The Impossible Rescue

The central tent had three entrances. Jorgen and Bossia entered from the north, and at first, all they could see were the backs of other spectators. For a moment, they didn't know where to go. Rather than a tent, it was more like a large amphitheater with encircling seats, built and maintained by the Darkmoon Faire at their own expense. They only took away the most valuable things when they left. They squeezed through the crowd until they found a position in the top row of seats that was easier to observe their surroundings.

"Are we staying here?" Bossia said.

"What?" The surrounding noise made it hard for Jorgen to hear clearly for a moment.

"I said, are we staying here?"

"I can see the other two entrances from here."

"From so far away, I don't believe you can see clearly."

"You're right, if someone were standing there, I wouldn't be able to see their face. But the undertakers would be different. That guy is easy to recognize."

"I mean, from here you can't see clearly what's going on in the middle."

"You...never mind. Just stay put."

Jorgen looked at Bossia and saw that her face was still somewhat pale. He understood that her words were deliberately meant to calm her mood and allow the bloody and deathly scene from earlier to fade from her mind as quickly as possible. No matter how immature the girl had been before, after experiencing the loss of her lover, false accusations, and escape in a short period of time, Jorgen felt it was not a bad thing if she could relieve her mood to some extent by watching the circus. He believed the possibility of the undertakers chasing them here was small, so he began to consider finding an opportunity to retrieve Bossia's armor and sword.

The current show was lion taming. A male lion was squatting on a narrow platform according to the animal trainer's requirements. Behind it was a large iron cage containing four or five lions. To startle the spectators, the gaps between the bars were relatively wide, and a thin person could squeeze in sideways, while the lions could easily extend their paws or even shoulders. The squatting lion outside opened its mouth and let the animal trainer's assistant stick his head between its two rows of sharp teeth, startling the spectators.

Nothing worth watching, Jorgen thought. For those who had just survived by luck, the scene before them was hardly stimulating. His gaze slowly moved up, and then he noticed something unusual. On the high seats opposite, there was some confusion. At first, Jorgen thought it was an argument between spectators, but he immediately realized it was a chase, with two people in front and behind, pushing away spectators in their way and gradually closing the distance.

"What are you looking at? Has that guy caught up?" Bossia asked.

"No. You just stare at those things down there."

Jorgen soon realized he had spoken too soon in his second sentence. The chase changed: the person in front suddenly disappeared, and the second person also disappeared. Then he understood that they had climbed a ladder and reappeared at the top of the ladder on the platform. About a meter wide and ten meters long, suspended twenty meters high, the platform was used by aerial acrobats, and Jorgen's side had a corresponding platform connected to the opposite side by a steel wire for performances.

Jorgen stood up. Just then, someone fell from the opposite platform. A live person. He was howling, but no one would hear. He fell face up, hands stretched straight up, as if trying to grasp something invisible. When he was about ten meters from the ground, some spectators at the highest point noticed, some silent, some exclaimed, but still did not disrupt the lively atmosphere of the entire tent. But when the man slammed heavily into the iron cage, the scene fell silent for a very short time.

What happened next caused panic. Half of his body protruded into the iron cage, obviously with a broken arm flailing at a strange angle. A lion jumped up and bit his dangling head, then tore it open. Then the second and third lions also jumped up, scrambling for their share. The lower half of the body, which had been stuck outside the iron cage, slipped down like a rag doll as the spine and pelvis were torn apart. The lions that tasted the blood regained their caged wildness, and one of them began to fiercely pound and ram the iron cage. Anyone could see in an instant that this was not part of the show.

In an instant, everything was in chaos. The spectators' mood of enjoying the thrills and spills of the circus show turned into real fear that devoured the soul and reason, and the iron cage stained with blood suddenly became the center of this vortex of fear. The spectators who had only hoped to while away an idle afternoon turned into shipwrecked sailors struggling with all their might to escape the vortex they had created. For someone trying to escape, the flow that obstructed him was other strangers, so like wading forward to escape the tent, he did not care what harm he might cause to those around him. After the first person was pushed down and trampled until he vomited blood, a second, third and tenth victim were produced.

Jorgen wanted to observe carefully what was happening on the platform, but for now, there was no opportunity. He saw someone fall down in front of him, and then his right ear was trampled by several feet. The sound of a shattered skull burst out. He grabbed Bossia and hugged her tightly, then moved together toward the top row of ladders leading to the platform. That was the furthest from the exit, the place where escaping spectators least wanted to approach. Buried in his arms, Bossia seemed to have said something, or maybe it was a cry of pain from being squeezed, he could no longer distinguish.

Nearing the ladder, the flow of people decreased somewhat. Jorgen looked at the exit, relieved that he had not run there, as there was an even more chaotic bloody scene. In the center of the tent, the circus people were trying their best to appease the lions, but because of the mass of flesh scattered in the middle of the iron cage, their work was not going smoothly.

"Stay here," Jorgen said to Bossia, then grabbed the ladder and was about to climb up, but found that she was tugging at his clothes. "Jorgen." She just pronounced his name, but the anxiety in her eyes did not need more explanation. Her shoulders were shaking.

"I said stay here and don't move, don't follow me up!" He shook off her hand and climbed onto the platform, walking forward a few steps, he saw something he did not expect.

Travis was standing on the edge of the opposite platform, while the old man was near the ladder. Their feet were on such narrow wooden boards that the slightest left or right movement would cause them to fall. At first, Jorgen wondered why the two of them were there, but he quickly dismissed this question from his mind, because he saw Travis pull up a small figure from the platform - Mardias.

When the old man and Travis were circling in the hall of mirrors, Mardias was lying on this platform, plunged into a coma under the influence of drugs. There were billions of possibilities for him to fall before Travis and the old man could solve it, but that didn't matter to Travis. He never intended to hand over one hand and one thing - but when the assassination plan failed, he could use Mardias for a final stubborn resistance.

