Morituri Te Salutant

He ran.

His legs had started to burn a long time ago. Now there was only a dull, numb ache through his muscles, occasionally broken by the sting of grass lashing his bare ankles. At one stage, he turned to measure the distance he had covered between himself and his pursuers, but he only tripped and fell.

He ran.

Every time he landed he left a splash of blood, marking his trail as clear as fire. Sure enough, he could hear the howls not far behind. He couldn’t afford to fall again.

He ran.

He ran out of desperation and fear, and a stubborn hint of because he could. The Institute forbade running. Running was undisciplined. Unruly. Impatient.

To hell with patience and discipline and rules. Discipline wasn’t meant to be a beating that left scars the length of his arm.

The next step nearly sent him lurching into a rock, and he barely caught himself against it. His breath rattled in and out of him like the sound of a broken Helly. Keep moving. It sent stabs of pain through his back and arms and legs when he shoved himself back upright, but he forced himself to run. Being sent back to the Institute was not an option.

Somewhere close by, there was a familiar mocking giggle. His stomach lurched. The hounds were coming. It was all he could do not to scream as he increased the pace.

The cover of the forest was just in sight when a dark, large shape dropped in front of him, and he skidded to a halt, his eyes fixed on the glint of Steely in its hand.
“Bad child,” it rasped.
“Bad,” hissed another voice from behind him, and he spun to keep an eye on both.
“Naughty, bad child,” cooed a third from right beside his ear, and he leapt forward, barely choking back a yell.
“Come home, bad child.” There were too many of them. It was all he could do to keep away from the ones he could see.
“Home,” said a voice behind him, and something connected with the backs of his knees with a loud thud. They buckled. The pain barely registered. The circle of faceless shapes was closing in on him, and he scrambled to get back to his feet.

Frantically, he racked his brain to try and remember how it had happened last time.
“Protect. Circle. Stop. Freeze. Paralyse. Close. Defend.” They were so close he could see the Red Whip the one in front of him was carrying. He swallowed. “Attack. End. Kill.”
“It’s trying to protect itself,” said a familiar, hated voice. “Cute.”
“Cute,” echoed another, and a third said, “Weak. Looks weak.”

Sharp pain lanced through his shoulder as something connected with a sick crunch, and he cried out. Another blow came from the side, catching him in the ribs, and he slammed to the ground and a boot ground into his back.
“Must be tired,” cooed the familiar voice. “Are you tired? It must be bedtime. Early bedtime for a bad boy.”
“Devil,” he croaked with a white-hot surge of anger, struggling beneath the boot. There was a sudden moment where his vision went spotty as the boot ground into his back, and then he slumped forward, abruptly exhausted. It felt like the adrenaline had just abruptly run out; like he’d been hit by an airship.

There was a brief collective giggle. Seconds later, it became screaming.

He had a glimpse of a long, leathery wing unfurling before a large claw tore apart the dirt a in front of his head. There was no time to scream. He rolled to his feet, and ducked behind the Steely-wielding figure. As he did he caught a glimpse of burning eyes, a nightmarish silhouette straight out from one of the old stories, and the sick smell of dead meat and musty unexplored caves nearly knocked him over.

A paw the size of his head shot through the chest of the figure in front of him. Warm blood spattered his face and he barely staggered out of the way of the grasping claws; they shot back out the way they came in, with a sickening crunch of bone. The body landed at his feet with a wet thump. His eyes flicked from it to the Hill, and back, and he struggled to swallow the building scream. Should he run? Was there a point? If he could get to the cover of the forest, maybe he could make it to Henesys.

One of the other shadowy shapes abruptly launched itself at the nightmare, axe flashing, and the rest followed suit. He could make out four – maybe five – dogging and hounding the demon. Distracting it from him, just like it was distracting them. No more time for thinking. He spun and started running; for the forest, for Ellinia, for wherever he could get to.

He ran.

He ran and ran until he could taste his own blood at the back of his throat; he ran until he could no longer hear the swishing, lurching gait of the thing behind him; he ran until his legs gave out under him and he collapsed, half-sobbing, in the middle of an empty field. No, he had to get to cover; if he stayed out here he was exposed, dead bait. He tried to roll over: pain shot all the way up through his side, and he barely stopped himself from howling.

