From The Ashes [#NaNoWriMo16]

Chapter Nine - Issobel Rique

"Are you sure this is the building?" Issey asked, uncertainty laced in her words. Arlo shrugged.

"We'll find out, won't we?" he replied before gesturing to the door. "Ladies first, melamin."

"Call me that one more time and I'll punch you in your stupid face, lokirim," Issey growled, stepping past Arlo and into the building. It was tall, old and abandoned; she had no idea why the spirit and the Kron girl wanted them to come here. It was eerily quiet, but something told Issey that people had been in here very recently.

"Someone's still here," Arlo murmured, and Issey turned her head in his direction. He was standing beside a rack of cloaks, and it looked like they hadn't been there for long. "Where do we go?"

"Only way we can go," Issey replied as her eyes found the stone stairs. "Up." So they walked slowly and quietly up the steps, making sure to check each floor before they moved up again. But when they reached the third floor, they knew they'd found the occupants of the building. It had something to do with the screams that came from one of the last rooms.

Arlo ducked into a nearby room as Issey stayed crouching on the stairs that went down, keeping low as she held her hands on the handles of her swords. She didn't think she'd need them; she didn't plan on killing anyone just yet.

A Keeri man came stumbling down the stairs above Issey, and she shrunk further into the stone to avoid being seen. But the man ran straight down the corridor and right into the last room on the floor. There was silence for a moment, but someone started screaming something in another language before the same man ran out of the room, two guys following him. Just as the big man disappeared, both of his companions stood right at the front of the staircase, holding their blades very close to their bodies. Issey nodded to herself. She could take one of them without her weapons, so long as Arlo had the same idea. To be fair, though, his weapon was a long stick, so he probably did need it.

And, as if he read her mind, Arlo jumped out of the room with his stick swinging, and jumped right in between the two men, much to their surprise. He jogged up the staircase, and they started to follow, but Issey jumped out next, throwing a stone at the head of one of the men. He was also a Keeri; his white hair was really gross, caked in so much grit and dirt that it may as well have been black. Both men turned, but the Keeri man nodded to his friend and said something Issey couldn't understand.

"Khic uric ac yari," he muttered, and the human man continued to run up the stairs as Dirt (that's what Issey was calling him) slowly came down the stairs, an angry look on his face. Instead of giving him what he wanted – a scared look – Issey smiled and darted into the room Arlo had just come out of. It was large; about as big her house, in floor size. Plenty enough room for Issey to kick this guy's arse.

Suddenly, a blade appeared in the man's hand and he swung it wide, making Issey jump back very quickly to avoid her stomach from spilling its guts everywhere. In reply to his first blow, Issey jabbed her fist into his soft belly, feeling it sink in a little as the man howled in pain. She proceeded to duck under his next swing – this one, more wild and unpredictable – and rose up behind him, striking a foot right into the back of his left knee. His leg buckled and he fell to one knee as Issey flipped over him, only just avoiding his next hit. This one tore through the sleeve of her favourite white shirt, just close enough to her skin to send a shiver up her spine. As the Keeri man rose to his feet again, Issey moved back slowly, clenching her fists tightly together.

For dad, she told herself. For dad.

"A ey puarp ku lok quow swikkq nakkni khwuek," he growled, and Issey frowned.