City of Steel (Chaos Awakens Book 3) (7 page)

In desperation he found the next nearest rooftop and made a run for it.  The gap was larger than he'd have liked to have risked, but his only other choice was to choke to death on a horde of insects intent on laying eggs in his body.  The edge approached quickly and Xan was soon sailing through the air, propelled by every ounce of strength his legs could muster.  Halfway through the jump he knew it wasn't going to be enough.  He twisted his body and stretched out as far as he could.  The cloud of insects had dissipated, but the horde below him was speeding towards him at an alarming rate. 

The very tips of his fingers snagged the next rooftop and in a space of time less than the width of a breath the rest of his body weight, and the weight of the bag of metal, slammed down hard against his meager grip.  His left hand broke free, gouging out a piece of the wooden beam he'd grabbed onto as it tore away.  Somehow his right hand held, but the loss of his left swung him awkwardly against the wall.  Some jagged piece of metal from his extra pack penetrated the fabric and punched through his clothing and into his ribs.  Xan felt the terrible ripping sensation as it tore a line down his left side.  He grit his teeth and pushed the pain from the forefront of his mind.  With a concerted effort he steadied himself on the wall and pulled himself up over the ledge, leaving a trail a vivid red blood in his wake. 

Even though his nails had hardened into claws, all of his finger tips on his right hand were bleeding when he finally released his death grip on the wall beam. Despite the pain of his wounds, his immediate concern was the swarm of insects that had enveloped him. Was he really immune to the nasty insects, or would he soon end up like the poor bastards that were roaming the streets, empty shells full of swarming bugs just looking for the next person they could infect? A wave of fear passed through Xandrith. Dying was one thing, but becoming some kind of brain-dead monster seemed far more horrible.

"They won't lay eggs in something as close to a troll as you've become." The illusionary Xan chose that moment to make a reappearance. "You're going to be fine."

"What makes you such an expert on those things?" Xan growled back. "You don't know any more about them than I do. You're just guessing."

"If the blade wielders are immune you certainly should be.  You're even more troll-kin than they are.  Your humanity is questionable at best."  False Xan's words weren't particularly comforting. 

"Thanks.  That's the sort of reassurance that really helps keep my spirits up."  Xan resorted to acidic sarcasm.  It seemed the best fall back in the given situation. 

"I do what I can, friend."  The younger Xan replied with a sly grin.  "What are we going to do now?"  He added after a moment of awkward silence.  Xandrith wasn't entirely certain how an awkward silence could be had by himself, but somehow he'd managed it. 

Older Xan chuckled dryly. "Isn't that obvious? We're going to get out of this town and return this scrap metal to that caravan."

"Great, but how?" False Xan was looking over the wall, his eyes perusing the horde of infested townsmen below. "You're bleeding pretty heavily, and there is no way we can keep hopping rooftops like this."

The real Xan nodded slowly. "I think I have an idea."

The other Xan frowned. "Yeah, I was worried that might be the case."

"Well if you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  Those things might not be able infest me, but I get the impression they might rip me apart trying.  I gave myself a deadline that I need to meet, so waiting them out to see if they might leave isn't going to work."  Xandrith had already begun searching for a way down into the building beneath his feet. 

"I don't have any better ideas, but that doesn't mean this one is good."  Younger Xan sounded almost as ill at ease as older Xan felt. 

Xandrith saw the edge of a latch peeking out from beneath a well-worn, grass mat. He walked over to the mat and kicked it aside revealing a small hatch that would lead down into the building below. "Sometimes when things get dangerous you just have to improvise and hope for the best. It's not like this is the first time I've done something this stupid."

Fake Xan didn't seem amused.  "It's the first time you've done something this stupid while surrounded by monsters set upon tearing you apart." 

