Leor severed the rat’s head. Juices from the fat, furry sausage squirted onto the lichtsword. “Damn things don’t learn,” he said, grumbling at the stain. This made it the tenth cleaning.

Emilia brisked past him, wheezing a small laugh as he slowed for blade keeping. “Perhaps they mistook you for shit. You smell awful.”

He shrugged. To him, he was odorless. The stench must have stolen the sense. Even if it was true, he wasn’t convinced. “Careful, now. Something’s got them spooked,” he said scanning the rubble of the toppled drum tower. He glanced back at the steep decline from whence they came. There was nothing but an abyss. Silent, save for their boots and murmurs.

“Making them bold, more likely.” Emilia’s voice echoed. “Frightened pests run and hide from the tiniest of movements. Rats have a sixth sense for that sort of thing. They have their territory mapped in that tiny head of theirs, slipping in and out of sight. So for them to come out of hiding is a lack of fear, not an abundance.”

“What could drive them to act against instinct?”

“Who’s to say it is not instinct? Sickness. Hunger. Desperation. Or a mixture of all can drive animals mad. We humans are no exception.” They found a trickle of light spilling from a shattered window ahead. Emilia climbed over the rubble, sliced open the grilles, and crawled out.

He followed after at an angle to keep his right arm out of the sill’s splintered reach. “I didn’t know rats were a subject in the academy.”

“You tend to learn a thing or two about them when you lived half your life as a slave. Like which ones are safe to eat and which ones would make your stomach wrench so bad, you’d wish for death.”

Leor blinked. Even he did not have to dine on rodents. “You, a slave?”

“Surprised?” She smiled and pointed at the dark jagged line over her eye. “You don’t get a scar like this from being a pure maiden.”

He always avoided looking at the mark, but her display made it hard to resist. He took his first real look at her. She was a rugged girl, not so much as a man but much more than a woman, to be sure. Sharp features sculpted her face. Her brows were slanted daggers, dragged by the weight of the sinking darkness that shaded her eye with gloom. The scar only added to her glower. Added a year or two of age as well. Yet, she was by no means ugly. A fair treat to the eyes for someone looking for a feisty piece. But her stare proved too deathly for his taste.

She snapped her fingers. He must have been staring for longer than once thought. “Go on. Ask.”

“What?”

“I see the curiosity in your gaze. Men like to stare and judge but never have the sack to speak their minds. It’s not too often you see a woman with a warrior's blemish.”

It was true enough. Every scar, wicked or otherwise, had a tale to be shared. Though Leor never had the urge to share his own so he never thought to ask. “I never would have thought you a slave. Your . . . nature is far from, uh, submissive.”

“Yes, one would think.” She giggled. A warm kind of laugh that Leor did not know she possessed. “The academy hammered their beliefs, their mannerisms, their code into my mind. My body. To shape me into their perfect shield. I welcomed it all for her sake. Ceri, my saving grace. Without her, I would’ve been a young girl dangling by the neck for the crows to feast. And make no mistake, Leor. By law, the bastards had every right to hang me for what I did.” Her smile twisted in a wicked manner. “But I’d kill that monster again if I had the choice.”

Leor was almost frightened to see the crazy in her smile, but he forced himself to answer. “Then you and I share more than first thought.” He started walking up the side of the fallen tower.

The midnight sun shined dimly above when they reached the ridge where the top half of the tower severed from the lower. They gazed upon the vista of the fourth district which they named, the Stone Fangs, for the hundreds of jagged stone teeth jutting from the earth. All pointed at the heart of Solaris. Layer upon layer, the paved streets were mangled, stacked, and rising, ever rising. Each one a dreadful mountain on its own. It was a sick and cruel final hurdle for them to conquer.

The royal fingers soared beyond the Stone Fangs. Staying true to their namesake, the royal fingers dwarfed their fellows. The Queen donned a fat ring of silver that covered half its length with a crown to match, while the King was the girthiest and tallest of all fingers with odd growths sprouting along the exterior that looked like long black hairs from a distance.

For a bulk of the way they kept to the highrises, climbing fang over fang as the sun hammered harder the further they climbed. Leor kept Queen’s Finger in view always. Almost there, he’d tell himself each time they conquered a fang and needed a little bit of hope. Even if it was a lie. Hope was needed here. The path they chose tolled funeral bells for the clumsy-footed. In places where the path narrowed, Leor had to shuffle along with his back glued to the wall, trying not to gaze at the cold windy abyss below. Sometimes having to leap from ledge to ledge. Even when their route widened, fissures hid behind heaps of stone and masked in shadows, waiting to snap your ankle or worse. Nice and slow. Don’t look down, don’t look down.