It was over. He rolled over in exhaustion and tried to curl up as small as possible, muffling his loud gaspy breaths against his bloody forearm. The Institute would get him back. Or he’d be eaten alive by that thing he’d summoned. Even then it was a bit hard to feel despair, or anger, or anything really when his eyelids felt heavier than bricks.

Something blocked out the moon, and the sickening smell of frequently-used dungeons hit him hard. With effort, he rolled his head to the side to face it: if he was going to die, he might as well look it in the eye.

It crouched over him, its head on a slight, almost curious tilt, and then it bent closer. Its nostrils flared. He shivered at the thick smell of carrion when it opened its mouth.

When it straightened back up, he would have sat up if he could to see what it was doing. As it was he could barely follow it with his eyes. Beneath his heavy eyelids he saw the moon fo black as it spread its wings. He cringed. He was going to be dragged off somewhere else like so much emergency food storage.

And then it took off, leaving him huddled there.

That was it? He wasn’t dead, or horribly mauled, or even scraped. He was alive. Alive, and alone, and free of the Institute – he hoped so, anyway. Hoped that all the hounds were dead, the bastards. If he’d had the energy he would have laughed.

As it was, he curled up more tightly, and drew a long shuddering breath.

- - - - -

“It used to be that you could travel between the islands freely. It used to be a constant flow of people and knowledge; Lith and Southperry were two of the richest cities in the whole of the land, and Maple Island wasn’t just the place where everyone was born and moved out. Now, Maple Island – it’s a synonym for a bunch of stumbling babies. It wasn’t always like that. There were the colleges and the markets and the theaters.

Do you know what Maple Island used to mean? It used to mean Haven. It’s where people lived, and brought up their children, and grew old when they were done with adventure. That’s what it used to be.

And there were the people in charge of the whole business, the two great houses. Do you remember them?

-of course you don’t. You wouldn’t. They really deserved to be called great houses. Solaris and Lunaros; Solaris, who ruled Southperry, and Lunaros over Amherst. They ran the island and when they said jump, everyone damn well jumped. They managed the money, they were the law, they were the force who made Maple Island great.

What happened to them?

What didn’t happen to them?”

- - - - -

“Need light.” There was the sound of a match being struck, and the area around was flooded with the warm yellow light of the torch. Two people were standing at the entrance to the dark wood, dressed identically but for the colour. The one in red held up a torch.
“Hate Sleepywood,” said the one who had spoken, taking the torch. “Gloomy, damp and rotting. Can smell the dead.” There was a flash of a grin from the other, and his hands moved quickly, slipping over one another in seemingly meaningless movements. The torch-bearer snorted. “Took one just then, thank you. Spent more time in hot baths than you.” The hand movements again. This drew a stare from the torch-bearer, who shrugged eventually and continued walking.

Leaping across to a hovering platform in midair, he continued, “Dominica might not be there. Break down the door if she hasn’t left key.” No comment from his partner. The speaker seemed used to this, for, as he made his way over to another series of platforms, he added, “Could pick the lock.” He turned to face his companion, and was greeted by a flurry of hand motions. As the motions continued, the torch-bearer’s expression seemed to grow even stonier. By the time they were finished, his face could have been mistaken for the Wisdom Stone in mourning.

The expression suddenly cracked, changing to a hesitant smile. His partner smiled back and extended one hand for the torch. There was a moment of confusion where neither of them was holding the torch and it nearly suffered the unfortunate fate of being extinguished.

The remainder of the journey out of the Dungeon was uneventful, apart from a few stops to shoot overly aggressive Stumps with flaming arrows. One slime was nearly boiled alive from inside out when one of the flaming arrows just missed it and went out on the soggy turf. As they both emerged into the fresh air, the one in blue yawned and took a breath, looking around.
“Luke vanished as usual,” he said, stretching. He stopped mid-stretch to stare into the distance; so did his partner. Abruptly, the current carrier of the torch shoved it into a torch-holder around the entrance to the dungeon, and both of them set off at a run westwards.

Against a horizon which the sun was creeping up, Henesys was in flames.

- - - - -


I was going to write a very long rant on how disturbingly attractive I find Lady GaGa, but instead I wrote this.