City of Steel (Chaos Awakens Book 3) (6 page)

He rounded a corner coming out of an alley, his insect pursuers finally lost somewhere behind him. He emerged out onto a street with even more corpses lining its length.  As he drew closer to the center, there were more and more of them.  What had drawn them toward the town center?  Xan slowed his progression, stepping carefully around the bodies as he tried not to disturb another nest of plague insects. 

The body nearest him stirred as he moved past it.  Xan took a sharp breath in.  Suddenly the corpse was moving.  It lurched awkwardly to its feet with a terrible shriek.

"Shit!"  The word of exclamation exploded from Xan as he started to run again.  Other corpses along the street were starting to stir as well.  One of them exploded into a putrid mist of blood and swarming insects.  It was clear to the assassin that he needed to leave the streets as soon as possible.  He charged at full speed towards the nearest building he could find, almost tripping over another of the dead as he drew near the door.  It had been behind a line of water barrels and he hadn't seen it.  The plague ridden thing reached for his leg as he regained his footing and went for the door. 

He turned the handle and slammed his shoulder against the wooden frame but it didn't move.  Great, he'd chosen the one building in town that hadn't been left unlocked.  Behind him the stirring of the plague ridden thing he'd disturbed sent a sense of urgency through him.  He looked over his shoulder long enough to see that it was already to its knees. The thing’s flesh was falling from its body like meat from an overcooked pig.  Insects poured from the gaping wounds.  The rotting creature stood between Xan and the road, which looked quite open now compared to his position against a locked door.  The insects were swarming closer and closer. 

Xandrith tore off his cloak and threw it at the corpse and its insects in front of him. As the cloak struck its intended mark, Xan charged past the mess and held his hand tightly over his mouth and nose. He always kept his pack under his cloak while traveling, and he was thankful that the habit had allowed him to make such a move. His cloak wouldn't buy him much time, but it would be enough. Xan flew back down the street as fast as his feet would take him, recklessly fast.  He wasn't sure where he was going, or if he was going to escape, but he knew that it was vital that he keep moving.

He was still trying to decide his next course of action when his eyes fell across a building with a sign that read, "Togg and Sons Metalworks." He changed his route immediately and made a straight line for the building, running between several of the rising corpses. Luckily they moved slowly. When he reached the building he was surprised to see that the door was already open. A feeling of mixed relief and dread filled him. Anything might already inside, but at least he wouldn't have to waste time trying to pick the lock while fending off plague ridden corpses. He ran straight into the building and slammed the door closed behind him, turning the heavy metal lock on the door. It clicked into place with a satisfying, sturdy sound.
The assassin leaned heavily against the door, taking a moment to gather his wits.  The room in front of him was in complete disarray.  Shelves had been knocked over, tables lay tipped one way or another, and there was barely a single piece of useable weaponry left in the shop.  Xan could piece together what had happened well enough.  When the plague had first broken out the people of the town had sacked this shop to get a hold of anything that might be used as a weapon.  Desperation drove people to devious ends. Hopefully they hadn't taken the scrap metal as well. 

Xan drew Haley's knife from its place on his hip and began to move slowly through the room.  Behind him a dull thud sounded against the sealed door.  One of the plague victims had followed him to the shop.  With any luck it wouldn't be able bring down the door.  The windows were barred, luckily.  Assuming there was nothing dangerous already inside the building, Xan had some time get what he needed and plan a way to get out of the town without being killed. 

Moving through the quiet, dark shop was an unnerving process.  There were far too many places for one of the plague corpses to be hidden away beneath a table, or under a fallen shelf.  The store wasn't small.  Xandrith did his best to check for threats as he proceeded, but he would need to dedicate serious time to the place if he wanted to be sure it was safe, and he really didn't feel like spending that long in the broken down store.  He made his way towards the working part of the shop with the stone walled smithy, hidden back behind teller's counter.  That's where he would find what he'd come for.  To his pleasant surprise, he made it to the back of the store without running into any more trouble, though the noises from outside were becoming louder.  Just how many of those things had he woken on his way? 

