Dirt and stillness. The smell of lilies in the air. A quiet calm unlike any other they had known in a very, very long time.

So this was death.

It took some time for the hunter to realise they could move, and that they had been lying face down in the dirt. Slowly, careful of their wounded shoulder, they turned themselves over, blinking in the pale moonlight. To their surprise, their arm was intact. They flexed their fingers for a moment, holding it aloft in front of their face, savouring the return of movement.

They were lying in the garden outside a small, grey stone building. They had been right about the smell of lilies, the entire area was carpeted in rustling, seven-pointed pale flowers like stars dotted across a mossy sky. It felt inexplicably like home, not that they could remember what home looked like anymore. This place might have been a graveyard, rows of headstones new and old rested peacefully around them, seemingly well-tended. They had the persistent feeling that they weren’t alone. Beyond the garden, the hunter found it hard to focus, as though reality merely dropped away.

A sound at their feet pulled them out of their reverie. There were small white shapes moving among the flowers. They turned their head to the side, and watched as several of the pale imps from the clinic peeked out at them shyly from behind the leaves.

“Hello.”

The imps disappeared.

“Thank you for saving me back there.”

One of the creatures, perhaps slightly braver than its companions, peeked out from over a rock. It’s features were much less frightening under the pale light of the moon, and the hunter smiled at it.

As it emerged, others followed suit, carrying something in their tiny hands like ants bringing back a prize to their queen.

“For me?”

The hunter ran their fingers over the object, still not trusting themselves to stand up. Their hands felt wood and metal, smooth and hard.

“Ah!”

They had cut themselves on something sharp. They sat up, and inspected the strange tool that had been handed to them.

It was a saw.

Not any kind of saw, they noticed. This was a saw for flesh. A meat cleaver for beasts, though they supposed it would work on humans too. It fit in their hand like it was made for them, like it was a part of them, as though their body had been waiting for this long-forgotten limb to return. The bite of this blade could rival that of any monster, they were sure.

They stood, and with a flick extended the blade to it’s full length. They didn’t know how they knew it could do that, but some innate knowledge deep in their primordial brain told them: This is my saw, it was made for me.

Something tugged at the hem of their trousers. A gaggle of the pallid sprites had brought forth another weapon. An ornate pistol, heavy in their hand and keen.

The message was clear: Hunt, or be hunted.

Without any hesitation they began practising swinging the saw cleaver with strong, unfaltering strokes. Their lithe body twisted and danced around the garden, much to the amusement of the little ghouls.

This is my saw, it was made for me.

All of a sudden the dance stopped, and they gasped. A pale face in the moonlight stared back at them from between the foliage.

---

They awoke with a start, yet again back upon the clinic gurney.

That was all a dream?

They still held in their hands the saw and the pistol, exactly as they had appeared in their feverish, death-induced vision. Their body too was intact once more.

Perhaps the dreams here are different.

The face they had seen had been more like a mask, completely smooth and devoid of all emotion. Feminine, and blank. Had there been someone else other than the little ones watching them in the garden?

Once more they crossed the floor, descended the stairs, and tiptoed into the ground floor surgery with all the grace and assurance of a cat on the prowl. Sure enough, the beast was still there, gorging itself upon human meat. Their newfound confidence faltered, remembering what had happened previously. Their hand went instinctively to their left shoulder, but found nothing there except shirt and muscle.

It was so engrossed in its repulsive dinner that the hunter was able to sneak up on it. It barely had a moment to register the click of the weapon unfolding before it’s head and backbone was split clean in two. The body twitched once, twice, then slumped sideways into stillness. Beast blood mingled with the blood from the corpse on the floor, and for a while everything was dipped in crimson. The only sound was the hunter’s panting breaths.

They had done it.

But they felt no relief, no jubilation at a successful revenge. Only terror crept into their chest and nestled, taking root inside their bosom with every heaving intake. They had to yank the cleaver free of the remains of the beasts skull, pulpy grey tissue sticking to the blade and snapping taught as they pulled. Still warm.

The hunter threw up the contents of their stomach.

Beasts walked these streets. Creatures of which they had never heard the like. The human mind was remarkably resilient, and generally reacted well to new information. Sometimes, it just needed a moment to process. The hunter took that moment now, and tried very hard not to scream as they came to terms with living in a world that contained monsters they had previously thought relegated only to nightmare.

A crash from the loft at the back of the clinic snapped them back to reality.

