“Quiet,” Muleater said firmly.

“Ready yourselves,” she added. “If you have meaningful words, use this time to share them now. Else, prepare.”

Aunt Janet’s meanings were clear. She did not expect them to survive. The odds were stacked against them. Their only previous hope had been to escape the crevasse uncontested–but the way had been blocked by a recent landslide. From the scorch marks along the stone walls, it was easy to make assumptions about what caused that landslide.

Kate would have an accounting sooner or later, but it would happen.

“Surely things are not so dire?” Gregory asked in a low voice.

“Think so?” Aunt Janet scoffed, barely paying any attention to the boy. Janet was focused forwards, to their imminent demise.

Which Kate would normally protest. No jungle parasite would get the best of her, no matter how dire. But, Kate knew that now was not the time for a retort.

Besides, a fight was coming. Kate found herself grinning. And was it wrong that she was a little turned on?

No.

That was only natural.

But still, she wished she had seen that fascinating kunbeorn once more, that soft and silky fur, those cyan eyes…

“Ready now!” Aunt Janet called.

All that was left was Aunt Janet, Gregory, and Kate. And of those three, Gregory would be worthless in a fight. If only he had fallen instead of Uncle Ken. Whatever. At least her uncle had died in glory, though those ways were anachronistic. If she survived, she would brag about it to her friends, for sure.

Not everyone could say they died with their eyes open, demanding honor, demanding bloody glory. Their ancestors would likely be impressed, or at least accept the act as the bare minimum. It was hard to say. Kate had never met them.

Kate began rushing forward, following Janet’s lead. They drew their swords, both Kate and Aunt Janet had managed to salvage one each, though the swords were a far cry from their main hands.

As they rushed forward, Kate could have sworn that she saw a darker shadow along the wall, and she could have sworn that she smelled that off-cinnamon scent that she had come to associate with the fascinating kunbeorn.

But then they were past that point. The shadow and scent were long gone.

Only a fight for survival remained.

A mad laugh escaped Kate’s lips. And the clicking, clacking–the infested–the gods serving wyrkwik–the living jungle–the animated plants–the scourge–was ahead–Aunt Janet was in the lead.

“On me!” Janet shouted. “Kate to the rear!”

“What abou–” Gregory started to ask, but was pushed forward as Kate tried to keep him from fouling her footing.

“Contact!” Janet shouted.

Her sword clashed with infested flesh.

The cramped and narrowed walls made it difficult to see, but in the gloom, Kate saw bits. There was an infested meohr shouldered to the side by the much smaller woman. There were tons of small dog humanoids, hundeors, infested and dogpiling on each other to get at Aunt Janet. Further back, there were cats and marmots and all manner of corrupted infested flesh.

Gregory recoiled from the sight, causing Kate to run forward into his back. They almost tripped and fell before Kate caught herself on the wall.

“Move!” Kate snarled at him.

“There are so many…” Gregory said.

Kate grunted and pushed past him, following in Janet’s wake, hacking with her sword as quickly as possible.

This was not a dance. This fight had no grace. It was hacking and slashing and stepping forward. If not for her battlesense, Kate would have fallen to flanking enemies, to backstabbing honorless curs.

“Stay behind if you want!” Kate called back to Gregory.

Already, the path Aunt Janet had carved was beginning to seal.

Gregory seemed to steel himself before pushing forward, though cringing the entire time, and hopping over severed tendrils that still writhed across the ground. Kate ignored him otherwise, focused instead on the fight, feeling the blood pumping through her limbs and the warmth in her thighs. She almost wished it could last forever. But in reality, she knew that eventually she would tire.

“How much further?!” Kate shouted, asking her aunt who was ahead and battling a triplet of large cats. Kate’s battle sense failed to extend far enough to see the edge of the mess, which meant there were at least twenty feet left to go. She was hoping that her aunt had a visual from the position up ahead.

“Not much!” Aunt Janet shouted back.

Whether or not Aunt Janet could actually see the end of the infested, Kate had no clue. Kate continued focusing on the present, reveling.

As they continued slashing forward, Gregory had picked up the pace and was following almost too closely behind Kate. She had to threaten him with a backswing once to ensure he kept at least a yard between them. After that, he seemed to get the point. She needed space to fight effectively.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

While they fought, the wyrkwik’s clicking tendrils began to sound almost organized.

It happened over time. Beginning at the far end of the crevasse, from where they had been fighting out of, and stretched towards where they were currently fighting.

It was bizarre.

It was organized.

It meant things that Kate despised thinking about, especially while she was otherwise preoccupied with a good time.

“Something’s coming!” Kate shouted, letting her aunt worry about it instead.

Aunt Janet turned her head a fraction to look back at Kate, and then back at the mess of creatures that were moving in synchronization. Aunt Janet’s eyes widened marginally.

“Take the lead!” Aunt Janet commanded Kate, brooking no room for discussion.

Kate nodded, turning sideways and slipping past Aunt Janet, before parrying a swipe from an infested meohr and side stepping with a slash.

Gregory fumbled over the meohr’s bent leg, and Kate barely reached his shoulder to steady him, before he fell into the mess of grabbing tendrils and lesser creatures.

