by Sam Ryder
“There!” I said, spotting what appeared to be a landing at the end of a long curving mountain path. Not having to climb the path this time around was a boon because we could save our energy for whatever was to come next.
“Are you sure?” Vrill asked.
I squinted, taking in the surrounding area because so much of the mountain range looked similar. But no, I wasn’t mistaken. “This is the place,” I said. “I’m one hundred percent certain.”
Vrill whispered something under her breath that I couldn’t make out. Mrizandr apparently could hear her words just fine, however, because his ears pricked up and then he swooped for the ground at breakneck speed. Beat’s fingers dug into my chest now and I swear I heard something pop under the pressure. “Holyyyyy shitttttt, Ryderrrrr!” she said, her teeth chattering under the onslaught of wind and speed.
I gritted my teeth and managed to suck in a breath through my compressed lungs.
And then it was over. Mrizandr landed on the flat area at the end of the path with amazing smoothness. It felt weird to be stationary again, like the rest of the world was still spinning around us. Vrill hopping down with Lace and her cat-like quickness only a split-second behind her. Eve was next, while I waited for Beat’s grip to slacken. “You good?” I asked.
“Never better. Though I think I’d rather ride a galut home.”
“I’ll see if I can get you an Uber for the return trip.”
“That would be splendid!” And that was Beat. Though the flight had been awful for her, she took it on the chin and rebounded better than Dennis Rodman. She even put on a reasonably good English accent when she said ‘splendid’.
“Need help down?”
“I’m not a child, Ryder.”
“Ladies first then.”
She had other plans, tipping me to the side awkwardly. As a human I would’ve fallen badly. Maybe even broken my neck in the process. But as a Demigod? I twisted in midair, tucking my knees to my chin to rotate faster, which allowed me to get my feet into position for a crouched landing without so much as a wobble. Man, it was good being a Level 5.
“I’m no lady,” Beat said. She threw her leg over the dragon’s scaly side and then slid down, using friction to slow her drop. She landed with a decidedly unladylike thump, which seemed to corroborate what she’d just asserted. “Say it again and I’ll pound you.”
“You know, ‘pound’ could have multiple meanings.”
“So can ‘fuck you,’” Beat said.
“True!” It was a good thing Beat and I understood each other on such a cellular level. Otherwise we might kill each other.
“If you two are finished with your unwitty banter,” Lace said, “we have a Seeker mission to complete.”
“On it, boss,” I said.
“Don’t encourage her,” Beat hissed. While we prepared for this mission, Lace had repeatedly reminded us that she was in charge of this mission, because it was ‘Seeker business.’ She had a point, so I went along with it. Better not to anger the hungry-looking cat.
Beat was less onboard with Lace’s authority in general.
Vrill patted Mrizandr’s side and scratched him under the chin, whispering something into his ear. He nuzzled against her palm and then sprang skyward, powerful wings blasting us with air as they beat.
“What did you say to him?” Beat asked.
“Secret dragon things,” Vrill said with a perfectly straight face. She was making me damn proud.
“Funny,” Beat said. “I think I preferred the innocent, naïve Vrill,” she muttered to me.
“I like this version,” I said, grinning.
We followed our fearless feline leader across the natural platform to the cave mouth, which was blanketed in shadow. “Damn!” Beat said.
“What?”
“I forgot my flashlight.”
“That’s why we brought these.” I rummaged through my sack and handed out demon torches. Beat was the only one who really needed one, though a little extra light wouldn’t hurt any of us.
Beat used a flint to light hers and then lit the highly flammable blood smeared on the other torches. Flickering flames pierced the shroud, illuminating a tunnel that almost immediately plunged downward into the mountain.
“Yep,” I said. “This be it.”
Lace wasted no time marching inside. “Single file,” she said. “Me, Beat, Vrill, Eve, and Ryder. Ryder, watch our back, will you?”
“Sure, no probs,” I said, when really I was thinking about all the movies and TV shows where the last person in the line is the first one taken out.
