Chapter Fifty-One - Fetching Help

“Gosh... Darn it,” I swore as the tracks in the ground just sort of stopped. Between one muddy step and the next there wasn’t so much as a trace of the six sets of hoofprints left.

My left fist tightened, my right... sort of flopped uselessly and sent a nauseating wave of pain through my entire body.

I carefully held my broken wrist and turned back to stare at the bridge, still well in sight.

The cervids had truly gotten away.

Not that there was much I could do even if I caught up. I didn’t doubt for a moment that they had been holding back. Their leader wanted to leave behind a witness. I couldn’t quite piece together the why of it. It didn’t make sense.

I looked back and forth from the bridge to the path they might have taken.

It felt as if someone were grabbing my heart and squeezing, as if something were trying to crush my lungs in my chest and, for a long moment, I had a hard time even breathing. This wasn’t leaving a potential friend because our paths split. This was losing a friend because someone had taken her away from me to do... do horrible things to her.

Orange pushed her head into my neck and looked up to me with eyes that reflected my sadness right back at me.

“Why?” I asked. I’m not sure who I was asking. The empty air. The world itself? It didn’t matter. Things like this shouldn’t have happened, not in my fun fantasy world with magic and dragons and fairies and...

I wiped my eyes again. I didn’t have time for this!

Amaryllis needed saving, now more than ever.

If I had to... to hurt people to save a friend, I would.

Still, I had to find her first. There weren’t any tracks left, and I didn’t have the ability to see them from too high above. Even jumping as high as I couldn’t didn’t reveal anything. Orange was a cat, she couldn't track by scent the way a dog could.

And that gave me an idea.

I didn’t run so much as I sprinted. I only stopped by the bridge to fling my backpack off to reduce my weight. I only kept my spear and spade. Then I was off again, legs kicking out with constant jumps, the road flying by under me as I ate away at the distance.

What had taken Amaryllis and I two hours to cross at a leisurely walk took me twenty minutes.

In the end I collapsed into an ungainly heap at the front of Fort Frogger, my legs wobbly and inflamed from the constant impacts against the ground. Jumping so much couldn’t be good, not if the twinges of pain travelling up my legs meant anything, but I didn’t have time for anything like that.

It took a moment for me to catch my breath and finally get to my feet. The skeletal knights by the gate hadn’t so much as flinched on my arrival.

I walked past them, wincing as the many many aches across my body that two healing potions hadn’t cured. I had one left, but it was for Amaryllis. She would need it more than I would.

“Gunther!” I called out as I knocked on the door with a closed fist. “Mister Gunther, please. I need help!”

The door to the fort opened. Mister Gunther stood in the entrance, flanked by Throat Ripper and looking quite unamused. Then he took me in and his expression shifted. “What happened to you?” he asked. “No, wait, come in, come in.”

I followed him in. I wanted to talk right away, but he just kept walking until he was in the lounge and sitting in one of the chairs. The other two had been packed away already, so I was left standing before him. “Amaryllis was taken. Um, we were attacked. At that bridge.”

“Not by my skeletons?” he asked.

“No. No by deer people. Amaryllis called them cervids? There were six of them. They were in uniforms.”

Gunther looked at me, an eyebrow rising. Then he saw my wrist. “Come closer. Give me your hand.”

“It’s broken,” I said without approaching.

“I had assumed as much,” he said drolly. “Is your class suited to mending bones?” he asked.

“No?”

“Then listen to what I say and come here.” I came closer and extended my hand to him. He wasn’t very gentle, and I had to hold back a hiss as he turned it over. “Apologies. Most of the time when I’m handling bones the... owner isn’t capable of feeling pain any longer.” He gripped my hand and pulled.

There was a sickening pop, and I gasped. Then a wash of warmth raced through my wrist and arm and the pain faded to a memory. I yanked my hand back and hugged it close, but a few motions revealed it to be back to normal.

“Tell me of your encounter.”

I swallowed. “Oh, okay,” I said. I recounted the story of what had just happened. By the end I was breathing hard and I didn’t know if I wanted to throw a tantrum or start crying. Throat Ripper helped by standing next to me and pushing his big head into my side.

“I see,” was all Gunther said in the end. He arched his hands together and leaned back into his chair. “What are you going to do now?”

“I.. I wanted to ask your help,” I said while looking to the ground. I was still idly scratching Throat Ripper’s neck, but that didn’t require much thought.

“To return to Green Hold unbothered? I could let you take a pair of skeletons with you. It would serve as a good deterrent.”

“No, to save Amaryllis. I can’t track them down. I don’t know where they went,” I said.

“Didn’t you already lose against them? What makes you think you stand a chance now?” he asked.

I sniffled. I wasn’t going to start crying again. “I don’t know. But I have to save her! She’s my friend!”

