“Quite a heavy fella, huh?” Menov said, kicking the dead Hospitaller they laid farther down the stairs. His head flopped to one side, the wound on his neck had stopped spurting.

Cutter betrayed his displeasure, glaring at Menov like cannons aimed at the broadside of a ship. She had nonchalantly murdered the Hospitaller within the presence of others, potentially provoking a panic within the Common House or rouse the conspirators to their scheme. Except... nobody saw anything. Not the flash of her wristblade like the tongue of a lizard. The subtle jet of blood. Or how with a practiced ease, Menov caught the body before it thumped onto the floor and alerted everyone. If Pyrik had winked in that instance, she would have questioned whether anything had happened at all.

“You can scold me later.” Menov winked at Cutter, then nodded at the stairs in a playful way. “Do you hear that?”

crash… crash… crash…

A perplexion plagued the captain’s face until suddenly it exploded into immediacy. Cutter stormed down the stairs, forgetting their stealthy approach. Pyrik followed after him, her blunderbuss and bayonet at the ready. A strong, pungent odor slowly invaded her nose, making her want to pinch it shut. She was wondering what could have caused the smell, until she landed on the basement floor and upwelled a small splash. She lifted her boot, drops of the mystery liquid sweated off its sole. The odor was practically a thick miasma, and Pyrik finally knew: kerosene.

Barrels were cracked open like eggs, its yoke spilled out on the floor, kerosene and wooden shells everywhere.

“Not another cursed step!” Haldane warned.

Pyrik whipped her head up.

Cutter had his flintlock pistol levelled at Haldane, who had the barrel of his pistol kissing the side of Ellie’s head. The girl was crying and afraid and drenched in what had to be kerosene. Pyrik felt every fiber in body get pulled toward Ellie, wanting to wrench her away from the grasp of that coward. However, Ellie was not the only hostage.

Huddled in a corner were the other children and Oddie, and six conspirators with their guns trained on them. It was like reining in a pack of rabid dogs, but she managed with a deep breath. The pungent odor was thankfully distracting.

“Leave the child alone, you filthy craven,” Cutter said, helping himself to another step forward.

Haldane shook his head, holding his ground and hostage. “You’re in no position to make demands, Cutter. One spark is all it takes and whoosh!”—Ellie jumped at the sound and whimpered and Oddie protested at Haldane but he took a kick to the stomach—“All up in flames.”

“The fire will consume you too.” Cutter noted. Haldane and his conspirators were also drenched in kerosene.

“Yes, and the rest of the Common House too.”

“What do you want?”

“To smash up the rest of these barrels, to stop you from making a grave mistake.”

Cutter growled through gritted teeth. “I should have executed you when I had the chance,” he said, then lowered his pistol.

Pyrik followed his lead as well. A firefight while they stood in kerosene like wicks in a candle would only result in getting the children immolated.

Maybe Menov has a plan of some… kind.

Menov was nowhere around.

Haldane nodded at one of the conspirators, who then picked up a sledgehammer dripping with kerosene. Its hammerhead burst a barrel like lancing a flammable boil, on and on he went.

“You think this will stop me from incinerating that blasted forest? Once the battle uptop comes to its conclusion, my men will come down here, have you arrested and shot, I'll find a way to torch the place to cinder,” Cutter said.

Haldane smirked. “You sound quite confident.”

“I know I am.”

“Are you certain of that, Cutter?” It was Menov, speaking from behind Pyrik, who then had a wristblade at her throat. When Pyrik swallowed, she felt her jugular press against the blade’s edge.

“This is what’s going to happen, Cutter," Haldane said, his smile was vast and arrogant. "You’ll assist me in my research, provide anything that I need. Test subjects, equipment, anything. Am I understood?”

The final barrel was smashed, and the conspirator set down the sledgehammer with an exhausted huff. “All done now, boss man,” he said, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

When Cutter did not immediately agree, Haldane added, “I’ll even relinquish all but one of the children as a show of good faith. So, how about it, hmm? Am I understood?”

“Then you are understood.”

