What the fuck am I doing?
What do I have to prove?
Finley felt like he was drowning in rain, every breath was impeded by droplets of water.
It did not matter which way he tilted and bent his head.
He turned back to see that the van had gone out of view.
There was nowhere to go but forward.
“Do you have a plan?” he said as he waded through to Callie’s side.
“We’ll help as many people as we can.
And if we get our hands on some good weapons…”
Finley nodded a little.
He did not think much of the plan but it was as good as anything.
It appeased him that they were not blindly running into what could be their death.
“The burning building first then?” he said, even though more and more chaos was making itself known to their senses.
Callie shrugged in agreement and they entered the premises and found themselves facing a five story building.
The bottom three storeys were on fire on the front.
The flames licked upward, undeterred by the rain.
“Back entrance?
You take left, I’ll take right.” said Callie and had already turned when Finley grabbed her wrist.
“We shouldn’t separate.” He said, then let her go and followed her to the back porch.
There were a couple of orcs outside, squinting up at the fire.
“Is there someone inside?” Callie yelled to get her voice across as they approached.
“Neighbours, maybe.
I heard yelling but I’m not sure whether it was from inside.” answered the taller one.
When Finley got closer, he realised he was the father of the other.
“The stairs are to the left.” the daughter called out as the two slipped their bags off and entered the smoke-filled building.
Callie immediately covered her nose and mouth with her handkerchief.
Finley patted his pockets in a brief moment of panic before his senses came back to him and he pulled the neckline of his t-shirt to the bridge of his nose.
“Anyone there?” he yelled as they made their way up the stairs.
There was no response.
Callie yelled the same thing out in three other languages.
They were on the third floor by then and could hear sounds from the fourth, where the fire had not spread yet.
Callie bounded up the last couple of flights two at a time and Finley could barely keep up.
He had lost sight of her by the time the landing was in sight.
“Finn!” her voice shouted from the left in the hallway.
Callie was wheeling an old forest spirit as a young boy followed her.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked the old man who did not show any sign of having heard him.
“Mom asked us to stay here.
She said she would be back.” said the boy in a tone that he was still of half a mind to go back to their apartment.
“Which one are you taking – boy or old man?” Finley asked – both would need to be carried.
“You take the boy, hurry!” she said as a flame appeared in sight a few metres down the hallway.
“Shit.” Finley quickly grabbed the boy, lifting him up, having to let go of his makeshift mask.
The child would require one hand, the top rail the other.
The upper floors had grown dense with smoke by then and it was not long before his eyes were watering and his left hand had to navigate almost by its lonesome.
The coughs came next and Finley lost his footing a couple of times, not to much detriment.
He realised that he had left Callie far behind by the time he reached the ground floor – but the fire was too widespread to let the child go even the little distance to safety by himself.
As soon as he had dropped the child outside and taken a couple lungfuls of (relatively) unpolluted air, he rushed back inside only to find that the fire had spread over most of the ground floor and was licking at the initial steps leading up from it.
His squinting watery eyes could make out through the flames a figure – none other than Callie – with the old man in her arms.
She would not be able to make the jump without a very high chance of hurting him.
“Throw him to me.” Finley yelled.
“Are you out of your mind?” she yelled back even as she adjusted the grip on the man – whose blissful oblivion was to their advantage – to be able to throw him as long a distance as possible.
Finley stood as close to the flames – now taller than Linny – to be best able to receive the man.
“Give me a countdown!
Throw immediately after one!” his eyes closed tightly in preparation and he took one last breath through his t-shirt the very moment Callie started speaking.
“Three… Two…” He clenched his eyes a bit more tightly before forcing them open to get a few seconds of good vision out of them just as “One!” was uttered.
His hands were raised in preparation, his position mirrored Callie’s, excepting the height.
I’m as prepared as can be.
was the last thought flashing through his mind before the old man hit him full on his chest.
Finley staggered back a couple steps – enough for the old man to lose forward momentum.
Gravity and his hands did their work and the old man was as secure as reasonably possible when Finley got his breath knocked out of him, quite in a hard manner too.
He did not think the old man had touched the floor at the time of impact and considering his duties complete, let him go and started coughing, his body writhing a little on the floor as Callie rolled to a stop beside him.
“Nicely done.” he wheezed out as she grabbed the old man and ran out.
Finley remained low – to avoid the smoke and conserve what little strength he could muster – as he crawled to the exit and was pulled out by the orc for the last few metres.
It took him a few seconds to voice his gratitude as he lay in the muddy grass, letting the rain cool his mildly burnt skin.
He managed to laugh in between his coughs as he imagined that his vampiric skin would be looking quite like Linny’s at that moment.
