Despite Ellis’s senses and dexterity, sprinting through a pitch black cave still had him bumping and scraping his knees and elbows every three steps whenever his foot would catch onto a small lip in the brick floor. And despite his blindness, Ameena and Michael were both relying on him to find the way. Michael carried her in his arms, the blood flowing from his neck freely as the trio ran away from the loud, angry voices chasing after them.

  Some parts of the tunnel were as wide as Ellis’s shoulders, Michael had to squeeze past these parts with curses and grunts. Ellis in turn cursed his low mana, and estimated it would take another two to three minutes for it to rejuvenate. Without his truth sight his eyes were useless, so he ran his hand along the walls in the hope he would be lucky enough to stumble onto something useful.

  Ameena wasn’t saying much, but from the occasional, extra angry shout that would erupt from behind them he assumed she was making their retreat a little easier with her magic. With every step he grew more fearful, the dark feeling more and more suffocating the harder he flung himself into it. And then,= his hand touched solid wood, and he came to an abrupt stop.

  Michael stumbled right into him, almost knocking all three of them over. Before he could protest, Ellis pushed against the solid wood and felt it give way. “A door! Inside, quick!”

  They ran inside, closing the door with as much stealth their wounded bodies could muster. The bolt that had cut through Ellis’s head had covered that side of his face in blood, some of it now getting in his eye. He started wiping it away as he explored the room the same way he had explored the dark tunnel, feeling every nook and cranny of the walls while hoping to get lucky.

  The room must have been less than ten by ten feet, but was enough for them to sit down and catch their breath. In his search, Ellis found a torch jutting out the wall, and sent up a grateful prayer for the gods' mercy. Placing his crossbow and quiver on the floor, he ripped off his shirt and stuck it between the door and the floor.

  “Michael! Take your shirt off, stuff it between the ceiling and door!” Ellis ordered, still whispering.

  “Can’t you at least buy me a drink first?” He whispered back, before the sound of ripping cloth filled the room, making Ellis cringe at the violent noise.

  “Ameena, I’m going to light up a torch. We need to see our injuries.” Ellis phrased it as asking for permission, but he was going to do it no matter what she said.

  She coughed, her voice slightly weaker than usual. “Fine.”

  “Can you light this?” Ellis asked when he thought Michael was done with the door, tapping the torch against where he thought Michael’s shoulder would be.

  Michael didn’t speak, just grabbed the torches head and covered it in flame. The room lit up, revealing Michael covering his neck with his hand. He had taken the brunt of the damage, bolts and cuts littering almost every inch of his muscled torso that glinted in the firelight.

  Ellis inspected the bolts sticking out of him under the torchlight, and saw they had at best pierced an inch into his skin. His constitution had saved him from the bolts causing heavy damage, and they had patched the bleeding. No, the only problematic wounds were the one on his neck and the spear through his leg.

  Ameena’s foot had bled like a geyser, her right pant leg covered in red, and the Rasstrap still stuck to her leg like an ugly leech. Her face looked like a corpse. But her eyes were alert, which Ellis took as a sign of good health.

  She wore a pained expression as she healed her own injuries while laying against the wall. Michael ripped the Rass trap off her leg with a scowl on his face, before sitting down next to her. A moment later, her hand drifted towards his neck and she placed it over the wound. Her leg had stopped bleeding altogether, and the one Michael’s from his neck stopped squirting altogether.

  Michael was scowling into the shadows that crawled up the walls. “Can’t believe we lost,” he complained, breaking the spear tip off his leg and pulling the wood out like it was nothing.

  “It was a tactical retreat. They had the advantage, they had clearly prepared for incidents like that. It was good we didn’t waste too much of our strength on them before fighting the Archduke,” Ameena stated.

  Ellis felt it was time he stepped in.

  “Ameena. We need to retreat even further. The Archduke will have to wait.”

  “No!” She almost shouted, before bringing her voice back down to a low growl. “No. We are in the tunnels now. If we lead those bastards towards the palace, they will serve as a distraction to the palace guards.”

