5 - Cave In

Underground zombies.

It was completely dark by the time they’d reached the highest point of the incredible city. Argent staggered over the last step and collapsed heavily onto the marble, panting harshly, head between his knees. Nathaniel, who’d never touched anyone freely in his life, carefully placed a hand on his shoulder. Argent twitched and trembled desperately beneath the gentle pressure, but the elf forced his head up long enough to smile quietly. He did not shrug off Nathaniel’s hand. Sanguine hovered some distance away, watching.

 

“We should take a break,” Nathaniel said, settling back on his heels. “We’ve been at it for quite a few hours already, and Argent’s running out of steam.”

 

“Hmph. Shouldn’t have wasted himself on the road. The sooner we clear the area, the better.” The thick metal of Sanguine’s helmet muted and warped her voice, and if Nathaniel hadn’t known, there’s no way he would’ve guessed there was a gorgeous woman secreted away under that armor. Gorgeous, but enormously frustrating.

 

“There’s no point rushing around in the dark. Resting for an hour or two won’t make a difference.” It was irrational to believe he could feel the heat of Sanguine’s glare through steel. Didn’t change the fact that he could.

 

“One hour. We’ll meet in the guild.” With that, she turned and strode off and was swallowed in the crowd. Nathaniel would have yelled after her, but since he didn’t fancy being broken in half, he settled for swearing vengefully in the safety of his head.

 

*

 

Nathaniel sat up and stretched, once again in his own bed. He kicked off the sheets and swung his legs over the side, pressing his feet into plush green carpet as he tossed a dirty shirt off his desk and over his shoulder to uncover his holophone. It was closing in on midnight, but he doubted she was asleep, or even home.

 

Selena Valeria was rich, bored, and had a father who showered her with overindulgent affection. Mostly she was clingy, so Nathaniel called twice a day every day, and did his best to answer whenever Selena called him. She was pushy and arrogant and beautiful when she smiled, and there was nothing Nathaniel hated more than a woman’s tears. So he gave Selena what she wanted and got those smiles in return, stunning and well rehearsed. It was better than tears.

 

He left a message and rolled back onto his bed, lay there and didn’t think of Sanguine, the woman who wouldn’t smile.

 

*

 

He found them waiting just inside the entryway. Sable no long looked like he’d pass out any second. Instead, he was edgy. The elf lit up when he caught sight of Nathaniel. Sanguine was standing arm-crossed and stoic; he wondered how long they’d waited in silence and wished he’d come back earlier for Sable’s sake. Now he thought about it, Nathaniel hadn’t said much of anything himself since they’d met the warrior. It was a poor way to repay Sable’s kindness. So he strode up to them and, casually, slung an arm around the elf’s shoulders.

 

“Feeling better?” Sable grinned up at him in reply, then grabbed his hand and started dragging him across the foyer of the adventure guild. It was made entirely from dull gray marble, but as they passed by a pillar Nathaniel glimpsed intricate patterns of pure white woven throughout. The place was huge, about the seize of a football field, to accommodate the countless number of players who visited every day. The guild was the commercial center for the entirety of Aeon, where a constant exchange of information took place. This was where most of the missions were given, and where teams could register as a permanent, named clan.

 

It was the registration alcove Sable was pulling him towards now. Nathaniel thought nothing of this. But he was sure that Sanguine would never agree, that there was no way she would attach herself to them. At least, not yet. Not unless they had time to convince her otherwise. They were mere feet from the registration desk when Nathaniel yanked his wrist from Argent’s grip.

 

“We shouldn’t,” he said.

 

“You can’t.” The NPC behind the counter pushed his glasses up his nose and explained, “There’s a mission every team must complete before becoming a clan.” He unrolled a sheath of paper across the tabletop. “Let me tell you what you need to do.”

 

*

 

Nathaniel should have noticed. Would have noticed, but Sanguine was in his face, helmet long since abandoned. For the first time, he was aware of the way her red hair burned under the sun, how her bright brown eyes glittered with unrestrained fury, pink lips curving harshly around words like idiot and fool. With every bit of Sanguine’s cool standoffishness melting into ferocious anger, Nathaniel thinks he can’t possibly be blamed failing to appreciate that Argent was a sneaky b*****d.

By the time Sanguine’s tirade degraded to breathy pants and fierce glares and Nathaniel became aware of the distinct lack of amused elf, it was too late. The gaping mouth of the cave beckoned ominously.

 

“Looks like Argent made the choice for us.”

 

“Why did he have to be so damn impatient? He’s probably dead already.” Sanguine swept the bangs from her face and scowled at the dark opening. “Whatever. ’s not like I care.”

 

“Well I’m gonna look for him at least. Stay here if you want.” Nathaniel settled his cloak more comfortably around his shoulders and started for the cave.

 

“No way am I going to let you go alone.” Sanguine matched him stride for stride as they descended into the murky caverns. It was like walking into a black hole, all the sounds of outside instantly swallowed by cold air and shadowed stone, and goose bumps erupted across Nathaniel’s arms.

 

“So you do care,” he sneered.

 

“Like hell!” Sanguine’s irate yell echoed down the tunnel and shattered the silence. Nathaniel grinned into his hood. Arguing was good for something after all.

 

*

 

They’d only been walking for ten minutes when the thing they’d been fighting about in the first place came to bit him in the a*s. The further they descended into the caverns, the weaker Nathaniel felt. His strength was leaking slowly away, and Nathaniel swore that if he looked over his shoulder it would be splattered over the ground like a trail of blood. But going back and giving up would just prove Sanguine right. No way would he give her an excuse to gloat.

