Chương 21: Yet Another Challenger

Hollow's blades sang through the darkness of the dungeon at a rhythm that matched her heartbeat. Cut, cut. Stab. Cut, cut. Stab. How long had she spent training with these two blades? How little had she gotten to actually use them, no thanks to her father? In the dungeon, she was free. No more waiting around for the inevitable. Or waiting for nonexistent gods. She had only one task now: ascend. Climb. Grow stronger! Whatever prize the top of this tower contained, she did not want or care about it.

Hollow would crawl to the top, and throw the reward off the highest peak. Journey before destination. Her father's words echoed through her head. She'd always found the saying corny, like something out of an overly-long fantasy novel, but they resonated with her now more than ever. The dungeon changed as she climbed. A low, resonant hum echoed through the dusty halls, barely audible. Pipes jutted down from the ceiling, an occasional burst of hot steam blasting through their dust-covered vents.

Hollow stepped into the next room, and stone ground on stone. Marble-carved sarcophagi had replaced the wooden coffins from the earlier floors. A heavy lid fell from one at the other end of the room, a new enemy appearing. While still a zombie, it was dressed from head to toe in tarnished steel armor. Its eyes burned with the blue flame of life as it rose from its ancient tomb. From its scabbard, it drew an ornate sword, curved like a cutlass, and with a hilt lined with rubies and emeralds.

Hollow placed her torch on a sconce and growled. The zombie may look tougher, but it would die just as easily as the rest. The armored zombie rushed forward, blade a whirlwind. Its sword may have been ancient, but it was just as sharp as one fresh off the forge. Hollow met it without flinching. With both her daggers, she knocked the blade away in a burst. The zombie stumbled back, and she used its brief disorientation to slide between its legs and drive both weapons into the unarmored spots behind its knees.

The zombie spun to attack, but collapsed instead. It dropped its sword, and Hollow leaped upon its back and drove a dagger into the soft spot of its neck, pinning it to the ground. The body went limp. Hollow growled.

"Bring me a real challenge, stupid dungeon!" A light flickered ahead. Through the next doorway, a shadow appeared. It laughed, and spoke in a soft, scratchy voice.

"Is my dungeon not challenging enough for you?"

"Who are you?" she hissed. The man's voice was familiar, but unrecognizably muffled.

"And who are you?" the man said.

"Someone who would invade my dungeon? Kill my rats? My zombies?"

"It does not matter who I am." She rose, sheathing one dagger and pulling her torch off the wall. She thrust it forward, trying to get a better look at the strange human. He chuckled and moved down the hallway, disappearing behind another stone passageway.

"Are you too cowardly to fight me?" The man squawked a laugh.

"A goblin such as yourself could not even dream of putting a scratch on my skin." Hollow bound forward, giving chase.

"Then fight me, coward!" She ran into the next room, where the man stood at the foot of the stairs to the next floor. He wore a strange, beaked mask and a set of dark robes. The yellow lenses of the mask flickered in the light, the eyes beneath impossible to make out.

"You've done well to make it so far on your own. But you are not the one I want. I want my sword back. I want my dungeon back. You are not an obstacle to me. You are a pest."

"Fuck you!" she cried, and burst toward him. He waved his hand at her, and a burst of blue energy blasted her back. She crashed into the wall, her head screaming.

"See? You cannot even touch me. Now, please. Die." He climbed the stairs, his steps fading into a distant echo. Hollow screamed, picking herself off the floor.

"Coward!"

"Have fun with my pet," his distant voice said. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. A bell rang behind her. Something scraped against the walls. A long wooden staff thrust through the doorway, a knot of chimes hanging from its end. Each rattled and rang as the creature holding it crawled through the too-small threshold. Hollow raised her torch, stepping back. Two black, beady eyes stared at her. A rat. A giant rat. A massive rat.

No—something far more twisted. The elongated rat head attached to the shoulders of a congealing mass, held up by several sets of legs and arms. Human arms. Goblin legs. Tiny rat feet. Two giant skeletal arms gripped the staff, and the bells rang again as it stood to its proper height, easily ten feet tall, head brushing against the ceiling. Nothing about this creature was right. The anatomy made no sense. It was a thing of nightmares. Tap. Tap. Tap. The rat-abomination drove its staff into the ground and squealed.

