CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: MY MOUNTAINS
The earth crumbled with their impact; everything known was lost.
Five minutes later, or maybe fifteen, Bridget’s legs pumped, breath ripping from her chest as she tore through the woods. With each step that struck the ground, her strength leeched, draining from the hard jolts of contact in rapid succession. From behind, the sound of splintering wood and dull, ripping roots being plucked from earth urged Briddy on, drawing closer each time she slowed. In her arms, the edges of a tattered bundle limply waved her forward, its dim contents silent of advice or insight.
Briddy gasped. The tip of a branch, broken and curved like a talon, had caught her now-bare shoulder when she tried to duck it. Gail’s head snapped around. Shaking hers, Briddy freed a hand and shoved her forward. They couldn’t stop.
THUNK. KRAAACK. A tree not five paces behind them caved inwards, the tip of a shining black drill appearing at the midsection.
Bridget gave her several more pushes. They surged back into the brush, greenery assaulting them anew. Running along forest paths was one thing, travelling made easy where nature was worn down by habitual intruders going about daily business. This was not the case here; it seemed like the foliage pushed Bridget and Gail back like they were sieging the high walls of an old, verdant castle. Tree trunks thicker than they stood tall towered in the way, too close to slip between. Their branches snagged and cut, roots lying in wait to ensnare. And if that weren’t bad enough, the rest of the undergrowth stretched like ramparts in between, full of thorns and twigs.
“River’s rush!” Gail flew forward, sprawling onto the ground. Her foot had caught a bulging root. “Why couldn’t they have walked on the treetops again?”
Bridget nearly dropped her painful bundle as she sought not to trip over her friend’s long limbs. Clutching the Shroud’s remnants tighter with her left hand, she staggered forward, holding out the other to Gail. “Come on,” she gasped.
Gail lifted her head and caught sight of her. An odd look crossed her face. “Bridget–” She began, taking the hand.
“Move!” Yanking her up, Briddy took off, running away from more than just the monstrosity. She couldn’t handle whatever Gale was about to say. They didn’t know what was going on. Neither of them. They didn’t know anything. Bitter vitriol accompanied the last thought with such force that it terrified Bridget.
Her lungs could only taste copper when they drew air, and her body felt like it was seconds from melting into a pile of jelly. There had been no time after the cracks had appeared to react, for her to do anything, to stop it. Tears pricked Briddy’s eyes, swelling the edges of her throat. She would’ve done something.
Vex. When she called the name, an intense feeling of illness wrenched her insides about. It was like thinking any other thought, now. As though she had gone from speaking in the empty void of possibility to writing on a page. There was no echo, or dimension to her inner calling. Just a silly little girl, imagining a name inside her head, and holding a bunch of broken metal in a shredded uniform.
Vex, please. Vex. Vex. VEX! She screamed silently, raging as she searched for the wall, for something to push through to her relic.
There aren’t any walls on a blank page except the ones you put there.
Yet Bridget could feel herself shattering all the same, frigid realization crystallizing into a capsule at her core. Vex was gone. And once again, there wasn’t time to look at the pieces. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Feeling them bite into her arms and chest with every step was painful a reminder enough. A reminder that she was no longer special, that what followed was no distant concept in a lesson, and if this was a hunt, Bridget was not the hunter.
She wasn’t even sure that she was a Relic Heir, anymore.
A branch Gail had pulled back whipped towards her face, narrowly missing with a thwhip. Briddy didn’t blink, too consumed to react. What did she have, if Vex was gone? Magic? Might? There was a reason she hadn’t planned to pursue this life before. A bleeding boy flashed in front of her eyes, begging her to heal him, to end the pain in his severed stump while her Vigni struggled to even function.
“Piss poor is worse than had you ignored him altogether.” Her father’s disapproval rumbled through the memories of her classmates’ cries of pain.
Face growing hotter, Briddy struggled to keep back the sobs that racked up her chest. Up ahead, amber light breached the walls of foliage, sending beams to beckon to them with shimmering yellow fingers. As they darted for the luminescence, it took Bridget a moment to register that the heat she felt was growing by the second, and the illumination had taken an apricot hue.
But before she could speak, Gail pushed back a bush that was in the way, and they both could see that Courage House was on fire.
