CHAPTER 29

  Escape From Londonland

  Long after the meeting had wrapped up, Bash found himself still seated, staring at maps he didn't understand.

  A gentle hand fell on his shoulder, breaking him out of his reverie. Looking up, he found Jill's face looking down at him. “Walk with me,” she said.

  Bash stood and followed her through the tunnels, past clusters of people preparing for something. Packing bags. Checking weapons.

  “We're moving you out this morning,” Jill said. “The longer you stay, the more danger you bring. Maximus's people will be looking for whoever killed Richard. Eventually, they will search down here.”

  Bash nodded. He'd been expecting this.

  “I've arranged passage west,” she continued. “But first, you need gear.”

  She stopped outside a doorway and opened it. “Take whatever you need from inside. Consider it payment for what you did last night.”

  ***

  The storeroom felt like a junky pawn shop. Leather hung in crooked lines, scraps piled on crates, boots dumped in open baskets with no shame about whether they matched.

  Bash rummaged until he found a left boot that didn't offend him and a right boot that had clearly survived several wars. He grabbed a battered jerkin patched together with different colors and bracers stitched by someone who must have been blind.

  The decent gear sat neatly in the back, polished and stacked. A proper sword caught his eye. Good steel. Balanced. The kind of blade that could save your life.

  He picked up a nice-looking leather vest. Turned it over in his hands and felt the weight of it.

  Then he put it back.

  Patrick's voice echoed in his head. We are guests. Don't take anything valuable. These people had less than nothing, and he was just passing through. The cluttered mess he had selected would do just fine. It fit him anyway.

  Once dressed, he stepped out into the corridor. Jill was still there waiting. One eyebrow shooting up the moment she saw him.

  What's with this lady and her damn eyebrows, Bash thought.

  Without commenting on his designer outfit, Jill turned away and started walking. “We need to gather everyone. The escape plan is finalized.”

  He followed her back to the familiar atrium. The same place he’d freed everyone the night before. This time however, there were no children, only rough-looking men and women.

  Jill scanned the group and raised her voice. “We are staging a food riot at the slum gates. It will escalate fast. No one will question it. There are too many guards in the district and too much tension. Even the bots have started showing instability.”

  Bash blinked. NPCs rioting was news. It shoved its way into the growing list of things he didn't understand about this Shard.

  One of the large men stepped forward. “Some of us won't be coming back from this. Everyone here knows that. We do it anyway.”

  The words hit Bash like a punch to the chest. People were going to die. For him. For a distraction so he could run away.

  Jill pointed at a city map spread across a crate. “While the riot pulls the guards, you four will approach from the alley. There is an inside man. He will open a side gate. Move fast, but do not run through the open ground on the other side, or the archers will take you down.”

  Patrick nodded sharply. “Understood.”

  “Follow the half-built moat around the corner of the wall,” Jill continued. “It connects to a treeline that grows too close to the stonework. The Count ignored it because he was an idiot.”

  Bash stared at the crude map. Nothing was at scale, and none of the lines were even drawn straight. His companions gathered around him.

  Luis leaned close and whispered, “This is insane.”

  Nora didn't look away from the map. “It's better than waiting to be executed.”

  Patrick folded his arms. “We move with discipline.”

  Bash bit his tongue and nodded.

  Nora glanced at him. “You're quiet.”

  “People are going to get hurt,” Bash said. “Because of us.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Because of Maximus,” Nora corrected. “We didn't build this hell. We're just trying to survive it.”

  It didn't make him feel better. But he stopped arguing.

  A young man Bash didn't recognize led them down another tunnel. Narrow. Damp. The kind of passage that made it clear they were heading toward a less friendly exit.

  “You the player?” the guide asked without looking back.

  “Apparently.”

  “My sister was one of the ones you freed. Contract had her working the mines. Fourteen-hour shifts. Cave-ins every week.” The young man's voice stayed flat, but his shoulders were tight. “She's safe now. Breathing real air. Because of you.”

  Bash didn't know what to say to that. “I'm glad she's okay.”

  “Yeah.” The guide stopped at a ladder. “This is you. Good luck out there.”

  He was gone before Bash could respond.

  Luis watched him go. “You're really bad at taking compliments, you know that?”

  “Shut up, Luis.”

  They climbed up into the cellar of an abandoned shop. Boarded windows let thin streams of early morning light through the cracks.

  The space was packed. Thirty, maybe forty fighters crammed into the room, clutching clubs and makeshift weapons, breathing hard, waiting.

  Bash studied their faces. A woman near the door, jaw set, gripped a club wrapped in rusty nails. A man in the corner muttered to himself, hands shaking. And near the stairs, a kid who couldn't have been older than sixteen, held a broken bottle.

  The kid caught Bash staring and puffed out his chest, trying to look tough. It just made him look younger.

  Jesus Christ, Bash thought. They're sending children to die for me.

  Someone in the back muttered a prayer. Someone else hissed at them to shut up.

