[LEGACY VERSION] The Emperor of Time (Book 1 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 3 - Damon

Damon leaned against the sewer wall, cold slime creeping into a shirt already wet with sweat and blood. Beside him, Luc slumped on his staff--minus the blades. He wheezed with the effort not to cough.

For a moment, the sharp chops of their breaths and the echoes of running water filled the silence.

Damon tried to draw a deep breath and gagged, again, on the stench.

"Where are we going?" he asked. They had been staggering along the sewer tunnels for what felt like hours. He clutched his arm to his chest. The pain in his fractured bone came and went with the clouding of his thoughts, but right now it ached so deep he clenched his teeth over a scream.

Luc bent over and launched into wracking, heaving coughs. He clutched at his side until the coughs slowed back into wheezing. Tears shone on his blood-grimed cheeks. He probably had cracked ribs. How badly had the prison guards beaten him?

Damon's thoughts flickered with prison guards, and their screams, and the copper-ozone smell of pulse-dart-heated blood. The pistol tucked in his thigh pocket felt like weighted stone.

In the tunnel around him, dim strip lights dashed down one wall, rippling green-white on the water that ran through the center trough. The lights were burned out in places, casting deeper shadows. Damon squinted at the dark movements against the tunnel walls.

Had the guards followed them into the tunnels? Damon had seen none. He and Luc hadn't moved fast, and they'd slowed in this last stretch between resting.

"You're bleeding again," Luc said. "Here." He tore another strip from the edge of his uniform shirt, as clean as he could find. He balanced his silver staff in the crook of his elbow, then leaned to tie the makeshift bandage over the one he'd already wound around the pulse dart wound in Damon's shoulder.

Damon sucked in a breath at the sudden fire in his wound.

"Hold still. I've got to tie it."

"Luc," Damon hissed, "there's no one coming." The guards should have found them by now. Someone should be coming after them. They'd called him Landon bloody Kynaston.

Luc stopped and rubbed his forehead, smearing more blood. He was bleeding again too, from too many places.

"Luc, were you a guard? Where did you get your staff?"

Luc collapsed back against the wall, wheezing again.

Damon licked dry lips. His throat burned, and he looked again at the water rushing by at their feet but he didn't dare stoop to drink it.

"Come on," Luc said and shoved off. "I don't think it's far yet."

"Where?"

"Out of the city. We'll--" He coughed. "We'll find a way...from there." He stopped again, coughing.

Luc wrapped his arm around Damon's back like he'd support him, but Damon carried more and more of Luc's weight. How long could he keep it up? Luc was half a head taller than him and solid muscle. Damon was used to desks and holo ledgers. But Luc was worse off than him so Damon bore up as best he could.

They fell into a rhythm. One step at a time.

"The halo staff," Luc said. He waggled his staff as he planted it on the walkway for the next step. Dim sewer light streaked down the sleek metal and back up again. "Caelian weapon. You have one."

"What? No I don't."

Luc stopped and leaned against the wall again. "Got to show you. Might save your life."

"You're feverish." Damon could feel the heat radiating from Luc. Damon himself shivered. "And I have the pistol. I'm fine."

Luc shifted his staff and the gold lines etched again across the back of his hand. Damon tried to get a good look at them, but Luc shifted his grip.