There is light in the dungeon; it seeps from green moss that grows in the cracks of the stone. It’s enough to find my footing, but not much more. The others are more troubled. My eye paints the walls in lines of blue and highlights the hidden things that others can’t see; but they don’t have the same.

  Fren stumbles against the wall with a grunt. He’s slower now. Luckil helps him with a shoulder to take some of the burden from his leg but he struggles. Mela and I share a look. She smiles and pats him on his shoulder with encouraging words and we move on.

  The next trap is simple; it’s a line of spears triggered by plates in the ground to spring horizontally and skewer us. My eye scrolls strange symbols for a moment before it solidifies a route across the stones that won’t set the trap off. It’s like my eye had to take a moment to think before it was ready.

  Mela and the other Heightened are used to me leading now. I didn’t ask to become the vanguard, I just walked to the front and no one complained. My surety through the trap solidified their view of me.

  I hear the monsters before they come upon us, skittering up the corridor at a point where it widens like a knot in a winding reed. I lower my body and widen my stance. I long for my spear. I long more for Aviela; there is so much she could have taught me about dungeons and fighting. Now I’m waiting for the rush of death with my hands bare and only wits built from a year of surviving alone.

  They have more legs than I can count, twelve maybe, and their bodies are flat discs. In the centre of the circular disc is a circular mouth with teeth that gnash sideways against one another and small, slick tentacles that pulsate to force their prey into the wide maw.

  It isn’t the mouths that I am afraid of as I tackle the first of the horde; the tips of their feet have claws sharp enough to drawn blood and they move with such speed that it is a great effort to track them, let alone to kill.

  I snatch a passing leg as the lead creature tries to overwhelm me and I heave. I expect it to leave the ground so I can smash it back into its companion, but its leg snaps at the joint and I stumble forward with my momentum unarrested.

  The tide sweeps over me. I fall to the ground and cover my head to protect myself from the sharp claws. I don’t manage it all, blood dribbles from my scalp, my neck, my arms. I roll and scramble until my back it against the damp stone wall and catch my bearings.

  Fren is a sodden rag.

  The creatures have Jeary and Luckil backed against the wall opposite me while Mela shouts, her dagger whirling fast through their ranks, clattering against legs and bodies, scoring deep some times and glancing others. She’s bleeding too. Cuts lace her body from her face to her knees and still she stands her ground.

  There are twelve of the creatures.

  I’m still strong. I have the measure of them now, I think. I dart away using the wall to propel myself into the closest monster. I ignore its flimsy legs and grasp it by its disc. I press hard with my thumbs and it screeches as its carapace cracks in my grip.

  I grin. A rictus of satisfaction at my strength. I lean my shoulders and back into my fight and with a glorious rip, I tear the creature in two. I’m showered in blood and gore and I move to the next with a cry breaking from my throat.

  I’m death to these beings. I am more. I am an angel ascending to heaven and they are my sins; each to be crushed so that I may become everything that I might be.

  It’s done now. I killed ten of them with my hands, my feet, my head, every part of me bent wholly to the task of destruction and I wonder if this is why I was birthed from a cocoon womb. I am red and slick and panting at the climax, ready for more and greater things as Mela places her hand against my chest in the same place her accusing finger rested.

  “Peace, Pik. Peace.”

  “It’s done?”

  “It’s done.” Mela lets her hand linger over my beating heart for another breath then turns to the remains of Fren. We don’t need to ask whether he might survive; he was caught in the maelstrom of slicing legs and was trampled into rags.

  Luckil sobs quietly and Jeary holds his arm for comfort; her eyes are dry but wide as if she can’t contemplate the reality of the world. I sober. I killed so many monsters. I proved my prowess beyond their doubt, but it wasn’t enough to save their friend, and it won’t be enough to overcome the boss.

  My victory sours in my mouth and I turn away from the battlefield. The dungeon breathes another damp wind and it cools the blood on my skin to a tacky grime. It’s suddenly not the trophy it was just a moment before; I can’t move quickly enough to take water from the walls and scrub myself to a semblance of clean.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  I’m still scrubbing, muttering to myself, as Mela stops beside me.

  “We should keep moving.”

  “Just a moment more, please.” I wipe my palm once more against the damp stone and gather the water then scrape it through my hair. It sluices away dark. I can’t seem to wash it out, I need a river or pool and time. These clothes that Aviela traded for me are destroyed and it feels like I’ve lost another piece of that connection.

  “We should keep moving, Pik. We need to get through.” She whispers close to my ear. “The others are close to breaking, they need to see you strong. Please?”

  I breathe, slowly, and turn my head until I can see her eyes. Auburn flecked with green and determined. She’s even less prepared than me, she hasn’t been travelling on her own for a year, fighting and hardening her body to the pinnacle it can reach. She fought like a monster herself; her dagger scored kills and she stood steadfast through it all.

  I push myself away from the wall and move towards the tunnel down into the dungeon.

  “It’s time to move on.”

