Chapter 43: Impending doom

In hollow halls where silence weeps,
The Jailors tread, their vigil deep.
Chains of old and tongues of lies,
They bound the storm that scorched the skies.

The Wayward Daughter, flame unbound,
Walked alone, beneath no shroud.
Her voice was thunder, her wrath the sea,
But truth, it seems, breeds heresy.

They feared her rage, her woven fate,
Her dreams to break the marble gate.
So cloaked in scorn and soot-stained grace,
They crucified her in a gilded blaze.

But blood remembers, skies conspire,
The earth still hums, her buried fire.
One day soon, clocks will turn and stones shall sing,
And she will rise, to slay the king.

I cleared my throat. “Well. I suppose the Wayward daughter is- was, my cellmate.” 

“The crucified woman?” Nea asked and pushed me away to read the book.

She nodded along as she mouthed the words silently. 

“So?” I asked.

“Seems like that could be the case,” she said with a nod. “Seems like a bunch of prophetic mumbo jumbo if you ask me. She doesn’t look like she will rise anytime soon anyhow.” 

I scratched my neck. “Yeah. You’re right about that.” 

She already had after all. I wasn’t sure about all that breaking the gate talk. It all eluded me. It didn’t seem like Sera. Well, slaying a king kind of fit her personality, but there didn’t really seem to be any left. 

The room rumbled, I looked up to the others. Everyone froze, looking around carefully to find the source. Everyone but Samuel, dust seeped through the gaps between his fingers. I stared at him, brows furrowed. “Sam… What did you do?” 

He jumped. “Me? Nothing. Why do you think I did anything.” 

I felt Nea tug at my shirt from behind, but didn’t waver. “Then why are you the only one acting suspicious.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

She tugged harder and harder, still I didn’t turn.

“What’s so hard about following instructions?” I boiled inside. What if this had been a trap? What if this was a trap?

She tugged so hard I almost fell on my ass. I whipped around. “What?!”

Then stared wide eyed as cracks snaked up along the statue, taking with them large parts of the marble carapace covering the woman’s figure. I swallowed, Nea was pale as a ghost, she let go of my shirt and balled her hands into fists. 

A large piece covering the statue’s face fell off, revealing eyes that were very much alive, glaring at me with a wicked smile.

Then came the metallic creaking from the rows. 

No… 

I turned, stiffly. The jailors moved mechanically, like marionette puppets. Their joints cracked and popped as they bent erratically in awkward angles. 

John burst onto the stage, pulling at both me and Nea. “It’s time to go!” he shouted. 

Nea was quick to react, and she was strong. The only one in our group who even remotely stood a chance against John when it came to speed was her. They pulled ahead of me and Samuel, flying out the door like arrows leaving a bow. 

I layered burst on my legs, running like I never had before. The wind pressure pushed down on me like an anvil. My cheeks pulled to the side. I scooped up Samuel as I passed. Even though he wasn’t very heavy, it made a large difference in speed. 

The clicking and clacking of stiff limbs increased. I glanced back. Their bodies twisted unnaturally, arms pulled to their sides with their hands hanging limp. It almost looked like they weren’t alive, but they were. Their wide grins told me that much. As did the tens of fiery eyes. 

“Someone take Samuel!” I shouted. My pace was enough to just barely keep up, but it wasn’t maintainable. 

Nea skidded to a halt and snagged him from my arms. “Don’t fall behind,” she said and pulled at me to run again.

The fires lighting the shrines flickered as we rushed past. I glanced back again. The tumultuous group of jailors ambled their way out the door. They had to bend down low to not slam their faces against the door frame. The rowed up, three of them standing shoulder to shoulder, bent their knees. And set off. 

The floor cracked underfoot as they set chase. They were fast. Much faster than my nemesis had been.

I turned, and zigzagged from wall to wall, attaching threads as I went. When I finally felt satisfied I had created a small web of sorts, invisible until I willed it real. 

“Keep going!” Samuel screamed from the front. 

We all already knew that. There wasn’t much else we could do. We all also knew we had a terribly long way to run if we wanted to get out of the chambers. The chase was just beginning. And I didn’t have a lot of steam left to go. 

I gritted my teeth, made the web corporeal and listened. They crashed into it like a typhoon. I glanced back just in time to see the front runners slam their shins into it.

The thread snapped after the first few charged into it, but I hadn’t expected it to hold out against them all anyway. The first few were enough. 

They fell face first into the stone, which in itself wasn’t very deadly. The stampede of armour wearing, engine infused jailors behind them, on the other hand, was.

Not even a scream escaped their lips as their comrades stomped them to death. They just kept staring at us with that mad light in their eyes, welcoming the end, just like the crazed hag, the Hand holder, had. I swallowed and decided to not look back anymore. The chase was disconcerting as it was already. I didn’t need to see them breathe down my neck to know I was in deep shit. 

