“Great Overseer. Glory to Ka, but this one is not of our group.” The iunctus is backing away from me. Pointing.
I clench and unclench my hands, palms stinging, ensuring the blood still flows from the cuts.
Grab my weapons.
There’s a moment, and then they spring to life. Thrum and buzz beneath my grip, hot in my hand.
The Overseer stops. Assessing. Though its eyes don’t leave me, there’s the hint of black to them, and I know it must be communicating. Passing on what it’s seeing.
No going back, now.
The Overseer comes at me. So fast that though I’m expecting it, I’m almost still too slow.
I flick the crook up, and catch it squarely in the chest.
There’s a heartbeat where the man seems frozen in time. The energy pounding through the crook envelopes him. Distorts him, but not in the way it distorts the air around my weapons. Rather than quiver and snap back into place, his body seems to keep twisting, warping, distending and buckling.
He explodes.
Even knowing the destructive force of what I hold I stumble back, horrified as rent flesh spatters to the floor, red viscera rendered black in the eery lightslashing across the stone block, thin droplets ricocheting back onto my clothes. There’s a mist where the Overseer was standing that rises and swirls and then drops again, settling into a fine paste over stone and iunctii alike.
I stand there, crook still outstretched, arm shaking as the blood-spattered iunctii scramble away with terrified moans. I knew what would happen, knew this was coming and had braced myself for it.
Still.
I glance at the trembling, huddled iunctii, a few with heads still half unwrapped, smears of dark liquid across their faces and clothes. I hold up a hand as if I can somehow calm them, reassure them. Explain why I’m doing this. Explain that I’m trying to save them.
But then I remember Ahmose. How he died. And I know there’s no point.
I drop my hand again. Wipe away the worst of the gore from my face with my tunic.
“Glory to Ka,” I mutter in frustration. I turn to the inner door, and swing at it with my crook.
A chunk of thick black rock the size of my head explodes outward, tumbling into Duat.
To a background of more low groans from the iunctii I attack the door with hurried fury, blow after blow clearing more of a hole; beyond I can see the stunned, horrified stares of a few frozen passersby. I must look a sight. Smashing my way into their city from the wastelands through their unbreakable walls, blood and eviscerated flesh coating my face and arms. Hard to blame them for their fear.
There are three Overseers approaching. Sprinting toward me from some sort of guard house nearby. I attack the door with renewed fervour, flail flicking and crook crashing against the obsidian, palms stinging with every blow. Chunks burst away with a shattering roar, rapidly widening the opening. The weapons, I vaguely note, continue to seem unaffected by the impacts. That’s good. If these break, there’s no secondary option.
The gap is large enough now for me to leap through and I do so, coming immediately face-to-face with the first Overseer. She swings a blade that describes a wide, lazy arc at my neck.
I move smoothly to the side. Under. Flick out with the flail, watch as it snakes and snaps into her arm.
Flicker.Thrum. She’s a pile of pulsing, quivering red flesh.
Blood and pieces of gore and bone spray into the two men behind her but it doesn’t give them pause; they dive through the red haze, the mist coating their faces a horrific crimson as the fearful cries behind them intensify. The iunctii’s fierce determination means nothing as I bring up my crook to meet the first blow, shattering the blade that attempts to cut through it. I almost stumble at the unexpected success, but recover in time to pivot and bring the flail squarely across at both the bodies hurtling at me.
Flicker.Thrum.Flicker.Thrum.
Shouts and screams from up the street, though they retreat in a hurry; no one, wisely, is choosing to face me. Within twenty seconds I’m alone, even if there must surely be at least a few pairs of eyes peering at me from within the safer confines of nearby buildings.
It doesn’t matter. This will be enough to draw Ka’s attention here, maybe even activate Gleaners within the city itself. But it’s also too far from Duat’s centre. Likely not even close to enough of a threat to draw out the ones guarding his pyramid.
I hurry forward, doing all I can to ignore the hot, sticky liquid clinging to my skin and clothes, and slip into the shadows of a maze of alleys.
Duat’s main streets are bustling at this time of day, but this area is quiet; I stop, strip away the wrappings and tunic and hurriedly use them to wipe my hands and face as best I can, removing the worst of the blood before discarding the sodden and stained garments. Then I retrieve the bundle I hid here a few days ago. Put on the clean clothes, and study my reflection in the distorted mirror of an obsidian statue, scrubbing away a few extra traces I missed. Dishevelled, certainly, but good enough to not specifically draw attention.
I breathe until I’m calm, wrap my hands using fresh cloth strips. Conceal my now dormant weapons beneath my robe again.
