The mark still flickered faintly, broadcasting their locations in whispers compared to the song of silent sirens it had been. So dimly that the predators lost interest almost instantly. The pang in his shoulder finally drifted away with bitter swirls, but the damage had been done. Any strength he had left was borrowed and ready for repayment.
Through his fade heat sight, Pluto saw something surprising: the tiger was retreating. The beast was undoubtedly an apex, but not to the point of being able to bare the brunt of the combine might of the hoard. It had capitalised on the chaos, using Pluto's mark as a veil to hide its hateful hunt. But now the veil was broken and the predators had turned their full frustration towards it, the tiger choose survival over spite.
The mist had not lightened in birth to day, so the cruel night was all but over. Yet, Pluto felt heroic triumph. He tried to sit up, but collapsed back unto jagged rock. There was no predators to harvest cores from, so until they found their way back, their waning strength was all their inventory's worth. His eyes watered as he stared up. Saul sat against a stone pillar, groaning quietly as he held on to his mask of discipline with everything in him. He would not let Pluto see him break.
"We...we should probably find a place to pass the night," Saul said with counting words.
"Not even a moment of respite?" Pluto said hoarsely.
"Rest all you want, I'll be going. You can die for all I care."
The bite in his words were almost prophetic. Pluto nodded, stretching out his trembling hand. Saul snorted slightly, pulling him up. For a long moment they stood in silence, Pluto waiting for Saul's lead, and Saul waiting for Pluto's direction.
"Well?" Saul prompted.
He wasn't sure what Pluto was to do, but the past hours had set his credentials for perception out in plain sight.
Pluto shut his eyes deeply, trying to coax one more favour from the eel. But all he got in response was darkness. He was drained beyond the point of having his mystical GPS work. "I...I can't see anything," he admitted. "I guess we'll have to search for shelter the usual way."
Saul nodded, visible disappointment flashing by for a quarter of a second before smoothed into a bland expression.
They limped about for almost an hour before finding a narrow, but deep enough crevice. Without a word about who would take the first watch, they crawled in and slept fitful, soothed by exhaustion and success.
***
Sanctuary had found the both men for now, but while that happened. Something greater than a war was reaching its crescendo at the chamber's doorstep.
Thea was down on the floor, surrounded by half a dozen ushers and breathing in sharp shaky exhales. Her mark wasn't just pulsing, it was beating out with signals that would make telecommunications services throw up. Far and wide had turned up to the party, desiring to get hold on their inviter. Outside the new cell they had been hastily relocated to, carnage ensued in the most disorderly fashion. Unlike the other hoard that had been up against a tiger and two entrants, these were against a somewhat standing army.
Nearly two hundred men stood in tiered formations, pushed back by and pushing back a cloud of beasts multiple times more populous that what the other hoard had been. With that, everything still seemed just as desperate.
"Hold your marks!" roared the second in command as he slammed in a wave of oncoming shadow lynxes with his scaly shield. He wondered why Godfrey was willing to gamble with the lives of two hundred men for a single person whose death could easily end all this.
Little did he actually know.
The ushers responded to his urge with a systematic slaughter. They played their bodies like a defense game, switching ranks with people at other lines to keep the forefront fresh with vigor.
But their crude techniques were soon tested. A hulking leviathan ripped through mist, flattening anything unlucky enough to get below its underbelly. It moved like a drill engine, its steps vibrating in the chests of every man present.
"Swarm tactic! Don't aim, just thrust!" echoed the command.
A score of ushers lunged forward, pesting around the beast to divide its attention. They punctured at it in quick, biting stabs, thrusting at spots with least amount of plating. The brute swung back, through three men off their feet with the promise of broken bones. Another one disappeared beneath the weight of the predator, but two more stepped in to feel the gap. This was the grim industrial regularity they had been trained to fight with; when one dies, don't mourn, step over his body and set your weapon. The chamber's discipline was shallow– built on fear rather than faith– but in the face of death, it was surprisingly effective. Still, their luck laid with the fact that these beasts were not innovative.
The path to escape was barricaded by dead bodies. The men at the frontline could flee, but something held them back. Something like guilt, something like foolishness. A pack of sharp toothed flyers descended from above the veil of mist, spearing forward at the ranks at the rear. The ushers set their wooden shields in defence, throwing short, well aimed attacks in-between the seams. Yet, for every beast that fell, Thea's mark brought in ten more.
***
Behind the bunker door, Mira sat in stillness, clad in thick chains. She could hear the carnage without listening; men screaming, beasts roaring. She was asked to fight, so she counted herself lucky. It was becoming clear that her detention wasn't to pull out information beneficial to the chamber, but to the single man who controlled it.
What could he want with the owl or the corridor? What did he know to make him want whatever he wanted?
Anyway, that was a question for a more subtle location. She had to be alert to capitalise on chaos when it bloomed at its finest. She had chains on, but here, chains meant rusted material crudely shaped by people who hadn't figured out the staples of blacksmithing. Definitely, she could break them with some prompt.
But even still, she would not be able to take on the six men standing in the stone box. So she would wait, until things became so feverish that they could hold no man back. Then, she and Thea would vanish into the very nightmare everyone was trying to escape...
Because death was better than bondage.