There was a disorienting moment as Jack’s vision went entirely black. He continued to step forward, one hand raised to prevent a sudden collision with a wall or surface. The shadowy barrier was shockingly cold, but vaporous. He stepped through to the other side, and light bombarded him.

  He blinked hard and fast, desperate to adjust to the new setting.

  “Oy! We got a bonepicker!” someone shouted ahead, but they were little more than a silhouette against the all-consuming light.

  He glared up at the sky, trying to figure out why it was so freakishly bright.

  Jack felt rough hands grab him by the shoulders. “Hey, runt! Where are the others?! Where’s Lieutenant Commander Derrick? Hey! Speak up, boy!”

  “I… They tried to… They’re that way,” Jack stammered out.

  His vision was taking its sweet old time returning to normal.

  He started to make out the shapes of this new world around him. He was at the bottom of a steep road that was more of a ramp than anything else. Lining on either side of it were ballistae aimed at the entrance into the shadowy wall he had just come from. They stood on deep ledges and platforms. He counted at least ten weapons of war on either side.

  More knights in red armor—though some wore lighter gear than those who’d fought against the orcs—waited patiently at their stations beside the ballistae.

  The sun, which had to be a good deal brighter than the one he had back home, was framed by a towering shantytown. It dominated the cloudless sky. The sun turned the oddly angled roofs, ladders, ropes, and floors of these slums into dark and irregular shapes. Some of the buildings leaned precariously over this street, held back from falling by little more than metal cords and fervent prayers.

  He thought he could see a few faces peeking out from windows along the higher sections of the nearby buildings, but couldn’t be sure.

  After a few more hard blinks, his vision returned to normal. With it came an unobstructed view of the naked desperation of the man holding his shoulders.

  “They’re still in there?!” the man was asking.

  “Dammit, Harold, look at the kid! He’s already knocking on Death’s grangy door. Let go of him, why don’t ya?” another knight shouted from three paces to Jack’s left.

  Harold shoved Jack aside and drew a curved sword from its sheath at his hip.

  “Red Knights! Prepare for an incursion!” Harold bellowed, and there was an immediate shuffling by the soldiers standing on the various ledges and platforms.

  Now that he could see better, he spotted crossbows, bows, and even a few knights wielding gnarled staffs with light beginning to coalesce at their tops. All of them were aiming at the bottom of the ramp.

  “Come here, civilian,” the one who’d advocated for him said. “The name’s Barnaby. Apologies for Harold. He gets high-strung when dumped with leadership. Captain Stark ain’t here to assist, so he’s lumped with keeping everyone alive.”

  Barnaby gave him a conciliatory smile. Jack decided he liked this Red Knight. The bar wasn’t high for them, but at least this man wasn’t treating him like dirt or a toy.

  The older knight had graying hair and a receding hairline. His armor spoke of long use and longer care. With a swift movement, he procured a thin vial from the back of his belt and unpopped the cork with a casual flick of his thumb. Barnaby glanced around conspiratorially, then nodded for Jack to take the small tincture.

  “There ya go, boy. Take it quick-like,” Barnaby encouraged with his thickly accented speech. It reminded Jack vaguely of what he knew Canadians were stereotyped to sound like.

  “What is it?” Jack whispered.

  Barnaby looked at him like he was thick in the head. “That miasma get to your noggin, boy? That’s a healing potion. Now, hurry a’fore you’re seen with it. Come on! Quickly, quickly!”

  Jack suspended his normal caution and downed the bright red liquid in a single gulp. It swept down his throat, burning like liquor but tasting like honeysuckle.

  “Whoa,” he gasped, feeling a pulse of warmth stretch from his core and spread throughout his body.

  He could feel muscles and skin reknit, a few ribs shift back into place, and the wound at his side close. It itched horribly, but there was no pain to the healing. He sighed with relief, finally able to stand up to his full height.

  Barnaby laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good stuff, ain’t it! Ol’ Gerome may be a weasel’s cousin, but he sure does know how to brew ‘em right and proper, ey?”

  Jack obviously didn’t know who Gerome was, but nodded all the same. “Thank you, Barnaby. Seriously. Thank you.”