Yet, slowness came with a price. Bolts and arrows whistled from unsuspecting angles. Foot soldiers jumped at them as they dodged, blades aimed at their heads. Hunting hounds, whose bones tore through their shriveled bodies, snapped at their heels.

The accursed of the Stone Fangs held a semblance of prowess and seemed to be stationed strategically, guarding posts where line of sight was perfect for snipers: atop roofs, hidden in tower nests, at the ends of bridges made from felled towers that extended over chasms so deep the bottom seemed endless. Armored in silver-and-gold chainmail, geared with a collection of weapons, which they used with deadly precision. A far cry from the beastrial kind in the previous rings.

Once, they came across the decapitated remains of a grand cathedral wasting away atop a fang. The belfry extended over the fringes with the bell’s rope still attached and fishing in the wedge between their fang and the adjacent. The latter cast a giant shadow over them, so grand that the climb would take a few hours or their lives, whichever came first.

Leor peered over the edge. The cathedral bell was sandwiched between the cliff face and a smaller land mass. A long, vulnerable descent. He eyed the intricate tunnel system on the adjacent fang’s underbelly. They might as well scream and lather themselves in blood as they climb down.

Emilia slapped him on his good shoulder. “Fret not, Leor. I will be the one to catch you this time,” she grinned before disappearing over the edge in a fluid motion.

He grimaced, wiped his hand dry before taking hold of the rope, looped and locked his feet around it, and prayed a single arm would be enough. He started his descent, keeping eyes on the hundreds of sniping spots as he squirmed down the length of the rope. Loosen footing, slide, grip, repeat. Like a worm. A helpless, juicy worm for preying hawks.

Soon his arm began to ache terribly. Sweat started pooling. Or was his hand sweaty from the start? “Damn it,” he muttered, hugging the rope close. He couldn’t wipe the sweat if he so wished. He looked below and saw Emilia waiting. Halfway more but still so high up. A fall here would kill him, smashing his head open on a rock, or maybe his legs would shatter into a million pieces first. Don’t think about it. Thinking only made his grip feel more slippery.

Thwap. The sound echoed behind and something hard clapped his back. His heart jumped out of his chest, but he knew to tighten his grip. He looked behind and saw a sniper settling on an outreached stone slab, loading another bolt. Two more were lining up their shot. The other half of the tunnels, he realized too late. Shit. He slid down as fast as a single sweaty hand would allow, his hand blazed with pain. Thwap. Thwap. A bolt nearly missed his head. The other clipped the line and sent him falling. He yelped and closed his eyes as if the stone would not be waiting for him anymore. Emilia caught him in her arms as a husband would to his wife on their wedding day. His right arm smacked into her steel plates. A whistle of pain blew through his clenched teeth. Her smirk told him the self-gratifying words lingered on her tongue. Before she could speak, he scrambled free, cut the coil of rope free from the collapsed bell, and pulled her along to safety.

By the time they were out of sight, Emilia still had her smug grin plastered on her face.

Leor rolled his eyes and gave her what she wanted. “Yes, well, thank you for that.” She only laughed. He felt his cheeks warming and turned heel. “Could you check my back? Did the arrow pierce me?”

“Let me see.” Her laughter was slowly dying. She patted him down, lifted his cloak, then gave a long look. “You look fine to me. No blood, no puncture. This is a damn good cape, I must say.”

“Thanks,” he said trailing off. First the Golem’s light and now bolts? Perhaps the blacksmith wasn’t full of it after all.

Up and up they went, tiny black insects crawling up mounds of sun bleached stone, drenched in sweat and blood. Leor grew more aggressive, slaying all the accursed in his path as soon as he saw them. No waiting, no planning, no hesitation. He paid double attention to the accursed aiming for Emilia in order to settle his debt, but the dragonslayer read him too well and did the same. Leor would slay the charging foot soldiers and the hunting hounds while Emilia hurled her longsword at the marksmen. Back and forth the contest of saving the other when saving was not needed endured. It was a tiresome affair but Leor found himself smiling just a bit.

Emilia reached out a helping hand to pull Leor up to the lands before Queen’s finger where the fangs turned to flattened teeth and buildings stood upright at last, but that was the extent of normality. Here, the trees were grotesque charred skeletons. Corpses as plentiful as fruit dangled from dark spiny claws, each one facing outward to greet unwanted guests with faces frozen in an eternal scream.

The Dragonslayer nudged Leor and pointed at one of the dangling corpses with the point of her longsword. The Rays of the Order. Leor turned over another, found the same and more: maggots festering from the knight’s orifices. He flinched away, his throat suddenly itchy. It smelled as rotten as one could imagine with all the flies buzzing and puking their digestive fluids. They looked at each other, readied their blades and made their way through the canopy of drained hollow faces, until they could see Queen’s Crossing.

