They ran.
Rain poured from the sky as it had all day, but now
the darkness was punctuated by flashes of lightning and the silence of
Whispercove was consumed by the terrible scream of the Spectres. In the sky above, Lakhma stirred.
So they ran.
Gulliver had the lead, his lanky legs and strong
sense of self-preservation helping him to cover ground the others couldn't
quite manage, but Rockspark wasn't far behind.
Then came Franck, helping Miss Barkcastle along, though she seemed
increasingly likely to topple. And
behind them all, still holding hands after that near suicidal rescue attempt,
Siren and Ellis were gaining ground.
Not much further back down the hill the Spectres
swept forward like a ghostly tidal wave.
They had lost much of their individual appearance and apart from their
terrifying, gape-mouthed faces, they seemed now to be a wall of unstoppable
light, screaming one endless, incomprehensible note as they came.
The cobbles were slick with rain, and water sluiced
down the gutters to either side of them, overflowing in irregular floods. Slips were inevitable and each little stumble
lost them ground. It seemed each flash
of pent-up electricity above illuminated fewer cobbles between the Spectres and their quarry.
Siren was focussed on the one-foot-after-the-other
repetition of the chase, the thud of her boots on the cobbles and her pulse in
her ears. She tried not to think - to think
was to slow down, for one, but there were other reason. The situation made no sense. Only moments ago they were hiding – fearing
for their lives, yes – but secure and undetected and well on their way to
making it back to Shalereef. Ellis’
sudden zombie-like announcement seemed to have no rationale behind it and what
he said, that he knew what the Spectres were, as if he and he alone had some
special kind of revelation, was just a bit too much to take. Why had he done it? What had compelled him to put him into this
terrifying situation? Trying to
understand that now would just make Siren’s head hurt.
But there was a stronger reason than that not to
think. Thinking also meant
realisation. Despite her efforts,
however, somewhere in the back of her mind the truth was dawning.
There was no way they could escape this now.
Somewhere up ahead Gulliver swerved to the left and
ducked into a side street. The others
followed as quickly as they could, but, because of the blind rise they were
approaching, Siren couldn't see the reason why until they were right on top of
the junction: a unit of Knights, charging up the hill towards them, damp capes
still trailing behind them in vivid Lakhma crimson. She turned left and pulled Ellis in after
her.
Then they were running downhill and the normally
mirror-like waters of Whispercove harbour churned before them about half a mile
further down. The Ghost Ships of the
Spectres were approaching the shore and it seemed that even the light of the
Stillfire had grown brighter, making it harder to hide. Above them, dipping through the clouds at
first tentatively, and then with more certainty, the tentacles of Lakhma began
to descend.
Siren closed her eyes for a moment. She could not think of any way that this
could end well and she didn't want to see the many threats that imperilled
them. In the dark of her head the world
seemed calmer somehow. It was tempting
to let it stay that way, but a sudden crashing boom, followed by the low rumble
of collapsing rubble forced her open her eyes once more. A sweeping tentacle rushed overhead, having
just ploughed through one building to get at them, and sliced straight through
another. Masonry and debris fell into
the street and it was all they could do to stay on one side and avoid the flow
of rocks and rubble, before another tentacle swipe sent the top storey of a
deserted milliner’s shop over their heads.
Behind them, the constant scream only seemed to grow
louder, and in its midst Siren could just hear the steady thunk thunk thunk of
the Knight's boots and the rattling percussion of their armour.
We're screwed,
she thought, veering around another pile of rubble even as the next tentacle
attack bisected a cooper’s shopfront, sending fragments of barrel into the air
ahead. And that's when Miss Barkcastle
fell.
She let out a terrible yelp of pain, then stumbled
and tripped over a piece of debris, to send herself flying across the cobbles and
land in an awkward heap on the ground.
Franck ran a few steps further before he noticed, then turned to look at
her in concern and, yes, that was horror creeping across his face too.
Siren and Ellis were only a few second behind them
and Gulliver and Rockspark must have heard her scream because they came to a
stumbling halt further down the street and glanced back: Gulliver uncertain;
Rockspark's eyes flaring.
"Are you alright, my dear?" the Former
Baron called as he made his halting progress the few feet to where she lay.
"No."
It was hard to tell under the rumble of thunder, the scream of the
Spectres, the rattle of the Knights, but Siren guessed she was sobbing. There was blood seeping out from under her
blouse. "I think I've broken
something. I..." she tried to lift herself
on her arm, screamed, fell back down.
"More than something. I
can't get up."
She stared at them, then, eyes wide and dampening
and for a horrible, achingly long moment there followed a rain-filled,
thunder-crashing, Spectre-screaming, Knight-shouting silence.
"You'll have to leave me,” she said through her
tears, “there’s nothing for it. I can’t
keep running like this and they’ll be on us in seconds.” She stared at them in horror when they didn’t
move, shouted, “Go!”; fear and sadness turning to anger and hopeless
frustration.
Which was what Siren felt. She stared at Miss. Barkcastle, bleeding and
broken on the cobbles, and she didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere they could turn, no safe
place they could hide her, or take her so that her wounds could be looked at,
the bleeding staunched, the broken bones set.
There was nothing they could do.
But even if they ran on, there would be no
hope. The tentacles would get them one
by one, or the Spectres would catch them, or the Knights would. It was an untenable situation and there was a
part of Siren that, after three months of hiding and seeking, just wanted to
give up and rest.
That wasn’t an option either.
There was only one other thing she could do, the one
thing she had promised to do only in the direst of emergencies, because doing
so endangered them all, and not just those she was in the company of right now.
Still, it couldn’t get any worse, could it?
Silent Whispercove roared around them and, as Siren
stared down at Miss. Barkcastle’s frail, weakening body, she reached inside her
jacket, found the hidden sewn up pocket and, tearing at the seam, let her
finger touch the gemstone within.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but there’s no other
choice.”
And everything turned white.
Now that's how you end an episode! A little short, yeah - but the scary heart-pounding run-away-run-away action was worth it.
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