Two days. Two long, endless days of lifting his feet and putting them down someplace slightly further away without a wink of shuteye had Rasp on the brink of no return. His body was spent, broken, barely holding on by a thread. Nay, not a thread – one of the thin filaments that made up a thread, only thinner, stripped in half, tattered and breaking. That was what he hung by. But Rasp couldn’t afford to let go, not yet, not now, not ever. He’d already lost his mind to the madness and couldn’t afford to lose his body too. It alone kept him going. That and Faris, he supposed, who poked and prodded him without mercy anytime he showed signs of stopping.

It was a shame Faris couldn’t do anything about the creeping shadows wreaking havoc within Rasp’s mind. Danger suddenly lurked everywhere, including the places it didn’t.

Rasp bristled at the sound of the needle-laden boughs as they creaked and groaned overhead. Ordinarily he would have blamed such movement on the wind without a second thought, but that’s what they wanted him to believe. The enemy was crafty that way. They didn’t aim to tear the group apart from the outside alone, no, that would have taken too much time. They were working from the inside out, using every opportunity to wear at their nerves, little by little, until the group lost their grasp on reality and stumbled blindly into an awaiting trap.

Rasp was on to them, though. Whereas the rest of the group plunged ahead unaware, he alone kept track of the enemy’s constant whereabouts. The hypnotic sway of the boughs overhead, for example, wasn’t just the wind, but witches. Hiding, lurking, waiting to pounce. His pursuers were simultaneously all around and nowhere to be seen. The enemy stayed close, causing havoc anytime Rasp’s group slowed their breakneck pace, but were always just far enough out of reach to avoid retaliation. They had the numbers too. Which meant any time one group of harassers got winded, they could simply swap places with the next.

The worst part was that it was working.

Whisper, stricken with iron poisoning, rode within the confines of Rasp’s pack in their white weasel form, taking up as little room as possible. The fae drifted in and out of consciousness. Each bout of restless sleep lasted a little longer. Soon, Rasp feared his mentor would stop awakening at all. Hop was starting to lag as well. His heavy hooves dragged across the soft dirt, barely able to lift them high enough to avoid snagging on the treacherous roots that wove across the dark forest floor. Short of strapping Hop to the back of a bear, Rasp didn’t know how they would continue the moment the faun collapsed and couldn’t get up again.

“Rasp?” Faris’s voice, low and hoarse, broke Rasp from fixating on the dancing weave of shadows. The surrounding forest looked the same as it always did, blurry, looming, and suffocatingly dark, but that didn’t stop Rasp from scouring the murky shadows in search of the enemy. He knew they were there, maybe not up close, but nearby, and he wasn’t going to drop his guard for a second.

Faris tugged Rasp’s arm for all he was worth. “Rasp!”

“What, Dingle?”

“How close are they?” Faris asked. “Because I think I’m onto something, but I can’t risk being overheard.”

“Then you’d better communicate it telepathically, Faris, ‘cause they’re all around. Open your eyes. Can’t you see?”

Shadows. Shadows everywhere and closing in. Why was he the only one who noticed?

“I see the paranoia has set in,” Faris said with a sigh. “How about giving your magic a try instead? No offense, but it might be a bit more reliable than your eyesight, yeah?”

“Offense taken.” So, so much offense. If it weren’t for the cold numbness slowly leaching the life from his body, Rasp was certain he would have felt the sting from Faris’s insult from head to toe.

In the grand scheme of things, however, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to confirm what he already knew. Like his energy, his powers were running on reserves. Rasp was too spent to manipulate any of the surrounding elements. It wouldn’t be long before his power wore down completely. But, for at least a little longer, his sixth sense continued to hold out against the fatigue that was slowly eating away at his flesh from the inside out.

Rasp didn’t bother with any of the fancy hand movements. Preservation was the name of the game now and every ounce of strength counted. He closed his eyes and drew within himself, allowing his dwindling magic to complete a swift sweep of the surrounding area. He was surprised at what he found. The enemy was not lurking in the surrounding shadows as previously thought, but keeping a handy buffer between them. That probably had something to do with the enraged bear that had charged their ranks earlier that morning. June had managed to take down one and scatter the rest, but it had come at the cost of a singed left flank. She refused to admit that she was in pain, but the telltale drag in her walk said otherwise.

