The crack of the firearm’s hammer dominated the small room. A micro-explosion erupted inside the weapon and forced the chambered bullet free, the revolver barrel rotating in sequence with the sound whilst the bullet was unleashed from within. His aching arm couldn’t steady the recoil of the shot, his hand jerking upward before the bullet had even made it to the tip of the gun. A flash broke dramatically from the edge of the weapon’s long barrel, illuminating the entire room for a dazzling but short-lived moment. The arched threshold to the room splintered, expelling a tiny cloud of rock slivers and dust. Vievel blinked, the flash briefly brokering a disagreement between his eyes over what had happened. As the room came back into focus he noticed a charred mark upon the red rusty stone of the chamber threshold, a black spot where the bullet had struck the wall in lieu of its actual target.

Vievel’s hand resounded with a pain that echoed about his bones, despite himself Vievel dropped the revolver. He felt the weapon strike his knee and then heard it clatter against the floor, bouncing free of him. Still blinking, and rubbing his eyes with his other hand, Vievel stretched and searched frantically for the gun, his right hand reaching haphazardly about the nearby floor.

“Help!” Halycen yelled as she drove her elbow into the Dwurkn’s face. Distracted by the gunfire the creature had already released her throat, the addition of Halycen’s blow was enough to force it off of her chest entirely. Halycen rolled with the creature, trying to grab its arms before it could start grappling with her again. “Vievel grab it!” The beast snarled and thrashed as Halycen managed to get a grip on it

Vievel launched himself forward, staggering up as he stumbled toward the pair; in the gloom he could only make out their roughest outlines but the moment Vievel was close enough he lunged forward, aiming to collide with the Dwurkn’s thick and stocky shape; Vievel felt a thick hair and even thicker muscle as he collided with the back of its knees. He fell atop the creature’s legs and tried to stop their flailing by pressing his body weight against them, but beneath him the legs writhed and tried to find their way free. He pressed harder still but the Dwurkn’s legs seemed to bend freely both ways, arching in directions he didn’t expect and giving it a wider range of movement than it should’ve had.

Halycen shrieked. Her hands flew backward as her voice carried across the small chamber; a steady trail of blood was flowing from her palm where a series of sharp red punctures ghoulishly decorated her skin. Below his chest Vievel caught a blurred glimpse of a sudden and vigorous movement, and then the air rushed from his lungs. Vievel tumbled to his side, an acute pain bursting from his stomach as he felt the delayed effects of the blow. The Dwurkn rolled away from the two Aælfir, knocking Halycen over and lurching toward the chamber threshold as it stood. Vievel glanced at the creature’s feet. A revolver, he couldn’t tell whether it was his or Halycen’s, lay beside the beast’s heel.

The Dwurkn caught Vievel’s eye and followed it, shooting a quick look down at his bare feet, at the weapon.

It wasn’t user-locked. Vievel’s thoughts raced with the sudden realisation. Halycen had stolen both of the guns from the armoury and jailbroken them so the user restrictions were overridden. If the creature took the revolver, it would work. Vievel’s tongue grazed the edges of his teeth. He wondered whether Dwurka weapons were user-locked, whether it knew it could grab the weapon or whether it would expect the gun to be useless. Vievel glanced around the room for the other revolver and found it by the chamber’s threshold, closer to the Dwurkn than either Halycen or himself and too far to reach.

“Illandr,” Halycen whispered beside him. She’d seen the same and fallen to their knees as they both had there was no chance of moving in time. Even startled the creature would surely grab the weapon and bring it to bear on them before they could reach it. As Vievel looked from Halycen to the Dwurkn he saw the distance between them had stretched, and it continued to expand as he watched, a distance that seemed insurmountable.

“Carkn-Qurza,” the Dwurkn said, its voice low and threatening. A smile crept across its face as it looked over the two fallen Aælfir. The smile wasn’t wicked or cruel, as Vievel first imagined it to be, but it was unsettling all the same as the creature’s grin proclaimed loudly you are beaten. The beast glanced down at the revolver once more and Vievel felt a hardness in his throat rise up, the thin air left on the ship struggling to find its way down his throat. He was close enough to the stone basin behind him that a wild part of his mind screamed for him to get up, to run, to try and hide behind it; the muscles in his legs contracted firmly, twitching at the prospect. Vievel’s thoughts continued to rail at him, to beg and plead that he take the opportunity to hide, but the twitch in his legs was stayed by his cousin. Halycen couldn’t hide. To his left she was sitting beside the chamber wall, leaning on it for support. Halycen was closer to the Dwurkn than he was, but still too far to reach the beast before it could grab the revolver. His cousin had no such cover. The Dwurkn coiled itself, hunching down and bending toward the revolver. Vievel’s twitching leg fell still, paralysed along with the rest of him. He was caught.

The Dwurkn took its eyes from the revolver as it reached out to grab it, its stubby fingers outstretched, and looked to Vievel, studying him. Stopped in contemplation a peculiar look flitted across the creature’s face, a pain and confusion as if it was wrestling with two conflicting compulsions. It grunted softly and whilst its fingers curled around the revolver’s grip, the beast averted its eyes. It took a short sudden step backward, bringing its haunch up against the stone and pressing its second hand to the sharp and uneven rock face that comprised the chamber wall. The revolver hung limply from its grip. The Dwurkn glanced toward Halycen, and then Vievel again, quickly flitting from one to the other.

You should have acted. Vievel condemned himself, a dread sinking into his chest as he imagined what was to come. The twitch in his legs flared again, building into an unbearable anxiety that begged him to move before his nerve withered away. A noise from deep within the ship resounded through the ragged walls and beneath the stone floors. He heard a heavy step on the stone floor, and then another. Vievel closed his eyes, scrunching his face together as he waited for the inevitable. The creature’s ragged breaths echoed out over the room, drawing quieter as the steps continued; the breaths and the steps began to ebb, falling quieter until they diminished entirely. Vievel could suddenly hear nothing. He opened his eyes gingerly, expecting to come face-to-face with the revolver-wielding monster; instead, his gaze came to bear on the rusted red rock-face of the small chamber. The Dwurkn was gone.