Bang.

  He awoke in a heartbeat. Jumping out of his bed with his clawed hand in front of him, his mind drowsy and thoughts unclear.

  With growing lucidity, he noticed it.

  The storm had grown, he’d fallen asleep to a continuous drumming. But now, the shrieking wind shook the window glass as if in anger. He listened with his improved hearing, sifting through the noise of the rain. Under it, he heard a hiss from the common room and something squishy and wet.

  “Blinking Blade.” he whispered. imagining the weight of the weapon in his hand.

  Fire erupted from thin air, casting flickering light across the room as the weapon burned into his hand.

  He snuck to the door, opening it slowly. The blade in front.

  The common room was much the same. The rain hammered against the balcony-window and the wind howled like a dying beast. A low light cast shadows across the room.

  Whisky stood on the table, fur raised, hissing.

  On the floor the trash canister wobbled back and forth, A smell of decay hanging in the air.

  Wretch stepped closer.

  Something else moved across the floor. The remains of two fish, the skeletal waste from last night’s dinner, twitched across the floor. The bodies were stripped, leaving only a thin spine and a handful of hair-like ribs scratching against the floorboard. The two heads had been left intact. Yet they gasped for air with murky eyes.

  Whisky’s hiss turned to an animalistic wail. Wretch grabbed the cat by the neck, the usual smooth hair bristly and straight. Without turning his back to the crawling carcasses, he pounded on the doors of the other and lit a gas lamp on the wall.

  Astrid in her nightgown was the first to join, ducking under a branch to exit her room.

  “What’s going on?” She asked as Elenya, Edmund, and the twins peeked out of their doors.

  “Jonna and Jenni, get back in your room,” Wretch said through gritted teeth.

  Edmund’s eyes fixed on the blade in Wretch’s hand, and his brow furrowed. “Go inside girls. Lock the door.”

  “But—”

  “Now.” The captain ordered, his tone leaving no compromise.

  They obeyed, the door closing with a thud.

  Elenya, barefoot and wearing only a white shirt and a pair of shorts, yawned and scratched her head.

  “I swear Ratty, if you woke me up only to…” she stopped, eyes focused on the cat. Whisky still hissing with exposed fangs, claws digging into Wretch’s arms.

  She followed the cat’s gaze to the two flopping fish-corpses.

  “What the...”

  Edmund moved around the kitchen counter, and the rest followed.

  The fish had flopped to the door of the balcony and thumped against the glass, throwing their desecrated bodies towards the panels.

  “How? they're dead.” Astrid asked.

  Edmund crouched down.

  “I don't know.”

  The gutted creatures suddenly froze, the murky eyes spinning in their tiny skulls.

  The two gutted corpses shuddered, then slithered towards each other. In a symphony of snaps, their spines cracked and intertwined, the few bones that remained arched out like spidery legs while the heads melded together as scales squirmed and connected.

  Whisky hissed and struggled with sharp claws to release itself from Wretch’s grip.

  The amalgamation gave a low screech towards the storm.

  “Elenya,” Edmund said.

  A red fist slammed the creature against the floor with a sickening crunch. Evaporating the thing in a single strike.

  Elenya pulled away her fist, shaking away goo and shattered bones from her bruised knuckles.

  Edmund had a grave expression, but didn’t hesitate.

  “New orders. Kid, dispose of whatever that was. Astrid, food and water for the girls, no seafood. Elenya, check the pantry, trash anything questionable.” He turned with a frown.

  “We leave in twenty. I want this place locked up tighter than a prison before we go.”

  “Yes sir.” they responded in unison.

  Armor straps clicked. Blades looped through belts. Wretch scraped up the crushed and still twitching remains, throwing them out the window into the roaring storm.

  They guided the confused twins down to the windowless training room, throwing in a mattress, a few pelts, some books and a very unhappy Whisky.

  “Lock the door,” Astrid said, dragging a chair down the stairwell. “Then wedge this under the handle.”

  The twins looked on sheepishly at the sudden shift in mood.

  “Don’t worry, birds,” Edmund said gently. “The Spires are the safest place in the world.”

  He kissed their foreheads and closed the wooden door.

  “Be careful.” Jonna said.

  Edmund gave his trademark smile that made tiny wrinkles appear at the corner of his eyes.

  “Always.”

  The rest of Richter’s company turned to the front door, the howling wind and furious storm pushing against the wood.

  Wretch swallowed hard. Whatever was out there, it was something else entirely.

  Elenya adjusted her armor, a metal breastplate over her usual suit and an iron pauldron on one shoulder. On her waist, a long skirt of interwoven metal and cloth stretching down to her ankles. Astrid wore a simpler breastplate over her dress, a robe of heavy leather pulled over her head.

  Wretch favored speed, encumbering himself only with a cheap suit and a coat.

