We quick-march to the climbing spurs so eagerly we barely hold formation, then tie our weapons and torches to our backs with short lengths of rope. Unlike at some of the stairs and ladders in the caverns, here is wide enough that we can climb up three abreast instead of in single file. Barock leads, followed by the first rank, then three of the first main rank, the remaining runeknight of that rank and half of my rank, and finally it’s my turn to grab hold of the iron bars and begin dragging myself upward.

Each bar is angled slightly down from years of straining to bear the weight of heavily armored runeknights. This was anticipated by the dwarves who first hammered them in, so each is also hooked to stop my hands sliding off—even so, it is perilous. The mix of water and organic matter between my chainmail covered palms and the iron’s surface acts like grease. Every pull upward is an effort. In some parts there are many bars, and I have to contort my body to fit through the gaps, and in some parts there are few, so that I must stretch my arms as far as they will go to reach the next, and exert my muscles twice as hard to pull myself up. The blood-like smell of iron is heady in my nostrils. In my ears is the scraping of my chainmail and the occasional yelp of terror each time someone nearly loses his grip.

I can hear the steady thudding of the whipper beast too; it’s getting very close now. From above I make out its shape: it’s hexagonal with a leg at each corner, and at the front where the neck would be on a normal animal, there’s instead a tentacle of rippling muscle at least thirty feet long. In the center of its back I can make out a deep indentation. Inside there's movement: maybe sloshing acid, matching Fjalar’s prediction, or perhaps thousands of smaller tentacles tearing the prey apart.

I don’t want to find out which.

The last members of squad six, the rearguard of the rearguard, begin to haul themselves up after us. There’s a terrible nervous energy to one’s movements: he’s lashing out with his hands at the bars rather than carefully choosing his next move, and kicking too violently at the crevices in the rock to gain purchase on them.

“Hurry up!” he shouts desperately. “All of you, hurry the fuck up!”

But no one already out of the whipper beast's reach wants to hurry. To hurry means increasing your chance of slipping and falling to now certain death. I make a little effort to pull myself up faster, choose which handholds and footholds to go for next a little more decisively, put a little more strength into my every movement—but even so can’t overtake the dwarf above me, just make sure there’s a little more space for the one below to accelerate.

“Squad four, get a damn move on!” screams the leader of squad six. “It’s nearly here!”

“We can’t!” shouts Barock. “Squad three is in our way!”

“We’re trying!” the leader of squad three shouts down at us. “But the handholds are sparse up here. It’s slow going.”

“Shit!” someone in squad six curses. “Shit, it’s nearly here!”

“We’re trying to move faster!” I shout down. “We’re trying our damned hardest!”

“Your hardest isn’t damn good enough!” screams the panicking member of squad six’s rearguard. “Faster, faster, faster!” He’s fallen behind the two he started alongside; I guess he's only about fifteen feet up, though I’m not about to crane my neck back to check. “Move faster, you idiots! Fast—”

The tearing sound of the whipper beast’s lash heralds his death. One moment he is cursing, the next he is screaming, then we hear a splash from the whipper beast’s back-maw. For a moment there is silence, then we all start yelling in panic:

“Hurry up!”

“Move!”

“Oh, hells!”

“It’s coming!”

“Move, move, move!”

“Don’t panic!”

“Faster!”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I exert my arms and legs into a fury of motion, grappling and grasping for the next bars, pushing up from the little cracks and crevices in the wall as hard and fast as I can. My hand hits empty air when I start my grasping motion too early, and I nearly swing away from the wall. I yell in shock, grapple for the handhold again. Grab on. The iron bar shifts slightly in the stone.

The tearing noise of the monster’s lash comes once more; there is another scream. It lasts longer than the first dwarf’s, rises suddenly in pitch after the sound of acid splashing, becomes an animal keening, then cuts off.

“Faster!” shouts the next dwarf from the bottom. “Faster, please, faster!”

