Indirk flashed her carnivate teeth and lashed out with her claws, throwing one of Norgash's robed sycophants off of her and rolling to her feet right before the many-eyed serpent crashed down where she'd been. It fell into the mob, their furor for Indirk's blood giving way immediately to panic and confusion. The serpent lashed out against the crowd, the bony panels that clattered along its tail sharp enough to tear through robes and bodies like a barbed flail.
There had been more than a hundred people gathered in the warehouse, and now they fled or stumbled in panic, most not understanding what had even happened. They'd heard the sound of one of Pharaul's guns, heard shouting and fury, then screams and fleeing footsteps. People were trying to get out, but chains bound the large doors on the side wall and the other doors were so small and so distant. There was panicked movement of every kind, tables toppling, people pushed under small stampedes that ran one way and then another.
There were people in Indirk's way. She knocked them aside, threw them behind her out of instinctive fear. She shouldered into a table and threw it up over people's heads, not caring where it crashed down. But Indirk wasn't the only carnivate in the room, and she wasn't careful about who she clashed against. It was inevitable that she would meet her match, a burly-shouldered carnivate in a feathered robe and mask that did not fall when pressed, that pushed back, that threw Indirk hard on her ass and then stood over her, snarling from behind the ivory mask worn by all Norgash's sycophants.
Indirk got herself onto her knees and eyed that mask with her own snarl. As carnivate anthrals go, Indirk was on the small side, and she hadn't inherited the clawed feet, powerful legs, and dangerous tails of most carnivates. Her own predator instincts pushed against those of this sycophant, a primal challenge between two beasts chained inside of more civilized hearts.
Then Indirk heard the rattling behind her. She glanced back to see the serpent tearing at an innocent body, throwing a bloodied husk away. All around it lay disfigured anthrals, dead or writhing helplessly, their blood staining its scales and fangs. But the serpent quickly set its eyes on Indirk. Out of all the victims it could choose, it sought her. It knew her. On one side of the serpent's head, a half-healed gouge showed where Indirk had shot its face in their last meeting. The exit wound left a gap in its mouth and the back of its head, the teeth there broken or missing, two of its many eyes absent.
Fire still simmered against the ceiling and on the walls. The flickering light reflected on the blood and the scale, on the black eyes, on the bony plates that shook to clatter as the serpent let out a low, breathy hiss -- so like the sound that Indirk had mistaken for a furnace in the deep -- and moved toward her.
The carnivate that stood in front of her, the huge man that wore the mask of Norgash's sycophants, let out a laugh. "Anbash! Your appetite's gotten the better of you."
Indirk backed away from the approaching serpent. She turned toward the sycophant that blocked her way and, feeling suddenly like such a small thing trapped between these two predators, she unchained the beast in her heart. She shouted and threw herself at the larger, stronger man, her teeth and claws tearing.
* * *
Amo found themself in the center of a circle of masked figures intent on blood. Eying them and the knives that they pulled from inside their robes, Amo couldn't help but smirk. "You all brought knives to the party? Really not normal. But I'm a hypocrite." Amo pulled out the two knives Sgathaich had conjured for them before they left Pharaul, and hummed a small, magical tune.
One of the masked figures lunged, but stopped short when, suddenly, Amo was everywhere. All of the masked figures around the lunging one turned into duplicates of Amo, and the masked one spun in stammering panic. When the illusion ceased, only one Amo remained, and the sycophant swiftly thrust their blade into this Amo's neck.
Only that wasn't Amo. The second the knife struck home, the illusion broke, revealing that beneath the guise of Amo was just another masked sycophant, this one spurting blood from the neck and collapsing with a wail. The killer stood, stunned by what they'd done.
Amo ripped the killer's mask off and hissed, "Fucking amateur," as they stuck a knife in their eye, pulled it out, and stepped away. Amo did this right in the middle of the circle of sycophants, who stared in confusion as it appeared, to them, that on image of Amo had just gouged out the eye of an identical duplicate, that the stabbing doppelganger suddenly disappeared. Out of the masked circle who stood in confused paralysis, one blood-splattered sycophant receded into the crowd with a musical chuckle.
The masked attackers stared at Amo's fallen body, doubting their own senses. A few seconds later, the illusion on the body dispersed, and they were staring at one of their own, limbs and face still twitching, eye socket a bloody mess.
Amo wore the appearance of one of Norgash's sycophants for just one more moment until, in the panic of the crowd, someone shouldered into Amo and broke the magic. At that, Amo hurriedly started pushing through the crowd, blending into the churning mob and searching for Indirk. But by then, too much had happened too quickly. Even where the serpent had been -- Amo had glimpsed the creature, confused at its appearance but wanting to stay well clear of it -- people now ran this way and that, ignoring the bodies they trod upon.
Norgash's fire, now that she was no longer controlling it with her magic, had begun to catch. The blackened walls simmered like coals. Smoke gathered against the ceiling. Sparks drifted in the air.
* * *
Indirk tore herself off the large carnivate, falling to the ground amid shards of his shattered mask and shreds of his torn robe. He clutched at his bloodied hand, wide mouth showing sharp teeth as he snarled, "Animal! You'll die!" But Indirk didn't stay to argue. She'd gotten past him, her skin torn open and one of the man's claws stuck, torn free and embedded, in her arm, her clothes in tatters but at least she still had her satchel. As she ran, she put a hand on the satchel and felt Avie moving inside.
Smoke grew thick and red light burned overhead. The panicked crowd gathered against the warehouse's large doors. Dozens of people together, in a fearful swarm, swelled against those doors. The chains held, but the hinges did not. With a loud, metallic scream, the hinges on one side gave way and the door fell crookedly outward. It looked like one of the walls had fallen, and the wood bent and buckled as people surged out through the gap.
Indirk clawed and shouldered through the crowd until she reached that gap herself, leaving a wake of staggering and fallen people behind her. But as Indirk jumped into the open air of the Sickle-Sough festival, leaving the stink of smoke in favor of the scent of spices, she still heard the rattling behind her. She hadn't gotten away. She'd only gotten outside.