“Are you… okay?” Callie asked with such tentativeness that it made Finley think that she thought he had hit his head a little too hard.
The notion made Finley laugh harder until he broke off into a fit of coughing and retching.
Luckily there was nothing within to be expelled but saliva and water – which promptly took his leave as he doubled over, the side of his face pressing against the ground.
When the fit subsided and he opened his eyes, Callie was kneeling next to him.
The orcs had left, the other duo had been seated on a bench.
Finley slowly straightened and lay on his back.
“Sorry.
Just…”
“What are you sorry for?” she said in an exasperated but affectionate tone.
He took ginger, shallow breaths as he was helped up by her into a sitting position.
“So much for helping out, huh?
I’m wiped out after doing so little.” Finley said sheepishly as he slowly got onto his feet, shaking his head when Callie offered her hand to pull him up.
“I’m all muddy and shit.” he said and tried to clean some parts of himself and his clothing using the constant running water from above.
“You are helping out.”
“Not enough.
And I’m certainly not able to help enough.”
“Two beings who would probably not be alive if not for you.
Surely you can’t diminish that.” Finley smiled a little. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“You did most of the work, though.”
Callie grinned.
“That’s debatable.
Do you think you still have it in you to help more?”
“You know what?
Yeah.
Not wiped yet.
Do we uh….
need to move them?” he said, looking over at the forest spirits.
“Maybe.
Let’s move them a couple blocks back.” she said as the sounds of fighting seemed to grow louder to embellish her plan of action.
“Let’s carry them as before.” And so they did until they came upon a crowd of people in a shopping plaza of sorts.
Entrusting the duo to the first able-bodied forest spirit they saw, they quickly set about looking for a source of weapons.
They were in the right place for it, after all.
It turned out that there were a sufficient amount of vendors with the business sense to open their shops at the odd hour.
Their oligopoly was newly found and the two driftfellows did not have the time required to dismantle their pricing power.
“I think we should start carrying our weapons every place we visit from now on, as a safety norm.” Callie said with a sigh as they browsed one of the shops.
“Maybe Perisone is right in wanting to go back to Lament.”
“Of course she’s right.
It doesn’t mean that her driftfellows are wrong.”
“We wouldn’t be forced into such situations if we were in Lament.” muttered Finley.
“You could have gone with Sylviane.”
“That wasn’t a true alternative for me.
Ditching the fortress was one thing.
I was happy to do that actually.”
“You and Perisone break up?”
Finley was quiet for a few seconds.
“Yeah.
Inevitable.
Zander and Therese too, though their parting was less intense.
They’re mostly indifferent, I believe.” He paused again.
“Good for them.” He said in a tone that did not reflect this abundant goodwill of his.
Without waiting for her response, he grabbed the nearest item – a ruby spectre – and turned towards.
“So!
Did you find anything nice?
I quite fancy this right here.”
Callie turned to him, saw the spectre, and smiled a little.
“That’s for mages, dumbass.
I’m thinking we go with spears.
They’ll be good at keeping them at bay, plus good for thrusting and throwing.”
And so they scouted all of the shops for spears to get the highest quality product – and in doing so, got themselves a good deal as well.
“Feels… strange.” Finley said, thumping the butt of the spear on the ground as they stepped out of the shop.
“But I think I could get used to it.”
“I hope so.
It would be quite a decent sum wasted otherwise.”
“Nah, I’m sure Venedir could make use of it.”
“Venedir can make use of any weapon.” Callie said with a laugh as they headed in the direction most amount of people were coming from.
The rule of thumb worked dandily and they had hardly gone half a kilometer – though it felt like two when one was walking on a street submerged under two feet of water – when the sounds of fighting became clearly audible.
“Let’s try to minimise actual fighting and try to help people and get them out.” Callie said.
“No arguments there.” said Finley as he saw the damaged buildings ahead of them – most of them simple one storey dwellings.
“Hey, we could get on the roofs and traverse across.
It’ll give us more of a vantage point and allow us to be more agile.” Finley could not see till where such kinds of dwellings persisted but the fighting was close enough to make no matter.
With every passing moment, he felt more surely that an enemy would make themselves known to them.
His paranoia did not go in vain – though he wished it had – as the moment they approached the first house on their left, the wall burst apart, making Finley jump and slip on a cobblestone.
And then he was underwater, but he did not lose his grip on the spear, flapping his other hand violently to roll on his front and regain his footing.
Callie had remained stationary all that while, mayhaps to protect him.
But Finley did not let his gaze linger on the subtleties of her stance as ahead of her a tauranthrope and an unnatural were going at it in a hand-to-hand fight.
It certainly did not seem like an avenue where they could do much good.
