Hina rushed up the muddy slope, fear lending strength to tired limbs.

The beast howled again behind them, loud and close. The dog-things were back. Or something like them. Hina hoped that they were chasing something else—some animal—or even someone else. She wasn't feeling generous right now. Her right hand checked her belt and found the knife. It wasn't much, but if it came to it, she'd at least see one of them bleed.

The barrier—she wished she'd spent more time on figuring out how to make it work. After what had happened with the sigil, she'd been too afraid to try again. And that had been a mistake. She should have taken the risk, and they were paying for it now.

Or, would it help right now? Maybe not. Any amount of rain could break the boundary of the working, if the water flowed over it. And the beasts were hunting them—maybe it wouldn't help unless they could find somewhere dry and out of sight.

Her foot slipped on the wet leaves and she fell forward, catching herself on tangled tree-roots. Half-crawling, she pulled herself up the steepest part of the slope with her hands before she got back up to her feet.

The spire was over to the left behind the trees. Hina angled them away from it through the thickest parts of the forest. The trees were strange, bare things with blackened branches that spread in all directions. No straight lines at all. Water kicked up by Kai's sandals splashed onto her legs as they ran through the puddles between the roots.

Hina put a hand on the trunk of one of the bare trees for balance. The surface was rough under the sheen of water, the bark scratching at her hand, the ridges making a shape that felt almost familiar. A sharp pain spiked into her hand, and Hina jerked away. Fresh blood welled in the center of her palm.

A beast howled behind them. And another directly ahead. Hina veered to the left, away from both of the howling things.

Kai was one step behind her, his arm was bloodied, he pointed onward.

The spire came into view, a curved and weathered wall of mossy grey stone that stretched up into the haze. Streams ran down it on all sides. A massive door stood open in the face of it. The edge of the door broke up the flow, spraying rainwater in every direction.

Hina jogged into the clearing around the tower, angling their path past it and towards the other side.

A beast stepped out of the murk on the other side of the trees, blocking their path. A wolf-like thing, brown and as tall as Hina to the shoulder. Curling horns, like a goat's horns, rose from behind its ears. It stood proud with rain streaming down its back. Watching them.

Another one stepped out of the trees to the left, and a third was behind them—a smaller one, two thirds of the size of the biggest one. It padded towards them, and froze when it saw that Hina had seen it.

To the right, a fourth sat at the tree-line.

"Into the spire!" Hina could barely hear herself over the roar of the water.

She caught Kai's hand, pulled him along with her as she walked backwards towards the door. The beasts paced forward with every step that Hina took.

Water splashed the back of Hina's head from a new direction. They were on the threshold. The doorway a gaping hole into darkness. The biggest beast was close.

The gap in the door was narrow, maybe too narrow for the beasts to follow. Hina hoped so. "Go go go." She pushed Kai through the doorway and turned with her back to the door.

Three of the beasts were close—two of the middling ones to each side and the smallest right in front of her. If Hina had a spear like the one she'd used in militia training, she could have poked the closest one in the nose. It snarled at her, white teeth flashing in the murky light as it stepped foward.

Hina backed up until she made contact with the wall of the tower by the door, knife held low and ready. Water from the door splashed over her head and neck.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Something—Kai—grabbed her backpack and guided her backwards through the doorway. She glanced back and dumped the bag on the stone floor before turning back to the open doorway with her knife ready. "Close the door, Kai!"

The rain came down in sheets. The smallest beast had disappeared while she looked away—all of them were gone. Hina leaned forward to see around the doorway. Nothing. No movement.

"Won't budge!" Kai pulled the handle in the center of the door with his whole body. "It's stuck!"

The rain cut visibility down to a handful of metres. She leaned as far out as she dared for a better look, but the clearing around the tower was... empty. She watched the tree line carefully—there.

One of the beasts was watching from under the trees. The biggest one—a tall shadow in the murk.

