Patricia POV
An agonizing, suffocating hour stretched on inside Room 104. Outside, the distantly muffled, sickening sounds of snapping bones, guttural roars, and agonizing human shrieks echoed through the thin glass windows, painting a vivid picture of Lulu City descending into complete ruin.
The two knife-wielding drunkards were practically melting from pure panic. They dragged a heavy mahogany wardrobe and two nightstands across the floorboard, wedge-stacking them behind the iron deadbolt as if their very souls depended on every inch of timber.
On the opposite side of the room, Keith sat hunched on the floor, clutching a small, glowing communication mana stone in his trembling, sweat-slicked hands. He repeatedly tapped the rune on its face, his voice cracking with desperate hysteria.
"This is Gatekeeper Keith! Pier district! Merchant district! Anyone copy?! Requesting immediate armed reinforcement at the Golden Shrimp Inn! The commercial district is completely overrun! Respond, damn you!"
Only a hollow, static hiss answered his pleas.
Keane leaned his head back against the wall, a bitter, hollow sneer twisting his thin lips.
"Save your breath, old man. They're dead. Every guard who was at the gate arch got torn apart in the first five minutes. All we can do is sit here, keep our mouths shut, and wait until a royal rescue army arrives from the capital."
I shook my head, keeping my right hand resting flat against the leather grip of my rapier.
"Rescue is impossible in these early hours, Keane. Lulu City is over three days' march from Caria City. Even if the High Command received an emergency messenger owl right this second, mobilizing a holy crusade of Paladins takes time. Besides... look at Keith's stone. That frequency is locked directly to his local squad's private network, not the official Luminous Knight Bureau Association hub. No high-ranking knight even knows we're trapped here."
Keane's eyes widened in realization, his face draining of what little color it had left.
"So... we're just stuck here? Trapped in a ten-foot bedroom for a week or more? What the hell are we supposed to eat?!"
"Rainwater, you clueless idiot, You pop the window open an inch during a storm and catch it in a basin." the greasiest drunkard snapped, glaring over from his makeshift furniture barricade.
"Are you completely brain-dead?! Water only keeps your heart pumping for a few days! You need real protein, real calories, if you don't want your muscles to wither into dust!" his partner barked back, sloshing his kitchen knife through the air.
The greasiest one narrowed his bloodshot eyes, his gaze slowly drifting away from his companion and sliding across the room. It lingered first on Keith, then on Keane, and finally landed directly on the bed where Catherine lay pale, motionlessly clutching her drained mana core. A dark, vile grin spread across his filthy face.
"Well... suppose we run out of bread and cured meat, In a siege, you gotta make sacrifices to keep the strong alive. Seems to me like the weakest link in this room becomes the pantry for the rest of us." the man purred, stepping away from the wardrobe.
He raised a filthy, calloused finger and pointed it directly at Catherine's face.
"She's just dead weight anyway. Can't even sit up without panting. She'll be our food for the week."
My blood ran instantly cold, converting into a roaring inferno of pure, holy rage.
"Hey! Hey, wait a damn minute!" I snarled, stepping forward as my rapier cleared its scabbard with a sharp, lethal SHING.
"Relax, lass, it's just natural selection, that's what humans do when the world goes to hell. The weak feed the strong. It's simple survival of the fittest." the greasy one chuckled, taking an arrogant step toward the bed.
"Indeed, and as for you..." Other one said.
I advanced on them, the tip of my blade hovering an inch from the greasy bastard's throat.
"Touch her, and I will carve your tongue out through your neck before you can even take another breath, you sickening degenerate!"
"Patricia... stop..."
A soft, weak voice filtered from the pillows. Catherine raised a trembling, pale hand, her unfocused eyes pleading with me. She was so thoroughly drained of mana that even speaking took immense effort, but she tried to calm my fury.
"Don't... waste your strength on them... it's not worth..."
Before the tension in the room could boil over into a bloody duel, a deep, rhythmic rumble shook the floorboards beneath our boots.
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
It wasn't the sound of the infected. It was the heavy, frantic thunder of iron-shod hooves and wooden wheels slamming against the cobblestones of the main avenue outside.
I broke eye contact with the drunkards and rushed to the window, pulling my heavy brass spyglass from my belt. Parting the heavy curtains by a fraction of an inch, I pressed the lens against the glass and focused on the street below.