We entered the darkness, chasing it away with our demon’s-blood-fueled torches. The passage was littered with footprints, some small and some substantially larger. All seemed to have been made by creatures with nasty claws that left slashes in the ground. Even the walls were slashed and marred, as if the creatures used them to sharpen their claws and fangs.
I knew exactly which creatures made the marks, because I’d faced them in battle in a larger cavern that had almost felt like it was their temple, a sacred place where they performed ritual sacrifices of any dumb lugs who happened to stumble into it.
Of course, then I’d been saved by a monster that resembled the smaller, albino-looking creatures but which was ten times larger. Even in my supersized body, the monster I’d been faced with then dwarfed me.
I wasn’t looking forward to facing the dude again, but at least I had company this time.
As we marched downhill, Lace occasionally called for roll. We each confirmed we were still in the line, and then I would confirm that the necklace was still pulling in a forward direction. In fact, ever since we’d entered the tunnel, the artifact at the end of the chain had been pulling harder and harder, betraying gravity and hovering in midair, tugging at my neck.
This was all familiar territory. The last time I was here, however, I’d thought it was leading me toward Vrill. That’s when it had gone haywire.
For now, the direction of the pull was steady. The further we progressed, the more and more tunnels appeared on either side, a veritable maze of interconnecting passageways that, if we weren’t careful, could get us impossibly lost. Thankfully, my necklace was cool with us just walking straight.
Until it wasn’t.
“Um, fearless leader?” I said.
“Don’t call me that,” Lace snapped. Beat sniggered. “What is it?”
“The necklace is pointing in a different direction now.”
We stopped, and the four women shone their lights at me. Sure enough, the necklace was no longer pointed forward. Instead, the artifact was trying to rip itself off its chain as it pulled to the right. Where there was no tunnel. Just a wall.
“I think you broke the artifact,” Beat suggested helpfully.
“Or,” I said, waggling my eyebrows. “It’s not a real wall!” I took three steps and barged my shoulder into the stone. The stone barged back, or at least it felt like it did, a shockwave rolling through me. “Owie,” I said.
“It was worth a try,” Beat said. “You should try again, just to be sure.”
Lace was sniffing around the wall, tapping it with her Wolverine-like claws. “I sense…movement. There’s something fresh too. Running water.”
“Maybe one of the tunnels we passed angles behind this wall,” I said.
“It’s possible,” Lace said, “but the tone is endless echoes.”
“You can get all that just from tapping on the wall?” Beat said.
Lace smiled her most vicious feline smile. “I can tell the approximate dimensions of the space too.”
“Noice.”
Eve said, “We should backtrack and try out a tunnel. Map out our path so we can find our way back.”
While we all mulled over the suggestion, I grabbed the locket and stuck it in my shirt. As soon as I released it, the artifact wiggled and maneuvered itself until it popped back out, springing right back in the direction of the wall until its chain stopped it.
“Okay,” Lac
e said. “We go back. Who wants to be scribe?”
Vrill said, “I’ll do it.” She held up a chalkstone and a snatch of leather. As we walked, she drew a straight line to represent the main tunnel we’d followed thus far. Then she added a star to represent the spot where the locket had urged us to walk through the wall.
Only fifty feet or so later we reached the last tunnel we’d passed. It was sort of heading in the right direction, so we took it. Vrill added a tunnel to her map, extending it bit by bit as we walked. I kept my eyes on the locket, which was more or less pointing straight now. And then—
It sprang to the left. “Stop,” I said.
Everyone halted and looked at my necklace. This time it was pointing directly to the left. Once again, into the wall. Lace did her tapping and smelling and listening thing and then announced, “The same as before. There’s something in there. Water, I think.”
“Then there must be a tunnel,” Eve said. “Let’s keep going until we find it.”