“Hello, is there someone there?” They asked, taking one step at a time up the creaking staircase. The door to the surgery they woke up in was closed, and as they approached they heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.

“P-please leave!” came the soft voice from within. Through the glass panes in the door the hunter could see the small figure of a woman in white, perhaps cowering, perhaps praying.

“I’m sorry, miss. I didn't mean to startle you but please, I need your help, “ they said, softly, “Is the blood minister there? What is happening to me?”

“I am very sorry, but I must insist that you leave this place at once.” Her voice was trembling, but firm. Through the gaps where the glass had chipped away the hunter could see snatches of soft, mousey brown hair pulled back into a prim ponytail.

“Please miss, I don’t know where else to turn to.”

“It’s Doctor. Doctor Iosefka, and this is my clinic. Listen,” Her voice softened from hearing the desperation in the hunter’s voice, “I am incredibly grateful for all that you do for this town, kind hunter, but you must understand I cannot expose my patients to infection. I know it is difficult but… The very nature of your work means you cannot enter this place.”

“I’m not infected!” The hunter exclaimed. They couldn’t remember seeing any other patients upon their arrival, and it seemed unfair to be thrust out into this dangerous world where once they had enjoyed sanctuary.

“Well, that remains to be seen. This is a safe space for my patients, and we have so far been able to avoid contamination. I want to keep it that way.” They could see her blurred outline move nervously from side to side.

“I understand.” The hunter turned to leave but was stopped by the lilting voice of Doctor Iosefka.

“Before you go… Please, take this.”

Slender fingers passed a vial strapped to a long needle out from one of the window gaps. The hunter took it, and held it up to the light. Globules of thick red clots hung suspended in an amber liquid.

“It is my blood. I know how improper this must seem. You outsiders do not understand our ways, but trust me. Use it when you are injured, and the Gods will offer you their protection through communion with this, my holy medium. This is all that I can offer.”

“Thank you… This is all new to me. I’m…” I’m scared, they had wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come.

“I know. I suppose… I suppose you could come back and visit, if you needed aid. I am a doctor, after all.”

She placed a hand upon the glass in way of farewell. The hunter considered reaching out and touching the cold palm from the other side, but decided against it. It felt somehow sacreligious for them to touch, a meeting of sickness and health. Separated from the first kind words they have heard in this hellish place, they clutched the vial tightly and made their way back down the stairs, feeling very much like an impurity contaminating the otherwise clear water.

When they finally opened the doors to the outside and felt that setting sun upon their skin, they almost cried. The air outside was less putrid than the cloying stench of freshly spilled blood and vomit, though there was still something nauseating in the breeze. A hint of purefaction and cinders. They could hear the scraping footsteps of some new monstrous creature nearby, and they knew then that this strange and loathsome nightmare would not end anytime soon.

The gate was tall and heavy, opening slowly with a screech that they were sure would attract anything nearby. This was a side of town they had not seen on their way in, full of majestic bridges that spanned between entire districts. Beneath them lay what looked like to be the ruins of an abandoned settlement, charred beams pointing into the sky like stakes around the roofless church.

The old man had been wrong. They didn’t understand, not the hunt and not anything. None of this made sense. Their health, their death, their strange dreams.

Suddenly from their right came the sound of a gate screeching to a close. The hunter peered around the side of a parked carriage, and was able to make out the silhouette of a figure walking away up an uneven, steeply sloping road, dragging behind them a large axe.

“Oh thank goodness. Excuse me, hello!” They called out after the retreating back of the suited man. No response, only the trailing sound of dragging steel on stone. It was possible they did not hear them, though unlikely. They walked with an odd, lilting gait, and from a distance their features seemed strangely distorted, though the hunter could not put their finger on exactly why.

“Wait, please!” They rattled the gate, but no amount of pulling could open it. It had been locked, securely, by a contraption the hunter couldn’t dismantle. In the distance, beyond the locked gate, they heard a crowd of voices raised as though deep in argument. Excited voices, aroused by fear, that carried on the wind.

Looking around, they saw a possible solution to their problem. A sturdy iron ladder, like the ones used by workmen and builders, was attached to the house next to the gate. They could just about make out another street up there, as the houses on this side of town were built up along a steep hillside. If the road curved upwards, then it must surely meet the street above in some way. They grabbed hold of the rungs and climbed.

