With the presence of Blood Fang, it was safe to say we didn’t need to worry about a blitz. In fact, we might not need to worry about any contact at all, but that was precisely the problem.
If we couldn't deal with Blood Fang then we’d be stuck in our fortress unable to complete any objectives. Blood Fang would either eat one team or we’d have to wait out the five days scoring no points and ending with a simple tie. I preferred the latter, but I knew it was foolish to hope for such an outcome.
“There has to be a way to reach the other fortress.” Mai repeated for the third time since we’d returned to the console room. “I won’t give up.”
Cole slammed his fist against the wall. “Did you not see that thing? Or do you just like courting death?”
Mai slumped in her seat. Her usual detached and uncaring facade started to crack. Evidence of fear and desperation peaked through as her sullen gaze dropped to the floor.
She allowed herself only a brief moment of emotion before replacing the mask. “No, I’m sure there’s a way. What if we tunnel underground to them? I’m sure that—”
“Not happening!” Audrey asserted. “There’s no way you’re getting me back into any form of cave, tunnel, or underground shaft after what we just went through.”
It was reassuring to know I wasn’t the only one still thinking about that.
Then I noticed Mai’s knuckles turning white as she gripped her chair tighter. The seat froze completely as Icy tendrils formed around her, wrapping themselves around the chair, pillars that supported the roof, and the table at the center of the room.
The stone cracked under the constricting pressure of her chains. “You didn’t even fight! You sat there with your eyes closed the whole time. Sydney died trying to protect you,” Mai seethed. With a disgusted grunt she added, “I should never have asked you to be on the team.”
I didn’t personally have any issue with Audrey, but I didn’t understand why Mai asked her either. The two were like oil and water and as Mai said about Kyla, this was a team game—cohesion was paramount.
Audrey stormed out of the room after Mai’s outburst. I didn’t want to listen to any more bickering, so I followed after her.
“That might’ve been a little harsh. Don’t you think she…” Cole’s voice faded into the distance as I moved further from the room.
Audrey hurried away from me, using “illuminate” on her CAD for light when she got outside the castle. Inside there seemed to always be light, so magic wasn’t necessary, but in the courtyard this convenience didn’t exist.
With a storm brewing overhead and the sun nearly gone, there was hardly any light.
A wave of her hand caused stones to fall from the wall, making an opening just large enough for a person to fit through. Audrey continued on without stopping.
The hell is she doing?
Fearing that she was going to do something foolish, I increased my pace. “Mudslide” she said, turning the ground in front of her to mud allowing her to slide down the path on an earthen slab.
Why she was so eager to escape, I didn’t know; but I pushed my body to its limits trying to keep pace, but still fell behind.
----------------------------------------
When I did catch up to Audrey, she was squatting at the edge of a ledge near the bottom of the mountain path. The sound of purring was almost unnoticeable over the noise of wind and rain.
I knelt beside Audrey, placing a hand on her back so she knew I was there.
She flinched and looked at me then held a finger in front of her mouth. With her other hand, she pointed below the cliff.
Blood Fang was pacing beneath us. The creature kept looking up, making me wonder if he knew we were there, but he never tried to come up the ledge.
His powerful footfalls shook the trees and each of his deep breaths saw new goosebumps forming on my arms. Everytime he looked towards us, I sat deathly still in hopes he wouldn’t notice.
Before looking away, he’d snort then shake his head as if he couldn't stand the stench of his own condensed breath.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered to Audrey.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Something incredibly dumb.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“I’m not; I’ve had time to cool off, but look there.” She pointed to an approaching light in the distance.
It looked just like the light from a CAD, reminding me to check and make sure Audrey’s was off, it was .
As the light got closer I was able to make out the outline of a person. She was obscured in grey robes that blended into the stony mountainside, especially in the rain.
Blood Fang stopped pacing. When the woman was fifty feet away, he bared his teeth with a warning growl, but she kept coming towards him. Each step she took forward, the beast took one back until he was backed up against the cliff.
When the woman was close enough to touch the beast, she removed her hood.
Her once beautiful face was scarred with lesions that oozed black pus. Her eyes, hollow and lifeless, like a doll’s, swirled with an amethyst energy. Pink stains ran down from her eyes to her chin as if drawn by her tears.
The woman, dead of emotion and spirit, touched Blood Fang's lower lip.
The beast, with its huge paw, knocked the woman away. She slammed into a tree with a crunchy crack; her body bent in ways it shouldn’t and her neck was definitely broken.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
She fell limp on the ground as the tree groaned and swayed until it fell and rolled away.
Something about the woman felt vaguely familiar to me. It was different and difficult to place, like the faces of guests at birthday parties.
Was it her face, perhaps I had seen her before? Hard to say with the pink lines on her face. They burned with energy that turned rain drops to steam. Either way she was dead now and it was time for us to leave.
“Let’s go Audrey, we should get out of here while that thing is distracted with her.”
I realized Audrey was trembling, her gaze locked on the woman and her expression frozen in horror. “She… she isn’t dead.”
I looked back at the corpse and there was no movement nor indication she was alive, but Blood Fang seemed equally as tense as Audrey.
I watched a moment longer then I noticed a twitch. The body erected itself unnaturally as if pulled from the ground by puppets strings.
