Chapter 19: Tactical retreat

I don’t really know how long it took. While floating when blinded one quickly loses the perception of time and space. I didn’t really even care anymore. I was too tired to deal with this world’s bullshit. But still, with the whole floating thing, my fear of heights soon started to kick in. When I started screaming in terror whenever the altitude seemed to change, they forcibly shut my mouth so I was unable to move it.

My bottom hit something hard that felt like a chair, and I immediately tried to cling to it as much as I could. Sadly, my hands and legs were still bound with what I presumed was magic since I didn’t feel anything tangible holding them bound.

Then my right arm was suddenly forced upward. The bracelet was being tugged on. There was some mumbling between several people accompanying it, but it didn’t seem like Dufus deemed it important enough to translate.

Hold on, I’ll sort this out.

Then the connection with Dufus was lost as the bracelet seemed to give in to the pressure and slipped out.

There was only one voice speaking now. It was distorted into nothing but mumbling by the bag over my head. In the end, silence fell and the people who took us seemed to hold their breath in expectation. Where the hell was Paul anyway? I didn’t hear him since they ‘arrested’ us.

Then the screaming started.

It was a silent wail at first, like a child that bumped his head and wasn’t sure what to do, so it just went to its default modus operandi and decided to cry out. That’s how I’d describe the high-pitched scream as it rose in volume. It made my ears bleed in pain. It also made my heart race in fear. What the hell was going on?

Another shriek joined the first one, then someone else pitched into the chorus of screeches. Soon the whole room was filled with cacophony of wails of tortured beings. The cries were shortly accompanied with sickening crunches and splashing sounds, and lastly silence.

The walls echoed their torture even after the heavy stench of death and silence filled the room. Was this Dufus’ work?

A few clip-clops sounded against stone, growing in strength as what was probably the sole survivor came closer to me.

“It is over,” a distorted voice sounded right next to my ear, making me flinch hard.

“What?” I stammered out.

In answer the binds holding me in place suddenly were no more. I quickly tugged the bag off my head almost tearing my coconut off in the process. The world of stone and light welcomed me back into the world of seeing. Though even the torch-light was a little too strong after a while in darkness, so I had to let my eyes rest and adjust before beholding the room and the being that let me free.

The room was a classic interrogation room. Stone walls, one table and two chairs. I was sitting in one of them. However, what wasn’t probably typical to this room were the pools of blood, bodies torn apart in every way imaginable, and pieces of armor and weapons lying about among the remnants of once living beings.

What the fuck.

As I observed this butcher's room, my sight inevitably fell on the pristine-clean lone unicorn. It was the scribe, and there was a circlet on his right foreleg. It resembled roots growing around each other.

“Dufus?” I asked the frozen-still scribe.

He nodded.

“You… you did all of this?” I squeaked out and flailed my arms around to point to the massacred creatures littering the room.

He nodded again, but this time with a smirk. “There’s a reason why the ratlings worshiped me. And a reason why we got out.”

I felt my face drain out of color. That seemed to make him even more joyful as he continued, “What? Did you think I sang the ratlings a lullaby and they let us out? You know better than that. And I know you know.”

I stood up shakingly while having to hold onto the table to not let my knees fold under me. I stared at him for a second before asking, “But how?”

His grin fell with sadness. “Ambitious idiot lacking any personality or goodness. Oh, if you could only hear him crying like a little child inside my head.” Dufus looked upwards as if in reverence.

“Holy shit,” I whispered under my breath.

“You don’t look too good. Let’s get out of this sewage before you dirty my new body with bile,” he said and turned to a single, heavy-looking wooden door. With a flash of light the door shattered, only two pieces of plank hanging from the hinges remained.

“Take care. You wouldn’t want to get a splinter, now would you?” He laughed and trotted with his hard hooves over the door remnants.

“Wait! Where’s Paul?” I ran after him.

“In a different interrogation room,” Dufus said and picked a few bigger, sharp-looking pieces of wood with his magic.

We entered a hall that led to stairs leading upwards. There were two doors, including the one Dufus just destroyed, and what looked like cells built into the walls by both sides of the wall leading to the stairs. The cells were separated from the hall by bars, so the prisoners at both sides could see each other. Iron doors were set into the bars.

The door to what I presumed was the second interrogation room suddenly opened, a gryphon in armor and bearing a sword walked out, yelling, “What in the feathery ass is going on?”

A piece of wood through his eye put him down quickly. Commotion broke out in the interrogation room as their inhabitants must’ve noticed their now quite dead comrade. With Dufus out of my head, I had no idea what they were yelling in there.

The possessed scribe calmly stepped to the door, but still out of sight of whomever was inside, and quickly levitated a piece of wood to the entrance. An axe as big as my chest appeared so quickly I almost didn’t notice it. The axe cut the piece of wood in half and rammed itself into the dead body where it became stuck.