  “You said the palace guards are why we needed this gear in the first place. And the people we just ran into were not palace guards!” Ellis gestured angrily at the both of them, getting to the crux of his argument. “And fucking look at you! Look at Michael!”

  “Don’t use me as an example boy! I can still fight!” he argued, holding the broken spear tip towards him in warning.

  “You can! But would you win? Against fresh guards numbering in the hundreds—”

  “Dozens,” Ameena corrected. “Palace guard selection is far more rigorous than the regular guards.”

  “That is all the more reason not to fucking do this! You said to turn back from the Ant Killer because we couldn’t kill him in the market! Do you honestly think, right now, that you could make it all the way to the Archduke and have enough strength left over to kill him!?”

  Ameena gritted her teeth, shaking her head while whispering about cowardice, but he could see the wheels turning, the logic and anger fighting for control in her. He left her to it, going back to his weapons.

  Sitting down and feeling along the long scratch in his head, he realized something. He wasn’t that injured. Not compared to them. Placing his hand over the bolts in his quiver, the silence returned to his chest, a single mana for him to use as he pleased.

  Ameena was still scowling, but her eyes were locked forward. Michael was ripping out all the bolts covering him, and he didn’t even glance at Ellis as he picked up the crossbow. Their weapons were holstered or on the floor, meaning it would take a precious second for them to draw it. He prayed to the gods to give him a bit of luck one more time, before he started loading the crossbow.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Because an opportunity like this was not something he would pass up.

  Just as he clicked the bolt into place, just as he was about to see the fruits of his labour, Ameena shook her head and looked at him. He could see that she was going to argue, make them press forward in some vain hope of getting into the palace and get them killed in the process.

  But the same eyes that scowled at him now squinted, before they darted around the floor covered in blood. Ameena’s eyes widened, just as the sound of a dog sniffing echoed through the tunnel walls.

  “Cut the light! And both of you get up!”

  Michael stood up and drew his sword, killing Ellis’s treacherous thoughts in their cradle. He grumbled as he obeyed, giving her an odd look as he did so.

  “The blood! They will follow the blood! They’ll be on top of us any moment, be ready,” Ameena ordered, and by some miracle got to her feet.

  After cutting the light, Ellis’s ears seemed to deepen, and now he could hear the pitter patter of paws sprinting towards them. Knowing the outcome and yet hoping it would not come to pass, he prayed. A howl erupted from behind the door, cutting off his prayer as the sound echoed down the tunnels, like a dinner bell being rung for the whole family.

  Ellis winced at the sound as he shot to his feet. “They know we’re here! We gotta run!”

  Michael did not need much convincing. With his sword drawn, he sprinted at the door like it had insulted his wife. He crashed through it, the door ripping from its hinges as Michael swung his sword in every direction once he crossed the threshold. He received a yelp for his efforts, and kicked the dog that had appeared at the door all the wall down the hall.

  Ellis peaked his head out the room. Michael’s ring erupted with fire, allowing him to see that Michael was cooking three men who had managed to sneak up on them. He held his sword tip up to the ring, cutting the stream in half as it flew through the men and climbed up the walls. Despite everything, Ellis kept his eyes peeled for the dog as he waited for Ameena to catch up.

  “Ameena! Come on!” Ellis shouted at her, stepping out the room and hefting the crossbow to his shoulder.

  “I’ll put a Rass trap through your leg and see you try and run boy!” She cursed, the flesh of her ankle stitched together yet still red and angry, not even close to being fully healed as she stepped past Ellis and wobbled her way toward Michael’s back.

  They ran past the burned corpses and let the darkness swallow them once again.

  “Go left!” Ellis ordered, not hearing any shouts coming from that way.

  The cursing that had chased them into the tunnels was right behind them now, and once again crossbow bolts started digging off the walls next to Ellis’s head.

  “Ameena! Illusions!?” Michael gasped. He pushed her in front of him while they sprinted down the hallway, leaving Ellis behind his broad back like he had the constitution to stop a bolt.

  “No mana left! Ellis, fuck stealth! Bring the torch back up! I can’t see a thing!”

