Authors note: It seemed this chapter somehow fell away from patreon. Probably my mistake, and a rather large one at that. It was the final of book 1 after all, anyway here it is. Wretch banged his fist against the bars, a scream ripping out his lungs into the dark chasm. He fell to his knees. Behind him, came a symphony of violence. Howls, ripping flesh, snapping bones and bodies crunching against each other.
He forced himself to look. The hall was a bloodbath. Twisting forms made from his own flesh, ripping and tearing each other apart. Some fled, shambling for the archway.
A weapon. He needed a weapon.
His gaze trailed to the cage with the massacred Gulschak. He forced his body into movement despite its protests, dragging himself along the wall. Something came catapulting towards him, half a monster made by a writhing mass of feet. He dove to the ground.
It crashed into the cage, denting the metal before falling into a heap. It twitched, then grew still, something glowing deep inside it.
Wretch climbed over it and found what remained of the man who had pulled the lever. He’d been crushed into a wet smear across the floor. The sabre had survived, though the sheath was cracked.
Wretch drew the weapon and stumbled out of the cage.A brutal display was happening in the middle of the hall as the different amalgamations ripped and tore at each other in a cacophony of high pitch screams. A bundle of limbs crawled towards him, leaving a trail of gore. This creature resembled a centipede built from human parts. It moaned before collapsing, a jagged hole in its chest revealing a glowing coal.
He ripped the coal from its broken body, drawing its flame into his own.Times Kindled: 7
He did the same to three others, plucking embers from the defeated. He had an inkling as to whom would win.Times Kindled: 8Times Kindled: 9Times Kindled: 10
Then he waited. Letting the beasts slaughter one another to their hearts content. It didn’t take long.
A mound of the dead and dying, Embers twinkling like stars in the mountain of blood and gore. At its summit crouched the thing that had been Jonah, Its serrated arms shredding the last of its rivals.
It hadn’t survived unscathed, and one arm was limp. It stood still, peering over the lowly lit hall with eyes that could pierce the dark. The grotesque claws, each sewn from a dozen of his own, moved as it turned. Peering straight at him.
Wretch drew a raspy breath and removed his mask, letting it fall to the floor.“It’s me Jonah.” Wretch said in the softest tone his tortured lungs could produce. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I am almost there. I’ll become a Fireling and you can too…together.”
Jonah descended the mound of broken abominations in twitching strides.“We still need to see your brother’s,” Wretch continued. “I haven’t forgotten.”
A tremble grew from Wretch’s core.“You don't have to fight anymore, you can hide under the city.” It circled him with a hiss.
Wretch voice cracked. “I don’t want to kill you, please.”
In unbridled rage it slammed a fist into the ground. The floor shook, and Wretch’s face contorted in agony. He couldn’t save him. And that pain was more visceral than having his eyeballs removed. Jonah didn’t even notice, nothing more than a beast looking for weakness. A sob escaped him.“I will let you rest then.” Wretch whispered through a quivering throat. “It’s the least I can do.”
Jonah threw out a long arm towards him. Cutting through the air like a scythe. Wretch sidestepped and cut with the sabre. The steel grinding against rows of sharp teeth sewn to the flesh. Another dark limb swept towards him. Wretch dodged low, then sidesteeped a slam that cracked the floor. His sabre pierced through the skin of the long arm.
Another claw. This time he rolled forward, he needed to get close. A serrated limb slammed against his ribs, launching him over the room.
He let out a gasp, the breath escaping his lungs as he skidded across the cold stone floor with ringing ears.
He came to a stop in a heap, consciousness slipping.Instinct kicked in. He gave the flame meaning and let it regenerate his cracked ribs and broken skull. Without the strengthened bones, he'd been reduced to a smear.
That was it. There was but a single speck of flame left in his struggling ember. He felt it, the edge of madness. Whispers of horrors coming from within. If he so much as brushed against his flame, they’d take him.
He coughed and struggled, focusing instead on the suffering of his broken body.
Nice one, learned my movement. He thought, struggling to stand on legs that urged him to give up.
He’d wasted too much time, Jonah already charging in twitching strides. The arms were long and serrated, giving protection and a ruthless sting to his sweeps. Its dangling torso hanging low under the powerful arms protruding from its back, hugged tight by dark hands, leaving just a slit for a pair of fiery pupils.
A limited view, If I can get around. But you are too fast…Above then
Wretch dashed to the left, narrowly avoiding a claw that cracked the floor. He vaulted up a cage, climbing as if scrambling away from shouting officers. Another massive hand shot forward. He vaulted, flipping over the claw, and sailing over the thrashing arms. He landed on Jonah’s back. Tail twisting around a stitched shoulder for balance. The sabre plunged deep into packed muscle.
Jonah roared. A primal scream through human vocal-cords. Wretch hacked and stabbed, blood spraying across his face. Clawed hands thrashed to reach him, but he clung tight in desperation, slamming the blade deeper.
