Thedoor to the room flung open.
Both ofthem turned, startled.Something was thrown inside.Isaac couldn’t see theobject over the rows of bony desks.From the stage, Zaria raised her weapon,took a look, gave a very loud curse, and sprinted toward the back of thechamber, her long digitigrade legs pounding over the floor.
Underneathher steps, he heard the hissing of a fuse.
Anexplosion ripped through the room.The blast was deafening, the sound bouncinghard, the shockwave slapping him over and upending several desks, thestone-paved floor erupting in a shower of shrapnel and bone.Isaac wasscrambling for the cover of a desk when he glimpsed the door opening again.Someone sprinted into the room.
By now,Zaria had reached his position, and she practically threw herself on top of himas another blackpowder bomb exploded, the shockwave slapping through the tendermeat between his bones.
For afew moments, he gasped for air, reeling in shock.
After afew moments spent gasping for air, he tried to peek out from the corner of thedesk, hoping to get a glimpse of their attacker.Zaria pulled him back.It wasalmost too late.A throwing knife sliced through the spot where his face hadbeen an instant before.As he cringed back into cover, several more bladesembedded themselves through the woven bone of the judiciary desk, the steelsplintering through the skeletal remains, emerging like thorns in a bush.
Throughthe ringing in his ears, he heard a frenzied voice begin to shout.
“Zaria!”
Isaacrisked another peak from cover.
CaptainBlack Eye Soren stood in the center of the council chamber.The burnt flesh onher face was twisted into a snarl.Her leather outfit was tattered and filthy,her cutlass visibly dented, half her grenades missing from the belt.At somepoint, she had wrapped the exposed fur of her body with pilfered segments ofbone, forming a grisly cage of armor.
“Gettin’real sick of this shite,” Zaria said.
“Zaria!”
Isaacpulled his head back.Another throwing knife speared through the bone-weaveddesk, spraying the two of them with splinters.
“Yabilge rat!”Soren shouted.“Ya sodding codpiece!”
Isaacballed a hurricane into his palm, lifted the hand above the desk, and fired itbackwards, hoping to intimidate her.
A snarlcame in response.
“Sicyour magic fucktoy on me, traitor!I dare you!”
Hebegan to perform more mnemonics.Zaria clamped a hand on his shoulder, shakingher head.When he stopped, she shouted back: “Should’ve turned tail, Soren!Igave you that chance!”
“Youthink I didn’t try?”
“Itdon’t look that way!I’d say you’d gone mad!”
“Ihave gone bloody mad!”
Soren’svoice was rasping and wild.It had been close to a day since theirconfrontation—if she was still in the tomb, she must have spent most of hertime journeying deeper, just as they had been doing.Unlike them, it seemedlike she’d spent the entire time fighting for her life, without food or rest orpause.When he had taken a glimpse, her entire body had been covered in bonechips and lacerations.
Zoanthropesdid not appreciate the term, but Isaac couldn’t think of a better word todescribe the situation.
Thebunny was going feral.
“Iain’t foolish!”she yelled.“Fuck this tomb!Fuck the bony cunt runnin’ it!Iwas happy to flee, because I do got some sense!”Another knife stabbed throughthe desk.“But you know what?She sicced her beasts on me!It were a wholestreamin’ ocean!Oh, but not my crew!They get free passage!They get an escortback to sunshine!Only I’m condemned to death!”
Zariapaused.“All the rest made it out?”
“Thatbetter not be relief in your voice, you fuckin’ cunt!You’re the reason they’rehere!”
“You’rethe reason they’re here!”
Anotherknife skittered through bone.