Xandrith lifted the latch and peered down into the dark building. He found himself looking down into what appeared to be some kind of bakery. The smell of molding bread wafted up through the opening. It was a smell that was actually preferable to the one wafting up from the surrounding streets. He glanced up to the rooftop only to see that his illusionary self had taken that moment to vanish from existence again. Xan decided he was better off without his partner at this particular moment. He removed his bag of metal from his back and sat down on the rooftop by the opening. He wouldn't need that slowing him down. Xan pulled his knife from his belt and positioned himself over the hole. On aching arms, Xan began to lower himself through the hatchway down into the darkened bakery. 

His body protested the exertion after the abuse it had recently taken, and his fingers throbbed with pain. His fingertips bled from beneath the claw-like nails as he ever so slowly lowered himself down, trying to be quiet and cautious.  For a moment he allowed himself just to hang as he scanned the darkness for any sign of danger.  Below him, still a few hand spans beneath his hanging feet, was a counter with samples of what had once been fresh bread covering most of its surface.  He used his hands to turn slowly around.  The place seemed to be in order.  None of the shelves were knocked over or in disarray.  It appeared as though the chaos beyond the walls had stayed beyond the walls. 

Xan dropped quietly to the counter, using his knees to absorb the impact.  He hopped down and began searching for the supplies he needed.  It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.  He'd been lucky that he was atop a store.  He quickly found a dozen lamps, all full of oil. With a little more searching he discovered a small cask of even more lamp oil.  It would be more than enough to do what he intended.  The tricky part would be getting it all back to the roof. 

After trying to figure out the best way to get his supplies back to where he needed them, he finally decided just to make multiple trips. He carried the torches up in sets of two. He didn't want to break them right away. Even being as cautious as he was he managed to shatter one of the fragile lamps in his jump back to the rooftop. He made the trip six times with lanterns, and on his last trip he carried the cask of oil. It was fairly large, and he had to use some scavenged cloth to create a harness to help him get it up and through the relatively narrow hole onto the roof. By the time he was successfully free of the building, the sky was almost fully dark. The swarms of infected people still clawed at the sides of the building all around him, attracted by even the small sounds he made while moving around the rooftop. He set to work immediately on his method of escape.

The plan was simple.  He was going to fill each of the lamps to capacity with oil, light them, and throw three or four of them at the building opposite the direction he intended to run.  He would then dump the cask of oil down on the creatures on that side of the building and throw more torches down on top of them.  Fires were loud.  He wasn't sure how much sense these infected people still had about them, but he hoped that the fire would be enough to distract most of them, and hopefully destroy a good many of those stupid enough to get too close.

Xan went quickly about his work, filling the torches and preparing them for the task at hand.  He lengthened the wicks on the lamps so that they would be less likely to go out while being thrown around, and frayed the ends of them so that they would produce a larger flame.  His effort would be for naught if the fire didn't catch and spread quickly.   With the last lamp prepared, Xan set about creating his planned chaos. 

He lined the lamps up along the edge of the wall and began to light the first three with a bit of fire steel he'd found in the shop.  He used his knife to strike the steel, and in a matter of moments he had all three of his initial lamps lit.  He picked up the first and prepared to throw it.  The weather had been dry lately, and the building he was aiming for was mostly old wood.  He swung the glass lamp carefully and then tossed it in a wide arc over to the next building.  The light from the wick went out about halfway across the gap, and the lantern slammed into the other rooftop with a loud rending of glass.  Xan waited for a moment in hopes that the recently snuffed wick might still have enough spark to light the oil, but after a few minutes it was clear that his first lamp had failed.  Had the breeze produced from being tossed gotten through the glass cover?  Xan couldn't be certain. 

Beneath him in the streets the infected horde had increased its attention anew.  Some few of the creatures had returned to the next building over, following the sound of the shattering glass, but most of them still pressed in around the small bakery.  Xandrith took the next lamp in hand.  Instead of arcing this one to his target, Xan threw it hard and straight in the hope that if it went quickly it wouldn't have time to snuff out before it struck his target.  He held his breath as the lamp zipped across the space between the buildings. 

