Gruin was on the bat before it rose, his hammer putting it back down into the hard stone as I circled around it. The thing rose at last, lunged, fell back from my blade and his bludgeon, hissing and spitting. All its terrible speed was gone. Its body a castle of broken bones, velocity had crumbled away with the collapsed battlements. Whatever was left in the thing—and I had no doubt there was enough to kill me if it got past my weapon—the bulk of this creature’s lethal power had already bled away into pain and weakness.

  We would win soon, just a matter of time now.

  Backing up, swinging, driving the thing away. It seemed a clever sort of animal, knowing enough to pace itself, not wasting strength readily. But still an animal. You can bait a human into tiring himself easily enough, and this creature was more easy still. I watched it slow ever more before it finally came too sluggish and clumsy to dodge at all.

  Gruin’s hammer found the temple right as my sword did the neck, the twinned impacts each driving flesh into the other as they landed at opposing directions. It was perhaps the most devastating blow I’d ever seen, save from those thrown by the undead behemoths at sheppleberry.

  Even this creature, with a body soaked in magic and a savagery beyond anything human, could not survive it, not in the condition we’d already left it in. It dropped down like a stringless puppet, twitching on the ground from what I imagined was spinal damage or the last spasms of a dying body.

  I panted as I stared at it, then hit it a few more times just for good measure. It was, surprisingly enough, Gruin who stopped me from hacking more into the corpse, resting a hand on my arm.

  “Enough,” he grunted, “you’re ruining that steel, and we need this corpse in recognisable condition to be paid for making it.”

  He had a point, and was very strong, so I listened.

  “What is it?” I asked, kicking the corpse one last time for good measure as we stared at it.

  “Shygarin,” Gruin replied. I stared at him, not bothering to say anything. I simply let my confusion show.

  “They’re deep-cave creatures,” he explained, irritable, “eat meat, hunt by sound and echolocation, fast.”

  “Ah, eat meat and move fast I hadn’t noticed any of that. Your wisdom is priceless, truly.”

  “Shut up.” He snapped. “They’re not normally found this high up.”

  Now it was my turn to frown.

  “This is high up?” But Gruin seemed stuck to his train of thought, ignoring me entirely.

  “They normally only venture this close to the surface if they…”

  A sound, low, scraping, everywhere above us. We slowly looked up to see the hundred shifting shadows high overhead.

  “...Intend to nest and have young,” Gruin finished.

  I stayed very, very still. Stared, waited. Gruin did likewise. It was quite a magical thing, I suppose. Two men from such different walks of life, created by different races, shaped by different cultures, and we were instantly united in this one thing.

  The beauty of it did not last long of course, one of the creatures shrieked, the others joined in, and we were sprinting a moment later.

  Within seconds, I knew the things weren’t as fast as their mother. I knew this because if they had been, despite my moving at a flat-out sprint and enjoying a twenty yard head start, they’d have already been on us if they were.

  If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that a flat-out sprint means I quickly carried myself ahead of Gruin with essentially no effort. I think I heard the oreling cursing at me as I disappeared down the tunnel. That didn’t last forever of course, moments later I came to a turn and realised I had no clue which way I needed to go.

  The thought of getting lost, stumbling around in the dark either to be stalked and killed by these flesh-eating monsters or simply starve and wither away…That was no thought at all. I turned back of course, reaching Gruin with a dozen bounding strides and grabbing his arm.

  “Hurry up, oreling!” I snarled.

  Gruin looked as furious as ever to be called that, and, as I’d hoped, the fury added another burst of speed under his heels. Only a burst though, and it didn’t make the legs atop those heels a foot longer as would have been needed to match my pace. It did help keep him just slightly ahead of the creatures behind us, though.

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  I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw why. For one thing, they were much smaller than their mother. If she was as big as a large man then the largest of these was maybe the size of a very, very small woman. I doubted any two of them weighed as much as me by myself.

  Of course, things like body weight mattered a lot more against fellow humans, armed with that weight and little else, than it did magical monsters with literally impossible physical power, talons and fangs. It was all I could do not to put on another burst of speed.

  “This way!” Gruin barked, as we reached the turn that had confounded me. We took down one path and started heading right. Behind us, I heard the creatures shriek and thud as those at the front were driven hard into stone walls by those behind them. Not as smart as their mother, it seemed, and the way they were all trying to cram past one another was actually slowing them a great deal.