Streaking through the commercial district toward the Town Hall was a horse-drawn delivery carriage completely engulfed in roaring, bright orange flames. The two horses pulling it were horrific, mutated nightmares… their ribs protruding outward into skeletal armor, driven into an uncontrollable, suicidal frenzy by the virus.
Through the clear glass of my spyglass, I caught a glimpse of the open carriage bed. Stacked high beneath the burning canvas were dozens of wooden crates stamped with a stark red hazard symbol:
HIGH EXPLOSIVE DYNAMITE.
"Is that driver insane...?" I breathed.
The runaway carriage sped down the avenue without slowing down, driving straight toward the massive administrative hub of the district.
CRASH-BOOM!
The flaming cart smashed violently through the front double doors of the Town Hall, plowing deep into the main lobby before coming to a violent stop. A second later, the fire hit the blasting caps.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A blinding, terrifying flash of light illuminated the entire horizon, followed by a kinetic shockwave so immense it rattled the glass panes of Room 104 and sent dust raining down from the ceiling. The heavy stone arches, grand pillars, and entire upper floors of the three-story Town Hall caved inward with a catastrophic roar, collapsing into a colossal, smoking mountain of pulverized masonry, dust, and fire.
The entire administrative building had been completely demolished.
I dropped the spyglass, my hand trembling violently as my breath caught in my throat.
"Eirene..." I muttered, my heart sinking into a cold abyss. She had gone to the Town Hall to trigger the quarantine. She was right inside that building.
Down in the streets below, the sheer, deafening acoustic magnitude of the explosion acted like a siren for every infected creature in the district. The shrieking swarms of winged horrors perching on the inn's roof launched into the air at once, joining hundreds of calcified ground-thralls in a massive, chaotic migration toward the smoking ruins of the Town Hall.
Within less than two minutes, the streets surrounding the Golden Shrimp Inn were completely emptied.
Keith rushed to the window, peering out at the deserted, blood-soaked avenue.
"The monsters... they left the inn! The noise drew every damn one of them to the town square! This is our only chance! Quick, we need to leave this city NOW!" Keith gasped, turning back to us with wide, bloodshot eyes.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing my paladin focus back to the present, leaning down to carefully sling the weakened Catherine over my shoulder.
"Good idea, move the barricade. We run now, or we die here." I said, my voice hardening like tempered steel as I glared at the two cowed drunkards and Keane.
"Wait! Where the hell do you think you're going, you bastards?! And where are you going with that sacrifice of ours? She stays right here on that bed! She's our fucking rations!" the greasy drunkard barked, stepping forward with his blood-slicked kitchen knife raised.
I paused, my hand tightening on the hilt of my rapier until my knuckles turned stark white.
"We are leaving this hellish city, snd more importantly, we are leaving you." I said, my voice dropping an octave into a cold, lethal register.
The second drunkard let out a harsh, rasping laugh, spitting onto the wooden floorboards.
"Leave the city? Ha! Are you out of your damn mind, lass? You won't even make it past the front lobby of this inn! The second you step out that door, those winged demons will tear you limb from limb! The only thing that sick bitch on the bed is good for is bait to throw at the horde so the real men can make a run for it!"
My breath hitched as pure, unadulterated rage flared through my chest. My blade twitched, every paladin instinct screaming at me to run the bastard through right here and now.
"Patricia, don't, leave them be! Let these worthless pig-headed idiots rot in this room! They aren't worth wasting your energy or your steel!" Keane interjected sharply, stepping between me and the drunkards while keeping his broken ceramic shard raised.
Keith rushed over to the door, frantically sliding the heavy mahogany wardrobe away from the iron deadbolt.
"The boy is right! Listen to him! That explosion at the Town Hall was a complete miracle! The horde is completely distracted by the noise and the fire, but that opening won't last forever! We still have time to get out of this damn city if we move RIGHT NOW!"
I turned away from the mocking sneers of the two men, turning my attention fully to Catherine. Instead of slinging her awkwardly over my shoulder, I carefully slid my arms beneath her knees and back, cradling her close against my chest in a secure, bridal carry. Despite her tall frame, she felt terrifyingly light, her mana core so thoroughly drained by Edrie's curse that her body felt ice-cold against my armor.
Catherine stirred faintly, opening her heavy, unfocused eyes to look up at me.
"Patricia... I'm sorry... I'm holding you back..." she whispered, her breath barely a feather-soft murmur against my collarbone.
