Mask of Humanity

Nicolai rose, slowly, painfully, and began to drag the archer down the corridor with him. The arrow in his arm constantly got in his way, leaking blood which dribbled over the archer and left a red trail on the ground as he dragged it. That was a problem. He couldn’t hide himself if there was a literal trail of blood leading right to him.

He paused, briefly, managing via an ungainly manoeuvre to snap the shaft as close to where it entered him as possible, a necessity to stop it catching at him and the corpse he was transporting.

Now he just had to get that corpse somewhere a little less open then saw away until he found the Imbued and got it off. After that he’d return to his safe-place, where he had the required items to try and treat his wound. His eyes hunted until he’d found what he was looking for, one of the rooms with a secret tunnel. Protocol demanded that there always be multiple routes of escape.

After leaving the archer on the floor in the middle of the room he moved to the wall, searching for the secret button. He’d open the hidden door up to aid a quick escape, tourniquet his arm, then set to work. However, as he moved to open the door, he heard something.

Frowning, Nicolai tilted his head, listening. Faint, muffled. Voices? His head snapped around, looking out the exit. No, not there.

The hidden door let out a click and then it was opening.

‘—like that, easy,’ said a man, stepping out, his head held at an angle to look behind him where others clustered. His gaze turned forward and froze, staring at Nicolai who stared back. His eyes moved to the arrow in Nicolai’s arm, the dead archer on the ground. Then he was smiling.

‘Hello, friendo. That’s one of them flying archers, isn’t it? How’d you manage to take it down? What’s your name?’ He was grinning big at Nicolai now, and he shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the others. Curious faces, eager faces, peering past. All armed, all wearing things taken from the dead. Nicolai recognised some of them. Those who’d been on the bridge earlier.

Nicolai saw the calculation in their eyes, the plans and plots. They wanted whatever the archer had, too. The man in the lead had put a hand on the grip of a sheathed shortsword. They saw Nicolai as an opportunity. A freebie.

The man was still standing halfway in the secret tunnel. It was only wide enough for one at a time, which meant that the man’s body currently blocked the exit and kept the others stuck in there behind him. As soon as he stepped out, however, that would change.

So Nicolai acted fast.

The man’s eyes widened and his grin turned into a grimace as Nicolai lunged across the space between them. The knife was already in his hand, as he’d intended to use it to cut the archer’s armour free. Instead, it sank into the man’s chest, then Nicolai’s weight slammed into him as he bulled the guy back into the tunnel, the ones behind yelling and swearing, stumbling and falling.

He pulled back quick, abandoning the knife, and slammed the door again in their faces. Very angry faces.

The pain of his arm was forgotten as he dove to the ground. He pulled the hook away from the corpse and dumped it then hugged the archer tight against him, set his legs in a squat and lifted it, using the momentum of his rise to bounce it up and onto his shoulder, on the side of his good arm which he looped over it to keep it held against him in a fireman’s carry. He sprinted out the room, turned down the corridor and fled.

He could hear the shouting and yelling of them from behind, which told him they’d already re-opened the door and were in pursuit. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of this.

The archer was surprisingly light for its size, but it still weighed a good hundred-and-twenty-odd pounds, and it was bulky. It slowed him down. Still, at least he’d left the enemy behind and was gaining some distance.

He needed to find another of the hidden entrances. They were good for making his route less predictable. If he could turn a corner and get out of sight of those following, then into one of the hidden bits, they’d struggle to work out where he’d gone. There should be such an entrance just around the corner at the end of the corridor he was pelting down, based on his memory.

It was as he had these thoughts that two men came around that very corner, only a few metres ahead of him. They appeared relaxed at first, but their eyes widened when they saw him sprinting toward them.

‘Stop him! Kill that fuck!’ A furious scream came from behind Nicolai.

Uh oh. The men’s eyes narrowed, cold, and they drew steel. One took a step forward, lifting a longsword over his head in both hands, ready. The other held an axe in one hand and he kept a little behind to provide backup.

Nicolai kept on charging right at them. There was little choice. The man with the sword’s face was tight with concentration, gauging the distance, and the sword went a little higher, his body tensing as he prepared to swing.

Nicolai got his hands beneath the archer’s corpse and threw it, putting the momentum of his run and the strength of his arms into it, ignoring the awful tearing sensation as his bicep worked around the arrows barb, sending the corpse sailing through the air. The man, so primed to swing his sword, did so anyway and the sword slammed into the archer, clanging its armour. But the corpses weight and momentum was too much, continuing through the weapon, crashing into the man and sending him to the ground where he struggled with it.