The locals were sure to know what had happened back in the clinic. The blood minister was nowhere to be seen, and the hunter prayed that they still lived after the beast attack, but this armed figure looked as though they might know something of what was happening this night.

The wind whipped at their short shoulder cape as they ascended over the city, hand over hand. Somewhere in the distance, something screamed. Something large, something angry. They thought it best to put that out of their mind. It sounded far away, and was surely no threat to them here.

As they climbed up onto the cobblestones they saw for the first time that they were entering a residential area. Abandoned laundry hung from washing lines suspended high above narrow alleyways, while the ground was uneven, filled with puddles and potholes covered carelessly with rotted planks.

Out of the corner of their eye, they saw it. Another imp, perched upon a gilded lantern hanging from a window. As though sensing the hunter’s gaze, it disappeared before they could do anything more than glimpse at it. They walked towards the light with hand outstretched, half hoping that there would be a way back to that calm and peaceful dream, but as their fingers grazed the curled metal bracket their reverie was interrupted by a hacking, rasping cough.

A cough that sounded much like their own had, before their ministration, was coming from the window behind the lantern. A shadow behind the curtains shifted, as though edging closer.

“Oh, you must be… a hunter.” They had barely finished the sentence before another bout of continuous coughing overtook them. Their voice was a welcome sound, genuinely friendly with a low and melodious cadence that made the hunter feel that, if only for a moment, they were safe out here in the waking world.

“I suppose so.”

“Hmm. Judging from your voice, you’re not from around here, are you? What’s your name?”

“I don’t remember.” There was no point hiding it.

“I see.” There was a pause as more coughing filled the air. “You can call me Gilbert. I am an outsider, like yourself, though perhaps not for much longer. Tell me, hunter, what is it that you hunt?”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

They were caught off-guard by this question. Remembering their new contract, they replied.

“Well, I… I work for the Church.”

“Do you now. Heh.” He didn’t seem convinced, and his even tones suggested that he knew more about the hunter’s situation than they did.

“Did they make you sign a contract? Did they promise you a cure for your service? Well… Count your boons in grains of sand, friend, for the tide is coming in soon. You’re stuck in this mess with the rest of us, now. If you don’t want to hunt then don’t expect to see the dawn. Not many things in life are certain, but you can count on that.”

He laughed, but laughter quickly turned to coughing, and the hunter realised they were once again listening to the words of a dying man.

“They made you sign a contract, eh?” The shadow asked. “Yes, well you must have had a fine time of it. This town has a… special way of treating guests. You should leave this place while you still can. If you stay, only harm will come of it. Whatever you think can be gained from this place, you are wrong. Go home.”

“Believe me when I say that I would like that more than anyone, but I can’t. Not until I find what I came here for.”

The shadow of Gilbert shuffled closer and moved aside the rotten curtain, placing a dark skinned hand upon the windowsill. Bandages could only cover so much of the cracked and oozing knuckles.

Just like the old man. Thought the hunter.

“I thought you would say as much. Very well. I am willing to help, if there’s anything that can be done to stop you ending up like me. Tell me, outsider, what brought you to Yharnam?”

“Paleblood.”

There was a long pause.

“Paleblood, you say? No… never heard of it.”

The hunter couldn’t help but let their face fall at these words.

“But if it’s blood you need, you should try the Healing Church. The same Church you hunt these beasts for. Oh yes indeed… it is beasts you hunt now.”

So the creature in the clinic had not been some kind of fevre dream. They had not wanted to believe it, but it seemed that this town would not let them off so easily.

“The Church controls all knowledge of the blood, and all varieties of blood. If there is any of your Paleblood in this place, they would know where to find it. Whether or not they would share that knowledge with an outsider, though… Well, let’s just say that this old hunter was not successful on that front.”

Hacking coughs swayed the curtain.

“Where can I find them? If I find it, I could bring some back for you. I think… I hope... it might be some sort of cure.”

The man’s laughter (or was it merely another bout?) was sudden and loud.

“A cure? Heh. Heheheh. Oh my, that’s a good one. A cure.” Then his tone became more serious.

“Across the great bridge to the east of the town lies the Cathedral Ward, home of the Healing Church. You will want to go deep within it until you reach the old grand cathedral… the so-called birthplace of the Church’s healing blood.”

A finger on the calloused hand uncurled itself and pointed upwards, gesturing at a wide and stately bridge. Statues of various saints were carved into the side, illuminated by candle offerings still maintained despite the carnage across the city.

