Chapter 4: Pappy’s JailbreakThe dust tasted like centuries of pulverized despair. It coated Miz’ri’s tongue, gritty and dry, instantly making her regret breathing. For a heartbeat, the world was silent, suspended in the shockwave of the impact. Then, the reality of the situation rushed in to fill the void. Sunlight, rude and blinding, poured through the jagged maw of the breach, illuminating the swirling particute matter like a swarm of angry gnats. Miz’ri blinked, her eyes streaming, and looked at the source of their salvation. Herkel stood amidst the rubble of the alleyway, the heavy wooden travois held in both skeletal hands like a titan’s club.

  “Pappy?” Talisa wheezed, coughing into her sleeve. She stumbled forward, the chain between them going sck. “Pappy! Stop! How are you moving? The liturgy… the liturgy doesn’t allow for unauthorized animation! I didn’t say the Prayer of Motion!” The skeleton didn’t respond to the theological crisis. He simply turned his skull toward the end of the alleyway and pointed again, a jerky, insistent gesture.

  “He’s improvising, you idiot!” Miz’ri snapped, the shock wearing off instantly, repced by the cold adrenaline of the hunt. She yanked the chain hard. “Move!”

  Talisa yelped as her arm was jerked forward, stumbling over a chunk of masonry. “But he can’t! He’s just bones! He needs a vessel of intent!”

  “He’s a vessel of ‘get us the hell out of here’!” Miz’ri roared. She grabbed a handful of the girl’s heavy wool robe and hauled her through the hole in the wall, out of the dank cell and into the blinding brightness of the Saj’fal afternoon.The heat hit them like a physical blow. The alley was narrow, smelling of rotting vegetables and cat urine, but it was open. Free. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

  The sound of the arm was discordant and frantic, rippling out from the detention block towers. Shouts erupted from inside the prison—boots thundering on stone, the screech of heavy iron doors being thrown open. “They’re coming,” Miz’ri hissed. She scanned the alley. Left led to a dead end filled with refuse. Right led toward the main thoroughfare. “We go right. Now.”

  She didn’t wait for agreement. She broke into a run, her boots skidding on the loose gravel. The chain pulled taut, dragging Talisa along like a reluctant kite. The pilgrim scrambled to keep her footing, her heavy skirts tangling around her legs.

  “My travois!” Talisa cried, looking back at Herkel, who was cttering along behind them with surprising speed, still clutching the wooden frame.

  “Forget the damn cart!” Miz’ri shouted over her shoulder, confusingly watching a skeleton with no muscle mass effortlessly carry the same cart Talisa struggled to move.

  They rounded the corner of the building, bursting out of the alley’s shadow. Miz’ri instinctively threw a hand up to shield her eyes, and that was when she felt it. Or rather, she felt the absence of it. Her hand was bare. The sun, hateful and unfiltered, bit into the dark grey skin of her fingers. She looked down. No crimson leather. No reassuring weight of her sword belt on her hip. Just the rough, cheap wool of the prisoner’s tunic and the heavy iron manacle. She skidded to a halt so abrupt that Talisa smmed into her back with a soft oof and the feeling of a squish of her rge breasts against the slender woman’s back.

  “Why are we stopping?!” Talisa shrieked, looking behind them at the cloud of dust billowing from the alley. “They’re going to kill us!”

  “They have something that belongs to me.” She looked at her bare hands, curling them into fists. The skin felt exposed, fragile. Without her gloves, she was just meat cooking in the sun. Without her sword, she was just a target. She felt a phantom itch on her hip where the bde should be—her steel, her heritage, the only thing that made her more than just a refugee. She looked at Talisa. The girl was trembling, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with panic.

  Talisa wasn’t looking at the guards or the road. Her eyes were cast to Miz staring at her own hand, “oh, your gloves?”, then stared down her own left hand. Her fingers were spread wide, clutching at the empty air. “By the bones, My ring!,” Talisa said with her voice cracking.

  “I’m worried about losing heirlooms to these surface swine,” Miz’ri narrowed her eyes. “You’re worried about a little silver engagement bauble?”

  “Theodore gave that to me, it was his Mother's.” Talisa said, the tears spilling over now, cutting tracks through the dust on her cheeks. She looked up at Miz’ri, and for the first time, the fear in her eyes was repced by a frantic, desperate grief. “It’s the promise. I can’t… I can’t go back to him without the promise. He’ll know I failed.” Miz’ri looked at the girl. She saw the pathetic desperation, the way she was already mentally flogging herself for losing a piece of jewelry. It was weak. It was pathetic. And it was exactly how Miz’ri felt about her sword.

