City of Steel (Chaos Awakens Book 3)

by Heath Pfaff

  Tilda nodded, but she didn’t speak. The wind was pelting her skin, turning her cheeks a chapped red color even with her hood up and pulled into place. Crow looked only a little better. Xandrith shot an angry look further up the path in the direction the Unth had gone. He could barely see them. They didn’t appear to care whether or not Xan and his companions fell behind. This might have worried the assassin if the third of the Unth party wasn’t at the back of the line.

  Xandrith double checked to be certain he was still there, and he was, trailing behind Haley with a disinterested look on his face. If the cold was bothering him at all, he wasn’t showing it. For some reason this made Xandrith angry. He ran a litany of curses under his breath as he made his cautious way up the mountain with Tilda’s hand held firmly in his own. Cursing wasn’t exactly making things easier, but it did raise his spirits a bit.

  “That’s a colorful vocabulary.” Tilda noted, a tired smile on her face.

  Xan returned the smile. “Thank you. I’ve had many occasions to practice.”

  They lapsed back into semi silence, though Xandrith kept up his mantra of swearing. It distracted him from thinking too much about how shitty their situation had become. He was just managing to piece together a brand new way to imply someone’s mother would sleep with horses when Tilda gave a sharp yelp of alarm.

  Xan impulsively tightened his grip, but it took him only a second to realize that she wasn’t falling. Why had she screamed, then? Xandrith’s eyes whipped back over her, looking for the source of her distress. A streak of blood was trickling down her face.

  He was about to open his mouth and ask what had happened when a massive weight slammed into his right shoulder and staggered him. He fell into the wall, and so didn’t lose his balance, but the moment of shock disoriented him. He looked up just in time to see a shower of rocks falling down from above.

  “Rockslide!” He called out, and leaned into the mountain side, holding tight to Tilda’s hand. The rain of rock from above hit hard as the main mass of the slide came down. A rock slammed into his head, and for a moment he thought he might be dead. His senses fled and bright lights flashed before his eyes. When his senses began to clear up again he found himself toppling backwards towards the side of the ledge. He staggered forward trying to recoup his balance, and it was at that moment he realized that the hand that had been holding Tilda was empty. The rest of reality came back to him and he could hear screaming. Tilda was screaming. He turned and looked down to see the old woman hanging from the edge of the ledge, her fingertips bleeding as she struggled to claw her way back up.

  Xandrith twisted and fell to his knees, reaching for her, but it was too late. Tilda’s grip slipped and she began to plummet. The assassin reached out as far as he dared and snagged the cloth of her cloak, his troll-like claws hooking into the fabric with a grip that could sunder flesh. For a moment, a brief moment, Xan managed to stop Tilda’s plummet to the ground that was so far away they couldn’t even see it. His right hand was latched into solid rock, his claws digging into the mountain side. He hung suspended between the two points, staring into the old woman’s face as the look of terror filled her eyes.

  “I’ve got you.” Xandrith told her, and then she slipped out of her cloak. Suddenly Xandrith was staring at an empty piece of cloth and Tilda was falling away from him. That moment froze in time. Her look of horror etched itself into his mind as she tumbled away beyond his grip. He had failed her.

  A dark streak swept past him and Haley screamed from above him. “No!”

  Xandrith caught a momentary glimpse of Crow as the young man fell past him and vanished into the swirling chaos of snow and wind below, following Tilda into the darkness. It had all happened so fast. In a span of time shorter than a few breaths both of them were gone forever, swallowed by the vast hunger of the jagged mountain peaks. It didn’t seem fair, he hadn’t even noticed Crow was in trouble and now he was gone too.

  Xan was stunned. He stared after them, his eyes trying to make some sense of the chaos of snow and darkness. There was no pattern to be found. They were gone.

  Chapter 7

  Where is My Mind

  “No!” Haley screamed again, falling to her knees on the narrow ledge of rock. Xandrith worried for a moment that she might give in to her despair and topple after her friends into the abyss, but she leaned into the mountainside instead.