Travis held Mardias by the collar with only his right hand, hanging his head and shoulders outside the wooden board.

"Don't come over," Travis said, "or you know what will happen. You've seen the fate of that poor guy." The man who had fallen earlier was just a spectator he had grabbed at random.

"This is very foolish, Travis. You are blocking your own retreat." The old man said.

Travis' right hand moved out a little more. He himself did not know what to do next, just trying his best to prevent the old man from approaching him.

Mardias woke up. He quickly realized where he was and held Travis' arm tightly, almost pushing him. Travis swayed from the push, and his left foot was half off the board. He immediately lowered his body to lower his center of gravity and adjust his position.

"Don't move, kid! If you really want to die early, that's fine. Better not make a sound either, don't be in a hurry to greet your grandfather."

"Travis, this is not what you want. I saw how that man died, and so did you. Think again."

Now the only one driving Travis into a desperate situation was himself. His eyes moved slightly to the side, and he saw the mass of flesh in the iron cage twenty meters below. The lions that had eaten the flesh paced back and forth in the iron cage, leaving clear bloody footprints. He felt he was running out of options. When he came out of the hall of mirrors, he should have run out of the circus instead of coming to Mardias. At this moment, he realized how foolish he had been. He laughed, although what came out of his throat was just the sound of stones grinding.

The old man knew Travis would now do anything to hurt him. Bribes, prospects, none of that mattered anymore. To avoid any harm from a desperate person, his usual practice was to destroy the other party immediately, but now the future of the Seventh that he had painstakingly cultivated was in Travis's hands. Mardias did not beg for mercy, did not cry, and even suppressed his own fear, which was clear proof of his successful education. He could not let all his efforts be ruined at once.

Just then, the old man saw Jorgen. He had walked to the front end of the opposite platform, standing in front of the steel wire, took off his upper body clothes, and tore off two pieces of cloth to bandage his palms.

Jorgen knew the old man had seen him and was sure he would cooperate with his actions. He flexed his fingers to make sure they moved freely. In the previous fight with the undertakers, he suspected he had sprained his little finger.

When he saw Mardias wake up for a moment, he knew what he would do. This had nothing to do with the old man, nothing to do with Travis, and even nothing to do with himself. He lowered his body, his hands wrapped in strips of cloth gripped the steel wire, suspending himself in mid-air and moving toward the opposite platform ten meters away.

The old man looked back at Travis to keep him from noticing the change behind him. What he had to do now was stall for time with words.

"When I gave you your first assignment, I could see that you were a capable man, not meant to be a bandit. Just like now, Travis. There are more things suitable for you waiting for you to complete. Things that only you can do..."

He said a lot, but it was of little use. Travis kept laughing coldly to himself, his eyes unfocused, and his hands trembling as he held Mardias. A man driven mad by himself.

"I know what my end will be," Travis said, "but the real tragedy is you, Panthonia Shawl. There are things in this world that cannot be calculated, let me prove it to you."

When Travis let go of his right hand, Jorgen was still nearly a meter away from this side of the platform. This was only a matter of seconds, but from the moment he saw Travis's bloodstained fingers leave Mardias's collar until Mardias's heels hung in the air, everything in the world seemed to slow down. Something many people would die to protect was about to evaporate into rain droplets before his eyes.

He stretched out his right hand with all his might, feeling that if he reached out half an inch more, his shoulder would dislocate. First he touched part of the clothes, sliding off to the side of his palm; then a small section of thin arm. Finally, he found himself grabbing Mardias's wrist.

Mardias looked down and then up into Jorgen's eyes. Jorgen saw something in his eyes that he could never explain, like the flow of groundwater, the decay inside trees, a mystery he could not perceive by his own power.

"Six, six only." Mardias said. His voice was very weak, and Jorgen did not know if this was because he was experiencing tinnitus.

"What?" Jorgen said, then immediately understood what Mardias meant. He liked to count animals, like the little birds on the treetops on the way to the last picnic, which was also Dean's memorial day. Now he was counting too, counting the lions that shared human flesh. Six only.

Travis turned to expect to see Mardias fall, and to take that scene with him to hell, but what he saw was Jorgen hanging by one hand on the steel wire, the other grabbing Mardias.

"Jorgen, you..." Too many things rushed into Travis's brain at once, preventing him from organizing his speech, he could only repeat the words that first sprang from his brain.

"Is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it worth..."

The old man's dagger piercing Travis's throat ended his madness. After the blade was pulled out, Travis's body fell like a large bird shot by a hunter in the night. Jorgen's gaze followed Travis's sinking body until his limbs spread out and collided with the top of the iron cage. The lions began a new round of roaring.

Jorgen pulled Mardias up with all his might until the old man caught him and held him in his arms. This was the only time Jorgen saw the old man hug another person, though only for a brief two seconds. Then he climbed onto the platform himself. The cloth strip wrapped around his right hand was already soaked in blood.

The old man put Mardias down, stood up and looked at Jorgen, raising the dagger to his throat. Jorgen just looked at the other party, his extremely tired and injured right hand had left him unable to draw a dagger to resist. Was this the end of everything?

Mardias stood at the old man's feet, watching the scene before him. The old man rested his left hand on Mardias's shoulder.

"Well done." He said, then turned and led Mardias away.

At that moment, the accumulated fatigue of many days seemed to burst out suddenly. Jorgen did not want to lie down, just bent over, his hands resting on his knees.

He looked back. Bossia was standing on the opposite platform, watching him. After a while, she bit her lower lip and shook her head at him, but no one knew what this heartfelt gesture meant.