The fear in the air fueled Leclerglossa’s determination. Ethereal hands grasped at mossy bark while real ones held steadfast to the control column. Tongues creeping in the dark, leaving a wound through the jungle as they toppled trees and shrubs and crushed nests and lairs.
Ald did not fear branches giving in, but the path to the canopy wasn’t clear cut, not in the night. Fingermarch’s arms and hands were minimally disruptive, and yet its wooden body ripped through fruits and bromeliads, its changing position as it glided across and along branches making it a challenge to hold onto it. And to hold Ald had to, for dear freedom. Leclerglossa, according to Unkindness, was no murderer, and this was why Ald ran, why he climbed. Unkindness seemed to need him alive. Anything else a Masterwork could do to him, was apparently not her business. So, without seeing his persecutor but hearing his inexorable advance, Ald commanded his vehicle to keep on climbing.
The stillness among the leaves and branches was bloodcurdling. Everything knew, and everything that could run or fly or creep had already escaped. The Felsian felt that even the jungle abandoned him in this time of need.
Used to the murk, his eyes first noticed the fleshy tendrils squirming in the distance, crawling towards him. A whimper escaped his lungs and he pressed his hurting fingers onto the forged wood circle. Faster, Fingermarch, faster, he begged in silence.
But there’s a problem with branches: every one eventually tapes out, ends. Caught between the wall and a slimy place, gripping tightly to Fingermarch as it approached the lush top of the overstory, met by rays of mocking moonlight, Ald beheld the towering extension of the World Ridge. For a moment, he dared not look back, nor to put hand against the barrier of stone. Few were the ledges he could spot, the vantage points Fingermarch would need to hold onto.
Then, the snapping sound of broken wood reached his ears, and he looked back. Air escaped his lungs and refused to get back in for a second. Everywhere he looked, the tongues poked out from betwixt the black leaves and fruits, swaying from side to side as they tasted the air, a tangle of slick vipers whose skin had been flayed.
Knowing himself cornered, feeling his heartbeat around his eyes, Ald faced the Wall once more. “Help me, Unkindness!” he pleaded, but nothing answered. He grunted, part in desperation, and part in vexation. Baring his teeth at the sky, he prayed once more. “Mother, Preserve me during the ascent.”
Then, silently bidding goodbye to Fingermarch, he jumped, the claws of his feet extended, and his arms aiming for a few jutting rocks that he hoped would support his weight. Instants after he did, something grabbed the furthest part of his vehicle, and dragged it below, where the sound of wood being chippered made Ald’s sweat nearly freeze on his forehead. Which nefarious hinterland would await him up above, if he survived the climb? And what foul fate would befall him, were he to be caught?
It wasn’t time to think about that. Leclerglossa wriggled deep below, pentafurcated tongues finding their winding way through the foliage, seeking him tirelessly. Gathering strength in his muscles, digging into the stone with the long, black claws of his toes, he propelled his body and the belongings that from it hung (His daggers, his swords, his bag, his rags.) upwards, arms stretched to reach the next vantage point. Rough, warm stone, dark, contrasting with his moonlit form, that was his only security now.
Lashing. The tongues lashed loudly against the air, and Ald cursed them as he tried to put some distance between himself and impending doom.
In Leclerglossa’s opinion, Ald’s voice tasted heavenly. This new flavor stirred something inside the Masterwork, fueled a fire nestled deep in his mind. To taste Ald became more of a priority than it already was.
So like a school of flying fish the tongue shoot from the canopy and forced Ald to climb as fast as he could. Every muscle on his legs and arms burned furiously. The prospect of suffering a sudden jolt, a lethal spasm rendered his hold tremulous. No, not a lethal spasm, because basking in Mother’s glory would be better than what awaited him if he fell. To escape or to die, both seemed preferable alternatives to being caught.
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Tapping into a might he was unsure he possessed each instant before a leap, Ald managed to laboriously climb upwards. But he was getting tired, and his persecutor closing in. Below him the tide of appendages, slimy and squirming, awaited, their movements hungry and apparently erratic, but nearly… joyous.
Ald Finally spotted a recess in the World Ridge, which he hoped to be an entrance to a cave, a sanctuary to shelter him from the masterwork’s relentless pursuit. A last race, Ald decided; a last-ditch effort to not get caught. He climbed diagonally, with hops so reckless, entrusting his grasp to his instinct and Mother’s grace.