  “I am not leaving my leather or my steel,” Miz’ri growled, the decision crystallizing in her gut like ice. “Not for these sun-mad wretches; they deserve to pay for ying a finger on me.”

  Talisa blinked, confused. “What?”

  “The processing room,” Miz’ri said, turning her head to look back at the looming stone structure of the jailhouse. “They took our things in the intake office. At the front.”

  “No,” Talisa breathed, backing away, the chain clinking. “No, no, no. We’re out! Miz'ri we have to run!” Eyes already darting to any potential escape paths, none viable as long as 8 feet of bck iron connected her to this chaotic dark elf on the run.

  “You want your promise back?” Miz’ri stepped closer, looming over the smaller woman, blocking out the sun. “You want to face your Theodore and tell him you let some sweaty guard pawn his mother’s love for a fgon of mead?”

  Talisa paled. The thought clearly hadn't occurred to her, and it hit her harder than the fear of the gallows. “I… I can’t lose it,” she whispered, returning to her trembling state.

  “Then we don’t run,” Miz’ri said, a feral grin spreading across her face. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a predator who realized they had nothing left to lose. She wrapped the sck of the chain around her hand, testing the weight. “We rearm.”She grabbed Talisa’s shoulder, spun her around, and shoved her back toward the street that led around to the jail’s main entrance. “Go!” She commanded.

  “Saints save me now!” Talisa wailed, but her feet were moving, driven by the terrifying force of Miz’ri’s will.

  “Pappy! Fnk!” Miz’ri barked at the skeleton. To Talisa’s horror, the skeleton didn’t wait for a prayer. He simply adjusted his grip on the travois, holding it like a battering ram, and fell into step beside the Dark Elf with a rattling nod of his head. “I’m starting to like you.” Miz said with her own approving nod. They reached the front of the jailhouse, the ringing of the arm bells a deafening soundtrack to the growing shouts inside. Miz’ri didn’t bother with the door handle. She pointed, and Herkel smmed the heavy travois into the flimsy wood, throwing it inward with a crash.

  The intake office was a low-ceilinged room filled with the scent of stale ink and cheap tobacco. Four figures, recognizable by their leather-and-iron breastptes, were scrambling into formation. The powerful looking woman, the captain with the more well kept armor and the one who had taken their belongings rose, “There! The prisoner!” the Captain roared, pointing. Before the word "prisoner" finished leaving her lips, Miz’ri acted. She hadn’t been armed in hours, and the ck of steel was a gnawing hunger. The silence was getting too loud. She felt the surge, the need, to quiet it.

  With a powerful snap of her wrist, Miz’ri pivoted and sent the length of iron whip-shing out. It whistled through the air, catching the Captain across the chest with a shocking CRACK. She gasped, stumbling back into the ledger desk, sending a plume of paperwork flying. “Stay low!” Miz’ri hissed at Talisa, but the pilgrim was already colpsing. Talisa fell to her knees, screaming—a high, piercing sound of pure, unadulterated panic. She threw her hands over her head, tucking herself into a fetal position beside a spittoon. The chain went sck immediately, but it worked to Miz’ri’s advantage; Talisa was now a screaming, unmoving anchor. The three remaining guards charged.

  Miz’ri dodged the first pike thrust, pivoting on the ball of her foot, allowing the pike head to snag the corner of a banner hanging on the wall instead of her gut. Herkel, moving with the unnatural speed of bone and sinew, stepped into the path of the second guard. The man shouted in surprise as the animated skeleton brought the travois down like a primitive axe, connecting with the guard’s helmet with a dull, sickening cng. The guard dropped like a bloody stone.

  Miz’ri grabbed the chain near her wrist, shortening her leverage. She spun, using the momentum to hurl the length of chain around the neck of the third guard. She didn’t stop there. She pulled, leveraging Talisa’s dead weight against the guard’s throat. The guard cwed at the iron against his throat, his face turning puce, his feet bicycling against the floorboards. “Squirm you insolent wretch!” Miz’ri shouted in utter glee. The guard whose neck was wrapped in the chain finally colpsed, unconscious.

  She used the brief window to dive over the ledger desk. Her eyes locked instantly onto the crimson leather. She snatched them up and smmed them onto her hands. The relief was instantaneous, a deep, cleansing feeling of safety returning. She felt like she could breathe the foul air again. Her fingers curled, testing the familiar grip of the thick leather. She spotted the dark scabbard of her sword belt on a nearby hook. She grabbed it, buckled it around her waist in a practiced motion, and the true weight of her identity settled back on her. She drew the long, thin dueling bde—Dark Elven steel—and the room instantly became silent for her, the only sound the satisfying SHING of the metal leaving the sheath.

