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  [colpse]Chapter Fifty-One - Fetg Help

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

  My left fist tightened, my right... sort of flopped uselessly a a ing 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 wao leave behind a witness. I couldn’t quite piece together the why of it. It didn’t make sense.

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

  It felt as if someone were grabbing my heart and squeezing, as if somethirying to crush my lungs in my chest and, for a long moment, I had a hard time evehing. 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.

  e pushed her head into my ned 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 magid 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. e was a cat, she couldn't track by st 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 kig out with stant 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 colpsed into an ungainly heap at the front of Fort Frogger, my legs wobbly and infmed from the stant 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, wing as the many many aches ay body that two healing potions hadn’t cured. I had o, but it was for Amaryllis. She would 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 Guood irance, fnked by Throat Ripper and looking quite unamused. Theook me in and his expression shifted. “What happeo you?” he asked. “No, wait, e in, e in.”

  I followed him in. I wao 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. “e clive me your hand.”

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

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

  “No?”

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

  There was a siing 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 bad hugged it close, but a few motions revealed it to be back to normal.

  “Tell me of your enter.”

  I swallowed. “Oh, okay,” I said. I reted the story of what had just happened. By the end I was breathing hard and I didn’t know if I wao throw a tantrum or start g. Throat Ripper helped by standio 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 bato his chair. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I.. I wao ask your help,” I said while looking to the ground. I was still idly scratg 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 ’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 ow?” he asked.

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

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

  “Thank you!” I said before I unched 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 exge 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 do that,” I said. “ we leave now? Please? I don’t know what they’re doing to her. We o save Amaryllis.”

  “I’m not sending my best friend out there with only you for support,” Guther said. “I’ll gather my swiftest skeletons ahem 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.”

  Guood up and I followed him as he started skeletons around. First he told Throat Ripper and a few of the butler skeletons to go get the dog’s armour, theepped out and casually poio half a dozeons, all of them cervid, and told them to go a equipped for battle.

  It was a little discerting to see how much punther 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.

  “Yoal is to save your friend?” Gunther asked me as we both moved bato 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, treen Hold. The cervids aren’t wele there, nor is anyone else from the Tres.”

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

  Gunther blihen smiled as he rubbed at his nose. “Ah, yes I suppose you wouldn’t know. The United Republic of the Tres is the rgest nation on the ti. 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 cim so. I believe that the truth is more nuahe Trenten invasion was rge, 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 ss, unfiltered water, and the is 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 sy nd 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 imagihe 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 ged a whole lot over the course of the st ten minutes. He was now covered from head to tail in thick padded armour, with a yer 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 bad 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 fortable, but it works well enough as long as you hang on tightly.”

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

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

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

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

  “Go save your friend, little riftwalker. You thaer.”

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

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