  The knight must’ve seen the relief in Jack’s face, because his eyes softened. “Don’t mention it, boy. It’s what we’re supposed to do, after all. Some of us might forget that this is all for you noncombatants, but I haven’t—”

  “FIRE! FIRE, DAMMIT!”

  Jack turned right as Barnaby did at the exclamation. It wasn’t Harold. It was Derrick. He burst through the barrier, dragging two of his fellow knights along the ground and up the ramp even as he repeated the command.

  “SHOOT, DAMN YOU!”

  The thick cords of the ballistae snapped forward without further delay, and it couldn’t have been timed better. Over twenty bulky spears sliced through the air and caught the first wave of orcs exiting the barrier. Green ichor exploded in every direction. Crossbow bolts arrived next, cutting down the orcish reinforcements spilling over their fallen brethren.

  “MELEE! PREPARE WEAPONS!” Harold shouted, jumping in front of where Commander Derrick was pulling his knights to safety. “MAGES! FIRE!”

  Over a dozen colors from across multiple platforms blazed forward. Jack watched as they crashed into and even against the barrier. To his surprise, the spells that hit the wall of shadows splashed harmlessly against it, as if they were nothing but water crashing against immutable stones.

  More knights jumped off platforms to join Harold. The acting captain held his sword close to his chest, but addressed Barnaby all the same. “BARNABY! Leave the bonepicker to his fate and help Commander Derrick! NOW!”

  Barnaby squeezed Jack’s shoulders. “Best you make yourself scarce, alright, boy?”

  “Okay,” Jack replied.

  He wanted to say so much more, ask so much more. But his tongue felt leaden.

  The kindly knight was soon submerged by lines of soldiers and other medics. More orcs continued to sweep through the narrow entrance into the world of light. Harold bellowed their war cry, and soon a contingent of close-quarters combatants joined the fray.

  “I will pay you back,” Jack promised quietly as he watched Barnaby get to work helping Derrick tend to the fallen knights. The old man’s hands started to glow a radiant yellow as they hovered over a soldier’s chestplate.

  But Barnaby was right.

  He needed to get out of there. He still didn’t have a weapon to fight the orcs with; he had no potions or healing skills. He could not help these people fend off the orcs, nor did he want to deal with Derrick again, lest the man enforce his earlier demands on Jack.

  Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that all this was his fault. He led the orcs here. They were hunting him when the Red Knights arrived. Which meant that those who died were on his head. And if Jack figured that out, he had little doubt Derrick would too.

  Looking back one last time at the ongoing skirmish, he slipped into an alley of the shantytown. His soft boots splashed through a stagnant puddle as he turned the corner and made his way out from beneath the shadowy wall’s proximity.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  He let out the breath he’d been holding. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession. Jack peeked at the winding road he’d just exited from, watching for pursuers.

  The pale sun streamed in through several slots of the overlapping roofs above them, casting sharp and jagged shadows across their mediocre haven. One dappled beam of light illuminated the wall across from him. It had graffiti on it, but it was of a nature that seemed more rushed than artistic.

  Tilting his head to one side, he read the words carefully. They rang with meaning he couldn’t quite grasp.

  ‘The Bled Will Rise’

  The word ‘rise’ was partially obscured with a red splatter that did not look to be the artist’s original intention. Jack’s lip curled upward in disgust, but he focused his mind on the present. That message felt important, but it would have to wait. He had his first chance to ask some much-needed questions, and he wasn’t going to waste it.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Jack said as he rested his head against the brick wall he leaned against.

  He closed his eyes, his chin lifted to the heavens that seemed to be ignoring him right then.

  “Okay,” he whispered under his breath. “Assess the situation, Jack.”

  His mind rolled over each of the bizarre beats that composed the past thirty or so minutes of his life. A dark chuckle bubbled up in his throat.

  “Anyone who says thirty minutes isn’t enough time to get something done, I’m going to tell them about this shitstorm,” he promised, eyes still closed.

  Slowly and methodically, he turned his attention to his present needs. There were many.

  Just as he was about to voice them aloud, he heard the clatter of metal against stone and whirled to face the entrance of the alley. Hands raised defensively, he noticed a single curved dagger embedded several inches into the cobblestone.

