Whatever progress the others made with the ore, Kla paid no mind. He could claim it was because his focus had to stay locked on the shrieking volleys of arrows and the iron blades lunging for his flesh, and it was true enough. Verun might not have been a strategist, but he was a master of provocation, and the Voiceless were rabid for his blood.

But there was another reason Kla didn’t look back. A quiet, unspoken certainty. However begrudging it was, He trusted them. Whatever storms crashed down, they would weather it. His only task was to draw the lightning.

The Voiceless flooded out of the Market in a black tide, surging toward him like water from a shattered dam. Kla ripped his last knife from his ragged trousers, squared his stance, and met the wave head-on. Rage made them reckless. For every shallow cut they scored across his skin, Verun dropped five—some with a blade through the gut, some turned into living shields against the arrows the shroud couldn’t catch, others burned alive in the summoned fire of his off-hand.

Only scraps of their force remained in the Market, either distracted by his allies or slaking bloodlust on defenseless townsfolk.

Still, Kla felt the tide pressing in. He batted arrows from the sky, slipped past steel, hurled flame, but the storm took its toll. His breath shortened. The stone in his back burned. Small wounds piled into a heavy weight, and his retreat began without him realizing, each step stolen by fatigue.

Then he faltered.

A stumble, a half-second misstep dodging a blade, and it was enough. He dropped to a knee, and in that heartbeat of weakness, a robed fanatic drove a knife deep into his shoulder.


@Matvi Iramene
@Trevor
 
Wasn't sure if Horns made a sound when he got stuck. But he could see it well enough. Matvi was heading for Koren. Townspeople were a panicked mess. Guess that left the suspicious deva in his care – his and Jerry's.

„Let go, Jerry.“ As he pushed himself to an awkward stand. Weight poorly pressed to the fucked foot, he was quick to assplant.

Trevor no longer had the luxury of pretending. Because letting Kla or Matvi get them was a convenient distraction. But no matter whether your hand held the knife, forged the blade, or pushed flesh into steel...

Dead was dead.

„You are going to get Kla...“ He no longer had Luck to give, but there was always more to take. Sooner or later, currency always became clear. „And drag him back here.“

Jerry hesitated as more arrows flew by them. Didn't even need to be influenced, these just missed.

„You sure?“
„You'll be alright...“ He would just have to press enough together to be certain.

And how unlucky a merc had to be to lose a fight to an unarmed civilian? Pretty fucking unlucky. But Trevor had them covered. Like pouring poison to wounds. Because not all fortune was good.

A slip of step and trickery of light, a grab, a stab and two equalgarbed men dripdripped into the street. Because you didn't have to win. The other guy only needed to lose worse.

Boy lobbed a stone and got the elven fucker right between the eyes. Luckiest shot of his life. One scrunch was all it took before Voiceless became Motionless.

And he wouldn't stop. Couldn't. Not until Jerry was back.

„I promise.“

Someday, somewhere, all of this would have to be paid. Because Luck wasn't a fortune. She was a loan. And the bitch accrued interest.


Koren had seen Matvi coming a long way off. But what was he to do with that?

He could feel the curse peeling him slowly. Flakes of skin became spots of red. And if you looked at them hard enough – something darker was starting to manifest. A bruise of black and purple, pulsing with veins it didn't have – because no matter how much it broke your outsides...didn't mean it forgot your insides.

So he moved further away from the man rushing for him.

Further away from the people of Havenby.

From everyone.

Because if someone had to die for this, better one man than dozens.

Turned back to yell at Matvi to fuck off, but no words came out. Just yawned at the man, mute.
 
Well. This was one hell of a pickle, wasn't it? Chasing a man who was a half peeled orange as it was. Legs starting to wobble under him after each stride he took.

Silly bastard. Noble. Silly. Bastard.

Too far to catch. Bomb too shard fucked to weave back to sleep. All jostle and bump, and draining the life right out of the kid.

Name was Koren. Wasn't it? He would remember Koren. Even as he felt him slip slip slipping like so many grains of sand downed sloped walls of glass. Matvi emptied his lungs. Felt the strands of cold silk winds yawn from his tongue. Felt them waver and shake. Whispers, every stir.

Felt one pull tight on Koren's heal. Climb up all the veins of his legs as he spread his fingers wide, and his eyes glowed like sun come off the ice over a solidified pond. Most of the life there in the small pools dead.

Heel froze solid. Leg turned stiffed as flesh turned ice cracked with bad step.

Koren wouldn't feel it. No. Not yet.

There in that leg, the ice silk spooled. Like so many little moths climbed into their cocoons. One chewed threw the membrane of its prison. Crawled out. Spread its wings, and flew. Fluttered its nascent wings. All shimmer and frost. Sank into the crystalturnedbomb. A crack across its body, as the shroud there in turned to ice.

Frosted over Koren's arms. Stuck to the skin and would climb up his limbs.