  Edmund had the opposite philosophy. Full metal gleaming under his leather coat. Shield strapped to his back, sword dangling from his belt. Both he and Wretch, with a lantern in hand.

  “Hunters, there is something pounding on the gate.”

  He gave them a look.

  “They'll find no weakness here.” They responded in unison.

  They opened the door, howling wind and rain battered against their exposed skin. They pushed against the storm to step outside and Edmund strained to slam the door shut, locking it with a heavy key.

  A circular stain of ash marked the door.

  They shielded their eyes, but even then they could barely make out the surrounding street. The cityscape below, had completely vanished in the rainy haze.

  “To the elevators!” Edmund shouted.

  They moved as a group, boots splashing through shallow ponds. Wretch took shelter close to Elenya’s towering form, already shivering from the cold.

  The world had turned into a distorted roar of motion and noise, only made worse by his inhuman hearing.

  He guessed it was near dawn, judging by the light but it was impossible to tell.

  Now and then, bells chimed over the storm, a reminder of the curfew.

  Then he heard it, the rattling of massive chains.

  A faint light shone through the haze. The elevator emerged from the storm, two guards huddled together in a booth, soaked and shivering despite their waxed raincoats.

  “There is a curfew, return to your homes immediately,” one shouted with a trembling voice.

  “We’re hunters!” Edmund roared, lifting up his lantern. “We need passage to the lower levels.”

  The guards met Edmund’s hard face of unyielding resolve. They didn’t doubt him for more than a second.

  “Right away, sir,” One of them said and pulled at a few nearby levers.

  “Sir!... if you don’t mind me asking.” The guard continued with chattering teeth. “What is happening? The storm. It came from nowhere.”

  Edmund put a heavy hand, clad in metal, on the officer’s shoulder.

  “Eyes forward, officer. The city endures. It always has,” Edmund said, turning to look up the hazy road from where they had come.

  “My daughters live up the street. They need your protection. Endure! That’s what’s asked of us.” Edmund continued.

  With blue lips and glassy eyes, the guard gave a shuddering salute. The second officer was pale as milk, frozen in the booth's opening.

  He doubled over.

  A mixture of bile and half-digested food burst onto the cobblestone.

  “Are you okay?” Astrid said as she moved to hold the officer up. Her eyes lit up with fire as she touched the pale and drenched officer, his color returning as he coughed drool onto the ground.

  A squirm caught Wretch’s eye.

  The half-digested food, it was moving.

  Expunged pieces of white flesh wiggled towards the street and the railing, like a possessed white puddle.

  “Bloody hell.” Elenya growled.

  Her and Wretch moved up, stomping out the moving strands of tissue.

  “Did you have fish for your last meal?” Wretch shouted through the haze of rain and wind.

  “What?”

  “Fish, did you eat any?”

  “Sardines, with bread. This morning.” He said, wiping away strands of squirming breakfast from his chin.

  With a thud and a grinding of metal against metal, the elevator arrived. The service variant that could carry even carts and horses.

  The talkative officer was growing paler by the second and his eyes darted from the Richter’s to his fellow officer. He opened the protective railing and pulled a heavy lever to open the metal cage.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “I will send you down, may the Saint watch over you!”

  They stepped inside, finding shelter from the rain in the glass and metal cage.

  The gates shut with a clang and the entire platform shuddered downwards. Through the glass, the guards watched them descend, one still clutching his stomach.

  “Did you see that? His bloody breakfast was trying to crawl away,” Elenya muttered.

  Wretch shuddered. “We had fish last night.”

  “Let's hope it’s been digested already,” Astrid said, wiping her glasses clean.

  “It’s that thing approaching the walls, has to be.” Wretch said. “It brought the storm, and turned every fish in Nov Yanosk into… something else.”

  “Are there really creatures that can do that?” Elenya asked.

  “All I know,” Edmund said with a shake of his head. “Is that whatever is out there is way beyond our league.”

  Wretch jumped up and down where he stood, trying to force some warmth into his body.

  “Isn’t this horrifying and enlightening? There are things whose presence shatters the rules of the world.” Wretch said.

  Elenya scoffed.

  “When did you get so poetic? Don’t make me deal with another Astrid.”

  “Eyes on the prize,” Edmund commanded. “Save the bickering for later.”

  The elevator slowed with the grinding of gears, coming to a shuddering stop. A lever connected to an assortment of cogs had to be pulled from the outside to open the door.

  But nobody came.

  “Where are the officers?” Astrid asked.

  “Likely abandoned their posts.” Edmund said. “Elenya, get that door open.”

  Without a word, Elenya grabbed the metal gate with both hands, eyes lighting with fire. Wretch could hear her straining against a heavy weight as the metal groaned.

  With a slam, the doors blew open.

