The carriage rattled over uneven cobbles, wheels grinding against the stone. Inside, the three figures sat in tense silence: the hulk staring straight ahead, knuckles creaking as he flexed them; the boy clutching his lantern so tightly the glass threatened to crack; the sniper leaning against the wall, rifle cradled across her knees.
Vincard occupied the opposite bench, coat draped open, one gloved hand resting lightly on Aetheris. No one spoke. The only conversation was the creak of leather, the clink of vials against each other, and the low, constant growl of the city beyond the walls.
It didn't take long.
The eastern gate appeared sooner than expected, a smaller, meaner sibling of the main quarantine entrance. No towering iron monstrosity here, no parade of watchtowers. Just a thick slab of riveted steel set into the wall, flanked by two squat turrets and a narrow catwalk running along the top. The masonry was scarred, blackened in places as though something had tried to burn its way through from the other side. Yet the gate itself looked solid enough. Chains thicker than a man's arm hung from winches above, and heavy counterweights waited in iron cages to either side. A handful of guards patrolled the platform, five, maybe six faces hidden behind gas masks, their weapons slung low but ready.
The carriage halted with a lurch. The hulk kicked the door open before it fully stopped. "Out," he grunted. Vincard stepped down into cold, wet air that smelled of rust and coal dust.
They climbed the iron staircase to the catwalk without a word. Boots rang on metal rungs. At the top, the view opened like a wound.
Below them stretched the eastern edge of the Industrial District: a graveyard of smokestacks and broken machinery, roofs caved in or sagging under their own weight. Moonlight, thin, sickly, filtered through perpetual fog, caught on shattered windows and twisted girders. Farther in, shapes moved. Not clearly. Just flickers at the corners of vision, the way shadows move when you stare too long.
The sniper, her name was still unknown to Vincard, leaned against the railing, rifle already shouldered, scope trained into the murk. The boy set his lantern down with trembling hands. The hulk cracked his neck once, loudly.
"Listen close," she said, her voice low. "We open the gate for exactly twenty seconds. No more. Anything tries to come through in that window gets put down. Anything that gets past... well, that's on the other side of the wall now, and it's your problem."
She did not look at Vincard when she spoke. Her eye stayed glued to the scope.
"Twenty seconds," the hulk repeated, as though tasting the number.
The boy swallowed audibly.
Vincard gazed out over the district. Somewhere in that tangle of rust and darkness waited Bartho, or what used to be Bartho. The scar on his palm gave a single, sharp throb, almost amused.
"Understood," he said quietly.
The sniper nodded once. "Down you go," she told the others. "Cover the breach from street level. I'll keep the high ground."
The hulk and the boy descended without protest, boots clanging on the stairs. Vincard remained a moment longer, watching the woman settle into her firing stance, legs braced, breath slow and even, finger resting outside the trigger guard like a promise.
After a few seconds, he also descended.
At street level the two men waited beside the gate mechanism. The hulk gripped one of the massive chain wheels; the boy stood ready at the secondary lever, face pale under the lantern light.
"Ready?" the hulk rumbled.
Vincard drew Aetheris, thumbed back the hammer. The click was very loud in the sudden hush. "Open it."
The hulk threw his weight against the wheel. Chains rattled, gears groaned. Slowly, agonizingly, the gate began to rise. Inch by inch. Metal scraped on metal. A thin line of fog and darkness appeared at the bottom, then widened.
The gap reached knee height.
Then shoulder.
Then chest.
And the things on the other side noticed.
A low, wet moan rolled out of the gloom, first one voice, then a dozen, then a chorus. Shapes lurched forward: more than twenty, perhaps thirty. Zombie-like, but not the shambling dead of cheap tales. These moved with terrible, hungry purpose. Clothing hung in rags; skin split along unnatural seams; eyes glinted dull red in the lantern light, like embers in wet ash. Some still wore remnants of factory overalls, others tatters of once-fine coats. All of them reached.
The gate clanged at half-height.
"Now!" the hulk bellowed.
Vincard broke first, his coat flapping behind him like black wings. The hulk and the boy followed a heartbeat later, weapons raised.
