by A. C. Cobble
Moments later, Ben crashed down the stairs, flailing to arrest his fall and grunting as each stone step pummeled a different part of his body. He finally reached the bottom and slid across the stone floor.
A woman looked down at him, eyes wide in confusion. Her hair was frizzed and tangled, like she’d just gotten out of bed or been subjected to a heavy electric shock. Her dress was torn, and blood leaked from one of her ears.
Ben, laying on his back, groaned and wrapped his hand around the broken shaft of the spear he’d snapped with his body when he had fallen on it. He shifted and rolled, swinging the spear up and stabbing the woman in the gut. She grunted in pain, still not comprehending what happened.
A frigid blast of air swept over Ben, and the woman was thrown against the wall, her head smacking against the stone with a spine-tingling crunch.
“Thanks,” rasped Towaal. “The two of them proved more resilient than I expected.”
“No problem,” croaked Ben. “Uh, you think you can help me up?”
With Towaal’s assistance, he clambered to his feet and rested his weight half on her, half on the intricately carved wyvern fire staff. He muttered a silent thanks that his body broke the spear and not the staff. That would have been embarrassing.
“Ready to walk twenty stories down?” asked the mage grimly, eyeing the staff but not commenting on it. “It’s going to be a fight.”
“I have an idea,” muttered Ben. “Let’s find the others.”
They stumbled and fell down the stairs, Ben leaving long bloody streaks when he rubbed against the walls. He was dizzy and gasping for air. He knew he was losing too much blood, but they didn’t have time to pause. He could only hope Towaal or Amelie still had strength to lend him healing energy when they made it to safety, but getting to safety was beginning to look like a smaller and smaller possibility.
Below them, they saw their friends clustered around the steel door which sealed Milo’s apartments. The metal was bent in, and resounding booms and crashes sounded from the other side. Amelie was standing against it, both hands placed on the surface.
“Come up here!” shouted Ben hoarsely.
Amelie glanced over her shoulder. Ben could see sweat pouring down her face.
“This door is warded, locking it shut, but there are mages on the other side,” cried Amelie. “I’m trying to hold the wards. If I leave, they’ll be through in no time.”
“You’d better run then,” declared Ben.
“Do you have a plan?” asked Rhys. The rogue was pacing near Amelie, sword out, ready for when her strength failed and the door caved in.
“Sort of,” responded Ben. “We have to hurry.”
Renfro scrambled up the stairs, followed by Sincell and the two thugs he’d brought. Seeing them go made the decision for the rest of Ben’s friends. With one last grunt of effort, Amelie let go of the door and ran up the stairs.
“Higher,” said Ben. “One more level.”
Rhys took over for Towaal, supporting Ben’s weight as they hobbled upward.
“Milo?” he asked.
“He’s dead,” responded Ben.
They made it up to the dining room. Crystal bowls and decanters reflected the moonlight streaming in the wide windows. Ben could see the river out one side and lit windows of other tall towers out the other. He shuddered, thinking about all of the open air that lay beyond those windows.
“What are we doing here?” asked Rhys. “The Veil will send every mage she has once she realizes we took the staff.”
“That and once she figures out what I did to her son,” muttered Ben.
“Her son?” asked Rhys, confused.
“Her son.”
Realization dawned on the rogue’s face slowly. “Oh, bloody hell. We need to go.”
“We are,” said Ben.
Bracing himself against the wall, he swung with the staff and smashed a clasp that held a pair of windows closed. He pushed, and they swung wide, opening to the night sky. He looked down, cursed, and moved to the next casement.
“Could you use literally anything other than the wyvern fire staff for that?” pleaded Towaal.
Muttering under his breath, Ben flipped the next clasp with his hand and pushed the window open. A cool, steady breeze blew into the room, ruffling his hair and bringing the sounds of the city below them.
“B-Ben,” stammered Amelie. “What are you doing?”
“Follow me,” he instructed.
Ben dragged himself onto the window sill.
“What are you doing!” shrieked Amelie.
“Sorry. If I think about this, I won’t be able to do it,” he mumbled. Then, he pitched backward.