  Rain and wind roared inside, fluttering their coats. But there was something else, the scent of wet iron tickled his senses.

  “I smell blood, lots of it.”

  “Blades out,” Edmund hissed, drawing his sword.

  They moved out into the storm, clutching their weapons. Edmund in front and the rest spread out behind him. The guard post was empty, and Wretch peeked into an empty booth, nostrils flaring.

  No signs of struggle.

  “That way,” he said and pointed into the gray haze of rain and wind. The silhouettes of the nearby houses, barely visible in the distance.

  Wretch steered them out into the street as the wind dragged at their figures. From a nearby alleyway, a trail of diluted red streamed down the street and into a gutter.

  They followed and Wretch held up his own miniature lantern. The alley was dark and filled with containers of refuse. From beyond a large canister, a light flickered, the red stream zigzagging along the grooves of the cobblestone.

  “I will take point, Astrid at the back!” Edmund said over the storm.

  They walked into the alleyway in formation. The rain from the two nearby houses fell like thin waterfalls from above.

  They angled around a large canister of trash to get a clear view.

  An officer laid against the wall, a shocked expression still plastered on his face. His torso was caved in, red patches littering the suit. His hair was slick from the rain, and a bluish, fist-sized dent marked his forehead. The light came from a lantern in the officer’s hand, its glass nestled with cracks.

  Next to him was another body. A woman dressed in the same uniform, this one had a massive gash across its neck, almost severing the head.

  “What the hell happened here?” Wretch asked. He had seen a corpse before, even killed a Blessed one. But the sight of the freshly slain made his heartbeat quicken.

  Elenya removed a glove and put a hand on the necks of the bodies.

  “Dead, probably for a while. Something hit them hard and fast.”

  Edmund swept an armored hand over their faces, closing the eyelids of the officers.

  “We need to get to a telegram station. There should be one at Partisan square.” Edmund said as he turned around with a frown.

  They walked out of the alleyway, struggling against the furious storm, muscles already stiff from the cold.

  The chimes of the churches grew from the top of the spires and swept downwards. Growing into a melodic jumble of ringing bells. The recognizable sound of the curfew.

  But this time, the storm answered.

  A cacophony of crackling lightning in the distance rivaling the noise.

  “The storm. Can it be alive?” Wretch thought as something moved at his feet.

  Half a rat, guts still hanging behind it, crawling east.

  Hadn't the fish in the living room also tried to crawl eastwards? The same way they were going.

  He swallowed hard.

  They came up to the Inner Wall, a massive battlement of stone that divided the Lows from the Spires. In front of them, the gates of stone stood open.

  Edmund suddenly stopped and Wretch bounced against his back.

  “The gates…” he shouted over the wailing rain. “They should not be open!”

  In the hazy rain just before the opened gate, a dark silhouette lay in the middle of the road. The wind clawed at its outer robe with such fury it seemed to struggle and squirm.

  Wretch squinted his eyes to protect from the horizontal rain as he looked around with chattering teeth. To the side, the cobblestone had been upended. A house nearby bore long jagged gashes on the exterior.

  “There was a fight here!” Wretch shouted over the wind.

  They moved closer to the silhouette. A white, unmoving body, so damaged it was almost unrecognizable as a human. Cuts and fist sized crush wounds littered his limbs and back as he laid face down against the stone. A recognizable coat swept wildly in the wind, a saber still clutched in a mangled hand.

  "A hunter?" Astrid said.

  Edmund knelt and turned the man over.

  He was pale, almost bluish, and streams of blood seeped down his thin nose to a trimmed beard. Wretch recognized the man.

  “One of the General’s lads,” Edmund said. “The one who bid against us.”

  Elenya pressed a finger deep into a wound below the neck and Astrid winced at the sight.

  “Still warm, dead for an hour, two at most.”

  Edmund rose. “We need to get to that telegraph station.”

  “But we’ll take it slow. If there is something out here taking out hunters, I don’t want to run into it unprepared. Be ready to fight. I’m in front, Elenya and the kid on the sides. Astrid in the back. Let’s move.”

  They continued at a measured pace, closing in on the gate. Under the gigantic stone archway, a bloodied trail led into a small door embedded in the wall’s foundation.

  “The guardhouse.” Wretch said as they walked into the cover from the wall above. “It smells of death.”

  Edmund raised his shield as he approached the door, swinging back and forth on its hinges with a high-pitched noise.

  He glanced inside.

  For a moment, he just stood there. Not so much as a twitch in his face to reveal his thoughts. Then a whisper escaped him, so low only Wretch's beast-ears could hear.

  “Saint protects us.”

  Wretch peeked around the side of the captain to look, his heart skipped a beat.

  The room was a massacre.

  Tables overturned and broken chairs littering the floor. The walls and floors were washed in red. At least ten broken bodies in officer uniform spread out in the room, each one more dismembered than the next. A stairwell led up to the wall itself. A woman in officer attire lay split in two on the steps.