More accurately, the ground around it was. At the other end of the clearing, across an unrecognizable landscape that had once been the lawn, a ring of flames soared toward the buttery yellow wards that blocked the sky. Spitting and sparking, fiery tongues wove a net around the house that rose all the way to the roof without ever touching a single tile. Pale faces pressed against the windows inside, a collage of fleshy circles peering out through the glass at the horrors beyond. Briddy could’ve sworn she caught a glimpse of a pair of traitorous spectacles winking out from the second story.
Just inside the ring, she also caught sight of Professor Maistwel’s bobbling cap. His back faced them, and his arms were outstretched. Gouts of fire poured from his fingertips in lashing tails, simultaneously feeding the net of flames, and striking at one of the diamond-headed creatures that loomed nearby. Many of its legs were partially restrained; the others hacked back in cold retaliation.
Beyond the blaze, the lawn to the Upper Dorm was a tapestry of mayhem. Students dashed about, firelight glinting off of desperately drawn weapons, faces momentarily illuminated by the flash of a spell. Some attempted to reach the circle, only to be thwarted by scythed and slicing limbs from another Strange monstrosity, roaming free. Huddled forms oozed dark liquid into the soil, which was scattered everywhere by the roots of shattered or ripped-up trees. What had once been a manicured landscape was now sculpted into something entirely different, fallen trunks and disturbed earth acting as some cruel mockery of a graveyard.
“It’s just as bad.” Bridget gasped, gripping a tree trunk for support. “Here.”
Gail gulped air. “And we brought more.”
On cue, the crashing chorus of their company caught up, dark limbs piercing through the trees and forcing the girls into chaos. Slowly, they backed away, facing the creature as it drew itself out of the woods, one articulated, mutating leg at a time. Not far away, a pair of breathy chimes rang out, heralding the approach of their other pursuer.
“River’s rush,” Bridget whispered. Her limbs felt truly dead and cold while watching this nameless beast rear up ten, twenty feet, even higher over them, the edge of its wicked arms glinting with an unnatural sheen.
In the corner of her eye, she saw the sliding plates of Gail’s gauntlets covering her fists, and before she could stop them, her lips had formed her own relic’s name.
Vex. Nothing. There was nothing. She had…
Bridget looked up at the limb, eyes shaking, wide as saucers.
Nothing.
At the same time as the black, glittering curve of the scythe began to swing, a feeling broke in Bridget’s gut. It was like a great crystalline capsule from earlier had burst, sending glacial water pumping through her veins instead of heated blood. Every part of her shook to its foundation, leaving her mind and senses blank in the wake.
Gail was yelling something at her, but the sound was muted by her heartbeat, thudding like a fist beating against the wall of her ribs. Cast aside, Bridget numbly watched as Gail lost her summoning to deflecting a scythe with a long, shuddering scrape, and then she struck the earth. Hitting the ground in a sprawl, the bundle slipped out of her fingers, and golden pieces flew out across the grass.
“Briddy we don’t-come on!” Gail snatched her arm as Bridget desperately tried to gather them all.
“No! Gail I need-”
“We can’t!” Gail yanked her midsection, still speaking as Bridget fought her. “It’s just a broken blade now, Briddy. You need to MOVE!”
A sob escaped Bridget, and she let Gail pull her away. She peered down at the small fistful of shards she had managed to scoop up. So little was left of Relic that had shown her what strength was; the sword that had given her both worth and new hope in life. She couldn’t just leave that in the dirt. Even if it was all over.
Closing her fingers tight as they ran up the lawn, Bridget felt the metal bite her skin. If this was the end, she wanted it to be with those who had fought for her. With her. That included Vex.
Skirting wide from where the other monstrosity still terrorising the left half of the field, Bridget and Gail’s frantic bid for passage only brought them partway before the tolls of the night came ringing to collect.
“Down!” Bridget pulled them both to the ground, the whooOOSH of a dark limb separating the air where their heads had been.
Gail gritted her teeth, the hole in her punctured arm gushing blood as she pushed herself up, only to sway so badly she nearly fell back down. Bridget scrambled to catch her, but suddenly cried out, clutching her thigh.
“What is it? Briddy?”
“Nothing. Gah!” She pawed at her shorts, covered in crusted bloodstains. “Are you alright?”
Clutching her arm, Gail made a face and tried to stand again. Briddy was ready to catch her this time, a grimace on hers.
“Mmmm,” Gail muttered. “Everything’s spinny.”
Her breaths were coming fast, and hard; the sharp edge of her gaze dulled by drooping eyes.
