by Jesse Galena
"Seems a bit unnecessary," the man said, with a muted laugh behind his words. "This murderer of yours made it into this kingdom. It is far more likely that he will die here than escape. You should not have followed him."
"And what do you know about it?" she shouted.
His eyes turned from the view of the distant mountains to her helmet. They darted between the different sets of eyeholes, trying to find where her eyes truly were as she continued to speak.
"I am here to see that justice is served. I am here to make sure he pays for what he did!" She paused, breathing gently to calm herself. "It is a just act to punish him."
"Not here," the man said with urgency in his words. His eyes shined as brightly as the fire in the wake of his words. "Being here is punishment enough for him. Now it will be punishment for you, too. You’ll go mad here, or perhaps you will die. Neither is a particularly fitting outcome."
She readied herself, clutching the handle of her curved sword. She expected him to draw his swords and attack. Instead, he remained relaxed as he sat upon the stone with a grin that looked like a guise for sorrow.
“But my warnings and insight are rather useless now. You’re here. Hell, even I didn’t listen to my advice. What else is there to be done?
"So tell me, why do you wear that silly helmet?"
Part Two
After years of preparation and weeks of travel, they had arrived. Now within the borders of the kingdom, they stood before the structure they sought: the twisted spires.
The spires rose up from the ground, twisting into, through, and around each other, stretching even further into the sky than the rumors told. Some towers held gentle, astounding curves that defied architectural possibilities.
It was once an architectural marvel of the world: a city-size network of weaving towers. No one was sure how the spires managed to stand. They were taller than any building ever constructed, and yet portions of them stretched horizontally above the ground before snaking around once again. After centuries of stagnation and neglect, the overgrowth of nearby plant life appeared to be their only sign of age.
The five approached cautiously. They had seen a few creatures since breaching the borders of the kingdom, but they knew worse things remained unseen. Navigating the inside was far more difficult than anticipated. The interconnected towers weaved in and out of one another. The twisted paths disoriented them, sometimes to the point where they thought they were walking upon the walls. Narrow corridors led to stairways of uncertain heights, and windowless passages granted them further uncertainty of their location. When windows appeared, they would gaze through them, seeing new portions of the kingdom from angles they were uncertain were not skewed from delusions. At times, they found themselves a safe jump from the ground. Other times, they could see the tops of most of the nearby structures in a haunting, if not beautiful, view of the kingdom.
With words of encouragement, they remained calm. Their leader never let her worry or fear hinder her companions. She never let their dismay grow to where laughter could not cure it. They were her priority. The treasure was secondary.
But with the treasure, each of her companions could retire from lives that revolved around the sword. Combat was a fickle god to serve. Her promise and blessings were uncertain, and her presence was intoxicating. She could offer a bounty just as easily as she could remove your head. That harsh duality was something they had all learned to respect. But if they were successful, it was something they could also leave behind.
Their leader was taller than the rest, her straight, blonde hair pulled back and dangling between her armored shoulder blades until it ended at her lower back. She used her long spear as a walking stick, tapping the ground with the squared end to a rhythm when they needed a song. When her body ached, she asked one of her four companions how they were feeling to distract herself and let them know she cared for their wellbeing.
With nearly two-thirds of the daylight gone, they found what they sought. High in a spiraling tower, in the widest room of all the twisting spires, the long-dead king's prized possessions stood unscathed by time and untarnished by decay.
Between the multitudes of windows, a finely crafted suit of armor stood against the wall. Each one possessed a different look, function, and smithing material. Some had hooked headpieces, thorns across the limbs, and sliding plates of heavy metal. Massive scales from what could have been legendary creatures made up several different suits. Some held weapons, each as well defined and ornate as the armor that grasped them.
In cabinets of fine wood and dust-tinted glass, sculptures, paintings, pottery, and jewelry of unmatched beauty hung suspended on clear hooks. Atop each cabinet, a stack of gold coins from the far reaches of the world sat and spoke of nearly limitless wealth.
"Move quickly to take what you want," their leader said, unable to hide her joy about the discovery behind her caution. "We don't know what guards this place. Don't squabble over what to take. Everything in here will fetch a fine price, and if you are uncertain, then fill your bag with coin."
Each of the five retrieved their bags and began filling them. Within moments, they had all found what they favored most and nearly filled their bags.
Dust fell from the hanging chandeliers as something on the floor above them moved. They heard a light rumble mixed with the muted sound of something soft striking the floor. They could hear it skittering in an irregular pattern.
"Close them up," she called out, trying to keep calm as she shoved her last item into her bag. "We're leaving."
She retrieved her spear and moved for the door. She pulled back and opened it. The grinding door felt heavier than it had when they entered. She waved them through, ordering them to keep going as she held the door for the next. As her last companion crossed the doorway, she rushed through, allowing the door to swing shut by its own desire.
As they ran down the hall, the doors behind them burst open. Their leader turned to see the horrid figure. It was as wide as a double-horse carriage and twice as long. The hall was barely wide enough to contain it. Dozens of glaring eyes darted between each of the five, a few eyes residing close enough to scrape across one another as they moved. At least two dozen sets of teeth constructed a mockery of a mouth, snapping hungrily in segments and clacking with each strike of the enamel. The deep red and blackened flesh behind its jaws shone as globs of saliva slipped out of its mouth. The flesh on its head and body was slightly lighter than its glossy, saliva-coated maw.
