“You are free to go, but the child is staying,” the merchant warned, too full of silky overconfidence for his tastes. “The King himself has decreed. That one must be offered to find the Key.”
He snorted with derisive laughter at both the unintentional rhyming and the irony that he was holding the damn ‘key.’ Never mind that he hadn’t had a good track record with identifying them either.
“Gods, but you sound like one of those cheesy actors in a horrible stage play,” he griped, before launching himself at the smug bastard to his left to bury the dagger in his throat, holding the body up against him like a shield. “You wouldn’t know the key if it stabbed your buddy in the throat.”
He expected the others to charge him, but they held their spots as if nothing happened, the joke going completely over their heads. He would say ‘tough crowd’ but they looked like a bunch of pussies in ill-fitting party dresses.
“We are all prepared to sacrifice to open the Gates,” the merchant drawled out in a bored tone.
“Happy to oblige,” he said, with his own sweeping bow. This time, when he started cutting them down, they did charge. All but for the smug bastard that loved the sound of his own voice anyway.
He was surprised to see there were some among them that could actually fight worth a shit. The cloak proved cumbersome so he let it fall to the floor the first time one of them thought to grab it. He drew out his short sword once more when the Flame was clearly not going to be enough.
Real fights were never like those stage plays where they all lined up and took careful turns, so fending off a big group by yourself was something of an ugly mess of limbs and flashes of metal. As long as they kept their attention on him, fine and dandy.
Brat had stayed hidden in the entrance way, watching him carve through their numbers, but the five that remained were weakening him, slashing through his clothes. When he cut down the merchant’s wife, the bastard wasn’t so smug anymore and replaced her in the fight with reckless fury.
The merchant was at least successful in knocking the Flame out of his hands and it skidded across the floor, darkening immediately.
Brat was hesitant to come out but when he hit the floor, he could see the kid creeping towards the knife and willed the kid to stay back, not daring to draw attention to them by saying so. He was suddenly pinned, realizing this was probably the end of the line but landing a few determined punches anyway.
The chamber started to glow blue and it halted everyone. The merchant’s face distorted in the wavering light, a maniacal grin making it more menacing.
Brat held out the Flame and he was dead.
Beautiful women … So many of them, their arms bare and enticing, adorned with silvery bracelets and passing over him. The gentle cerulean glow bathing them all. Everything floated as if they were underwater. He let his eyes flutter shut to feel their fingertips caressing him and felt as if he could stay this way forever. Their faces… he opened his eyes again and saw such stark sadness even as he struggled to make out their actual features. Tiaras with great teardrop-shaped crystals winked at their brows, but confusion sank in at the urgent sensation of pounding on his chest somehow. All he could see was the gentle stroking of fingers over the bare skin there.
The distant sound of sobbing.
A light pounding in his head as it repeatedly hit the floor. Was that a gasp of relief?
Someone was hugging him.
His eyes opened and he let his head flop around lazily,
taking in the sight of bodies around them. No beautiful women; the robed ones he had been fighting. Thirteen. All of them. The kid was bowed over him, grasping the fabric of his tunic with one hand, the blue glow of the Flame still in the other. He groaned as he propped himself up.
“The key,” he mumbled and the kid sat up, wiping away snot and tears.
“Yeah, right here. I didn’t lose it,” Brat said, defensive.
He laughed and shook his head.
“No, Brat, one of them has the key to get out of here,” he scolded lightly and Brat looked sheepish.
“Oh. Right,” Brat said, starting to search the bodies as he worked to prop himself up on his elbows.
“What the hell happened?” he asked, knowing he was about to regret asking.
“The Flame, it… it killed everyone. This white stuff like the wraiths have, it came out of everyone. Even you. I… I thought I killed you,” Brat explained, only upset on the last part.
If that was death, why the hell am I sticking around here? He knew why though. That place would have bored the hell out of him.
