we’d have to ask one of those green blokes outside to marry us, and I’m not sure they would be happy if we invited only one of them.”
“Blazes, do you ever stop talking?” If he took much longer, he would have to carry her out, and she could imagine what he would say to that.
“Absolutely!” he said between leaps, reaching for the grate. “When my mouth is otherwise occupied.” He smirked at her.
“You’re terrible at jumping,” she cut at him.
“But I’m an expert at so many other things… like embroidery,” he retorted playfully.
With an effort, Talwyn pushed herself off the ground and stumbled over to him, putting more weight on her left leg thanks to an exceptionally deep gash on her right thigh. “Lift me up.”
“Oh, this is getting interesting.” He gathered his hands for her to step into and hoisted her up. Talwyn hooked her fingers in the slots and wrenched. The cover came free and crashed to the ground.
“Hells, woman, you’re covered in filth, and you reek of rubbish. Do you bathe in the stuff?” He turned away from her thigh, gagging.
“Welcome to the docks, your highness,” she jabbed, mocking his earlier use of a royal address. “Did you not see the countless apparitions I gutted mere minutes ago?”
He coughed and let his hands drop her, grabbing her around the middle before her feet slammed to the ground. “Did you say apparitions?”