  “My ring!” Talisa wailed from under the desk, having finally found a moment of sanctuary. She was blindly scrabbling in the drawer of the Captain’s ledger desk. Miz’ri ignored her, turning her attention to the two remaining threats: the winded Captain and the guard Herkel was currently repeatedly body-checking into a supply cupboard; though he may not be much of a problem. The Captain saw the sword and hesitated. A club was no match for a bde forged in the Underdark.

  “Yield, you filthy beast!” the Captain spat, but her voice shook. Miz’ri took a predatory step, challenging the decree.

  “Make me. I yield to no surface pig.” Slowly approaching the trembling woman. As Miz’ri feinted a thrust, Talisa let out a small, triumphant cry from beneath the desk. She emerged, clutching a small, silver band to her breast, ignoring the fighting and the blood entirely. Her face, smeared with dirt and tears, was utterly beatific. “I have it! I have the promise!” the pilgrim decred, her crisis averted.

  Miz’ri sighed, a long, exasperated hiss. “Then we are done here.” She didn’t kill the Captain. Instead, she swept her bde out and sideways, cleanly slicing the strap of the heavy magical bell hanging from the wall, ringing itself incessantly. It hit the floor with a final, muted thud. Silence returned, briefly. “Pappy. Retreat. Now.”

  Miz’ri grabbed Talisa’s arm, yanked her upright, and dragged her out the front door, Herkel cttering close behind. The market street outside was no longer calm. The arm bells—now silent in the immediate vicinity—had done their work. Citizens were pointing and scattering, faces frozen in expressions of fear and judgment. The chaotic energy of the Saj’fal market, which usually bubbled with commerce, had turned toxic. “We’re clear!” Miz’ri shouted, already moving toward the densest parts of the crowd. The moment they tried to run, the chain became their undoing.

  Miz’ri moved with economical, low-to-the-ground strides, weaving between panicked merchants and overturned fruit stands. Talisa was all filing limbs and wide, bulky fabric, like a scarecrow hit by a sudden gust of wind. CLANG. SNAP. THWUMP. The chain snagged a pottery stand, sending cy shards and red earthenware spinning. Talisa shrieked an apology as she was yanked forward, the chain suddenly pulling taut again. It was a vicious, staccato rhythm: Miz’ri running, Talisa stumbling, the chain whipping between them, a constant threat to ankles and inventory.

  “Watch your feet!” the dark elf barked, vaulting over a spilled basket of brightly colored spices.

  Her human kite tried to follow, but her foot caught the edge of the basket. She went down hard, nding on her hands and knees in a pile of powdered saffron and ginger.

  “I’m sorry! I can’t—I can’t keep up!” Talisa gasped, fighting to breathe through the heavy woolen tunic and the panic. Miz’ri stopped, the chain biting into her wrist as she held it taut. She turned, her silver eyes burning with fury, half-hidden beneath her new gloves. The sight of Talisa wallowing in herbs was the st straw. They were losing precious seconds.

  “Get up, you witless Marshmallow!” Miz’ri snarled. “I will cut off your pretty little hand if you dey us anymore! You move like a sack of wet flour!”

  “I’m not used to this!” Talisa sobbed, pushing herself to her knees. “I’m not a warrior! My life is disciplined! This is chaos!”

  “Chaos is life!” Miz’ri countered, dragging her closer. She leaned in, her voice low and menacing. “Every second you waste, they are closing the gates. If they catch you, your people will bail you out, I’m sure you’re worth the fee to them. But if they catch me, they will fy me alive and not even give me the dignity of burning my bones. Now choose: the rack or the rat race. Run!” The threat, direct and primal, finally pierced Talisa’s fog of panic. She lurched forward, forcing her legs to work, the chain dragging her to a sembnce of a run.

  Miz’ri saw the shift and immediately took off, leading them deeper into the maze of stalls and shouting vendors. Herkel, the true anomaly, simply floated over the clutter, maintaining a perfect fnking position, ignoring the shrieks of the crowd. They were a trainwreck, but they were moving.

  They burst out onto a cobbled thoroughfare. Guards, easily identifiable by their polished brass helmets, were fanning out ahead, checking corners. Miz’ri’s eyes darted left and right, searching for anything rger than a bread cart. That’s when she saw it: a massive, canvas-covered carriage, moving slowly toward the outer merchant gate. It was den with a staggering pyramid of pale, golden wheat, piled higher than the canvas covers. “The wagon!” Miz’ri yelled. “Go, now!”

  She pulled Talisa toward it, weaving through a flurry of marketgoers.

  The carriage was moving faster now, heading for the heavy wooden gates visible in the distance. Guards shouted behind them, their voices gaining volume.

  Miz’ri made the jump first, reaching the back pnk and hauling herself up onto the canvas. She immediately turned and braced her legs, pulling hard on the chain, yanking Talisa off the ground.

