“What just happened?” Katryna asked, still trying to catch her breath.
Arthus shook his head in disbelief. “Whoever they are, they just saved the city… and our lives,” he huffed, concluding that they had somehow fired the giant iron balls into the creature.
The City of Stars had on that day descended into panic and destruction.
Arthus wiped the black blood from his face as the guards around him clambered through the debris to help the wounded, making sure to keep their distance from the dead hunchback.
It was then Katryna noticed the flag swaying in the wind at the top of the tallest mast upon the ship. She squinted, trying to make out the details.
“Is that…a snakehead?” Katryna said, pointing out to the ship in the harbour.
Arthus nodded, seeing what she was seeing. “Aye, I believe it is.”
A snakehead sigil on a flag and golden sails. There was no denying it.
The ship where the explosions had come from, the ship that had saved their lives and city, belonged to the Kingdom of Ember.
Chapter 42 - Brittlepeak
The descent down Mooncrest Mountain was a lot faster than Tomas had initially expected. The pipes he slid down were, thankfully, broad enough for him to fit through, and were so pitch black that it made the entire experience both terrifying and mesmerising.
Closing his eyes did nothing to dull the fear. Each sudden swerve up or down, left, or right, threw Tomas into one of the surfaces enclosing him with a bang.
The fall was made easy though, thanks to decades worth of slippery slime, grime and melting snow along the bottom of the pipes. The smell was horrendous. But he knew it was not to be forever.
I’d take this over dying to those monsters any day.
He hadn’t heard Lynn screaming for a while now, which made him worry. Had they gone down the same pipe? Were there branching pipes? Would they be separated and lost?
It only took a minute or two for a speck of light to appear down the length of the piping. Given the terror and disorientation of the descent from the Grand Repository, the blue-white glow was a relieving sight to see.
Almost there.
The circle of light from the exit grew larger, brighter, as he continued his speedy descent. It was still night, and Tomas guessed the light was coming from the glow of Rea and Ixo.
As he slid closer to freedom, a black silhouette suddenly appeared at the end of the steep pipe. The shape of the tricorn hat was unmistakable- it must have been Lynn.
Tomas thought he heard her screaming something, though given the rush of air and the slick sounds coming from all around he could not make out a word.
Closer he slid, almost at the end of the horrible journey down the pipes. Suddenly he could make out some words.
“…Tomas…stop! Stop!”
It was too late for him to react. In a split-second, Lynn appeared standing right in front of him, but he had gained so much momentum from the downhill fall that he could not slow himself.
She held her hands out as she shouted for him to slow down, standing by the edge of the pipe.
The edge of the pipe.
Fuck.
Tomas screamed out. He tried slowing down, but there was nothing to grab onto and he was going way too fast. The two were winded as they collided. Tomas, sliding on his back, knocked Lynn off her feet and they both went tumbling out from the end of the pipe into open air.
The rush of sliding down the pitch-black pipe was quickly replaced with a burst of fear as Tomas felt the openness of nothing beneath him for several seconds.
Tomas saw Lynn throw her satchel as she fell.
They were free-falling.
Tomas and Lynn cried out in a panic, swinging their arms and legs wildly to try and grab at something.
Then, everything went silent.
He couldn’t breathe. Tomas was enveloped once again in blackness. His body felt a cold shock wash over him. Then it hit him- they had landed in water.
Tomas immediately began to swim for the surface, heading for the direction of the shimmering moonlight. The water was freezing, with sheets of ice covering parts of the surface.
Tomas burst out from the surface, taking a long, deep breath. Lynn popped up right next to him, her floppy hat now drenched.
The two were out of breath but forced themselves to swim for the shore only a few metres away. It wasn’t a hard decision, as the water was so cold that it hurt.
The pulled themselves out onto the rocky, snowy shoreline of the narrow river they had fallen into. Tomas slid onto his back, coughing up water and taking a much-needed rest as his body grew frigid and shook uncontrollably.
Tomas chuckled to himself when he saw how far they’d fallen, grateful to be alive. On the other side of the river was a sheer cliff of rock with the old pipe jutting out of it halfway up. It was quite a fall.
“That…was close…” Tomas huffed with a shivering smile.
“Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you stop when I shouted?” Lynn shouted angrily, furiously trying to wring her clothes of the freezing water.
“I couldn’t stop.”
Lynn shook her head. “Now we will probably freeze to death.”
She wasn’t wrong. Tomas felt his skin already going numb, goosebumps raising all over him as his muscles throbbed and trembled.
“At least we landed in water. I can think of a thousand worse things to land in,” Tomas said, trying to break the tension upon realising how dire a predicament they were truly in.
Lynn, scowling, could not help but smirk nervously as she shook her hair about like a wet dog.