Haldane glanced over at the rest of his conspirators. They went to flank Cutter on each side, however, Menov stopped them as she continued to hold Pyrik hostage with her wristblade and confiscated her blunderbuss.

“Allow him to walk up on his own. I doubt his men will take this little mutiny here very lightly,”—And when they reached for the captain’s saber—“and only take his pistol. A captain without his saber would only arouse suspicion.”

However, pistols were pressed into their backs as Cutter and Pyrik were marched up the stairs, hands kept stapled at their sides. Calculations ran through Pyrik’s head, how she could wrench a pistol away or something, yet the outcome of each conclusion either ended with getting shot or restrained or Ellie harmed while in the melee. Haldane had a pistol sneakily pressed into her back as he walked next to Cutter.

Perhaps when they’re distracted by the dead Hospitaller on the stairs I could… where did it go?

They walked past the spot where Pyrik had last seen the body.

That’s impossible. There’s no way she could have moved the body anywhere else.

And yet the walk upstairs went without incident and they were on the first floor of the Common House.

“Get ready.” Menov whispered, quiet as dust falling, her voice nearly buried in the turnover of rifle and musket fire.

Pyrik felt the sheath at her side and there it was, the handle of her bayonet. A question of intent crept up her throat, yet she had to force it back down.

“What are you waiting for?” Haldane asked Cutter.

“Not while they are still engaged with the enemy,” Cutter said while tapping the pommel of his saber. The commotion from outside appeared to not have wound down, with sounds of insectoid clicking and shouts from men.

“Fair enough.”

Cutter examined the bandages on Haldane, wrapped around his shoulder and thigh, stained with blossoms of red in the white. “I want to know, when the arrows were raining down, did Potash die trying to get you out of that storm?”

“Quiet. You’re supposed to just address the folk here and nothing, not prod me about Potash.”

“Why, did I gouge into an open wound?”

“You did poke your thumb into my shoulder.”

“He told me about his plan to open up a bakery in his hometown, you know, when his service is over—”

“...”

“—He would be in charge of all the baked goods while Vivian worked in the front, talking to the customers. Enough of his pay was saved up too—”

“Quiet, Cutter. You’re treading on thin ice here,” Haldane warned, and Ellie’s eyes started to water with fear.

Pyrik tried to lunge forward at him, to swat that pistol away from the little girl’s head, but Menov tugged a hand hooked on her brigandine collar.

“—Now all of that pay… well, depends on how Vivian decides to use it. Not for his funeral, though. The order will over the price for his burial. Do you reckon if his body can be salvaged for one?”

“QUIET YOU FUCKING BASTARD!” Haldane aimed his pistol away from Ellie, forgetting that he was covered in accelerant, prepared for immolation.

Yet a shot was never fired. The saber was released for its scabbard, and quick as blur, severed hand from wrist and the pistol came falling down.

Haldane cried out, his conspirators strung into action.

Ellie elbowed Haldane in his thigh wound, slacking his hold on her enough to escape.

Pistols were pointed at Cutter, however, Menov blasted two of them away with the blunderbuss, then the wristblade flashed out and slashed another across their throat.

I suppose that’s the cue.

The bayonet was freed from its sheath and repeatedly planted in the neck of a conspirator. Jets of blood covered her hand, splattered on her helmet, tasing blood on her lips. A shot was fired, a punch in her side. Pyrik staggered, breath sapped from her lungs.

The conspirator that shot Pyrik went for his sword, however, not an inch of steel left the scabbard when Cutter separated head from shoulders.

“Are you alright?” Cutter asked Pyrik.

She sucked in a breath, ignored the pain. “He’s escaping!”

Haldane was at the double doors, struggling to remove the bar. Pyrik snatched the nearest pistol she saw on the floor, and hurriedly fired. The shot hit, though only grazing his neck. The bar was lifted up and dropped to the ground.

“Stop him!” Cutter shouted as he ran after Haldane.

It was too late.

Haldane flung open the double doors and escaped into the chaos. Cutter tried following after him, however, several insectoids entered the Common House.