  The silence stretched. Thirty seconds. A minute. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like a gunshot.

  Jill stood by the stairs leading up, scanning the group. Her eyes moved across faces like she was memorizing each one.

  “Go,” she said. “Now!”

  The rioters surged up the steps past her and out the door. The moment they hit the street, the noise began. Shouting. Metal on metal. The crash of something breaking. The sound swelled fast, echoing through the nearby streets, and was answered by boots, horns, and barked commands.

  Jill caught Bash's sleeve before he could follow.

  Without warning, she went up on her toes and kissed him on the forehead. “Good luck, grandson.”

  Bash couldn't help the pained groan. “I am so sorry. I didn't mean to call you that.”

  “No apology needed,” she said, stepping back. “Follow the moat. No heroics.”

  Patrick tugged Bash's shoulder. “We're moving.”

  They slipped out the building's rear exit, keeping low, hugging the shadows. The roar of the staged riot swelled from the next street over until the entire slum quarter sounded like it was about to break apart.

  Patrick held up a fist. Everyone froze.

  Footsteps. Heavy. Armored. A patrol, moving down the alley ahead of them.

  Bash pressed himself against the wall, barely breathing. Luis was statue-still beside him. Nora had somehow found a shadow deep enough to disappear into entirely.

  The patrol passed. One guard glanced down their alley, and Bash's Oracle flared amber, tracing threat lines across his vision. Don't see us. Don't see us.

  The guard kept walking.

  Patrick waited three heartbeats, then gestured forward, and they moved again.

  The signal came. A sharp whistle from somewhere ahead. Patrick went first. Luis next. Nora behind him. Bash last, trying not to think about the kid with the broken bottle, or the woman with the nail-studded club, or any of the others who might be bleeding out on cobblestones right now, so he could run away.

  A lone guard stood at the narrow gate, looking very nervous. When he saw them, he reached for his sword, then froze. For a long time they just looked at each other, with strange uncertainty. When the guard’s eyes found Bash, something softened.

  He pulled the door open and ushered them through.

  As Bash stepped past, the guard murmured, almost reverent, “Praise to Bash,” and sealed the gate behind them.

  Bash felt his stomach drop. “Oh, come on,” he muttered. “I'm trying so hard not to start a cult.”

  Nora grabbed his arm and shoved him forward. “Move.” They bolted into the narrow trench of the half-built moat.

  Mud sucked at Bash's mismatched boots. The walls were higher than he'd expected, slick with moisture and something that smelled like rot. Stone loomed on the left. A thin line of trees spread out ahead.

  Luis slipped and went down on one knee with a curse. Patrick hauled him up without breaking stride.

  The moat curved around a collapsed section, forcing them to scramble over rubble. Nora's foot slipped on a wet stone, and she pitched sideways toward the murky water below.

  Bash grabbed her arm, yanking her back. Nora shoved him off the moment she had her balance. “I'm fine.”

  “You're welcome,” Bash mumbled.

  The treeline grew closer. Fifty feet. Thirty. Twenty.

  An arrow thunked into the mud three feet to Bash's left.

  “RUN!” Patrick barked. More arrows hissed overhead, but the angle was bad, the archers on the wall struggling to track targets in the shadowed trench. Bash's legs turned faster. His lungs screamed. The trees were right there, right there!

  They crashed into the underbrush, branches whipping at faces and arms, and kept going. Deeper. Darker. Until the arrows stopped and the shouts faded and there was nothing but the sound of their own ragged breathing.

  Patrick finally called a halt in a small clearing, barely visible through the canopy.

  Luis collapsed against a tree laughing the shaky laugh of someone who'd just cheated death. “Holy shit. Holy shit, we made it.”

  Bash looked back toward the city. Through gaps in the trees, he could see smoke rising. The riot was still going. People were still fighting. Still dying. For him. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “We made it.”

  ***

  The road west stretched ahead of them, empty and waiting. Boots hit the dirt at a steady rhythm, the only sound aside from wind threading through the grass. The city shrank behind them, then disappeared.

  Bash inhaled, the air fresher without the city smells. No blood, no sewage, no metallic tang of death.

  The sudden freedom and the now empty road ahead felt almost peaceful, right up until the system slapped him across the face.

  Bash slowed, reading. The profanity filter had turned what was supposed to be a threat into the equivalent of a rage-quitting twelve-year-old.

  He almost laughed at the absurdity. Almost.

  The real problem wasn’t that Maximus knew. It was that he actually seemed to care. And he was really, really pissed off about it.

  “Guys,” Bash said, voice low. “Just got a love letter from Maxi. He’s not happy about Count Fatso.”

  Luis went pale. “He knows we did it?”

  “Maybe, but my gut says shit’s about to go sideways.” Bash kept his tone light, but his eyes were already scanning the horizon.

  Nora’s hand fell to her blade, and Patrick barked out commands. “Spread out. Eyes up.”