“Let’s get on the roof.” Finley said hurriedly as the fight moved to the next house over with the Tauranthrope throwing the unnatural into the bordering fence.
“Try to listen for non-combatants.” Callie said as they clambered up on to the roof.
But Finley remained more focused on the fight so as to not be taken by surprise again.
While they managed to leave the tauranthrope and his sparring partner behind without having to get involved, a much larger fight came into view.
From their vantage point they could make out six unnaturals – two of them visibly damaged – fighting a larger group of water spirits.
The fight had already spilled into the homes on either side of the street and was now threatening to diffuse to both neighbouring streets.
There were two houses in between the streets, a back alley between them.
Since they were on the left, they had a better view of the street on that side.
There were civilians – by the looks of them – trudging through the water.
The same could not be ascertained for the right side but it was likely.
“The fighting’s less intense here.
You take the right side.” Finley said and started running over the rooftops.
The adrenaline within seemed to have made the tiles slope at a gentler angle and given a bit more friction to the interaction between his shoes and their surface.
When he was right in the middle of the fight – above the inner house – he decided to slide off the roof and, lo and behold, the surface beneath seemed to regain its slippery nature, allowing him to do so gracefully.
He was making his way to the back alley – which he deemed to be the best part to surveil and exercise what little control he could over the combat (since it wasn’t flooded) – when the fighting spilled out over the back porch.
Finley sprinted the last few feet and crossed over the fence as two unnaturals and three water spirits started ruining what was a well-maintained backyard – even after the vagaries of weather.
As the seconds passed by all too slowly, Finley realised that the anticipated acute temptation of joining the fight was not being aroused in him.
He was perfectly content to watch them hash it out.
He even felt secure in that he had another house worth of buffer before he could – in good conscience – be required to intervene.
But Finley’s resolve did not break when inevitably, the wooden fence was broken.
He only moved to create some more space.
He glanced at the water spirits as if to say ‘I’m here to help’.
And their eyes told him ‘Why have you been standing here like a lunk for the better part of five minutes then?’.
It was all a bit humiliating and Finley’s cheeks were coloured when one of the unnaturals (by that time they had recognised that Finley wasn’t one of them) rushed towards him. Get faster updates on novelping(.)com.
Finley thrust his spear at its neck, neither with enough strength nor enough accuracy.
Its force was blunted as it slid up from the top of its chest, getting stuck in its neck as the force of its charged made Finley slide back and ground his spear as the unnatural arched over his head and landed flat on its back.
It gave Finley enough time to wrench the spear out as one of the water spirits made short work of its now exposed neck, bringing it to a comatose state.
In ensuring its immobility, Finley was slow in joining his comrades in finishing off the remaining unnatural and it had already lost a lot of mobility in one leg by that time.
They – mostly the water spirits – made short work of it and Finley was still catching his breath and prodding the second cadaver from afar when they left and he realised he should be getting to the other side as well.
Much to his dismay, he found the battle in full swing with both houses ruined.
There were still many civilians on the outer street but due to the flooding and the nature of their enemies’ powers, the unnaturals – of whom there were three more than the original count – did not let the fight spill into the water.
They continued fighting in the wreckage and made it a bigger mess.
Finley did not have the physical composition of his comrades and so found the arena itself as quite detrimental to his health.
He stuck to the periphery of the fight in the yard, trying to get to Callie, who was near the outer street.
Finley was in the backyard of the second house when he got pulled into a fight – though pulled would not be the right word for it.
But they never did invent a word that could sufficiently communicate that a nixie threw an unnatural right at him.
He imagined with a shudder afterward that he would have been crushed were it not for his excellent peripheral vision and reflexes.
The unnatural crashed into a wall and in a fit of misdirected fury, charged at Finley – who having been preoccupied with an earthly embrace, could only scramble away on his hands and feet.
The unnatural’s advance was blunted and redirected so Finley could bravely join the fight by thrusting the tip of the spear into its neck from behind.
That time his aim and strength did not fail him, nearly taking the damn thing’s head off entirely.
He let the spear go with a push, making the machine fall flat on its front.
Finley stepped toward it, planting his feet on either side of its chest.
He grabbed the handle of the spear, twisted it and yanked it out savagely.
He felt strangely and pleasantly empty.
The spear felt like an extension of his hand.
His eyes focused on the unnatural Callie was fighting twenty metres away – the walls and roof had come crashing down by then – and he was so confident of his ability to command his weapon to do his bidding that he felt certain that he could behead it with a well-timed throw.
He did not do it, of course: he only had the one spear and could not bring himself to compromise his defensive ability, no matter how good he perceived his aim to be.
And so he ran towards Callie, dodging the combatants in his way until he was by her side.
