Chapter 11 Northern Gate

"Run," Seran said, and nothing calm was left in his voice.

They ran.

Kane's lungs burned with every breath, ash kicking up behind his boots, his legs already screaming from everything they'd done today. Behind them, six sets of footsteps grew louder instead of fainter.

"They're gaining," Lyra said, glancing back.

"I know."

"How long is your Override?"

"I don't know. Stopped checking, it hurts too much."

Seran dropped back a step, putting himself between the hunters and the other two without a word. Not fighting. Just existing there, a wall of rank they'd have to think twice about running through.

"Stand aside," one hunter shouted. "Registry Sovereign Knight or not, this is sanctioned."

"Registry Investigation in progress," Seran called back, not slowing. "You're contaminating my site."

"Move."

"No."

Two of the six peeled off, angling wide to flank Seran instead of pushing through him. The other four kept coming, faster now.

"Four of us," Kane said, breathless. "Two on him."

"Better odds than six. Not good odds."

The terrain shifted underfoot, packed earth replacing loose ash, and ahead of them Kane finally saw it. The northern gate. Heavy stone, runes on every surface, sealed behind a wall of blue light.

"There."

"It's locked. We knew that already."

"I know the way in."

"You know a theory."

"Same thing right now."

They reached the gate with thirty meters of open ground between them and the four hunters closing fast. Kane pressed his hand against the seal, forcing his focus through the pain still throbbing behind his eyes.

"Lyra. How long."

She checked over her shoulder. "Not long enough."

Kane read the lock structure fast, layers of authorization stacked on top of each other, requiring clearance he didn't have.

"I need administrative access. Not a fighter class. Something else."

"Kane, they're almost here."

He pushed the Override past its stable point, forcing it to rewrite again, and the pain behind his eyes tripled, a white-hot line straight through.

OVERRIDE: UNSTABLE REWRITE. TEMPORARY FLAG: REGISTRY CLERK RANK D. DURATION: 4 MINUTES. SYSTEM INTEGRITY: CRITICAL WARNING.

"Four minutes," Kane gasped, dropping to one knee. "That's all I have."

"Then use them," Lyra said, sword already up between him and the hunters.

He forced himself back up and pressed his palm flat against the primary rune, pushing the Clerk flag into the authorization sequence, feeling the System scramble to process something that shouldn't have been able to touch it at all.

The gate groaned.

"It's working."

"Faster," Lyra shouted, blocking a strike from the first hunter to reach them, steel ringing loud in the open air.

The archway ground open, slow and glitching, stone scraping against stone, a gap barely wide enough for one person.

"Go," Kane said, shoving her toward it.

"Not without you."

"Go, Lyra!"

She went, sliding through with her sword still raised, gone.

Kane turned back. Seran had broken off from his two, stepping aside at the last second and letting them run past instead of engaging. The remaining hunters closed the last of the distance fast, weapons raised, faces twisted with fury.

Kane threw himself toward the gap.

He was halfway through when the Override failed completely.

OVERRIDE: FAILED. CLASS FLAG: REVERTED TO NULL. SYSTEM INTEGRITY: RESTORING. GATE AUTHORIZATION: REVOKED.

The gate shuddered and began closing.

Seran sprinted the last stretch, throwing himself toward the shrinking gap. One of the hunters raised something that wasn't a sword, a small glowing device, and aimed it straight at Kane's back.

"Kane!" Lyra screamed from the other side.

It fired.

Kane felt it hit, not pain exactly, more like the whole world stuttering for half a second, a blackout shorter than a heartbeat. He stumbled through as the gate slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing loud and final.

Seran landed hard beside him a half step later.

For a moment nobody moved.

Kane lay on his back, staring up at a sky that looked no different on this side of the gate, and slowly became aware that something was wrong. Or rather, that something wasn't wrong, when it should have been.

"Kane," Lyra said, kneeling fast, hands hovering. "Are you hit?"

"I don't know." He pushed himself up onto his elbows. "I felt it. It should have hurt."

No wound. No mark. Nothing at all.

"It fired a direct hit at me," he said slowly, "and I don't feel anything."

Seran, still catching his breath nearby, stared at him with something between disbelief and fascination.

"The System fired a real attack at a Null," he said, "and its own process failed the moment it tried to touch you."

Kane sat there a long moment, letting that settle, the Override gone, the purge timer already resetting somewhere in the back of his mind, his body somehow completely intact.

"We're through," Lyra said quietly, looking around at unfamiliar ground. "We're actually through."

Kane got to his feet slowly, legs still shaking, and looked out at the road ahead, a rocky path leading toward a distant cluster of buildings he'd never seen before.

Then he saw the man sitting on a crate beside that road, watching all three of them with open curiosity, chewing on something with far too much calm for the situation.

"Well," the stranger said, standing up unhurried, eyes moving over Kane like he was reading a puzzle he already half understood. "Nulls coming through a locked gate. That's new." He tilted his head, grinning slightly. "What exactly did you break to manage that?"