  It had a worn, green leather hilt and a surprisingly sharp crossguard. It had a strange notch punched out of the front of the blade, right where it met the base and the hilt. There was some sort of filigree etched into the steel blade, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was supposed to be from both this distance and its current angle.

  Jack might’ve been overwhelmed by his circumstances, but he still had most of his wits about him. And that had not been there a second ago.

  Demonstrating said wits, he chose what is perhaps the wisest decision of all prey when confronted with an enigmatic threat.

  He looked up.

  Crouching across a nearly invisible thread that stretched between the two buildings he was hiding between was an old woman. Only half of her slender form was illuminated by the sunlight, but it was enough to give Jack a full impression of her.

  She wore gray rags tightly bound around each of her thin appendages. Her hair was stark-white, and she had on a burgundy shawl that appeared to be crudely knitted or crocheted. The one eye of her intent gaze that Jack could see was brown, with just the barest hint of an astigmatism marring the glint that hid there.

  “Hello, there,” she greeted Jack from above, sounding for all the world like she was just passing him on a stroll in some rosey park by the river.

  “Hi,” Jack answered cautiously.

  His hands were still up by his jaw, ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

  “Tell me, child. What are you doing here?” she asked.

  A breeze wafted through the alley and buffeted Jack’s body. But she remained still as ever despite her shawl briefly becoming a sail. If not for the movement of her lips, she could’ve been a statue.

  “I’m just passing through,” he stated vaguely.

  “No one ‘passes through’ the Titanhold slums,” she replied with the barest tilt of her head. “Tell me truthfully. Why are you here? Did you hear of a particularly good whore or some Dreamer Den with good prices, did you? Well, I can assure you, we don’t want your coin, and it’d be best for you to head back to whatever farmstead or apprenticeship that brought you to Thistlebrush. We have enough trouble as it is without borrowing more from the likes of a red-nosed stranger like yourself.”

  Jack considered lying, but realized he didn’t know enough to spin a good one. And that was the crux of it. He didn’t know what he didn’t know. Worse still, he knew all manner of categories in which his ignorance could fill an ocean.

  He hated every bit of it.

  The person who said that ‘ignorance is bliss’ was an idiot. Ignorance wasn’t bliss. It was damn anxiety-inducing, not knowing what he didn’t know. It was always the blindside that caught you. The strike you can’t see coming is the one that always lands. Jack knew this better than most.

  So, he peered up at the strange woman and came to a decision. He would tell her the truth. A bit of it, at least.

  “I’m… new here. Came to get a bit of help, actually. Mind coming down here so we can be like sane and calm individuals, or do you enjoy watching me crane my neck?” Jack inquired, failing to hide some of the bitterness creeping through his mind.

  The old woman laughed. It wasn’t a mad cackle or some calculated sneer. It was an honest belly-laugh, low and proud and wheezing. Moving elegantly, she gripped the wire she balanced on and then twisted around the edge so that she hung from it upside down. With an easy movement, she let her legs fall free so that she dangled by nothing but her right hand above her. Only her right hand wasn’t empty anymore.

  An identical dagger to the one by the alley’s entrance was now firmly gripped in her hand. She met Jack’s gaze and grinned. She used the strange notch in the blade to catch the wire. There was a clicking sound, and then she descended from her perch several stories above. The blade remained fixed while she clung to the hilt as she zipped down.

  Jack moved to catch her, but quickly realized his efforts would be useless. She moved too slowly and in too controlled a fashion to be a true fall from that height. He focused on her and finally noticed a similar wire extending from the blade to the hilt. It was paper-thin, but glinted in the sun’s rays.

  She landed lightly on her bare feet, the burgundy shawl settling a second later around her shoulders. The woman was shorter than he expected.

  “You can pick up that jaw from the floor, young man,” she said with a wink right before she held out both hands.

  She flicked her wrists, and there was the sound of a fishing rod’s reel rewinding. The blade above shot back into her extended hilt. It was amazing, but not surprising. What did startle Jack was the hiss of metal just inches next to his face as the second dagger exited the stone by the street and came to settle, hilt-first, into her awaiting hand.

