CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
We marched into the forest single file, with me at the front, Chesa and then Matthew behind me, and the hesitant Percy bringing up the rear. Thick grown trees quickly swallowed the light from the cabin, and the canopy overhead drowned out the moon’s silver glow, leaving us in murky darkness. Matthew summoned a ball of burning amber that was just enough light to make walking treacherous instead of impossible, while leaving the surrounding shadows appropriately malevolent.
“I still can’t believe you chose this as your domain,” Chesa said. Something rustled in the branches overhead, and she spun to face it, bow pulled taut. When nothing appeared, she slowly lowered the bow but kept her eyes in that direction. “This place is damned creepy.”
“I’ll admit, it isn’t exactly what I would have chosen. I fancied Clarence’s domain, to be honest. More of a castles and servants kind of guy. But the creepy forest chose me, so here we are.”
“There are worse options,” Matthew said. “Bee lives in a sewer.”
“A sewer? I mean, I know she’s not the kind of girl to go in for dresses and formal dances and all that, but . . . a sewer?” Chesa shook her head, finally taking her eyes off the offending branch. “That just seems like performative—”
No sooner had Chesa turned away from the branch than it transformed into a snake as thick as her waist and as long as a city bus. It struck, black scales glistening in the meager light of Matthew’s globe, its eyes the color of nuclear waste, with daggerlike fangs that dripped poison. I barely saw it and could only throw up my shield.
The snake’s head banged into my shield like a battering ram, knocking me into Chesa and sending the both of us flying. I rolled over her, slashing blindly with my sword as I came around, just catching the tip of the snake’s nose with the blade. The beast snapped back into the tree, then slithered to the ground, coiling for another strike. It moved like liquid lightning, silent and quick. Chesa rolled to her feet and loosed a pair of arrows. The bolts bounced harmlessly off black scales, but it was enough to draw the creature’s attention. Hissing like a zeppelin going down in flames, the snake slithered toward Chesa, its gaping jaws weaving back and forth just over our heads.
Before the beast could strike, I leapt forward and thrust my shield into its mouth. Translucent fangs clamped down on the heater, nearly reaching my forearm. Viscous poison dripped onto my arm, sizzling as it splashed across the metal of my vambrace. Pulling the straps of my enarme, I expanded the shield’s face, growing from heater to tower in the blink of an eye, cranking the snake’s mouth open. I heard the hinge of its jaw strain, and the hissing grew violent. It shook me back and forth, whipping my legs in the air, but I clutched the sturdy support of the enarme like a lifeline, refusing to be thrown off. Swinging around the anchor of my shield, I planted one foot in the hinge of the snake’s mouth. The beast’s throat convulsed as it tried to swallow me. I slipped free, dangling from the shield like a fish on a hook, but quickly regained my footing against the snake’s neck. Unfortunately I was now upside down, and staring at the pale gray underbelly of the monstrous snake.
“That’ll do,” I muttered, and swung hard at the base of its jaw. The steel of my blade cut into the softer scales around its mouth. Slick black blood washed down my arm, but I pressed an armored boot into the wound and shoved the sword in deeper. Something popped, and the lower half of the snake’s mouth flopped open like a broken shutter.
I fell hard to the ground. The impact knocked the air from my lungs, but I quickly rolled into a crouch. The snake’s body whipped overhead, spraying blood and poison around the narrow forest trail, and its mouth gaped open, all throat and fangs. It slammed down on me, either maddened with pain or determined to crush the life out of me in its final moments. I met it with the tip of my sword, held in both hands, and braced against my shield like a ram on the prow of a ship. The force of the blow flattened me, but then I was wrapped in darkness and numb silence. Slowly, I stood.
The dead snake rolled off me like a carpet, my sword lodged in its brain pan. I planted my foot in the soft meat of the roof of its mouth and pulled the sword free, then shook it clean. I was covered head to toe in black blood and boiling poison, but the beast was dead.
