Valentius ran. He whispered a prayer under his nose as the mantis behind him lunged again and again.
A praying mantis who, unlike him, he was sure, did no praying.
Albert's screams were growing weaker and weaker. Valentius prayed that the boy would hold up just a bit longer.
And Valentius was praying for himself.
Praying that he wouldn't find just a pile of bones with bone marrow dripping out of them.
A tattered black and white robe with a golden line around the collar was thrown in with the bones.
The mantis lunged again, and Valentius made a sharp turn, letting the thing crash into a wall.
There was a sickening splat, but the boy didn't care! He ran, Albert's voice being his guiding light.
Finally, he rounded a corner, only to see it!
Albert was in the middle of a circle of the same type of mantis as the one that had chased after him!
There was another circle of the overgrown insects. But Valentius didn't want to look at it.
At the headless mess, which was slowly being rocked.
His youth spared him the realization. His spirit urged him on!
Mana rushed into his hands! He punched a mantis straight through the head!
He didn't think! He punched, and kicked, and bit, as Albert was using his crooked staff to hit what he could!
Until Albert hit him, and Valentius hit back.
Both boys collapsed on the floor.
The mantises who were committing a crime against someone already dead, Valentius realized, refusing to name it by its name, looked their way.
"NO!" Albert yelled, as he began to crawl away. "NO! NO! NO!"
"Albert!" Valentius didn't know what it looked like to see his traveling companion go through that, but he knew the floor under them had just opened its entrance!
If Albert ran down there, he had no survival in the cards! The boy looked like a madman!
"We need to go!" Valentius yelled as he tried to grab Albert by the hand. Only for his hand to get a staff to the fingers!
He didn't miss a beat! The mantises were still rocking the corpse!
Valentius saw naked skin through the legs of one of the insects.
Bile rose in his mouth.
"Darn it, Albert!" Valentius was bigger, not stronger, probably, but he was bigger.
He stopped thinking. Swinging the boy over a shoulder, even as Albert kicked, and screamed, and raked his nails over Valentius' back…
He began to run.
The boys were crying. They were praying.
Valentius wished he were deaf then. So that he wouldn't need to hear those rocking sounds—those sounds, which soon turned to crunching.
0000
As soon as Valentius saw the trees, he collapsed, throwing Albert away.
He was hurt all over.
It was too much! He was bleeding, his back a ruin!
He blinked.
Where was his backpack?
When he asked himself that question, he felt dread pool inside him.
What was he going to do without the bottomless backpack? When had it fallen? Had Albert taken it off him? Or maybe it had slipped on his way down there?
Into the floor of horrors?
"NO!" The scream broke Valentius' heart.
With a heavy heart, Valentius approached the boy. Kneeling next to him.
Far enough for Albert to not hit him again, close enough for Albert to know he wasn't alone.
"What…" did Valentius dare to ask such a question? Did he dare to ask the boy what had become of him during that month when Valentius had been safe and sound in the kitchens?
Doing odd jobs, going to bed when he completed them.
Albert looked like a wreck.
His pale blonde hair was now matted and short. Should someone do such a brave thing, it looked as if it was going to coat the fingers of whoever touched it with oil.
His bottom lip was split…
"Albert, I'm here. It's me, Valentius!" He said it as gently as the way his mother's voice had been while she had held his father's hand.
As the man died slowly, the wound on his leg bled and bled. A never-ending waterfall that was parts blood, parts pus, parts mana poison.
"Albert," Valentius tried to tell himself. He was doing the right thing. If he calmed Albert down, the boy would get another chance at life!
But… what sort of life? Valentius could see the slave rune on Albert's neck. It was glowing.
"Albert…" Valentius didn't want to lie to the boy. He didn't want to promise him nonsense. "You won't die alone."
It was the most honest thing he could tell the boy. The boy whose blue eyes were darting around. The boy who had seen a horror worse than anything Valentius had ever been through.
The janitor's words rang in the young boy's ears. He placed his meaty hands over his face.
"We are idiots!" He whispered. It was bitter poison for him to admit it, but he did. Albert's wide eyes gave him no option but to face the truth. "We are idiots, and we are still going to fight!"
Albert jerked. Valentius sensed the healer's gaze on him.
"Albert! I will save you!" He was a hero. Heroes did stupid things.
It was in all of the stories.
In some, the heroes made the people they saved happy. They got the loot, the titles, a castle or a piece of farmland…
Even as young as he was, Valentius knew that the stories were full of crap.
Make Albert happy? Albert, who had seen a mantis do… do…
Valentius lowered his hands to look into Albert's eyes.
"I will get the slave rune off you," because, as much as he wanted to get Albert to safety, he knew that the rune would make it impossible. "And we will go to Rock's Nest! There's no lord there! We can get farmland!"
Captain Adam's promise of a peaceful life, spoken to Valentius, finally made Albert's hands stop shaking. The boy reached out, his pinky the only finger poking out of his fist.
Valentius realized at that moment how young they both were.