A final walk

The tunnels did not loosen their grip as the group pushed on from the chamber where Alice had been found. If anything, the earth seemed to close tighter, pressing inward with every step as though it meant to swallow them whole again. The walls sweated with damp, beads of water running down the stone in thin rivulets that caught the torchlight like veins of molten copper. The air grew heavier the further they climbed, not fresher but thicker, as though the tunnels did not breathe but only hoarded breath. The scrape of their boots echoed too loud, bouncing from wall to wall until it sounded as if a hundred shadows followed them, each with their own tread. The smell was of mildew and iron, the old stink of rot that had never touched sunlight. It clung to their coats, their hair, their tongues, until every swallow was thick with earth.

The weight of the place clung to them like an extra skin. Every sound stretched too long in the stone—Hibiki’s breath came harsh, bouncing back on itself until it sounded like another man’s panting beside him. Ren shifted the gauntlet on his arm, the leather biting deeper each time he flexed his hand, the weight dragging his shoulder low. The torch Darius carried threw shadows that doubled them on the wall, tall and warped, walking alongside in grotesque mimicry. Alice’s breath came shallow, thin enough that Ren sometimes thought the tunnel was pulling it out of her, stealing it for itself.

Alice staggered often, but she refused to fall. Her body was light against Ren, fragile in a way that made every tremor of her weight seem like it might shatter her. Her cheeks had hollowed, her skin pale with the dull sheen of fever sweat, lips cracked and bleeding in thin lines when she whispered. She leaned hard into Ren’s shoulder, and though her legs trembled she still placed each step herself, refusing the offer of his arms. The bloom pulsed faintly at her side, no longer strong enough to flare, but its weak light told them she had not yet slipped away. Every flicker of that glow dug into Ren like a nail; he carried her not only with his arm but with the guilt that she had been left here at all.

The bloom at her side flickered in uneven rhythm, dimming until its glow seemed ready to die, then pulsing again as if her heart dragged it back. She left almost no sound on the ground when she walked; her boots kissed the stone so lightly it was as though she floated, or as though the world no longer noticed she was there. Her hands shook when they brushed Ren’s sleeve, fingers twitching as if even the thought of holding weight was too much. He feared that if she slipped once, she would not rise again, that this thin act of walking was only her stubbornness refusing to fall.

Hibiki led with restless violence, morning star wrapped around his wrist, the chain rattling like a loose shackle each time he shifted his grip. His shoulders were tight, his neck bent forward, his body moving as though it wanted to collide with something—anything—to break the waiting. He spat once on the floor, and the sound rang louder than the torch hiss. His knuckles flexed constantly, veins standing in his arms, as if the weapon demanded to be swung.

Miyako kept the rear, her knives out, her steps controlled to the point of stillness. She did not look like she walked—she looked like she measured distance, like every pace was a calculation of where her blade would be if something struck. Her head turned often toward the dark behind them, her expression unchanged. She did not expect pursuit. She knew it was there already.

Darius moved at the front, torch raised high enough to smear the ceiling black with soot. He walked slow, but there was purpose in every pace. The way he set his boots on the ground told them he had done this before—walked these passages or others like them, guided men through stone that pressed against the ribs. His bandaged side did not slow him. He did not cough, did not flinch, only pressed on, as if pain was another companion to be ignored. The horns began when the tunnel widened.

At first the sound was only a quiver underfoot, a faint tremor in the stone like distant thunder. Then it grew, a low booming note that rolled through the ground, deeper than any man’s voice. Dust shook from the ceiling. Alice stiffened against Ren, a thin cry caught in her throat. Another horn answered from further away, the note higher, shriller, echoing until it tangled with the first. Then a third. The sound was not hunting, not chasing—it was closing. The horns called from all sides, until it felt less like signal and more like breath being drawn around them.

Dust poured in thin streams from cracks above, coating their shoulders, the fine powder catching in their mouths until every breath rasped dry. The pools at their feet shivered, ripples racing outward with each blast of the horns, lapping at the walls until it seemed the water wanted to climb. Even the torch flames leaned away from the sound, bowing as if to some unseen master, shadows darting like startled birds across the ceiling. It was not a signal but a net being drawn tight, each call stitching them deeper into its shape. They were not being chased. They were being arranged. Hibiki stopped short, chain tight in his hands. “They know.” Darius did not slow. His voice was gravel, flat. “Not chasing,” he said. “Herding.”

The horns sounded again. The torch flames bent under the weight of the sound, smoke tearing ragged against the ceiling. Water rippled in shallow pools. Shadows ahead shifted, retreating just as the light touched them. The scrape of boots on stone whispered from beyond the bend, steady, patient. The tunnels no longer felt empty. They felt like throats, guiding prey into teeth.

The passage rose to a chamber where stone stairs curled upward to a doorway half-blocked with fallen beams. Daylight showed faint through cracks above, pale and weak but unmistakably open air. For one heartbeat, hope burned. Alice’s head lifted, her lips parted as if to drink that pale light. Hibiki surged toward it, chain swinging loose.

Then the horns answered from every side at once, and the exits filled. Grey robes poured from the side tunnels, dozens of them, hoods low, knives and crooked blades catching the torchlight. Behind them pressed the black, voices raised in chants that broke the air into jagged syllables. The words were not meant to be understood but to wound, each one striking the skull like a hammer. And at the far edge, still and waiting, white. Their robes glowed faint in the gloom, stitched with thin red thread that glimmered as though lit from beneath. They did not step forward. They watched.