“Deep,” Bridget smacked at her own leg, “breaths. You’ve bled a lot.”
Gail scoffed in her ear. “Haven’t noticed.”
They tried to make a few steps further but dropped once more when Bridget began yelping in pain.
“Hot! Holy sculptor’s –” She dug into the pocket of her shorts, yanking out the miniature sun that had taken up residence, and prepared to chuck away…a silver hairclip, shaped like a feather, that was glowing white-hot. The very same clip that her little brother had given her on the first day of school, and had gotten tangled in her hair at the beginning of the night.
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“Briddy–” Gail gasped.
“I didn’t know.” She whispered.
“No…” Gail’s fingers loosely tapped against her arm, and then Bridget understood. Looming over them, now caught up, was the foreboding diamond head, and two limbs: their many triangular facets folding like delicate, deadly paper before swooping for their necks. Briddy was still caught between the two revelations, fingers burning as she held the hairclip and stomach flopping as though it had been pushed out the window once again, when silver-pale light washed out the world like the burst of a bomb once more.
Only, rather than explosively blinding Bridget as though it had originated at her feet, there was a brief second where she saw the Strange creature lit, the flat planes of its featureless face pale and gaunt as though this intense luminesce was coming from behind them, in the direction of Courage House.
Then light consumed her eyes, and before she could blink them clear, the tinkle of glass shattering surrounded her once more. Sweet, heady perfume filled her nose with the scent of something strongly floral and chemical, and Briddy began sneezing. Although the flash faded, her world wasn’t clearing to a sharp focus. Her vicinity was consumed by clouds of magenta and lavender, swirling together in a storm of vibrant color. Gradually, they began to pull back, forming a small dome of brightly colored fog that wrapped all around her.
Noting the remarkable lack of black limbs intruding into the immediate area, Briddy marked this newest development down as an improvement. She ran a thumb over her brother’s hairclip, now cold and dull silver once more. Back into the pocket it went. Turning her head toward the sounds of hacking and swearing, she pulled herself over to where Gail was irritably swatting swirls of fog away.
“Can you stand?” Bridget managed.
Gail wordlessly nodded. Together, they helped the other to stand and then looked around.
“Uh….”
The fog obscured their surroundings in the confines of its brightly colored shelter.
Remembering what she had heard, Briddy searched the ground. “Look.” She took a step toward a small pile of glittering pieces scattered in the grass and tried to ignore how they reminded her of the ones she held. “This came from behind us, same direction as the light.”
“Lead on,” Gail murmured, following her out.
Instinctively, Briddy held her breath when she reached the edge of the little dome, stepping over the shards of glass with great care. She let out a small squeak when her bare foot came into contact with something squishy on the other side, and a misfortunate cork stopper was sent flying off somewhere into the great unknown. Before she could continue through the heady-smelling fog, Gail’s hand clamped down on Bridget’s shoulder.
“Something’s coming.”
Dancing orange light from Courage House wavered through the intensely colored smoke, bending light around the edges of an outline that surged toward them, its form stretching high and spindly, three arms reaching out.
Briddy squinted, and Gail slowly raised her arms, closing and opening her fists as she got ready to summon. They took another step out of the fog, and she became convinced that whatever was coming at them was not one of the Strange visitors. Two legs pumped against the ground, over and over, rather than striking and dragging as though picking delicate, long-spanning strides. Her pulse quickened, remembering the flash and the white-hot clip. Had Nolan decided to circumvent his ban from the University to somehow save her?
But then she took her final step, and saw the gap in the ring of flames made by a spattering of pale blue foam, registered the door to Courage House, still swinging back and forth as though thrown wide with abandon, and knew in her bones that it wasn’t her brother.
Asher was sprinting across the lawn toward them, face stricken as though it were his life that depended on it. Dressed in pale blue linen pyjamas and Shroud, a satchel was thrown over his shoulder, and a quarterstaff held readied in hand. Catching sight of them when they emerged, he drew two flasks from the bag, tossing them up high into the air. They began to glow, one a pearlescent shade of purple, and the other prismatically iridescent. Before the round containers could fall, he spun the shaft of his staff, striking each flask with a different end. They soared past Bridget and Gail’s heads, leaving momentary trails of light to linger behind them in the air.
Briddy felt the ground shudder as one made contact, and did not turn around to see what the other enacted. She stumbled forward, skirting the gnarled roots of a fallen tree. Breathlessly, Asher caught up to them, and they all mashed together in a confused tangle that was partway between an embrace and a collision.