“I came to help.” he said, elated by his own action.
“Help is always welcome.
She’s a tough bastard.” It was true.
She was almost undamaged even then.
She grinned gruesomely in response to the compliment and hit Callie hard with a flurry of blows, all blocked with high degrees of effectiveness.
Finley could not aim a thrust with the unnatural moving about to such an extent so he simply swept her off her feet, though she recovered fast enough.
With her attention focused on him, Finley didn’t quite feel the spear-master.
His arms felt tired and the weapon heavy.
He knew he could not take upon an onslaught akin to the one Callie had endured.
So he did the logical thing and began retreating into the wreckage of the house to let her take out her anger on the wreckage.
Hopefully she would get wrapped up in battle with the others and he could just take a proper breather.
Retreating did not turn out to be so easy as imagined, however.
It was quite annoying, on the contrary.
His feet kept hitting some debris or the other.
Avoiding the people already in the wreckage was another nuisance.
They seemed to shadow him and he could not make his way without being hounded by them.
He had enough good sense and awareness to keep himself intact long enough for his comrades to come to his rescue.
Finley stuck around on the fringes, but never really got involved until the unnaturals were all dead, upon which he took it upon himself to congratulate everyone – who did not seem to see the occasion for his cheeriness.
Callie told him the smoke had gotten to his head and made his brain all foggy.
Of course, he vehemently opposed the allegation, taking only a quarter hour to present arguments for his admirable (if he did say so himself) rationality.
It certainly contributed to making their patrolling for unnaturals more stimulating on account for the fact that the defective unnaturals had apparently all fixed themselves and gone to Old Jalakide upon the very first display of Finley’s prowess with the spear.
After an hour or two of watching buildings in the flooded, burning or wrecked category (which got boring alarmingly quickly) – during which they could only help with such insignificant tasks that it did not feel like real help -, they finally decided to give it up.
The city was starting to become overrun with spirits and the undead, which was quite a distressing and nauseating display of ruin and decay.
Finley and Callie agreed that they had done enough good for the day (if not the week), and that there was nothing for them to do anymore but to impose on and to get in the way of the more able heroes of the siege.
They shuffled off to the nearest metro station (the public transport had begun operation ahead of schedule that day) and got into a surprisingly crowded train.
After all, it was just another day with its usual trivialities.
“Do you think the others are back at the Oaty by now?” said Finley, still dripping water at that point.
“If they’re not, they will be well on their way.
No one – not even the Windriders – are eager to die for the government, and that is what will happen if they stick around in that fortress.”
“It’ll hold out for a bit, though.
A couple days, I’d venture.”
“I wonder what will happen to the city then.”
“Maybe they’ll be better off in the long run.”
That revelation was enough to lull them in a comfortable silence with a satisfied air about themselves.
And so it was until they arrived at the port.
“Our bags are ruined.” Callie said in the tone of one who has woken from a dream.
Her eyes were on his backpack.
“They’ll dry.” said Finley consolingly.
The bags only got more drenched once they stepped out into the open.
Finley turned to glance at his bag (the little bit that was visible to him) gloomily.
“Do you know where the Oaty is moored?” he said.
“I have a rough idea.”
It turned out Callie had slightly less than a rough idea and it took them a quarter hour to find their ship – which in her opinion was “not that bad.”
Finley could have contended that they would not have found the ship if its lights – so familiar to them by then – had not been on but he was too happy to have left the damn island behind him to sour it with critical thoughts.
He hopped onto the gangplank, walked across with the grace and elegance of a professional gymnast only to stumble onto the deck in the end.
Callie did not witness this since she had gone off to look for Sylviane, who – after looking in the unlikeliest of places – turned out to be in her room with Xara.
“Could you imagine?
The nerve.” Callie had said to Finley with incredulity – borne out of the fact that the singular (she had been assumed to be alone) guardian of the ship had left it so in favour of the comforts of her quarters – and had thrown his own pillow on his head when he gave a sarcastic reply.
Finley had not joined the search and after hearing of how much time had been spent in the endeavour, he had felt very happy with his decision.
He had bathed and subsequently stuffed every clothing item in the washing machine – regardless of their protests against such treatment – by the time Venedir and Zander arrived.
They confirmed that Linny would not be joining them after all and were immediately counter-questioned whether the same was true for Gwenyth.
They replied that it was not and that she was on her way, though they did not sound as certain as Finley would have liked.
But Gwenyth did find her way to the Opaline Tide, and freshened up just in time for breakfast.
The rain had miraculously stopped by then and so they decided to dine out on the wet, foggy deck.
Not being able to see the food did not lessen how delicious it tasted, as they were all happy to discover.