Withered rock crumbled under his fingertips as moss and dew made Bronwyn's grip slick. He adjusted his hold, paying it no mind as he calmly adjusted his weight and kept his footing steady on the treacherous path they followed.

  The mountain spires of the Spine were an utter bastard to traverse. As beautiful as they would seem, they were drenched in mist and greenery. Each one was sheer enough that a single wrong step would send them plunging into the rainforest below. At this stage, that would be close to certain death, with how many beasts were teeming in the undergrowth.

  As slow and cautious as they had to be, trekking a quarter of the way up a strangely straight and short mountain took time. Time Bronwyn didn’t want to spend, but it wasn’t like they had any other option. Above them there was nothing but sheer cliffs and exposed faces, where they could be spotted by any beast that looked up or flew past. Below, they'd simply be overrun.

  It had taken them days to get to this point. An arduous and stressful journey of cautious sprints from cover to cover. Each and every one of them was exhausted. They had to be on high alert, sleeping in shifts so that they always had two watches looking out for danger.

  Ahead of him, Bronwyn watched Dros take another step, the ranger's footing as steady as if he was walking on a flat road. He alone didn't grip the steep mountain face or surrounding trees like a lifeline.

  Yet for all his friend's ease at traversing the rough terrain, Bronwyn knew that Dros had had it the worst. He alone been scouting their paths forward, venturing deeper into the beast-infested Spine to find them safe passage and the next bolt hole they could hide in while they forded their path further onwards.

  Dros was the best ranger and tracker he knew, and in more normal circumstances, he would not have worried so dearly for his friend's safety. But there was a sickness in the Spine, visible everywhere.

  At first it had been relatively normal. Beasts had reappeared as soon as they had entered. Most gave them a wide berth, but some did not, challenging them for supremacy and quickly being cut down. Yet as they pushed closer and closer to the cluster of spires where they suspected to find the root cause of whatever had befallen the frontier, things had gotten odd.

  The native life of the Spine had grown dazed at first, even as beasts grew more numerous. They seemed less aware, almost confused. If anything, it had been easier to sneak past despite their increased numbers.

  Yet that daze had quickly turned to a frightening, disassociated frenzy.

  It was unnatural.

  Little by little, creatures grew so dense that they were forced to mingle. Dire wolves walked beside stags in the same mindless confusion, a repression of instinct and drive.

  Yet the frenzy was revealed as creatures bumped and brushed, plant life and fellow beasts alike. Gnashing teeth followed by a snarl, or a swipe of claws that drew blood.

  Such confrontations should have led to a brawl, a hunt, or a fight like anything half normal. Yet past that initial outburst of violence, dozens of times over, Bronwyn had only seen aggressors and wounded alike fall back into the same fugue-like lull to wander the rainforest once more.

  There was only one blessing. Stronger beasts seemed less affected and he'd even seen a few specimens in the later stages of the first tier. Yet the reaction of those beasts worried him too. They too had been overcome by that numbing uniformity. One and all, the rare glimpses he'd seen of creatures acting like normal damn beasts was them fleeing in the opposite direction of their very destination, either further west or deeper into the Spine.

  “I don’t like this, Bron,” Yanera muttered from behind him.

  Turning back to look at his friend, he found her firmly clinging to the rock face, taking step after steady step. Of all of them, she struggled most with their rough traversal. Wrapped in heavy plate, with her greatshield slung across her back, even her size didn't help, making her less nimble in the tight confines.

  “It's all right,” he said. “We'll be off the incline soon, then we'll be walking from there. We're only a few minutes from the next stopping point that Dros found.”

  “It's just over the next ridge,” Dros added. “A little plateau. I didn't go much further, but it looks like we'll have a relatively clean shot to our destination. A couple hours tops.”

  Yanera winced. “It's not that. I'm starting to feel like we should head back to Deadacre. We know it's something unnatural, and I'm not so sure of our safety anymore.”

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  “I can't help but agree,” Julis said. “Sure, those beasts down there are weak and we could take dozens of them easily. But there are thousands, and for all their oddly unaware state they are still frenzied. If they fell upon us at once, we'd be buried beneath bodies.”

  Bronwyn grit his teeth. He knew — gods, he knew — that they had a job to do. As much as he would love to flee back to Deadacre, all they needed was a glimpse. Everything pointed to the cluster of mountains up ahead. If there was some sort of mage or supreme beast, they could bring back word to Deadacre.