It was only when they were a few hundred yards away from the bridge did they realize why the Scholar had said, “The only way to the King was through the Queen.” Both Fingers rested on their own grand plateau, separated from the rest of the land by an abyssal canyon.

From the shadows, Leor squinted ahead. A meager outpost had been raised at the crossing’s lip. Iron abatis lined the square’s perimeter, but from what he could tell, the defense had been breached, pushed aside by dozens of corpses skewered on its barbs, allowing a dead sea to flood. Figures, masked by the sunlight, stood at the foot of the lapping accursed. Were they friend or foe? Foe, most like. They stuck to the shadows as they moved up.

Yet everything remained still. Dead. Quiet.

They were all dead, Leor realized when he saw crows perched on the standing figures and lifeless bodies, pecking away at the bloody feast without a single care. There were so many corpses stacked atop one another that they had no choice but to walk over the dead. On the crust of the dead sea, a wall of knights stood shoulder to shoulder behind planted tower shields and pointed lances, frozen in form and slumped dead.

“Even after death, these knights remain true to their duty. The noblest of men.” Emilia walked along the wall of knights, stopping before each one for a moment. To give them their rightful dues, Leor suspected.

“And look what they earned for it.” He stood at the end of the line and tapped the bloodied spear shaft that had rammed through the knight’s throat. “They gave their lives for nothing. Their wall crumbled with ease it seems.”

“Not for nothing. They bought time for a retreat. Look.” She pointed to dotted blood trails. Boot prints. Too many to count. It led to the crossing.

His eyes followed and saw an oddly plump knight kneeling before the bridge with his blade stabbed into the stone. Leor ran over and felt like dropping to his knees when he saw the first quarter of Queen’s Crossing missing. Sliced clean off with a tool.

“Well, shit.” Leor scratched his head, fighting the urge to scream out his lungs. He should’ve expected nothing less. Kicking the parapet crossed his mind for a split second, but he reconsidered. A shattered toe did not sound appealing. He turned his glare to the round-armored knight. A Frog Knight donning a brown surcoat embroidered with a golden salamander.

Emilia rubbed her chin as she strained to think. “Everard, if I recall correctly. The son of that Frog Knight.”

Leor tossed out the rope, but it barely made it to the next isle. He reeled it back and muttered. “Damn it. . . Aye, Jerma Mudkin. Seems we didn’t make it in time to give him his father’s regards.”

“Perhaps not.”

“What?”

“You’ve been to the Ethereal Plains, have you not?” She cleared her throat. “For Ceri’s burial.”

Leor nodded slowly. “Then you should have seen them,” Emilia continued. “The Asteries that coat the skies of the sacred realm. Surely, you didn’t think those as mere dust? They are the wandering souls of all laid to rest in the Ethereal Plains. Ceri, too, has become one.”

Leor nodded again, his eyes fixated on Everard’s corpse.

“However, Sir Everard and others who meet their end beyond the grace of the Soul Tree are not given the same blessing.” Emilia pried the longsword from the Frog Knight’s dead hands. “So that begs the question: where do their souls go? A question asked by the common folk since the church began limiting sacred burials to chosen individuals a few decades past. Do they wander for eternity, lost and forgotten by the King? Some cultists believe so but I find it much more comforting to think our souls are bound to our flesh till the end of time.”

“Mmm,” Leor said thoughtlessly. He never pondered the afterlife much. If Ceri could be saved, that was enough for him.

“If my beliefs were to be true, perhaps our words could reach their idle spirits.” She held out the longsword to him. “And if not, at least the concept provides relief. No matter how small.

“I suppose so.” Leor took the sword from her and gazed at the steel. The salamander of the Marshlands was engraved into the pommel and along the blade’s shoulder. That marked the eleventh cleaning.

Emilia strode to the edge of Queen’s Crossing and searched the skyline. “Lord Alden and the rest must have made it to King’s Finger already. Perhaps there’s a way up from the Pinky?”

As Leor was removing the scabbard from Everard’s body, a black rat scurried from the corner of his eyes. And another. Then a dozen more. A whole family popped out from the sea of corpses and ran in the same direction, over the edge and into the abyss. Leor stood up slowly and watched. Something’s got them spooked. A shadow caught his eye. A blotch of darkness cast from something without form. It swam on stone, stopped a few feet from him, then chased after the rats.

It wants me to follow. Rats know every nook and cranny, after all. Leor glanced at Emilia who was still searching beyond the crossing. Should they walk until they reach the Pinky and hope for a way up or follow an ominous shadow? The first was the obvious choice but sometimes risks were needed to best luck. And Leor was tired of fishing for luck.