No one had any better suggestions, so that’s what we did. Another tunnel opened up to the left so we took it, Vrill continuing to draw our path so we could mirror it on the way back if necessary. The locket veered back into a forward position. Fifty feet later it snapped to the left again. “What the hell?” I muttered.
We were all dumbfounded. “Nothing to do but keep going,” Eve said.
So we did. Another left turn. Another fifty or so feet. Another incident where my locket snapped to the left. Except this time, Beat said, “This was where we started.”
Vrill raised her makeshift map to show us. Sure enough, her lines had connected. We hadn’t walked in a circle. Nope, we walked in a square, ending up right where we’d begun.
“Maybe we missed a tunnel,” I suggested.
“Impossible,” Lace said. “I would’ve noticed it.”
I knew she was right. Her keen cat eyes could spot a pimple on a gargat’s ass from a hundred yards. “Don’t say ‘I told you so,’” I said.
Lace said, “I told you so.”
Of course she did. “It’s boxed in,” Vrill said. Whatever is in there is only accessible via the water source.”
“I don’t know about you,” Beat said, “but I haven’t seen any water.”
At this point, I was growing tired of trying to think our way through this. Yes, maybe I was living up to all the Earthly male stereotypes, but I was also seven feet tall and 350 pounds of pure muscle. Eve was the first one to notice I’d stopped participating in the conversation, my hammer drawn and cocked back. “Sam?” she said, but I was already shoving off the balls of my feet, torqueing my body, preparing to spring forth like a coiled spring ready to unleash its pent-up energy.
I swung my hammer at the stone wall like I was trying to chop down a tree. I wasn’t so arrogant to think I could bash my way through with a single blow; rather, my plan was to chop-chop-chop, breaking away pieces of the wall bit by bit. Hell, I’d make my own tunnel if necessary. I was assisted by the goddess-charged power of my hammer, which blasted its light upon impact, radiating out and illuminating every crack and crevice in the surface.
Rock shrapnel spewed out, nipping at my skin and dinking off my armor.
And the wall caved in. Ahead of me, several larger chunks of stone broke away and rolled down a small incline before splashing into a dark pond I could only make out because my hammer’s light shimmered over the glassy surface.
The water source wasn’t the only thing my hammer light captured.
It was like something out of a horror movie, where an unsuspecting driver spots something directly in their path on the road, slamming on the breaks and skidding to a stop. Their headlights blind the thing, and they are temporarily unable to make out what exactly it is. But then everything comes into focus and you know.
You know.
The thing is a monster.
And, in this case, a monster I’d faced once before, while on a quest to find Eve.
Except this fella wasn’t blinded by the light, because it was already blind. Its milk-white, too-large eyes held a pinkish sheen around the edges, while its massive albino body practically glowed. Its nose slits were long and wide and constantly twitching, as if relying entirely on smell to replace its lack of sight. It sucked in a particularly large breath and then turned, locking in on my position as I stood in the hole in the shattered wall.
It growled, its needle-like teeth as long as the kind of skewers used for shish kabobs. If I had any body hair, the portion on the back of my neck would’ve been standing straight up.
That’s when I felt the pull of my necklace, which was digging into the back of my neck.
The creature’s rubbery skin changed color on its chest, a reddish glow emanating from somewhere deep within its body cavity.
W. T. F.
I’d always assumed this creature was guarding Minertha’s heart. Well, technically it was. But what I hadn’t previously realized was that Minertha’s heart was buried inside this mofo.
Before I could fully get my head around the implications of this new information, the monster pushed off its haunches and charged, webbed hands and feet slapping on the wet stone surrounding the underground pond.
“Get back!” I shouted to the women, who I felt crowding in behind me to get a better look. “Down the tunnel! Spread out!”
The women, all of whom who’d lived on Tor as long or longer than me, didn’t ask questions, accustomed to acting or reacting instantly. Beat and Vrill went one way, Eve and Lace the other. I stood right in the dead center, gripping my hammer like my hands were opposite sides of a vice. In my head I counted down, estimating the speed with which the freak would arrive. Three, two—
It was even faster than I anticipated, my only warning a flash of white skin on my two count, just as it mounted the rise and barreled into the hole I’d created, which was too small for its body by half.
