Undead Knightmare - Chapter 7
Sadon woke with a shiver and bolted upright as cold shot up his back. He knew not how long they had been asleep. The large flames in the brazier were no more, only a flat bed of orange coals remained. For a moment, he was lost in glowing waves of yellow passing through as the cold air caressed it. Then a foul moan brought him back to reality. They were still trapped.
He nudged Lizzie until she pulled herself up off the ground. Her blue eyes baggy, hair a tangled mess, but she seemed rested.
“Damn. The cold really sucks, especially now that the world has ended,” Lizzie said through a sarcastic smirk.
“I’m more concerned about those Ill that are still waiting for us. I can’t believe they haven’t given up yet,” Sadon said. He folded his legs beneath himself and stirred the coals in the fire, hiding layers of ash under glowing embers. “The cold is probably affecting them too. Their minds are monsters now, but their bodies are still human. Imagine how stiff either of us would be if we were out there.”
“We’re safe at least. From them, I mean.” She nodded her head in the direction of the Ill. “Who knows how long that’ll remain true though.”
“I think it’s time we move on. We’ll run out of food before long,” Sadon responded.
“We can’t get out of here with them outside. We have to fight them, or find another way out.” She turned her head towards the stairs and pointed to its opening, “I was too freaked out to go up there before. Did you get a chance to take a look?”
“Yeah, but it was just a bunch of dusty armour pieces and some scale oil. There was a dead body next the hole in the wall made by the collapse, but it’s nothing to worry about. No other way out.” He continued to stare at the coals, mulling over escape plans in his head.
“Fire. We could burn them,” Lizzie said, “ignite the scale oil, and those things will be nothing but a pile of ashes!”
“That may work,” Sadon said, an eyebrow rose at the thought, “I’ve only worked with scale oil a couple times, but I remember that it’s dangerous.” He climbed to his feet, his movements shaky and deliberate as he pulled Lizzie with up the stairs.
“We’ll have to be careful,” he said, his grip tightening on her arm, “very careful.”
A sharp tug and the tight wooden cap popped off the barrel. Sadon dropped it with a loud clunk as the smell intensified.
“That’s scale oil alright.” Lizzie said, pinching her nose, “the stuff lasts forever, right?”
Sadon ran downstairs and shoveled a pile of embers onto a chest plate, and placed in on the ground in front of the oil. He grabbed a broom and dipped the end slightly into the oil.
“Stand back,” he said, and dropped the straw broom onto the plate of coals. It caught fire immediately and made a quiet whoosh noise as a short wave of heat and a light filled the room. He kicked the flaming broom off the coals and quickly stomped out the fire.
“Still good,” he said with big smile.
They went downstairs to pack their bags, leaving behind items they decided were too heavy, and ate a quick meal to lighten the load, but also to quiet the growling of their stomachs. Sadon dropped the bags next the scale oil, then turned to Lizzie.
“I’ll pour the oil, and then you dump the coals down. Got it?” he said. Lizzie nodded affirmatively and pulled on a pair of leather gloves. Sadon lifted the heavy barrel, and carried it across the room. Though it was filled to the brim, he managed with little difficulty. They looked over the edge and saw the Ill standing there. The creature’s grey skin had turned a pale blue. Thin piles of snow rested on their shoulders and heads.
Sadon removed the lid from the barrel, and tilted it. Oil rained down on the heads of the creatures below. Heads turned upward to locate the source of the sudden downpour. Their movement, though hindered by the cold, surprised Sadon as the many eyes found him. They began jumping and scratching at the wall below, reaching up in desperation for Sadon’s flesh. The brutal cold of the outside was proving too much for Sadon’s unprotected hands. His fingers grew numb quickly and lost grip of the oil. The barrel crashed down on top of the Ill and the oil now laid in a massive thick puddle in the street. “Oh no.” Sadon whispered.
“Sadon, that’s way too much,” Lizzie said, the worry in her voice was showing.
“I know, I know, it was an accident. We have no choice now though. Light it.”
She looked at Sadon with her eyes conveying doubt, but trusted in his plan, and picked up the chest plate of coals off the floor. She could still feel the heat of the metal through the leather gloves and numb fingers, but knew it was nothing. Sadon watched as she left the burning embers go over the side, chest plate and all. A shower of coals fell on the frozen Ill’s oil soaked heads. Sadon dove for cover, taking Lizzy with him as the embers hit the ground. A mountain of flames erupted from the street, heat and light filling the hole. Flame so bright and hot, neither could open their eyes.
Sadon’s body ached as old bruises flared. The pair struggled to regain footing, eager to survey the damage. The street, filled with flame stretching across the cobblestone and up building walls, was utterly destroyed.
“Now what? ” Lizzie yelled.
Sadon was no stranger to burns. Working with a forge every day, he had grown accustom to intense heat and mishaps with the fires, but the prospect of being so close to scale oil flames was unsettling. He examined the blaze below and looked for an alternate route.
“We have to just run. It will hurt and won’t be fun, but we have to do it. Avoid the bodies and rocks. If you trip and fall, you will die. Do you understand?” he yelled over the roar of wind and flame.
Lizzie shook her head, but was nervous. They both were. The building had already made several loud cracks as the wooden support beams burned on the floor below them. Waiting for the fire to die out was no longer an option.
The flames crept up the stairs and onto tables and barrels behind them; they pulled the bags tight to their backs. Lizzie following him, Sadon leaped from the hole and landed on the pile of rubble below them. Barely landing on their feet, they were half-sprinting, half-tumbling down the road. The ground they raced along and the walls that surrounded them were on fire. Acrid smoke filled their lunges, but they kept running. Snow covered streets were once more under their feet. Sadon felt like he just escaped hell. They stopped once completely free of the carnage to catch their breath, and take in the destruction they had left in their wake.
“Sadon,” Lizzie said, “we just killed those people.”
“I know,” he replied with a cough, “I don’t regret it. It had to be done.” He meant the words, but could not hide his sadness from her. She knew him too well.
“I know,” she said, wrapping her arms around his chest as tears formed in her eyes. Sadon slung his arm around her waist, hugging her close.
“We need to keep moving,” he said, “there may be more nearby.”
Lizzie nodded, wiping away the tears with her torn sleeves. The pair turned their backs to the flames and began moving again. A subtle change in air pressure rippled the hair on Lizzie’s head a split second before a violent explosion blew Sadon off his feet.