Along its body, rows of disjointed limbs covered its long, slug-like form. Its saggy belly remained close to the ground while arms and legs kept it from dragging across the floor. It clawed toward them, shaking with unbridled rage. As it ran, only the half of its limbs that were close to the ground aided in its sprint. Most of the other limbs held weapons. The swords, axes, and spears in its grasp swung wildly with its stride.
"It's going to outrun us," Cynthia said, the grimness of her thoughts slipping into her shout.
"Up there!" their leader shouted, pointing toward a stairway. "If it makes it up those stairs, we'll fight it in a larger room where we have the ability to surround it!"
They rushed up the stairs, their boots clacking as they went. The stairwell opened into a round room filled with old furniture, a room once meant for entertaining guests. The moist slaps and ravenous groans of the creature told them it was indeed traversing the stairs. Four of them took formation near the door, tossing their bags of treasure into a pile nearest the door they thought they would use as an exit. The fifth slunk back into a corner of the room, ready to take whatever orders were given.
As the grunts and slaps grew louder, their leader readied her spear.
"We'll have its head above our mantel yet!" their leader called out. She was so tall, her long spear looked almost average sized in her hands. "It will be evidence of the abominations we overcame!"
The other three with her drew their weapons. Exquisitely crafted, each of them held notches or hooks in the blade.
They were dire in appearance, and their gnarled form would leave grievous wounds in their opponents. The pain from a single wound was often enough to cause beasts to retreat.
With its sides pressed tight against the walls of the stairwell, the creature slipped into the room. It stumbled as it popped out, swinging its nubby tail and flailing armed and unarmed limbs alike.
The four moved in, weapons ready to strike. Their coordinated attack displayed their teamwork. Their four different weapons struck at four different places on the monster. Its seemingly uncoordinated limbs lashed out, clashing its own weapons against theirs. It shifted and twisted, moving as though a nervous twitch influenced its ragged movements. The weapons it held struck wildly in all directions. There was no pattern or technique to its flailing, but the power and speed with which it swung its weapons knocked their own weapons away.
The creature rotated its neck, flinging its head about. Their leader stabbed with her spear. The spear continued to move, striking the creature's teeth and sliding into its mouth. She retracted the tip just before its snapping jaws shattered the shaft.
Its legs skittered, turning its body as it lurched to the side. Its nubby tail struck Cul, his armor protecting his ribs from shattering from the impact. His axe slipped from one of his hands as he landed on his back. The monster rushed toward him. Focusing on its fallen foe, Cynthia thrust her sword into the monster’s leg, and their leader gored it with her spear. The monster slowed none.
"Cul!" Cynthia shouted.
Cynthia crouched low and raised her shield as she rushed toward the creature. She ran with a fierceness and speed that matched the monster’s. Her arm rattled as an array of weaponry and empty limbs slammed against her shield. The strikes knocked her to one knee, but her tenacity forced her back to her feet and kept her moving toward the monster.
Cynthia threw down her shield and leaped, placing both hands on the hilt of her sword. The blade plunged into the creature’s neck. Its flesh was as soft as a person’s. She placed her feet on the beast's neck, using the weight of her whole body to tear the wound open further. Her sword slid down its neck, leaving a gaping wound in its wake. Blood poured onto her as the sword slipped from the laceration and she struck the ground. Its insides stank of iron and rot, and she held back a gag. As she landed on the ground, the monster's snapping jaws whipped toward her. Its teeth clacked together, slamming open and closed with horrid grunts as breath shot from its maw and blew her hair back.
Their leader moved in, her blonde hair waving as she jammed her spear toward the monster's most exposed parts. Her companions tried to do the same, cautiously wielding their weapons to get as close as they could to the creature. The beast's erratic and forceful flails pushed them back, making sure they only took one step toward it before retreating from the swing of another limb.
Three of the monster’s empty-handed limbs stretched toward its wound. Fingers and toes grasped the severed flesh, pulling it shut as it continued to flail about. Cynthia jabbed her sword at its approaching face, forcing it to pull back its snapping jaws. A leg struck her from behind, and Cynthia stumbled forward. With her sword lowered, another limb swiped at her face. The strike disoriented her, causing her to stumble back into the path of another thrashing limb. The hit turned her about, and a large hand snatched her at the waist, digging its fingers into her stomach. Another grasped her arm while a foot crashed into her face, holding its heel against her mouth. Cynthia turned her head to attempt to dislodge the foot, but the heel slid to her jaw, locking her head in a twisted position.
Regaining his lost breath, Cul rose before the creature. He favored one leg terribly, and an increased trickle of blood spilled from the other when he placed pressure on it. He grasped his axe and swung, but the assault of multiple limbs and weapons forced him to retract his axe and protect himself.
Twisting her wrist, Cynthia slashed at the limb that held her arm. Blood poured from the severed limb, and its grip went limp.
