Jack could not believe the situation he was in. He was patrolling an abandoned hospital in a sand-swallowed city ruin with two strangers and his enthralled sister, while Arc was outside somewhere being chased by winged eyes. Had he not been so aware of his surroundings, he would have presumed himself in some sort of fever dream.

  “How are you holding up?” asked Isabella as she set Julie on a hospital bed.

  “I’m…coping,” said Jack with a weak smile.

  “Me too.”

  “Does it scare you? Thinking that we may not make it out of here alive.”

  “Of course,” said Isabella, yet she did not sound afraid. Her tone was remarkably casual. “But there’s no point in breaking down and hurting our chances of escape, is there?”

  “That’s what I think too,” said Jack, walking over to Julie and adjusting Arc’s scarf that still covered her eyes and ears. “At the same time, it’s hard. I can’t help but worry that she’s lost forever.”

  Isabella put her hand on Jack’s shoulder. “She isn’t. If you want, you can wait with her while we search the rest of the department?”

  “No,” said Jack. “I appreciate the offer, but I want to help. The sooner we find your friends, the sooner we can leave.”

  Isabella smiled at him and beckoned him to follow. The two separated and moved from room to room within the ICU, searching for any sign that Alfonso or Logain had been there. Charlemagne was searching the furthest reaches of the department and met up with Jack shortly after.

  “Not a trace,” he said despondently. “But the search continues, young Jack. We can’t give up hope just yet.”

  “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” asked Jack.

  “Definitely the latter,” said Charlemagne with a grim smile. “New Carlington isn’t exactly known for being a beacon of light, as you’ve seen yourself.”

  “I thought there would be more carnage, if I’m honest.”

  “Once upon a time there would have been. All manner of monsters have taken this place as their home and they’ve cycled between dominance. Lately, it’s the big eyeball that calls this place its kingdom and he isn’t keen on sharing.”

  “Guys!” called Isabella. Her voice had trembled, even in the singe syllable she shouted.

  Jack and Charlemagne hurried to find her. She was in one of the surgery rooms standing beside a bell and surrounded by wheeled tables filled with metal tools. Even in the low light, it was clear she was deathly pale as she looked at something on the bed.

  She slowly stepped aside, revealing a corpse on the bed. He was red-headed with a thick beard and wore a leather jacket with a tattered vest underneath. His expression in death was that of a wide smile, as though he had welcomed its sweet release. Jack’s eyes drifted to the man’s missing arm. The stump left behind was swollen, pus-filled and positioned above a pool of dried blood. The dead man was Logain.

  “Shit,” grunted Charlemagne, kicking one of the tables over. “Shit! Where the hell is Alfonso?”

  “I don’t know,” said Isabella, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know…”

  Jack walked around the room, looking from scalpel to curtain, trying to find a sign of the last remaining member of the Right Hand of Obsidian. Once Alfonso had been found, that was the job done. They could focus on getting out of here. He felt pity for Charlemagne and Isabella who had lost someone close, but there was someone close to him that he wanted to make sure he didn’t lose.

  “Nothing,” he said as Isabella stood by with tears in her eyes. She was finally starting to break.

  “We need to bury him,” she croaked.

  “It’s one thing carrying Julie around, but Logain’s bigger than any of us,” said Charlemagne. “I understand, Izzy, believe me, but we can’t.”

  “He deserves better than being left here to decay.”

  “Of course he does,” said Jack, wanting to hurry them along without seeming callous. “We’ll wrap him up and say a few words. It’s the best we can do given the situation.”

  “Yes…alright,” said Isabella.

  Charlemagne and Jack grabbed a few sheets from nearby and hoisted Logain’s body onto them. They wrapped him up tightly and then lifted him back onto the bed as carefully as they could. Feeling how heavy the man was, Jack knew there was no easy way of carrying him outside short of rolling him out on a stretched, but the sand would have stopped them going too far. Isabella said a short eulogy for Logain and Charlemagne chipped in a few words of his own.

  “May he rest in peace,” said Jack sincerely, at which Charlemagne gently clapped him on the back.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Back to it then, eh?” grunted the scavenger, looking understandably unenthusiastic. He dragged his heels as he departed from the room with Jack, leaving Isabella standing over Logain’s wrapped body.

  Jack walked back towards Julie and his heart stopped for a second. He looked around fervently. She was missing and Arc’s scarf was lying discarded on the floor beside the bed. He sprinted to the bed and then ran through the doors of the ward, looking up and down the corridor to see where his sister could possibly be.

  “No…no, no no!” he cried out. He ran back into the room and checked behind every table, feeling like an idiot. He should have waited. Why didn’t he wait? Even if they had found both Alfonso and Logain, they couldn’t go anywhere without Arc.

  “Calm down!” said Charlemagne, grabbing Jack by the arms. “I know every instinct you have is telling you to panic, but that’s not going to help right now. We’ll search for her quietly because the last thing we want to do is attract any fiends.”

  “What’s happening?” asked Isabella, having left Logain’s side. She looked to the bed and gasped. “Your sister.”

