Chapter 2: Wherein There Is Much Running

It was too quiet - that was what woke me. My eyes snapped open and my blood raced through my body as I rushed in an instant from asleep to fully awake.

They knew where we were and they were coming to get us.

I tugged at Fizz's arm. She moaned, and I knew she was at the end of her strength. Her steps had been faltering when I decided it was safe to rest, and judging by the position of the moon, not much time had passed since we came here.

I was scared, because she was near her breaking point, and every time this happened - every time we had to move again - was one time closer to when she wouldn't be able to go any farther.

"They're near," I whispered urgently, my voice sounding strange in my ears. We had gone on like this without a word for days, creeping silently in the shadows of the city. It seemed a miracle, a strange series of miracles, that we had gotten this far. Whenever they came close to catching us, luck would smile upon us and we'd somehow manage to get away. This happened so many times that I began wondering whether, if any of the Gods existed, one had taken particular interest in us.

I didn't have a plan - I was never big on plans. My hope was that they'd give up before we'd give in.

My bones felt heavy in my flesh as I placed my feet underneath me, crouching by her side. I tugged at her arm again, harder this time. I hadn't eaten for two days, choosing to give Fizz what I managed to find. The hunger pains no longer bothered me, but every hour I felt weaker.

She looked up at me with haunted eyes that were hazy with fatigue. She opened her mouth to say something, say that she can't go on any longer. I shook my head and placed my finger to her lips. Grudgingly, slowly, she got to her feet. I waited for her to find her balance before pulling her along.

They had hired a magician to finish the work. That was why we couldn't hide for very long and had to keep on running. They didn't rest from their secret, bloody task. To clean the streets - that was the King's wish. Secret, because it was forbidden to spill the blood of innocents. Unlike in some lands, our Gods did not appreciate bloodshed and human sacrifice. If the people knew that this was happening on the King's orders, there could well be an uprising, for the greatest fear of the masses of Auran city was to aggravate the Gods.

But they certainly didn't mind us street people dying. It was good to get rid of  vermin polluting the beautiful city life.

From behind a wall, we watched as a group of black-clad men cornered Moe and slit his throat in a lonely alley in twilight. We did not yet understand the might or efficiency of our enemies then. We thought, at first, that it was just murder - something that happens on the streets, sometimes needlessly, sometimes randomly.

But it wasn't a murder; it was part of a comprehensive clean-up.

People we knew, like the old lady with the battered flower hat who always sat begging on the corner of Nymph and Lark Street, or that dodgy young man with the ruddy pink cheeks and the Milkanian accent who swore he was a long-lost prince, or old Mr. Wrett, who was always searching for his imaginary son Guybert - one day they were there, and the next they had vanished.

Every night, the street people went down like meaningless flies, their bodies found in the foggy dawn floating on the river or in side alleys, there to be discovered by unsuspecting children on their way to the school-house.

The rumour was there almost from the beginning. The street people would look at us with eyes that saw too much and speak to us in hushed voices. "Be careful. Be wary. The end has come. The King wants us all dead in time for the Tournament."

We were not a tight-knit community, we street people, because we competed over the same resources, the same scraps, the same warm spots on the roofs of bakeries, the same deserted cellars or warehouses. However, even street people are human, on occasion. Fizz and I, being mere children, received their pity now, as gnarled and beaten up as such pity was.

Moe had been one of the first to die. He had been taken by surprise; otherwise, I believe he would still have been with us. He had been strong in body and in spirit, still full of life, still willing to fight for the right to exist. We had survived so much together, yet with one swipe of a knife it all ended for him.

But not for us.

As far as memory could reach, we had always been three: Fizz, Moe, and I. We were a family of sorts, fending for one another on the streets. The older you get, the better it is to be on your own, but as children we couldn't survive alone, we needed each other.

Moe was the oldest, somewhere on the outskirts of manhood when he was killed. I was still a boy, maybe I was ten then. Like most street children, I didn't know when, where or why I was born. And then Fizz - she was about six or seven - she was petite and waif-like, but with a face reflecting an ageless wisdom. Her dark eyes were cunning and clever, and she was always sharp-tongued, often leaving me flabbergasted in her wake.

We crept along the wall like rats, quietly scurrying away from the smell of danger, keeping to the shadows, out of the moonlight. But then, like a mountain of terror, I felt danger looming large in the path ahead of us - they were closing in from both sides of the alley, if I strained my ears, I could almost hear them. I halted, squeezing Fizz's fingers slightly. She pressed herself against me.

I hastily scanned our surroundings and chose to go forward a few more steps, our only guide were my senses, our only protector my instincts. Then I climbed a low wall between two buildings and helped Fizz up before jumping down on the other side, into a small walled yard. We stole across the yard to the far side, and under a fence that led us to a courtyard and beyond that a little inner garden, and beyond, we crept.

Treading softly, moving silently, we dodged and weaved our way in the crowded complex of city buildings, our unseen hunters losing our trail for the time being. But by now we knew that they would catch on quite soon; by now we knew that we had to keep moving.

I tried to keep us to the yards and gardens between densely populated areas and away from the exposure of the streets and alleys. Things, people - even sleeping people - made it harder for our pursuers to trace us. But then we came to a gap in the cluster of buildings, and I decided to lead us across one of the wider alleys.

I made a mistake.

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A/N - Chapter dedicated to seventhstar for the amazing cover!