Chương 40: End of Book 1

Wretch banged his fist against the bars, a scream ripping out of his lungs into the dark chasm. He fell to his knees, hands slumping to his sides. Behind him came a symphony of violence. Howls, ripping flesh, snapping bones, and bodies crunching against each other. He forced himself to look. The hall was a bloodbath, a dozen twisting forms made from his own flesh ripping and tearing each other apart. Others fled, shambling for the archway. A weapon. He needed a weapon.

His gaze trailed to the cage with the massacred Gulschak. He forced his body into movement despite its protests, dragging himself along the wall. Something came catapulting toward him, half a monster made from a writhing mass of feet, and he dove to the ground. It crashed into the cage, denting the metal before falling into a heap. It twitched, then grew still, something glowing deep inside it. Wretch climbed over it and found what remained of the man who had pulled the lever.

He had been crushed into a wet smear across the floor. The sabre had survived, though the sheath was cracked. Wretch drew the weapon and stumbled out of the cage. A brutal display was unfolding in the middle of the hall as the different amalgamations ripped and tore at each other in a cacophony of high-pitched screams. A bundle of limbs crawled toward him, leaving a trail of gore. A creature resembling an insect built from human parts moaned before collapsing, a jagged hole in its chest revealing a glowing coal.

He ripped the coal from its broken body, drawing its flame into his own. Times Kindled: 7 He did the same to three others, plucking embers from the defeated. He had an inkling as to who would win. Times Kindled: 8 Times Kindled: 9 Times Kindled: 10 When he had finished, the battle in the center was already over. A mound of the dead and dying lay before him, Embers glowing in the mountain of blood and gore. At its summit crouched the thing that had been Jonah, its serrated arms ripping the last of its rivals in two.

Its form was that of a spider, with several massive black arms protruding from its back. Each was stitched from two dozen of his own, and they hoisted a dangling body beneath a mass of muscle. It had not survived unscathed however, and two arms hung limp. It stood still, peering over the low-lit hall with two black eyes that could pierce the dark. Finally, they paused on him. Wretch drew a raspy breath and removed his mask, letting it fall to the floor.

"It's me, Jonah," he said in the softest tone his tortured lungs could produce.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but I am almost there. I'll become a Fireling, and you can too. Together." Jonah descended the mound of broken abominations in twitching strides.

"We still need to see your brothers," Wretch continued.

"I haven't forgotten." A shudder passed through him.

"You don't have to fight anymore. You can hide under the city." It circled him with a hiss, and Wretch's voice grew low.

"I don't want to kill you." In unbridled rage, it slammed a fist into the ground. The floor shook, and Wretch's face contorted in agony. He could not save him. And that pain was more visceral than having his eyeballs removed. Jonah did not even notice, nothing more than a beast looking for weakness.

"But I will," Wretch whispered through a dry throat.

"If it's asked of me." Jonah threw out a long arm toward him, cutting through the air like a scythe. Wretch sidestepped and cut with the sabre, the steel grinding against rows of sharp teeth sewn to the flesh. Another dark limb swept toward him. Wretch dodged low, then sidestepped a slam that cracked the floor. His sabre pierced through the skin of the long arm. Another claw came, but this time he rolled forward. He needed to get close, to reach the body dangling beneath the arms.

A serrated limb slammed against his ribs, launching him across the room. He let out a gasp, the breath escaping his lungs as he skidded across the cold stone floor, ears ringing. He came to a stop in a heap, consciousness slipping. Through instinct and will, he pushed away the urge to fall and gave the flame meaning, letting it regenerate his cracked ribs and broken skull as he struggled to his feet with the sabre still in hand. That was it. There was but a single speck of flame left in his struggling Ember.

He felt it, the edge of madness, whispers of beast and claw coming from within. If he so much as brushed against it, they would take him. He coughed and struggled, focusing instead on the suffering of his broken body. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Nice one, learned my movement, he thought, struggling to stand on legs that urged him to give up. Jonah, who had been studying him for a moment, pounced in twitching strides.

The arms were long and serrated, giving protection and a ruthless sting to its sweeps. Its dangling torso hung low under the powerful arms protruding from its back, hugged tight by dark hands, leaving just a slit for a pair of fiery pupils. A limited view. If I can get around. But you are too fast. Above, then. Wretch dashed to the left, narrowly avoiding a claw that cracked the floor. He vaulted up a cage, climbing as if scrambling away from shouting officers. Another massive hand shot forward.

He vaulted again, flipping over the claw and sailing over the thrashing arms. He landed on Jonah's back, tail twisting around a stitched shoulder for balance. The sabre in his hand plunged deep into packed muscle. Jonah roared, a primal scream through human vocal cords. Wretch hacked and stabbed, blood spraying across both him and the creature. Clawed hands thrashed to reach him, but he clung tight in desperation, slamming the blade deeper. In a flash, the room tilted sideways. He jumped.