  I continued my sprint on Gruin’s heels, sending the occasional glance over my shoulder and letting out periodic whimpers of pitiable fear as I saw how near my pursuit was growing to opening me up. For his part, Gruin remained almost completely silent throughout the whole affair. For one moment I felt jealous of his Grynkori apathy towards death, then remembered that if I shared it I’d probably have already joined the dead, and kept channeling my cowardice into more useful running energy.

  Minutes passed, maybe. It felt like a lot longer than it probably was. Though I was limited to a slightly brisk jog by Gruin’s sluggishness, we were still making good time. By now, though, the enemy was gaining fast.

  The quickest among them, maybe half a dozen at once, had peeled ahead of the rest to pursue us several paces closer. At least I thought they were the quickest, but being frank they might have been the slowest and still gained like they did—it was simply that the advantage of not being compressed in by all sides was letting them move at unparalleled speeds to the others.

  We had, being generous, a few seconds before they were on us. I thought fast, swallowed, felt my brain racing so quickly it almost seemed like it might take all the blood from my legs and leave me to fall. Then I had an idea.

  “How close are we to the surface?” I demanded, finding that I was actually getting more out of breath than Gruin now. It seemed the Grynkori were built for long-distance running more than sprints, and our minutes of exertion had slowed me to almost be neck-and-neck with him.

  “Another half-mile,” he hissed back.

  Half a mile. How fast could I run half a mile? In this condition, not very. I swore.

  “You need to guide me by touch,” I spat, unable to spare the breath on more elaboration as I turned one last time and hurled my lantern. The sound of glass breaking and oil splashing was like a cannon in that cave.

  Shrieking followed us, high pitched, jagged. The bat-things, shygarin Gruin had called them, were either delayed or they weren’t. I didn’t slow myself by checking, just planted a hand on Gruin and focused on my breathing as he guided me out through the caves.

  The minutes following that felt like hours, like years, and they ended as I finally saw light up ahead of us. I put on a final burst of speed at that, pulling forwards to just about match Gruin’s tireless pace as we both crossed the last fifty yards to our exit. Behind us, the sounds of pursuit grew louder again.

  Gruin hit the opening first, exploding out into daylight with a roar. I followed barely a second later. Both of us fell down into the stony ground, scraping skin and rolling as we tripped, our legs collapsing from exhaustion and strain, our heads turning back to the opening as weapons were readied.

  The creatures did try to follow, clearly, but they didn’t get far. I saw them backing away from the light, hissing and snarling. Gruin laughed at them, threw a rock at one and struck it hard in the head. The monster retreated with blood running down its face as it and its siblings melted back into the darkness.

  Now you might think that was the end of our problems, I certainly did. For all of two seconds. Then I heard wooden bow-limbs straining and turned to find the city guard glaring at me.

  And Gruin, but he didn’t seem to mind so much. In fact he was showing all the signs of a man about to do something very stupid and get both himself and his companion riddled with arrows.

  “Overseers told us about you two,” one of the guards began, “you are wanted by his Majesty’s guard for assault and trespassing. What say you?”

  There were many things I had to say, but the frenzy of everything that had happened kept my tongue somewhat clumsy.

  “This is the thanks we get for actually going down there and doing something about the things that were killing men?!” Gruin spat, raising his hammer in a dangerously threatening way. I subtly shifted my feet, trying to edge away from him and avoid being hit by any stray shots when he was inevitably shot down.

  But much to my surprise, the head of the guards actually seemed to have a thought in his head rather than desperately escalating things into a fight.

  “What do you mean?” He asked, glaring but…Open at least. Ready to hear what the answer was before judging it.

  Gruin told him. Told him a lot, in fact he told him a few things that even I hadn’t already known. It was, for instance, news to me that shygarin were vengeful creatures, or that they were known to leave the caves in source of food when numbers and hunger demanded it. That they could act above-ground by night, and that the orelings slaughtered their nests whenever found to keep them from eating their way through entire regions of the world.

  All of the guards looked rather pale by the end of that explanation, and a few of them were staring at me nervously. They were probably trying to think what to make of my grin.

  “Enough,” their leader snapped, “enough! We’ll take this to the Overseers.”

  I blinked. It was not official, of course, that the guards answered to the mine’s owners, and it was confusing for me why they would imply as much. I know why now, naturally. That was where the money was. They led us away, and Gruin and I followed with little better to do, sending uncertain glances each other’s way. I remember thinking vaguely frustrated not to have secured myself some great relief by going down into those mines.

  I would, as the years went by, have to get used to that.

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