“Dammit,” Rasp whispered.

“Is that a dammit, they’re close, or dammit, Faris was right?” It was remarkable. For someone whose legs should have turned to jelly ages ago, Faris still had the energy for petty questions.

Rasp scraped the bottom of the barrel for the kick needed to provide an equally petty answer. “Don’t gloat, Faris. It’s unbecoming.”

“Are you ready to hear my plan yet?”

Despite his best efforts, Rasp still came across a little too desperate with his delivery. “For the love of gods, yes, please. And make it a good one.”

The faun had been studying his maps over the past two days, trying to use whatever sparse landmarks were available to pinpoint their location. Father had been helpful in that regard initially, able to communicate the shape and direction of any nearby mountains or rivers. The enemies caught on rather quickly though, and it wasn’t long before their shapeshifters took to the skies. Father had nearly broken a wing in a tussle with an eagle. He was grounded now, forced to stay close to the group for protection.

“I think I’ve figured out where we are,” Faris explained in a whisper. “Based on the shape of the river and the mountain range to the south, we’re deep in the wilds of Yuback territory. We must have crossed the border sometime last night.”

“Does that change anything?” Hop said. There was no hope in his voice. It was hollow, empty, and brimming with numbness. The fact that he had the mental capacity to listen, much less respond, was nothing short of a miracle. It was the first thing he’d said all day. Naturally, he had to go and ruin it by being well-informed. “There aren’t many settlements in Yuback. And even if we found one, I doubt they would lend a helping hand to the likes of us.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Of course it changes things,” June grunted. “We’ll know where we died.”

Faris cut through their negativity and got right to the fucking point. “I think we’re near Kalikose.”

“Guesuntite.” Rasp seized his opportunity to alleviate the mood for even just one bloody second. He could feel the looming dread drift lower. It already had Hop and June was steadily getting pulled under. He couldn’t afford to lose Faris too.

“It’s an ancient ruined city, Rasp. I’ve mentioned it before. Not that you would remember.” Hop paused, as if waiting for Rasp to prove him wrong, before coming to the conclusion that nobody ever listened to his long-winded tirades about history-this and important information-that. “Kalikose was destroyed in the early days of the realm during the Great Expansion. It was one of the last holdouts in the territory and the Realm made an example of them to deter others.”

“Only the surface was destroyed,” Faris corrected. “Kalikose was one of the first joint civilizations. Humans lived in the upper district, above ground, with dwarfs in the lower. According to my father’s history books, the realm used water elementals to flood the underground city, but there was no mention of it being destroyed. As the flooding happened over a millennium ago, there is speculation that the water has likely receded by now.”

“You’re grasping at straws,” Hop said.

“Yeah? I don’t see anyone else coming up with any ideas. What we’re doing isn’t working. We’re caught out in the open with the enemy on all sides. It doesn’t matter how far we get, they will be waiting to pounce the moment we drop. Going underground would take away their advantage. Put us on even footing.”

“To what end?” Hop challenged. “We get underground and then what? So what if the resistance doesn’t follow? It doesn’t matter. All they have to do is wait topside for us to come back out again.”

“We find a tunnel that leads outside of the city and get out that way.”

“Now you’re really grasping at straws.”

“The place was built by dwarves. They had to have built multiple ways in and out. It’s what they do!” Faris, in a desperate bid to win someone to his side, truly did start to grasp at straws, throwing out whatever baseless argument he could think of. “We might even find an active harmony stone along the way.”

Rasp perked up at the mention of a harmony stone. It was bait, put out purposely for him, no doubt, but he couldn’t help but sink his teeth into the hope being dangled on a string in front of his face. “For real?”

A rune stone had helped Whisper recover their strength once before. It was a long shot, but it was something, wasn’t it? Something was certainly better than nothing.

“Yes,” Faris said.

“He doesn’t know that, Rasp,” Hop said. “The realm would have destroyed any existing harmony stones when the city was overthrown.”

“Leaving the ones underground still intact,” Faris replied matter-of-factly.