Xan put that question out of his mind as he located his prize.  Along one wall of the work area was an abundance of scrap metal.  Some of it had been formed into easy to move bars, and some of it was still in the shape of broken tools and weapons.  Xandrith started with the easy to pack bars, loading them into the sack in as orderly a fashion as possible.  They were heavy and the bag gained weight quickly.  By the time it was half full, Xan decided he'd better stop.  The sack he'd been given was well made, but fabric and stitch could only hold so much weight before it ripped.  Xan put the pack on his back, groaning in indignation as the weight settled on his shoulders.  He didn't want to guess how heavy it was, but he would be substantially hampered in his efforts to leave.  There was no way he could run around the plague ridden corpses as smoothly as he had before.

After a few moments of deliberating on what course of action to take next, Xan decided to do what came natural to him.  He found a ladder in the shop and used it to climb up to the ceiling.  There was a hatch that led out onto the flat roof of the building.  Even with the extra weight on his back he was able to climb up with little difficulty. The roof of the shop was covered in stretched hides.  The smiths must have tanned their own hides for wrapping hilts and equipment handles.  That was a good way to cut down expenses on their part, and thankfully that had given Xan an easy method to get to the roof. 

He looked to the sky as he moved between the rows of stretched leather. The sun was falling. He'd been in town for several hours now. It would be dark before he was able to get back over the wall, and he was getting tired. Still, Xan had no intention of spending the night in Marekston. Sleeping in the center of a plague filled town was an experience Xan wasn't keen to have. He peered over the wall of the building.

Xan recoiled, almost falling backwards with the added weight of the metal he was carrying.  He forced himself to glance over again.  The street was full of the plague victims, with more of them marching in from further into the town than Xan had gone.  Where had they all come from?  There were hundreds of them as thick as any mob Xandrith had ever encountered.  They were encircling Togg and Sons, their mass of rotting bodies pressing against the doors and walls as though they might push through by force of mass alone.  Xan walked all the way around the building, looking for an opening in the crowd he might use to make his escape. The corpses had completely surrounded him. 

The nearest rooftops were far enough away that making a jump would be difficult, and that was if he wasn't carrying an extra half of his weight in metal.  A moment of inspiration struck and Xan quickly made his way back to the trapdoor.  He reached down through the opening and snagged the ladder with one hand, pulling it up onto the roof.  If he couldn't jump the gap between buildings, he might be able to use the ladder to crawl across the space.  He approached the side of the building that would allow him the best route of escape and attempted to drop the ladder across the gap between his building and the one across from it, but it soon became apparent that the ladder wasn't long enough to span that gap.  Xandrith cursed beneath his breath.  That left only two other possible directions that he could try, and one of those directions would lead him even deeper into the town.  The fourth direction, back the direction he'd come, was simply impossible.  There was a full street between him and the next rooftop.

Xan made his way to the opposite side of the building.  It was the only other direction that wouldn't take him closer to the town center, and the place where all the walking corpses were coming from.  Xandrith knew without dropping the ladder across the distance that it was at least as wide as the one he'd already tried.  He could waste the time trying to bridge that gap, but it wasn't going to happen.  Grudgingly he made his way to the third option, the one that would take him further into town.  It was the shortest distance of any of his possibilities, but even it looked like it would be close.  Xandrith carefully positioned his ladder and let it fall across the open space.  It landed barely on the other roof top, overlapping the edge by less than a hand's span.  The assassin stood back and looked at his makeshift bridge. 

He could cross it and then pick up the ladder again, and see if any better options were available from over there.  He would need to move carefully.  If he jostled the ladder at all it would fall and he would go with it, right down into the center of the plague-ridden horde.  Of course the alternative was to stay on his own roof and do nothing.  That would be fine for a day, but he couldn't just live on the forsaken roof forever. 

Xan delicately lifted himself up onto the ladder and took his first cautious step across the void. Below him swarms of plague ridden villagers gawked upward at him, watching him with milky, swollen eyes that were nearly bursting with larvae. The horde shifted with him, following his slow progression between the two buildings. Halfway across the gap the ladder gave a disheartening crack and the center seemed to sag downward.

Xandrith very nearly jumped the rest of the way across the ladder, but doing so would probably send his only hope of moving safely from building to building cascading into the street below.  That was the last thing he wanted to do to himself.  He pressed on across the narrow wooded beams moving with assured balance, but much less assured confidence in the stability of his bridge. 