He knew the moment the kid found the key because he doubted Brat ever did anything without telegraphing it. They might as well have held the key over their head to the tune of trumpeted victory music for all the noise they made.
It wasn’t like the exit had a big glowing red sign over it, so it wasn’t exactly cause for celebration. Dying had made him weak and the kid had to help him up before they could search for it. His back protested as he dug a jawbone out from underneath him, tossing it aside as Brat braced that puny frame against his.
It was yet another series of dead end hallways, but at least it wasn’t adorned in gaudy stacks of human skulls. A clattering sound came from behind them and Brat shot a look of terror at him.
“What was that?” Brat asked. He knew the kid already knew and wanted a lie.
“Those milky trails are souls, kid. They aren’t going through the Gates and the fresh bodies just found some new hosts…” he said cruelly. “Haul ass.”
He wondered how those morons were enjoying their newfound immortality when they were about to experience it down here forever.
They rushed through the hallways, the sound gaining on them. He practically threw Brat through the unlocked door, locking it shut against the pounding on the other side. The angry moans of the ghouls died away as the kid helped him moved through the natural alcove.
It was dark in Orendon, but it wasn’t raining at that moment and the exit led out to a reservoir a couple blocks from the merchant’s home. Tucked under a bridge, concealed from prying eyes with piles of garbage and boulders, he was tempted to fall asleep right there. The smell of garbage always beat the smell of death.
Brat stubbornly insisted they go a little further and it seemed like more effort just to protest. The main roads were clearing away at this late hour, so the kid just looked like they were toting home a drunk uncle. Brat shuffled towards a building and leaned him up against the wall, just long enough to pick the lock before shuffling them both in.
He made the mistake of plopping down on the remains of a couch, choking on the cloud of dust he forced from it. Brat knelt in front of him, waving at the dust as they handed him a flask.
“You don’t need to take care of me, Brat,” he murmured, snatching at it and draining it anyway.
“But I killed you. It’s the least I can do,” the kid said, so apologetic that he choked trying to laugh.
“I’m not dead now, so quit harping on it,” he said, tossing the empty flask back. “Gods, we’d be halfway to the palace by now if you weren’t a magnet for trouble though.”
Brat nodded, knowing it was true, even as that defiant pout sat on their lips.
He closed his eyes, scrunching down into the lumpy cushions, but caught himself talking before he could stop himself.
“Why the hell wouldn’t your mom let you cut your hair?” he blurted out.
The kid didn’t answer and he almost hoped he had only imagined asking it, content to just drift to sleep.
“She said the Gods would be angry. Cutting red hair is bad luck,” the kid said guiltily.
He laughed, a weak derisive sound.
“So is hanging around me too long…” he added, opening one eye with great effort to glare at the kid.
The kid looked so incredibly lost sitting there.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to run back home, but you’re not going to be safer there,” he tried to explain,
hating how hard it was to say it.
“Yeah… I felt it too. This city is waking. Something is looking for me,” the kid said in an eerie way that made his skin crawl, but a nervous laugh sputtered out instead. He pulled his cloak a little tighter. Oh, it’s found you, kid… And the only possible way to escape it is to arrive right on its doorstep…
He felt wide awake again and it took him a moment to realize that he and the kid were staring at each other in the same absent way.
He wobbled to his feet, the kid scrambling up with him. “Let me help!” Brat blurted out, louder than necessary.
“Not a chance, kid. I need a bath or I’m gonna have to melt my clothes off with a blowtorch,” he added, and the kid blushed, nodding. How the hell was this kid so shy with a whore for a mother?
This was a part of the city he actually knew and there was a park nearby. It didn’t exactly have a freshwater pond, but it wasn’t stagnant either. It took every ounce of willpower not to shout at the pain of the sweat and stench that had sealed clothes to skin. He would only need to keep the rubber coverings; the rest of the clothes he’d pitch. He had a few tunics and leggings rolled up in his pack, so he couldn’t care less about their fate.