“C’mon!” Kate scolded, before turning her attention back towards carving their way forward.

She thought she could see the end, at least where the wyrkwik were thinning out.

“We’re almost there!” she called back, to keep her aunt’s spirits up.

“Keep–going–!” Janet called back… except, her voice was further back than Kate thought it should have been.

Kate kicked a marmot back to make some space and pivoted, turning to see where she was.

Kate’s blood froze in her veins.

Janet was struggling against a wall of tendrils from a mass of infested. It was not just a single creature, or a series of single creatures, but a mass of them, working in unison. Tendrils were darting forward and flanking, and each time Janet backstepped, the mass gained on her. The creatures between Kate and Janet were reconstituting themselves, while the smaller ones that Kate had ignored were already rushing back towards Janet.

“Janet!” Kate screamed, fearful for likely the first time.

“Get outta here!” Janet shouted back.

Of course, Kate refused. Leaving Gregory to deal with himself on his own, Kate pushed back towards Janet, stomping on wyrkwik and propelling herself forward, towards Janet.

“I said leave!” Janet shouted as Kate landed to help.

Kate sliced down one tendril, while another came low and wrapped around Aunt Janet’s ankle.

Janet sliced low fast, before she lost her balance, but another tendril got her wrist.

Somehow, Janet kept between the mass and Kate, though Kate did help. It was just, for every tendril they cut, two more would shoot forward. And the mass was tall, at least twelve feet, towering over them, filling from cliff to cliff.

“Get back!” Janet shouted, before leaning forward and mule kicking Kate. Janet must have used one of her Marks, because Kate found herself flying through the air, backwards, and slamming into Gregory, before they rolled to a stop.

“Go!” Janet shouted.

Kate got up and prepared to rush back in, screaming in rage. But Janet, when she had bent forward to muster up her mulekick, she had left herself open. The mass of green and infested flesh was pulling Janet into it.

“Ru–” Janet’s voice trailed off.

Kate stiffened, working her jaw, all battle-lust forgotten.

“Aunt… Aunt Janet…” Kate said slowly, not fully comprehending.

Gregory tugged at Kate’s shoulder. “We need to move!” he pleaded.

Kate shrugged him off, ready to take vengeance against the wyrkwik, ready to charge headfirst into the melee and retrieve her aunt.

But Gregory refused to let go.

“Would your aunt want you dead too?” he asked.

Kate wanted to protest. She really wanted to.

But the wyrkwik were still coming. And there were still plenty between her and the exit that she could take her rage out on.

The wyrkwik would pay, now some, and more later. But they would pay.

Kate and Gregory traveled for hours. They truly had nearly been out of the mess with the wyrkwik by the time that Aunt Janet had been lost.

They had reached the opening where the female kun had been slayed, and where Charson had used his abominable alchemy on Kate to leave her temporarily a maddened beast, where Kate had severed the lilac kunbeorn’s arm.

That arm was nowhere in sight as they passed. Kate had trouble remembering exactly what had happened to it, or where it landed. But when she failed to spot it, she figured one of the cats, or scavengers, or even the wyrkwik had found it.

Once they reached the larger gorge though, they had to choose a direction. They could travel back towards the highway, backtracking for days, without supplies. They could attempt scaling the cliff walls. Or, they could attempt to break out from the southern ramp, where they had already previously attempted to escape.

Gregory wanted to return to the highway and hope for salvation.

Kate doubted any travelers would come by before they died of thirst. Especially once the first few caravans went missing. The guild was hardly stupid. Greedy, not dumb.

So instead, she started walking towards the ramp.

Gregory caught up eventually.

As they climbed the ramp, they kept their eyes open for wyrkwik, not that they could have done much, except gone down swinging. But when they came to the top, they heard talking, tin scraping, pounding, humans.

They heard humans.

Kate wondered if it was bandits at first, so naturally she drew her sword. However, when they crested the hill, exiting the gorge, they found an encampment in the Crown’s colors.

“We’re… we’re saved…” Gregory said in his cracking voice.

But why were they here? Kate could not help but wonder.

A shadow dropped from the sky and landed before them. It was a winged human, an inquisitor, a deviant. He kept a hand on a weapon, but he appeared at ease, confident even.

“In–inquisitor?” Kate asked.

Gregory fell to his knees. “Wyrkwik,” he explained, his words beginning to jumble. “There was a godsmarked kunny, and infested, and they ambushed our caravan and–”

Kate’s nostrils flared. “We don’t know that she’s godsmarked,” she protested.

“What else would it be–who would mark a–” Gregory started to counter, when the inquisitor raised a hand to stop their bickering.

It was then that Kate noticed the approaching soldiers, running from the camp, ready for combat. They wore Princess Marissa’s heraldry, and they did not appear as friendly as Kate would have liked.

Were they about to fight?

Kate refused to even consider the premise. Combatting the Crown’s forces was akin to an unfathomable sin. It was impossible.

Kate released the grip on her sword, instead elbowing Gregory to ensure he remained silent.

And finally, the deviant with the wings, the inquisitor, he spoke.

“You will tell me everything,” he said.