Gunther looked at me for a long while, then he let out a sigh. “I suppose we could assist you.”

“Thank you!” I said before I launched myself across the room and hugged him. “Thank you so, so much!” I repeated.

Gunther didn’t seem to know what to do, so he settled with patting me on the head as if I was Throat Ripper. “Yes, yes. Well. Throat Ripper will be the one doing the assisting. And we won’t do it for free.”

I stood back up and nodded. I was smiling again, for the first time in hours. It had been a long time since I’d gone so long without a smile. “Yes, anything.”

“Any-- don’t make such open promises,” he said. “We’ll help in exchange for a favour.”

“What sort?” I asked. I was eager to get going now. With Throat Ripper helping I was sure I could find Amaryllis.

“Nothing uncouth, I assure you. Just return here and you’ll see what I wish of you.”

“I can do that,” I said. “Can we leave now? Please? I don’t know what they’re doing to her. We need to save Amaryllis.”

“I’m not sending my best friend out there with only you for support,” Guther said. “I’ll gather my swiftest skeletons and send them as well. If there truly are six adversaries that have reached or passed the first rank, then you’ll need a far greater number of skeletons to hold them back. Cervids are no pushovers.”

Gunther stood up and I followed him as he started ordering skeletons around. First he told Throat Ripper and a few of the butler skeletons to go get the dog’s armour, then he stepped out and casually pointed to half a dozen skeletons, all of them cervid, and told them to go and get equipped for battle.

It was a little disconcerting to see how much power Gunther had around his little fort, but that power was on my side and would help me save Amaryllis, and Gunther didn’t seem like a bad sort of guy.

“Your goal is to save your friend?” Gunther asked me as we both moved back into the fort.

“Yeah, of course,” I said.

“Then the moment you arrive, focus on that and nothing but. Take your friend and run back here, or if you must, towards Green Hold. The cervids aren’t welcome there, nor is anyone else from the Trenten Flats.”

“Is there some history there?” I asked. “Or is it just, uh, speciesism?”

Gunther blinked, then smiled as he rubbed at his nose. “Ah, yes I suppose you wouldn’t know. The United Republic of the Trenten Flats is the largest nation on the continent. They’re also fiercely expansionist and rather troublesome to have as neighbours. Some decades ago they invaded Deepmarsh. Or rather, they tried to.”

“Deepmarsh stopped them?” It wasn’t time for a history lesson, but I was waiting and maybe learning a little about the kidnappers would help.

“They will certainly claim so. I believe that the truth is more nuanced. The Trenten invasion was large, outnumbering any force Deepmarsh could bring by three to one. But they were led by an inexperienced general, didn’t have many scouts, and the army they fielded was green. The swamps, unfiltered water, and the insects of the marsh did more to whittle down the army than the resistance Deepmarsh rallied to defend their borders.”

“That sounds messy,” I said. I could imagine a huge army trying to trek through the same swampy land Amaryllis and I had walked across. With wagons and horses and a lot of people walking over the same muddy ground all day. It wasn’t hard to imagine the average soldier’s morale taking a hit.

“I still find bodies to this day,” Gunther said. “Ah, Throat Ripper is ready.”

The big, rather silly bone doggy had changed a whole lot over the course of the last ten minutes. He was now covered from head to tail in thick padded armour, with a layer of what looked like the scaly hide of some sort of crocodile. His head was covered in a helmet that only left the burning embers of his eyes visible and there were boney spikes sewn into the material of his armour all along his sides and back and haunches.

“Oh, wow,” I said. “You look so scary Throat Ripper,” I said. “Yes you do, yes you do!”

The bone doggy wiggled his butt and his tail, now equipped with a thagomizer, swung from side to side in glee.

“There’s a seat built into the top of his armour. It’s far from comfortable, but it works well enough as long as you hang on tightly.”

I don’t know what my expression was like, but Gunther took one look at me and chuckled.

“Remember what I said. Grab your friend and return. Don’t dilly dally. Don’t try and fight the cervids unless you have no other choice. And if it comes to the choice between you and them, do pick yourself. It would be insulting if you were unable to pay back your favour because you managed to get yourself killed.”

I swallowed, the joy that learning that I’d get to ride Throat Ripper into battle snuffed out by his warning. “Alright,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Good,” Gunther said. “Now, don’t worry about the skeletons. They’re immensely disposable. And Throat Ripper is likely stronger than most everyone but the elites among the Cervid army. He can take care of himself. And if he does pass on, I can always bring him back.”

“Thank you, Gunther. I... just thank you.”

“Go save your friend, little riftwalker. You can thank me later.”

I grinned at him, and when Throat Ripper bounded out of the front door I followed after the big pup. With a bounce, I landed on the bone dog’s broad back and grabbed two spikes that were placed so as to be handholds for the rider. “C’mon Throat Ripper, let’s go save Amaryllis.”

***