Dufus quickly jumped into the doorway and shot five pieces of wood inside. Two voices yelled out. Quickly unjamming the axe with his magic, he levitated it in front of himself, then jumped inside. A short fight later, he emerged still clean from what I assumed was another slaughter. Shortly after him, a bloodied gryphon stepped around him somewhat shocked. That, however, he got quickly over as he saw me.

“Peter!” He yelled out and said something more.

“He asks if you are hurt.”

“No.” I answered in Balderdash, the language once again just as unfamiliar as when I started. It was hard to admit how dependant I’ve become on Dufus’ translations.

“Please tell him that I can’t understand him now that you’re not in my head.”

Dufus relayed the information to Paul. Hopefully. The gryphon nodded at me.

“Come, Peter. We have to get out before more ‘guards’ arrive.”

“What’s with the sarcastic ‘guards’?” I asked and followed him and Paul out.

“Some were real, some were just slavers in disguise that infiltrated the local guard.”

“Ah.”

We marched through the hall, pleading hands and arms of different creatures reaching out through the bars. We didn’t stop, we didn’t look, we only went up the stairs through another heavy looking door that probably blocked out the sound of yelling prisoners, and into a room where three guards were playing a game I wasn’t familiar with. They were out of their armor, and their weapons sat beside their chairs. The lazy guards looked at us with surprise. One asked something using a single word.

Dufus gave them a single-worded answer and with a flash of light their heads fucking exploded. Bits of brains and skulls became the new wall decoration. My respect for Dufus suddenly grew in spades.

“What did you tell them?ˇ” I whispered in the sudden silence.

Nonchalantly, he broke the stillness, “Perish.” With that he walked over to one of the closets dotting the walls of the room. Inside were all our things, which Paul took handily. I didn’t take anything, since I didn’t have anything. Sad face. But then a sudden thought dawned on me.

“Is there anything else we could use in any of these closets?” I asked Dufus. He had this scribe’s memories available, and surely the scribe would have at least a mental inventory of the confiscated things.

“My, my, Peter. But that’s stealing,” He said smugly, and soon with a glow, all the closets and chests opened, inviting me to partake of the glory hidden inside them.

“If it helps me find my brother, I don’t care,” I said and walked around the room to the different closets to see if there was anything useful around here.

“Paul isn’t very happy,” Dufus announced, and looking at Paul he really didn’t seem happy.

“Tell him it’s for the best or something.” With that, I returned to my scavenging.

And oh, was it something. There were different weapons, clothes for all kinds of beings, satchels and bags filled with both ordinary and strange things, and sometimes there was money hidden in pockets that the guard probably didn’t find.

“Hurry up, we don’t have much time before guard exchange.”

“Well, what would you pick?”

“Pick a bag and empty it, I’ll find something.”

I quickly found a backpack with a single strap that I could use. Dufus quickly levitated some things from different closets and shoved them into the bag.

“What’s in there?” I asked and looked inside.

“I’ll explain later, now we have to move out. I’ll try to get us to the armory where we can hopefully get us some armor to blend in with the guard. Let’s go.”

I strapped the bag over my chest. Dufus opened the only other door in the room, and we followed in. Upon moving into the hallway, we stopped.

A large quadrupled in heavy armor with bull horns sticking out from under a full-faced helmet yelled something. He obviously was the captain or something similar, as about fifteen soldiers moved into position in front of him, some kneeling, some standing above those kneeling. They blocked the entire hallway, and thus our way out.

Two unicorns donning elaborate, light looking armor pushed through the rank to the forefront, where with confidence they got into battle positions, their horns aimed at Dufus.

The possessed unicorn in question cackled at the two battlemages, saying something between his bouts of malicious laughter. I was almost facepalming at the obvious trying to look evil.

The enemy casters looked at each other, then began discussing something with Dufus who still had a creepy smile painted on his face. They talked like that for what seemed to be ages.

“You should get back. You don’t want to get into the crossfire,” he said, not taking his eyes off the two bastards.

“Paul,” I said and started to move backwards, Paul following me. With a yelp I bumped into the doorway before adjusting my course onto the right track.

Both of the unicorns’ horns suddenly filled the hallway with different shades of light. Paul and I quickly jumped the rest of the way inside, Paul slamming the door closed as all hell broke loose in the hall.

We quickly ran further into the prison, slamming the soundproofed door behind us too, then quickly moving to the end of the corridor of prison cells. Suddenly, we heard an explosion that shook the ground and destroyed even the heavy door leading out of the prison, a bout of flame licking the ceiling following behind.

Even from here we could see the room outside was awash in flames. This whole place was going to burn down. Even though most of the prison was made of stone, there were still wooden beams perhaps holding the roof, or maybe just for decoration, but they were there, and it would make hell of the prison.

Paul was already carrying a keyring taken from one of the downed guards. As he was trying to unlock the first cell by trying every key in possible, I stopped his claw with my hand, gripping him as hard as I could.