In a flash, the room tilted sideways.
He jumped!
Wretch ripped his tail free, throwing himself to the floor. Monster and man crashed into a cage, rattling the room.
The recognizable warmth of blood dripping down his skin. He dragged himself upright and stumbled away.
Black ribs poked through his chest and one arm jutted at an unnatural angle. There was still a speck of flame within him. Whispers from within, he could draw it. Would that be enough? He let it be. He’d promised someone important he wouldn’t.
Behind him Jonah rose, half its long limbs hanging in defeat. He tightened the grip on his stolen sabre, its blade now shattered.
They faced each other, both broken.Jonah’s eyes lit with fire and it burst forward with shocking speed.
A Blessing...
Jonah climbed the cages and moved towards him from the side.
Not falling for the same thing twice, either. You’d have made a fine hunter.
Wretch backed up towards the middle of the room, stepping over broken figures as the skittering abomination circled. The only two things left breathing in a sea of corpses.
“That’s a good blessing! It makes you faster and stronger the more damage you take, right?” Wretch said with a tired grin.
Jonah crouched low, like Whisky the cat about to pounce on a fallen leaf.Wretch’s voice grew weak.
“If I’d been more reckless, more violent, my claws sharper… We could have ascended the summit together. We could have met my father. What was left of us, he’d call kin.” He was slipping, and traded every ounce of willpower for a short burst of lucidity. straightening his back and raising the shattered sabre he took the stance of his captain. His voice barely a whisper. “I’ll send you off, now.”
Jonah lunged and Wretch charged.
Serrated sweeps lashed towards him. He weaved between them, every move pulled from Elenya’s training. Jonah’s spidery form grew faster, slamming wildly. Wretch pressed closer, ignoring the agony.
Jonah skittered backwards, but Wretch dashed with him. A low swipe from either side.
Wretch put a naked foot on a twisted corpse and launched himself over. He shot towards Jonah’s dangling body, stretching the sabre towards the eyes in the armor of black arms.
The clawed arms unfurled, opening like a flower around the body at the core, each petal a hooked claw.
There he was, or what was left of him. Jonah’s hair, still a tangled mess, his cheerful face now blank.
They embraced each other, tearing claws and piercing blade.
“Goodbye friend,” Wretch mumbled.
__________________________________________________________________________
The three hunters entered the hall, Astrid parting the dangling chains. Splatters of blood staining Elenya’s armor.“Slow.” Edmund ordered, raising a buckled shield. “ Might be more of those things.”
Astrid squinted to get used to the low light. “By the Saint, as if the horrors from beyond the wall weren't enough.”
Edmund took point, raising a flickering lantern to reveal the interior. The trio froze.
Bent cages surrounded a mountain of broken limbs and torn abominations. Blood pooling by its base like a lake of crimson, coals twinkling like fallen stars deep in the flesh. For a few breaths, they just stood there.
“What… happened here?” Astrid asked.
At the summit of the twisted forms crouched a long-armed abomination. Each limb, stitched from the dark arms of their missing comrade.It moved.
A glow grew stronger from the figure. Pulling the flickering light of the coals into it. Long strings of flame slithering in the air like golden threads.
“What the…” Elenya said.
“Positions!” Edmund shouted.He spoke through gritted teeth. “Bad news, It’s ascending.”
A fiery pulse burst outwards, scorching flame rolling down the mound and out over stained stone. In a wisp of smoke, it faded.
“Fireling or not, it's half-dead already,” Elenya said, raising her halberd. “We can take it down.”
Edmund nodded. “Astrid in the back. Elenya, with me.” They advanced on light feet. The figure at the top swayed. “Come on you freak,” Elenya muttered. “We don’t have all da….”
She stopped.“Elenya! What are you doing?” Edmund hissed. “Focus.”Her halberd chimed against the stone.
Something small crawled out from under the summit, struggling to its feet and stumbling down the gore-slick mound.
A human, barley.
Drenched in blood, dripping from his long hair and staining the pale skin. Missing an ear, ribs piercing the skin, chest covered in clawmarks. One hand reduced to a mangled stump. A long thin tail swaying behind him.
The face was hollow, marked by a protruding brow, and sunken cheeks around a blood smeared mouth. One eye was a dark orb without sclera or pupil, while the other socket was a gaping wound. “...Captain?” Wretch mumbled.
Elenya was on him before he fell, sweeping him up as if he would break at the lightest bruise. Edmund not far behind. “We got you.” She whispered. “We found you.”
“Astrid, get over here now!” Edmund shouted as the world faded from him.
Two warm hands touched his chest. They didn’t hold him down, stab or hurt. They were light, trembling.
He let it all wash away. Taking a last glance where his ember used to be. It had never been more than a heated lump. Now, a tiny flame flickered in the dark along with a name that belonged only to him.
Wretch, Collector of Wounds