RHODY

  Zeph, where was she? This multi-floored labyrinth of gray stone and purple banners was a nightmare to navigate. I was lost and had no time to collect my bearings.

  Smoky air burned my lungs as I tore through the halls. That brute rumbled in my wake. When it had found me, I was hot on Zeph's heels, tracking her via the clamor of her advance and the trail of Karich's beaten conscripts. I thought it was Zeph's first mark—its looming, wide figure fit the description of the Warlord Karich Urough.

  The resemblance, however, was only physical. This thing, it didn’t think. It didn’t plan. It ran on instinct. It hunted.

  Every corner I passed was a risk to be weighed. I could try to slip the bestial man hot on my heels, but I'd also have to wrestle Zeph's pack around the bend. It did not take kindly to sharp turns.

  I decided to chance it; my boots slid and carried me into the wall's rough surface. My robe's arm ripped open, and a hot, wet scrape blossomed across my elbow.

  “Huhh! Huhh! Huhh!” Its incessant breath echoed around me. If I was caught... I couldn't let myself dwell on that. Its voice roared like an avalanche, “Ablee—" I felt the blood leave my face. My vision dimmed, but I couldn't slow down.

  A grand, gold-framed mirror hung in an upcoming cross-section. Within it, the hulking man galloped after me, using his calloused knuckles like a second pair of feet. Those hands looked like they could hammer bone to dust.

  That name, Ablee, the Warlord's daughter. Whatever it wanted from her had been supposed onto me. My stomach tightened like a noose. Damn it, damn it, damn it!

  I was back in the alleys, wagering my hide against the pace of a man twice my size.

  My anchor of a pack had to go, but Zeph needed the ammunition inside, and extracting it would involve slowing down.

  Cold fear and hot guilt warred in multiple theatres across my body. I was failing her, my temple, and myself. The next corner came too fast. A trail of ruby-red droplets caught my eye as I crested past it. My chest tightened. Zeph? It had to be. The unconscious members of the warband splaying the halls hadn't moved far enough to make such trails. No, this wasn’t them. This was her. I was sure of it.

  Arms pinwheeling, I started to skid but quickly changed my mind. There was no going back. My pursuer could close the distance between us too easily. Pulse pounded in my ears; the air under my robe was sauna-hot.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I needed a hurdle. A door, a gate, anything I could throw to slow it down. Not that it mattered—I'd likely fumble the lock. The cursed deck bounced against my chest and threatened doom to my endeavors.

  A holler echoed from somewhere below. Zeph? I had no time to think it through. The turn up ahead was the one chance I had to fix my path and round back to the crimson trail.

  “Ablee... Cell... Now—" my pursuer roared.

  The sound hammered me like a physical blow and constricted my chest. I could tell it was close. Its powerful arms slammed into the wall and scattered chunks of stone before it continued its rush after me.

  I pulled toward the opposite wall, positioning myself to hit the next corner at an angle. My breath came in short gasps. I wasn't sure how much of this I could take. My pack dragged me dangerously off balance as I rounded it wide, trying to keep my footing. One more step. Two. And— a dead end.

  “No,” I whispered, but the word didn’t move that barrier. A single door waited on each side of the hall. He was too close for me to test them. How did I screw this up? The woman I'd interrogated must have lied. No—no, I’d have caught her in a lie. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I forgot the details; they were there in the logbook.

  I was out of time.

  I had to make the best of this. I drove everything I had into my weary legs and powered toward the wall, pulling in my right shoulder.

  The pack's strap slipped off of it, and I yanked the arm free. Everything in that leather coffin was dead weight, except for one small box. I ripped at the clasp of the middle-right pocket, my fingers slick with sweat, and it came loose. The square edge of the ammo box caught in my fingers, and I claimed it. The hall's end was five feet ahead, the brute even closer behind.

  One foot pushed off the ground and I threw the other against the wall. Muscles strained as I launched myself upward. The strap slipped off my shoulder and caught in my hand. I heaved it as hard as I could toward the ceiling before pulling the strap back groundward. The world twisted upside-down and spun. My pursuer's face was thick, its brow heavy, like the sketches of primitive man hidden in the temple's more private texts. A wicked paw-like hand swiped up for me and missed by inches.

  “Abl—hurgh!” The pack’s strap caught its chin and snapped back its head. The guttural sound it loosed was punctuated with the pop, pop, pop of its vertebrae. A wide grin split my face, but there was no time for relief. My boots slapped the ground and I took off at twice my previous speed as the savage tumbled behind me.

  Zeph needed her bullets. He could keep the rest of the hoard.

  It bellowed behind me. I knew it wouldn’t stay down for long. I’d bought seconds, ten, or twenty if I was lucky. I wasn't lucky.

  The trail of viscera was just ahead, torchlit and gleaming. I whipped round the corner, then slammed to a halt so abrupt I almost toppled. Standing down the hall was a ghostly figure—tall, imposing, and still. A porcelain mask concealed its face; at its side, a polearm hung with the menace of a guillotine. They stood sentinel at the door that Zeph's blood disappeared beneath.

  My stomach dropped. Surely, he'd noticed me. I’d been at a full sprint. Maybe I didn't register as a threat...

  “Ableeeeee!” The monstrous voice erupted behind me, distant but close enough to set my teeth on edge. My heart lept into my throat; I couldn’t wait for this to resolve.

  "Hey you! Specter!" His head turned, and I turned heel to continue my sprint away from those two imposing figures. Maybe I could lure them away and loop back to Zeph.

  The occasional prone guard served as a hurdle in this chaotic obstacle course.

  Shouts grew louder. It wasn’t just the beast anymore. There was the deafening roar and a more sneering, raspy tone, and then, a familiar voice, “You idiot girl, let me out!" It was sharp, unmistakable. Zeph. She was alive—and pissed. Relief flooded me; then I realized where her voice came from.

  Downstairs? My brain scrambled to piece it together. The floor beneath us. The dungeon. Had they taken her down there? Then why barricade that door with the trail of blood? Regardless, I knew where to find the dungeon stairs; they were around the next bend.

  As I turned the corner, I met eyes with a fresh-faced guardsman. He had a year on me, maybe two. A key ring hung from his belt.

  Zeph. The dungeon. The keys. I put it together in an instant.

  His stare broke, and he turned in a panic to glide down the stairwell. At the bottom was an imposing doorway. I could not let him reach it.

  The stairs popped under my toes, and I launched the ammo box with all the strength I could muster. It spun through the air and connected with the back of his head.

  “Yow!” he stumbled forward. That was all I needed. I leapt. The distance between us vanished, and I pummeled a scraped elbow into his back. We both careened down the last few stairs and struck ground.

  "Shit, why is it always a girl," he said as I grabbed the keys from his belt, leaped to my feet, slammed the dungeon door shut, and locked it.

  “Aaaaaabbblleeeeee!” The beast’s howl rang from the stairwell's top, closer than I’d hoped.

  King of Wands, I prayed, let this thing hold.