Fingers of Frost - Part Three

This week: the conclusion of my grimdark fantasy story set in the same world as Nagual.

Another empathic wave crashed through the swamp. Not mirth, this time. Not curiosity or excitement. Only fury and the knowledge of having been tricked. The poison Sonea had laced the rotten meat with was now working its way through the creature’s insides, burning its way through its guts.

A clicking shriek shattered the silence, coming from everywhere around her. Pain and fury blossomed in Sonea's mind, a more powerful empathic sending from the creature that near knocked her to the ground. The creature burst from a nearby pool. Black water cascaded along its ridged, thorny back, running along the fungus and moss growing on the beast's scaly carapace. Its spidery, amphibious legs scuttled, propelling it forward, its webbed claws effective on both land and in water. Despite its massive mouth and low-hanging gullet, it moved fast. The sack of flesh beneath its needle-tooth-filled mouth flapped and swayed as the bear-sized monster galloped at her. Black ichor and smoke trailed from its ruined mouth.

Instinct and training kicked in and Sonea brought the crossbow up. She squeezed the lever and felt a familiar thunk of the bowstring slapping the box and the kick into her shoulder. The Blackfire-forged steel bolt flashed into the charging squelch, vanishing into the thorny ridges of its gullet. Where the bolt pierced, the squelch's carapace smoked and sizzled, exposing more of the creature’s insides to the toxic metal. The monster's scream filled the swamp but it didn't stop. Sonea had only enough time to raise the spike at the end of the crossbow directly into the creature’s charging body. 

An arm’s length of Blackfire-forged steel sunk into the beast's chest. The squelch's momentum carried it forward and it crashed into her, pinning her to the ground, with only the length of the crossbow between them. The stench of rot and the monster's weight pressed against her, suffocating her. Flecks of its blood dribbled down at her from its snarling, snapping mouth. It writhed, its claws raking her leather armor and its teeth gnashing the air as the length of steel punched through its chitinous torso. She yelled and hefted the crossbow to one side, rolling the body of the squelch to the ground next to her and stabbing its face with the flare. Its screams filled the swamp, but it dragged itself to its feet, swaying on the spidery limbs and hissing before coming for Sonea again, even as flames began to lick its eye-less face.

How was it still alive?

You’re going to fail at this, too, and this is the one that counts. You’re such a disappointment.

Sonea pulled free her company long knife, a broad-bladed knife made of Blackfire-forged steel, from the sheath at her shoulder and held it ready, the flare still sputtering in her other hand. Her armor was rent and blood oozed from where one of the squelch's claws had torn its way through the boiled leather and her flesh. Heat spread from her side and into her chest.

The squelch stumbled forward, reaching to grab Sonea with its webbed claws, its mouth working to bite at her flesh. Its chest was ruined, its mouth bleeding, its face on fire. Still, it came. Sonea managed to duck the first swipe, but the second sent her flying back into a tree, driving the breath from her. The world grew dark again. The creature’s magic? Or good old-fashioned blood loss? The wound at her side was growing hotter. Didn’t squelch wounds have a nasty habit of getting infected? Or did it have some kind of toxin in its claws? It was getting hard to remember what the Company had taught her.

The squelch shrieked, its gills flapping and clicking in fury even as its life leaked out of the gaping hole in its midsection. It knew it was dead. Sonea knew it was dead. It just wanted to make sure she would die, too.

As its life force dribbled into the frost-edged pools, the creature gathered itself for a final charge. With it came the last of its empathic power, a blast of rage and sorrow. The weight of generations having lived beneath the primeval canopy of the Wyrdwuld, ended by the encroaching humans, hammered Sonea against the tree. She fell to her knees, beaten down by the finality of that feeling. Her vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears. The squelch was almost on top of her.

Disappointing.

More reflex than training, Sonea threw her hands up as the monster collapsed onto her. The blade stabbed through the monster’s flapping gullet. Its spiked grip punched through its throat. Sonea fell with the squelch’s entire weight on her, the stink of its carapace burning at the Blackfire-forged steel’s touch filling her nostrils.

Every last ounce of strength in her went to keeping the weight of the creature’s head off of her. Its mouth opened and its breath was ice against her forehead. The rows upon rows of jagged little teeth strained to reach her. Then the thing’s frigid breath, stinking of decay and rot, slowed. The throb of its heart stilled, then stopped. The squelch twitched one final time, then became deadweight, and Sonea’s strength gave out.

She wasn’t sure how long it was until she wriggled out from beneath the creature. Above her, the malevolent canopy of blackened swamp trees and larger coniferous grew warmer. Flashes of blue and gray filtered through the dense foliage above, hints of a sky—a world—beyond the hidden lair of the squelch. The shadows that had gathered around the frost-covered roots shrank and slipped away. The bubbles in the vile waters slowed, then stopped. Silence descended in the swamp, a moment of reverence from the land as the creature’s life ended, interrupted only by the sputtering of Sonea’s flare and her rasping breath.

She was alive. Against all odds, against her own rotten luck and clumsy misjudging of distance, she was alive. Molten poison still spread through her torso from the creature’s wound and Wuldvort was two days ride away, with her horse and pack several hours of hiking away, but she was, technically, alive.

The flare still sputtered on the wet ground beside her. She reached for it, crying out as a new wave of pain was brought on by the quick movement, and held it ready. She sucked air in and jammed the flare into her wound. Lights danced in her eyes and her vision dimmed almost black as she screamed. She focused on the pain, using the sensation to stay conscious, knowing she had to cauterize the whole wound. The smell of charred flesh replaced the miasma of the swamp and she gagged through her screams until the work was done.

All this proves is that you are an idiot and dangerous.

Fuck you.

For better or for worse, Sonea had done what no other Hunter in the Company had done before: killed a squelch by herself. Sonea laughed, even though the shaking of her laughter brought on waves of nausea.

They’d have to give her Crow now.  

~~~

Thanks for Fingers of Frost. Now back to the regularly scheduled blog posts.