DREADWOLF

 

◈ Chapter 142:

 

"Is that what I think it is?" murmured Rain.

 

"He used these tiny deadly fireballs, lots of them, and they just went through everything," said Opal. "He didn't seem to care very much. I guess if they didn't stop when they went through you..."

 

"Hey, what are you saying?" said Rose, unable to take her eyes off the maid.

 

Opal shrugged. "Those guards said attack. I don't think they meant the Lord, I think they meant everywhere. I think the guards didn't come sooner because of those fireballs if they've been going through all the walls in this place, a lot of people have probably been killed by them."

 

Rain began to step around the body, but then the door ahead opened. A Human stood there, one of the guards from the dining room below. 

 

The guard looked between the dead maid and the bear.

 

"H-hey- Help! It's here! It killed a servant!"

 

"Do something leveler girl," hissed Opal.

 

"I don't- uhm," Rose bit her lip as the guard turned wary eyes on them, gripping his halberd tight. "Th-the golem-

 

The guard narrowed his eyes in disbelief.

 

"-the monster is under my control!" Rose finished weakly.

 

"If that's true miss then you will submit to our word while we sort this out. Have that thing lie on the ground and toss aside any weapons." He glanced down at the maid. "You see how this looks."

 

More guards were spilling in behind him as he spoke, Lamia and various other species, each raising bits of steel and eyeing the bear warily.

 

"There's more dead in the Lord's chamber," came muttered words from behind the guard. The guards became even more wary.

 

Rose glanced up at Rain in question, wanting to know if they should do as the guards said, but he shook his head.

 

"No. And you know why." he gravelled. It wasn't even a question really. Wranvyre was dead, a lot of people in the mansion were likely injured or dead from the fireballs. There were half a dozen dead female Lamia in the Lord's chambers, and finally, he had had a sheep girl with him who every single leveler on the estate wanted dead and would happily kill him to get at, even without any of that they might kill him just for a boost in levels, pretend slave or not.

 

Rain took a step back from the guards.

 

The guards took a step forward.

 

Rain turned and fled back through the door. 

 

The guards roared their indignation at this.

 

He charged through the hallways back the way they had come, this time without time to carefully open doors he smashed them aside with a flick of his arm. 

 

He made it back to the Lord's rooms far faster than when they had departed and he flung himself into the air as he entered, a great leap that took him up and then down, falling through one of the many holes in the floor where he came down on top a half destroyed dining table the thing immediately flattened by the impact.

 

"Ooh gods help me!" wailed Rose with the landing, her coils clutching desperately tight as her belly wobbled.

 

A dozen startled guards watched while he leapt from the table and charged through the dining room doors vanishing into the rooms beyond. 

 

It seemed like a moment's reprieve from the chase as they were slow to follow, but then he came through into a larger hall and found most of the original guards who'd been chasing them and many more. That was the problem with running from people who knew a place back to front and top to bottom, they could predict exactly where you might go.

 

He made a hard right and crashed through a pair of double doors, ripping them from their hinges, cries of anger hot on his bear heels. Rain charged down the corridor, an unending tide of levelers chasing him.

 

"Tell me how to get out of here Rose!"

 

"Uh, uh, I don't know from here! You'll need to go down, uh, down the stairs, which are back there where the guards are!"

 

The levelers weren't stopping, magic filled the hallway behind him, a storm of fiery death that tore at the walls, far more dangerous than when the incensed teenagers had been after his tail.

 

Rain leaned forward and ran for it, belting down the corridor, feet pistoning against the marble and shattering tile after tile. But even with his great speed there were always many more levelers, those coming to see the commotion, and more.

 

Well, if there was no way out of this trap then he would just have to make one. He took aim for the blank stone wall at the end of the corridor.

 

The wall exploded as he smashed into it, doing his best to protect Rose and Opal as he hit the stone by turning to his side and curling over them, using his shoulder to pierce the stone.

 

He found himself flying through the air several stories above the ground, just as he had above the Lord's room moments before.

 

He came down with a crash, his feet making small twin craters in the cobble before instantly launching himself forward, reusing his momentum. A moment later a hail of magic came down where he had just been, lighting and fire and ice crashing across the stone, turning it into thousands of stone splinters in a moment.

