Yet another Friday

Runt shook his head and pushed Stripes to run faster. It was well after dusk, now. Runt began to worry they would be too late. The booze shack was somewhere not far ahead. They passed the abandoned cottage and rode over the scorched ground where the Captain shot his poison dart.

Runt heard the battle before he saw it. The dogs reacted first, barking and howling and yanking at their chains. Men yelled and one of them screamed. Suddenly, the dark was painted bright with yellows, oranges and reds. Much like the night before, a ring of fire exploded outwards. There was a brief pause as the fire erupted, and a voice barked out, harsh and unmistakeable.

“That’s it, lads! Have at ‘em! Give it to the brutes!” Gunther urged. “They ain’t never seen fires like this! Push ‘em back!”

Through gaps in the scrub Runt saw them. Men, armed with long torches soaked in pitch, waved their fiery brands to-and-fro. They formed a circle around the cart, flaming spears pointed outward, their faces grim with gritted teeth and dark eyes that glittered in the fire. Gunther, the small but wiry stablemaster, darted to-and-fro amongst the men exhorting them to hold the line. They were beset on all sides by creatures from the Deeps. The flames, though, kept the animals at bay. The men lunged forward and back, stabbing at the wolves, mammoths, and hoppers. They yelled, and cursed, and spat. They jeered, and laughed, and taunted the animals and slowly beat them back. Their faces became hideous in the flickering, fiery glow of the torches. In that moment Runt saw those men as they truly were. Demons straight from hell.

They cheered as a mammoth’s fur burst into flame. The terrified beast turned and bolted. The attacking force of wild animals faltered, and many creatures began backing away. Emboldened, the men advanced, swinging their flaming spears in wide arcs now, and the roar of fire drowned out all other sounds. The remaining animals turned and fled, crashing through the bush in all directions. It was over. The men returned to the cart, laughing, clapping each other on the shoulder, and bragged about the damage each had done. One man stood apart from the rest.

“Teacher!” Tyron yelled into the night. “Come and face me! Face me yourself, you coward!” He stood there, looking out into the dark, clenching and unclenching his giant fists.

The other men fell silent. All except Gunther.

“What’s your deal, mate? And who the bloody hell is ‘Teacher’?”

Tyron said nothing. He just stood, still as a statue, apart from his hands.

“You know more about this than you’re letting on, don’t ya, Tyron? All these blasted animals acting weird and attacking us. It’s not natural. Something’s making them do it! You gonna fill me in, or what?”

“Get in and get moving.” Tyron grunted, and stormed off in the direction of the deserted cottage.

The next hours were spent in an agonising chase. Keeping track of the cart was not a problem. Men walked on either side holding up flaming torches to light the way and to ward off any potential attacks. Keeping pace with the cart was not a problem, either. It trundled along so sedately that Runt almost became bored following it. Neither was it a problem to keep himself hidden. Runt and Stripes padded silently through the scrub at a safe distance. Occasionally one of the hunting dogs might pause and bark at a twig snapping but Tyron merely yanked the chain and they trotted off again.

The agony came from indecision. He followed the cart not knowing what else to do. Plan after plan was invented, analysed, and discarded.

“There’s too many of them,” Runt whispered to Stripes, “and too much light, with all those torches. I’d be spotted by the men, or worse, sniffed out by the dogs. But I can’t do nothing.”

And so he followed, because at least by following, he was doing something.

When the cart reached the port road and turned towards the quarry Runt realised he didn’t need to follow them, after all. He turned Stripes towards the Deeps and urged the dog into a gallop. They sprinted ahead. Runt left Stripes in the scrub at the edge of the quarry and sneaked to the rubble pile closest to the cave entrance.

The quarry was silent, deserted, and ghostly. The midnight moon threw a silver-grey veil over the rocky ground. The shadows were deep and black as pitch. If it wasn’t for the abandoned cart nearby, full of empty bottles, there would have been no way to tell the gorgon’s hidden entrance was there against the solid wall of stone.

A yellow glow emerged on the horizon and, slowly, the loaded cart ascended the road towards the quarry. From this distance it looked like a tiny glimmering beetle crawling up a long blade of grass. Runt flicked his eyes between the cart and the cave. The entrance stayed firmly shut. The beetle grew in size until it became a horse-drawn cart again. As the cart rattled along the rough track the bottles clinked, the empty buckets rattled, and the men grumbled.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

When they reached the wall, Gunther jumped down and began switching the horses from the full cart to the empty one. Tyron, meanwhile, lumbered to the wall and pounded on the secret entrance three times. The slam of his fist against the rockface resonated in deep booming echoes across the quarry. There was a pause, and then a bone rattling scrape as the rocks guarding the entrance were dragged aside.

On cue, a line of gorgons snaked out of the dark tunnel. Each of them walked past the cart, grabbed a crate of booze, and walked back into the gloom. The men stood aside, watching with their torches flickering, not lifting a finger to help.

Runt’s heart sank. His last and most desperate plan was failing. Invisible or not, there was no way he could sneak past the dogs, the men, and the gorgons while they streamed in and out. And even if he could make it inside, what then?