  Feeling like this was a stupid plan, he obliged her, pulling out the covered torch and handing it forward. Michael used the fire that had caught on his pants to light it. The torch illuminated a split junction in the hallway a ways in front of them. Ameena limped to a stop right before they could take a path. Michael tried to push her forward which she refused with a shake of her head.

  “We can’t outrun them. We make our stand here,” she panted, turning to face the noisy path they had just come from with her twin daggers.

  Michael grinned at that, flicking blood off his sword as he faced the same way. “Sometimes you say all the right things.”

  That's where they stood, waiting. It was twenty seconds before the shouts found them, the glint of steel and shadows not far behind. Trying to learn from Michael’s earlier stint with the fire, Ellis leaned as far right as he could. His crossbow was aimed floor to ceiling rather than wall to wall, and he let the silence take the bolt as he pulled the trigger.

  The bolt’s spread far better than they had on the surface, disappearing into the darkness surrounding them like a thief in the night. The sound of crunching helmets, shredded armour and startled cries filled the hall for his efforts, buying them an extra two seconds of precious rest.

  “Ahh Ellis, are you buttering them up for me? How kind of you!” Michael said with a laugh, his grin turning playful as he marched forward.

  Two steps and Ellis heard the twang of bows from one of the tunnels right behind him, and jumped into Ameena to push her out the way as an arrow flew past their heads. “Ambush! Michael! We’re surrounded!”

  “Stop bitching and shoot ‘em!” he shouted back, his steps faltering as he started retreating back to them, swiping the crossbow bolts out of the air with his sword, two sides of the tunnel filling with the angry mob they had stumbled upon.

  Ameena pushed him off of her, then faced the hallway with their new attackers. Gritting her teeth, she said the first sensible thing since they got there. “Michael! We’re running away! Follow us!”

  “Again!?” he cried, but followed Ameena as she started stomping down the left junction, the only path that seemed clear.

  She put one of her daggers away and pulled out the stone from Leno’s home as they ran, and Ellis heard her whisper a silent prayer under her breath that they would give up the chase soon.

  They sprinted through that tunnel for a short while, Ameena’s limping growing worse with every step, before they saw light at the end of it. Ellis’s steps faltered at the sight, knowing it could only be bad news, but Michael pushed him forward with an angry grunt.

  “They’re still shooting at us! Be glad I let you go first you little shit!”

  His new dexterity meant he could probably walk faster than the speed Ameena was running now, but he was matching it to make sure he didn’t lose her. But at Michael’s threat, knowing what would happen if he decided to run behind the big man, his feet started pounding away at the stone as they saw light emerging from the end of the tunnel.

  What greeted them was a cavern, beautiful light blue crystals that mimicked flowers providing the light Ellis had seen. What that light shone down on was what looked like an underground mimicry of the city above. There were dozens of people poking their heads up behind stalls and carts to catch a glimpse of Ellis as he came to a stop in the light. He could see the white of their eyes as they tried to shield their children behind them.

  In front of those people was a barricade of thick steel that moved all on its own, grinding itself into a wall around them. Behind the barricade stood close to two dozen men and women armed to the teeth.

  A few had crossbows and bows aimed directly at where they stood, the tips of their bolts covered in fire or dripping with an awful green liquid Ellis that didn’t seem friendly, while others growled as they pointed swords, sharpened spades and rakes at Ellis, who started lifting his hands to the ceiling in surrender.

  These people were not normal. And the dead giveaway was three large Rass, right in front of the barricade, surrounded by five dogs who all had their teeth, or beak, bared in a gruesome snarl.

  “Kill them!” A voice roared, and the flaming arrows leapt towards them. Ellis closed his eyes, just as he felt Ameena’s hand close around the back of his neck.

  The light behind his eyelids changed, and his feet felt like they were standing on a different kind of stone. He thought death wouldn’t be so instant, but he was grateful to not have suffered. Blinking his tearful eyes open, he expected to see Mier waiting for him.

  Instead, it was just Michael, his grin spread ear to ear as Ameena slumped against the chest Michael had broken that morning. She flipped the travelstone in her hand like a coin, and gave a half hearted shrug as Ellis stared at her.

  “I told you. Insurance.”