The threads bought us a little time, but far from enough. Even Nea was beginning to slow down, leaving only John as a viable candidate for escape.

I wanted to shout, to ask them what the fuck we were going to do, but my breath was laboured, and the words caught in my mouth. 

“Hurry!” John shouted from the front.

I’m fucking trying already!

I kept plucking threads, creating trip wire after trip wire, and activating them without looking. But the jailors weren’t stupid by any means. They didn’t fall for the same trick twice., they did have to jump over them though, slowing them minimally, so it wasn’t all for naught. 

Normally, the weight of overusing magic would press down on me by now, but it seemed becoming less human came with its very own set of perks. 

[Leave them.] Sera scribbled into the veil. I barely caught her message before I flashed past it. 

“I won’t,” I growled, low enough that the others didn’t pick it up over the ruckus of metallic feet slapping against stone. 

Besides, I couldn’t. I didn’t what she was thinking. I was the slowest of the bunch, even when I wasn’t carrying Samuel. As soon as my magic ran out, so did my bursts of speed. 

The thundering steps closed in on me like inevitable doom. 

Think, Cal, think!

The trip wires didn’t work. I did have ammo, but I doubted it would work better against the jailor’s than it did against the doctor. The blade had been effective enough when hitting a soft spot, but their bodies were covered in that damn carapace of steel. And there was no way I could deal with them all like that. Maybe one, with some luck. But the others would tear me to shreds right after. 

I gritted my teeth. 

If only I could drop a bomb on them all… Wait… That’s it! 

The red threads were explosive enough to make a dent in the doctor—and myself. If I could somehow get the jailors with the explosion, and not myself, then things might just work out. But I had to try things out first. 

My laboured breaths felt like they fanned flames tearing at my lungs, but as soon as I set out to work, the pain faded into nothing. I liked my fingers quite a lot. And most certainly enough to not want them getting blown off. Handling the threads without proper precautions was a last resort.

This… this needed a creative solution. And to find that, I needed to experiment.

I plucked a blue string and made it corporeal, while whipping it at a cluster of crimson. The thread fell short. To be quite honest, I didn’t really know what I expected. To throw a thread with no counterweight would never work. There were too many things to consider, draft, weight, momentum. It just couldn’t work. 

But if I tied the dagger to it… 

I summoned Silent scream and got to work, tying the thread while running, accidentally messing up a few times. I groaned inwardly. The jailors were catching up.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Nea shouted, her eyes widened with fear. 

That was nice of her. She didn’t have to worry about me though, I knew what I was doing…

Probably.

When I finally managed to tie the damn thread around the handle, I threw it behind me in a high arc, then yanked it downward. The movement was awkward, and it made my shoulder strain and ache. But it got the job done. 

What a shame it was that it didn’t work. 

I unsummoned the dagger and used a burst to propel myself forward, gaining a bit of distance to my approaching doom. 

It was hard to gauge just how far away based on sound alone, but it couldn’t be more than thirty meters now. I could vaguely recall sprinting that distance in four or five seconds as a kid. Four – five, back then I felt slow compared to my quickest classmate. Now the time didn’t feel like an awful lot, not at all. 

And I still was no closer to finding a solution than I had been when we first began running. 

Up ahead, the torture chamber loomed. There were choices to be made. Life or death ones. The myriad halls all had their own possibilities. There was the clear favuorite—the corridor leading to the outside. Then there were the rest, dead ends where we would end up slaughtered like animals. 

Splitting up was a choice. If they ended up following just one of us then that would be a great outcome, and it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. As long as I wasn’t the one they ended up chasing. Sacrificing Samuel didn’t really sit well with me either… Both because he was a kid, and because he was the least physically able of us all. It wouldn’t be that different from pushing a kid on a wheelchair into a busy intersection. 

I wasn’t that guy. 

Or...

No. I really am not that guy, I told myself with a sharp slap to the cheek. It burned like a thousand needles were prickling my skin. I’m sure it burned red hot for the others to see. Not that they would be of a mind to care or even note it. 

“What now?!” John shouted as he raced through the gaping archway. 

I listened. They gained on me again. Four seconds now. Or less. 

“What do you mean what now?! We get the fuck out!” Nea screamed, her voice cracked. She was wet with sweat, it stained her back like a dark cape. Samuel grimaced in her tight grip. It didn’t look very comfortable being slung over a shoulder like that. 

“We won’t make it!” John retorted. 

The shortest corridor by far was the one leading to the inferno. Maybe the thick office door could keep the crazed monsters at bay, but then again, maybe not. 

And even if it did keep them outside, we would just be prolonging our demise with a few days. I had a few dried fruits with me as rations, and a can of meat stew. It wouldn’t get me or the others very far. 

I grit my teeth. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. 

Samuel closed his eyes and spoke calmly. “We should split up.” 

Shit.