  “Come on,” said Charlemagne, quick-footing it out of the room with two of his pistols drawn.

  Jack hurriedly retrieved Arc’s scarf, wrapping it around his own neck and then followed with Isabella by his side. His sister was still in the building somewhere, she wouldn’t have had time to escape. He would find her; he had to.

  *

  Arc strolled down the street, keeping scrutinising every inch of it. He was on the right track because he recognised one of the taller still-standing skyscrapers, but had he previously seen it from this angle? He thought so, but he couldn’t be certain. Even in its state of decay, New Carlington was a big place. He strained to remember the map and wished Julie where here because she’d committed damn near the entire thing to memory.

  He climbed over a few hills and did a double take as he saw what sat in the middle of street, several yards from the bottom of the hills. The object was large, almost as large as he was, and sandy in colour. From the top of it, sprouted three sharp spikes—the centre straight and the side ones gently curved. It bore two large holes just below that and two further holes near the end of its snout, below which was a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. It was a dragon’s skull, no mistaking it.

  “What in the world…” muttered Arc, walking over to it and taking a closer look. “Huh. Odd.”

  He squatted and then ran his hand over the skull, feeling bumps, grooves and ridges. He had long heard the rumours of the last living dragons and even once seen what he was told was a dragon’s nail, but an entire skull was another story entirely. He and his former companions were convinced that Master Dusk had met one because he always had a faint smile on his face at the utterance of the word dragon.

  What struck him as the most peculiar element of the skull was its freshness. While he was no archaeologist, this couldn’t have been here for more than a year. Was New Carlington this dragon’s den? It could perch on the highest rooftop of hide within the ruins, safe from whatever may have hunted it. In the remnants of a city like this, there would even be plenty of silver, gold, and other valuables to compile into a hoard.

  Arc patted the dragon’s forehead. “I hope whatever did this to you isn’t the same being that I had a few choice words for not an hour ago. I think I’ve pissed him off rightly and I don’t want to share your fate.”

  Laughing quietly to himself, Arc stood up and walked on down the road, only for a flittering shadow to catch his eye. His gaze followed the shadow and he spied a lone eye fiend fleeing on down the street.

  “Fantastic,” said the spellslinger, checking which cartridge he had in his spellcaster and then making sure his revolver was fully loaded.

  He was a good shot, but the fiend was much too far away for him to hit without a few wasted bullets, and he didn’t know how many he would need before the day was done. No, it was best to save them and be prepared for anything that came closer.

  Arc weaved between the streets, trying to mask his location from the Eye of Gra’shiya as best as he could, but he suspected it was fruitless. It would be smart enough to know by now that the previous chase he encouraged was a distraction.

  He wondered how Jack’s search was going. He hadn’t said it to the young man, but he was impressed with how he was handling Julie’s current situation. When they first met, even though it wasn’t even two months ago, Jack would have lost his temper, but he managed to keep a level head. Arc himself had been hot-headed at that age, so it was good to see how he was passing on the lessons he had learned over the years.

  “Excuse me,” came a voice from inside a window, startling Arc. He whipped around with both his guns pointed towards the man who had spoken. “Please, do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm.”

  He held up his hands and stepped forward, letting the light reveal him. The man was taller than Arc by almost a foot, but much skinnier, and he had not a single hair upon him—not even an eyelash. He wore a suit of black leather armour over his clothing and a pair of garish tan gloves. Around his neck hung a golden chain that bore a deep red ruby that rested upon his chest. He was armed with a shotgun that he had strapped to his waist. Disconcerting as the man’s appearance was, he bore a pleasant smile as he gave a friendly nod to Arc.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” said the man. “My name is—”

  “Alfonso,” said Arc, lowering his weapons.

  “How do you know me?” asked the Right Hand member, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

  “It just so happens that you’re one of the people I came here looking for. King Obsidian sent me to rescue you and your crew.”

  Alfonso dragged one of his pale hands across his face and sighed in relief. “That is very good news,” he said. “But I do not believe there is further need to endanger yourself. I am on my way back to them now and we can finally escape from this miserable place.”

  “You’re on your way to the House of Anateer?” asked Arc.

  “I was, but I have been trying to give the eye fiends the slip. I do not see many of them, which is peculiar. That suggests they are watching silently.”

  “I’ll explain that later,” said Arc. “Long story short, I killed a solid hundred of them and thinned their numbers. More importantly, your friends aren’t at the church, they sought you and your friend Logain out in the hospital. I drew the Eye of Gra’shiya’s focus away to let them get in quickly.”

  Alfonso, who was pale enough as it was, lost what little colour he had left in his face. “To the…hospital?”

  “Yes,” said Arc, getting a sinking feeling. He gulped “Why do you look like you’re about to blow your brains out with that shotgun?”

  “We must go to the hospital at once,” said Alfonso, climbing through the window.

  “My friends are at the hospital looking for you. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “The underground carpark of the hospital is where the Eye of Gra’shiya’s lair lies. Both your friends and my friends are in grave danger. We must get to them before they reach the hospital as fear that once they are inside, there will be no way out.”