Chương 7

Fritz led the way slowly through the ancient gnarled trees and the shadows they cast, f ish blade in hand and his crew following stealthily behind. Occasionally he would hear a snuffling, or a single bark or whine but nothing disturbed them under the quiet, creaking branches. Still, they moved on through the gloom. They had been walking for some time before they were forced into fighting, having stumbled upon two blight hounds, growling and sniffing at the air, drawing ever closer to his crew.

Fritz signalled the beasts' location and they enacted their previously agreed-upon battle plan. Those of t he crew that had armed themselves with the smaller fish rib spears threw them at the pair of blight hounds, the ribs glinted in the moonlight and came down in a hail of s ilver spikes. T hree missed their mark and one struck the leftmost blight hound with its flat, bouncing off harmlessly.

Only two spears hit their mark, both in the same blight hound on the right, pinning its front left paw to the ground and skewering its shoulder. It whined in pain as it was pierced. Bert advanced, running towards the uninjured blight hound, lifting his wrapped arm protectively over his torso and readying his fin short sword. Fritz ran at his side ready to strike the creature if it lunged at Bert.

Greg made towards the spear-punctured beast, whirling his skull-flail in an arc over his head, the skull producing a strange groan as the air was caught up in its spin. The gloom around the blight hounds rippled and they disappeared into the shadows. It didn't help the punctured blight hound overmuch as it only stayed hidden for a moment as its magic failed. The spear that pierced its front paw kept its leg stuck in place.

Greg's skull-flail soared down on the wounded blight hound, crashed down on its back and shattered its spine with a sickening crunch. Its back legs fell limp, and the creature tried to pull its bulk forward when Toby stepped to its wounded side and stabbed his fin dagger into the creature's furred throat. He pulled the dagger loose and a surge of dark blood poured from the cut, polluting the soil.

The creature stood, wobbling from side to side for a second or two, then it fell to the ground with a piteous whine that softened into a wheeze, then silence. Toby yelled out in pain as the other blight hound bit down on his leg from behind, its grey fangs puncturing his skin with ease. Seemingly it had leapt out of one of the countless shadows littering the forest floor leaving Toby no time to react.

The beast twisted its head, pulling him from his feet, then started thrashing, its jaws tearing deeper into his flesh. Toby screamed. Jane leapt into action, charging the hound with her spear of metallic bone. She pierced the monster from the side, her spear going fully through the blight hound's rib cage and out the other side. Sid was slower with his spear but it wasn't needed. Jane had struck the creature's heart, and it fell in moments, still keeping its vice-like grip on Toby's torn-up leg.

Toby, mercifully, had stopped screaming, and instead lay unconscious and pale, paler than his usual pale Fritz amended. Tears were streaming down Jane's face as she rummaged through her bags and sacks looking for her tin of greasy balm. With shaking hands she brought it out and attempted to open it, her hands were trembling too hard to get a grip and eventually, Sid took the tin from her and opened it, handing it back quickly when Jane protested, "I'll be the one who saves Toby."

Jane ran over to the wounded limp Toby and she struggled with the beast's jaw but it held tight, so she yelled, "Greg get over here and help me with this hound's bite." Greg hurried to his friend's side, and pulled at the beast's jaw, loosening it enough for Jane to pull Toby's leg free and clear. Fritz looked around for enemies, already dreading what he saw, or rather what he heard, the snap of a twig right in front of him.

Not a creature in sight, but he knew these things were near invisible until they pounced, "More hounds, watch out!" Fritz cried out in warning. Fritz watched the ground in front of him, scanning the shadows with his fish blade raised in preparation. A black-furred shape jumped out at him, suddenly visible with the gloom bubbling off of its matted hide. It lunged for his wounded right leg, as he suspected it would. It was the same way the first blight hound had attacked, a predator strikes at weakness after all.

However, this time Fritz was ready for this 'surprise' attack and struck right where the beast was going to be with a full-bodied thrust of his fish blade. He had hoped he'd hit it in the heart or right through one of its pale eyes. Instead, the blade plunged into the meat of its neck cleanly, meeting resistance only when the jagged edge scraped and sawed at its spine. A gurgling noise bubbled out of the blight hound's jaws and it slammed face-first into the roots at Fritz's feet.

"Argh," Bert yelled, as he wrestled with a hound that had its jaws around his sword arm, he struck down as hard as he could with his makeshift gauntlet-shield raining blow after blow against its hard, hairy skull. Fritz ran to help Bert and was halfway there until he found himself tripping over a shadow, revealing a blight hound that was still wait ing in ambush. He toppled head over heels and f ell straight on his face, cursing all the while.