  “We're almost there, friends. And believe me, we won't be dallying once we've witnessed the centre. But we still don't know if there is some nefarious plot or if this is a localised effect that can be ignored people avoid the Spine. If all we find are more beasts, then fantastic. But if there is something else, we need to be able to confirm it for the Guild so they can bring in the real heavy hitters.”

  Dros nodded in agreement, the movement jostling the crossbow on his back. “Bron's right. This close, we’d be fools to turn back. Besides, don't you worry. Our final approach is a sheltered one. There's a heavy line of trees and jutting rocks that will shield us the rest of the way there. We'll be hidden halfway up the mountain and all we need is a look.”

  Yanera sighed but nodded. “Let us move swiftly. The sooner we are out of this place, the better.”

  Dros' next rest spot, a sheltered cave in the side of the mountain, obscured by hanging vines, came and went quickly. They spent a few minutes resting their limbs and quaffing more alchemicals.

  Other than Dros, none of them were stealth specialists. But the tonics helped. For all they stuck in his throat and made him feel physically sick after having so many so regularly, they did the job.

  They set off following the final stretch.

  As Dros had said, the path was far easier. A flat, curving ridge, softened by hardy grasses and half walled off by jagged stones.

  Rich green trees grew past it, shielding them in their boughs. But despite the easy walk, Bronwyn kept one eye on the rainforest floor below them.

  The greenery beneath them heaved physically, jostled by an endless mass of teeming bodies beneath the boughs. It was both silent and deafening; there was no natural cry of beasts, only movement and a repetitive staccato of snarls and gnashing teeth.

  It was like the fauna had been replaced by a singular ooze of confused hunger.

  Gods’ scorn, it felt like a lead weight around his neck. Everything about this was wrong. But so far everything had gone flawlessly, and all they really needed was a peek.

  The very air felt charged in a way that he knew he wasn't imagining, that had been growing more potent for days now. A visceral buzz against his skin that he had no name for.

  It wasn't mana. Nor was it quite like the press of aura on his skin, not even like the overly strong energy he'd felt from Kaius and his team. It was similar to both, but different.

  Whatever it was, he was almost certain that it was the source of this madness.

  Circling that final mountain spire felt like it happened in an instant and a millennia all at the same time. One moment they were picking their way through rocks and plant life as he clenched his shield and sword as tightly as he could. The next they were there.

  Their sheltered ledge broadened slightly, giving them a view of the epicentre of five mountain spires, shadowed despite the midday sun by the immense floating islands far above them in the sky. Through a gap in the trees, Bronwyn saw the jungle beneath them — though that was a poor descriptor.

  Where the mountains met, the ground was rocky, too tough for larger trees to take root. Hardier undergrowth, too, had been trampled flat by a sight that left him feeling sick to his stomach.

  Thousands of beasts of every kind — insects, wolves, and lizards of every shape and size — clustered close in concentric circles, prostrated like they worshipped some great deity.

  And at their centre was an idol.

  It was a huddled thing of sculpted stone, polished so perfectly it looked like chitin. It was enormous, easily ten strides tall, nearly twice his own height, with multi-jointed arms wrapped around digitigrade legs as the statue huddled.

  This close, he could feel the palpable energy radiating off it.

  Bronwyn froze, staring at it for a long moment. They'd gotten their look. This was out of his pay grade.

  Bronwyn looked back, meeting his team's eyes, to find the unsettled anxiety he felt knotting in his stomach reflected back at him.

  “Time to go,” he whispered.

  It was as though the noise shattered the delicate balance inside those mountain peaks. Bronwyn watched his teammates gasp, eyes widening as they looked up behind him.

  Whipping around, he caught sight of a ripple undulating through the massed crowd of worshipping beasts. At first it was silent. Then, as they seized, the beasts snarled and snapped before settling down.

  Bronwyn only felt horror as the statue unfurled, rising to its full height. Movement exposed the rest of its body, insectile features blending with reptilian as scales merged with chitin on its neck and heavily muscled belly and chest.

  Its jaw rippled, two lower halves moving independently. Its fangs, as large as its fingers, peeked out.

  Its eyes were the most terrible, seven baleful things, burning red with visible slit pupils even from the distance they watched it.

  They were burning, rising white into it.

  “A challenge is met, purity of purpose is upheld,” the thing hissed.

  Bronwyn froze.

  It could talk?

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