 

Rain charged through the estate, massive ornate buildings and decorative gardens flashing by, startled and expensively dressed Lamia staring at the giant sprinting bear plushie.

 

He knew he couldn't get out through the walls, the walls of the estate were like any town, heavily and dangerously enchanted, so that left just one viable route.

 

He ran for the front gates.

 

They were in luck. The front gates had been left open, the carriages of the Lord left out while their endless luggage was taken inside and the monstrous horses were seen too. But that was nearly done with by the time Rain caught sight of the giant wooden doors, and the guards hearing the frantic cries of 'monster' from those chasing behind were rapidly closing them.

 

In fact when the guards saw the giant teddy bear storming toward them they panicked and began to close the doors much faster.

 

He still almost made it, a mere dozen feet away from being able to slip through, but then the impossibly thick solid doors slammed shut with a deafening boom and a second later lit up bright with myriad angular enchantments carved across their surface.

 

Rain hit hard, feet first, all the weight and strength he could bring to bear in one desperate leap.

 

The huge doors crackled with light and magic, straining under the immense impact, the wood bulging outward.

 

They still held.

 

But that wasn't what Rain had been aiming for. A smaller door was set into the much larger doors, a servants door. Rain's full weight smashed into it at the exact moment it closed, the smaller runes on its surface only just starting to glow like the larger door.

 

The small door held for all of a second before being launched outward, the entire thing tearing from its frame, a giant bear riding it down onto the cobble outside, the wooden rectangle sliding halfway across the square like some kind of impromptu sled until it came to a stop and the bear was forced to stagger into a run once more.

 

Behind him nearly a hundred levelers poured through the once more opening main doors, and more, there were levelers waiting outside who heard the chaser's cries of monster and joined, swelling the ranks of the furious mob already hundreds strong.

 

Rain skidded into the nearest alley, colliding with the wall before bouncing off, his feet pounding stone as he ran and ran. A storm of magic and arrows followed behind as well as several of the faster levelers, those with speed related Skills, weapons raised to slash and stab at his back. Rose was forced to take hold of the clothes of one particularly fast spear wielder as they landed on Rain's back, picking him up and launching him through the nearest window.

 

The bear was fast, but it didn't seem to matter. People throughout the city knew what the cry of 'monster' meant, knew the golden opportunity it presented. Seeing half of Wranvyre's estate racing after it only made the prize that much more valuable, who wouldn't want to be in the great Lord's good graces? Just how desirable was the kill on this monster?

 

The harder he ran the more levelers there seemed to be, levelers who knew the city, levelers who knew shortcuts. More than once he pelted from an alley only to find a sea of people charging from a nearby street, all of them screaming for his blood.

 

It was going just as he had feared being shown as a monster in this city would go. He would be killed by unending numbers, unending levelers hungry to level.

 

He burst from a particularly long street and glanced behind him. There were so many people! a field of people that filled the street from one end to the other, all racing toward him! Hundreds and hundreds! Thousands!

 

He nearly collided with the crowd ahead as he looked back, stumbling as he knocked a Lapine flat. The crowd behind cried for his head and those ahead turned with interest.

 

It didn't matter how far he ran he seemed doomed to be surrounded by thousands, no, tens of thousands of levelers all desperately eager to kill him, to stab and rend and burn and-

 

Being caught seemed inevitable.

 

Except there was a path out of this mess, a street that was barren and empty, the crowd avoiding even looking at it let alone going near it.

 

He raced for freedom, the many thousands of levelers right on his tail, the crowd behind joining the mob, the continual siren chant of 'Kill the monster!' egging them on, the air crackling with hundreds of spells.

 

The buildings changed as he went, the windows lacking glass, instead filled with bars and grids of iron. What was this? A prison?

 

He noticed that the crowd that was chasing him had slowed.

 

Then even the buildings disappeared and he found himself on a bridge wide enough to take two coaches with ease, a bridge that flew out and split out into three other bridges which connected to more bridges? a grid of bridges? He continued out onto the grid, his own pace slowing. There were so many bridges here, like a network of bridges that had been placed over a lake. 