  Talisa was clumsy. Her feet scrambled for purchase on the smooth wood, and for a terrifying second, she felt her fingers slip. A Julisian guard, sprinting around the corner, lunged, his pike aimed not at Miz’ri, but at Talisa’s back. It never reached.

  Herkel, using the st of his momentum, smmed the travois against the guard's arm, knocking the pike wide. Then, with a grunt of effort Miz’ri didn’t know bones could make, he shoved Talisa up and onto the back of the wagon. Herkel then vaulted himself up, the travois tumbling harmlessly into the wheat.

  Miz’ri immediately grabbed Talisa by the hair and shoved her face-first into the fragrant, dusty grain. “Stay down, you fool!” she ordered, burying herself beside the panting pilgrim.

  The rge wooden wheels rattled and cttered, picking up speed. They heard the shouting of the guards fade into the general din of the city, and then, the grinding of the gates themselves. They were leaving Saj’fal behind, jolting and swaying on a wagon full of grain, carried to destinations unknown. The rge wooden wheels beneath them ground over the uneven road, each rotation a jarring reminder that they were moving, quickly and chaotically, away from Saj’fal. The shouts of the guards had been swallowed by the growing distance, repced only by the creak of the wagon’s dry axles and the soft, dry rustling of the raw wheat.

  Miz’ri shifted in the grain, letting the scratchy kernels fill the negative space around her. She didn’t rise. Instead, she let her consciousness settle on the familiar, comforting weight of her equipment. Her fingers, safe inside the crimson leather gauntlets, absently traced the hilt of her Dark Elven bde where it y hidden beneath the wheat stalks. She was whole again. She was armed. She was free. The silence was filled. She let out a long, slow breath, tasting the dust and the faint sweetness of the field grain. Survival was the only prayer she’d ever known. A flicker of genuine, vicious satisfaction sparked in her chest.

  Beside her, Talisa was a study in misery. The pilgrim was curled up, still clutching the small, silver engagement ring in one trembling fist. The dirt, the sweat, and the saffron dust from her tumble had transformed her neat Julisian tunic into a disgusting, stained mess. She was sobbing silently, her chest hitching with each bumpy rotation of the wheel.

  “Stop weeping,” Miz’ri commanded, not unkindly, “You have your heirlooms and your life, what else is there?” Flexing to feel the protective stretch of the red leather over her hand as she pet her approvingly, like a master does to its hunting dog.

  “Not all of them! I lost my family’s sacred coffin!” Talisa lifted her head slightly, her eyes wide and staring straight through the canvas cover. “On top of that, I don’t know where we are going,” she whispered, the panic returning, thin and sharp. “My pilgrimage. I pnned this for six months. Every town, every abbey, every mile. I had the map memorized. This—this wagon is moving south-west. It’s taking me completely off the Path of Righteousness.”

  Miz’ri snorted. “Well, perhaps your potent Theodore will enjoy the story of your surprise detour. Focus on the good news: we aren’t hanging from a gibbet.”

  “But the sanctity of the journey is lost!” Talisa choked out, tears mixing with the dust on her cheeks. “The order has been broken. The structure is gone. I don’t know this route! I am lost!” She was truly terrified, Miz’ri realized. Not of the Dark Elf, not of the skeleton that had vioted the ws of nature, but of a deviation in her schedule. It was baffling.

  Miz’ri pulled her sword out a fraction of an inch, the rasping sound of steel on leather a brutal reassurance in the quiet space. “Okay, you’re lost, so what?” Miz’ri said, her voice dropping to a low purr. She looked down at the Julisian, a predator settling its gaze on its caught prey. “You survive.”

  “I…I don’t know how to survive.” Talisa admitted, cheeks flush with embarrassment. “This is the first time I’ve ever left my home and it’s been disaster after disaster.”

  Miz’ri reached out and yanked gently on the chain, offering Talisa a reassuring smirk. “As long as you are attached to me, and I have my sword and my wit, you’re safe.” Herkel, riding sentinel at the very edge of the wheat pile, rattled his bones in agreement. “Stay safe and you’ll find your path again, little pilgrim.” Miz’ri closed her eyes, letting the sun beat down on the top of her head. The rhythmic ctter-ctter of the cart wheels was a soothing, if unwelcome, lulby. The city was far behind them. She was once again adrift on the surface world, with a skeleton that ignored her and a pilgrim who was useless.

  But this time, she was free, and she had leverage. She smiled faintly in the obscene sun.The wheat wagon jolted over a rut in the dirt road, carrying the chained pair further and further away from everything Talisa knew, toward destinations unknown, and into Miz’ri’s grasp.