“Sculptor, Gail!” Asher said, drawing back in horror after he touched her arm by accident. He wiped his hand on his nightclothes, leaving a red streak. Without hesitating, he delved into his bag once more and withdrew a tangerine flask.
“I’m not using the cheese potion.” Gail nearly punched it right out of his grip.
“No! Damn it, Gail! It only started– there are other applications!” Asher swore as she swatted him away.
“It smells.”
“Gail–” Bridget began wearily, keeping an eye on their surroundings. The dome of fog had dissipated, leaving an empty field, with a slightly glowing crater. Where had the creature gone?
“You can’t make me.”
“It’s a plaster!” Asher protested.
A voice slipped from the darkness, washing over the conversation like the flood of a tide over a campfire. “Having fun, children?”
By the time Bridget fully understood that: first of all, the voice had come from someone else, and secondly, that she had already reacted, Asher’s quarterstaff was already well on its way swinging through the air. She must’ve snatched it from him before turning around, but before it could reach the bald head of the intruder, an enormous metal blade, curved like the moon they could no longer see, blocked the blow.
“Careful, Vasily.” Professor Hennigan’s eyes glittered at her from behind his axe. He held the enormous weapon so that the flat side interjected between them. The tip of the staff sunk into the keen edge. Despite the late hour, he was fully dressed in leather armor, the metal studs winking as he shifted, frowning down at her.
Bridget followed his eyes down her spontaneously conscripted length of wood, right to where her hand held it near the bottom, in the wrong grip, like a sword. She felt like one had gutted her when Hennigan’s gaze landed on her other fist, flickering cut fingers and the golden shards Bridget was too slow to completely hide.
One of Hennigan’s eyebrows slowly raised, the corner of his mouth curling. Shoving her fist behind her back, Bridget wondered to herself about the possibility of giving him a matching scar on that bald head of his. They stared at one another, every inch of her crawling with agony.
“Shouldn’t let yourself be disarmed that easily, Miltark.” The Professor finally said, yanking his Relic to the side so hard that Bridget lost her grip on the weapon. Without so much as another glance, he pushed past her. “I thought I taught you better.” Freeing the wood from the axe, he tossed the quarterstaff back to Asher.
“Professor the creatures-” Asher began.
“I’m aware. One ran off before I was forced to attend to whatever this is.”
Bridget bit down a spiteful response about being aware he couldn’t do his job. Her face felt like she was standing next to the Courage House fire, flames raging at the skin. She could already sense Asher’s confusion, feel the weight of his blue eyes piercing into hers, looking to understand why she hadn’t summoned her sword earlier.
“Eat rocks.” Gail suddenly coughed.
Bridget snorted.
Hennigan turned his head toward where the tall girl had lowered herself to the ground, and slowly blinked.
“She’s wounded?” Asher offered, rummaging in his bag. “Looks like blood loss, possible delirium, I mean she already said the wildest things, really…”
“Right…” Professor Hennigan turned, swinging his axe toward Bridget. “Vasily. Here.”
She gave him the kind of look one gives fungus they found growing in the place of a favorite meal.
“Now.”
Briddy trudged away from Gail and Asher, careful to keep her fist at her side, and out of sight from Hennigan’s smirks.
“Miltark. Get the girl up and take both her and Vasily back to the house.”
“Bridget can-”
“Vasily has been compromised.”
Briddy looked at him, magma threatening to spew from her mouth. “I can fight!”
“Can you?” Hennigan flattened his mouth, the corners quirking downward as though in surprise.
Curls bouncing as his head snapped back and forth between them, Asher began to ask a question, but the words were drowned out by an earsplitting CRACK. Seconds after, there was a telltale creak, and then all Bridget heard was Hennigan bellowing “BACK!”
Something yanked at the back of her shirt, and Briddy stumbled back over her feet, colliding into another body right as the ground began to shake. Dirt sprayed across her, stinging her skin in a thousand different strikes. Her nose filled, clay and loam coating her throat and clinging to her lungs as they struggled to choke clean. Suddenly by the same hand that had pulled her away, Bridget coughed and wheezed. Vaguely, she was aware of Professor Hennigan brushing specks of grime from his armor.
“Collect yourself.” He growled.