The greys swarmed in loose clusters, blades uneven, their steps ragged. They were fodder, thrown forward to bleed, their strength in the press of their numbers more than in any skill. The blacks were different—heavier, precise, their weapons straight, their voices loud. They moved together, not as men but as a tide, every step timed to the one beside it, every chant cutting sharp into the skull. And at the back, still as stone, the whites. Their silence was worse than the noise. They waited without hurry, patient as rot, their robes stitched with red like veins that pulsed faintly in the torchlight.

Ren raised his sword, gauntlet braced. Hibiki unwound his chain, sparks snapping from the stone. Miyako set herself at Alice’s side, knives angled low, eyes narrow. Darius’s club came up, his stance set. They drew into a circle, Alice within it, her crossbow weak in her hands, but still raised.

The chant grew. The torches guttered. Then the grey surged.

The clash was immediate, violent. Hibiki’s morning star lashed wide, the iron head crushing into a skull with a crack that split bone and stone together. The hum rose from the weapon, deep and resonant, vibrating through the chamber until the ceiling shed grit. Ren caught a strike on the gauntlet, his arm jolted numb, then cut down with a heavy thrust, blade grinding through cloth and rib. Darius swung low, club breaking a shin, then rose with savage force into a jaw that shattered like glass. Miyako slipped in between, her knife flashing across a throat, spraying blood hot enough to sting the torch flame.

Grey fell. Black pressed forward. Their blades sharper, their chants louder, their movements tight and in rhythm. Ren felt them before they struck. His gauntlet screamed under their blows, bruises spreading beneath the straps. Hibiki roared, his swings growing wider, the hum climbing until the torches leaned sideways. “Hold it!” Ren snarled, but Hibiki’s eyes were bloodshot, his chain rattling wild. Darius slammed his club into Hibiki’s shoulder, snapping him steady. “You’ll kill us all with it,” he growled.

Alice loosed her crossbow. The bolt punched through a black robe’s shoulder, spinning him into the press. She reloaded with trembling hands, sweat sliding down her temple, but she raised it again.

The fight turned into grind. The chamber filled with smoke and blood. The chant rattled skulls, the air itself shaking with it. For every body that dropped, another pressed forward. The cult did not break; they shifted, rotated, grey retreating, black advancing, white watching. The press of them was endless.

Ren’s bruises spread deep beneath the straps of his gauntlet, each block jarring until the bones in his wrist screamed. Hibiki’s weapon shook with each swing, the hum rattling his own teeth as much as the stone around him, the sound leaking through his jaw into his skull. Darius’s ribs ground together when he twisted, the bandages holding but only just, pain dragging sweat down his brow in cold beads. Miyako’s cuts dripped freely, yet her blades never faltered, each strike measured to kill, never waste. Alice’s hands trembled on the crossbow, the string almost slipping from her fingers, but she forced it back, teeth clenched so tight her jaw ached.

Ren’s breath came in gasps, his sword-arm burning, the gauntlet bruising bone. Hibiki’s shoulders trembled with each swing, his chain rattling slack before he yanked it back with fury. Darius faltered once, knees dipping, then surged again, club smashing ribs. Miyako bled from a cut along her arm, but her knives only grew sharper, cutting with clean, merciless lines. Alice fired again, bolt clipping a hood, before she sagged to one knee. She rose again, teeth bared against weakness.

The circle shrank. Blood slicked the stone until boots slipped. The torches smoked heavy, stinging eyes, lungs choking. The chant built until thought itself seemed to fray, every sound swallowed into its rhythm. Their arms grew heavy, their strikes slower. The cult pressed, inexorable, filling every gap, forcing them back step by step. And still at the rear, the woman in white stood, her bandages dark, her eyes burning, her silence colder than any chant. Then Miyako froze. Her knives dripped. Her chest heaved. Her head bowed. At first it seemed she would collapse. Then the shadows at her boots thickened. They spread outward, slow, like ink bleeding across stone. The air turned sharp, colder, and the torches bent toward her, flames warped.

Her arms blurred. A black robe lunged, and his chest split with a line too clean to be steel. Another staggered back, his throat torn open though Miyako had not touched him. The shadows lashed out, cutting further than her reach, slicing with lines that left blood sprayed across the walls. The cult faltered. Some fell to their knees, chanting louder, foreheads pressed to stone. Others broke and fled, vanishing into the tunnels. The chant fractured, some voices in praise, others in terror.

The shadows writhed wider. One brushed Ren’s gauntlet, cold sharp enough to burn. Another hissed across Hibiki’s chain. Both froze, horror stark on their faces. Darius’s eye fixed not on the cultists but on Miyako. At the rear, the woman in white did not move. She watched, her bandaged face tilted, her fury visible even in her stillness.

The chamber belonged to the shadows now, not to cult or companions. They lashed, stretched, dripped black as much as red. Miyako’s body trembled, her breath tearing ragged, her silhouette shaking as though the shape of her could no longer hold. Then the shadows flickered once more, reaching toward her allies—before snapping back to coil beneath her boots. The fight had not ended. The circle had not closed. But something older than them all had been called, and it would not return to silence.