Prometheus Rising- Chapter 6/? [Fic]
Chapter 6-
The priest’s long teeth glimmered and sparked in the light of the torches, but the rest of the library seemed to darken even as Arthur watched. Those violet eyes burned into his skin, as though searching for his deepest secrets, though Arthur could not help but think that the priest already knew them all. “You’re one of them,” he hissed.
“One of them?” the priest repeated, his smile lessening somewhat. “I assume you mean an uncivilized wild man such as the one you have been travelling alongside. I can assure you that I am nothing at all like that.” Though his voice sounded almost sweet, gentle, the malevolent glint in those eyes said anything but. “No, I am something far greater than the mere likes of that beast could achieve.”
Arthur cast his gaze around, careful not to stray too far from the demon before him, but growing increasingly desperate for some method of escape. This demon was not like Alfred- he had understood that even before the words had been spoken. This demon would not hesitate to harm him. “But you are like him. Your eyes, your teeth… Those are both traits you share with him.” Something within him insisted that he should not speak Alfred’s name.
The priest’s smile warped and widened until it became a grimace. “In physical appearance, yes, I suppose you are correct. But mentally? I am far superior. And, should this demon man of yours show his miserable face, who do you think would triumph in our fight?”
This was not a safe topic of conversation, not when Arthur seemed to be alone, so he thought quickly and asked the first questions that came to his mind. “How did you enter here? What did you do to the priest who owned those robes?”
“These robes? Why, Arthur, these robes are my own.” The demon plucked at the long sleeves that draped down to partially conceal his gloves. “They were tailored to my form, designed to fit me perfectly. The robes of a human would be unable to cover me.”
“So then you are tall as well.” The knowledge only worsened the desperation that pulled at Arthur’s mind. He pressed himself back against his chair.
“Come now, Arthur.” The demon clicked his teeth. “I had heard such good things about you in the past. The Lamglen branch of our order was ever so proud of your intelligence. Yet you keep saying ridiculous things and asking questions to which you already know the answers.” He drummed his gloved fingertips against the table, and Arthur could almost envision the wicked claws hidden within the cloth.
“If the robes are your own,” Arthur began slowly, though his voice sounded strange to his own ears, “and they were tailored for you, that must mean that people know you are here.”
“And?” the demon coaxed.
Arthur’s breath caught in his throat. It choked and stuttered, and for a long moment, he could not find air with which to breathe in his shock. “That would mean that they want you here. That would mean that they have no desire to be rid of you.”
“Ah,” said the demon. “Now that is the correct answer. You understand now the position into which you have gotten yourself.”
“But…” Arthur strove for words that he could not find.
The demon cocked his head sideways, eyes wide and burning with false innocence. “But what, Arthur?” When no response to his question was forthcoming, the demon sighed. “I expected better of you. When I first learned that you were journeying in this direction, I was ever so excited. Rare are the times when I can find a worthy opponent to my intellect. Though it seems that in your case, you were overrated by your former peers, and you are nothing more than the average, foolish humans I find myself surrounded by each day. What a pity.” He leaned forward, his unnatural height giving him the ability to reach almost the whole way across the table, and smiled into Arthur’s face. “But what, Arthur? Finish your sentence, and perhaps I can give you some sort of answer for whatever you might be questioning.”
“But…” Arthur could not bring himself to tear his gaze away from the knife-like teeth before him. Still, he tried to focus his thoughts. “But how? How can you be here, parading around in the robes of a priest? This is a holy city. The people here would not accept you, not when you are such a monster!”
At the sound of that word, the demon’s smile twisted into a snarl. “A monster indeed. You are a fool, Arthur, worse than any man I have encountered before. How am I a monster? Yes, I may not be a weak human such as yourself, but I am no beast, not like your wild man in the woods.”
Arthur held his tongue, fighting back the sudden, strange urge to argue on Alfred’s behalf. He had no reason to vouch for the merits of the other demon. Doing so would only make his dangerous position even more precarious. “Then what are you?”
The demon merely stared at him for a long moment, his lips still twisted in their hideous scowl, before he sat back in his seat and folded his hands over his chest. “What am I? I suppose I cannot fault you for not knowing immediately, not after you abandoned your faith so young, but I must say that I’m disappointed.” He shook his head. “Tell me, have you forced out all of our Church’s teachings, or does your silly little mind recall any of it?”