"Don't you dare apologize, Catherine, you saved my life back at the border. I am getting you out of Lulu City alive, even if I have to cut down every monster and degenerate in this continent to do it." I replied softly, adjusting my grip to keep her steady while keeping my right arm free enough to draw steel if needed.
I turned toward the open doorway where Keith and Keane were waiting. Reaching into my leather belt pouch, I pulled out the iron ring of tavern keys we had taken from the helpless innkeeper down in the lobby. I tossed the heavy iron ring straight at the feet of the two frozen drunkards.
"Here, lock yourselves in. Barricade the door. Eat each other for all I care. But if I ever see either of your disgusting faces again, I won't hesitate to take your heads." I sneered, casting a final, pitch-black glare over my shoulder at the two cowards.
Without waiting for their reply, I turned on my heel and stepped straight out of Room 104.
Keith, Keane, and I squeezed into the dimly lit, blood-spattered second-floor hallway of the Golden Shrimp Inn. The air out here was thick with the suffocating tang of copper, smoke, and ozone. The wooden floorboards groaned beneath our boots, stained with dark, viscous smears where calcified bone blades had dragged across the corridor just minutes prior. Below us, through the gaping gap of the ruined staircase, the absolute silence of the empty, slaughtered lobby hung like a waiting grave.
"Keep your eyes open and stay quiet," I whispered to the group, pulling my rapier free with my thumb as we began our descent into the quiet abyss below.
We sprinted down the narrow, dimly lit hallway of the inn and scrambled down the creaking wooden stairs. Downstairs, the lobby had been transformed into an absolute bloodbath.
The floorboards were soaked in a thick layer of crimson, strewn with mutilated corpses and severed limbs. Near the counter, the burly old innkeeper who had been beaten for his keys earlier lay brutally minced to pieces… his torso shredded by razor-sharp calcified bone blades.
Keane gagged violently, slapping a hand over his mouth as the iron stench hit us like a physical wall.
"Don't look," Catherine murmured weakly from my arms, her head resting against my shoulder.
"Hold on tight, Catherine. We're almost out," I replied, stepping around a pool of blood and pushing through the shattered remains of the tavern's front door.
Stepping out into the blinding sunlight, the full scale of the destruction was laid bare. Down the main avenue, the collapsed ruins of the Town Hall were completely overrun. A massive, undulating sea of mutated monsters choked the streets… some hovering above the rubble on jagged, calcified wings, others brandishing elongated humerus bone blades.
"We go the opposite way! Now!" I commanded.
We turned on our heels and sprinted down the deserted commercial avenue, keeping under the shade of the shop awnings. But we didn't make it two blocks before heavy, frantic footsteps echoed from the cross-street ahead.
"Shit! Someone's coming!" Keane panicked, his eyes bugging out as he clutched his broken ceramic shard.
"Stay behind me!" I barked, shifting Catherine securely against my chest and raising my rapier with my right hand.
From around the corner, a massive horde of ground-thralls rounded the street. While they lacked wings, nearly every single one of them sported mutated, razor-sharp bone blades protruding from their arms and shoulders. Normally, the deafening explosion at the Town Hall would have drawn every infected in the district toward the ruins, but this migrating wave caught sight of our moving figures in the open air.
They froze for a fraction of a second, their milky, hollow eyes locking straight onto us… and then they charged, letting out a collective, blood-curdling screech.
"RUN!" I screamed.
Trapped between the catastrophic swarm at the Town Hall behind us and the fresh horde charging ahead, we threw ourselves into the only escape route left: a narrow, shadowed side alleyway running between two stone warehouses.
A deep, murky drainage canal ran down the center of the alley, flanked by narrow, slippery stone walkways on either side. We sprinted along the edge, the terrifying sounds of scraping bone blades and splashing water echoing right behind us as the horde squeezed into the narrow passage.
CREAK-SNAP!
Without warning, a shadow dropped from the tiled roof directly above us. A mutated thrall… lacking bone blades but driven by pure, ravenous hunger… lunged through the air, tackling Keane hard around the waist.
"AAAAHHH!" Keane shrieked as the kinetic impact threw both of them off the narrow walkway.
They crashed violently into the foul canal water below with a massive splash, struggling in the deep, murky current as the monster snapped its jaws inches from Keane's face.
I skidded to a halt on the slick stone, instinctively yanking my rapier to a high guard to plunge into the canal and drive the steel through the creature's skull.
