A concussive whump sounded against the stone wall, the ground shaking as rivers of mortar streamed from cracks between the stones. She stumbled, fell to one knee. Enard was beside her in an instant, pulling her back to her feet, urging her forward while Honey sang a lullaby to herself somewhere behind them in the hall.
“Was that–” she began, but Nouli cut her off, shaking his head so hard sweat flew off him. “Wasn’t mine, not yet, hurry.”
Enard mouthed, “Lord Honding.”
She shivered and forced herself to run on, praying all over again that Detan and the others were safe. That whatever that was, he’d been in control of it.
Light fingers brushed the back of her neck and she almost jumped clear out of her skin. She whirled to find Honey pressed up close against Enard. “May I lead? The way behind is clear.”
Ripka looked back down the narrow stone hall, and saw no sign of pursuit. “How?”
“I closed the door.” Honey hummed.
The great wooden beam, used to keep Nouli tucked safely away.
“You locked them in?” Nouli demanded.
“Yes?” Honey cocked her head to the side, not understanding the horror writ upon his face.
A soft hiss echoed from down the hall, rising in pitch until it became a wail. Human voices joined the screaming, indistinguishable from the roar of the chemical firestorm Nouli had set off. Someone pounded upon the door, heavy, pleading thunks that echoed down the hall, and then the great brass alarm bells of the Remnant drowned them out. Nausea gripped Ripka. She swallowed bitter bile.
“Nouli – I… I’m so sorry.”
His expression hardened, his shoulders straightened. “She did this to herself.” He shuffled away, turning his back on his niece’s cries. Honey took the lead, and Ripka was happy to let her do it. She’d had enough of blood. Of suffering. Kisser may have betrayed them all, but that only earned her a place in a cell. Not a molten, screaming death.
The hissing shuffle of chainmail echoed ahead. Ripka tensed, preparing for a fight, and edged in front of Nouli. He may know the way better than she, but he was no use in a fight that didn’t involve rhetoric. He grunted, squeezing himself against the wall to let her pass, but by the time she’d gained the position Honey had done her work. She stood in the crossway of two halls, blood dribbling from the tip of her blade, humming a gentle tune and swaying as the man at her feet spasmed and choked on his own blood.
Ripka cleared her throat, then felt perversely guilty that she could do so while the man at her feet could not. “Which way?” she asked no one in particular.
“Left,” Nouli answered, voice cracking. He cleared it. “To the stairs at the end, then up and right. You’ll find servants’ stairs at the end of that hall. If you need guidance, ask, otherwise…” He glanced at the guard, now grown still, and swallowed. Ripka caught Enard’s eye over his shoulder and he nodded. Enard would guard the rear, Honey would be their spearpoint, and Ripka would shield Nouli from any more trauma, if at all possible. It would work. It had to. It could not be that far to the roof. Enard relieved the guard’s body of a cutlass. No one commented.
Honey started off, humming softer now as to not draw attention, and Ripka wished she’d go ahead and sing already. Any sound would be better than the suffocating silence of the stone walls, the frantic thundering of her heart, and the ragged breath of her companions. Detan damn well better hurry with that ship, for she was not certain they could make another stand if it came to it.
She wished they could pass through the halls like shadows, slipping through the dark corners of the prison unseen. Instead, they stumbled and shuffled and dragged themselves creaking and groaning and swearing at the occasional stubbed toe. Nouli whispered course corrections in her ear when necessary, Honey’s bright hair bobbed before her like a light. Like a ghost lantern leading her into the deepest dark.
At last they came across a ladder and Honey shimmied up the rungs without effort, throwing open the top hatch to spill cloud-greyed light down upon them. Ripka hesitated, remembering with a sense of foreboding the last time she’d climbed a ladder to a sun drenched roof in Aransa. That should have been her death, but she’d cheated it. She’d cheat it again, if it came to that.
Muscles burning in protest, she slung herself up after Honey and scrambled onto the dusty tiles of the roof. Her heels rang out against hard ceramic. It made sense, the part of her that gathered details and analyzed them thought wearily. Ceramic was light. She’d seen plenty of stone roofs collapse in the poorer districts of Aransa. Roofs thrown up by people who didn’t have the grains for ceramic, or the ability to weave sawgrass thatch.
She blinked, letting her eyes adjust while the others scrambled up behind her, and froze. Three guards stood at the edge of the roof, their backs to them, looking down on the mess that was the rec yard riot. Honey put a finger to her lips: shhh.
Motioning for Nouli to be still, Ripka crept after Honey. Enard’s shadow stretched out before her, each step she took crunching over the slight grit of the roof louder than any alarm bell to her ears. But the great brass bells continued to sound, drowning their advance in the thunder of their voices. Halfway there… a third…
The bells fell silent. Honey’s heel clicked against the baked tiles. One of the guards began to turn – Ripka lunged. Her world dissolved into shouting and grunting as she leapt on the back of the nearest guard, wrapped her elbows around his neck and squeezed. Honey took up her song. Enard swore somewhere distant.
Her vision swam as the guard jerked side to side, shaking her like a dog shakes its wet coat, jamming his thumbs up under her arms and wrenching, prying, clawing til her skin bled and she was roaring in his ear to stop, it was safer for him to faint. Honey’s song wouldn’t find him then. He staggered, swayed, the world pitched up and she saw nothing but blue as the backs of his thighs hit the low wall hemming in the roof. Her stomach dropped. The guard lurched, unconsciousness taking him at the most inopportune of moments.
Heavy hands grabbed her upper arm, the side of her jumpsuit, and yanked. She let go of the guard, swore as he tumbled over the roof without her.
“Thanks,” she said, panting, and forced herself to stand, rubbery though her legs were.
“I’m afraid we’ve begun a bigger problem.” Enard, stoic as ever, peered over the edge of the roof. Ripka forced herself to the edge, though her stomach protested at being too near the height that’d almost taken her life.
The guard’s body splayed in the rec yard, limbs twisted askew, a dark stain spreading out around him. He’d drawn other guards like flies, and they pointed toward the roof, shouting. Ripka grimaced and stepped back. They’d be swarmed in moments.
“How many entrances?” she asked, then realized no one would know. “Find them all!” She put some command into her voice, because at least that made her feel like she might know what she was doing.
Honey, Enard, and Nouli scrambled, searching the square roof for hidden doors, while she grabbed the heel of the guard Honey had, apparently, stabbed in the kidney, and hauled his corpse over to the trap door they’d come through. The other guard lay beside him, neck twisted. Ripka told herself Enard hadn’t had a choice. None of them had.
She stacked the corpses on top of the trap door and brushed her hands off as Enard trotted up to her.
“Well?”
“Only the one entrance, and an empty docking post, captain.”
She almost laughed with giddy relief. “Good. The guards’ weight should slow anyone coming through down.”