Chapter 31
The Ridge
I dodged the wyrm's attack, feeling the wind tear at my clothes. The worm-sword in my hand flashed out, biting into the creature's scales as it shot past.
"That's it?" That's your big opening move? A little scratch?"
My blade had barely broken the wyrm’s skin, sliding off armor that might as well have been steel plating. It didn't even seem to notice.
"You try fighting a twenty-meter death noodle!"
Its tail caught me across the chest before I could react. The impact had lifted me clean off of my feet, sending me crashing through one of the nearby pine trees. Pain riddled my body as I hit the ground hard.
"That went well," Mabel commented.
I spat blood onto the snow and pushed myself up. "Shut up and help me kill this thing."
The wyrm was preparing another burst attack again, its massive body forming loops of muscle that rippled beneath its scales.
"Fish, it's going to strike again, look out!" Mabel warned.
I slid on the ground, dodging another attack, and drove the sword toward the wyrm's eye. The creature was faster than me; it jerked its head aside, and my blade scraped uselessly across its armored scales. Its jaws snapped at my face.
"THIS THING IS FASTER THAN IT HAS ANY RIGHT TO BE!"
Its head shot forward. I brought the sword up to block this time; the impact drove me to my knees. My arms shook from the force.
The blade flexed and reformed, absorbing most of the punishment; I felt the strain through my connection to the worms.
"We're not winning this!"
"No shit, but dying isn't an option. I refuse to be digested in that thing's stomach."
Pushing off the snake's muzzle, I tucked into a roll as its head slammed into the ground. I flicked my blade at its side as I came up, cutting it deeper this time. Dark blood sprayed across the snow.
The wyrm screamed and whipped around with savage fury. I was losing. I could feel it.
"It's too heavily armored. You need to get inside it somehow."
I looked at the gash I'd carved in the wyrm's side. It was still bleeding.
"No," Mabel said, reading my thoughts. "No, no, no. That is NOT what I meant! That's just suicide."
"Got a better idea?" I asked, watching the wyrm as it moved hypnotically.
"Several! All of which don't involve being EATEN ON PURPOSE!"
The wyrm dove at me again, jaws wide, teeth gleaming. Its wide mouth snapped shut around my arm. I felt its teeth punch through armor and flesh, grinding against my bones. The pain was blinding. I screamed but didn't pull away.
"FISH! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
I drove the worm-sword into the wyrm's existing wound.
The blade sank deep past its armored scales, past tight muscles, and deep into the creature's body.
Then I willed the sword to break down into thousands of worms. My worms spread throughout its insides.
I felt thousands of them spreading through its blood and burrowing into its organs.
I felt them feeding; I felt the wyrm's essence flowing back through the connection.
The wyrm released my arm and thrashed wildly. Its body whipped back and forth, slamming into trees, its tail tearing rifts into the frozen earth. It didn't understand what was happening. It only knew it was dying and couldn't stop it.
I stumbled back, cradling my mangled arm, watching the wyrm get torn apart. My little demons worked fast, spreading through the creature's massive body like fire through dry wood.
The wyrm's movements were weaker.
"That was absolutely disgusting!"
The wyrm collapsed.
Twenty meters of dead wyrm meat, steaming in the cold air, already being eaten from within. My worms continued feeding even after the creature stopped moving.
Essence flooded into me. Not as much as Cedric had provided, but substantial. I felt decades of accumulated power, all of it flowing into my body.
◆◆◆
I was sitting against a tree, letting the worms work.
My left arm was a ruin; the wyrm's teeth had shredded muscle down to bone in several places. My worms were repairing it, but the process was slow. They'd used a lot of essence in the fight.
"That was too close, another few seconds and you'd have lost the arm completely. Or your head."
There were shattered pine trees, and overturned earth everywhere. The wyrm's corpse was still being eaten by the worms I'd left inside it.
I tested my arm.
My fingers moved, but they were weak. It would take some time for the worms to rebuild the fine motor control they didn't yet have. I'd need a few hours—maybe a full day—before the arm worked properly again.
"All that much blood will attract predators," Mabel said.
I looked at the sky. The sun was touching the horizon. The Long Dark was coming. The mist would roll in soon, and with it the Mist Singers and whatever else hunts in the night.
"The clearing won't protect us…"
My body protested, exhaustion and residual pain from wounds that weren't fully healed. "Where do we go?"
"What about the ridge… if the fire came from there, if someone made camp on high ground, we might find shelter," Mabel said.
I started walking toward the ridge, following the slope upward through the darkening forest. Each step was harder than the last.
"Hurry, the mist is already forming in the valley."
I climbed the final slope as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.
I reached the top and stopped. The Greywood spread below me in every direction; it was a sea of dark pines stretching toward the distant mountains.
"Pretty… Now stop gawking and find shelter before the mist gets us."
There was a cleared area with a fire pit, ash, and charred wood inside.
"Someone's been here," I said, kneeling by the fire pit.
The fire pit was warm when I touched the stones. Whoever was here left recently.
The mist was rising faster now; I could see its white walls climbing the slopes toward the ridge. The singing had started in the valley below, the Mist Singers beginning their hunt.
I had minutes at most before the Long Dark swallowed everything. Moving along the edge of the ridge, I searched for any natural shelter as the mist climbed toward me.
I spotted a dark opening in the rocks and squeezed myself into the opening. Inside, the space opened up slightly; it wasn’t a true cave but a hollow in the rocks. But it was protected from the outside.
A bedroll lay against one wall, roughly made from animal furs. A pack sat beside it, partially open, supplies spilling out.
The bedroll was still warm, or at least not frozen. The food was fresh. Whoever stayed here left very recently. Maybe when I was fighting the wyrm. Maybe they had heard the fight and fled. Or maybe they went to investigate the sound of battle and hadn't returned.
The mist had fully risen outside.
I was trapped until morning. Alone in a stranger's shelter, surrounded by the mist.
Hours passed. I drifted in and out of sleep
"Fish! There is something outside."
My hand formed the worm-sword before my eyes fully opened. I stared at the cave mouth, the eye charm revealing shapes in the mist. A pair of eyes stared back at me.
Human eyes. Wide and watchful, visible through a gap in the mist. Someone was standing just outside the cave entrance. Someone who had survived the Long Dark without shelter. Someone who had been watching me this entire time.
Then the mist shifted, and the eyes were gone. Swallowed by white fog as if they were never there.