"They're watching—they're not coming in." Maybe they couldn't fit. "Keep an eye on the door—I've got an idea."

"Got it." Kai took her place in the doorway, dripping muddy water into the puddle at his feet, hammer held loose in his right hand.

The room was large, and almost bare, a half-circle about fifteen metres across, with another enormous metal door set into the far wall. That one was closed.

A woven rug added a splash of green in the center, covering much of the floor. A painting hung on the wall to the left. On the other side of the room, a fireplace crackled with heat and light.

The light was wrong—consistent and steady, like it was coming from electric lights rather than a fireplace, but there were no lamps or candles or anything that Hina recognised as a light source. High above, the ceiling was dark—if it was there at all.

Heavy backpack in hand, Hina walked over to the fireplace, dripping muddy water with every step.

The mantlepiece rose over Hina's head and an oversized iron poker leaned against the wall. The fire burned low, glowing embers and a few licks of flame. A stack of wood stood ready in a niche next to the fireplace.

Someone had tended to this fire recently. But there was no sign of them now.

The room was warm and clean, not at all what she expected from the weathered exterior. Someone must live here.

Hina would have to explain when they showed up. Surely they'd understand. Any normal person would welcome a stranger seeking shelter from the wild. She glanced at the closed door which stretched far over her head. She hoped it was a normal person who lived here.

"Any movement?" she asked Kai, who still stood in the doorway.

"Nothing," he said. "Haven't even seen 'em. Think they're gone?"

"No." Hina started taking things out of her bag, and setting them by the fire. Her bag was soaked through. "They chased us this far. They're not going to give up so quickly."

Her bag supposed to be a little bit waterproof, but not, she supposed, proof against a torrential downpour and falling into the mud. She would have to find a way to hang out the clothes, but that could wait. She found the empty flour sack near the bottom. Perfect.

As she took out her half-full water bottle, she had a thought. "How are you for water?" she called.

"Hmm." She heard faint clattering as Kai shuffled his gear around. "Low," he called.

The roar of the rain and the rushing water was distant, but Hina could still hear it. She found the cookpot and opened it up: it wasn't clean, but close enough. She dumped the rest of the water from her water bottle inside.

"Fill both of these up? Please? You should be able to do it without going too far out the door. Catch some of the water running down the sides of the tower. We don't know how long we'll be in here."

"Yeah, yeah."

If they were going to be trapped in here for a while, that was their first concern sorted. Though water would still be a problem if they were in here for more than a couple of days. But if someone lived here, surely there'd be a source of water nearby, maybe even somewhere inside.

So on to the next problem—the door.

Hina picked up the oversized iron poker and shifted one of the smouldering logs closer to the middle of the fire. Fine grey ash puffed into the air.

There was a lot of ash built up in the hearth. She tested the heat by moving her hand close, then touched it with her fingertips. Hot, but not unbearably so.

One handful at at time, Hina stuffed hot ash into the flour sack until it was half-full—full enough. She wiped ash off of her hands onto her filthy dress.

"Still good?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Hina, I'll say if I see something."

It was time then. Hina picked up her wand—her tree branch—and found a dry spot near the fire.

Legs crossed, Hina put the branch across her lap and began to draw potentia. It came into her with a rush at her barest suggestion, wild and hard to control. She sensed it wearing at her, at the fabric of her being. Something intangibly Hina dissolved into the raging torrent of potentia as she drew it into herself.

But it was only for a moment, and then she was brimming with power. The rush of power shook away some of her exhaustion, replaced it with a buzz of excitement.

Taking up the flour stack and her branch-wand, Hina walked to the entrance, leaving another dripping trail of muddy water on the tiles. Two water bottles sat neatly by the wall.

"Step back a bit?" Hina asked. She emptied the sack of ash out onto the floor. The ash soaked through, turning to black mud that grew thick as Hina stirred it with her sandalled foot.

Good enough. Time to take another risk.

Branch-wand in hand, Hina prepared herself for the barrier working.