*Bang* *Bang*
Above, the sniper's rifle cracked, once, twice, sharp, flat reports that echoed off iron walls. Two of the nearest creatures dropped, skulls blooming dark.
Vincard skidded to a halt just beyond the threshold, Aetheris barking in his hand.
*Bang*
The first shot cracked through the fog, silver-laced bullet punching through a creature's chest, exploding in a spray of blackened ichor that smoked on the ground like spilled acid. The thing, a former worker, judging by the tattered overalls, crumpled, but its fall only cleared the path for the next.
The hulk barreled past Vincard like a runaway engine, his massive fists swinging in wide arcs. He caught one of the red-eyed horrors mid-lunge, knuckles wrapped in bandages that were already fraying under the strain. The impact was a wet crunch, the creature's jaw shattering as it flew back into two others, limbs tangling in a grotesque heap. "Stay down!" the hulk roared, voice a gravelly thunder that echoed off the walls. But they didn't. They rose, ragged and relentless, their split skin knitting with unnatural speed, threads of pale blood weaving like spider silk.
The boy, too young for this, his face a mask of terror, fumbled with a short-barreled shotgun slung under his coat.
*Bang*
He fired blindly into the mass, the blast scattering limbs and rags in a cone of silver pellets. One creature staggered, half its torso gone, but kept crawling, fingers gouging furrows in the mud. "They're coming!" the boy yelped, voice cracking like thin ice. Vincard spared him a glance, saw the lantern swinging wildly in his other hand, casting erratic shadows that made the horde seem twice as large.
Above, the sniper's rifle spoke again:
*Bang* *Bang* *Bang*
Each shot a precise punctuation. One beast's head vanished in a dark bloom; another's knee exploded, dropping it to writhe in the muck. "Flank left!" she shouted down, her rusty-wire voice cutting through the moans. Vincard pivoted without thinking, trusting the call.
*Bang* *Bang*
Aetheris bucking twice more, felling two that had circled around the hulk's blind side.
The air reeked of gunpowder, mercury vapor, and the coppery tang of corrupted blood. „They're not people anymore," he thought grimly, dodging a claw that raked the air where his throat had been.
The hulk took a hit, a glancing slash across his arm that tore bandage and flesh. He bellowed, swinging back with a haymaker that caved in the attacker's ribcage, sending it crumpling like a broken marionette. "Keep moving!" He growled at the boy, who was reloading with shaking hands. The boy nodded frantically, blasting another point-blank.
*Bang*
Its red eyes extinguishing in a spray of gore.
„Ten seconds..." Vincard thought to himself, counting silently.
Vincard holstered Aetheris mid-stride, drawing Mater Doloros in a silver flash. He closed on a cluster of three, blade weaving like a conductor's baton. The first lost its arm at the elbow; the second its throat, black blood fountaining in an arc that steamed on contact with the fog. The third lunged, and he met it with an upward thrust, the consecrated silver piercing its chest. It shuddered, eyes dimming from red to muddy black, before slumping like a discarded puppet.
*Bang* *Bang* *Bang*
The sniper's final shots picked off straggler, three more down, bodies twitching in the mud.
„Five seconds."
The horde thinned, the survivors, perhaps a dozen, faltering under the barrage. But distant moans echoed from deeper in the district, a rising tide that promised reinforcements.
"Now, back!" the sniper yelled from above.
The gate was already descending, chains rattling in reverse. The hulk grabbed the boy's collar, hauling him toward the closing gap. "Move, kid!" They dove through, rolling under the descending slab as it ground downward.
Vincard lingered a heartbeat longer, blade dripping, breath steady despite the burn in his lungs. He glanced back at the writhing shadows, more shapes emerging from the fog, eyes like distant lanterns in the night. „Enough playtime," he thought, sheathing the dagger. „Bartho first, then the real hunt."
The hulk and boy were already on their feet, panting, weapons trained on the sealed barrier. From above, the sniper's voice drifted down: "You're on your own now, outsider."
Vincard straightened his coat, vials clinking softly. He met the hulk's gaze, nodded once, a silent acknowledgment of the fray. The big man grunted in return, a flicker of respect in his eyes, before turning away with the boy.