These prisoners were there for a reason. They looked frightened and pleading now, but the moment the cell doors opened, they could easily overpower us and kill us. We weren’t warriors. But they probably were. The closets full of confiscated things were filled of armor and weapons. These weren’t just some poor bastards stealing bread. God forbid if any of the wielded magic.

Anger like hot iron laced through my heart.

If I died, who would save Michael? Who would find and help my lost little brother? No one. He was alone, and I was the only one that could help him. No one else knew him. He only had me.

He only had me.

“Why, Paul? Why do you try to save everyone? You’re a gryphon, a creature of war from what I saw for God’s sake! Would you endanger us and our mission for some scum? You would place the lives of these creatures before my brother’s?!” By the end of it, I was screaming so hard that spit flew everywhere. My heart rammed its war melody in my chest, making me heave with deep but fast breaths.

His determination wavered as he looked at me. No, there was no more determination there. Only hurt, disbelief and sadness. He didn’t understand me, couldn’t, but something must’ve gone across. I let go of his arm which he let fall beside him. The keyring rattled against the stone floor as he let go of it.

“We must go,” he whispered, defeated as his will left him. With head hung low, he walked back toward the burning guard room.

I couldn’t believe myself. No, I could, but didn’t want to.

It was necessary, I kept reassuring myself as I picked up the keyring, preparing myself to throw salvation out of the prisoners’ reach, to condemn them to burn, to assure myself they wouldn’t follow us, that they wouldn’t try to stop us, exact vengeance on us for not helping them; it was necessary.

I looked up, into the prison cell in front of me. Unlike most other prisoners, he wasn’t begging or pleading. He was just sitting there, content or perhaps not caring for what was happening around him. He was a gryphon, but he had no wings.

I threw the keys into his cell, then turned around and walked away. Live, if you decide so. Let others live, if it is your will. Their fate was no longer in my hands, and it was a relief that eased the pain of my aching chest.

Place your problems on someone else, that’s what you always did best. The thought fluttered through my mind like a gentle butterfly that didn’t condemn, only reminded. Reminded me of who I always was, and who I would always be.

“I’ve changed.”

Paul was silent as we quickly ran through the burning room and into the hallway where nothing but charred bits and pieces remained. From the ashes of one corpse I thought belonged to the scribe I dug out Dufus’ bracelet and put it on.

Burning oneself to death is not fun.

I don’t imagine it ever could be.

The fools didn’t expect me to sacrifice myself to kill them all. Well, sacrifice the scribe’s body to be precise. When their guard was down—Boom! Hahahaha! Now go, forget about the armory if you don’t want to burn down.

The heat started to grow into unbearable heights, so we quickly moved through the hall and up more stairs, which led us into some kind of fore-room where a few frantic guards were rattling their mouths at each other. They stopped as we entered.

Tell them this: Fire broke out in the lower dungeon. Evacuate the premises and start bringing in water if you don’t want this whole place to burn down.

I put on my best commanding voice and yelled out what Dufus was whispering in my mind. The guards just stood and listened.

Now!

“Now!” I yelled and they started moving about, some going back the way we came, some going outside. One, however, decided that he’d rather apprehend escaping prisoners in a burning building than do whatever he could to survive. He was a cat-like person, basically like a diamond dog, except a cat.

“You’re a prisoner, and under the law you are not to leave this prison.”

He’s a slaver. Threaten him.

“And you are a slaver piece of shit that’s gonna get his ass handed to him by his officers if you don’t get out of our way!”

He was smaller than me, most creatures seemed to be that way in this world. He was taken aback, maybe by the way I talked to him, maybe he was surprised by the fact that I knew he was a slaver. Whatever it was, he was paralyzed enough that we just shoved him aside and ran past him. We moved out through the large door into the great wide city.

It was early into the night. Somehow, we seemed to have spent a few hours in there, even though it seemed only like minutes. Whatever. The coolness of night was more than welcome after the heat.

Run if you don’t want to get caught.

Probably the best idea, I started running into the streets, winding it into different corridors and crossing large streets so wide that an army could march through them. After what felt like forever we decided to take a breather in one of the hallways.

“You left them in there,” Paul interrupted the night’s serenity, his voice hinting more disbelief than anger. Then, however, quick as lightning and strong as thunder, he grabbed me by the collar of my leather shirt, practically yelling into my face, “You left them in there! How could you?”

I didn’t have the strength nor the will to fight back, to make him understand. I just didn’t want to fight anymore...

“Don’t worry, I threw the keys to one of the prisoners,” I wheezed out in-between breaths, partly out of breath from running, and partly from the surprise attack.

Paul looked at me, confused more than ever as he let me go. “What? Then, what was that all about? I didn’t understand and I thou–”

I interrupted him with a wave of my hand. “I… I don’t know, Paul. Forget it. Just…. forget it,”

He just shook his head, “Sometimes I think I understood you more when we couldn't talk to each other.”

“Yeah,” I said and took a deep breath of the crisp night air. “Maybe.”

The stars were beautiful tonight.