The jaws of the beast swooped in behind Cynthia. It opened above her head, engulfed her, and closed around her waist. Its teeth pinched her armor to a point. It thrashed and tore wildly until it pulled her torso away from her legs. Its jaws frantically chewed flesh, armor, and sword with the same unholy veracity.
Cynthia’s legs stumbled as they tried to stay up, wavering back and forth as if confused by how dark the world had become.
The beast swallowed her body, still mostly intact by what brief glimpses they caught as it chewed. Its head lurched toward her legs, its mouth snatching them with ease.
The bleeding stumps of its severed limbs moved as though they were in pain, but its face showed no sign of such discomfort. The rabid, nearly psychotic presence in its eyes told of a disconnection from its appendages.
Their leader's spear found a break in its thrashing and gored the creature behind its head. The monster threw itself into violent spasms. She twisted her spear before it tore out of its flesh. The beast called out in gargles of pain mixed with the sound of gnashing teeth.
"Grab the bags!" their leader called out to her only unarmed companion. "We're running!"
"Is it dying?" a small voice called out as she obeyed her leader and gathered all the bags.
"I don't know," she said as she aided Cul to his feet, "but we are not winning this fight."
As the four of them ran through the door, the beast began to steady itself. They slammed the doors shut, sliding a piece of metal through the handles to keep it closed.
They could hear the abomination pounding upon the barred doors. The pounding ceased, and the moist slaps of bare flesh smacking the ground replaced it. The slaps faded, and they realized the creature was running away.
"Will it follow us?" a meek voice inquired.
"This place is a maze," their leader said. "Each room seems to have at least three exits. It could catch up to us yet. Hell, we may find it standing in front of us again before we escape."
Cul limped heavily as she aided him. His leg was bleeding. There was a long crack in his armor along the ribs. He refused to release his axe, holding it tight as it dragged beside him.
Unhindered by the weight of the bags or an injured companion, Taj led them forward. She held her sword out before her, readied to thrust if another beast were to appear.
"Once we get a place to hold up for a spell," their leader said reassuringly, "we'll tie up that leg. Keep it from bleeding. Get you back to the horses in as fine a shape as the rest of us. You’ll have blonde sutures made from my own hair if that’s what it takes to get you home."
As Taj stepped into the hallway, the floor beneath her gave. A small crack on the seldom-traveled floor splintered before its center devolved into dust and loose debris. Her feet slipped below the floor before she could react. Her legs twitched to find stable footing and found nothing but empty air. Her knees rose, but they struck the underside of the floor as she continued her descent. The hole grew wider, and her hands reached out to catch what fragments of the floor remained. It crumbled at her touch. Her body lurched forward, her head striking the corner of a jagged pieced of floor. Her eyes rolled, her head flung back, and her arms went limp, no longer striving to grab the dissolving ledge as she fell into open sky.
Weighed down by the bags, the unarmed woman stumbled forward, her tiny hands grasping desperately for her companion as she reached the edge of the hole.
Her hands found nothing but emptiness. Her friend descended beyond her grasp, softly gliding with the wind until her body struck the distant stone streets beneath them.
She leaned back, her eyes wet with the promise of tears as she turned to her remaining two companions.
"Don't cry for them yet," their leader said, dragging Cul beside her. Cul was a tall man, but his head only came up to her shoulders. "We're getting on the other side of this hole to get the hole between us and that thing, in case it catches up to us; we're going to properly bandage his leg; and we're going to make it back to the horses!"
Her convictio
n was convincing enough to dam their sorrow.
They traversed the gap, fear gripping each of the three as they moved Cul over the hole. They made it across, the mouth in the floor taking no more of them. They bound Cul’s leg and packed the wound with herbs. Their descent through the twisting spires was swift, now looking simply for a ground or near-ground place to exit rather than a specific room within the maze. They passed through a large archway whose intricate details had eroded over time. On the outskirts of the mass of twisted spires, they found themselves on the opposite side from where they came in. A mountain stood on each side of them, the western mountain possessing the gaping mouth of a cave.
"There," their leader said, her long finger pointing with her free hand to the eastern mountain. "Our horses are on the other side of that. We could go around or take the path up it and hope there is a way down on the other side. There may be fewer monsters up there." She stopped, eyeing her two companions intently, waiting for a response from either of them.
Cul's eyes grew large and fearful, his mouth opening without sound or utterance. A black tendril that looked like a deep shadow rose up from the mouth of a cave and snaked around them. It reared back, reacting as though it was surprised. The S-shaped curl it took poised the end of it as though it was staring at them.
"Get away from him!" their leader cried, slashing at it with her spear.
The sharpened head of the spear cut through the black tendril. Its inky form slipped around the spearhead, reforming when it passed through, the spear looking like a hand slashing through running water. Unscathed by her attack, the tendril snapped back into the utter darkness of the mouth of the cave. Three more tendrils birthed from the cave. Their long, slender forms surrounded the three, lashing out at them two at a time from opposite sides. Cul readied his axe, but, barely able to stand by his own power, there was little he could do. Their leader continued to slash with her spear, herding her companions away from the cave.