The inside of the building was not thought out.

  They’d found that out when they tried to go to the second floor and discovered there was no stairs to do so.

  Ratface and Ox had quickly scrambled up but the other two had struggled. Ratface and Ox were already sneaking through a window to look outside when the other two girls shot up next to them.

  Anna dropped Fulgora. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she looked between Ratface and Ox.

  “You climbed awfully fast for a squire,” she said.

  Ratface’s face froze behind the helmet, but she shrugged her shoulders.

  “Well, I’m not a squire, I’m an adventurer,” said Ratface. She played it as casual as she could. Anna was obviously suspicious of her but hopefully not so suspicious she’d ask for answers any time soon. She slipped through the window onto the outside of the building and climbed higher. This one didn’t have a balcony, but it did have a flat roof they could stand on. Ox helped her up the last bit and she found another one of those strange stones but there was also a metal rod. It hummed when she got close and a quick glance at the mana around it showed it pulling it down from the sky. She didn’t have to be a mage to know not to touch it.

  Ratface scanned the rest of the area searching for what she hoped was Abigail coming through the barrier. The empty was easy to follow, parts of the city had already gone dark. The Lady was easy to find for the exact opposite reason, the runes around her were burning bright. A pulse ran out from her source of light and Ratface heard a groaning of stone below her. A gargoyle burst from the second floor into the sky. The same had happened in buildings all over the city. There was a second pulse and the gargoyles dove down into the pockets of empty roaming the city. Up above, breaches still fell through the sky, though slower than before. It seemed the empty’s presence had weakened this place somehow.

  In summary it was a mess. Her gut twisted up at the thought that she’d helped cause this. At least it was contained. For now.

  The other two girls joined them once again. Fulgora whistled at the sight of the three groups doing battle and Anna glared at Ratface.

  “Your fault,” she accused.

  Ratface didn’t say anything back. The girl wasn’t wrong, besides there was a commotion at one of the buildings. It kept flashing blue at the top. A blue Ratface recognised.

  “That’s got to be Abigail,” said Ratface.

  “There’s the orc,” said Fulgora. She was pointing in the opposite direction. Mathilde was on ground level getting caught between the three groups. They may all be fighting each other but it was also clear that they were happy to fight her. She was pinned down desperately fending them off.

  Ratface glanced between the two spots. She wanted to go to Abigail, but Mathilde would die. Yet they’d all die if they couldn’t do something about the empty.

  Ratface rubbed at her neck in frustration then turned to Anna.

  “You go get Abigail and bring her to us, we’ll go save Mathilde,” she said.

  “Why should I listen to you?” she hissed.

  “Because Mathilde will die without us, but we’ll all die without Abigail. Right now we’re better as a group than not.”

  The squire looked like she still wanted to argue but Fulgora cut in.

  “She’d right Anna, better to survive to deal with her than die out of spite.”

  Anna huffed and lifted herself away. She was going in the right direction, so it’d have to do.

  Ratface turned back to Fulgora.

  “So, you still plan to deal with me?” she asked.

  Fulgora eyed her for a moment, then sighed.

  “If nothing else, you have betrayed a sacred trial with intruders. I imagine you had your reasons. I only hope it was worth all of this.” She gestured at the devastation around them. Buildings in the empty area were already falling apart, and more were joining them as the two serpents raged.

  Ratface moved to say something, but the other girl had already started climbing down.

  “We don’t have time; we have an orc to save.”

  Ratface followed her.

  Once they were off the building, they sprinted to the orc, not bothering for stealth when there were so many small fights going on.

  Mathilde had managed to get herself into an alley with no exit. It reeked of the best option in a battle with only bad ones. Ratface’s guess was she’d needed somewhere where she could at least have her back to the wall. The orc was doing her best to keep fighting but she was already down an arm from her previous fights, and she had little chance of getting out. Ratface and Ox were quick to the roof to get to her. Fulgora sighed but quickly followed.

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  They made it to the rooves around the alley and Ratface called out to the orc. Mathilde glanced at her and shouted a warning.

  Ratface didn’t bother looking around. She grabbed Ox and rolled off the roof into the alley. The tiles she’d just been on shattered as something big landed on them.

  She hit the ground with a thud. Her bones creaked but at least she managed to keep Ox from most of the damage. She should really stop making a habit of falling off high places.

  Ratface let go of Ox who scrambled out and aimed their crossbow into the alley entrance where Mathilde still fought. A gargoyle was currently stuck in combat with one of the empty. The empty was more limbs than anything else at this point, they fanned out from its torse like petals made of flesh. The gargoyle fighting it was doing its best to hit the torse beneath, but it was struggling the same way Ratface had against her own many limbed enemy. Ox shot the empty through the eye. It stumbled but kept fighting. Still the faint interruption was enough to let the gargoyle get back into the battle.

  On the roof, cracks of lighting rang out as Fulgora tried to keep their escape point open. It was an exercise in futility. If she stopped attacking, the roof would be overrun, but every bolt drew more and more of the sky breaches to their location.

