Chapter 5 Two Against the System

CHAPTER 5: Two Against the System

Two shapes came over the ridge.

"B-rank trash," one of them called, laughing. "The system's got your combat flagged. Can't even use your own skills, can you?"

"Find out," Lyra said. Her sword came up. Her voice didn't shake at all.

"Big talk on one good arm."

"Try me."

The second hunter drifted wide, circling, making no effort to hide what he was doing. Kane stood a few steps back, knife loose in his sweating hand, and neither man so much as glanced his way.

The right hunter lunged. Steel rang against steel. Lyra held the line, feet planted, teeth gritted, the strain of it visible in the shake of her bad arm even as her stance stayed sure.

"You bastards always hunt in pairs," she said through her teeth. "Cowards, all of you."

The second man kept circling, angling for her back while she stayed locked with the first. Kane watched the exact moment he was about to strike, and moved.

Quiet. Fast. He came up behind the flanking hunter and pressed his knife into the bare strip of skin between helmet and chest plate.

"Tell your friend to stop," Kane said, low, right against his ear.

The man went rigid. "What. Who's that?"

"Does it matter? Tell him."

"I can't see you."

"You don't need to see me. You need to listen."

"Garr." The man's voice cracked. "Garr, stop. Someone's behind me."

The fight in front of them froze. Garr's sword hung mid-swing, never landing.

"There's nobody there," Garr said.

"He has a knife. I can feel it."

"Show yourself, coward," Garr shouted at empty air.

Lyra lowered her sword an inch, chest heaving, sweat dripping off her chin. Her eyes found Kane over the frozen man's shoulder.

"Kane. What are you doing?"

"Getting us answers." He kept his voice steady even though his hands weren't. "How far out is the hound?"

"West," the man under his knife said fast. "With the other four. Not close."

"The purge timer. Can anyone here stop it?"

"No. Runs from the central Registry. It just marks who dies."

"A way out of the Ashfields. A real one."

"Checkpoint. Three days north. Gate into the connected lands." His voice climbed higher with every word. "That's everything I know, I swear it."

"Does the hound track movement," Kane said, "or just System use?"

"Pings. Mostly pings. Please, just let me go."

Kane glanced at Lyra. She gave one short nod.

"Go," he said, and stepped back.

The moment he let go, the hunter spun and swung at nothing.

"Where," he said, eyes darting. "I don't see anyone."

"He's right there," Garr snapped. "Hit him."

"There's nothing there! My skill says nothing's there!"

Lyra didn't wait for him to finish arguing with the air. She stepped in and swung the flat of her blade against his skull. He dropped.

Garr took one look at his friend on the ground and ran.

"Null here!" he shouted into a device on his wrist, already sprinting west. "Something with him, I can't see it! Send help!"

"Move," Lyra said, grabbing Kane's arm.

They ran until Kane's lungs burned worse than his legs, until the world narrowed to breath and footfall and nothing else. Neither of them spoke for a long time. When Lyra finally slowed to a hard walk, one hand pressed to her side, she was the one who broke it.

"They couldn't see you. Not even a little."

"No."

"The one you held had System Detection active. Rank C skill. That should have flagged you inside ten meters."

"It didn't."

She studied him, something close to fear behind her eyes now, though not fear of him. Fear of the shape of what he was.

"What are you," she said.

"I don't think I'm invisible," Kane said slowly. "I think the System just doesn't see me as real unless I make it look. The hound tracks pings. System use. Not a body standing somewhere."

"You talk like you already know how it thinks."

"I built things like it once."

"You keep saying that. You never explain it."

"Long story."

"We're walking a long way."

He almost smiled. Then he stopped walking entirely, because they'd both turned north without meaning to, drawn by something neither of them had named yet.

A column of black smoke rose straight up against the grey sky. Too straight. Too controlled.

"Is that the northern route?" Kane said.

"That's the northern route."

"Something's burning."

"Something's blocking it," Lyra said, voice gone flat and hard. "This is bad, Kane."

He cracked open a System window for one second, caught a scrolling fragment, slammed it shut.

"Kane," Lyra said. "What did you just do?"

"Looked."

"You said you'd stop doing that."

"I needed to know."

The words stayed burned behind his eyes anyway.

SYSTEM BROADCAST REGISTRY AUTHORITY. ASHFIELDS NORTHERN GATE: LOCKDOWN INITIATED. DURATION: 96 HOURS. REASON: CLASSIFIED.

"Kane." Her voice sharpened. "Tell me."

"The gate's locked. Ninety-six hours."

Lyra went very still. "That's four days."

"I know."

"You don't have four days. Your purge timer runs out before that gate ever opens again."

Kane stared at the smoke, thick and endless, feeding on something he couldn't see.

"Then we find another way," he said, though even to his own ears it didn't sound like enough.

Lyra didn't answer right away. When she finally turned to look at him, something close to real fear had crept into her voice for the first time since he'd met her.

"There might be one," she said. "You're not going to like it."

"Tell me anyway."

"It goes through the Ashfields' core," she said. "Nobody who walks in there comes back the same."