“I’m not stupid!” Arthur growled. His hands curled into fists, though he did not dare raise them.
“Then I will take that to mean that you retain at least the basic knowledge of the Church.” The demon smiled, and it still held traces of the earlier snarl. “Very good. Now, do tell me if you recall this story. Once upon a time, the great Sky God built this blessed land for his peoples to live upon. However, they often strayed from the divine pathway that he had designed for them, and he grew frustrated with their lack of faith and belief in himself and his guidance. But he was a kind god, and he had put so much time and effort into shaping his peoples, so he did not want to be forced to destroy them. Instead, he gave them a boon, a great gift to draw them back onto their destined path. Do you know what he gave them, Arthur?”
Arthur nodded slowly. The pieces were beginning to form themselves into a whole within his mind, but he did not want to believe the image that they were creating. “His son. The Sky God gave them his son.”
“Yes, his son. And this was no mere creation, no golem formed from the mud like humanity. No, this was truly the Sky God’s son, a man in his father’s own image. This son, this emblem of mercy, was sent down from the sky to the lands of his father’s peoples. He alit upon the ground in the form of a mighty eagle, just as his father had done so many long centuries before. His father’s command was fresh in his mind, a simple order to push his straying peoples back onto the trail they were meant to walk, and he intended to do it quickly and easily. He called for the humans to gather around him, to follow him back onto their path.
“But did the peoples of the earth obey?” The demon snorted. The sound echoed through the library, harsh and unnatural, and Arthur winced. “Of course not. They had spent far too much time following their own greedy ways, caring only for themselves instead of for the great god who had brought life to their mud-hewn bodies so long ago. Turning their backs on the merciful gift of the Sky God, they continued to pursue the demonic virtues they had learned.” Here the demon paused, as if in thought, his gaze flickering over to the torches burning on the far wall. “The son wanted to kill them all, did you know?” he said, as though this was a normal conversation. “They do not write that part in our holy books, but it’s the truth. He wanted nothing more than to strike them all dead where they stood. Disrespecting him meant disrespecting his father, and that would not do.
“And yet, when the son told his father of what had happened, and what he intended to do to punish them, the Sky God refused. Even after they had turned their backs on him, he still intended to give them another chance.” The demon snorted again, his face contorted with disgust. “It was a foolish decision, but the son continued to follow his orders, because he loved his father.” His eyes burned as they met Arthur’s gaze. “He still loves his father. He would do anything for the Sky God, anything to make him happy, because that is what such a divine being deserves, is it not? Pure, unrivaled happiness?”
Arthur drew in a shaking breath. “You’re insane.”
The demon ignored him. “So the son went back down to earth, this time even more determined to turn the minds of the peoples back to faithfulness. They still did not listen, not at first, but the son had a new idea, a new strategy to persuade them of he and his father’s righteousness. He created this Church, built it up from the raw depths of the earth. Its magnificence drew in a few, the most devout, and that gave the son the hope he needed to continue his work. If the Church was this wonderful at its birth, surely it could be even greater still?” The demon’s eyes gleamed. “And so he built it higher, drew in more strength and power, all in the name of his great father, the Sky God who had created all the humans who now flocked to its doors. The Sky God was so proud of him. He had turned the peoples feet back onto their path, back into the mold his father had set for them. It was truly a beautiful thing.”
“You can’t mean-” Arthur began, but the demon cut him off once more.
“The Church, a symbol of the creator, of the Sky God himself, grew greater and greater beneath the guidance of the son. He was not human, and as such did not think or act as a human would, relying on his father’s blood and instincts to forge onwards. And forge onwards he did. Whole cities were built in the Sky God’s name, and hundreds of the devout now journey to them every year. Small churches have been constructed in every village along the roadways. Every human within the borders of this realm recognize the robes of a priest, and even the lands beyond the mountains have begun to praise the Sky God’s name. And do you know why this is?” The demon abruptly pushed himself to his feet. He towered over Arthur’s seated form. “Do you know why this is?”