It was tempting to just stay in the water all night, but the water life seemed to take umbrage to this and it only took one slithering bastard under his ass to set him right back for the building they were squatting in.
The relief he felt upon waking without the incessant dripping was short-lived. He was eye-to-eye with a white rat on the back of the couch.
Squeak.
He was a flailing mess of limbs as he shot to his feet, tangling himself up in a blanket he never remembered putting over him before crashing to the floor in a poof of dust.
Brat shot up, that unfortunate crimson mop plastered straight up on one side of their head. The kid looked around frantically, only to end up eye-to-eye with him as his face peered out of the blanket. It might have been scary, that look, if the rest of him didn’t look so fluffy and pink.
The kid screwed up their face before bursting out laughing.
He ambled to his feet, feeling quite the curmudgeon as he balled up the blanket and whipped it at Brat, causing the kid’s head to snap back as they tumbled to the floor. It didn’t dampen the kid’s mirth one bit.
“Pink though?” he drawled out.
“Not on purpose. It was dark and I didn’t want to wake my mom,” Brat said defensively. Brat raked a hand through that choppy mop of hair now.
“You made me look like a little boy,” Brat said with a pout.
“And you don’t like that because…” he pressed, wondering when he actually gave a shit to solve that mystery.
“Because I want to look older,” Brat said, narrowing their eyes.
“Well, you don’t look like a girl now either,” he added, trying again.
“What difference does it make since I’m always wearing a hat?” Brat added, grabbing their hat and yanking it over their head.
He gave up, stuffing a few things in his bag and Brat shot up to start packing too. He hadn’t been awake enough when he had gotten back last night to do more than throw on leggings and now he threw back the rubber cloak and stood there shirtless while rummaging for a tunic. He heard Brat gasp and shot the kid a look.
“Holy hells, what has claws that big?” Brat said with awe, drifting towards him in curiosity.
He’d forgotten how careful he usually was about keeping the whole picture a secret. He really did let his guard down too much around the kid. Kids weren’t technically people, so it was easy to forget.
He cleared his throat, catching the kid’s hand before Brat could touch the gnarly scar crossing over his heart. Brat blushed the color of their hair, not even realizing what they had been doing. The kid pulled their hand back, but their eyes never stopped tracing over the scars.
“Gardell. The Coliseum in Uther,” he said, hoping that would shut the kid up but of course it didn’t.
“You fought as a slave?” the kid asked in wonder.
Okay, maybe kids are people. Dangerous, nosy little people.
“I volunteered,” he added, knowing damn well that made him sound like a lunatic.
It sounded much better than the whole story, that he could whore or fight to eat and he’d tried the former. Damn near ripped the dick off of the first pervert that tried to touch him. Unfortunately, the guy was in the nobility and then he had two other options when he was caught: fight or die. To him, it had sounded like ‘die or die’; didn’t think he was much of a fighter, but he was young and thought a blaze of glory would be a hell of a way to go.
He pulled his tunic over his head, buckling and fastening the light plates of armor back into place. The kid started helping and he made to object, but somehow the kid knew what the hell they were doing. The kid didn’t have a father or siblings and something about the thought of the kid strapping up his mom’s clients pissed him off way more than it should have.
The kid must have seen the question on his face.
“Worked at the tanner’s down the street from mom’s for a while, but the forgetful asshole accused me stealing some of his tongs and told me not to come back,” the kid offered.
“Did you?” he asked, blunt as usual.
Brat narrowed their eyes.
“I said he was forgetful,” Brat started to defend, then grew sheepish. “Okay, maybe I stole a jerkin once, but he messed up on it and was going to throw it out anyway. I didn’t steal the tongs though!”
Again, he wondered how Brat got by with that damnable honesty plaguing them.
He reached out his hand, absently pulling off the hat and fixing the kid’s hair. Brat stood stock still, clearly unused to the affection. The hell am I doing? Even realizing it, he didn’t stop until he’d fixed it, but it still looked hopeless.