The man with the axe came forward. Nicolai kept on running, judging the man’s movement, the timing, the spacing. At the last moment, as the man swung, Nicolai skidded, leaning back. The axe head passed inches before his face, the wind of it tickling his nose.

He drew another knife with his good hand as he closed then sent it out, slamming it into the side of axe-man’s neck and ripping it out in one seamless movement. Blood sprayed in a jet. The man gaped and gagged at him, dropping the axe, falling to his knees and clutching at his throat. Nicolai gave him a savage front kick in the face to send him over and ensure he posed no further issue. He felt and heard the satisfying crack of a face breaking under his cloth-wrapped foot.

Nicolai left the dying man, stepping over to the where the other guy struggled to shove the archer off of him. Nicolai’s foot stamped down and caught the man in the head in a solid stomp, hearing the back of the man’s skull crack on the stone. He gave another heavy stomp and the man went limp, blood pooling under his hair, eyes turning glassy. Nicolai tucked the dagger away and grasped the archer by its arm, then started moving, towing it after him.

A glance revealed the rest of them were charging down the corridor towards him, screaming and yelling and howling.

‘Get him!’

‘You’re fucking dead!’

‘Drop the knife!’

Nicolai ignored them as he dragged the archer away. He was breathing hard, exhausted, injured, bleeding continuously from his arm. He didn’t have the energy to lift and carry the corpse, so dragging would have to do. He knew he was moving too slowly, but it was as fast as he could go. He turned the corner and plumbed his memories as he looked at the openings available, well aware that the time available to him was rapidly slimming as the shouts and slapping of feet grew louder and louder. That one, he decided. If his memory was right, the hidden exit would be in there. Blood from his arm coated his side, his rotten rags wet and sticky with it.

He staggered forward, found the button and the secret door opened. Nicolai was dragging the archer in with him when there was a skidding from behind him and he saw a woman pause outside the entrance, staring at him, then she dove into the room. She grabbed the archer by its ankles, pulling back.

‘Let it go!’ she snarled at him.

‘Fuck you,’ he snarled right back. He was about to drop it and jump over it and kill her when another of them appeared, a man who joined her, squeezing through the entrance and grabbing at the dead archer’s other leg. Then a third arrived, another man who put his hands on its ankle. More and more angry faces came into view, filling the corridor, staring past the clump of struggling people at Nicolai.

Nicolai was pulled by the weight of all three of them. He stumbled a step forward, wheezing, his arm burning, feeling numb and dead, blood everywhere. He stumbled another step, gave up on his bad arm, and set himself, his good hand clenching like a vice around the archer’s wrist. He turned his body and got his feet fixed in place and leaned his weight and tried to walk forward, to the tunnel, teeth tight. He knew he was being bullheaded and stupid, that he ought to just drop it and run. But it was his dead archer and he wanted it.

He pulled. They pulled. Something broke.

Nicolai fell forwards, landing with a grunt, able to get his arm with the arrow out the way but that was all and he landed badly, just managing to avoid knocking his head on the wall.

He looked back and saw that he held the archers arm. It had detached at the shoulder. They had the rest of the corpse. He stared at what he had, and at what they had. Roughly ten percent of the archer was in his hands. More of them appeared, staring in, for now blocked as the other three had fallen and held onto the rest of the archer, filling the doorway, staring at him. Everyone trying to decide what to do in this specific moment.

He’d lost. He’d failed. He wasn’t getting the rest of it. Just this arm. He wanted to rise and move toward them and kill and kill but he knew he would not be successful, not this time. Too many of them and he was too injured. He fought the mad urge down as he forced himself to his feet and stumbled into the tunnel. He saw them rising as he slammed the door and fled.

He headed quickly down the tunnel, arm in hand, pulled a lever to open the exit, and just as he did so he heard the scrape of the door he’d closed behind him, opening. A glance over his shoulder revealed light shining in through the opening, the shadowy shapes of figures pressing inside, after him.

He heard them yelling, feet pounding on the stone. Nicolai threw the door closed behind him and pressed on toward the exit. Whenever he moved his bad arm more fresh blood would emerge where the arrow was dug in, and he was leaving shiny red streaks on everything he touched. Should’ve tied a tourniquet. He knew it, but there hadn’t been any time.

Poking his head out the room, he peered left and right down a corridor, saw no danger, and scuttled out. He pinned the archer’s arm between his bad arm and his chest, freeing his good hand to grip tight to either side of the arrow dug into his bicep, doing his best to slow the bleeding. His only goal now was to return to his hideout and do something about the arrow. He felt weak and light-headed from the blood loss.

