Silently closing the door to 'Mindels & sons', Bastard crept out, back on Farlods Walk, now blissfully absent of lantern light. He walked slowly over the cobblestones, the new hours making him keenly aware of his freezing extremities. His time in the Greygrass had made him careful, he wore all grey and had a pair of padded shoes to dull the sound of his steps, however this prudence had never extended to his temperature, he hadn't accounted for a time when he'd have to be out without his flame. Stupid, stupid Hangnail. Brenn had taught him better.
To the left, clink. He stopped, half a second from stepping out onto Tinpatter Street. Lantern light reflected in the wet cobblestone, 15 of them, maybe?Watchmen, he thought. Was this a trap, had the Watchman from before actually seen him? They were perhaps 100 paces uphill from him. A good position given he was a mage. Maintain distance and use copper tipped bullets. They would have the rest of the watch moving down the hill on Farlods' to prevent his retreat. His mind whirred relentlessly, desperately, but there was no way out, the alley was overhanging, a side product of two houses bulging on the second floor, so he couldn't climb. His Flame would be useless against copper bullets, and he couldn't hide forever.
The lantern lights, however. They were swaying and swinging, but there was no wind. And the clink from before, that was no musket or pistol. That was metal on metal, forceful and true.
The watch were fighting. They were preoccupied. Oh joyous day for bandits, thought Bastard, delighting at his fortune. He leaped across Tinpatter Street in bounding steps, not caring to look back until he'd nearly made it to the opposite alley.
A Spider, like the one that had attacked the girl and he earlier that night. It was surrounded by a circle of watchmen, who took turns stabbing it with the spear end of the polearm. Every hit was warded off by 8 metal legs that moved superhumanly fast, but the creature was tiring, its movements becoming less and less powerful. The watch was winning, and they knew it, their circle closing and their attacks becoming more and more confident. This batch had been trained well, maybe they'd even taken the Connection, so they worked their polearms quickly and knew when to hold and when to press, clearly accustomed to fighting with each other. One of the polearms finally wormed its way through the spider's legs and crunched it's way into the abdomen, and the creature screamed silently, tensing and scraping the road wildly. In the spider's agony it had left an opening for another blade to come through its legs, and up into its skull came a hook at the end of a polearm, an attachment saved for the rank of lieutenant. This was a war-known man. The spider sunk to the ground, its legs spasming with the last drips of life left, as the watch hacked it apart, ensuring its death with grim satisfaction. Only Bastard saw the Shadows slinking above then on the roof of a building, and only Bastard was there to witness as a second spider, larger this time, dropped noiselessly into the group of men and tore them limb from limb, too quick to scream, its legs slicing them up and down like fresh strawberries. The street was pink with blood and rain, and the occasional chunk of flesh hit a wall with a wet thwack. More spiders crawled down the sides of the buildings to join in the festivities, perhaps avenging their fallen comrade or maybe just enjoying the bloodbath. Soon enough it was 4 spiders, painted red and dripping. Bastard had stood there, in horrified transfixion the whole time, and only now realised what a fool he'd been. A Spider turned and its eyes locked onto him, heard his heart beating in frantic rhythm, and he could have sworn he saw it shiver with delight. The other three shifted to look at him. Bastard turned tail and fled.
He could feel them behind him, not hear, for they were silent, but feel, a grim sense of death as they scuttled over houses and through side streets to follow him, he ran desperately towards where he had left the girl. She knew how to escape them, her golden eyes knew everything, they could get him out, away from the spiders. He barely knew where he was now, he'd veered off of the normal path back and was just running, running, flying away from the spiders. He heard a scream from ahead of him, a child had seen the spider's from a window above an apothecary, and Bastard saw shutters flung open in response, white faces staring in abject terror at the growing number of spider's chasing the tall shadow through a streets. Fecking idiots, stay inside and don't look, thought Bastard, whose care for the people stretched not enough to shout this out in fear of wasting breath. Spider's branched off of the group chasing Bastard and climbed houses, crawling inside where a scraping noise was all that was heard. The Bell rang thrice to the left of him, signifying an invasion, and also the location of the girl. The Watch had found the spider's.
Bonson Bridge, the only connection to the Smoke Quarter if you didnt want to swim through a deep pile of shit infested canal water lay ahead of Bastard, he and his friends, not really friends, but he had followed them, had played Sticks here, dropping a stick off one side of the bridge and seeing whose would come out of the other side first. Bastard would drop his a little later than others so they felt better, and he hoped like him a little more, which had proved unsuccessful. An idea flashed in his mind, wild and hopeful, and endlessly stupid, but he was on his last straw.
He pushed his right hand out, long fingers blackened from the effect of Flame magic, and twisted, pulling his anger and fear and projecting them out in a twisting whirling mesh towards the bridge, and as they flew out he uttered a name that sounded like Flame but echoed, ran through every firepit and spark that had ever and ever would exist, occupying them and making them remember that they were Flame, wild and prideful, and the whirling mesh of Bastards emotions became Magic, became Fire, that tore towards the wooden bridge and set it alight with a popping and cracking that sounded like the air was laughing in madness. Bastard grinned and ran to the bridge, relishing the scorching heat that meant safety. He stopped at the beginning of the flames, just before the wood began, and slowly took a step into it. At first the flames licked at him, screaming at him to SMOULDER. He stepped on them in turn, scrunching them underfoot and glaring it down with a fury in his eyes, and the fury was Flame itself, his eyes burned a deep dark orange instead of the ordinary hazel, and the flames understood that he was to pass undisturbed, that he was like them, pure fury and passion and love of burning. He stepped across the bridge until his eyes returned to their woody brown, and he was on the other side. He turned around for the first time since he had started running and saw the Spider's, tens of them, stood there silently, utterly still and staring at him. Half of the town behind them was falling, great 8 legged shadows crawling across faraway rooftops and screams the chosen music of the night. Bastard knew where he was, only a few minutes walk from the Bell Tower he had left the girl at. He had many questions for her.
He turned to walk away, moving down Olmarten Road, when he heard a high pitched hissing behind him. The hissing got louder and louder until it was too much to ignore, and Bastard glanced behind him to see the Spiders' black and shining eyes look at him with pure contempt, unable to pass through the wall of flame in front of them. Their legs were grating against each other, vibrating and creating a sound like a steam-kettle that seemed to be a warning or a war chant to the spiders, who were joining in all over the town, as the hissing noise seemed to erupt from every corner of the world to Bastard. Fearful once again, he ran to the Bell Tower, not looking back.