“Cross the valley. The bridge is closed, but it is the only way through. The Church’s watchdog, the cleric Father Norbert, keeps a vigilant eye over the entrance... but the hunt is on tonight. This may be your chance to sneak inside.”

From their right, the hunter heard the shouts echoing down the alleyways getting louder, the scuffle of frantic footsteps echoing between the buildings.

“You should go. The road west from here leads up to the bridge. I shall… I shall just rest my eyes a moment.” Gilbert’s voice was quiet as the shadow drew back from the window. The hunter waited until they could hear faint snores from inside, before breathing a sigh of relief. He had found his own stretch of calm within the realm of sleep, and the hunter was thankful that death overlooked this kind soul, at least for a moment.

Gilbert’s suggestion led directly to the source of the commotion. As they walked down a slender lane towards the high street, they saw a light ahead. The flickering, orange light of torches. Padding carefully, an emaciated hound walked past followed by it’s master, a man bearing what looked to be the only weapon he could find; a harvest sickle. Civilians of all ages and genders passed by, holding axes, hoes, pitchforks and the occasional rapier, ready for battle. When the hunter drew closer they could see that some of them were already wet with blood.

He saw the man with the axe once more but, caution finally overcoming naiveté, the hunter waited for him and his companions to pass, following behind the crowd at a reserved pace. The commotion had stopped and been replaced with a queer sound, one they could not immediately identify. A kind of haunting, crackling, deep and terrible screech

This was no ordinary mob, their senses told them. Doctor Iosefka had seemed as scared of the hunter as she was the beast, and there might be a good reason why.

That reason soon became clear when they entered the square.

Tied up, crucified upon a cross of salvaged wooden beams, was the source of that harrowing noise. Another beast like the one at the clinic, it’s lower half destroyed beyond recognition, was burning. The fire licked up its belly and singed the fur across its abdomen. Alive, the beast writhed in seething anger and pain. Saliva flew from it’s jaws as it snapped at cinders, the heat warping the air around it.

Across the plaza lay the broken bodies of several Yharnam residents. Not able to rely upon the strength of true hunter weapons, these poor folk had instead depended upon the power of sheer numbers, and paid the appropriate price. In happier times, this broad road may have been a marketplace, bustling with activity and the shouts of barkers and children playing. Now, it was a charnel ground for beasts and citizens alike.

Finally, the beast threw back its head as though to howl, but no sound erupted from those charred lips. Only smoke billowed out from its mouth like a grotesque chimney, covering the sky with a thick layer of ash and smog. The entire town stunk of scorched fur and toasted offal.

The remaining civilians gazed up at the beast in silence, seemingly infatuated with the flames. Getting closer, the hunter could see now what had made them seem so odd from a distance. Their eyes reminded them of the old man’s. Dying pupils withering around the edges, puckered lenses glazed over with bilious mire. A boy of ten cradled a table leg in his arms, his eyes glassy and unseeing as he rocked back and forth. The hunter could hear him muttering to himself as he passed, chanting as though deep in prayer.

“Bless us, bless us with blood. Bless us, bless us with blood.”

As the hunter approached, a few members of the mob turned their eyes away from the burning beast to peer at them warily. Then the whispering started. Furtive voices lowered in insular and secretive tones. Gazes that were never friendly to begin with turned hostile.

“You.”

The hunter turned to face the speaker, a man perhaps in his late 50’s with a ragged mane of unkempt hair. They were shocked to see the state of the man’s face, his teeth rotten and his hair coming out in clumps.

“You’re not wanted ‘ere.” It was more of a command than a statement. Something hit the hunter on the arm, a rock thrown from somewhere in the crowd.

“Bastards, the lot of ye…”

“Vermin… rotten, diseased vermin!”

“Peddlin’ your poison round these parts? For shame!”

The hunter backed away, arms spread in supplication.

“No, there’s been some misunderstanding. I work for the Church. I’m a hunter, like you.”

Someone spat. Another laughed.

“Like us? Ain’t nothing like us in you, stranger. Piss off back to the cathedral where you belong.”

“The Church…”

“Death to the minister!”

The mob had been slowly encroaching as the hunter stepped back, but with that shout the hoard stepped up their pace, weapons brandished. The mere mention of the church had enraged them, sent ever one of them into a marked fury that the hunter couldn’t abate.

So they did what any good hunter would do in this situation; they ran.