He was halfway down the corridor when he heard a distant door opening and raised voices. Just as he turned the corner, he looked back and saw them emerge from the room he’d left, shouting and pointing his way.

Nicolai found energy from somewhere. He lumbered down the hallway, turned a corner, crashed into another room, opened the hidden door there and disappeared inside. He was unable to prevent himself leaving a big bloodstain on the button. He was leaving blood on everything.

At least they’d have to check the rooms first, unless they knew exactly which ones the hidden entrances were in. Which wouldn’t surprise him, as once one had learned of their existence, one only had to look closer at the map to work out where pretty much all the tunnels were.

Nicolai emerged from another exit into a new corridor, his breaths a frantic rasp. Down to the left was clear, but to his right he saw an undead patrol sluggishly winding their way towards him. Between him and those undead was a room with a hidden entrance. Could he make it? Yes, said a voice that, for whatever reason, reminded him of the Simulations Module.

So instead of going left, he went right, charging straight at them. The dogs barked, the hooks spun, the archers took aim, the fat wizard raised its staff.

Nicolai nodded gratefully at them then dove into the side room in time to avoid it all, staggered around until he’d found the hidden button, slammed his fist into it, got to the hidden entrance and wrenched it open. No time to close it as the undead were pouring into the room. He lumbered down the narrow tunnel, just keeping ahead of the dogs biting at his heels.

He reached the far side and was forced to turn and kick at them while dragging the lever down and shoving it open with his body. As he fell more than stepped out and moved to slam the door one of the dogs threw itself forwards, getting its body half out the gap, snapping and snarling madly at him as the slamming door crunched into it and trapped it there. Nicolai briefly pulled the door back open, kicked the dog solidly in the face to send it sprawling back into the tunnel then he slammed the door and attempted to run.

His breath was a frantic rasp and his legs were shaking. The best he could manage was an ungainly stagger, struggling not to bounce off the walls. His wound was bleeding badly again, throbbing and pulsing with an endless ache. He couldn’t hear any sounds of pursuit but he couldn’t hear much of anything over his strained breathing.

He continued through more tunnels, twisting and turning, and his breath and energy returned. Eventually he felt safe enough to pause and cut a strip of rag from his clothing which he fashioned into a tourniquet, tying it tight around his arm just above the wound. Then he kept moving. It seemed he’d lost his pursuers. They’d have ran into those undead, and would have no option but to go around and search for signs of him. His lead was now significant and he could return to the gauntlet.

But he wouldn’t, not yet.

Perhaps it wouldn’t matter, as it wasn’t exactly easy to get through the gauntlet, and he had the key to the metal door, but Nicolai really didn’t want to lead anyone back to his hideout. That ran full in the face of every paranoid urge he possessed.

With the tourniquet applied the wound bled significantly less, and he saw the pain as simply a biological signal, of no importance, best ignored. He did however keep his arm as still as he could, hanging limp, as he was well aware that every movement made the wound worse.

All that said, spending two hours engaging in just-in-case counter-surveillance, though fine in principle, wasn’t worth it in the event that this extra time led to his wound becoming infected or losing consciousness from blood loss.

So Nicolai compromised, spending about fifteen minutes moving around the area, ensuring insomuch as possible that he’d completely lost them while working to wipe the blood onto his clothes to make sure he wasn’t leaving a trail. In due time, he approached the short tunnel that led to the gauntlet, taking rapid breaths to regain his energy.

One last push and he’d be home.

Looking out at the great skeleton, at the undead above, and feeling at the tiredness within him, he wasn’t sure he had the energy for this. He was moving slow, his body was aching and tired and miserable.

Nicolai opened the cage and let the madness out, just a little. The pain faded to nothing and his face stretched into a grimace, an urge to turn around and head back—to become the hunter—rising within him. Nicolai resisted it by forcing himself forwards into the Gauntlet.

Snarling, he ran through the room as though he were neither injured nor tired, dodging between columns, stepping forwards and back to avoid the bolts of light, diving aside from weapons flung by the giant skeleton and deflecting those he couldn’t avoid with his shield or the archer’s arm, still in his grip, uncaring of how his injury ached and burned.

He was convinced something would go wrong and was surprised when it didn’t and he reached the far side, and the key was in the lock, and the door opened, and he was home free. After struggling for a moment, he squeezed the darkness back into its cage and smiled grimly. His control was improving.

His mind was on the archer’s arm. Whether today had been an abject failure, or an acceptable win, lay beneath its tightly strapped metal gauntlet.