XIV

Red

Lunar Year 2720

The wooden beams holding up this dingy, dim enclave beneath this unremarkable city inkshop chipped and withered as it drank in the sickening noises in this room, so seldom disturbed.

There was an impressive dampness to the basement; the humidity of Servus was as consistent as everything else about the city. The seasons brought impressive new swaths of paint to nature's canvas every time the planet, and its moon, and its moon revolved around the sun.

There was no sunlight to find here. There was hardly a light of any sort, just the gentle hum of Daemor's golden glow. But Alikath was a Tiefling, one of Solevi's many prevalent races gifted with eyes adaptable to the dark. He had everything he needed to see the two wretched souls he'd dragged down here to butcher.

Alikath sat with his legs folded atop those of an Elf, which he propped to sit up against the wall. A Dwarf was in the corner just beside her.

He held his bent arms over his head, hand squeezed over hand as he clutched Daemor's hilt with a grip to crush diamonds. With a guttural shout, he swung the blade down like a hammer, into the Elf's cheek. Her head jerked and cracked, tugging against the victim's neck, hoping to break free and drop to the floor.

Alikath screamed, pulled the dagger's blade back out, and just as quickly planted it in the Elf's sternum. Then out- and in, and again- and flesh touched tattered robe, and blood sprayed and dampened the air, and it was dark- and the wooden beams drank it all.

“ANIMAL!” Alikath shrilled, blessing these two with his first real words since this hell began. “TE-AHN RESHRIM ELF! SIX YEARS! SIX! YEARS!”

Rory watched helplessly as his ally was punctured over and over- as this fiend gored the one good woman left in this horrible city. He watched that terrible stain of death spray and spill and waste from her veins and all he could think about was that every spray was a signal of her heartbeat- a sign that Ara was still alive. But the sprays were getting slower, and the pretty lavender of her armor was becoming mud, and the beams were creaking and he swore he could hear them begging for quiet- but quiet couldn’t come. Quiet meant the killing was done- quiet meant the fiend had done all he had meant to do, and though that meant the pain would also be over- quiet meant they couldn’t scream. All the screaming, all the clawing, all the pain meant they were still there, so if it meant an eternity of dying and dying at this monster’s claws then Rory never wanted it to be quiet again- because dying didn’t mean dead.

But Rory couldn’t scream. He could claw, but he couldn’t scream. He couldn’t run, but he could claw, but he couldn’t scream. The fiend had caught him; trapped him with a spell that wouldn’t let him stand from that corner he was tossed into like a sack of grain. It wasn’t force pressing his back to that wall- not some psychic block that severed the tie from his brain to his limbs- it was the air. The air had been made wrong. A gentle swirl of wind pushed him back into this corner, and alone it would have been nothing for him to resist. But the swirling wind pushed and pulled in uneven flows- the push on his breast came from inside his lungs, and only from his lungs. Try as he did to breathe, his chest refused to expand, the air wouldn’t stop fleeing from just past his lips. The wind was stealing his breath.

Rory felt the rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins, heard the manic ramblings of the fiend become a meaningless drone in his ear. His partner was dying, but he didn’t have to die here. This Violent bastard had made him an afterthought- gifted him the element of surprise. He could escape this, catch him off guard. If he could only stand…

Rory focused on overcoming the wind. He tensed his chest, and tugged as his lungs screamed for air, but- nothing. He pushed his bleeding palms to the ground, and he could have sworn puddles of sweat and blood had built up around him- and he could not stand. Weak, crippled, and desperate, Rory strained every muscle in his trembling body, and tried to block out every terrible sight and sound in this dingy, damp room. The fiend was swearing and damning Ara to Gehenna and the spraying had stopped and the beams were cracking from the pressure but NO! None of it was real- none of it was allowed to be real until Rory stood up!

Push, and push, and strain and be quiet and breathe and...

And stand!

Rory broke the spell! At once, an ocean of blessed, horrible air flowed into his lungs. The taste of it nearly made him lurch over and hurl out his guts, but he forced his own composure. Rory turned to look at the-

No. Don’t look. The fiend hadn’t noticed him stand up. That’s all that was important. Thank God Rory had not been blessed with ample height.

Rory’s head spun as he scanned the room for the exit door. It shouldn’t have been hard, but so much had happened, and he was so dizzy he couldn’t even tell where he was standing. Before finding the exit, he found a different kind of salvation: his crossbow.

The fiend likely locked the door behind him. He couldn’t risk fleeing- this Violent had to die.