 

Nathaniel could smack himself for his stupidity. He knew nothing about the angelic race despite the wings on his back. His mother had chosen it for it’s beauty, and he’d been too upset to bother researching the pros and cons of being an angel. But Sanguine had bothered, probably wondering how anyone could be enough of an idiot to choose such a hideously weak creature to play in a game where mistakes couldn’t be taken back. What she’d found was something he never would‘ve considered; his power came from the sun.

 

So here he was, a solar powered angel burrowing his way underground. The only light came from the crystals growing out of the walls, casting eerie green light into cracks and crevasses, giving depth to shadows were anything could hide. The only warmth came from Sanguine who, contrary to all expectation, hadn’t stepped away and put some distance between them as she had before. Instead, she was close enough that he could smell the sharp tang of her armor, hear the tiny creak of leather as her hand tightened convulsively around the hilt of her sword. It was like being back at the job selection, when Sanguine had taken off her helmet where anyone could walk in because she’d understood that she’d only be able to smack him out of his funk if he could see her smirking face.

 

Why Sanguine had even wanted to do such a thing was completely beyond him. Now, she was warm and strange at his side, and Nathaniel could feel a growing determination to keep her there and beat each other to death while he figured it out.

 

*

 

It was taking all his concentration not to trip over his own feet, and he was ready to admit defeat and crawl back to the entrance on hands and knees. Sanguine had been right this time. He’d take all the ruthless mocking like a man if only he could be outside right now. Sanguine’s arm knocked into his and Nathaniel stumbled and would have fallen, but the warrior hooked a hand under his elbow and hauled him upright. She steered him towards a rock and sat him down. Nathaniel was too tired to protest.

 

“I told you, idiot.” Her voice was gruff but not unkind, and when she settled next to him, Nathaniel abandoned all pride and the lingering enmity of their first meeting to slump against her shoulder. They sat there, Nathaniel slowly gathering the frayed threads of his energy, Sanguine patiently holding him up, for who knew how long. Nathaniel was just feeling strong enough to try walking again when a cry echoed along the cavern.

 

“S**t!” Sanguine was on her feet in an instant. Nathaniel struggled to follow, but she pushed him down, hands bruising in her haste. He could only watch her retreating back and strain to listen through the silence. For a while there was nothing, then a sudden commotion of shouting and metal meeting metal that continued unbroken for several minutes. Nathaniel’s stomach twisted into knots as he considered not what but how many Sanguine was fighting, alone.

 

He was done with laying about in a useless heap. Even like this, there had to be something he could do to help. Nathaniel dragged himself along the passage with the support of the wall, his second wind flagging by the time he reached battle.

The smell hit him first, the sickly sweet stink of rotting flesh turning Nathaniel’s stomach so harshly it took all his concentration to keep it’s contents off the floor. He pressed one hand to his nose and mouth, for all the good it did. Nathaniel turned a corner and there was Sanguine, surrounded by the most hideous undead he’d ever seen. He had to give Sanguine credit for her unflappability; Nathaniel doubted he’d be quite as cool if moving hunks of gristle were throwing themselves at him. The ones with fingers even had weapons.

 

Nathaniel pressed deeper into the shadows and simply watched the warrior hack zombies into pieces. One swing of her sword cut down several corpses at once, the flex of extended muscle so smooth and controlled Nathaniel’s mouth went dry. She weaved expertly between jerky attacks, slicing the monsters cleanly at the neck. He was so caught up in watching her move, he failed to notice the muffled shuffling behind him.

 

A hand clamped down on Nathaniel’s shoulder, clammy even through his cloak, but at least he was too busy gagging at the smell to shriek like a little girl. The sudden spike of adrenaline gave Nathaniel the strength to draw his own sword, and he stabbed wildly at the zombie drooling in his hair. The blade sunk through it’s skull and into it’s brain, where it stuck with a squelch, and by then a whole group of undead had noticed him. Sanguine was fighting with her back to him and Argent was still missing and his sword was being sucked at by moist, putrid flesh, and Nathaniel was sure he was about to die.

 

He backed away and tripped over a bony leg. It crunched beneath his heel and he went down on his a*s, catching himself on one hand and while the other groped blindly for anything he could use as a weapon. It smacked into cold metal, and there was wet heat and a flare of pain in his palm. He grabbed the corpse’s sword and lifted it in a weak sort of wave over his head. There was a rush of air, disproportionate to the force of the swing. And Nathaniel watched in disbelief as shallow cuts appeared across the chests of the oncoming zombies. The ones currently beyond the blade’s reach.

 

Sanguine and taken notice of his predicament by now, her methodical slicing turning desperate, hurried. She charged the group of zombies he’d injured, cutting down all five at once but leaving her back vulnerable. In an unexpected display of intelligence, one of the undead aimed it’s sword at a gap between her shoulder and chest plates. Nathaniel was running on willpower alone at this point, but Sanguine had saved him so many times in the last day that he didn’t think he’d ever catch her up if she went and died for him. Instead of using his legs, Nathaniel wrenched open his wings as a crutch to surge forward and plunge his sword through the zombie’s chest.

 

But then his wings were burning, and there was light so bright it was like staring at the sun through a telescope, searing and all consuming. He pitched over, and the last thing he heard was Sanguine calling out his name.