*Sadrianna*

  She was enjoying herself, Sadrianna had to admit. Things had gotten significantly busier in her life since she’d breached the 2nd tier, and her responsibilities sometimes felt stifling. When was the last time she’d had a chance to escape into the mountains like this? To just sit outside with a fire, and enjoy the view and the cold air on her skin?

  Too long, for certain. It was important work, no doubt, but there was just so much of it. It was unrelenting – everyday a new task she needed to tackle, a new argument to head off and future issue to resolve before it appeared. It was a refreshing change of pace to be back in the wilderness.

  That’s why she had agreed to join the lowlanders though. It had helped that her parents knew of their leader and had good words to say about him besides.

  But if she was honest with herself, it was a spur of the moment decision while talking to Lamb on the way back from The Lost Grove. He had understood her and reframed her plight without judgement. To hear somebody else acknowledge her frustrations and growing sense of dissatisfaction with the direction her life seemed to be taking was all it took for her to realise she knew what she wanted already.

  And honestly? It seemed to be working out so far. Her responsibilities were already being divided up and parcelled out by her father, and she was free once more to enjoy the world in all its glory. The fire crackled pleasantly, and she lifted the book once more.

  She’d always loved reading, but it had become a special, secret joy of hers over the last few years. An escape from the pressures that a life of excellence demanded, and a way to feed that part of her that craved adventure beyond the borders of the clan. She managed to sneak away during every blending, to peruse the goods of traders that came through from the lowlands and across the mountains.

  She was always hunting for new books, though her favourites were the pulpy romance and adventure novels that were popular coming out of the Desolate Empire and the Leviathan Coast recently. She’d be mortified if her parents or friends found out what she would read in the privacy of her own tent, and the day she had earned herself a storage ring and her own source of coin was the day her collection truly started to grow.

  Returning her attention to ‘Dorian’s Might; the Shiphold Ravisher’, she wriggled back into the fur-lined armchair she’d just recently added to her storage ring. Jorge may have drawn ridicule from his companions for it, but his armchair had been so comfortable that she’d decided to take a leaf from his book and carry one of her own around with her. He might be many things, but ignorant of good ways to travel he was not.

  She sighed in contentment as the afternoon sun tried valiantly to break through the haze of mist in the air, before she froze in place. Her sense for ambient life-essence wasn’t anywhere near as refined and polished as that of her parents, and never would be at her current tier of course, but it was still a powerful tool she had cultivated for most of her adult life.

  When she felt the tremble in the air from a powerful creature unveiling itself in the caverns miles below, she didn’t need to calculate how the distance could be affecting things, or whether there may be interference from a natural treasure of some sort. She knew, deep within her bones, that a predator far beyond Lamb, far beyond even herself, had unveiled itself.

  A 3rd tier had awoken in the bowels of the earth, and it had made its intention to hunt known far and wide.

  Even as she rushed through caverns and tunnels, weaving around stalagmites and dancing across treacherous terrain with ease, she knew she would be too late. A treasonous voice within her asked why she was even bothering. She owed the man nothing, and there was no use throwing her own life away simply to confirm that he had indeed died down here to a creature far beyond him. It was simply his hubris to wake the creature. Or bad luck.

  Still, she careened through tunnels at a breakneck pace anyhow, no real plan other than to reach the creature, and confirm if Lamb was dead. If he was, she would flee with her life, and if he wasn’t, she would do all she could to rescue him. Sadrianna wasn’t the type to leave a comrade in arms to their fate, after all. Not if she could help it.

  But that was the crux of it really - she couldn’t help it. Not when the aura roiling through the tunnels was so clear. But still, she was unwilling to give up without trying, without at least confirming that it was beyond her grasp. That was core to her identity, after all. She was, more than anything, exceptional, and she would go further and faster than any of her peers would be willing to.

  It wasn’t long before her breakneck sprint through the Hollow Mountain was coloured not by the deadened sound of boots slapping ice, but by the staccato crunching of something against ice, rhythmic and fast. Almost a scuttling sound, though writ on such a scale as to sound more like drums in the deep than scurrying legs.