He fell two stories before smacking hard into the wooden slats of the bridge. He’d tried to maneuver his legs to absorb the impact, but his left one was reluctant to respond, so the shock pulsed through his entire body and he crumpled like an egg shell. Above him, he could see Rhys looking down.
“Nice,” admitted the rogue. Then, he launched himself out into the air.
Watching his friend jump into the open night sky curdled Ben’s stomach. Rhys, cloak flapping above him, landed three paces away in the center of the bridge, his legs flexing to drop him into a squat.
Sincell came next, landing lightly. She stood and warned, “Guards are flooding into Gerrol’s tower. I tried to tell you before you jumped. Too many of them to fit in the stairwells of the Octopus, I’m guessing. Fighting our way down Gerrol’s tower won’t be any easier.”
“We aren’t going back into that one,” declared Ben.
He rolled onto his belly and forced himself up, pain radiating from the wound in his leg. The rest of his body throbbed from the fall. One by one, the companions dropped from the window, landing on the shaky rope bridge. Finally, the Rat’s two thugs came down last, their heavy bodies crashing into the bridge and giving Ben a momentary fright that the thing might snap in two.
“Where to next?” asked Rhys.
Above them, a guard poked his head out of the window.
“Whatever the plan,” continued the rogue, looking at the doorway nervously, “it’d better be fast.”
Ben turned to his companions. “Everyone, hold on tight. Really tight. Rhys, you cut the ropes.”
Rhys blinked at him.
Ben wrapped his arm around one of the smaller ropes that connected the wooden slats to the thick support wires that anchored the bridge to the towers. He bent down and wedged his fingers between two boards. Seeing him, his friends dove to the sides of the bridge as well and scrambled to secure themselves.
“You’ve gone insane,” crowed Rhys.
The guard in the window above turned and started frantically shouting to others behind him. In moments, the guards would be out the door and onto the bridge.
The rogue’s longsword flared silver, and he swept it into one of the support wires. The bridge jerked, and Renfro squealed, clinging to the ropes and uttering a stream of the foulest curses Ben had ever heard.
One of the thugs snarled something unintelligible and charged Rhys, a shortsword raised above his head.
Renfro jumped in front of him, two blades appearing in his hands.
“This is insane, Rat,” growled the thug, skidding to a stop.
“There are hundreds of guards in those towers,” snapped Renfro. “I don’t like it, but this is the only way. Grab a hold of something and prepare to fly.”
“I ain’t doing it boss.”
“Yes you are,” snarled Renfro. He took a menacing step toward the thug.
The big burly man clenched his fist around his short sword.
Rhys brought his sword down again and severed the last line on one side of the bridge. The bridge tilted alarmingly but didn’t completely dump them to the side yet.
“They always said you’d get us killed,” muttered the thug, barely audible over the rushing wind. “I shoulda listened.”
Before any of the party could react, the thug charged and Renfro ducked, st
abbing up with his knives. One of the blades caught the thug in the bicep, sinking deep, and forcing him to drop his short sword. The man’s other hand slapped down and gripped Renfro by his hair.
“Ouch, let me go you son of a bitch!” growled the little thief.
The thug, madness shining from his eyes, brought his wounded arm down and bashed Renfro on the shoulder, causing him to drop one of his knives. Over and over, the thug battered the smaller man, still gripping Renfro’s hair in his fist.
Ben stepped toward the combatants but the bridge swayed dangerously under his feet and his hand instinctively reached to clutch the remaining rope lead.
Renfro stabbed with his knife and caught the thug in the side, the little blade burying in the man’s flesh.
Grunting, the thug stumbled back, his hand still tangled in Renfro’s hair. Flailing, the thug toppled, dragging Renfro with him. He fell against the cut side of the bridge, and the rope sagged under his weight.
Renfro, panic fueling his motion, stabbed again and again at the bigger man, but he was helpless to break the iron-grip or the man’s momentum.
“No!” cried Ben risking a step closer, but he was too late.
Renfro dug his small blade into the man one last time, twisting it, probing for vital organs.