Arthur shook his head helplessly. “You… You cannot be…”
“You cannot be, you cannot be,” the demon repeated, tone mocking. He leaned forward, down, until his gaze was level with Arthur’s eyes, burning violet boring deep inside him. “Why not? Would you really deny the truth? Can you not see it with your own eyes?”
“All I see is a monster,” Arthur growled.
The demon sneered at him. “A monster. A demon. You are blind, Arthur. In turning away from our Church, you have lost the ability to differentiate between good and evil. How could I, a son of the Sky God, be one of your wild demons from the wood? Some of them may have stolen my form in an attempt to tear down this Church, but I will not allow them to succeed. And if you are on their side, Arthur Kirkland, I cannot allow you to leave here.” He shifted, an ever so slight movement to the side, as though he was intending to walk around the table.
At the first sign of motion, Arthur leaped to his feet, thrusting himself backwards and nearly tripping as he collided with the end of a bookshelf. “You are insane,” he said again.
“No. I may be many things, but insane is not one of them.” Though the demon’s steps were slow, measured, he crossed the space between them in mere seconds and pinned Arthur to the wall with one large gloved hand. “Insanity is a disease cast upon humans and mere demons, never on one with the blood of a god.”
“But that is impossible!” Arthur struggled against the demon’s grip, limbs thrashing in a desperate attempt to strike at him, but the monster seemed to ignore it. “You cannot be the Sky God’s son! You- You are nothing but another demon.”
The demon only smiled, a small, almost sad smile, and his eyes glinted with firelight. “Such a pity. I am no demon, you blind fool. It was they who took on my form, in a failed attempt to destroy the grand deeds I have accomplished with the word of the Sky God. Their lies have infiltrated your ears and poisoned your own mind against you. You once had such promise, but now you have fallen from the graces of my father, and you are nothing more than the monsters you travel alongside. It truly pains me to see such a lost soul wandering these lands.” The demon’s hand slid upwards, still holding Arthur tight against the wall, and seized around his neck. “In the name of my father, I will put you out of your misery.”
As those strong fingers tightened and his breath caught, Arthur struggled to spit out his next words. If he was going to die there, alone in this library, he had no more need to hold his tongue. “The Sky God calls for mercy, not death! He will- He will not forgive you for this, son or not.”
“Mercy?” The demon laughed, high and broken. It resounded from the walls, pulsing within Arthur’s ears, and the torches flickered. “This is mercy. You have strayed, and my father will understand that you risk leading others to your insanity. I am only protecting those who seek the truth.”
Arthur coughed. “But I- I seek the truth!”
The demon sneered. “Not the right one.” His fingers slowly began to clench together, digging into Arthur’s throat. “Your truth is that of the monsters, the beasts of the night, those who dare to assume that they are above my and my father’s dominion. They all deserve death, and the Sky God has long since given me the honor of delivering it. Once, Arthur Kirkland, you followed the right path, the one my father laid out before your feet, but you became corrupted by the demons that infiltrated your mind, and now you are nothing more than one of them. It is not my fault that your death is upon you. It is your own. You allowed yourself to wander, and you forsook your own spirit.”
The softness of the demon’s gloves contrasted oddly with the powerful grip intent on crushing Arthur’s neck. He struggled for breath, his limbs twitching and thrashing, his fingers tearing at the demon’s hand even as his chest throbbed from lack of air and his mind grew foggy and dull. Every part of his body felt as though it was gaining weight, drooping, falling away from himself, but still he refused to end his struggle. He had come so far in this journey, and had learned so much. It could not all have been in vain. Yet the demon was too strong. Arthur had experienced the strength of his kind in Alfred’s careful hands, and he knew that in such a test of muscle, he was no match for this monster.
“Farewell, Arthur,” said the demon, though his voice sounded as if it were coming from a great distance away, or perhaps from underwater. “You will suffer for eternity amongst your beastly kin. Fire will burn at your skin, devour you and eat away at your body, but you will never have respite. That is your punishment for following the teachings of the demons. Farewell.”