 

He slowed further as he realised the crowd had slowed to a near halt at the first bridge. Confused now, Rain neared the railing and peered over the side.

 

What he saw almost made him run back the way he had come. The bridges didn't span a river or a lake or anything like that. No, they spanned a pit, a vast cylinder cut straight down into the earth. The pits mind-boggling depths seemed to go on for at least a mile until they were swallowed in darkness. The many many bridges formed a great stone and iron grid over this space, each intersection of the bridges capped with a fortified tower. Already he could hear cries from the guards on the towers' crenellations, alarmed and unsure about the giant plushies presence.

 

But the crowd had basically stopped, hesitating to go further. This place was momentarily safe and he slipped out of view of the crowd behind one of the towers, hunkering down in the shadows of a stone battlement.

 

He glanced down at the pit once more, unable to help himself.

 

The walls of the bottomless pit weren't empty, Rain's eyes widened as he realised what he was looking at, there were an uncountable number of holes down there, an unending wall of barred rooms in the stone, each facing out over the gulf, tens of thousands of little prison cells. The mention of 'the pit' by Florens' Ranker suddenly made a lot more sense.

 

"We shouldn't be here!" whispered Rose.

 

"Why? it's safer than out there isn't it?"

 

Rose shook her head, her eyes very wide.

 

"No! L-Look!"

 

Down below Rain caught movement in the dark. A lot of movement. At first he wasn't sure what he was looking at, just a multitude of limbs and glowing blue dots moving over and over, climbing up from the dark, a swarm that washed over each cell.

 

Then the screams reached his ears, drifting up from the depths. He could see magic being used, the occupants of the cells fighting for their lives against the things that were attacking them, spewing magic, stabbing with Skill empowered spears, firing crossbows.

 

They weren't succeeding.

 

The prisoners were being killed.

 

He caught his first glimpse of what was coming up, dim light flashing of eyes that were filled with nothing but a glowing blue, horrible talons that could cut through steel, dragon like scales emerging from rough spiny fur.

 

It was a Panthara.

 

Or at least he thought it was, but then, did Panthara's have six legs? and what was that thing being dragged behind it? 

 

Rain's eyes went very wide as a massive bloated sac of heaving flesh was pulled from the dark. Instead of having a tail this creature seemed to have the insect-like abdomen of an ant queen, something no mammal or reptile was supposed to have.

 

Behind it came hundreds more Panthara, many carrying pulsing abdominal sacs behind them, many more were like those he was familiar with possessing only four legs.

 

The guards continued yelling and Rain realised they had never been yelling about him, they had been yelling because of the things that were crawling up from the depths of the pit.

 

The crowd hadn't noticed the invading Panthara yet, but were getting bolder and bolder, spilling out onto the bridges by the hundreds, voices rising in anger as the nearest spotted him.

 

"We need to leave, we need to leave now!" cried Rose, her voice filled with genuine naked fear as she peeked over the railing at what was racing up toward them.

 

Rain watched in fascination as the first Panthara clambered up underneath one of the bridges the crowd occupied, one with a sac. He had been mistaken about one other detail about these new Panthara. They were unbelievably enormous, each easily as large as a two storey building. The massive thing hung upside down from the bridge, its size so great that its six taloned feet gripped either side of the bridge with ease.

 

The thing turned suddenly and its sac came with it, moving like a separate limb. The massive white thing flopped up over the top of the bridge and Rain could only watch as a yellow fluid was disgorged over the crowd from a pincered hole at its end. The screams were awful as the people were buried in the caustic substance, a heavy cloud of smoke billowing into the air as they burned and burned and burned.

 

"Run!" screamed Rose.

 

This time he listened, especially when the sac started spewing person sized soft black eggs that rippled and bulged with something inside trying to get out. The city could deal with whatever nightmarish things had just crawled out of the dungeon, he was done for the day, done and done.

 

The guards yelled at the panicking crowd demanding they help them fight off the dungeon surge. It didn't seem like they were having much luck, but it was all the distraction Rain needed. He fled across the grid of bridges and darted back into the city, fleeing down the first alley he saw and quickly losing himself amongst myriad twists and turns.

 

They'd escaped the mob, they were free.

 

Now all that remained was to heal Lyra… and deal with Rose.