  “We can’t just leave him here.” Luckil is shaking. His tears have stopped but his body is pale and he looks close to collapse. My cheek twitches. He’s not like Mela. Whatever bravery pushes him to volunteer has faded, leaving behind a shocked and broken man.

  “Come with me or be left here.” My words hit him like a slap across his face and he staggers.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t know me, Luckil. I was stupid enough to do a good thing and now I’m suffering because of it. I won’t make that mistake again. Now, I’m leaving. I’m going to do my damnedest to fight my way through this dungeon so I can punch that creature, Cadil, in this throat and see him choke on his spit.”

  “Pik…” Mela remonstrates with me and I click my tongue at her intervention.

  “Stay or come with me. Those are your options, Luckil. I’d choose quickly before my footsteps fade.”

  I don’t wait for his answer; shock and ultimatum will do better than trying to negotiate with a mind incapable of reason. I won’t let him hold me back. It was a foolish thing I did to save Will, but now I am determined that it will not be the last foolish act I take.

  I stride purposely onwards but keep my pace slow enough that Mela’s calming words have enough time to work on Luckil and Jeary. I can hear them as I round a bend and lose them from sight only for their footsteps to clatter on the stones and for them to find me again a minute later.

  The group falls back into rhythm with me at the front, Luckil and Jeary in the center, and Mela bringing up the rear with her knife ready for anything.

  It isn’t long until my eye alerts me to a shift; the ground is tilting more and more. The water that has been slicking the surface of the walls flows more freely. It trickles now with the soft jingle of drops and streams. I slow as to not lose my footing as the moss thins and the corridor darkens.

  “Pik?” It’s Jeary speaking, her voice soft and afraid. “Pik, I can’t see.”

  My eye has traced me a path, even highlighting the shifting surface of the water as it flows up to the arch of my foot now. The corridor goes on straight for a time before it turns again and I lose sight of it’s trajectory.

  “The footing is uncertain. Stay close to me and the wall and test your step before you take it.” I slow myself to allow them to keep pace but they struggle with the dark, the cold, the breath of the dungeon sapping their strength but most of all the fear of it all at once.

  “Pik?” Softer this time, and tremulous.

  I turn back. “One moment.” The tunnel is narrow at this point, barely wider than my shoulders, so I squeeze past the middle pair of Heightened with an apology and reach for Mela’s hand. She can’t see it coming so when I touch her skin, she lashes out with her knife and I almost lose a finger.

  “Peace, Mela! Peace!”

  “Pik? What are you doing?”

  “It’s too dark. Come.” I take her hand and this time she doesn’t resist as I place it onto Luckil’s shoulder. “Hold onto each other, bunch the shirt in your fingers and hold on.” I do the same for Luckil. He is already close to Jeary so his hand finds her shoulder with only a little guidance. I slip back into the vanguard and do the same for Jeary onto my own shoulder.

  “Right. Follow me, I’ll go slowly so you can keep up. If you feel your hand slipping or the person behind you lets go, call out and we will stop. All right?”

  They mutter their assent and I take that as my cue to walk on. It is awkward, not only a first but for every step we take Jeary’s arm jerks me back. She slips a few times and holds onto me for support; she’s light and I’m strong so it isn’t a problem, but I’ve gone so long with only the least touch from a person that it irks me.

  Splash. Thunk.

  I pause. I raise my hand to halt the others but realise it’s useless. They slowly crash into me but I stand like an obelisk, unmoving.

  Splash. Thunk.

  I lean back to Jeary. “There’s something ahead. I’m going to let go for a minute and see what it is.”

  “No. Don’t leave us here. We can’t see.”

  “You’ll be fine. I promise, I’ll be back in a minute, I just need to see what’s out there.”

  “Please, Pik. Don’t, please. We can go together.”

  “No. You’ll slow me down. Wait here and I’ll be back.”

  I pry her fingers from my shirt and she lets out a sob; this annoys me too. I’ll be back before she knows. Besides, it is better for me to see what we face rather than stumble into it with a group of the blind.

  I walk slowly so as not to splash in the water that has reached my ankles; I’m mostly successful.

  Splash. Thunk.

  The sounds are louder now, more distinct as I grow closer.

  Suddenly the air is cooler; sounds come louder, and the dungeon opens before me. It’s pitch for anyone but me. I’ve stepped out onto a narrow ledge before a deep canyon, filled with the dull roar of water flowing too fast and too deep in such a narrow space. A turbulent maelstrom of currents and flows.

  Across the wide span is a bridge. Two ropes, one higher and one lower, attached at each end to a mechanism. I frown. I don’t understand what I’m looking at. It’s a large wheel with buckets, separated from me by a cage of iron and all that extends beyond are the ropes that cross the span.

  Splash. I’m doused in water as the ceiling opens and a torrent slams down onto the wheel.

  Thunk. The force of the water turns the wheel with the clunk of a ratchet and my stomach drops. I would too; the wheel flips the ropes so violently that anyone crossing will be flung off and into the chasm below.

  The others will be braving the crossing blind.