"Don't, Patricia! Leave him! If you stop to fight, the horde behind us will trap us in this alley! We'll all die!" Keith yelled frantically, grabbing my shoulder and tugging me forward.
My blade trembled in the air. I looked down into the murky water at Keane… a street urchin who had just taken a beating and thrown himself into danger to help us barricade the tavern.
Two lives or three? Survival comes first.
"I'm sorry, Keane!" I gasped out, my stomach twisting into a painful knot.
I turned my back on the splashing water, tightened my hold on the pale, groggy Catherine, and sprinted down the canal walkway alongside Keith, leaving the alley behind as the roar of the chasing horde grew deafeningly loud.
We burst out of the alleyway into the oppressive, scorching glare of the noon sun. Twenty-five grueling minutes of non-stop running had left my lungs burning like open furnaces and my legs trembling under the weight of holding Catherine close to my chest.
Keith skidded to a halt on the hot cobblestones, wiping a thick layer of sweat and grime from his forehead as he scanned the wide, unfamiliar thoroughfare ahead of us.
"Wait… We're... we're way off course! This is the grand boulevard, completely opposite the main commercial arch! We're way too far from the city gates!"
Before I could process his words or plot a new route, a raw, manic screaming echoed from the far end of the boulevard, bouncing off the scorched stone facades of the merchant shops.
"What in the world is that?" I asked, my grip tightening on Catherine as I pivoted toward the sound.
The shouting grew louder, accompanied by the thunderous, terrifying rhythmic pounding of hundreds of slamming boots and calcified limbs. Dashing down the center of the wide street was a lone man, his clothes torn to rags and his face crisscrossed with dark, jagged scars… the unmistakable, rough look of a hardened Citadel inmate.
Directly behind him was a staggering, utterly ridiculous wave of infected… hundreds of ground-thralls sprinting in a dense pack, flanked by dozens of screeching winged horrors swooping low through the sky.
The man was waving his arms madly, his mouth foaming with thick white saliva as he roared at the top of his lungs, intentionally drawing every single monster in the district onto his heels.
"HEY! OVER HERE, YOU FUCKERS! I'M RIGHT HERE! EIRENE! AISHA! JAMES! CHRIS! THIS IS FOR YOU! HUGH DAVSON IS GETTING A DEBUT!" the man screamed, his voice hoarse and cracking with manic energy.
He sprinted with every ounce of strength left in his body, his eyes wide, bloodshot, and completely unhinged.
"What the hell is he doing?!" I stammered, staring in sheer disbelief at the suicidal spectacle.
"I think... I think he's intentionally luring the entire district's horde! The man is completely insane!" Keith yelled back, his jaw slack with shock.
As the scarred runner surged past the intersection, his bloodshot eyes caught sight of Keith and me standing near the alley mouth. He didn't slow down for a second, pointing a frantic, trembling finger down the clear avenue leading toward the outer walls.
"HEY, YOU THREE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" he bellowed, his voice echoing over the roar of the swarm as he led the vast majority of the horde charging down the opposite boulevard.
Listening to the thunderous wall of noise, Keith and I didn't hesitate. We bolted down the cleared avenue at full speed. As we ran, I risked a quick glance back over my shoulder.
Far down the street, the scarred man's sprint finally buckled. He collapsed to his knees, his head thrown back as his body violently convulsed. Before my eyes, the humerus bone in his right arm violently ruptured through his flesh and skin, rapidly calcifying and extending into a massive, razor-sharp bone blade. His transformation into a thrall was complete.
The moment his human voice died, the sea of monsters behind him halted. While part of the massive swarm remained clustered around his newly turned form, several dozen thralls and winged horrors turned their hollow gazes toward us, catching sight of our fleeing figures, and broke off to give chase.
"There! The city gates! Move!" Keith screamed, pointing ahead.
At the far end of the avenue stood the massive timber-and-iron gates of Lulu City's administrative perimeter. A massive, hastily constructed defensive barricade of stacked wooden beams, heavy iron chains, sharpened wooden stakes, and coils of jagged barbed wire sealed off the passage.
On the raised wooden catwalks above the barricade, several dozen armored guards and archers were stationed, their weapons drawn.
"SURVIVORS FROM THE MERCHANT DISTRICT! WE HAVE SURVIVORS! GET THE BARRIER GAP OPEN, QUICK!" A gatekeeper said
"THERE'S A HORDE RIGHT BEHIND THEM! READY BOWS!" another commander barked.