Luckily for him, the creature was just as surprised as he was and had been kicked hard in the ribs, unintentionally, by Fritz. The blight hound distracted by the sudden 'attack' turned to face him and growled. Fritz rolled onto his back, putting his blade between himself and the beast, but he heard a soft whistle, and its pale eye popped, exploding with a wet squelch. The hound reeled and staggered away from Fritz's fallen form.

After getting to his feet, but before he could advance on the beast, another whistle and a crack met his ears. This time Fritz saw the source, a stone the size of an egg bouncing off the blight hound's head and into the dirt. The hound fell to the ground still as the stone that struck it, and Sid approached cautiously, sling in hand. Fritz immediately looked for Bert and the hound attacking him and found Bert straddling the hound's now unmoving corpse, his shield arm slick with the beast's dark blood.

He searched for any more ripples in the shadow s or movement of the dirt but saw nothing. He dropped his fish blade from its guard position, and stabbed it into the soil, giving his aching arm some time to rest.

"How's Toby," Fritz asked still panting from exertion. Fritz's question seemed to pull everyone out from their after-battle daze, they turned and looked at Toby and Jane's position. Fritz could see that Jane's eyes were still red and streaked with tears, but she was no longer crying, she just looked weary.

"I put the grease on him in time to stop the bleeding but it looks pretty torn up, I'm not sure he'll be able to walk too quickly," Jane told them worriedly.

"Then Greg can carry him," Fritz offered magnanimously. Greg snorted and replied, "No can do, gotta carry the spine crusher."

"My arm's all torn up too," Bert added while sitting down and applying some grease to his bite wound. Jane looked at Fritz pleadingly, worry still evident on her furrowed brow. Fritz sighed dramatically, "Fine, I'll carry him. I'll lend him my shoulder. I'm just worried I'll get terminal snark poisoning if I carry him for too long." Jane smiled slightly a nd was presumabl y about to thank him when Bert spoke up again," Speaking of poisoning, my arm is starting to go all numb."

"That's just the grease, it does have an odd numbing effect," said Fritz reassuringly.

"Nah, it started before the grease and it's creeping up my forearm, it feels cold too, a bit like a winter night's rain, that bone-numbing chill, you know?" Bert explained calmly, too calmly Fritz knew, must be that brave face we all know and need right now. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Should we tie it off or something?" Fritz asked anxiously.

"Yes, use the twine, tie it as tight as possible, same with Toby's leg," Sid sternly ordered. They did as he said, though it wasn't Sid's place to be giving orders to the crew, but Fritz knew that Sid knew his stuff, and it was a sound enough plan. When they were done t ying the wounds off and Toby had reawakened, F r itz asked.

"Do we want to skin these things, I know we left the last one because it was cut to pieces, but some of these hides might be worth taking?" He looked around at everyone's faces as they pondered, they looked tired and beat up. Eve n those who hadn't taken any damage yet like himself, Sid, Greg and Jane looked fatigued.

"I don't want to risk it. When we get to the Well Room the Power will heal us right?" Bert broke the quiet with his question.

"Yes, it'll stop you from dying at least, that's what I hear. It'll seal your wounds and stop bleeding but I'm not sure about poison. I haven't even heard of a first floor that had poisonous monsters, what kind of deathtrap Spire is this?" Fritz said a tremble creeping into his normally steady voice.

"Venomous," Toby wheezed weakly, then continued in a pained but mildly excited voice.

"How bout we don't skin them but take some of their fangs, their venom might help us out against other monsters?" Fritz shrugged, he didn't have a problem with that. So they set about prying the largest fangs out of the blight hound's heads. With the sound of wet sucking pops and cracks, they gathered them and doled them out equally amongst each other.

The fangs they collected ranged between eight to ten inches, they weren't metal but were the colour of grey iron and were covered in the dark tarry substance that seemed to be their s pit or drool. Fritz put his into a small bag on his belt, the others did similarly except for Toby who held one in his hand like a dagger. Fritz let Toby lean on his shoulder to take the weight of his injured leg and they took off as quietly as they could.