  Xandrith looked up into the expressionless features of the Unth that had been behind Haley. He was watching the tragedy unfold before him, curious, but apparently oblivious to the pain of those under his care. The assassin stood, locking eyes with the passionless mask that met his own grief stricken features.

  “Their deaths are on your people. We both know this path wasn’t the only one that would have taken us to the wall, but your damned Wellspring was more important than the lives of our friends.” The words slipped from between Xan’s lips unchecked. He had to let something out, and it was either speak his mind or shove his knife into the Unth’s emotionless face over and over again until the loss of his companions was paid for in full. He’d never owned a knife that would hold an edge for that long.

  The Unth’s reply was cold, lacking any empathy. “Rockslides are common when the winds are this strong. Keep moving.”

  Xandrith clenched his jaw. He turned away from the Unth and looked to his remaining friend. Haley was still on her knees, leaning back against the icy stone wall and peering out over the vast darkness beyond the ledge. Tears leaked from the eyes of the fox mask and froze along its wooden surface. Somehow the animal features, the set of the ears, the lines along the snout, expressed the emotional turmoil of the girl behind the mask perfectly. Xan reached a hand down to Haley, taking her arm in his hand.

  “We must keep moving, Haley. We do them a disservice if we die out here as well.” Xandrith’s words felt hollow, but he had to say something. He couldn’t let her give up because he wasn’t sure if he could go on without her.

  Haley let herself be helped back to her feet, but she wouldn’t look at Xan, and she didn’t speak. The loss of her friends had blown out the tiny flame she’d managed to kindle since the loss of her family. Xan understood exactly how she felt. Despair and loss were emotions he was only too familiar with. To Haley, Kassa had started out lost, so that she’d ended up that way again wasn’t nearly as terrible to her as actually watching Crow and Tilda die. She hadn’t experienced this kind of loss since her family had been killed. What they both needed was time to heal their wounds, but they were afforded none.

  They began walking again, moving further up the mountain along the ragged wall of rock. Xan’s left hand felt shockingly empty, and his footsteps felt heavier than ever before. He divided his attention between the path and Haley. The young woman moved with a sure footed grace that matched his own, but Xandrith could tell she was functioning on instinct alone. Her mind was no doubt churning over the loss of Crow and Tilda, playing the events over and over again. Xandrith had been doing the same thing. If he hadn’t lost his hold on Tilda, she would still be there with them. Why hadn’t he held on tighter?

  Xandrith looked over his shoulder to check on Haley again and nearly jumped out of his skin. His illusionary-self had appeared at some point, hanging over his shoulder just off the lip of the ledge, floating silently above the death drop. His eyes were cast down, his face buried in shadow. He didn’t move or talk like he normally did, but instead he hung like a corpse stuck trapped in a plummet towards the ground.

  Don’t do that. Xan thought angrily at the specter. It didn’t respond, and it didn’t vanish. Xan turned away from it and kept his pace along the mountain trail. With everything else on his mind, that was one more issue he didn’t want to deal with.

  Time was difficult to judge after that. It seemed that they walked along the mountain ledge for most of the day, but Xan thought it was probably closer to a few hours. The sky was impossible to see because of the thick black clouds and swirling snow, and the assassin just couldn’t
bring himself to bother with keeping track of time any other way. Eventually they caught up with the other two Unth who stood waiting just inside an obviously carved tunnel entrance.

  The Unth didn’t comment on the now smaller group of travelers as Xan and Haley approached. It seemed to Xan as if they’d expected to lose a few on the ledges. He had to stifle the rage that threatened to consume him at the impassive Unth. As much as he wanted to scream and murder them, he knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything other than maybe a small amount of personal satisfaction. He had to keep the greater goal in mind.

  “This cave leads directly to the wall.” The female Unth said. “It isn’t far from here.”