Though Arthur’s fading mind could not comprehend many of the words that had been spoken, one seemed to echo within his thoughts. Fire. Something about that small word reminded him of a crucial fact, one that was avoiding him. He could not remember…
From the edge of his gaze, there came a flicker of light. At first he did not understand what it meant, but then the answer flared to life within his mind. Fire. Flames. His arms felt as though they were burdened by heavy chains, and he struggled to lift them. He no longer knew whether the demon was still speaking. He did not care. If he could only touch those brilliant flames-
His fingers grasped wood. He could not feel his own hand, merely watched as it swung out in front of him, a burning torch within its grip. The flames blinded him for a brief second.
And then suddenly he could breathe once again. Air rushed into his mouth, coursing down his throat, and he gasped and staggered to the side. The torch fell from his hands, landing on the stone floor with a resounding clatter. His fingers pulsed with the pain of vicious burns from where he had grabbed the wrong end. The library throbbed with the sounds of his labored breathing.
“You should not have done that,” said the priest.
Arthur looked up at him, stared at that cold, pale face lit by flames, and felt his body shudder. “You would have killed me.” His voice was hoarse.
The priest did not react to Arthur’s words, merely continued to watch him across the gap the burning torch had left between them. “At least you would have died quickly. Now, though…” He gestured down at the fire, and after a moment of hesitation, Arthur followed his gaze.
The flames were spreading. When the torch had fallen from Arthur’s fingers, it had rolled along the floor, flickering but not dying, until it reached the base of the nearest bookshelf. The wood had ignited immediately. Arthur stared in horror as the flames crackled up from the ground, grasping with its deadly fingers at the spines of hundreds of books, leaping from shelf to shelf with the grace of an assassin, never once missing its target. Knowledge burned brilliantly, a dance of crimson fire, and then vanished.
“How ironic,” said the priest. Arthur did not turn back to look at him, could not seem to draw his eyes away from the growing inferno that he had caused, but the humor lacing the priest’s voice was as clear as the chime of a bell. “To have left us for burning books, only to burn down a whole library yourself.”
“It was an accident,” Arthur breathed. Fire leaped and danced before his eyes, its heat singeing at his skin. “A mistake. I… I never intended to…” Another bookshelf was engulfed by the flames. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard the sound of an alarm bell ringing. It made no difference by then. They were too late to save any of the thousands of words he had set alight.
A hand fell upon his shoulder, strong and heavily gloved. “Accident or not,” the priest replied, “it was your fault. The one responsible for this is you.” He chuckled, and Arthur could imagine the smirk twisting his features. “At least you have also built your own funeral pyre. It saves me and my brothers from having to go through the effort of burying a traitor like you.” That hand pushed Arthur forwards, unresisting, towards the flames.
It was his fault. Arthur stumbled forward, the fire licking at the toes of his boots, but his legs refused to run. It was his fault. How could he flee from his own wrongdoings, when they stared and laughed into his face? He could not have resisted the strength of the priest even if he had tried, so perhaps if he gave in, accepted his defeat, death would be easier on him. The hand shoved him forward again.
“Arthur!”
That voice- He knew that voice. Its sound tore him from the hypnotizing movements of the fire, and he turned towards it, confusion and a strange sense of relief threatening to spill from between his lips. As he turned, though, he felt something rush past him, saw a familiar streak of ragged brown leather, and without warning the priest’s hand was ripped away from his shoulder, knocking him sideways, away from the flames. Arthur staggered and nearly fell. He caught his balance at the last moment, staring back among the bookshelves at the scene wreathed in flames.
The voice had belonged to Alfred, of course. Alfred, who should not have been there at all, Alfred who had said he was going to stay in the forest. Alfred, who was grappling with the priest, both of their sets of sharp teeth bared as they snarled and grabbed at one another. Clothing was torn, noses bloodied, sharp, gasping breaths intermingling with the roar of the fires around them. They seemed evenly matched, exchanging blow for blow, shadows against the flames, wearing at each other until one would eventually have to fall, and Arthur was struck by the sudden fear that he might not only have caused the loss of all of the library’s knowledge, but possibly Alfred’s life as well.
“Alfred!” he called out, desperately needing to do something that could turn the tide. He did not know why Alfred was there, but the danger was his own fault, and he had no intention of letting any others be killed for it. “Alfred, he’s-”
But Arthur’s cry did more harm than good, for the sound of it caught Alfred off guard. Alfred turned slightly, barely a moment’s glance towards Arthur, and the priest lunged forward in the opening provided. The motion was almost too fast for Arthur to follow. The reaction, however, was not. Alfred coughed, eyes wide, stumbling backwards with his hands clutched over his stomach. A thin trickle of red slid out over his lips.