Back down the alleyways with blinding speed, as they ran they could hear the shouts and footsteps close behind them. They turned a corner and tripped on the broken cobblestone, falling face flat onto the muddy pavement. Rolling to one side, the rake only just missed them as it slammed down where the hunter had just been lying, sending up debris.

The townsman bellowed, but the hunter was already far away, swift and agile on their blood-rejuvenated legs. Hurling flat out across a narrow walkway, they flung themselves over the railings and skidded down the tiles of a neighbouring roof, landing in a jumble of cape and tiles on the ground below. The mob were still too close.

“Here! They’re over here!”

“You plague-ridden rat!”

From above the hunter could see the townsfolk pointing down at them with their torches before running away as one, presumably to follow them by taking a safer route.

They had landed in a small, backalley garden. A disused well stood in one corner, and - thank the Gods - there was a light on inside the house. They knocked on the door and before long they heard the sound of a person gingerly sliding aside the cover on the peephole.

“Eh? Wot you want? Don’t you know what time it… Oh. Oh no. We don’t want no trouble round ‘ere.” Evidently they had seen the weapons they carried, and the muck and blood on their shirt.

“Please, open the door. They’re coming for me. It’s not safe out here.”

“Oh no you don’t, outsider. I don't want to do anything with ya. Trot along, willya!”

In the distance they could hear dogs barking, edging closer. They kept moving. Gilbert had been right about one thing, this city had a special way of treating guests. They ran from door to door, knocking and pleading, usually receiving no answer but sometimes a resident would think fit to respond.

“Lousy offcomer. Who'd open their door on a night of the hunt? Away with ye, now!”

“What are you tryna pull, eh? Trying to trick me into opening this door? Heavens, the depths of depravity… You outsiders are all alike. Wretched, the lot of ya!”

Another door slammed in their face. They were beginning to run out of energy, every step was a painful effort and each breath felt loose in their chest. They had never killed a human before, and they weren’t about to start now. They were a hunter, not a murderer. Why did these people mistrust the church so? It was true, the hunter had never had real contact with the clergy, but they had sent the minister to meet them, and they had cured their sickness. Some deep part of them was even grateful for the purpose they had given them. To hunt the beasts of Yharnam felt like a fair payment if it could supply them with the Paleblood needed to save… save what?

Save what?

They couldn’t remember. All they could recall was the words on the parchment they had clutched in their hand when they first arrived.

Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt.

Was the hunt and this mysterious scourge related, somehow? The hunter knew of how black rats carried the plague into cities through the fleas that feasted their blood. Perhaps these anomalous beasts brought with them their own parasites. Either way, it was clear that the city was under siege this night, so there was little wonder as to why they had been conscripted into this hellish service. All that could do was move forwards, and pray.

As they thought that, they realised that they had, somehow, run all the way to the great bridge. The sounds of the mob were distant now, and there was nothing but the hulking shadows of oversized crows to watch them pass with their many eyes turned upon them. A hush had fallen upon the city, as though all sound had been suppressed by some unknown element.

As they walked across the bridge they saw for the first time the Cathedral Ward ahead of them, towering steeples in the distance giving them a freshly renewed vigour as the end to this madness finally came into sight. An enormous clocktower presided over the landscape, dwarfing the other spires with its magnitude. The cathedral itself, they were sure, must lie underneath.

The bridge ended with a stone vaulted gate, fastened shut and fettered with chains and padlocks. Above lay a terraced balcony, its overhanging bricks casting a long shadow in the evening sun. Beneath the archway, a small door to their left seemed to lead to a service staircase. A knotted cord dangled from a hole in the ceiling next to a dim, leaking lantern. The hand-lettered sign on the door read:

Father Norbert. Ring once for deliveries. Ring twice for assistance. Ring thrice for...

The rest was illegible. Remembering what Gilbert had said, the hunter pulled the rope sharply down once, twice, and heard, high above them, the distant ring of a bell. The sound was fainter than they expected, as though muffled by layers of dust and disuse.

No response. At their feet, the pool of lamp oil glistened in the fading sunlight. They pulled again. Once, twice. The bell tolled mournfully overhead, calling nothing but the dust.

The dust, and danger.

“Found you at last, stranger.”

It was the mob. About four of them, approaching slowly from the other side of the bridge. The hunter was trapped, Yharnamites on one side, gate on the other, and a sheer drop to certain death on either side.

