Jenna Helland - The Fanged Crown

Crouching and using their hands to steady themselves, the two dwarves slid at an angle down the slope to the cliff of bluish-gray stone. Their descent loosened a torrent of gravel that disappeared over the edge. The dwarves skidded to a stop against the cliff and clambered onto a narrow ledge that spanned the length of the rock wall. It was apparently the only way across the chasm short of sprouting wings.

Majida and Zo looked expectantly back at Harp and his crewmates, who stood agape having watched the dwarves’ precipitous descent down the slope to the ledge. They made it look easy, but one misstep would result in a plunge into the crevice.

“That’s suicide,” Verran said in disbelief. “Jumping off the waterfall was safer than that.”

“Don’t take it slow,” Zo called from the cliff. “That just makes it harder to steer yourself to the cliff without slipping off the edge.”

“Well, we saw them do it,” Harp said resolutely. “It’s obviously possible to make it safely.”

“At least for dwarves,” Boult said.

“Then you should go first,” Kitto said to Boult.

“Ah Kitto, you’re always thinking of me,” Boult growled, crouching like Zo and Majida had and angling himself to the ledge. Kitto waited until Boult reached the ledge safely and shot Harp a mischievous grin.

“Don’t do anything stupid …” Harp began, but Kitto was already sliding down the slope—only he did it standing straight up. With an artful twist of his body, he stopped himself just as he reached the ledge and gracefully climbed up beside Boult.

“What, no somersault?” Harp called, relieved to see Kitto safely on the ledge.

“Next time,” Kitto said cheerfully.

“You’re a cagey one, aren’t you,” Majida said to Kitto. “I’ll take you up to the nest of Horizon Eagle. I’d bet you could steal me a feather.”

“I can steal anything,” Kitto said without a trace of arrogance.

“It’s you and me, then,” Harp said to Verran as the two of them began to crab-walk down the slope. “I suppose there are worse fates than falling to your death.”

“Worse than falling to your death in a pit of rotting corpses?” Verran asked.

Partway down the slope they could see that the chasm wasn’t deep—only twenty feet down at its lowest point. But it was filled with half-rotted carcasses of animals and various humanoids, and the stench of decay hung heavy in the air. There were rib cages larger than a horse and skulls twice the size of a dwarf. Faded shreds of clothing and the rusted metal of ruined weapons could be seen among the piles of corpses.

“Look at that spine,” Verran said appreciatively, pointing at an enormous backbone that curved around the perimeter of the chasm. “I want to see what kind of creature has a spine that long.”

“Not me,” Harp said peering down at the carnage below him. “I like my monsters dead and gone.”

By the time that Harp and Verran reached the ledge, ominous clouds were moving across the sky. No one wanted to be caught on the outcropping of rock when the storm hit. With their chests to the cliff and hugging the rock with their arms, they made slow progress over the chasm. Harp looked over his shoulder at the grisly display of decaying meat and bleached bones breaching out of the pitch-black soil.

“What happened down there?” Harp called to Majida

“It’s a dumping ground for a clutch of drakes that live on the mountaintops,” she called back.

“Why do they dump fresh meat?”

“They’re picky eaters,” Majida said. “All the better for us. It keeps visitors away from the entrance to the Domain.”

“I guess if you don’t mind living on top of a clump of carrion …” Harp mumbled under his breath as he slid one foot next to the other. The ledge was slightly longer than his boots, but not much, and Harp had the sense that he was going to topple off the edge. Fortunately, the cliff face had little nubs and outcroppings he could grab onto. His fingers probably weren’t strong enough to actually keep him on the cliff, but it gave him the illusion of stability.

Beside him, Kitto turned his head and stared into the crevice. Harp’s calves ached from standing on the balls of his feet, and he didn’t want to dally on the cliff face.

“Uh, Kitto?” Harp said. “Are you all right? You’re holding up the line.”

“Harp?” Kitto asked. “What’s down there?”

Harp looked down into the pit and movement in the chasm below them. Something twitched along the far edge followed by a slow undulation under one of the heaps of corpses. A stack of loose bones rolled down off the heap and clattered onto the dark earth.

“Boult!” Harp called.

“What?” Boult and the other dwarves had almost reached the other side.

“What’s wrong?” Zo called.

“There’s something in the pit!” Harp shouted. Something began inching under the rot to a spot in the center of the crevice.

Majida’s head jerked toward the chasm just as something long and white whipped out from under the carrion and looped around Kitto’s waist. Harp tried to grab the boy, but Kitto was yanked off the cliff. It looked as if fragments of bone from the pit had been knitted together by some unseen force to form a spiny tentacle. Kitto cried out in pain as the bones tightened vice-like around him.

“Give me a damn weapon!” Boult yelled. Three more tentacles, strips of flesh dangling from them like macabre decorations, rose writhing from the muck.

A mass of bones welled up in the middle of the pit. The remnant of a shattered lizard skull perched on top of a mish-mash of rib bones. Other pieces of bones lodged in the spaces between the ribs to form the body of the beast. The long backbone that Verran had noticed earlier jutted out from its back.

Shoving his sword into Boult’s hands, Zo pulled his bow off his back and charged up the incline to higher ground. At the top of the slope, he fired four arrows rapidly at the creature’s torso, but the arrows ricocheted or lodged harmlessly between the bones.

“Harp!” Boult shouted, leaning out to toss the sword to Harp. In one fluid motion, Harp caught the sword and leaped off the cliff. Jumping onto one of the tentacles, Harp braced his feet in the gaps between the bones and looped one arm around what looked to be a femur. With the other hand, he hacked at the tentacle lashing back and forth, but the blade scraped against it ineffectually.

On the ledge, a flaming scimitar erupted from Majida’s hand. When the tail cracked against the cliff between her and Verran, Majida swung the sword against the bone. The fiery blade cleaved the spine-tail in half, and loose bones clattered against the cliff as they fell. But the loss of the tail didn’t seem to slow the beast as another tentacle crashed against the ledge and nearly knocked Verran into the pit.

“This is futile!” Boult yelled, waving his empty hands in frustration. “We’re not hurting it!”

“What the Hells is it?” Harp yelled as the tentacle he was riding swung at the wall of the pit. Letting the sword slip out of his hands, Harp dropped to the ground just as the tentacle slammed against the rocks. He landed on his knees on the slick ground and searched frantically through the piles of rot for the lost sword.

“Unnatural,” Majida said. The flaming sword in her hand burned out into a wisp of black smoke.

Still suspended above them, Kitto cried out again. Pushing with both hands, he’d managed to raise himself higher in the tentacle’s crushing grasp, but it still had a grip around his legs. When the bony appendage plummeted toward the cliff, Kitto flopped like a doll in a child’s hand.

“Look at me, Verran,” Majida said firmly to the boy beside her on the ledge. Verran was looking down in horror as the scene played out below him. With his face scrunched up like a little kid who was trying not to cry, Verran turned his head and looked at Majida.