The clock tower was visible now, rising above the tanneries and steel mills that's gave the smoke quarter its name and its distinctive smell. The hissing had stopped now, which made for small comfort as he dashed through narrow lanes and wide roads. People were beginning to flow out of their houses in response to the bells, and it wouldn't be long before they managed to collect themselves and ran for the Iron gate. There would be a stampede, Illum knew how many would be crushed. He had to get there first.
The tower was near now, but Bastard was having to swerve and barge past people, slowing him down and causing no small amount of alarm. At one point a small dumpy man had tried to fight him in the middle of the road, clearly lacking some common sense. One hard knee to the groin was all that was needed to restore it.
Finally he was here, Bastard rushed to the watch post under the tower, there were no signs of spiders nearby, there had been no signs of spider anywhere in the Smoke Quarter now that he though about it, they had all been in the Old, Jewellery, and High Quarters. The bridge. He must have cut them off there. He grinned to himself. Stupid fecking spiders couldn't swim. Bastard let himself be happy for a split second before he entered the post, the girl was still here, the girl was awake, the girl had stabbed him. He didn't know where she'd hidden it, but she was holding a long and incredibly sharp dagger, gold and fine, with what looked like shifting gold finery inside the pommel. Critically, the pointy end of the dagger was stuck in his left leg. The girl pulled out the dagger quickly, lining up for another stab when she saw who he was and stopped, her eyes widening. Bastard noticed that she loosened her hold on the dagger only slightly. He felt a second of self pity before the reality of his situation fell back into place. Run. He checked the wound quickly and haphazardly. Not deep. He'd live, probably. He'd die, definitely if he stayed though. He had to move both him and the girl out of here, he had to do it quick.
"Put the fecking knife away girl." Bastard hissed, "We only have so long till the spiders get here, and then we're both Inked!" She hesitantly pressed a button on the pommel of the knife, and it rapidly twitched and folded into a circular, golden pocket watch. Not hidden, masked.
Bastard twitched his head in a sign that universally meant follow me, and took a step. He seethed at the pain in his leg, but took another, and another, hoping that if he ignored his leg enough it would go away. The girl ran behind him, struggling to keep up with his pace in the thickening horde of screaming townspeople. He thought he had lost her for a second, and felt a chill run bone-deep, until he felt a small hand on his leg, and looked down to see her. She was being buffeted around by the swarm, a rhythmic push happened every few seconds as they rushed to get to the gate, uncaring of however many they trampled. Bastard looked ahead over the crowd and saw the gate in the distance. Too far. By the time he got there the spiders would be laying eggs in his cold corpse, or whatever it was they did. There wasn't time.
But there were no other gates out. All the others were surely overrun by now, he stood no chance of getting to them, and all the secure entrances he knew of were in the old quarter. He cursed his lack of diversification.
How then, they were trapped in the spider's nest, and there was no chance of them escaping through the gates in time. He should have known the chaos that would ensue, he should never have entered this godforsaken town.
For the millionth time in his life, Bastard hated his height. Whether he had been big or small, it always seemed the other would have been preferable in whatever situation he came across. Now, he wished he couldn't see over everyones heads at the city around them. The whole thing was fire, smoke, and screams. The acrid tang of it seared his nostrils and forced a hacking cough out, why hadn't the fecking Name of Fire made him invulnerable to its smoke? He mournfully considered that the only reason they were still alive was because the spider's couldn't cross the river without the bridge.
Bastard stopped. The river. How had he not thought of it before, he'd have to double back, go towards the spider's which he dreaded, but he could make it, if he ran. It flowed south, into the Bronze Sea, but before then it led away from where he had first seen them, where he suspected they had come from. He needed to get as far south as he could.
Picking up the girl by her wrist and slinging her onto his back was perhaps the least elegant way a child had ever been handled before, but it was such a surprise to her she seemingly forgot to struggle, and simply lay on his back in abject shock. Wordlessly, Bastard turned, glared at the crowd, and drove his way through them, an ungainly scythe cutting through a field of wheat.
Weeping was the chorus of the crowd, over fallen family members or broken limbs it was impossible to tell, and Bastard had half a mind to join them, but still he stormed on. He felt the crowd was never ending, did they truly not know they were corpses yet?, he wondered. He could tell them about the river, maybe that would save them. That would be the kind and right thing to do. But a voice in the back of his head talked to him, but you're not kind or right, are you? If you were, maybe Johanes would still be alive, and not ingrained in your skin.
And so he said nothing.