"But at least your skin will stop falling off," Matvi said, all breathless at the mutilated boy's side. "Might be," he said as he looked over the shroudsplosive. "You even live after this," Took off his coat, wrapped it around the shard, frozen mid-detonation. Grabbed it up, and eyed around. Saw a sewer drain, there in the cobbles. Hurried over, hands all cold and biting. Sucked breath through teeth. Let the thing down, pulled the man cover and kicked the icy fucker in.

Down the glowing death snowball went.

Plop.
 
The knife didn’t just tear into his shoulder, it gutted the last thread of adrenaline that had kept him moving, fighting, surviving. Verun’s groan rattled out of him, raw and broken, as every wound he’d been ignoring roared back to life at once. Even the Shroud stuttered and dimmed, its phantom strength slipping through his grasp like smoke.

His assailant wasn’t merciful enough to let him writhe. Beady elven eyes burned down at him, the sneer above them twisting into something hateful before a sharp knee cracked into Kla’s nose. His vision burst white as he went sprawling, the blade wrenching free and leaving his blood to pour freely into the dirt.

Teeth ground together as his hand clamped to the ruin of his shoulder, fingers digging into shredded flesh in a desperate bid to stay awake. The drum of boots closed in. The Voiceless were circling, their shadows stretching over him like carrion birds.

Kla forced his eyes open against the blur. The sky above swam in and out of focus. Counting enemies was pointless now. He was spent; beyond Magitech, beyond rage, beyond prayer.

Surely it had been long enough by now. Matvi, Trevor, Jerry, Koren… one of them had to have pulled a miracle from their sleeve. He hated not knowing. Gods damn him, he hated it. All he had left was that thin, laughable word: faith.

The elves were speaking over him, their sharp tongue cutting through the air. Arguing about who got first stab, maybe. Kla managed a grin through the blood pooling in his mouth, a grim little smile for either death or rescue.

Then the earth answered for him.

A roar thundered up from below, shaking the ground with a violence that stopped every blade in its arc. The horizon itself seemed to ripple. Trees bent as if under a hurricane’s hand. Stone buildings groaned, splitting like rotten fruit. Fissures ripped through the street, vomiting steam hot enough to scald the air. It was as if the whole city had become the throat of a volcano, ready to spit fire.

The Voiceless scattered, stumbling back in a panic. For all their namesake, they weren’t voiceless now; their shouts rang sharp and ugly in the chaos.

Kla rolled onto his stomach with a curse, dragging himself forward on one good arm, head whipping toward movement through the haze.

“Jerry!”

Trevor’s partner came sprinting into view, thank every halfhearted saint. Kla could’ve kissed him if he weren’t choking on copper and fury.

But even as relief washed through him, Verun’s stomach turned cold. His bloodied lips twisted as he rasped, “Where’s Matvi?”

His head sagged back to the dirt, breath hitching. “And Koren? What the hell did they just do?”

The tremors didn’t stop. They grew worse, rolling, violent, hungry.

Kla knew.

Matvi had pulled a trigger he'd not known existed. And with Verun’s own dishonesty stacked on top of it, the whole damned town might be going down. The Voiceless. Their crew. Everyone.

"Get me up!" He sputtered, "We need to leave right now!"

@Trevor @Matvi Iramene
 
A rumble. A shake. Like the belly of some horrid beast that had grown hungry. Bricks and stones rattled. The earth moved.

"Gods damn it," he cursed as the people ran in panic. Hurried over to Koren, legs still hissing from where the ice had ruined it well beyond the point of saving. "Sorry about, the whole, freezing your legs off, Koren," Matvi bent down, and tried to get under the youth, who still groaned, agonized and pain paralyzed. "Yeah, I was hoping you know," he worked him up with a rough ourgh. "Lets," groaned again and worked him across the shoulder. "Go,"

Started running. Wherever the bloody hells the ground would keep holding him and Koren's slightly reduced, still not bloody weight.

Gods how he hated running. And Ahyiid save the poor fucker that kept him from a bath when all this was over.

Koren screamed like a cat yowling against the night.

Poor fucker. "Stop," Matvi grumbled between pants. "Your squirming," he said as the ground roiled and rose with his steps. Half a fucking miracle he didn't trip over.
 
Koren, having lost some weight, hung off Matvi's shoulders. The guy was saying something about being still. And he was. Still Koren. What's left of him, anyway.

Watched the road go where legs wouldn't. His father joked they'd all leave their bones in Havenby. Guess this is what he meant.

Further down, a Jerry grabbed a Kla. Hoisted up like an oversized baby, stranger sagged against Jerry's arms. But the boy didn't know what to do next. There'd always been instruction. For the next year. Next day. Next step. But now the ground shook, and his home might be learning how to fly. What the fuck could he do with that?

That's when they saw him.

A wounded ginger, standing off to the far side. He stood on the kind of ground that didn't try to fly. Didn't even twitch. Like it'd already made its choice.

„Over here!“ Coulda been stronger. Louder. Coulda been many things.

But firm was enough.
 
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