“Is your entire plan based upon the theoretical existence of secret tunnels and rune stones?” Hop, in spite of his overwhelming exhaustion, then proceeded to lay out in no uncertain terms why Faris’s plan was doomed from the start. “One, even if we could reach it in time, there is no guarantee the underground city is even still standing. Two, there is a reason no one goes there, Faris. Do you know how many adventuring parties went into Kalikose that never came back out? All of them.”

The white faun snorted his disapproval. “Don’t tell me you believe in the ghost stories.”

“We’d be better off taking our chances with the resistance. At least they want us alive.”

“Then why don’t you turn around and surrender then?”

Even Rasp flinched at the harshness in Faris’s tone. The combination of fatigue and despair was starting to pull everyone apart at the seams. While he didn’t relish the idea of traveling into the haunted underworld of an ancient, drowned city, their present circumstances weren’t any better. “What kind of ghosts are we talking about here, Hop?”

“I wouldn’t know, Rasp. No one does, because no one who has ever gone into Kalikose has ever come back out.”

“Then where do the stories come from?” June wondered.

“I don’t know, alright? I just know we shouldn’t go anywhere near it!” Hop must have been near his breaking point because he relied on logic and reason to defend his argument, never volume. Not until now, at least.

“Noted, thank you.” Rasp turned to his sister. Her hazy shape limped along beside him, trying to conceal involuntary whimpers of pain each time she brushed her wounded leg against the undergrowth. “What about you? Any ideas?”

“I say we last stand these fuckers. Hunker down and wait for them to draw close and then unleash all of chaos onto their sorry asses.”

June was, admittedly, grieving the loss of Aunt Dagmar in the most traditional Stoneclaw way possible. Unfortunately for her, the people she wanted to rip limb from limb had learned to evade her after what she’d done to the last witch that’d dared to get too close.

“They’re not planning to kill us,” Hop reminded her. “The entire point of this is to return us to their leader in as few pieces as possible.”

“Except for me,” Faris said. “They have no use for a non-magical faun.”

Well that explained some of his desperation at least. Unlike the realm, the resistance had not appeared to have caught on that Faris was the key to getting Rasp to do anything. Their captors would only see him as a liability and cut his throat the soonest chance they got.

It was June that broke the grim silence. “I’m not really keen on becoming some witch’s magical bitch. So if we’re not going to last-stand then I suppose I’d rather take my chances underground.”

“How well can you see in the dark?” Faris asked June

“Decent in my bear form.”

“You and Rasp can communicate when you’re in your bear form, right? As he does the ravens?” Faris said, seemingly noticing the look of surprise Rasp shot his way. “What? I saw you talking to her during your little bear back riding lesson the other day. I notice things. This should not be a surprise to you.”

“Yeah,” Rasp admitted. “We can understand each other.”

“Then I vote we go underground. We’ve got four witches and a devilishly handsome faun. Surely that’s some kind of leg up, right?”

“I’m game,” June said without hesitation.

“Me too,” Rasp said.

“For the record, you’re all insane,” Hop snapped. “Additionally, we should at least consult Whisper before agreeing to something so reckless.”

“Hey, Whisper.” Rasp gave the pack strapped to his shoulders a little shake. “You heard all that right? You wanna go battle ghosts underground? I’m sure you could find some way to guise it as training.” There was a suspicious lack of response. No grumbles or growls, not even a shifting of movement. Rasp could feel the weak pulse of their magic, indicating that they were still breathing, but had succumbed to a deep sleep.

“What did Whisper say?” Hop demanded.

There are moments in life when one realizes that the people they once depended upon to guide them are no longer around. Rasp’s entire life, there had always been someone there to guide him. Tell him what to do, what not to do, please, please, for the love of gods, do that with clothes on. Whether or not Rasp listened was an entirely different matter, of course. But today, for possibly the first time, he found himself without that outside voice, telling him which path to take. The others felt it too, whether they realized it or not. The closest thing they had to a leader was fading and while Rasp loathed the idea of taking on any sort of responsibility, someone needed to make a decision. Why it had to be him, he didn’t know. But Faris was right. It was time they tried something different.

“Whisper said yes.” That was perhaps too agreeable for Whisper, thus Rasp felt inclined to make it a teensy bit more believable. “Also, that everyone here is an idiot.”