Wretch ripped his tail free, throwing himself to the floor. Monster and man crashed into a cage, rattling the room. He must have lost track of time for a brief moment, because the next sensation was the recognizable warmth of blood dripping down his skin. Dragging himself upright, he stumbled away. Black ribs poked through his chest, and one arm jutted at an unnatural angle. There was still a speck of flame left, whispers from within. He could draw it, would that even be enough? He let it be.

He had promised someone important he wouldn't. Behind him, Jonah rose, half its long limbs hanging in defeat. Wretch tightened his grip on the stolen sabre, its blade now shattered. They faced each other, two street rats wearing the skin of abominations. Jonah's eyes lit with fire, and it burst forward with shocking speed. A Blessing. Jonah climbed the cages and moved toward him from the side. Not falling for the same thing twice, either. You would have made a fine hunter.

Wretch backed up toward the middle of the room, stepping over broken figures as the skittering abomination circled. The only two things left breathing in a sea of corpses.

"That's a good blessing," Wretch said without the strength to smile.

"It makes you faster and stronger the more damage you take, right?" Jonah crouched low, like Whisky the cat about to pounce on a leaf fallen from the balcony back in the only home he had ever known. Wretch's voice grew weak.

"If I'd been more reckless, more violent, my claws sharper, we could have ascended the summit together. We could have met your brothers, met my father. But I was weak. I will never be that again." He was slipping and traded every ounce of willpower for a short burst of lucidity. Straightening his back and raising the shattered sabre, he took the stance of his captain and when he spoke his voice was barely a whisper.

"And I won't be weak now." Jonah lunged, and Wretch charged. Serrated sweeps lashed toward him. He weaved between them, every move ingrained from Elenya's training. Jonah's spidery form grew faster, slamming wildly. Wretch pressed closer, ignoring the agony of a body on the verge of collapse. Jonah skittered backward, but Wretch dashed with him. A low swipe from either side. Wretch put a naked foot on a twisted corpse and launched himself over.

He shot toward Jonah's dangling body, stretching the shattered sabre toward the eyes in the armor of black limbs. The clawed arms unfurled, opening like a flower around the body at the core, each petal a hooked claw. There he was, or what was left of him. Jonah's hair still a tangled mess, his cheerful face now blank. They embraced each other, tearing claws and piercing blade.

"Goodbye, friend," Wretch mumbled. The three hunters entered the hall, Astrid parting the dangling chains. Splatters of blood stained Elenya's armor.

"Slow," Edmund ordered, raising a buckled shield.

"Might be more of those things." Astrid squinted to get used to the low light.

"By the Saint, as if the horrors from beyond the wall weren't enough." Edmund took point, raising a flickering lantern to reveal the interior. The trio froze. Bent cages surrounded a mountain of broken limbs and torn abominations. Blood pooled at its base like a lake of crimson, coals twinkling like fallen stars deep in the flesh. For a few breaths, they just stood there.

"What happened here?" Astrid asked finally. At the summit of the twisted forms crouched a long-armed abomination, each limb stitched from the dark arms of their missing comrade.

"Are they all dead?" Elenya asked, her mouth hanging open. As if to answer her, the figure at the top moved, a twitch and a glow growing stronger from the summit of the mound. Pulling the flickering light of the coals into itself, long strings of flame slithered through the air like golden threads.

"What the…" Elenya said.

"Positions!" Edmund shouted.

"Bad news, it's ascending." A fiery pulse burst outward, scorching flames rolling down the mound and out over stained stone. It reached their boots like wisps of smoke before fading into nothing.

"Fireling or not, it's half-dead already," Elenya said, raising her halberd.

"We can take it down." Edmund nodded.

"Astrid in the back. Elenya, with me, like we always do." They advanced on light feet, and the figure at the top swayed.

"Come on, you freak," Elenya muttered.

"We don't have all da…" She stopped.

"Elenya! What are you doing?" Edmund hissed.

"Focus." Her halberd chimed against the stone. The spidery figure fell to the side, tumbling down the mound. Something else struggled to its feet and stumbled down the gore-slick slope. A human, barely. Drenched in blood, dripping from his long hair and staining pale skin. Missing an ear, ribs piercing the skin, chest covered in claw marks. One hand was reduced to a mangled stump, and a long, thin tail swayed behind him.

The face was hollow, marked by a protruding brow and sunken cheeks around a blood-smeared mouth. One eye was a dark orb without sclera or pupil, while the other socket was a gaping wound.

"Captain?" Wretch mumbled. Elenya was on him before he fell, sweeping him up as if he would break at the lightest bruise. Edmund was not far behind.

"We got you," she whispered.

"We found you."

"Astrid, get over here now!" Edmund shouted as the world faded from him. Two warm hands touched his chest. They were light, trembling. He let it all wash away. Taking a last glance at where his ember used to be, it had never been more than a heated lump. Now, a tiny flame flickered in the dark. And with it, a name that only belonged to him. Wretch, Collector of Wounds END OF BOOK 1