One Hundred Thousand Killers

Cerise had a faint childhood memory of being brought along with her mistress to some meeting, and the room had some fantastic innovation where Breath imbued a spinning fan to push cold air, keeping the room from getting stale.

As all children did, she put her face up against the grill-covered blades, and then spoke into it, delighting in the warbling reverberation until Old Candlethumb rapped her on the head.

The noise she made had been unlike anything she had heard in her life. That was, until tonight, when fresh warbling came so loudly for a moment she thought her ears or her brain had gone wrong, or the rain above Cerise’s head had somehow turned into a full-time thunderstorm.

What convinced her otherwise was the sudden onrushing of panicked feet and screaming that emerged from outside the door.

Lucretia was on her feet in an instant, ready to rush out the door to investigate, and was only stopped by Cerise grabbing her by the shoulder to push her away. The princess’s irascible complaint died on her lips as she watched the witch quickly put a finger to her own mouth, warning for silence as she opened the door by a smidge, enough to let one eye peer through and inspect the pandemonium.

The office overlooked the ground floor, with its reception desk and a bunch of workstations where the Guard did their Guard things in an era that was demanding paperwork and other strange, office-like things. But now Cerise’s sightline of those workplaces were obscured by a thick blanket of lights that flew back and forth, occasional gaps letting her see men and women thrashing and fighting this thickened air, waving batons, short swords, even heavy books as they swatted at something.

“What the hell…”

Even with all the noise and visuals, Cerise could barely comprehend what was going on besides that the building was being assaulted by some manner of manipulated Breath – the most outlandish, most excessive use she had seen in her life.

It was out of the corner of her eye that she saw something twitching and skittering up to the edge of the door.

Cerise’s vision was taken up by a surreally striped blue and black wasp, antennae wriggling towards her as its compound eyes met her wide-eyed stare.

Its wings spread and began thrumming.

By the time the witch slammed the door shut, some five of the glowing insects had darted between the gap, another one or two getting crushed by the slamming edges with a loud squelch.

Lucretia’s gift was already calling the cold to her, a beckoned skeleton or two flanking her in the suddenly very cramped room as she watched her unexpected ally begin swiping at the air at insects.

“Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em all!” Cerise shrieked, only emboldening the princess’s sense of danger. The skeletons swiped at the air in futility, only keeping the buzzing things from getting closer. But it was long enough for the temperature to be inverse to the princess’s rage, half the room becoming coated with a miniaturized winter that consumed the walls, the floor, and even the desk Lucretia was behind.

The Spirits insects tried to survive the intense cold, but remained true to their nature to shrivel up and die, turning into specks of light before they even hit the ground in imitation of their first death.

On her end, Cerise was more direct. A good eye and a thick book from a nearby shelf was used to crush one wasp against the stone wall with a single pitch. As another darted past her, Cerise’s every instinct, honed by frantic stress, made her reach out and snatch the Spirit out the air on pure reflex, trained arm a blur.

There was no blessed silence, even if the fight had ended. The chaos outside was still in full force, and the two could hear the buzzing grow heavy at the locked door. The master of the Spirits was acutely aware of what had happened, and where their targets were, and was holding siege outside, ready to swarm in as soon as the opening showed.

Cerise looked down and opened her hand. The insect had returned to the Breath of the World, and in its place was its contents – a watery, dark liquid that Cerise was familiar with. She knew its viscosity could only be accomplished with processed Black Dog.

Spirits weren’t her forte for studies – she left that to Andrew – but her knowledge told her they were little better than glorified balloon animals. Shapes filled with instincts. A serpent wouldn’t be filled with venom like it had in life, but it would still be directed to remember how to bite.

Or for others, how to sting.

The witch glared at the mess, and grabbed at a powdery sheath of snow that had formed on Lucretia’s half of the room, using it to wash off the toxins.

Had someone… had someone conjured a swarm of pests, and loaded them all with the poison? Right between the raid on the ship and now? It was a particular sort of innovative insanity Cerise hadn’t counted on. Logic dictated that she expect a clumsy poisoning if the surgical option had failed, but straight up using it as a weapon of war?

Hadn’t the plan been for it to look like Lucy just fell over dead from a bad meal? Or had someone just lost their patience and decided they couldn’t wait any longer?