“Give in, monster,” the priest said, smiling as though his nose was not crushed to the side. He wiped at the blood that rolled down from one nostril. “You are no match for me.”
Growling low in his throat, Alfred shook his head. “You’re the same as me. We are evenly matched, no matter what you say.” Still, he did not remove his hand from his stomach, though his vibrant eyes burned with fury.
The priest heaved a mocking sigh and turned to glance at Arthur. “Your demon man is as foolish as you are. No wonder you found him such an interesting traveling companion.” His fingers flexed within his gloves, and in one swift movement he pulled them both off, revealing clawed nails even longer than Alfred’s own. “It’s fitting that you should die together in here, I think. You will burn in the fires of your own sins.”
“Not if I can stop it.” And Alfred rushed forward, swinging wildly at the priest with his fists and claws. One connected, harsh against the priest’s pale skin and certain to leave a bruise, but the other was caught in a strong grasp, halted midair and unable to move.
“What makes you think you have any chance against me, demon?” the priest asked, gaze searching across Alfred’s face. “How could you defeat me, the son of a god?”
Alfred simply shook his head, lips curling in a pained frown. Every muscle in his body seemed tense. “I see no god. The only thing in front of me is another demon, just like me.” The words were tinged with utter disgust.
For one moment, the only sound that could be heard was the crackle of the flames, and in the far distance the sound of the alarm bell. Then the priest roared. It was not a scream, not a shout or a cry. The noise rumbled out from his chest, mounting to a deep, shattering noise, full of words that weren’t words at all, but something darker, something deeper, something that had no place in that burning library. The priest’s lips curled back in a feral snarl, glinting in the firelight. “You dare speak to me that way? This is the end for you, monster!” Without warning, he threw Alfred’s arm aside and lunged in, claws tearing at Alfred’s skin. Alfred stumbled back again and again, barely able to defend himself.
“No!” Arthur heard the shriek burst from his own lips. He had no idea what to do, yet his body was moving, lurching to the side, his waist bending and arms reaching down to grasp at the torch that he had dropped before. Every inch of it was burning, with no safe place to hold, the flames biting at his fingers, melting his skin, but he paid it no mind. He had no time to think. All he could do was rush forward, draw his arms back, and swing.
The heavy wooden torch shattered. Splinters flew through the air, and Arthur staggered backward, shielding his face. But the blow had not been in vain. The priest had fallen back, his shoulder crashing against one of the fiery bookshelves, clutching his head in his clawed hands. The flames seemed to have no effect on his skin, but the ends of his robes were beginning to catch, and dark blood trickled down between his fingers.
Arthur had no time to watch that demon, though. He turned towards Alfred, momentarily unable to breathe as he took in the extent of the damage the priest had done. Alfred’s coat was tattered to the point of being unwearable, his shirt nearly as bad, and blood poured in rivers down from the gashes. His stomach appeared the worst. Arthur could see right into the muscle. But there was no time.
“Alfred,” he called, reaching out. “Alfred, come on, we need to leave.” Alfred stared at him, confusion apparent on his face, almost as if he could not see what was right in front of him, his hands pressing weakly upon two of the numerous wounds on his body. Unable to wait, Arthur lunged forward, grabbing those hands and pulling as hard as he could with burned fingers and weary limbs. The library was burning. The priest was still there. They needed to leave, and they needed to leave now. “Come on, come on.”
With no thought to gentleness or care, and ignoring the burns along his hands and arms, Arthur guided Alfred out of the thick of the flaming bookshelves, back towards where he hoped he recalled the door to be. Luckily for the both of them, it was there. He cast one helpless glance back into the flames as he reached out to push it open.