  Xandrith nodded in reply, unwilling to speak to the alien woman without possibly saying something that could get him and Haley in trouble. It would have been a shame to come so far only to ruin things by being unable to control his darker impulses.

  They entered this new cave and Xan was pleasantly surprised to see that the path through this cave seemed of normal width and possessed of actual walls so that there was nowhere to fall. That was one less thing to worry about. He was a little weary of being just a few inches from death. After losing Crow and Tilda, his nerves were frayed almost to the point of breaking. He hadn’t been worried about himself, but Haley had been a constant concern. One part of him knew that she was probably more agile than he was after his recent injuries, but another part of him was protectively afraid anyway. Worrying about others was hard work.

  Xan gave a quick glance to his doppelganger. It was still hanging in the air just behind him, eyes cast downward, face lost in the shadows that never changed despite the lighting in any given situation. It was unsettling, to say the least. The loss of Crow and Tilda seemed to have broken it, and what did that say about Xandrith himself? That thing was a part of his mind, and now it was just a frightening shell of what it had been.

  “Are you alright?” Haley’s voice was soft, concerned.

  Xandrith tore his attention away from the ghost. “Yeah, just thought I saw something for a moment.”

  “You’ve been looking back there for a long time, even while we were out on the ledge.” Haley had apparently been watching Xandrith almost as much as he was watching her. “What are you seeing?”

  Xandrith shrugged. “It’s difficult to explain, and this isn’t the best place for it.” He also didn’t want to explain things, but he wasn’t going to say that.

  Haley nodded once. She seemed a bit hurt that Xandrith was keeping a secret from her, but the assassin couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he was going insane. He certainly didn’t want to tell her that he was even more concerned because his normal insanity was getting stranger.

  Xan could see that Haley needed some form of support, something to cling to in a time of chaotic events. “When we have some time to ourselves, we’ll talk.” This won a small, half-hearted smile, but Xan felt better about leaving matters at that. With any luck she wouldn’t remember Xan’s strange behavior later and they’d never actually need to have that conversation. If the time came though, and they actually survived this whole mess, Xan would tell Haley all she wanted to know. No matter what she thought of him afterwards, he owed her that much for sticking by him through so much. The girl’s life had been terrible, and she deserved the trust and confidence of at least one person.

  The assassin was running pointless scenarios in his head about how that particularly strange conversation might go when suddenly his doppelganger appeared directly in front of him. It happened quickly and without any form of warning. Xandrith stopped in his tracks and nearly toppled forward into the shade. Before he even knew he was doing it his knife was ready in front of him and he’d taken a low crouching position. His guides had stopped and were looking back at him with roiling levels of hostility. Haley had her hand on her axe and was looking around, startled, searching for danger.

  “There is something very wrong. Very wrong.” Xan’s doppelganger spoke, its voice a frightened whisper. It was still in the same pose it had been since they’d left the cliff ledge, eyes downcast, hair hanging limply over its face. “There is something very wrong. Very wrong.” It repeated the words in the exact same way.

  What’s wrong? What’s going on? Xandrith asked silently, returning his knife to its scabbard hesitantly. Every hair on the back of his neck was standing straight up and his sense of impending danger was hammering away in his chest. He wanted to run, but he didn’t know what he would be running from, or where he should be running to.

  “Xandrith, what’s wrong?” Haley asked, echoing his own sentiment from just a moment before.

  The assassin chuckled uneasily. “I’m not sure. I just had this sudden feeling of ...”

  “There is something very wrong. Very wrong.” Young Xan’s words cut his off. Dark blotches began to appear on his skin, like festering wounds working themselves up through his flesh from the inside. They split open at the surface spewing vile black and green fluid that ate away at the illusion’s flesh. It began to scream.

  Xandrith took an involuntary step back as he watched the younger version of himself get swallowed up by the creeping putridity. It slumped to the ground, white, glistening bone tearing through deteriorating flesh as its face poured off of its skull like a thick liquid mush. The scream turned to a gargle and then finally went silent. Soon there was nothing left but bone and muck.

