Runebound Reverse Tower of The Dead

Chapter 263: Shelter

Kael didn’t feel legendary.

He felt like a man whose muscles had been wrung out like cloth, and whose bones were still buzzing from impact. Legends didn’t shiver when they stopped running. Legends didn’t need to swallow bile and pretend they weren’t about to collapse.

The old man pulled one of the waterskins and handed it to Kael.

Kael took it with a shaking hand and didn’t even bother with caution.

He doused it immediately, without hesitation.

Water hit his tongue and it was the best thing he’d tasted in days. Cool, clean enough, and gone too fast. He swallowed like his throat was a drain and his stomach was a cracked basin. He didn’t savor. He couldn’t. His body was in a screaming deficit, and the only answer was more.

He took two more breaths, "More." Kael said.

It came out sharper this time, like the word was a weapon he was using to keep himself from blacking out.

"That’s... that’s all you get, that’s your ration, I’m not giving you another one."

The old man’s voice was tight. The kind of tight that meant fear was close, and greed was closer. He clutched the remaining skins like they were organs.

"Give him mine," Christy said.

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t barter. She didn’t look for approval. She just spoke like she’d already decided what mattered more: Kael staying upright, or her having a sip.

He looked at her doubtfully at first, then held forward her own waterskin.

The old man’s hand hovered like he wanted to snatch the words back out of the air. He didn’t. Not with Christy watching him, not with the masked man quiet beside them, not with Kael’s breathing turning uglier by the second.

Kael didn’t hesitate to drink that one too. His body began steaming as it cooled itself down with all the water he drank, but it was clearly not enough; his skin was reddening. His skin felt like it was radiating heat through the pores, like he’d been cooked from the inside. Sweat turned to a slick film that trapped heat instead of releasing it. Even with the water, his mouth still tasted like sand. Even with the water, his heartbeat still hammered like it was trying to escape his ribs.

"Give him mine," the man with his face covered said.

The face-covered man spoke in no tone. No drama. Just a decision, delivered flat. He knew who was the person who saved them, and he knew how valuable he is to this group.

"Your funerals," the old man said as he handed him the third. Kael drank from it.

But had to force himself to stop at half, not because he wanted to, but because he could feel the edge of stupidity, if he drank it all, he’d be stealing survival from someone who’d just handed it to him. The masked man took it without complaint, and for a second, Kael wondered how long it had been since someone did something without trying to profit.

Instead of keeping it on him, the man grabbed the waterskin and squeezed it onto Kael’s face. The content splashed onto his face, and woke him up completely, cool, cold, almost water washed over him and reduced his rising temperature by an incredible degree.

The shock made Kael inhale sharply. Cold water ran down under his jaw, soaked his collar, clung to his skin like mercy. It cleared his head in a way drinking couldn’t. The body didn’t just need water, it needed temperature control, needed the heat to stop climbing into delirium.

"Thanks," Kael said.

It was quiet. It was real. He wiped his face with the back of his wrist and blinked sand grit out of his eyes.

"Tsk, wasting water like that would get you guys killed." The skinny kid said.

His voice cracked from nerves and indignation, like he’d been waiting for a chance to be right about something. The kid’s eyes kept flicking to the horizon, to the sandstorm, to Kael’s belt, to the waterskins, counting, always counting.

"He said he smelled water near the beacon," Christy said, "So giving him water for what he did for us is the least we could do."

Her tone wasn’t soft. It wasn’t pleading. It was edged. Like she was daring anyone to argue with her while Kael was still the reason they weren’t buried.

"And you trust that?" the Skinny Kid added.

He didn’t even try to hide the accusation. His gaze cut at Kael like a knife looking for a crack.

She looked at the skinny kid in a confused, almost insulting way, "Who the fuck would I trust if not the guy who’s been saving our asses for the past couple of days? You?"

The kid’s mouth opened. Closed. He looked away like he’d been slapped without being touched.

"Let’s not fight," Kael said as he moved forward. "We’re close to the beacon, and the sandstorm is still coming our way; we’ll use the beacon to hide from it," Kael said.

He forced his legs to move before they stiffened. If he stopped too long, his muscles would cool down and lock, and then the storm would finish what exhaustion started. He didn’t need this group tearing itself apart now, not when the desert was already trying to do it for them.

"Sorry to tell you, but that beacon won’t help much..." the man with a cowl said. "It’ll block on the side of the sand, but we’ll still get drowned in it."

Kael didn’t stop walking. He didn’t even turn fully. He just kept his eyes ahead, reading distance, reading wind, reading the way the sand at their feet had started to move more insistently, as if it was being pulled.

"I have my ways, don’t worry about it," Kael said as he looked forward. The beacon was barely a few minutes’ walk, but the sandstorm should get here in less than a quarter of an hour.

The beacon was a black tooth in the desert now, close enough to see the texture of its stone. The storm behind them was a living curtain swallowing the horizon. A quarter hour was generous. The desert didn’t care about generosity.

"We don’t have much time," Kael said as he tried to take a step forward, only for his leg muscles to groan.

The groan wasn’t metaphorical. It was a real, sick sensation, like the tendons had been wound too tight and were grinding against bone. His knees wobbled. Pain flared up in his calves and into his thighs like a warning strike.

"Shit," Kael said as he looked at his legs.

The skin around his thighs felt tight, swollen, and hot. He could feel the aftershock of Second Wind fading and leaving the bill behind. His muscles had been forced to perform past their limit, and now they were trying to punish him for it.

But that wasn’t the only part, if it was just that he’d just grit through it and move.

His legs were swelling, and he forgot about an important fact when he dropped everyone. He no longer has weights.

Without the rings, his body felt wrong, too light, too eager, like an engine revving without a load. It made every movement dangerous, because the strength he’d trained into himself didn’t have the same brakes anymore. The rings weren’t just a weight. They were restraints. Structure. A leash.

It feels liberating, but at the same time, too liberating. If he moved using his current muscle power, he would snap his bones like a twig.

The thought wasn’t dramatic. It was practical. He’d felt that line before. When his master warned him to never try and use his strength before he reached the third level in Demon Fist.

The moment where movement becomes self-harm.

The training back on the first floor with the First King had taught him that lesson with bruises and ruptured muscle fibers and his master’s boot in his ribs for being "stupid."

He slowly pulled out the rings and began putting them on.

Metal kissed skin. The cuffs were cold at first, then immediately heavy, settling into place like gravity returning. His wrists and ankles welcomed the familiar burden even as it made him want to curse. It hurt. It also kept him intact.

"That’s some sadistic shit you’re doing to yourself. Why are you wearing weighted rings? And that’s black iron, that’s probably like twenty pounds each."

The skinny kid sounded half disgusted, half impressed, like he couldn’t decide whether Kael was insane or just operating on a level where sanity was irrelevant.

"Something like that," Kael said as he locked the rings over his ankles and beneath his gauntlets. Little that the skinny kid knew, each of these was at least fifty kilos, a hundred pounds at least. "Alright," Kael said as he took a steady step forward, "let’s hurry."

His step landed heavier, slower, controlled. The pain in his legs didn’t vanish, but it stopped threatening to tear him apart.

The beacon loomed closer. The sandstorm hissed louder. And for the moment, the group moved as one, not because they trusted each other, but because the desert didn’t care about their drama, and dying was still the most democratic outcome of all.