What he saw froze his whole body. Standing amongst the burning shelves was the priest, his violet eyes blazing with the inferno. Blood still ran down from his temple, staining one half of his face deep red, dipping into the open snarl of his lips and teeth. His robes were nothing but a wreath of flames, though his skin remained untouched. He looked like a demon brought forth from the very depths of damnation. The fire around him seemed to stretch out like wings of pure fury. His mouth opened, wide and dark and full of knives, and his voice screamed forth. “Arthur Kirkland! This is not the end. You have dared to hit the son of the Sky God, and you will suffer for it. Don’t think you’ll ever be safe again!” Flaming shelves began to topple around him, his robes burned to vibrant ash, and smoke clouded his figure until he could no longer be seen. When the fire parted for the briefest moment, nothing of his body remained.
Arthur turned and pushed Alfred out the door, his heart pounding away inside his chest. He couldn’t look back again. If he looked back, that would be it, the end, for both of them. The priest’s words echoed through his mind. He had made an enemy, possibly one of the most powerful enemies in existence, and there was no going back. It was Alfred or death, and though Arthur still wasn’t certain about his thoughts on Alfred, he was preferable to certain doom. “Go, Alfred, go,” he breathed, desperation lacing his voice.
But outside was no better than the flames. The alarm bell was still ringing, and a crowd was gathering around the library, screaming and rushing for water, for something, for anything that could save their precious building. And as Alfred and Arthur emerged from the smoke, all eyes fell to them. Arthur might have passed as an innocent visitor, perhaps, but not Alfred, never Alfred, and the gazes of the crowd turned from confused and worried to furious in a matter of seconds. The screams became cries of anger. Arthur’s already short breath caught in his throat as he looked around him. His hands felt as though they were still burning, and Alfred seemed perilously close to swaying and falling, but he could not seem to get himself to move. The events of the day were swirling through his thoughts, wild and awful and muddled. He could barely focus on the present.
Something sharp bounced off his cheek. He clapped one burned hand to it, uncomprehending, and then a jolt of pain rushed through him. Everything refocused at once, and Arthur grabbed at Alfred’s arm and pulled just as another, heavier rock glanced off his shoulder. He still had almost no knowledge of Almsloch, but he rushed towards the nearest street, dragging Alfred along behind him as quickly as he could. Even as he ran, breath puffing out in gasps, he could hear the clatter of the crowd’s feet as they started to chase. His satchel thudded against his hip with each motion, singed by the flames but not burnt, and nearly caused him to trip several times. Alfred’s staggering pace was not helping. More rocks clattered around them, bouncing off their legs and backs and heads.
“Arsonists!”
“Heathens!”
“Monsters!”
“Demons!”
The shouts rang out through the streets, reverbrating off of the carefully smoothed white walls of the buildings. Those who were not chasing them stared in shock and fear as Arthur and Alfred ran past. Arthur’s eyes darted wildly back and forth, searching for an exit- there had to be an exit. But every road looked the same, pristine and perfect and trapping them in an inescapable labyrinth. The alarm bells were still sounding in the distance, a booming toll that seemed to only grow louder and louder, threatening, accusing.
Alfred finally stumbled, tripping forward and colliding with Arthur’s back. Arthur just managed to hold him upright, but his own legs were threatening to give out as well. They couldn’t rest. Their pursuers were not going to give up that easily. “Come on, Alfred,” he gasped out. “We need to find some way out of here.” When he glanced back to meet those inhuman eyes, though, he felt his own faint hope flicker. Alfred was far too pale, his eyes milky white instead of their usual blue, and his clothes were soaked through with blood. A brief thought fluttered through Arthur’s mind. What if he were to leave Alfred behind? He could escape then, possibly find some way to survive… But he immediately cast it aside. Alfred had come to save him. There was no way Arthur could just leave him to the mercy of the people of Almsloch.
Yet, what then? Arthur kept moving forward, his legs aching with every step, pulling Alfred along and trying to keep that flutter of hope alive. White walls were everywhere. He didn’t know where to go. There was nowhere to go.
And then his gaze caught on something up ahead. No, not something- someone, a man who he suddenly realized that he recognized. The thick beard and clean apron were unmistakable, and what little hope Arthur was still holding on to flared up. He did not know why, since he had never even learned the smith’s name, and had not discovered whether or not he could be trusted, but at that moment, the man was their only chance. “Please,” Arthur called out, his breath catching and panting as he ran towards the smith, “please, you must know how to get out of here!”
The smith only stared at him, his eyes glancing back and forth between Arthur’s desperate face and Alfred’s tall, lumbering body. Though his face was ashen white, he looked only confused, not shivering in horror at what he saw. “What?” he asked slowly.
