Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 43ii

"Stand down, Xerekus," said Seior Svell SanMartin calmly, before he turned to watch the other band of soldiers close on him. They numbered at least one section, though their separate units again wore the colours of all of Klinberg's Chapters.

At their head, and looking tatty in his old uniform, was High Lance-master Tzarren.

"Good morning, Trade Proctor," he said. "I hope this morning finds you well."

* * * * *

As she clung to the ladder, Tahlia stared into the eyes of the man who had appeared below them. She expected, at any moment, to hear an exclamation or some kind of challenge, but the man remained silent, his expression turning from malevolence to one of puzzlement. Tahlia held her breath. The man was staring upwards through the glare of lights, and where the three of them hung on the ladder, they would be shadowed by the pipes on each side. The only thing he would be able to see was strange shadows, and the tower's side was a mass of such odd elongated shapes.

They would be safe as long as none of them moved, and it seemed Grifford had the same notion because he was still hanging frozen below her, among a mass of odd shaped debris. It was probably because he was too clueless to know what to do about the man's sudden appearance below, but the reasons for his inactivity did not matter as long as he remained still. She rolled her eyes down to look at Dak, and saw that her friend still had her head tucked between her hands, though she did not know how long she would remain still in her terror. She assumed Dak had not seen the man below, and she worried she would soon break from her torpor and make a sound or movement that would alert him to their presence.

The chamber was filled with the sound of the sloshing water below, but also, all about them, came the sporadic screeching calls of the nasty flying creatures. Tahlia imagined them perched in the darkness, watching from the shadows.

She looked back to the man, and saw him still staring up towards them. As she watched, he took a few steps backwards towards the parapet's edge to give himself a clearer view. Surely soon they would be seen; three shadows that did not belong. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. She could not make any use of her bow until her hands were free from the ladder, and the ladder's end was still a long way below them.

She did still had her mother's knife, though.

Grifford must have been having similar thoughts, because she saw his hand drop slowly to the hilt of his sword.

'Don't do anything stupid, brother.'

Too late.

Grifford was still hanging amongst the wreckage of what had once been the flying creatures' nest, and his action must have caused his sword's scabbard to move. Something was dislodged, and went tumbling downwards to land with a hollow click on the parapet below, where it bounced once and then twice, before rolling and coming to rest at the man's feet.

He bent down and picked it up, giving a grunt of disgust as he did so, but his brief exclamation was lost as the high pitched screeching started again, this time seeming to come from all around the chamber. The man looked up, the screeching closed on him, and suddenly he was shrouded in a cloud of flittering winged bodies. He gave a cry, more of revulsion than fear, and flapped his arms at the attacking creatures. He made two misplaced steps towards the parapet's edge. Tahlia held her breath, but just when it seemed as though he would take one more fateful step, he stopped flapping his arms about and threw the thing in his hand away from him, and it bounced across the parapet.

"Have it then, you dung-birds!" he growled, and the screeching mass left him and descended on the thing that had fallen. Their limbs made a sharp scratching on the metal surface before, as one, they took flight into the darkness.