  They were trapped, as Ratface knew they would be. Her plan hadn’t got much further than getting to Mathilde and stopping the orc being overwhelmed.

  She joined Mathilde at the front. The big empty was blocking them from the rest of the fight which would have been good if it wasn’t also trying to attack them. Mathilde was systematically chopping into limbs but with one arm she didn’t have the strength to cut cleanly through. The two girls worked together to systematically cut any reaching limbs that came for them. It was a delicate dance of defence. They wanted to keep the empty blocking the way in so they couldn’t cut it down completely, but they could also only attack it so much before they became the primary target.

  Most of her plan relied on holding and so that’s what they did. It was a question of buying time until they had someone who could punch a hole to their position. It might be foolish to rely so much on the unknown of whoever was coming through the barrier, but something told her it had to be Abigail. A small bit of peace in her heart when the barrier had shuddered. All they had to do was hold.

  As so often in a fight, it was all going well until it wasn’t.

  The flesh flower empty got sick of their cuts and brought its full attention on the two women. They were good fighters, but the truth was it was bigger than them and they didn’t have room to manoeuvre, and the things just marched into them.

  Ox saw the way the wind was blowing and reached out for the empty creature. It unravelled before their eyes, saving the two girls. It cost Ox though who crumbled onto the ground gasping.

  Ratface ran over and propped them against a wall.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Big. Tiring,” they said between gasps for air. Right. They had basically gone from being stuck in a prison where they’d been barely fed straight into a city turf war. No wonder they were struggling.

  The creatures hadn’t missed what had happened. The gargoyles and empty turned to their alley. Interest in the first’s eyes and nothing in the other. They marched towards the alley. Still fighting each other, but only in an effort to get to the front. The three would have been overrun if it hadn’t been for the breach monsters fighting anything that got close.

  Fulgora jumped down from the roof and landed in a crouch in front of them. Her body was shaking and twitching from all the lightning she’d been using, but she channelled more and brought her hands down. The entranceway to the alley turned into a burning wall of white lightning. Fulgora held the spot like that for thirty seconds then collapsed. Mathilde pulled Fulgora behind her and got ready to fight.

  The stone at the entrance to the alley was burned and melted. It glowed white with the heat it was releasing.

  For a moment, Ratface thought that would be enough, and it did stop the gargoyles. The empty however had no such problem. They walked over the hot rock, their bodies collapsing and falling apart under the heat making a pathway for those who walked after them.

  Ratface shook her head. Right, the empty weren’t alive, just puppets. Death wasn’t enough to stop them coming for something they wanted, and it was clear they wanted Ox. The four of them backed further into the alley, Ratface pulling Fulgora on the floor.

  The lightning girl tried to raise her hands for another dose of lightning, but her body convulsed and sizzled. Ratface could feel the heat against her hands.

  The creatures kept advancing, they were getting faster now that they were passed the hot rock.

  “I appreciate you coming to save me, I’ll remember it in the afterlife,” said Mathilde.

  “We’re getting out of this alive,” said Ratface. She tried to sound confident but her voice shook.

  “Oh? Do you have some brilliant plan?” Mathilde asked.

  “Less of a plan, more of a hope,” said Ratface. She took a deep breath and screamed out, “Abigail help!”

  There was a beat of silence as nothing happened. Her gut twisted. Had Anna just run away? Was it not Abigail that had come through the barrier?

  A moment later a blue comet hurtled down from the sky. Runes surrounded it in intricate patterns. It slammed into the front of the empty in a flash of blue. Force radiated out from the impact, but the runes flashed and guided the force away from the four and into the advancing enemies instead.

  The three groups of creatures were hurtled back as the force of the impact ripped into them and the world burned blue. Anna floated down next to the four of them with a smug smile.

  “This is what that little trick against the elf looks like with a proper knight,” she said.

  The light cleared and they got to see their saviour.

  Abigail stood in front of them with her sword drawn. Her armour was battered and her gloves smoked, but she still burned blue against the encroaching dark. She glanced back at Ratface.

  “Just once,” she said, “I’d like you to call me for something other than a big battle.”

  Ratface smiled. A quip was on her lips but she swallowed it rather than cheapen the moment. Instead, she moved over to the knight and gave her a quick hug. It stung, her armour was still hot, but it was worth it.

  “Thank you,” she said. Abigail tapper her glove against Ratface’s.

  “I said I would help you, didn’t I?” she asked. Ratface didn’t know what to say to that. She looked away in embarrassment.

  The creatures in front of them groaned as they pushed themselves back up. It looked like they were still holding this point then.

  Ratface took strength from the knight next to her as a weight lifted from her shoulders. It all still seemed scary and dangerous, but with Abigail there, it no longer felt impossible.

  Tartan has many talents including writing on here, although most of their work is on hiatus at the moment. They said I didn't have to do anything and to just add the cover but I still think you should check out their stuff on here. I've never linked someone so this might be wrong but you can find some of their writing here:

  https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/79679/she-who-loves-silence

  Anyway, a big thank you to Tartan who puts up with me getting really shy and taking forever to reply.