“See you in hell, Rat,” growled the thug, and he collapsed back, taking Renfro with him. Both of the men flipped over the cut-rope and plunged into the black of night.
“Rat!” cried Sincell.
She stepped toward where Renfro had fallen, but Amelie gripped her arm.
Suddenly, the door to the tower burst open, and a dozen guards stood in the hallway of the Octopus. At the sight of Ben and his friends, the guards started shouting to more men back inside.
Ben looped a hand through the rogue’s belt, and Rhys twisted one leg around a rope.
“Time to go,” said Ben.
“Get them!” snarled the leader of the soldiers.
They charged, and Rhys swung his sword.
Silver smoke blazed in its wake. The mage-wrought blade severed the two remaining support lines, cutting the bridge in two. It dropped out from underneath of them and the charging guards. Startled screams proceeded long, desperate falls as the dozen men plummeted into the darkness below.
Ben and his friends, secured to the length of bridge, flew through the air. A trill of excitement and fear rushed through Ben’s veins until the bridge hit the side of Gerrol’s tower with a crunch. It felt like he, quite literally, ran into a wall.
The bridge bounced off the stone and then smacked back into it again. The Rat’s last thug streaked past Ben, the man’s screams fading as he vanished into the dark.
Ben swallowed and tried to ignore the burn of the rope chaffing his wrist. Five paces below him, Rhys dangled from the rope wrapped around his leg. Ben had lost his grip on the man’s belt when they had smashed into the tower.
“That didn’t feel good,” groaned the rogue, looking up at Ben.
“Three stories down, another bridge,” said Ben.
Rhys looked down. “Ben,” he called, “that’s three stories down and a dozen paces to the side.”
“It looked closer from the top of the Octopus. Got a better idea?” snapped Ben.
“You go first,” insisted Rhys, his cloak hanging below him, flapping in the wind.
Steeling himself, Ben unwrapped his arm from the rope bridge. The flesh of his wrist was torn and bloody, making his hand slick. Blood leaked down his left leg from the spear wound, soaking his boot. He shuffled one foot lower and then a hand, wedging it between the slats of the wooden bridge. Supported only by his fingers and toes, he climbed down.
He risked a look at the stone bridge he was planning to jump to and immediately regretted it. There was nothing wrong with the bridge except that it hung ten stories above the streets below. If he jumped and missed, that would be the last of him. He swallowed the lump in his throat and kept climbing until he made it to the bottom of the bridge, Rhys still dangling upside down below him.
“Want me to, ah, do something?” he asked his friend.
“Don’t worry about me,” grumbled the rogue. “I’m just enjoying the evening.”
Rhys was trying to slide his longsword into the sheath and secure it with a thong on his belt. It was made more complicated by his cloak, which kept flapping into his face. Ben felt bad, but the rogue didn’t want his help. Amelie and Prem were scaling down the wooden planks above him. He felt the bridge swaying in the wind.
“I’m not sure how secure this thing is,” warned Amelie. “We need to hurry.”
Ben nodded and positioned himself to leap. He looked down, and a tremor wracked his body. He drew a deep breath, trying to steady himself.
“Ben, don’t look down,” suggested Amelie.
“Just fucking jump,” growled Rhys.
Ben launched himself into the air, flying above ten stories of open air. If he missed the bridge, he knew he’d be dead.
He didn’t miss. He thought he might still die, though.
His body smashed into the stone bridge like he was a raw piece of meat. His legs, the left one near worthless due to the injury Milo had given him, collapsed under his weight. His left arm absorbed most of the blow, nearly shattering as his body drove it hard into the stone. For a long moment, he lay there, stunned. Pain radiated through his being, and he wasn’t sure he could move.
“How the hell did you get here?” barked a voice.
Ben turned his head and saw a chainmail-clad guard from the Sanctuary. He must have been watching the bridges from Gerrol’s tower. He evidently didn’t see the broken rope bridge dangling above them. Ben could only hope that the man had been posted as a watch alone and didn’t have friends with him.