Though tired, Fritz remained cautious, wary of every deep shadow and straining his ears to hear padding paws before they pounced. And so they went on through the night, trudging softly through the ancient gloom, beams of the moon's light shining down like pillars of silver as the canopy drew denser as they travelled towards the hill and the stone that stood upon it. It felt like hours, and maybe it was, travelling through th o se gnarled woods, not a nother living thing to be seen or heard.

Fritz wondered at that and wondered why he hadn't noticed it before. W here are the birds? Where are the rodents? Where was anything, that wasn't a blight hound in this still dark? S uddenly he was walking at an incline, upwards, and the trees started to thin.

"We're getting close, maybe five minutes up that way," Fritz pointed, though he didn't have to as they could all see the jutting peak of a tall slab of green marble. A strange green mountain peak above a strange green cloud. Fritz urged them on and they began to walk again, this time with grim determination. Toby had started to shiver intermittently through the journey this far and now it was replaced with a slight constant tremble. Fritz worried at that.

T he man was getting weaker by the minute, would he make it the entire way? He was broken out of his worrying by a howl, a close-by howl, a horrifying, terrible howl of anguish. Fear crept up on him, as did that terrible empty, but he shook it off and saw the others frozen in fear, tears forming in their eyes and pain carved deep into their features. That single howl was joined by many more in a desolating, cacophonous dirge of howling from all sides.

Fritz pu ll ed Toby forward, and yelled out into the howling "Run! Just move, don't listen to the hounds just move!" Toby was shocked into movement the pain in his leg shattering whatever hold the howl had on him. He grunted, looked down at his leg and, gulped. Then he seemed to steel himself and began to run as best he could, using Fritz's shoulder as support along the way. Fritz joined his limping gait, pushing Toby along, trying to get as much speed out of the man as possible.

Sid was the next to break out of the stupor and shook Jane out of her daze. Fritz a nd Toby crashed past Greg and Bert shoving them in the process. They looked around angrily, tears streaming down their faces. Odd I've never seen Greg cry before, Fritz thought in passing before putting his best effort into getting Toby running. Once Bert and Greg realised everyone else was running they joined in, keeping speed and staying in a group. The rest became blurry and frantic to Fritz's recollection.

There was a mad dash up the slope, the woods thinning away to a bare dirt hill with a single green slab of stone upon it. Gone were the tripping roots and stone, the pristine moon in the sky illuminated the dark soil below them casting out all shadows. They began to sprint, abandoning any need for the care they used in the woods below. Those terrible howls followed them the whole way, but the hounds never showed themselves.

Not until the end, when they had made it to the green marble slab, panting, sweating and terrified. Then they saw them, at least a hundred blight hounds and at their head a Beast thrice as large as the others roiling with dread shadows that rippled in waves along its sleek jet-black fur. The hounds stayed by the tree line far below snarling and howling their displeasure, hate and hunger.

The great hound stared on intensely with pitch-black eyes in which no light could find purchase, it stood frozen, watching, as its pack padded and pawed at the dirt of the hill. They whined in hunger and frustration but did not cross the dirt threshold.

Fritz stared into the eyes of the great hound, feeling pain, anguish as well as a dead certainty deep in his heart that they would meet again, and again and again until it had hunted him down, stripped the flesh from his bone s, consumed his still beating heart and then devoured his Sanctum. Could a monster do that? He hadn't known nor heard of it happening. B ut now he had. H e kn e w. T hat thing could eat him and with it his Power.

Fritz pulled his gaze away from the hound and onto the green slab, there on its side was an archway carved into the marble, and inside the arch a Stairway, the way out. He saw Greg and Sid enter before him and Bert waiting by the exit worriedly. Toby was now completely unconscious and slowing Fritz down to a crawl. Jane saw this and ran to Toby, grabbed and supported his other side helping carry some of his dead weight.

Bert was there, walking beside them, shivering and looking dead on his feet, but still beckoning them on with encouragement, "Come on almost there, I'd help but my arm is useless. Come on we can make it, let's get to the Well, let's get some Power." Bert was near talking to himself by the end of his words, dragging his wearied body ever onward and seeing he'd just be in the way left up the stairway in a daze just before they reached it.

In one last frantic effort, Fritz and Jane hauled and then dragged Toby the last couple of yards, through the arch and up the marble stairs. Pulling him up the stairs, panting and sweating the whole while. They were back in that dry heat of the Door Room, a minute, two minutes of climbing in absolute exhaustion, run ragged by the hounds and now these uncountable stairs.