  A blur in the tunnel before her, and then Lamb was barrelling past, shouting the whole while. His words were almost lost to the wind whipped up by her speed, but the intent was clear – “run the fuck away” he all but screamed at her, but it was too late.

  She was past him in an instant, and came swiftly face to face with the thing responsible for that rhythmic crashing. A spider, enormous and fell, eight legs pistoning into the ice to leave craters behind with every footfall as it rocketed forwards after Lamb. Straight at her.

  She saw the moment it focused on her, watched as one of its forelegs left the trajectory it had previously been on and instead arced down to split her in half where she was, but thankfully she hadn’t stopped moving as the creature had rounded the corner. The ground shook as the leg slammed into the ice behind her, and she slid across the floor beneath its belly, coming to her feet again behind the creature and sprinting off down the tunnel, unwilling to wait around and see whether it would choose to follow her or its original quarry.

  The question was soon answered, as it slowed to a halt behind her and then came surging out of the tunnel and into the cavern that she’d emerged into. She had assumed it was chasing Lamb because he’d stolen the Heart of Winter from under its nose, but perhaps he hadn’t even found the treasure, and had simply stumbled across an angry high-level creature down here. It was certainly possible, though bad luck all the same. At least the reckless bastard might live for a few more days now that’d she’d given him time to run.

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  The colossal creature rounded on her, and she knew, even before it reared up on its four back legs to blot out the ceiling above her, that she had no hope of surviving this fight. Her short spear slipped into her hand, and she smiled sadly as she felt its familiar grip. A boy she’d been sweet on from the White-Cliff clan as a teenager had given her the white cloth that wrapped around the hardwood to form a handle. She’d kept it all these years in memory of the boy, and it felt right that she’d die with it in hand too.

  She squared her shoulders and waited for the end.

  It never came, the spider jerking aside at the last moment to round on Lamb as he came running out of the tunnel, blue crystal clutched in one hand and waving in the air as he shouted at it.

  “Oi! This way, you hairless bastard!”

  The spider launched a barrage of legs his way, the impacts ripping through the floor of the cavern, but Lamb had been careful to circle out of range with his mad dash. It would buy him no more than a few moments, but it meant he wasn’t skewered by those legs right now, at least.

  Fool of a boy, now they’d both die here. She could still run though – he’d given her the distraction she needed. He couldn’t outrun the creature himself, but she might be fast enough, especially if it waited around to feast on his corpse.

  But that wasn’t who she was. She briefly wondered what her father would say when he learned of her death. At least she could rest easy knowing her mother would kill the spider for taking her daughter’s life. Not exactly justice, but some semblance of balance to the cosmic scales at least.

  She readied her spear and dug deep within her chest, searching for that wellspring of life-force that flowed through all living things. Her skills stood ready, awaiting only her beckoning and the infusion of essence needed to bring their mark onto the world, and Sadrianna readied herself for the second time that day to meet her end.

  The spider reared back once more, front legs splaying apart and reaching towards the ceiling of the cavern like grasping fingers ready to curl inwards and crush the life from a tiny bug. Instead, its entire body was sent hurtling through the air to crash into the wall behind her. She gaped, following the trajectory of its movement and then looking back to Lamb as he stood where the spider had been only moments ago.

  She couldn’t believe that such power could come from his hands. He had a combat class, for sure, and perhaps had even managed to level skills far beyond the norm because of that, but there was no way…had he broken through? But to do so in the heat of the moment was impossibly rare, and even if he had, such power was…

  But his confused expression told her all she needed to know, as she rushed over to him. More in a desire to gain distance from the colossal spider than anything. And she turned to stand next to him and watch as the spider tried to right itself, legs scrabbling against ice and dislodging great chunks of the wall in its desperate clawing.

  A black dot, barely larger than a person and looking tiny in comparison to the giant creature, was flitting about its abdomen, and the spider let out a startling wail - more a screech than anything resembling sentient speech.

  It abruptly cut off as the sound of bone crunching echoed out at them, and they both watched in alarm and shock as a feline creature leapt atop the spider’s skull and savaged it, tearing slabs of carapace away from its empty face before diving inside its skull. A few revolting moments of movement, and then the eight legs wriggled sickeningly before curling in beneath the spider’s belly, inert.

