Chapter 116: Jeremy

For at least a day, everything was stable.

The entire town came out and worked on the wall, getting much less done than Arthur had hoped they would. The mouth was wider than it looked, for one, but the process of laying down brick was much, much slower than that of stacking Slapstone. The mortar dried slowly, and the frequent breaks they had to take left them far behind the pace Arthur had hoped for when the dark of night made working impractical.

And it was very cold the next day. The silver lining of it all was that the region they were in didn’t seem to get much snow. Something about the shape of the long bowl they lived in kept heat bottled up, or at least kept the wind from blowing in cold air. All of which meant Coldbrook was almost devoid of snow.

In a different time, Arthur might have missed the fluffy white feathers, but for now, it meant one fewer logistical issue for everyone to sort through and quicker trips from the town to Lith.

There didn’t need to be snow on the ground for it to be cold, though.

“This wind, Arthur. It hates me.” Lily wrapped her arms over her chest and pressed her thick coat down closer to her body. “It feels like it’s trying to freeze my soul.”

“Yeah, I feel you.” Arthur wasn’t immune to the bite of the breeze. He was moving as fast as Lily could keep up with to keep his blood moving, but was still shivering under all of his heavy winter gear. He could only imagine how it was for Lith, who had been sitting in one spot all night. “Let's just move as fast as we can. It’s all we can do, really.”

All the while, Lith’s breakfast was shaking around inside a lidded dish, hopefully not getting too very cold. If anyone deserved a warm meal right now, it was him. Arthur wasn’t fooled for a second by Lith’s insistence that staying there and shooting them was entirely to his own benefit. Lith was all the monitoring and advance warning the entire town could count on, and he knew it. Up on a hillside somewhere, that rhino was performing a labor of love. And Arthur was going to feed him for doing it.

Arthur’s admiration for Lith’s sacrifice only waned a little bit when he got close enough to the dungeon-and-ore-deposit area to see that the hunter had not only built himself a fire, but had also rigged a lean-to of sorts out of branches to help retain some of the heat from the fire.

“Well, this looks cozy.” Arthur walked up and shrugged off his pack, while Lily practically dove towards the fire, rubbing her little hands together while holding them so close to the flames that Arthur was afraid she’d burn herself. “You look all set up.”

“Don’t be fooled. The fire can only heat one side of you at a time.” Lith shivered as he shot an arrow into the hole from a seated position. The arrow ricocheted at least once before finding its mark. “I’ve been sitting here dreaming of a warm drink.”

“Well, I can help with that.” Arthur quickly unpacked the small portable hanger he used for his kettle and hooked it above the fire. “Should only be a few minutes.”

“That’s fine. You have food? Ah, there it is.” Lith greedily took the sealed container from Arthur, cracked it open, and motioned for a spoon before digging in. It was a double portion, which everyone thought Lith more than deserved. “Thanks so much for this, Arthur. Most of the time when I’m on a long hunt, it’s just dried fruit and nuts. The luxury treatment is very much appreciated.”

“No, thank you.” Arthur prepared an oversized tea-stirrer and some boba in one of the largest cups he owned, adding some sweetberry juice to the bottom where the water would eventually sweep it through the whole mix. “I just wish I had some cream for this. It’s really not right without it.”

“Actually, I might have a solution for that. I saw some Hing earlier. A mother and calf. They aren’t exactly easy to catch, but they do go to traps if you bait them right. And they aren’t exactly easy to tame, either, but considering how important it is, I thought it might be worth a shot.”

“That would be amazing.” Arthur’s head filled with visions of dairy, images of cheese and butter dancing next to whipped cream and glasses of cold, chilled milk. “I’ll do whatever I have to with that. I was so desperate, I was thinking of going and catching that Prata and seeing if they produce milk.”

Lith stuck out his tongue. “Don’t. The milk from Prata is sort of gross. Some old timers like Skal like it, but it’s strong and weird. Plus, that cub is too old for the mother to be producing much milk anymore.”

They sat and chatted for a bit as Lith sucked down a few huge cups of tea, then asked for them to monitor the dungeon for a few seconds while he took a much-needed break in the bushes. It was when he got back that the problems started.

“Did the pitch change?” Lith asked.

“Of what?” Arthur looked up from repacking his kettle to Lith, who was looking at the dungeon-hole with both confusion and obvious concern.

“Of the dungeon. It hums,” Lith said.