  Edmund closed the creaking door.

  “We are going to Partisan square, now!” He said and slowly, speaking as much to himself as to the others.

  “What did you see?” Astrid asked.

  “They’re all dead.” Wretch answered as a knot found its way into his throat.

  Leaving the opened gate behind, they moved away from the spires and deeper into the Lows. The wind howled louder now, strong enough to rattle the glass windows along the street.

  Soon they reached a square, its edges obscured by the haze. In the center stood a six meter tall pedestal with a figure on top, now reduced to a gray unmoving blob. A statue of the many-winged Saint.

  “This way!” Edmund shouted.

  A powerful gust gripped Wretch’s coat, and he staggered backwards, stumbling. Elenya’s gloved hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

  They took shelter in front of a door. Above it, a sign spun wildly on metal hinges.

  “Telegram Station,” Wretch read aloud.

  Edmund pounded on the door with his fist, then screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “Hunters from the Bureau, we need to send an urgent message. This is an emergency, as per curfew law you are required to open the door!”

  Edmunds hammering on the door went unanswered.

  Then, a click.

  The door opened just a sliver, the wary face of a young man peeking out from within. A thin metal chain taut across the opening.

  “We’re closed, there is a curfew!”

  The door began to shut.

  Elenya’s hand wrapped around the door’s edge. It didn't move another inch.

  “Open the door or I’ll rip it off. You want a hole in your home on a day like this?”

  There was silence.

  Then the chain dropped and Elenya swung the door open.

  Edmund took two steps straight inside, not wasting a moment. Swinging the shield over his back, he grabbed the terrified man by the collar, water dripping from his entire figure.

  “Send a message to the military’s main branch immediately.” He ordered. “Two officers dead, first floor of elevator twelve. One Hunter, the entire inner gate garrison slaughtered at the gate towards Partisan square. The wall is compromised.”

  “When you are done, send the same message to the Hunter’s Bureau. GO!”

  The man looked shocked, then nodded and hurried behind a desk.

  The telegram station was small, waiting chairs, a counter and a large machine bolted to the wall, covered in intricate metal wiring, levers and buttons. On any other day, Wretch would have been curious.

  The Richter’s stayed, drying themselves as best they could while the youngling put on a strange cap with wires that covered his ears, moving levers and pushing buttons with a furious clicking.

  Wretch stood watch by the window, trying to catch sight of what was happening in the gray haze.

  “It’s been sent!” the boy called.

  A flash of light lit the sky outside the window, revealing the spires high above for a split second, like a jagged crown over the rim of the Inner Wall. A moment later, a deft crack sounded from the gray sky.

  From the peak of Nov Yanosk’s highest spire, Saint’s Summit, a soft light began to grow.

  “Something is happening up at the Spires!” Wretch said, pressed to the glass.

  The light fought against the rain, growing in strength, before collapsing inwards into a white speck of light.

  Then, without warning, the light exploded outwards. A pulse of white light spread through the rain with a soft whisper, like a calming wave in the downpour. Washing over him and the rest of the city with a sense of security.

  For a moment, the storm paused.

  “Is that it?” Wretch asked as the others leaned over.

  A blood-curdling shriek came from the east, like the final plea of ten-thousand drowning souls. A crack snapped through the window, the furniture rattled and Wretch clutched his ears.

  “Positions outside,” Edmund said in a heavy tone. “We are no use here.”

  “Any response from the branches or the bureau?” Astrid asked through fogged up glasses.

  “No, ma’am!” The youngling stammered.

  “Keep at it, we are leaving,” Edmund said.

  The Richter’s company gathered by the door, and Wretch took a deep breath. Even with the ringing ears, he hoped to catch a glimmer of whatever was coming.

  Edmund opened the door, and the wind met them.

  Within seconds, they were soaking wet once more. The storm roiled with agitation and fury, hurtling refuse down the street. Lightning thundered overhead, and with every bolt came a moment of clear visibility.

  To the north the jagged spires pierced through the storm-clouds. To the east, miles of houses, industries and church-towers, all of it, shielded by the Outer Wall curling around humanity's last true city. Then the light vanished, and the haze returned, reducing the world down to a dozen paces in each direction.

  They made for the pedestal at the center of the square. It was wide enough to grant some shelter. With another crack of lightning, the wider city became visible again.

  Wretch had his gaze fixed towards the east. This time, what he saw made every hair on his body stand straight.

  A gray silhouette, peeking over the eastern wall, as large as a factory with a dozen heads of whales and deep sea-behemoths raised towards the sky. Each eye burning with fire.

  The very sight made his own flame tremble, screaming with ravings of the dead deep.

  Shasmara, The Storm Cadaver had arrived.