Not that this asshole cared. It devastated the wall like it was made of paper, more rock shrapnel spewing forth and slamming into my armor, which dented in several spots. It swiped a meaty, webbed paw at me and I ducked, swinging my hammer at its midsection. Like the last time I faced this guy, it moved with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible given its size. Hell, if it didn’t walk on all fours and slightly hunched over, its head would’ve scraped against the tunnel’s ceiling, which was at least ten feet high.
My hammer whizzed past harmless, my momentum turning me halfway and leaving me exposed to a counterattack. This dude didn’t waste its own opportunity, landing a powerful blow to my ribs, further denting my armor and compressing my torso. I gasped, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of my lungs.
I barely managed to duck as it hooked another blow at me, this one an attempt to remove my head from my neck. It sprang forward, pressing its advantage, driving its fist down at me like it too wielded a hammer. I brought my own hammer up to block, and the thing’s webbed hand collided with the metal, more light bursting forth.
It released an ear-shattering bellow and took a step back, pawing at its skin on its hands and arms, which was sizzling and smoking.
The respite was brief, because now I’d really pissed it off. It leapt on top of me, grabbing my arms at the wrists and pinning them down. Drool dripped from its maw as it opened, dagger-teeth so close I could see the striations etched into their enamel from years, or perhaps decades, of crunching on the bones of its victims.
I still had some fight in me. I curled my knees to my chest, working my feet into the space between us. Then I kicked outward, like I was at the gym doing a leg press. At first, the ton of weight didn’t move, and I feared I wasn’t strong enough. But then the Demigod inside me slowly gained traction, shoving the massive weight up, up, up…
Fuck!
I stopped shoving it with my feet because suddenly my arms were stretched to the limit because the thing hadn’t released its grip. In order to fully shove it off of me, I would have to be willing to let it rip my arms from my shoulder s
ockets.
Uh, no thanks.
Still, I held my position so at least it couldn’t chomp on my face. Also, I knew my companions hadn’t gone far. Any second they would—
With a barbaric scream, Vrill landed on its back, roping her dagger-wielding arm around her throat, sawing at its rubbery flesh, which opened up, splattering me with green goo that burned my skin, popping and crackling. Beat appeared too, stabbing her spear into the beast’s side, poking and prodding. Eve and Lace weren’t far behind. From point-blank range, Eve shot an arrow into the creature’s chest, just below where Vrill was sawing away. Luckily, the arrow didn’t make it very far in, or it might’ve risked the safety of Minertha’s heart. Lace fell upon the monster with her Wolverine claws, slashing at its opposite side.
Even from my dangerous vantage point, watching the four women at work supporting me was fucking awesome.
The creature was no fool. Plus, given the location of Minertha’s heart within its chest, this douche bag was working for the Morgoss, which meant they exercised a degree of control over its actions. It knew it couldn’t win this fight.
So it didn’t try.
Suddenly, it released its grip on my wrists, swinging both elbows back rapidly. One hit Vrill flush in the jaw, rocking her back and off its back. The other smashed into Beat, dislodging her from its side. It stood up, landing a blow with its foot to Lace’s side, though her claws managed to scrape along its leg, creating green slashes where more green goo—which was probably its blood—seeped through.
With quickness as catlike as Lace, it sprang back through the hole and into the walled-in room with the pond. Eve managed to hit it from behind with another arrow, but this one only glanced off its skin. I sprang to my feet just as we heard a heavy splash.
The five of us took no time to regroup, giving chase like a well-coordinated army unit. Eve was slightly closer to the hole and, thus, was first through with me right behind. The other three followed shortly after and we all stopped at the top of the rise, waving demon torches as we peered down into the inky waters. The water sloshed against the embankment, which was the only evidence of the monster’s passing.