  Haley’s hand was on his arm. “Xan, you’re really scaring me.” She said. “I think you’re scaring our guides as well.”

  Xandrith forced a grin back on to his face, but he could feel a layer of cold sweat on his face and knew that he must look terrible. “I’m alright, I just had a feeling that everything was about to go wrong. It hit me really hard. I’ll be fine. Let’s keep moving.”

  Haley didn’t look reassured, and the Unth were glaring at him as though he were a sick beast that might need to be put down at any moment. Xandrith made a concerted effort to calm himself. His hands were shaking and his legs felt weak. He needed to get his wits in order. What he’d just seen wasn’t real. It wasn’t an indicator of anything other than the fact that his mind was a mess. That other version of him had never actually existed. Maybe it was better that it was gone?

  Xandrith placed a hand on Haley’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “I’m fine, really. Crow and Tilda are weighing heavily on my mind.” It was as good an excuse as any. The words were true, and for all Xandrith knew about his own mental state it might be the entire truth. Maybe the loss of Crow and Tilda had finally pushed his insanity to its limits. He didn’t feel insane, but did insane people ever feel insane?

  Haley seemed to accept this excuse. She nodded, the ghost of her sadness drifting across her face before Xandrith saw her pull her expression into a neutral one with a strong application of personal will. She was a strong young woman, far stronger than Xandrith had been at her age.

  “Your behavior is strange. We are trusting you a great deal more than we would generally trust one who is not Unth. Do not push that trust too far. If you draw your weapon without cause again, we will not be responsible for any injury that comes to you or yours.” The female Unth was agitated. It seemed to be the only emotion she could muster.

  Xan was about to speak, but Haley beat him to it. “Our friends are dead! They just died! We had to watch it happen. I don’t know why your people don’t understand how much that hurts, but we still feel pain when we lose friends. We don’t need your threats on top of everything else!” Her words bristled with a barely contained rage.

  Xandrith chuckled and grinned, a wicked expression by any standards. “You’re learning too much from me. Diplomacy isn’t going to be your strong suit.”

  “People died and they just don’t care!” Haley snapped at Xan, not finding his grim humor appropriate at that moment. “I don’t understand how they can be so heartless.”

  “They’re not human, Haley. I don’t think they feel the way we do.” Xandrith tried to explain, tho
ugh he didn’t understand it himself. The Unth were a mystery to him.

  Surprisingly one of the Unth males spoke. “We once held bonds as you do, but that was in a time long passed. We gave up some things so that we might better serve the Wellspring. Compassion is something many of us remember, but we do not have any connection to the emotion. If we had continued being slaves to our emotional ties, we would have failed in our task long ago.”

  “Your ties to your friends weaken you when you should be strong. The irrational reactions of that one,” The female spoke, pointing at Xan. “Prove that point. We don’t have friends. We are driven by one purpose only, the protection of the Wellspring.”

  They began to walk again, but Haley wasn’t ready to give up this line of conversation. “What about family? Don’t you have siblings, parents? Certainly you must care about them?”

  The male behind them spoke. “We don’t have bonds with our families. Not anymore.”

  “Me neither.” Xandrith added to the rather bleak conversation. “Not by choice, though.”

  “Do your children have bonds? Is it something you grow out of when you become an adult?” Haley’s curiosity was like a flood gate now that the lines of conversation were open.

  The female Unth looked back over her shoulder at the young girl. “We don’t have children.”

  Haley’s look of confusion deepened, and Xandrith had to join her on that one. “Wait, if you don’t have children how to you produce more of you? I mean, I’m not an expert on the matter, but it seems like the Unth wouldn’t last long if they never had offspring. Are you born fully grown?”

  “We don’t have children because we don’t die.” The female explained. “The Wellspring grants us eternal life in exchange for our service as its protectors.”

  “You’re immortal?” Xandrith was shocked. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “Not immortal, but we will never die of old age.” The lead male spoke.