As the woman jerked toward Blood Fang, the beast whirled around to smack her with his thick tail.
She completely stopped his momentum with her bare hand, broken and shattered as it was. On contact, the beast’s tail snapped and bent around her outstretched arm.
Blood Fang roared and spun around to snap at her, then snarled when his tail brushed against the cliff.
Several times he tried to knock the woman away using various parts of his body, but all attempts failed. She either ducked under his swipe or stopped it with her fist, which now resembled little lumps of flesh.
Blood Fang accumulated many cuts, scrapes and breaks in the brief skirmish, each taking a physical toll on him. The woman however, was unaffected.
When Blood Fang punched one of his horns through her belly, The girl simply used her already broken arm to break the horn then dislodged it from her gut and turned it against the beast.
Watching the panicked monster, I realized why the woman felt familiar. Her slow advance transported me back to the cave beneath the hallowed grounds. I had been in Blood Fang’s place when the mass of mangled flesh and purple energy finished with Mai and Fin. Its image overlapped with the woman’s in my mind and my heart beat faster with each dragging step.
The beast seemed to know something wasn’t right about this woman, so why didn't he fly away?
Blood Fang roared and growled with vain hope of deterring the possessed corpse. If she had been human, it might’ve worked, maybe, but she wasn’t really flesh and blood. She had been at some point, but now she was something fangs, claws and even magic couldn’t scare.
“Audrey, we need to go!” I said, grabbing her by the shoulder and struggling to drag her back from the ledge.
Blood Fang spread his wings and leapt into the air, but he fell back to the ground, toppling several trees and sending tremors through the ground.
I lost my balance with the tremors, nearly falling over the cliff, but grabbed a low hanging branch to steady myself.
Looking towards Blood Fang, I noticed black veins webbing across his leathery wings, some oozing black pus. He had already consumed the black liquid.
Does that mean the first person he ate was also like this woman? Does that mean the whole team then?
With the realization, it became painfully apparent that I wouldn’t be able to relax and hide here. If we were going to survive I was going to need help from the voice.
Blood Fang opened his mouth and covered the forest below in a blanket of blue fire. The possessed girl melted away in the heat, leaving behind only a human shaped mass of pure energy.
When the flames sprayed in our direction, Audrey was finally shaken from her daze. She took off up the mountain and I followed after her.
Rain and mud made the sloped path to safety into a dangerous slide down to a nightmare. Despite the hazard, We didn’t slow down. Spurred on by fear, we reached the top of the path swiftly.
Blood Fang’s roars and pained howling chased us even as we slipped back through the hole in the wall. The noise carried on the wind and had probably alerted the others because they were on the rampart when we reached the castle.
Once inside the courtyard Audrey tried several times to repair the hole in the wall, but couldn’t concentrate enough to cast any magic.
Taking notice, Cole cast a spell, “Emendo saxum,” and the stones replaced themselves in the wall.
“What happened?” Carletta shouted over distant roars that still sounded too close for comfort.
Audrey muttered incoherently, her breathing rapid; it was clear she wouldn’t be able to communicate the events, so I huffed, “Inside,” still catching my breath from sprinting back up the mountain.
As soon as we were through the door, Mai demanded, “what happened?”
“The other team…” I paused to breathe, “something isn’t right with them.”
After a full explanation even Mai seemed on edge.
The group exchanged puzzled glances. We probably all had the same question, but no one wanted to ask it.
----------------------------------------
Winds continued to howl outside, rain pounded against the castle and lightning crashed in the night, but Blood Fang’s cries could no longer be heard.
Whether this was a good or bad sign I didn’t know.
There was a wing of the castle with plenty of private bedchambers, but since none of us felt comfortable sleeping on our own, we relocated the mattresses to the console room. Mai volunteered to stay awake and watch monitors while the rest of us laid down.
I struggled to fall asleep. Flashes of Blood Fang’s struggle and memories from the cave, only a few nights old, kept forcing my eyes back open.
Ms.Nordblum had told me not to talk to the voice, but I didn’t think I had a choice. If that strange creature showed up here I’d be the only one that could kill it.
Hello?
“…”
You saw that thing right? Will you help me again?
“You can help yourself this time.”
But how? I haven’t been able to use your power since—
“I showed you the way. If you can’t do anything more, then you’re a useless vessel.”
After those words the voice seemed to put up some kind of block on our link. I could still sense mana, but I couldn’t feel the voice’s presence like before. It was almost like he’d vanished.
From my position, I could see Mai sitting in the captain's chair. She was mostly focused on the screens that displayed happenings outside the castle. I couldn’t see those, but I knew by her calm that things were fine for now.
I must’ve stared at her too long because she noticed and shifted in her seat.
I rolled over, but after struggling to fall asleep for another half hour, I joined Mai at the console.
“Are you still thinking of trying to win this game?” I hadn’t intended to be so direct, but the question had been nagging me for a while.
After her response to the zephyr on the mountain, I didn’t think she’d give up her goal until forced to.
To my surprise, Mai shook her head. “I’m not a fool, Fey.”
“I didn’t mean that. I only asked because you tend to—”
“I get it. I know my faults.”
We both looked at the screens. The rain had all but stopped. Things outside seemed peaceful and calm. Ordinarily I’d have taken this as a good sign, but in that particular moment, I felt it was only the calm before the storm