Swiping at her streaming eyes with a closed fist, Bridget pushed herself up. Just as she straightened, Briddy began hacking again, this time from her sharp intake of breath. Rising in their way was a wall of wood and leaves, furrowed bark splintered at the far end. Another of the trees, its thick trunk wider than most stood tall, had been robbed of its place lining the lawn and instead now blocked it completely. Atop the expanse of bark and trunk, dark hooks and drilling points carried two monstrous, mutating figures out of the forest.
“So that’s where the little bugger went.” Hennigan sneered. “Got some company.”
“Professor–”
“Oh, go to the house, Vasily.” His back already faced her, the enormous double-bladed axe slicing the air with eager strokes.
Bridget kept talking. “Professor we’ve been-”
“Did you not hear me?” Hennigan whirled with such force that the words froze in her throat. It wasn’t that the intensity of his action came from the motion, though it was abrupt. What caused her breath to catch was the way he looked at her, with an absolute abandonment of care or reason. The only thing left in his eyes was pure, irate loathing, and the violent desire to end the annoyance that caused it.
It was just like looking into her father’s eyes. Her mother’s.
All of the sudden, Bridget was a little girl again, watching helplessly as her arm was seized and someone began to scream at her. Hennigan was telling her she was useless, to leave the fighting to the capable, that she was an idiot. The words didn’t matter. The message was the same. This was a person that didn’t care.
It was only when he shoved her back so hard she almost fell that she remembered why he needed to.
“Gail and Asher!” She tripped forward, seizing the back of the shirt. “We’ve been separated!”
Hennigan opened his mouth just as a scream tore through the air. Asher’s yell responded, and Gail’s name ripped from Bridget’s lips. She twisted her neck and saw with horror that one of the creatures had disappeared from atop the trunk, and the other scuttled toward them.
“To the house!” Hennigan shoved her again.
“No!” Bridget pushed against him now straining for the tree. “My friends-”
He shoved the axe against her chest. “Hide with the other children.”
“I’m no child! I’m an Heir!”
“Are you?”
Bridget stopped, her free hand pushing flat against the metal of his Relic. Whatever her inner qualms, this man had made no effort whatsoever to care about or invest in her up to this point. Hennigan didn’t get to tell her what to do. He wasn’t her father.
Glaring up at him, she raised her chin. “My mountains aren’t yours. Don’t climb them.”
“Mountains.” Scorn slipped across the word like oil over a blade. Dark eyes narrowing, Hennigan leaned in. She could smell the stink of stale sweat and dried blood on him, but didn’t back down. “Do what you’re told, girl. This is a poor time to take up the Vasily mantle.”
Despite herself, Bridget felt her lip curling in disgust. “Then help me burn it! My friends need us! Either continue this cycle and stand in the way, or choose to end it.” Her jaw set as she looked up at him, hard. “But that mountain's yours.”
With that, she shoved against the axe, giving as much strength as she could to the burst. Bridget saw something flicker across Hennigan’s face. Disdain? Surprise? Regret? Did it matter?
No, she decided. He let her pass, and that was enough.
Bridget looked back to see if Hennigan was following her to the branches of the tree, but the Professor had already engaged the other Strange creature in combat. She only caught flashes as she climbed, but her view was largely blocked by leafy boughs. It seemed that even with the full might of Hennigan’s training and completely borne Relic the phenomenon she and other students had experienced still held true: his blows bounced from its limbs with an alien chime. A twig snatched her horsetail, and she pulled it free, not stopping.
Pulling herself up onto the top of the prostrated tree, body screaming with exhaustion, Bridget gasped for air, scrabbling to stand. Locks of her hair tumbled down, lifting in a stale breeze. In front of her, a great expanse of black bark stretched out like a highway to the unknown, jagged points directing her toward the woods. Briddy immediately scoured the right side, spotting a many-legged monstrosity whaling into a purple dome that flickered and cracked. Just as she raised her hand, a roar rent the air to the left. Her head followed, strands whipping the air. She turned just in time to see Hennigan being driven back, chunks of metal flying towards his opponents with each swing of his axe. The creature that had stayed on the other side of the lawn had crossed, and now lent its limbs to the fray.
“Briddy!” She heard Asher’s yell.
At the same time, Professor Hennigan screamed in pain, having driven his axe into one of the bulbous, churning sacs. Bright splashes of what looked like molten metal poured out, and a storm of limbs rained down.
A voice, just like her own, rang clear in Briddy’s mind.
“Are you ready to die today, Bridget Vasily?”