F inally, they walked onto a landing, a blessed floor without steps, Fritz almost fell, but instead held himself, straightened and dropped his fish blade, which skittered away on the warm stone. It was as Bert said, get to the water. He searched, looking for the water they were promised and saw it, a pool at the centre of the room. It was luminescent with its own strange blue-green light and it rippled eerily, but Fritz didn't care, he just needed to get there, to make Toby survive.

"One last push," Fritz said to Jane, he couldn't see her but he thought she nodded. They continued carrying Toby slowly and unsteadily until they reached the water's edge, they lowered him as gently as they could then Jane scooped some of the glowing water into her cupped hands while Fritz opened Toby's mouth. He shuddered as he did, Toby was as cold as stone and no longer trembling. The luminescence poured into his mouth from Jane's trembling hands and pooled there glowing blue-green.

The water didn't slide down his throat like Fritz thought it might, it instead lost its luminescence, its light soaking into Toby's pale almost grey skin. It became pure clean water, and Toby spat it out in a torrent, his chest heaving. His injured leg twisted the skin mending in mere moments, as did an assortment of small cuts and scrapes he had received. Toby sat up rapidly his dark eyes wide and sweat beading on his forehead.

"I'm alive?" He questioned deliriously.

"Unfortunately so, Toby. And I saved you, you owe me your life," Fritz said gravely. Toby just groaned at the proclamation.

"You know what that means right?" Fritz asked in that same heavy tone.

"Jane won't let you Fritz, it'll never happen," Toby replied defiantly wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Jane will one day also owe me her life, then I will have my payment from you both," Fritz said ominously.

"What in the Final Spire are you two talking about?" Jane hissed acidly.

"If there is payment then I will pay it, whatever you may ask, ask it of me, Fritz," She said putting on a brave face, but her eyes wide with some small fear.

"No Jane, don't do it," begged Toby, but it was too late Fritz smiled a wide mad grin as if he were a faerie that just struck a truly malevolent deal.

"I require just one thing of you Jane," Fritz intoned, looking her up and down, letting the silence hang until Jane spoke up in anxiety.

"What do you need of me?" She squeaked in anticipation.

"Your child… your firstborn… shall be… named… after me," Fritz pronounced, smiling his cruel smile, that is until Jane slapped the smile off of his face.

"Ouch!" Fritz exclaimed then he burst out laughing, Toby groaned in false duress and Jane glared at them both, fury in their scale-grey eyes.

"That's what you were making such a big deal about, you let me think... God's what were you having me think? Damn you Fritz, damn you to the abyss," she vented violently at him. She was rearing up to slap Fritz again when she became aware of where she was and who was watching. There sat Sid and Greg watching on in bemusement, while Bert was lying down with mischievous delight sparkling in his amber eyes, listening to the whole exchange but not seeing the need to stop Fritz's antics.

There were also others there, people Fritz hadn't noticed in his struggle through the room. Three women, presumably some of the other captives. Fritz knew them in passing, and they seemed to know him the same way. They were scowling at his mad sense of humour or maybe just at him. Fritz looked away, feeling a little abashed by all the attention.

One of the women, the one with the red hair, spoke up, "Why are you teasing poor Jane like that, I hear from Sid that you lot had a very deadly first floor, and Toby just almost died. Surely you should be kind and gentle after such a horrific experience?" She twisted her pretty features into a frown, her brown eyes bored into his. Fritz held her gaze for a second, then as a flush crept up his face he looked away.

"Don't worry about Fritz, he didn't mean anything by it, I'm sure it was just his fishbrained way to try and lighten the mood and get everyone's mind off the danger," Bert said analytically.

"Well I'm gonna drink up, can't wait to get a powerful Ability," Fritz declared suddenly, changing the topic. Avoiding the Fritz thing to do in this situation, for example dunking his head fully in the water, he instead cupped his hands and filled them with the Power giving blue-green liquid. He drank it down greedily. The water soothed his raw, parched throat. The cool light sank into his body, through his flesh and was drawn to that tiny spec of light right next to his heart.

The light connected and it was sucked in, the hungry little light pulled it in adding the luminescence to its own light before changing, transmuting the foreign light to be just as his own. The spec of light had turned to a tiny twinkling star right in the centre of his chest, twinkling, radiating in time with the beating of his heart, shining with that rhythm of life.

"Was that it?" Greg asked confused.

"No, that's not it. You have to go into your Sanctum and align your Attributes and Choose an Ability," Fritz said, somewhat annoyed at having to tell Greg this again.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm diving into my sanctum."