The last of the crates was carried inside but the line of gorgons continued to wind past the cart. Next, they grabbed the bulging sacks and the stacks of empty buckets behind the driver’s seat, and carried them in, too. Then, finally, a line of gorgons emerged from the tunnel each carrying a bucket. They walked over to the cart loaded with empty bottles, now hitched up to the horses, and began heaving the buckets into the back. Each landed with a dense thud in the rear. The wood of the cart creaked and groaned with every additional bucket.

Runt boggled at their contents which glittered and gleamed under the flickering torchlight. The way the gorgons tossed them so casually into the cart they could have been filled with pebbles, and they were, of a sort. The buckets loaded into the cart were full to the brim with nuggets of gold.

The teeth jarring scrape announced the closing of the mine doors again. Runt flinched and realised he’d been staring at the gold, almost hypnotised by it. What did it mean? Where did the gold come from, and why?

“C’mon, you lot! Quit staring at it. I swear you’re drooling. Ain’t you never seen a few buckets of gold before?” Gunther snarled. “Course you have, it’s the same stuff as what we got last week, and the week before, and the week before that. I swear, the way youse are swooning over it, you’d never once spied a nugget in your whole pathetic lives.” He whipped at the horses to get them moving. The cart was much heavier, now, and the horses snorted their disapproval. Gunther yelled again. “Move it, lads! You’ll get your share when the job’s done. This gold ain’t gonna load itself onto the Captain’s armoured treasure cart, now, is it?”

Runt realised, with a jolt, that Tyron was nowhere to be seen. The only creatures left in the quarry besides himself and the retreating booze cart were the dogs, tied up against the cart left behind. Keeping one eye on the secret entrance, Runt crept over to the dogs.

“Hello boys,” Runt whispered, scratching each of them behind their ears. The dogs wagged their tails in appreciation. “I’m glad you still remember me.”

Runt looked over to the wall which hid the tunnels beyond.

“All these years and I had no idea this was where you lot were sneaking off to each Friday. And every time I get a bit closer to the truth, there’s a new puzzle to bother me. Where’s all that gold come from then? And where’s it off to? And who’s it for?”

One of the dogs whined as Runt absent-mindedly patted him on a wound.

“Oh, sorry Shank! It looks like that gash is on the mend, at least.” Runt said, inspecting the stitches. “You need a good feed and a rest, hey boy? But you’ll be back to the kennels before sunrise, I suppose.” His mind wandered back to the wolf attack, and the words Tyron yelled into the dark.

“‘Come face me, teacher’, he said. But how does he know the teacher? And why didn’t the teacher mention it? Either way, Tyron’s more involved with this than I ever knew. He’s not just helping with protecting the booze. He’s friendly with the gorgons. Or, at least, pretending to be friendly with them. He’s in there with them right now, drinking grog, I’d guess. And if Tyron knows about the teacher, then he knows about harpies, and he would know how they need the fey-trees.”

Runt’s eyes widened as the implications sank in.

“It’s him, isn’t it? The one responsible for all this bad stuff happening. I bet Tyron’s been telling the gorgons to cut down the fey-trees. He figured out that the harpies are trying to stop the booze so he’s going to stop the harpies once and for all!”

A wave of sickness and fear washed over him as he crouched there, still absently patting a dog, considering whether Tyron was capable of such a thing. Of wiping out an entire species just for booze and gold. Runt thought back to all the casual acts of cruelty he’d seen. Tyron killed without thought. He’d cheered each time one of his rocks hit those laughing kingfishers as they exploded in a cloud of feathers. Was this any different?

Runt crept back and hid behind the rubble pile. A weight of doom pressed down on his shoulders. Tyron would be out again soon enough. It was Friday. He would leave the cave with a backpack full of booze, grab the dogs, and be back at the kennels by sunrise.

“Or maybe he won’t.” Runt thought, coldly, gripping his spear. He shivered at the thought sprouting in the depths of his mind. Tyron would be blind to him in the dark. He could easily sneak behind the giant bear of a man, slash the spear across his ankle and bring him down. After that, it would be like the ants tearing apart a grasshopper. One piece at a time. Would the gorgons hear his old master scream and come to his aid? Maybe. But Runt would be invisible, all the same. Even if Tyron escaped, he would know. He would know death was coming for him.

Runt lay there, in the dark, behind the rubble pile, as his vision of Tyron’s murder grew like a strangler vine blotting out every other thought. The dark dream continued on loop with every variation of the man’s possible death being tested. Runt saw himself leaping off the cart and slashing for his throat as Tyron untied the dogs. He saw himself tripping the man, then running the spear across his back as he lay on his hands and knees. He imagined getting to Tyron’s eyes with the spear, blinding him, before tearing his body apart one slash at a time. He imagined the things he would say as his former master lay there in agony. He would make him understand how the pain was justice. That it was only a fraction of the justice he deserved.

These dreams of death played and replayed as the night wore on. “Any minute, now,” Runt thought, gripping the spear so tightly that his palms ached, “he’ll come out again, and I will end this madness.” But the stone door remained closed and, slowly but surely, the efforts of the day took their toll, and Runt fell asleep.