  The skull continued to shift and shake for a few more breaths before the dark shape slipped back out and leapt to the floor between them and the skeletal carcass. She recognised it then, and her blood ran cold once more. A creature out of myth, with a hundred terrifying tales to its name. WyrmsBane. Dreadstalker. The Eyes That Haunt the Night.

  A feline body with a mane of eyestalks waving sinuously from around its lithe neck, fangs dripping pale ichor to the floor and two deep-set eyes above its powerful jaws.

  Rakshasa.

  She raised her spear again in instinct, and the creature growled low in its throat. The basso rumble shouldn’t have been able to be produced by something so small, but it had been. It reverberated up her very spine, and she shivered despite herself.

  She felt Lamb grip her arm, but could spare no time to look his way. “Get out of here, Lamb. Warn the clan – a Rakshasa has claimed the Hollow Mountain.”

  She spoke with fervent urgency, but he didn’t seem to understand, refusing to let go and tugging on her more insistently. She jerked her arm out of his grasp and took a step forwards. The wet leopard growl rose in volume in response to her movement.

  “For fuck sake, Lamb, just fucking go!” she almost shouted, urgency lending her nerves a hint of steel. She hadn’t planned on getting out of here alive anyway when she ran past the spider, and even if its sudden death had given her a seed of hope, that seed was crushed deep beneath the mud now. She would join it soon, she knew.

  Unlike the titanic spider, an adult Rakshasa was not a creature one could fight. They scurried through the world, hiding beneath the senses of most, and only unveiling themselves when the killing time was nigh. It was strange that she was still alive, truth to tell, but she spent no effort in puzzling out the unusual behaviour.

  This was bigger than her, bigger than Lamb. This creature was a problem for the clan as a whole, possibly The Council too. 4th tiers would be sent on this hunt, likely the whole of The Sworn Triarchy. There was no way Lamb could outrun the creature, but with every mile he got closer to camp, the higher the chances somebody would notice his death.

  She flinched as Lamb pushed her aside and strode right up to the creature. Its growl hadn’t stopped, running in the background of her fevered thoughts like a threshing machine from the southlands. She almost reached out to Lamb to stop him, but she’d been so surprised by his action that she’d missed the opportunity.

  She turned to flee then. She didn’t need to see the man eaten before her eyes, and perhaps she would be able to send some sort of signal before she died. It was a nice gesture at least, for the man to sacrifice himself for her. A final kindness before his life was spent.

  The growl stuttered, and she braced herself for the now familiar sound on bone being crushed between impossibly powerful jaws. Instead, she heard a strange mewling sound.

  She turned around, shocked to see not blood and viscera splattered across Lambs form, but instead the purring creature itself, nuzzling its large head into his chest and eyes blinking sleepily.

  White-yellow ichor stained its midnight black fur around its great fangs, a few flecks of silver visible here and there on its underside hinting at its young age. The eyestalks swung about behind its head in an entrancing motion, watching both her and Lamb at the same time. He’d raised his hand out to the creature, and was now busily scratching it behind the ears, looking perplexed.

  “What!?” she hissed at him, unwilling to raise her voice above a whisper but unable to contain her shock.

  He shrugged back, confusion and surprise warring on his face. “I…I don’t know. I met this one a few weeks back, but its…well you saw what it just did. This thing’s vicious!”

  He said the last part with a grin, giving the creature a friendly pat on the back, though he quickly retracted the arm when it touched one of the waving tendrils around its neck, a brief look of disgust showing before he wiped the expression from his face.

  He started talking to the creature in a silly voice, and she could only stare in wonder.

  “Last time I saw you, you could barely take out a Rhino! Look at how you’ve grown! Who’s the cutest killing machine, huh? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!”

  With a sudden spring, the creature pushed him away and leapt back to the corpse on the far wall, beginning to dig around within the body for something.

  Lamb looked to her, a smile on his face that was swiftly replaced with a wince as the crunching of bone and wet pops of gristle being ripped apart sounded in the silence.

  “Let’s get out of here” he whispered, and she was glad to see his wits returning.