“You fiend! You’re better off-”

But the hunter never got to hear what they were better off as. From the looming Cathedral Ward they heard a terrible, ear-splitting shriek, much like the one they had heard on the ladder but infinitely louder and more disturbing.

The largest, most hideous and malformed beast they had ever seen plunged down from the plateau above. Drawn by the timbre of the bridge bell, it was a horrific sight. A sight which would bring any normal person to the brink of insanity, gnarled and mismatched horns sat atop a rotting maw, fur hanging in clubs from its body. Neither biped nor true quadruped, it moved with a shuffling apelike gait. Truly, the missing ancestor of some unholy race of giants, as it towered two stories high above the hunter and the unlucky Yharnam natives.

Unlucky, as before they could register anything but shock and horror on their faces, the beast had screamed again and sent three of them flying off the bridge and into the chasm with a single swipe of its front arm. The remaining townsman dropped his torch and turned to run, but the beast caught him in a deadly embrace, lifting him from the ground and returning him to it with such force that the hunter felt the reverberation through the stone even from where they were standing.

The beast turned, hands bloody and smeared with viscera, and screamed. The hunter hastily covered their ears with their hands to drown out the noise, their head ringing. The beast, sensing it’s chance, ran full charge at the hunter’s position, tongue lolling. Something deep inside their limbic system activated, their primordial amygdala sensing fear and sending messages to the rest of their body to MOVE.

And they moved.

They saw everything, as though in slow motion. The paws hitting the ground, the jaws opening to lunge, and the gap between the beast’s legs that led to freedom. The hunter rolled forwards with perfect timing, the beast’s muzzle snapped shut on empty air and the force of the forward momentum sent it hurtling into the bars of the gate, buckling them slightly. The lantern fell from the entryway, splattering the beast with oil.

Enraged, the monster began smashing anything nearby, and as a statue of a crying woman - a church saint, perhaps - toppled down into the valley below the hunter worried that it might take the entire bridge down with it.

They didn’t have long to worry, however, as the beast lunged for a second attack. This time, they weren’t so lucky. While they were able to dodge the worst of it, the beast’s giant hand swept past the hunter and into the masonry, taking out a chunk of the bridge. Worse still, one of their claws had caught the hunter by the cape, dragging them along with the blow. Thrown sideways with considerable force, there was a moment when they found themselves floating. Nothing above, or below, they hovered over the precipice in a limbo of terror before their ancient reptilian brain snatched a hand out at the crumbled brickwork.

The hunter hung for their life, dangling from the ruined bridge with nothing between them and the beast that reared up above. Lantern oil from the beast’s fur trickled down over their hand, threatening to send them sliding off to their doom.

They had one chance.

As the beast leaned forward to strike, the hunter let go of their handhold. In freefall for just a moment, it was long enough to dodge the strike while their other hand flipped the cleaver out into it’s long, transformed version. The jagged edges of the saw collided with the outstretched hand of the beastly creature, lodging itself deep between the middle fingers and practically severing the palm in half.

The beast brought its hand up to its face to inspect the miserable insect that had caused it so much pain, dragging the hunter with it and safely back over the bridge. It stared at the hunter, and the hunter stared back into eyes surprisingly human. With a twist, they grabbed their pistol from their belt and shot a bullet directly into the beast’s eyeball.

It screamed, filled with pain and rage, the smell of oil and gunpowder in the air. Dislodging their cleaver from the ruined hand was an easy task, and as the hunter fell back to solid ground they saw a flicker in the corner of their eye.

A pale imp, sat crouching upon the broken lantern, gesturing with tiny fingers for the hunter to look behind them.

The turned, and on the floor next to them was the still-burning torch that the mob had used to lynch them with. They picked it up, and at the sight of the flames in their hand they began to feel a deep reassurance.

With one strong pitch they threw the torch spinning into the fur of the blinded beast. The lantern oil caught instantly, turning it into an inferno bigger than even the bonfire they had seen below. The beast thrashed and screamed but could not hit its mark. It tottered unsteadily on its feet as the fire did it’s work, trying desperately to process this all-engulfing agony.

It stepped towards the hunter, arm outstretched with vicious claws curling black in the flames. As it put a foot down upon the half-demolished bridge, the bricks gave way, and the beast found itself falling, a comet which lit up the chasm gloom in a brief and final burst of fire, before extinguishing upon the rocky paths below.

The hunter sank to their knees with a sense of relief tinged with a growing despair. They had defeated the fiend, but the bridge was destroyed.

They would have to find another way across.