The noise outside only grew, and the two took a few uncertain steps back from the door. Even solid wood wasn’t a certainty.

“So much for the safety of this place,” Lucretia growled.

Cerise would have agreed, but her mind was already racing on the immediate solutions, and she already chanced upon the first good idea she saw right out the window.

“The summoner might be clever enough to know no one expects bugs in a rainstorm, but they’ll get washed off all the same if we get outside and make a break for it. After that, I don’t know.”

Lucretia tapped her mouth in thought before speaking up. “Below us, a few dozen feet towards the back is a side door that leads out to a yard. It’s more of a grassy patch between it and the Guard Station’s outer fence…”

“If it’s outside in the rain, we’ll start from there,” Cerise simply said.

“But there’s no way out of here.”

The witch smirked. “Sure there is. Freeze the floor some more.”

Lucretia blinked in confusion for a second, before following the request. A glance at the floorboards immediately coated them in ice, and then further, and the wood began creaking and groaning in protest.

“Can you freeze the corridor below us if you see it?” Cerise asked.

The princess frowned, uncertain. “I can try, but building as open as this will take time.”

“I’ll have to do something on my end then,” Cerise muttered, even as she pulled another vial from her pockets, which she noticed with some consternation were far emptier than they had been at the start of her little foray.

She didn’t say anything about that, though. She merely walked forward onto the protesting ice, and then pulled the princess forward so she could wrap an arm around her waist.

“You better be ready to run like hell, or do whatever you can to fight off the swarm once we start, alright?”

“You don’t need to tell me the obvious,” Lucretia sniffed, almost successfully pretending she didn’t care.

Cerise didn’t say anything; she merely held the princess close as she made a short hop up, and then down, driving the combined weight of the two of them into the brittle flooring, which sent them through and into the ground floor.

It was all office space: nothing but desks and metal carts. A clear shot down to the back of the building, save for the people who were thrashing about, trying to wipe the hornets and wasps blanketing them in pure panic.

But even as their ankles screamed from the harsh landing, Cerise felt the air around them drop in temperature. On the wall next to her, and the ceiling, skeletons half-emerged, waving their arms in ridiculous fanning motions.

“Hold your breath!” The witch ordered, before throwing her glass tube to the ground. Its contents mixed with the freezing air and billowed out into an acrid fog.

Even with her quick order, Cerise could feel her eyes and nose sting as her concoction wafted every which way – hopefully with enough volume to scare away the Spirits.

“Come on!” She wheezed, fumbled for Lucretia’s arm and dragged her along through the rapidly chilling air, even as the stinging pests drunkenly flitted after them. Even as Cerise pushed through, her spine tingled as a hornet or wasp slapped against her face or neck, fearfully expecting some part of her to erupt in pain.

It was an agonizing few seconds, every fear and overworked muscle working in concert to have the two sprinting to the nearby side door.

It was a miracle that it was unlocked and that Cerise had the presence of mind to just use her hand to rip the latch open before bodily throwing the princess into the rain, then herself before slamming it shut.

“Were you stung?” Cerise demanded, even as the two raced to a second gate built into the iron bar fence – some sort of janitorial or gardening access, who knew – opened that, and rushed onto the streets, welcoming the rain that poured down on them.

Around them, a hesitant crowd had formed an uncertain barrier around the Guard Station, fearful of the chaos they heard, but too untrained to know how to respond, even to a pair of women who staggered into their view.

“No,” Lucretia finally panted, as she grabbed her knees. “That took too much out of me. My gift…”

“We’re not through,” Cerise said, cutting her off while grabbing her wrist. “We need to get as far–”

They had miscalculated.

Even with the rain soaking them as it came down in sheets, the side door burst open, every insect mustered by the attacker to become a single mass.

A cloud didn’t punch through the shut door so much as it was a fist made of Breath, and it surged forth, warbling and humming right through the iron bars of the fence.

Cerise and Lucretia only turned in time to watch as a wall of insects slammed into them.

The next few seconds was a torrent of confused sensations. The crawling itch of thousands of tiny limbs crawling under her clothes and across her skin. The darkness as they buried her face. The wild punching and kicking of her limbs. The chill of intense, freezing cold. White noise that drowned out everything, even the faint screaming.

And then it became an all-encompassing pain.