“Good God, John! Are you alright?” Chesa asked. She cowered behind a tree, with Percy peering out over her shoulder. Matthew stood up from behind a stump, blinking numbly at the dead snake.
“Sure. Perfectly fine. This happens all the time.” I smeared some blood off my chest, then stared distastefully at my fingers. There was an odd taste in my mouth, a cross between tar and bad fish. I spat. “You were saying something about a sewer?”
“Have you considered cutting down the trees?” Matthew asked.
“Oh, man, no! They would not like that,” I said with a laugh. “Come on, there’s a clean pool about forty yards that way. Rarely has anything in it. And you can watch my armor while I clean off.”
“That thing could have killed you,” Chesa said.
“I feel like that was the plan, yeah. It’s why I carry a sword.” I shook again. The blood fell off me in quickly congealing lumps, but something hot and uncomfortable rose in my blood. Stars twinkled in my vision.“You know what? Never mind about the pool. This stuff seems to be coming off on its own. And the last time I tried to take a bath out here, the pool turned out to be an elemental. All a big misunderstanding, but I wouldn’t want to go through that again. We still need to find that dog.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer in the cabin? We could just set out some food for this . . . dog? Or something?” Chesa asked.
“Much safer. But I don’t have that much food, and besides, we don’t really have that much time,” I said. I took a step forward, nearly collapsed, and covered by leaning against the snake’s head. “End of the world? Remember?”
Chesa crept from her shelter, with Percy still clinging to her like a cloak. She prodded the dead snake with her foot.
“This place sucks,” she said.
“It’s not so bad, once you get used to it,” I answered. My vision swam with shadows. “Hey, Saint. Could you do something about this poison? Pretty sure I got some in my mouth.”
Matthew lit up, quite literally, and a wave of warm light passed through my flesh. The burning feeling in my lungs disappeared, replaced with a gentle glow, like the first hit of a good whiskey in your blood. I sighed.
“Much better.”
“Are we going to get attacked by giant snakes all that frequently?” Chesa asked. “Because if so, I really think I should wait back in the cabin.”
“Won’t be a snake next time. Chitinous bear, maybe. Or a murder of vampiric crows. The forest gets pretty creative with what it throws at me,” I said. “You should have seen the baby-headed centipedes. Oh, I have never wished for a flamethrower more than—”
A heavy thud passed through the earth, then another. Each loping stride shook the trees and sent us scrambling for support. Chesa’s eyes got wide. Matthew snuffed out his light, plunging us once again into absolute darkness.
“That’s no good, Saint,” I said. “He has the scent.”
“Who has the scent?” Chesa yelped.
On a ridgeline overlooking our little patch of forest, the trees shivered and parted. Two pointed ears loomed over the treeline, each the size of a galleon’s sail, followed by a giant head. Eyes as big as wading pools caught the moon’s pale light. We could just barely make out the glistening fangs and hear the rough, rasping sound of its breath. The ground shook again, and the beast loped closer.
The World Dog.
“There’s a good boy,” I whispered, and set my shield firmly in the ground.
“This is your plan? This . . . this . . . monster?” Chesa asked. She swung her quiver from her shoulder and nocked three arrows, for all the good that would do her. “What are we supposed to do, play with it?”
“He tends to break his toys,” I said. “Let me do the talking, okay?”
“What is that thing?” Matthew whispered as it loomed closer. The creature’s head split, and an avalanche of bumbling, squirming, furry shapes tumbled into the forest. Its one giant head became two, and then a dozen, each the size of a car. As it grew smaller, the beast disappeared beneath the treeline, though the drumbeat of its footsteps swelled into a symphony of rumbling beats, growing closer and closer.
“Every dog in the world,” I said, and then the forest around us lit up with hooded eyes and slavering jaws. The arched backs of hounds appeared briefly between the trees, joined by impossibly large Dobermans and feral wolf-beasts, straight from some primeval nightmare. Shadows circled our tiny light, an endless parade of jaws and claws and muscular, furry shoulders, a noose that grew tighter with each heartbeat. Chesa whimpered and pressed close to my side. The four of us went back to back, weapons out, Matthew’s amber light barely reaching the trees nearby.