Arthur stumbled over himself as he struggled to keep Alfred upright, coming to an unsteady halt before the smith. “Please,” he said again. It was not a word he was used to using, but there was no other choice. The voices of their pursuers were echoing off of the walls. “Please, you have to help us.”
“I…” The smith looked between them again. For several long seconds, he said nothing, and Arthur felt terror settling hard and cold in his stomach. They had no time to wait. He should have kept running, not stopped to ask for help from some stranger, not when he had Alfred, inhuman Alfred, leaning and dying against him-
“There’s an entryway in the back of the city.” The smith’s voice was quiet, harsh, and it was obvious in his expression that he was not sure of what he was doing, yet his words did not waver. “Not even an entryway, really. It’s a hole, small, hidden, but it is there. Follow this road, and when you come to the wall turn left. The gap is still a ways away.” His eyes flicked up towards Alfred again, focused on white eyes and slightly visible teeth, and then down to the wounds littering his chest and stomach. Turning back towards Arthur, the smith shook his head. “I don’t think you will be able to make it.”
Arthur smiled. It hurt his cheeks. “We have to try.” The cries of the townspeople behind them were getting louder, and Arthur knew that soon enough they would be in sight. Still, he hesitated for a moment. “Thank you,” he said, meeting the smith’s gaze.
But the smith stepped away, shaking his head again. “Don’t thank me.” His mouth twisted, pressed into a conflicted line. “Just go.” When Arthur did not immediately move, those tight lips turned down into a scowl. “I said go!”
There was nothing else to do but obey. Arthur did his best to hold Alfred up in a steady position and began to stagger forward, quickly breaking into a stumbling, awkward run. Alfred’s legs threatened to buckle with every step they took, but Arthur didn’t waver. The roar of the crowd behind them was drowned out by the sound of their harsh breathing. The stones lining the roadways caught at their toes. They staggered and tripped and stumbled and yet did not fall. Arthur’s eyes were beginning to blur with exhaustion, barely able to see anything but the continuous patterns of stone beneath their feet. Alfred was growing heavier with every step he took.
Almost suddenly, the rows of perfect buildings parted, and Arthur’s knees nearly gave out as he came to a halt and stared up at the towering wall of Almsloch. It loomed high overhead, casting its long, dark shadow down over the street where Arthur and Alfred stood. The alarm bells still tolled in the distance, and even as Arthur forced himself to remain upright, he felt as though he should have been cowing down in front of the might of the wall. It seemed almost to stretch higher and higher as he stared, threatening to block out the sky itself. Arthur’s heart stuttered in his chest. The burns on his hands and arms throbbed in time. His body trembled. The wall was watching him, trapping him, encasing him in its thick, unyielding stone. He could feel it.
“Arthur…?”
The quiet whisper broke through his panicked mind, and with that word alone, the wall was once again just a wall, tall and strong but not staring back. Arthur turned his head to the side, meeting Alfred’s milky white eyes. He swallowed heavily. “Yes,” he replied softly. He had no idea what he was answering, but it seemed like the right word to say. Alfred’s gaze slipped out of focus once more and Arthur readjusted his hold.
And they turned to the left and ran again. Arthur’s legs cried out with every step. He had never run so far and so fast in all his life. His eyes searched across every inch of wall that they passed alongside, desperate to find that small opening the smith had mentioned. If they somehow managed to run right past it, they would have no chance of escape. The words of a prayer rose to the surface of Arthur’s mind as he almost collapsed beneath Alfred’s weight. They nearly slipped out of his mouth before he sealed his lips shut. There was no one to turn to but himself, not right then, not within those white walls. He straightened his back and kept moving forward. If he were to give up, he would die. Alfred would die. Neither of those choices was acceptable. The stone rushed past them as they ran.
There- in the wall up ahead. For a moment, Arthur thought his weary eyes were tricking him, but when he focused them as well as he could, he found himself staring at something that was not merely the outline of stones. No, there was something there… Or rather, there was something missing. His heart leaped against his ribs, and a new burst of energy shot through his tired legs. That was it. That was their way out. “Come on, Alfred,” he cried out, voice hoarse but unbroken. “We’re almost there.”