“I really fucked it up,” he said, cringing with amusement.
Brat snatched the hat back and jammed it back on their head. He thought he’d pissed the kid off, but that toothy smile lit up.
“Feels nice though. Stuff was heavy, making my neck hurt,” Brat piped up, once again at odds with the kid’s ability to surprise him.
The Central District was twice the size of the poorer one and as long as the kid didn’t attract any more trouble, they might actually reach the Nouveau Quarter by sundown. It probably would’ve saved a lot of grief just to ride a horse cab, but those cabs weren’t covered. Besides that, the routes veered away from the main roads and markets down through places he didn’t care to be recognized. He really didn’t want someone running off to the kid’s mom and have her tearing down the city to get Brat home.
Once again, he headed back to the main road, making sure to keep the kid in view ahead of him. As if all of the events of the past couple of days hadn’t happened, Brat was once again bouncing around between stalls as they were setting up.
The kid halted in front of a vendor that was pulling hot egg pies out of a clay oven, eyeing the little pies with unguarded desire as the man slid them onto a ceramic pan to cool.
Brat heard a couple coins bounce on the table and was shocked to see he had flipped them there. He’d lifted whatever coin the dead cultists had on them the day before, but the kid had been too busy staring at the Flame with that annoying guilt plastered to their face to notice.
“Two,” he said, holding up the appropriate amount of fingers and the man wrapped two of the pies in paper and handed them over, the kid glowing way too brightly over such a simple thing.
His thoughts shot back to yet another detail that had stumped him last night. He had told the kid to hold onto the Flame from then on. Not that he was in some great hurry to die when the kid unleashed whatever fucked-up soul-stealing shit that was channeled through it, but he also had one of those feelings that it was important that Brat be the one to keep it close.
Brat was making gasping noises and it was clear the kid had chomped into the pie with zero forethought (damn well seeing t
he things were fresh out of the oven) and was about to spend the better part of the day nursing a scorched mouth.
“Dumb ass…” he mumbled, holding his with far more discipline and patience as they continued on.
The palace was barely a dot on the horizon, but they could make it there by tomorrow.
“You left her a note, right?” he asked Brat absentmindedly, the kid already having horked down half of the damn pie with a clearly numb mouth by now.
“My mom? ‘Course I did. Not like it’s gonna stop her from trying to haul my ass back home though,” the kid said with a shrug.
He might be on the woman’s shitlist, but he had no intention of letting her think her kid had been dragged off by slavers or worse. Better she be pissed at him than terrified with a side of ‘severely pissed’ at him.
By the time, he looked at the kid, they were already polishing off the last bite and he hadn’t even bitten into his yet. He held his out to the kid and Brat was as shocked as he was, but took it anyway. Brat took a cautious bite, wondering what sort of trap this was. Seemed a fucked-up time for that instinct to kick in.
He bought a few rolls of jerky and dried fruit for his pack and a meat wrap to replace the breakfast he had handed off to the kid. Somehow the walk had become almost leisure. Brat got jostled by a few excited kids running by and craned their neck to see what was going on, looking up at him in askance. Brat had once again polished off another egg pie.
“What’s going on over there?” Brat asked, hopping from foot to foot, each word muffled by the last wad of pie they had yet to swallow.
“No,” he said, with absolutely no interest in straying from the task anymore.
Brat looked wounded.
“Didn’t say we had to stop, mister. Just wondering if you can see anything from here,” the kid said defensively.
“Also, no,” he added, but he already heard the plucking of strings as they neared the alley the kids had rushed into.
It looked like a sort of amphitheater tucked back behind the small storefronts rather than just an alley between buildings. It had probably been a small market decades ago before the city had grown so big that the main roads were opened to trade to meet the demand. He caught sight of an alluring woman on the stage, dancing in time to the masterful pluck of strings, hadn’t missed how entranced the kid was with her movements. He had to admit even he was mesmerized and both he and the kid’s feet had drawn them closer.
UnNamed Page 4