The soldier had a broadsword on his side, but he hadn’t drawn it yet. Ben admitted ruefully, the man didn’t need to. Ben wasn’t going anywhere. The guard stepped out of the tower, frowning at Ben and glancing at the tower on the other end of the bridge. Confusion clouded his face.
Rhys flew into Ben’s vision and his boot thumped into the guard’s head, snapping his neck. The rogue landed heavily on the man’s body before tumbling off and rolling into the railing on the side of the bridge.
“Ouch,” grunted Rhys.
“You should try it without something to land on,” muttered Ben. He stirred, trying to find a way to get to his feet, but anyway he moved just brought sharp, stabbing pain.
Amelie down came next, landing hard and falling onto Ben, all elbows and knees. He groaned as her body slammed into him, jolting his already bruised shoulder and arm.
“Sorry,” she muttered. She looked down, winced, and then placed her hands on him.
“Don’t,” he hissed. “The mages may sense you expending your energy.”
Amelie snorted. “You don’t think they know we’re here? This won’t make you right, but hopefully, I can reduce some of the pain so you can stand.”
A warmth suffused him.
Prem thumped to the stones and tucked into a roll, smoothly ending up on one knee. Ben grumbled under his breath as the girl sprang to her feet, looking as relaxed as if she’d just rolled out of bed. Sincell floated to land next to Prem, her booted feet settling softly on the stone bridge. She wiggled her fingers at Ben and winked.
“Hey,” called a voice from the tower.
Another guard was standing in the doorway.
Rhys was lurking beside it. The rogue reached over and grasped the collar of the man’s chainmail. The rogue jerked the man outside and buried a knife in his neck, a hot fountain of blood poured out of the shocked soldier’s throat. Rhys deposited the body on top of the first one and then tried to wipe his hand off on the man’s trousers before resuming his position next to the door.
“Soon, there will be more than one of them coming out of there,” warned Amelie.
Above them, shouts came over the sound of the whipping wind. Guards were at the doorway of the Octopus, pointing down and gestur
ing wildly. It’d be half a bell before any of them could get near Ben and his friends, but they could alert the soldiers in Gerrol’s tower.
“Come on!” called Sincell.
Ben glanced up to see Lady Towaal perched on the last board of the wooden bridge. It was swaying in the breeze, and the mage seemed to be timing the movement to make her jump. At the pinnacle of a swing, the she let go.
Ben’s breath caught in his throat as she floated out over the open air, seeming to drift to them on the wind.
She landed and met Ben’s eyes. “I’m sorry about Renfro.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the clatter of armor inside the tower shocked them into motion. Amelie helped Ben to his feet and they started moving away from Gerrol’s tower. Limping along, Ben wondered if Towaal or Sincell could have done the same trick for him and the rest of the party, slowing their fall. There was no use worrying about it now.
Ben met Sincell’s gaze and saw the anguish there. She’d been loyal, even if Renfro’s thugs weren’t. Ben blinked his eyes, clearing them of the moisture that was growing there. The Rat was gone, and nothing was going to bring him back.
“Hundreds of guards will be right on our heels,” advised Rhys, darting ahead.
Ben, not slowing, held up the wyvern fire staff. Deep in the throat of the wooden wyvern, a glow emanated.
“Ben!” exclaimed Amelie.
In front of him, Ben saw the red and orange glow of the staff reflected against the wall of the tower. The light was growing as the heat built inside the staff. The pale wood was cool to the touch, but Ben could feel heat on his face, like a door to a furnace was opening.
He paused before the entrance to the tower and let Rhys rush by. The rogue’s booted foot smashed into a wooden door and burst it open, debris from a flimsy bolt skittering across the floor.
The party streamed by Ben, and then he set the tip of the wyvern fire staff onto the stone bridge. Flames leapt up, and he stepped back, covering his face from the heat. Towaal took his side, holding her arms up and placing a shield in front of them to keep the heat away.
“How are you doing this?” she hissed.
“The artificers who fashioned this weapon were too smart to allow it to be used unrestrained,” explained Ben. “They set a price in blood.”
