A notification flashed across Hunter’s HUD, as if to accentuate how screwed up he and his companions were:
You’ve found yourself in the terrible presence of Thraggoth, the Scourge of Lethe, tyrant of the Desolation, keeper of a thousand histories best left forgotten. Your Insight is now 10.
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child walks twilight’s grace.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child gives hearth and bread,
Saturday’s child knows toil and dread.
But the child that wakes on the seventh day,
Is marked by starlight, nob and fey.
Whatever that was supposed to mean, Hunter couldn’t spare a single second; this Thraggoth thing might still be dozens of miles off, but it was devouring the distance between them with terrifying speed. Desperate, he searched for cover. There was none; and even if there had been, he doubted anything short of an underground bomb shelter would stand a chance.
“Klothi!” Aumir shouted, reaching into the inside of his cloak, where the small animal made its home. “I’m afraid it’s the time to earn your keep, girl!”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Fast as greased lightning, the stoat scrambled up her companion’s arm, leapt to the ground, and started scurrying around in circles, as if chasing her own tail. And with each turn, she swelled in size, growing larger, and larger, and larger.
Reaching into one of his bandoliers, the huntsman drew out what looked like a miniature two-person saddle. He hurled it toward Klothi, and as it spun through the air, it too grew in size, expanding exponentially to match her own growing frame. The stoat caught it with surprising deftness and set about fitting it across her still-broadening back, feverishly cinching the straps as though she’d done it a hundred times before.
By the time she finished, she had swelled to the size of a small elephant, and stretched nearly twice as long.
Fyodor’s ears flattened and a low whine slipped from his throat as he watched his once-tiny playmate suddenly grow to more than five times his own size. The direwolf edged closer to Hunter, whiskers twitching in confusion, as though unsure whether to greet the towering stoat or bolt from her altogether.
“Do not tarry now!” Aumir shouted at Hunter as he climbed on the saddle. Up with me—there’s no time to waste!”
As soon as he settled on the saddle, he leaned down, extended a hand, and hauled Hunter up behind him like he weighed nothing.
“What about—” Hunter started saying, but Klothi was already on it.
She dipped her great head, teeth closing around the scruff of Fyodor’s neck with surprising care, gentle enough not to break skin, firm enough to leave no chance of slipping free. The direwolf dangled like an oversized pup, startled but unharmed, as the colossal stoat bounded forward, carrying them all away from the storm thundering at their backs.
They tore down the road at a breakneck pace, Hunter clinging to the saddle for dear life while Aumir leaned forward, shouting directions into Klothi’s ear. Overhead, Biggs and Wedge streaked through the air, flying faster than Hunter had ever seen them move.
Klothi kept that frantic pace for minute after long minute, but Hunter could not see a Propylon Arch anywhere in sight. The living storm at theis backs, however, was closing in with terrifying speed, gaining on them faster than the stoat could ever hope to outrun. It loomed above like a black tsunami, and it would not be long before it overtook them.
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As if eager to swallow its prey whole, the roiling mass began to coalesce, and the shifting shapes inside it locked into the skeletal visage of a colossal hound. Empty eye sockets and gaping jaws blazed with orange and purple fire, lightning crackling through them in ceaseless flashes.
We won’t make it, Hunter wanted to scream, but his jaw was locked tight. Then, at last, Biggs and Wedge burst into their shared link with a flood of excitement—they’d found the Arch.
“There! Behind that hill!” Wedge’s voice squaked in the back of his mind.
“Too far, too far—no time to go around!” Biggs chimed in, just as feverish. “Have big-small-thing leap the hill!”
“The Arch is behind that hill!” Hunter shouted into Aumir’s ear. “Can we take it straight over?”
Aumir hesitated for a heartbeat, then nodded. He didn’t even need to tell Klothi; she shifted her grip on Fyodor, who let out a frightened yelp, and charged straight for the hill.
“Best hold on to your hat, young osprey,” the hunstman said through gritted teeth. He didn’t need to tell him, either; he was already clinging to the saddle with a white-knuckled grip.
Klothi thundered up the slope, claws tearing furrows in the packed earth as she surged for the crest. At the top she gathered herself and launched skyward, the world dropping away beneath them.
For a suspended moment Hunter could see miles ahead, the ruin-ladden moorland stretching as far as the eye could see. Dead ahead, right where Biggs and Wedge had spotted it, was the unmistakable silhouette of the Arch. His heart soared. It was close, no more than half a minute away.
Then gravity seized them, and his moment of hopefulness proved to be premature.
Klothi slammed into the earth with a bone-jarring crash that rattled Hunter’s teeth and jolted the breath from his chest. Miraculously, the colossal stoat didn’t even stumble. She hit the ground running, carrying them forward at full tilt—but the shock tore Fyodor from her jaws. The direwolf struck at an awkward angle and tumbled aside, a yelping knot of fur and limbs that, for one sickening instant, looked as if it might never rise again.
Klothi faltered, glancing back toward the fallen direwolf, but Aumir urged her on. Hunter’s stomach lurched, the world narrowing to that broken heap in the dirt, every instinct screaming at him to jump down and run to his companion’s side.
“Fyodor!” he screamed, suddenly feeling very powerless.
Fortunately, the mutt was made of stern stuff. He lurched to his feet, shook himself once, and bolted after Klothi, legs churning furiously as he fought not to fall behind.
Even so, their troubles were far from over. Thaggoth loomed only a few hundred feet behind, a thunderous wall of storm that seemed to tower from the ground to the heavens themselves. Even if they made their way to the Arch in time, it wouldn’t matter all that much. At the previous two, it had taken Aumir a considerable amount of time to coax the portals open—a luxury they didn’t have this time around.
As if answering to some unconscious prayer, Hunter saw the portal come alive on its own. A pale-skinned woman stepped through, slender-framed and clad in a mix of hides, fur, and rough-hewn warrior’s garb. She wore a headdress fashioned from a bear skull, and and argent hair spilled from beneath it like a mane. Red war-marks were painted on her narrow face, the stark contrast giving her an air of mystique.
"Come, be swift!" she moved aside and motioned them through.
“Thank the spirits!” Aumir shouted, the excitement clear in his voice. “We might still live to tell this tale, young osprey!”
The Arch was close now, but was going to be a tight fit. Whoever its makers were were, they clearly hadn’t built them with stoats the size of elephants in mind. Klothi seemed to realize this as well, but she didn’t falter. She simply began to shrink, her vast body collapsing in on itself with every stride. By the time they plunged through the portal, she was no bigger than a warhorse.
On the other side, Klothi skidded hard, nearly pitching Aumir and Hunter out of the saddle. Hunter barely noticed; he was already whipping around to the portal, his thoughts fixed on Fyodor and the ravens. Fortunately, the three came barreling through the portal a few breaths later, none the worse for wear. The pale-skinned woman hurled herself through just after them, hitting the ground in a roll just as the portal closed behind her.
For a couple of minutes, no one spoke; they only panted, gasping to catch their ragged breaths. The quiet that pressed in around them felt deafening after the chaos that had been the last half an hour or so, as if the storm itself had been severed mid-roar. Which, in truth, it had.
When someone finally broke the silence, it was the woman.
“Well, all’s well that ends well, I suppose,” she said, brushing dust from her clothes. Then she gave a faint, wry smile. “Good to see you again, huntsman. Welcome to Taravus.”
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