“Are they just going to watch us?” Matthew whispered.
“They’re stalking. Hunting,” I responded. “Waiting until we let our guard down. Then—”
Foliage shuddered nearby, and all four of us whirled in that direction. A pair of eyes, knee-high and glowing with green malevolence, appeared among the leaves. I steeled myself, ready to strike or run, though there was nowhere to flee from the herd of circling hounds. I had faced this beast before, and only survived at its mercy. My plan, half formed, started to look even more desperate. The bush shivered again, and my heart leapt into my throat as the leaves parted and a creature stalked into view.
It was the world’s largest Bichon Frise. A snow-white crown of fluffy hair, groomed into a perfect globe, framed bright eyes and tiny mouth. It trotted into view, small pink tongue lolling out to one side. It looked at us one by one, then sat daintily in the middle of the path.
“We smell bacon,” it said, and a chorus of anxious yelps filled the air.
“Right! Bacon!” I answered. When no one else moved, I turned around. “Who has the bacon?”
“Oh, right,” Matthew said. He produced the greasy pillowcase from under his robes and tossed it on the ground. An avalanche of bacon slithered out.
The Bichon Frise changed. A dozen shapes darted out of the shadows, melting into the dog’s fluffy body, altering it. Jaws grew, fur warped, shoulders bent and swelled and rippled with killing power. Still transforming, it leapt on the bacon and hoovered it up, pillowcase and all. The second the bacon was gone, the changed beast—half dog, half wolf, one hundred percent nightmare fuel—sat primly at my feet and licked its jaws hungrily.
“More bacon?” it asked.
“Not at the moment,” I said, sheathing my sword and reaching toward it. “But I can get more. I just have a request.”
A low rumble rose up from the shadows, and the dog-thing snarled at my outstretched hand.
“We don’t do tricks,” it growled.
“Not a trick, just . . . uh . . . an audience. There’s one of you we need to talk to.”
“We are all one, and one in all. Speak to me, and you speak to—”
“Fenrir,” I said.
The dog leapt up and backed away, the hackles on its back standing straight as spears. The air hummed with a chorus of growling, yipping dogs.
“The exile,” it said. “The world-breaker, the bad boy.”
“More bacon?” I asked. The dog paused.
“You do not know what you ask,” it said. “He cannot be trusted. He seeks to catch the ball-which-can-not-be-returned.”
“Yes, but . . . bacon?”
The dog’s nose twitched. It stretched closer to my hand, cold nose bumping against the steel fingers of my glove.
“If we do this, you will bring more bacon?”
“Yes. So much bacon. More than you can—”
“Three plus three bacon, and the bone of a giant’s leg,” it said. “Also, we would like a ball to play with.”
“A . . . ball?” I asked. “Three plus three . . .”
“Dog’s can’t count,” Matthew said. “Or at least not very high. He just means a lot of bacon.”
“Yes, okay, a lot of bacon. And some kind of ball. The bone . . .” A ripple of growls from the forest. “Alright! The bone of a giant’s leg. I’m sure Esther has one of those lying around somewhere. Just take us to Fenrir.”
The dog hesitated. Barking from the forest that sounded like a conversation, and then the creature nodded once, sharply.
“Very well,” it said. “But do not break this word-oath, human. For if you do, we will break through your door, and we will use the bathroom. Everywhere!”
“Okay, okay, jeez,” I said. “Let’s not get crazy.”
Apparently satisfied, the dog disappeared into the forest. It paused at the edge of our light source, waiting for us to follow. Matthew gave me a look.
“Fenrir? What have you got planned, John?”
“I’m going to end the world before those bastards can do it,” I said.
“Of course you are,” Chesa said. “Brilliant. Beat the villains to the punch.”
“Trust me,” I said.
“No,” Chesa answered. But when I chased after the World Dog, she followed.