Time seemed to slow as they made those last few steps. The screams of their pursuers, the thunder of hundreds of feet racing across stone, filled the air with one long storm of a note. Arthur could feel every muscle in his body moving as he came to a stop, as he shifted Alfred off his shoulder and pressed him through the hole that was barely wide enough to manage his size, as he turned to look back over his shoulder at the crowd behind him. He could see the strands of his hair as they whipped around with the motion of his neck. Every heartbeat, every breath, was an eternity as he took in the sight of the city folk and the guards that moved towards him. He blinked once, twice. He exhaled.
And everything was back to normal, and Arthur lunged through the hole in the wall just as the leader of the crowd, a guard dressed in thin white armor, reached out to grasp at him. He did not waste a second once he was past the border of Almsloch. Reaching out to where Alfred was half-kneeling, half-crouched on the ground, Arthur began to pull him along again. “We can’t stay here.” Sure enough, there were guardsmen pouring one by one through the opening in the wall behind them.
Now, though, they were not trapped in the pure white streets of Almsloch, but rather at the border of the thick forest that grew all around the northern parts of the kingdom. The trees did not follow any of the kind of order that roads did, and Arthur felt a thrill of hope in his aching chest that the undergrowth and tangled roots and branches of the woods might help them lose their pursuers. It was only a faint hope, but a hope that he needed, that his feet relied on to keep pressing forward even as Alfred slumped against him once more. He could hear the clink of the guards’ chainmail as he led them hastily through the forest. Leaves and branches scraped at his arms and hands. He ignored the sharp bursts of pain. There was no time for them.
It was as he was hurriedly helping Alfred over a fallen log that Arthur first smelled it. The scent was unlike anything he’d ever smelled before. Salty was the word that came to his mind, but he pushed the thoughts aside as one of the guards came into his line of sight. He pulled Alfred further along into the woods, not thinking of where he was going or what could be waiting for them, simply that they needed to escape. The salty smell caught his nose again as he stumbled around a particularly large tree trunk, dragging Alfred behind him, and for one brief second he was distracted.
That moment was all it took. Arthur’s next step did not connect with ground, and he had barely enough time to glance downwards before he found himself falling, rolling and tumbling down a steep bank of dirt and mud and grass. His burns stung as the muck touched them, severe enough to bring tears to his eyes, but he couldn’t stop his own body’s momentum. The pain dragged on and on, far longer than the hill should have been, yet finally he landed in a heap at the bottom, the back of his skull slamming down into something hard. He clenched his eyes shut, pressing his hands to his forehead, trying to block out the powerful ache in his head and the needles of pain in his limbs. Everything hurt. His ears were ringing, and he could not seem to focus on his own thoughts. But-
Alfred. Panic shot through him, and he struggled to sit up, his arms giving away beneath him. Where was Alfred? His gaze was blurry no matter how much he tried to clear it. He could barely see. His dirty, burned, bleeding hands searched out blindly across the ground around him. The dirt beneath them felt strange, too thin and granular, but he didn’t linger on it. “Alfred?” he whispered, as loud as his voice could manage. “Alfred?” His fingers touched something that might have been cloth. “Alfred?”
The cloth-like material stirred, and something almost human groaned out in pain. “Arthur…?” A warm, solid, but weak hand felt its way over Arthur’s fingers and settled upon them. Arthur choked out a relieved sigh. Faintly, he could hear scuffling and voices overhead, and he knew that the guards were still there, that they could still easily be found, and that there was no way he could lift himself up to flee again. There was no fear this time. He was too weary, drowning in too much pain to feel that fear. He allowed his eyes to slip shut.
The sounds from above softened, faded away, and he felt his body relax into the strange dirt beneath him. Not even his fingers would twitch at his command. All he wanted to do was sleep.
Just before his mind could slide away into that restful darkness, though, Arthur heard the quiet sound of boots crunching into the ground beside him. Well, well,” said an amused, heavily accented voice, “what do we have here?”
Arthur cracked one bleary eye open and found himself staring at a pair of leather and fur-covered feet. Unable to move his head or neck, he slid his gaze as high as he could, and for one last moment before everything went dark, he thought he saw skin covered in deep green scales.