  “By that look, I’d say it’s your first time seeing an old hag fall from the sky,” she commented with a wink, sheathing both daggers within a few folds of her rags.

  “Well, yes, in fact it is,” Jack answered honestly. “Where I come from, old women aren’t usually climbing about the rooftops.”

  “That you know of, young man,” she clarified with a soft cackle. “Now, you really must be new here if you came to the slums for help. You’re either dim or desperate, but I honestly couldn’t care which is truer. You’re here now, and from the sounds of those stomping footsteps coming from the same direction you did, you managed to piss off the bleeders.”

  She waited for Jack’s response, narrowing her gaze as if to read something from his expression.

  “Sorry, bleeders?” Jack eventually asked, knowing it probably made him sound like three shades past a fool.

  “By Ardent’s gnarled beard, boy! You hit your head? Bleeders? The thugs in armor who call themselves humanity’s saviors?!” She was practically yelling now, all of the mirth draining from her eyes. “Bleeders? The ones who poach, lynch, and abuse the likes of us? All because we can’t fight back?”

  She spat on the ground, as if the very thoughts his question conjured tasted sour.

  “Oh… Those guys. Yeah, let’s just say I don’t want to be running into them any time soon,” Jack admitted.

  “Well, any enemy of theirs is likely going to be a good friend of mine, if history is any indicator,” she said with a weary smile. “Welcome to the slums, Mr…”

  “Jack. Jack Thatcher.” He held out his hand to shake hers.

  She studied it for a moment, looking offended. “That supposed to be a joke, boy?”

  “No?”

  “Good. Well, it ain’t funny. Put that hand down before I use it as a paperweight,” she commanded coolly. “The name’s Myrtle, by the way. Most call me Mama Myrtle, amongst other titles I’ve gathered like mollusks across my stern.”

  Jack slowly put his hand down, adding this moment to his growing list of stuff he needed answers for.

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said I need help, Myrtle,” Jack said, imbuing his voice with just a hint of his frustration and desperation. “I’ve got questions. Loads of them. Likely weird ones by your standards, but questions I need answering all the same. And I need a way out of town. Now, are you the right person for it, or should I find someone else?”

  If Jack’s instincts were right, Myrtle was the perfect person to ask his questions and get a way out of here. But if he could play on her ego a bit, it might make her more eager to prove something. It was a gamble, but it wasn’t like he had any leverage or bait to use at that moment.

  She stretched out her neck from side to side, seeming to take stock of him. He waited, though a part of him started listening for those heavy footstomps she mentioned earlier. He had to prioritize avoiding those red-armored creeps over getting his answers. No matter how much he wanted information, it would be worthless if he ended up dead in one of the slum’s many shallow gutters.

  “Got any coin, Jack?” Myrtle inquired, her voice light. Curious.

  “No,” he replied plainly. “But I’d be willing to trade.”

  “What do you have to trade?” She glanced at the space above his head and scoffed. “Level 2? Ain’t even got a class to your name, young man. Lest you have some grandmaster skill hiding up those dirty sleeves of yours, I’d say you’re ripe out of trading materials.”

  “How’d you–” Jack started, looking up at the air above him. “Never mind. We’ll get to that. As you can see, I don’t have much, but I can and will trade. Name your price.”

  Her smile took on a cruel touch. “Oh, young man. Never tell an old hag like me to name her price. That’s just beggin’ for trouble, it is. But because you’re cute and more doe-eyed than one of my girls’ newborns, I’ll let ya slide just this once. But be more careful next time, ya hear?”

  Jack nodded.

  She raised a hand and began to tap against her chin. “Ya got questions? Well, I probably have answers, but I’d rather not be here all day. How about this? I give you three answers. The way out of town will cost you a favor that I can cash in at my discretion. When I do, there won’t be any bargaining. It can and will be anything I want. Is that understood?”

  “Understood,” Jack promised, though he knew there were lines he wouldn’t cross, and would fight should she try to make him cross them. “And for the three questions?”

  “For the three, you give me those.”

  Myrtle pointed at Jack’s boots.

  He only hesitated a moment.

  “Deal.”