A small, narrow gap in the barbed wire barricade was dragged open just wide enough for a person to squeeze through. Keith dived through first, turning around instantly to help pull me and the groggy Catherine through the tight iron gap. The second we slipped safely inside the fortified perimeter, the guards slammed the heavy spiked timber frame back into place, dropping thick iron bars to seal the breach.
"FIRE! UNLEASH VOLLEYS!"
The guards atop the catwalks drew their heavy longbows to full draw, letting fly a dense rain of steel-tipped arrows into the oncoming horde of chasing monsters, pinning the leading thralls to the cobblestones just yards from the timber wall.
The volley of arrows whistled through the sunlit air, embedding uselessly into the calcified hides and dense bone structures of the oncoming horde. Steel tips snapped against armored sternums, doing little to slow their manic charge.
"Arrow fire isn't stopping them! Aim for the heads! AIM FOR THE HEADS!" the guard captain screamed, his voice cracking with pure terror.
The head guard leaned over the catwalk railing, glaring down at Keith with bloodshot, panic-stricken eyes.
"Hey! Gatekeeper! What in the name of the gods were you thinking bringing a hundred of those abominations straight to the perimeter wall?! Are you trying to get every last one of us slaughtered?!"
"I'm terribly sorry! It wasn't me! This madman named Hugh lured the entire district's horde right into our path! We had no choice!" Keith yelled back, his voice hoarse as he gestured wildly toward the avenue.
"Damn you all! If even one of these creatures slips past this gate and escapes into the countryside, we are completely doomed! The infection will spread straight to the neighboring towns and Caria City! The only reason this plague hasn't consumed the entire region is because we've kept them locked inside this city! We shoot down every winged horror that tries to cross, but some of them have already slipped over!" the captain spat, slamming his iron gauntlet against the timber railing.
CRASH-THUD!
Before the archers could reload, the front wave of bone-blade thralls slammed directly into the wooden barricade. The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force of dozens of heavy bodies shattered the sharpened stakes and snapped the iron chains binding the barrier. Coils of jagged barbed wire tore away, and the massive wave of monsters flooded into the gate settlement like a bursting dam.
"THE BARRIER IS DOWN! THEY'RE IN!" a guard shrieked.
"CLOSE THE MAIN INNER GATES! CLOSE THEM NOW! DON'T LET THEM OUT OF THE CITY!"
Heavy iron chains groaned through pulleys as the massive inner portcullis slammed down with a deafening THUD, sealing the settlement off from the outside world. But it was a death trap… the guards, archers, and fleeing survivors were now locked inside the courtyard alongside the surging swarm.
Chaos erupted instantly. Screams filled the air as mutated thralls lunged upon the panicked guards, snapping jaws tearing into throats while calcified bone blades impaled mages trying to chant defense spells. Blood painted the timber walls and stone cobblestones in seconds.
"Run! We have to find a hiding place!" Keith panicked, backing away as a winged thrall dove from the catwalk.
SHING!
I stepped in front of him, pivoting hard as I flicked my rapier. The razor-sharp steel gleamed in the sunlight, slicing cleanly through the neck of an incoming thrall and severing its head before it could touch us. I kept my left arm wrapped tightly around Catherine, holding her close against my side while keeping my blade active.
"Stay close!" I ordered, my eyes darting through the slaughterhouse surrounding us.
Keith's bloodshot eyes swept the courtyard, spotting a narrow, shadowed alleyway tucked behind the guard quarters. He pointed frantically toward a circular iron grate set into the stone floor.
"Patricia! Catherine! Over there! Hide in the sewers!" Keith bellowed over the roars. "It's the only way out of the courtyard!"
"Go!" I barked.
We sprinted for the alleyway just as two bone-blade thralls descended on a pair of screaming archers behind us. Reaching the manhole, Keith grabbed the heavy iron cover, hauling it back with a sharp, metallic groan.
Without hesitating, I shifted my grip on Catherine and dropped headfirst down the vertical shaft into the cool, dark subterranean tunnel below. I landed heavily on the damp stone walkway, cradling Catherine securely against my chest to cushion her fall.
Above us, Keith threw his body onto the frame, yanking the heavy iron manhole cover back into place with a sharp CLANG just as a pair of snapping jaws slammed against the grate above.
The light from the surface was cut off instantly, plunging us into the damp, echoing silence of the sewers below Lulu City.