“Does it? Your perception must be higher than mine. I can’t hear anything at all,” Arthur said.

“Perception, maybe anatomy. But yeah, it hums. I’ve been listening to it this whole time.”

“You think that matters?”

“I didn’t until the pitch changed.” Lith grabbed his bow and pulled an arrow from his quiver, one that looked straighter and shined more brightly than the skill-generated arrows he had been using every other time Arthur had seen him shoot in the dungeon. “Something is wrong. Lily, get back. Arthur, you too. As far as you…”

Something slammed against the rock wall, filling the entire view through the hole with cracked, skin-like hide. Arthur heard the bow twang twice as arrows sprouted from that exposed part of the monster just before the stone exploded away. The force and noise of it were amazing, enough such that Arthur was sure that he and Lily would have been pretty shaken up if they hadn’t scrambled several steps back when Lith told them too. As it was, they still flinched.

Quicker than the size of the thing would indicate, the monster slammed the hole again, breaking off multiple head-sized chunks. It squeezed through the enlarged hole, growing as it got into the outside air like biscuit dough busting out of a tin. Even with such a tight passage, it didn’t take long before the monster was out.

Fully emerged, it was terrifying. It was like a mix between a horse and a rottweiler, combining the long legs and neck of the one with the sheer broad muscle of the other.

Somehow, worst of all, it was sweating and drooling, to the point where it was steaming in the cold.

“Gods! Run!” Lith pulled more and more arrows from his quiver, peppering the monster with them, and stood his ground. “It’s a Jeremy! They go for the weakest prey!”

Arthur was proud of himself, later, that he didn’t pause when he found out what the thing was called. Instead, he scooped Lily up and ran.

It has to be spelled different, right?

Arthur hustled down the hill with Lily tucked under his arm. She was growing fast, but he was still faster carrying her than she was running full sprint by herself. The monstrosity of a creature crashed through the trees behind them, and Arthur prayed it wasn’t as fast as it looked. It snapped at their heels, but couldn’t close the gap, especially when it had to knock down hundreds of old-growth conifers to follow them. Arrows twanged through the trees, mostly finding their mark but continuing to not do a whole hell of a lot to slow the terror down.

Arthur just kept running. Somewhere in all the fear, he was aware he had a choice. He could run in circles, or away from the town, and the huge thing would eventually catch him and Lily. There was no chance of either of them coming out on top of that conflict.

The other option was to bring the monster back to camp. The combined might of everyone might be enough to take it down, or at least stay safe. It was a long shot, even if Karra overperformed in combat in a way not even she thought she could.

They’ve been building the wall. And this thing doesn’t seem like it’s much for jumping. It might get caught. We can figure something out.

Arthur also knew that if he did that, he’d be putting everyone else in danger. And the town had almost everyone that Arthur cared about in the demon world.

They trust me, I need to trust them back.

It was the hardest choice Arthur ever had to make, and he made it in a split second. He screamed warnings at the top of his lungs while he ran back towards the town at an angle, ignoring every single one of Lily’s protests that he was going the wrong way as he did.

Arthur sprinted the whole way down the hill as the monster got closer and closer. A particularly large tree bought him a few seconds, but they were eaten up soon enough as he finally hit the clearing in front of the town’s wall, still screaming nonsense at the top of his lungs.

Then he felt the snap. The Jeremy, if that was indeed how it was spelled, was close enough to feel comfortable making a swipe at him. It missed, but came close enough that he could feel the hot breath on his back as the monster stretched out in an attempt to reach him. One more handful of seconds, and it would have them both.

But then it blew away to the side like it was hit by a wrecking ball. In a way, it almost was. Arthur turned his head and saw that the animal was rolling over the turf like a football player recovering from a hard block, then to the other side to see what had caused it. Somehow, it was Karra.

The mini-infernal didn’t weigh anything close to what the monster did, something she had solved by carrying an enormous bundle of bricks. She had managed to time things well enough to hit the monster square with just enough mass to make it care.

And behind them came Lith, running full tilt as he fired arrow after arrow. The injuries were starting to add up on the monster, not to the point where it was in real danger, but to the point where the Jeremy seemed to at least care about the damage it was continuing to accumulate.

The source of the arrows was a mystery to it, judging by its reaction to each successive pin-prick in its side. It’d whip its head around and snarl each time. The source of the blunt-force trauma was a different story. Shifting its attention away from Arthur and Lily for the first time, it set its eyes on Karra and roared.