Hollow tossed her torch to the ground, drawing back her second dagger. Her grip tightened. It would die like all the rest. She roared back and met its staff with her blades. The impact shook her, but she stood her ground, teeth bared. Perhaps she should not have climbed so far on her own. Fresh, she might have been able to take this thing down without a second thought, but as she was… Her muscles screamed; her bones ached. But she refused to go down so easily.

The staff plummeted down at her, and she stepped out of the way, letting it crack into the stone floor. She grinned and leaped upon the staff, running up its length to swipe at the thing's head. She drove a dagger into its neck, but stopped when it hit something hard. Black ichor drained from the wound as she tugged out the blade and hopped back down to the floor. One of its skeletal arms grabbed the wound, and the rat head squealed again.

The staff rang as it swept forward, cutting through the air with a massive WOOSH! Hollow stepped out of the way of the first swing, but the backswing came before she had a chance to recover. CRACK! Hollow was thrown against the back wall as the length of wood split against her side. Splinters pierced her skin. Had just the staff broken, or had she? She twisted, numbness running up her side. I can't give in. Can't give up. The rat-monster screamed, sending bloody spittle at her.

It tossed the broken staff to the side, and from its blobby form, two more skeletal arms burst outward. It charged forward, and brought all four of its arms down, cratering the ground and sending chunks of stone blasting against them both. What the hell is this thing? Her head spun as she ducked past another blow, narrowly squeezing out of the way of a wild flail. The creature was unpredictable, but was slow to move its center of mass. She sprinted behind it, getting a shot at its undefended backside.

"Got you now." Pushing past the pain, she drove her blades into its spine. THUD! Each dagger was stopped by something—the same impenetrable force that stopped her from digging into its neck. She tried to pull them out, to strike again, but the fleshy mass held onto the blades. Instead of pulling the daggers out, they were sucked in with a fleshy pop. She staggered backward, inching toward the doorway to escape. A rotting rat head sprouted from where she had stabbed, and snapped at her.

The creature spun, whipping her away with each of its arms, and she thudded into a wall yet again. Her vision blackened. She knew this might happen. That she might overextend herself. But… to go down like this. Without even a fair fight. What the hell was this abomination? How would anyone fight it?

"Hollow!" a voice cried. The voice was familiar. Had the man in the mask come back to gloat?

"Hollow? Can you hear me?" No, not the man in the mask. Similar, but not quite. The voice quavered and cracked with fear. Concern. Travis. The Carrion King. The idiot. They would both die here. The abomination turned its first head to the doorway, a growl forming in its bulbous gut. Footsteps clattered down the outside hallway, the same clumsy steps Hollow expected—bare flesh slapping on cold stone. If they survived this, they would need to get him a new pair of shoes.

Red light poured through the room, announcing the Carrion King's arrival. Travis's blade illuminated every nook and cranny of the abomination, rendering its scarred flesh in far too much detail. Hollow preferred seeing it through the light of her dying torch. At least her vision blurred now, unconsciousness calling her name. His deep-red eyes met her own.

"Oh! Hollow! Dammit! How did you make it all the way to the ninth floor by yourself?"

"Guhhh," she managed, her head spinning.

"Holy shit this thing is ugly," Travis said. He held his sword with both hands in a defensive pose. He wore the same stupid pants, the same torn shirt, the same stupid look on his face. Compared to the abomination, he was utterly unintimidating. But the Carrion Blade seemed to beg for a fight, each curved angle, every sharpened point, ready to bite into something—anything. If only someone worthy of it could wield it. What could she do with the same blade?

The rat-abomination spat its bloody spittle at him and bounded forward, all four arms attacking at once. Travis set one foot back and raised the sword to deflect the first blow. And then the second. And then the third and the fourth. Each bony claw ricocheted off his sword with a clang. Satisfied, the man switched to the offensive. Travis's blade became a blur. Or maybe that was Hollow's fading vision. The blade no longer looked solid in his hands, resolving into only a red glow as he drove the creature back.

Hollow blinked several times to clear her vision, but the sight in front of her should have been impossible. The man was actually doing it. The blade cracked down on the creature, severing an arm. Then he spun, cutting the rat head from its shoulders. Blood and rot sprayed from the gaping wound, showering the room in viscera. Travis smiled.

"Wow, that thing was—" RIIIIIIP! From the hole in the abomination's neck, three more rat heads burst forward, each covered in black goo.

"What the fuck," was the last thing she heard him say. Everything went black.