The entire journey took him maybe ten seconds, but by the time he stepped onto the second rooftop he felt as though he'd been hanging above that hungry maw for hours. The firmness of his new nest beneath his feet brought forth an unintentional sigh of relief.

"We survived that one."  He whispered under his breath. 

"Barely." Came his own voice in mocking tones from further along the roof. His younger self was sitting atop a wooden crate, idly picking at his nails with the tip of what looked like the old bonesteel dagger.

"Barely."  Xandrith said in agreement as he collected his ladder and began scouting the paths off of his new rooftop prison.  All too soon it was evident that Xan only had one choice of travel again.  He would be heading further into the city once more.  He lined up his ladder and dropped it between his roof and the next.  There was an incline. The next building over was taller than the one he was on, and he couldn't quite see over the lip of the wall.  The ladder barely covered the gap, and the angle made it seem even more precarious than his last attempt. 

"That doesn't look good."  Young-him said gravely. 

"I don't suppose you want to hold the ladder for me?"  Xan asked him.

"I could." The other replied with Xan's familiar half-grin. "Would that make you feel better about this?"

Xan thought about that for a second before replying. "No, not really."

Fake-Xan shrugged. "Well, don't say I didn't offer."

Xandrith ignored him and stepped out onto the ladder.  He wasn't sure whether it was his imagination or not, but he thought he could feel the rickety old thing slipping beneath his feet.  He steeled his nerve and forced himself to move further along the ladder.  The angle wasn't so steep that he could navigate the ladder the way one was supposed to, but it was steep enough that it felt like he was walking up a very crudely built set of stairs.  Beneath him Xandrith could see the swarm of bloated dead gathering together.  It hadn't taken them long to figure out where he'd gone.

One steady foot step at a time carried Xan three quarters of the way up to the next rooftop. There was nothing Xan could do when the explosive snap of wood breaking sounded from below his feet.  The ladder was falling away from him so he couldn't jump.  He fell forward, reaching for the edge of the next roof.  Shards of wood rained down upon the horde below.  The assassin's fingers snagged the very edge of his intended goal. His weight, and the weight of the bag of metal on his back, crashed down upon his muscles like a terrible hammer blow.  His arms snapped straight and he slammed into the wall with a heavy thud, slamming his face into the stone in front of him.  Somehow, he managed to hold on.

He'd been saved by his reflexes alone, and they continued to serve him as he shook the daze from his head without falling to the ground below.  "Shit!"  He yelled angrily as his reasoning returned and he began to pull himself up.  His arms burned and the joints ached from taking the full weight of his falling body and the sack of metal.  Had he been old Xan, completely human Xan, he might not have had the same luck.  He drew his head above the edge of the wall and his relief at surviving the ladder's fall immediately burned away. 

Two bulging eyes stuck in a face that was mostly rot and decay were staring directly at him from only inches away.  Even as Xan realized the trouble he was in, the plague carrying corpse opened its disgusting maw and a swarm of insects erupted from its insides. The air filled with a buzzing cloud of death that immediately enveloped the assassin.  Instinct kicked in.  The assassin reached out with his right hand, grabbed the spewing monstrosity by the cloth of its shirt, and pulled it over the edge of the roof to his side. It barely even struggled as it plummeted over the edge to land with a sickeningly moist thud amidst the horde of its fellows below. 

Xandrith pulled himself up on to the rooftop, his fear fueling his abused muscles more efficiently than his will had. As soon as he’d gained the roof Xan covered his mouth and nose with an arm and began to flail the other, trying to disband the thick swarm of insects.   They wouldn't be so easily dissuaded. The tickling pricks of the inset’s tiny bodies as they rammed into him, crawled along his flesh, and tried to find a way in were maddening. Xandrith bit down and the creatures crushed between his teeth, and he could feel them crawling into his nose. He snorted and spat, trying to tuck his ears into his sleeves so the pests wouldn’t crawl into those openings as well. They were swarming into him from every angle they could manage looking for some vulnerability, even if they couldn’t lay eggs inside of him.  He ran across the rooftop trying to break free of the cloud, but there wasn't enough room to make an escape.