The fire held.  The lamp crashed into the side of the building with a satisfying pop of glass shattering. Then there was a sharp whoosh of air as the fire jumped to life immediately, enveloping a section of the wall in a bright orange blaze.  Xan had seen lamp oil fires wipe out entire villages before, and he could only hope that this one had that kind of ambition. 

The assassin turned back to his remaining torches and began to strike them to life.  In no time at all they were all burning brightly in the dark night.  The cask of oil was still nearly three quarters full, even after filling all the lanterns.  He lifted it and began to dump the remaining oil out over the crowd scrambling at the wall below.  Some of the infected townspeople were already dissipating, heading towards the burning building like insects drawn to their doom in a campfire.  Perhaps he should have felt some small piece of regret or compassion, but instead he found a grim chuckle rising up from inside of him.  The laughter that slipped from his lips was dark and chaotic, a creature of malice and madness that he didn't even know had grown inside of him.

He finished emptying the oil and then dropped the lanterns into the remaining crowd around his building. The fire took off fast, burning the lamp oil and the rotting fat reserves on the walking corpses. The insects snapped and popped in the air as the flames spread. As the horde erupted into flames the creatures’ screams tore through the night sky to join the roar of the fire. The foul infected were ripping at one another as they burned, screaming incoherently as their feted flesh scorched and blackened, sending one of the foulest smells Xan had ever encountered coursing into the night sky. The smoke was inky black.

"Do you plan on watching until the fires go out, or were you going to get away?" Xandrith was started by his own voice from behind him.  He turned away from the fire, the terrible laughter that had consumed him slipping away.  The other Xan wasn't behind him.  All that stood at his back was the blood covered sack of metal that he was supposed to return to the caravan. 

"You're right."  He said to the empty rooftop.  "I need to leave."  He ran forward and grabbed the scrap metal.  It was time to take his leave of this doomed town. 

The fire had spread faster than he'd anticipated.  The distraction it caused worked perfectly, but by the time he was making his way to the gates of the town the flames had already gotten ahead of him.  It hadn't helped that he'd been forced to take side routes on a few occasions in order to avoid some of the larger groups of infected townspeople, but the speed with which everything burned was still startling.  It was as though the place wanted to die.  The town had seen too much, and all it wanted was to dress itself in red and orange and roar at the night sky until nothing remained but broken lives and ash.

The gates were burning as Xan approached them, but the heavy crossbeam was still in place and the wall was still standing firm despite its cloak of fire.  There was no way Xandrith could possibly hope to use the winch system to lift open the crossbeam, the whole system was aflame. Even if he could have stood the heat, the ropes and pulleys were burning and wouldn’t function for long if at all.  He had to think fast if he was going to find a path of escape before he was consumed in the town's desperate self-immolation. 

An open door to one of the towers near the gate caught Xan's eye.  He dashed for it as the flames began to lick their way up the wall, feeding on the dry wood without mercy.  The door opened onto a tightly curving stairway that climbed up to what Xan guessed would be the walkway along the wall.  Xan ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.  The inside of the towers was getting hot, and the side nearest the fire was already beginning to burn. The wood crackled angrily and smoke poured into the already claustrophobic stairwell.  Xan reached the top of the stairs and ran into a locked door. 

"Shit!" He cursed as he tried the handle and it resisted. If he'd had his picks, the lock would have been easy enough to manage, but he didn't. He looked over his shoulder to see a red glow rising from what had moments before been the dark stairwell he'd just climbed. He took a few steps back and then slammed his booted heel into the locking mechanism. The door was solid and didn't give way. He tried the handle to see if he'd knocked anything loose, but it was still solid. Xandrith wiped at the sweat that was beading on his brow. This didn’t seem like a good way to die.

"I don't feel like burning to death." Young Xan said, peering around the curve of the stairs, down at the approaching flames. "You should get that door open."

Xan slammed his shoulder into the door again, but the wood wouldn't give.  "I'm trying!"  He snapped.  Smoke was filling the air all around him.