Rory leapt for his weapon, and hastily scooped it up into his shaking arms. He spun around and pressed his back to the wall, knowing that he had been heard.

The fiend sat up from his disgraceful baptism, and turned to look at the newly liberated Rory. Rory saw something like shock in those eyes- in those yellow, lying eyes.

The fiend made a sound- Rory couldn’t tell if it was something in its language or just a grunt- but it was short, and sharp. A moment later, the fiend lurched forward, without so much as pulling himself up to his feet- like a marionette yanked along by silver string. Rory lifted his weapon up to his eyes, took what little time he had to aim, and fired.

The bolt expelled with a thunk. The sound of it singing through the air almost seemed to come after it sunk into the monster’s heart. The fiend collapsed, its trajectory brought to a screeching halt by solid steel and the good will of God. Rory heard the vermin hiss, and took that as his cue to leave; at last, he had the lucidity to find the door atop the stairwell- and the cracks of light it snuck in.

Rory took off, dashing to those stairs. But as soon as he took that first step, the fiend’s head shot back up, and with a desperate “NO!” he got back to his feet and gave chase.

Rory knew his pursuer was taller and faster than he, but he didn’t expect to feel his breath on his neck before he even reached the second step. Rory gasped, and spun around, leading with his fist and not caring where he hit this man. A swift punch to the fiend's stomach put Rory eye to eye with his own crossbow bolt, still sticking out of the fiend’s sternum. The fiend shrunk and closed his eyes, so Rory took another two steps back before the fiend clawed at his eyes from below. Rory turned back around and let his claws scrape through his hair- the door was close. If the fiend was this desperate, it had to be unlocked!

The fiend’s hand did not retract, and grabbed at Rory’s ankle, tripping him. Rory’s chin cracked against the wooden step, and he felt the air abandon his lungs again all too soon. He turned on his back, and kicked the fiend in the eye with his free foot.

THMP-, Rory’s boot smacked the fiend’s face and loosened his grip. Rory’s voice quivered as he crawled backwards up the stairs, away from his foe. But the fiend grabbed Rory’s ankle again, and tugged him back down the stairs, knocking his head on the steps' sharp angles three more times before Rory was beneath his captor. “Back!” The fiend yelled, like he was commanding a dog.

Rory’s head was light, but he held up his hands in defense as the fiend pinned him down- but the fiend paid his defenses no mind. He punched Rory with a left hook like cinder, and one more- and Rory’s hands were palm-up on the floor again.

Alikath took deep, heavy breaths. The blood-stench of the room had made him foggy. He wasn’t thinking clearly, and that almost cost him this Dwarf. His heart had made room for fear, but not at the expense of the smoldering rage lashing his chest. He had no more time to spend on circumstance, no breath to waste on words- he had to keep going.

Alikath placed his right hand on the side of the Dwarf’s forehead, and did the same with the left. He took his weight off of his legs, pressed down, and squeezed his head with as much force as his tired, manic body could muster.

Right there, thirteen steps underground- thirteen steps away from the world, Alikath’s arms trembled and shivered in the pitch of this sunless room. He held his breath and clenched his jaw, shutting down every automatic function he had so he could focus mind, body, and soul on his task.

It was so dark. The room was so damp you could drown in its air, and the quiet was getting quieter and the beams were rotting from the inside out and Alikath could think of nothing but the incredible pressure of his two hands.

Crr-

Crr-rrck-kkr-CHKK

…Alikath breathed. Not to ration his air- not to help him focus on something else- but to breathe. He sat back on his legs, and his wet, stained hair clung to his cheeks like the strands were afraid to fall from his scalp. With half-open eyes, he looked up. Up those thirteen steps, to that locked door, and the little slivers of sunlight that crept through the very bottom.

He sighed, closed his eyes, and sat in silence.

It was quiet. It was over. It was… done.

A white light glowed, and grew from within Alikath’s robes. He felt its source warming up against his back. He reached into his inner pocket, and pulled out a smooth, glowing white rock with a rune etched in gold along the oval surface. A sending stone; the tool thousands of lucky adventurers used to keep tabs on one another across long distances.

Alikath brushed his thumb against the rune, and a stern, feminine voice rang up from the rock. Alikath recognized it immediately: it was Brittan.

“Alikath! Where are you!? The Minister expects us tomorrow, we need to be gone already.”

“I know! I know. I’m not far, just- just cleaning up. I’ll be there soon. The Horsefarm, right?”

“Yes. Hurry up.”

The stone’s glow dimmed, and disappeared. Alikath rubbed the bridge of his nose, and took a moment to wallow in his misery.