Saturninos (wlw)

Chapter 25 - Chekhov's Firing Squad

Time passed, not that Seras would have known it. She awoke to flickering lamplight bathing golden hair in a soft glow.

"Seras. It is time."

Harlequin helped her stand and shake off the heaviness of sleep. Seras stepped out of the lace and into nondescript clothes her wife had brought her.

There was relief and apprehension in her chest as they scanned the room for what was definitely the final time. While the other woman took long, wistful looks, Seras took Harlequin's old journal from the desk.

"What for?" asked Quin, as Seras pressed the book into her hands.

"Memories. And I may have read a few pages." In the dim light, Harlequin was flushed.

Quin waited at the mouth of the tunnel as Seras secured the final bomb above the flame of a lamp. The heat would burn the cloth and ignite the contents, even if it would not spread fire. The other hidden parcels would ignite from the first blast. When she was sure, they both sprinted into the long darkness.

Seras could barely see her own hand in front of her face, but Harlequin barreled headlong across corridors and down flights of stairs and she followed in confidence.

Until they came to what seemed like a solid wall. Smoothly, Quin slashed at her arm, wiped her hand across it, and began pressing bricks in a sequence.

"There are gates in the tunnels," she explained, before Seras could even stare. "They respond to my blood, and Father's. No one but us could have opened them."

The wall shifted as Seras watched in fascination, the forgemaster in her enraptured. Quin grabbed her by the hand and sprinted through, the gate closing behind them.

When they came to the second gate, there was a terrible booming sound that Seras could only imagine as the bombs exploding. The tunnel shook, and it made her chest feel like it was caving in. She wondered how it would have been if they had not gotten past the first wall yet.

Bits of stone, loosened by the blast, rained upon them, and Harlequin rushed them both past the gate. "We must hurry. They are storming the palace as we speak."

They came to a room with barebone furnishings, lit by a weak lamp. Seras looked around, bewildered, as she said, "Where are we?"

"A hidden room that hides the hidden tunnels." She pointed to a blank wall across the room. "That is a door that opens with a brick sequence. No blood. Someone might crack its code and find this place, but they would not suspect that there are wheels within wheels. Soldiers use this place sometimes."

As they walked away from the tunnel whence they came, it closed behind them and Quin shoved a few crates across it, to hide that it was a doorway. Then she took off her clothes.

Seras busied herself with putting on the armor that lay on the floor, and hefted the targe and the mace beside them. She missed her hammer, but it would do. When she turned back, Harlequin was dressed in white lace, clutching the spear she made for her in hands, themselves clad in leather gauntlets.

"Really, it looks much better on you than it ever did on me," she said.

Quin shook her head at her, smiling. "I disagree."

Then she opened the outer door, and they walked out into the night.

Seras had expectations. The most obvious one was to witness a clashing battle, a gory affair that she knew would make her stomach churn despite the things she had already seen. She even expected eerie silence, which she would then take to mean that something had gone very wrong for one side or the other.