And he felt joy unwarranted when he caught the ledge of the niche and began pulling himself up.
And he felt elated when he caught the Felsian’s leg.A single tongue pulling softly, that’s all he needed. Soon, others would Join.
Ald pulled, battled with both hands digging its nails into the stone, fighting for purchase. His right leg was bent at the knee, carrying the brunt as the claws penetrated the wall. His left leg entangled by one tongue, then two, creeping higher, tickling his skin and applying a gentle pressure that made things worse: he expected the tortuous constriction of a snake, not the soft crawling of a slug. Three.
He let go of the ledge with his left hand and unsheathed one of his swords. He swung clumsily at the tongues, attacks filled with panic, as he tried to justify it to himself as an effort to cut them without losing his grasp.
The blade cut through the tongues with ease, but Ald’s foot did not come free. Even separated from their bases, the tongues held him steadfast and pulled down. HE began whining and crying as he swung frantically, with the tendrils already half up his calf. A fleeting thought crossed his head: the bag was full of potential bombs. But he couldn’t use them, even if he held the bag with his mouth as he dug through it, both of his hands were bruised, either one he used to dig through the bag could trigger any of the runes inadvertently, resulting in catastrophe for him. Besides, if cuts didn’t stop Leclerglossa, probably neither would explosions.
“Mother! Aid me! Unkindness, save your disgraced chosen one!” he cried out loud. But, once more, no one answered his pleas. “I beseech you, anybody who’s listening! Get me out of there.
The irony was that Leclerglossa could taste his words, despite his unwillingness to understand then, and intended to take him out of there and into his core.
Ald’s whimpers and complaints disturbed the calm of the night as more and more of his calf got taken by the tongue, despite his desperate, flails that uselessly sliced through the regenerating flesh.
He was going to get caught and live the remainder of his life being tortured inside the Masterwork. He would give anything to get free, he thought, and then he realized there was something he hadn’t tried cutting yet. He smiled as he regarded the sword in his hand. He didn’t know if he was capable, but if canines could do it to free themselves of traps…
He raised his arm and cursed under his breath, gritting his teeth already. Leclerglossa would not take a hair more than he would give. Then, in a swing way more firm and brutal than the ones he had taken before, the sword hit its intended target: the side and back of his knee and calf. It cut down to the bone, Causing the Felsian to proffer a scream that rippled through the invaded jungle, that showered Leclerglossa with a stunning wave of flavor.
Adrenaline pumped through Ald and nausea crept up his throat as he raised his quivering arm again. There would be no rest until the profusely bleeding, now limp leg was gone.
Another hit caused the bones to splinter, the crimson marrow to splatter a bit and mix with the dark severed muscles and veins. Like chopping down a tree, he thought, the pain nigh-unbearable as he prepared for a final descent of the improvised guillotine.
He felt his consciousness threatening to slip away. He needed to focus, finish his task.
And so Ald freed himself. The sword broke through the bones, at last leaving his lower leg dangling from a little layer of flesh that soon got torn apart by the restless pull of the Masterwork. The jolt of pain made his left hand to let go of the bloodied sword, that got caught into the sea of tongues and slowly sank into it.
Using the last of his strength, Ald heaved himself over the ledge, clambering with the aid of both arms, drawing force from his will to see his journey to the end and save Felsia, and, after crawling with difficulty upslope, leaving behind him a trail of blood like a hellish snail would, he collapsed upon the rocky surface, throat too sore to scream anymore, fighting against both the impulse to vomit and delirium. Gone, his leg was gone, a pained stump all that remained. For months it would be gone. No, forever it would be gone: it would only get replaced in a logn while, fi he didn’t bleed out.
He needed to turn. He needed to stop the bleeding. He barely had a shirt anymore, but the rags would do, if he had the strength to tear the cloth apart. In a disheartening instant that came too soon, he found hadn’t.
“Tourniquet. Please…” he moaned helplessly, fever taking him over, gaze fixed on the dove that came flying, luminous and white, from the depths of the cave before him. “Tourniquet.”
And thus the only Felsian on that side of the Worldvein fainted.