I glance down and see that he's nearly out of reach. Just five feet or so to go. A rock comes hurtling down from above, then three more. The first two glance off the side of the beast with no effect and the second two splash into the acid, also to no effect. I sense the whipper beast’s lash curling in anger, hear it twist back for its next strike.

The last member of six’s rearguard lets out a wail, and in his shaking panic he loses his grip and plummets. The whipper beast snatches him midair, plunges him into its maw.

“No!” screams the next dwarf up.

The whipper beast lashes for him. The grasping tentacle slashes the stone wall just below his foot.

“Oh, thank the runeforger,” the dwarf below me moans. “They’re finally out of range.”

No one dares relax, though. We continue our mad scramble upward. The climbing bars are starting to become loose, and several come out and plummet down to bounce off the whipper beast or splash into its back-maw. They were never meant to come under this kind of strain.

The whipper beast stays put, waiting for someone to slip.

“Slow down!” comes the voice of Cathez. “Calm down. Steady now.”

Gradually we slow our ascent—mostly out of fatigue though, I think. By the time I finally reach the top, my arms and legs are burning and my head is swimming. Someone grabs my arm and helps me up through the hole to the next layer.

I sit down near Barock to catch my breath and give my limbs some time to recover. Most of the dwarves of the other squads are sitting too, sipping from beerskins and chewing on hard-tack and jerky. Their eyes are glazed and no one speaks. A silent vigil of the most elite keeps watch around the perimeter.

With shaking hands I grab my waterskin from my pack and put it to my lips. My throat is dry and I cough and splutter, and nearly spill half the water across my lap. I take some deep breaths, then some short sips. I try some hard-tack. My stomach roils, but I know I need the energy and force myself to take bite after bite.

I finish at about the same time the final member of squad six makes it up. I put my waterskin away and stagger a few steps over to the trunk of a mushroom near the center of the party, lean against it, shut my eyes—there’s dwarves all around me, no need to feel danger. I will my body to cease its shaking and don’t succeed.

Three dead. Nearly as many as those dead by the killer. Likely more to come, which will make this idiotic expedition more deadly than the murderer. Oh, shit. That was just the eighth layer of caverns. There are four more to go before the final attack on the white jelly, each more perilous than the last.

We will face worse than the whipper beast—how many will die? All of us? What good are spears, maces, and all the armor in the world against the maws of creatures that grind and dissolve bone and chitin like rotten wood?

I think I hear a shift in the air currents; my eyes snap open. Nothing there, just my nerves playing tricks. I swallow to stop my lunch coming back up. Oh, are we in trouble now.

“Squad leaders,” Cathez says quietly, beckoning them over to him. They gather in a circle at our center.

“Who did you lose?” he asks the leader of squad six.

“Thayak, Utouk, Hadrok. Two fourth degrees and a third.”

“A terrible loss,” says Barock. “Commander, perhaps we should have attacked the beast. A mass assault might have been able to slay the monster faster than it could kill three.”

“No one has ever dared fight one before,” says Cathez.

“There has never been a hunting party of ninety before, though.”

“That is true. Maybe we should reconsider our strategies.”

“We are going to have to fight anyway, after all,” says the leader of squad two. “The topmost layer is a crowded place.”

“Maybe worse than ever, if the white jelly is as vast as the scout team reported. Was it truly, Katak?”

“Yes,” says the leader of squad three. “It seemed to fill half the cavern.”

“The east half, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yes. The east half.”

Cathez nods solemnly. He raises his voice and looks around at us. “Well, it is our job to kill it, or die trying. That is what the Runethane ordered—his exact words. If we don’t succeed here, the fort is doomed. We have our orders and must carry them out, no matter our personal thoughts on the issue.”

“And what are your personal thoughts on the issue?” the leader of squad six dares to whisper.

Cathez shakes his head. “That is not your concern. It is not even my concern. We are to retrieve the almergris. That is all we have to think about. Back to formation, everyone.”