Dungeon Runner
The Tiger Writes
sciencefiction
sciencefiction
31K5
Tibs survived by picking pockets; until he's caught.
Instead of losing a hand, he's sent away and told he must now survive a dungeon.
How is a kid who knew nothing more than his ...Bottom Rung, Chapter 31
"Is it me," Jackal said, panting, "or was this last stretch longer than the rest of the climb in its entirety?" He dropped on the bench at the end of the trail, where the flat section leading to the edge of the mountain began. "And why didn't Kro warn me about how long it would take?"
"And ruin that enthusiasm you had for walking up here?" Carina said, grinning. Of the three of them, she was the only one who wasn't out of breath.
Tibs looked around, too busy trying to get his breathing back to normal to figure out why she was fine. It wasn't like she was in better shape than he and Jackal. Jackal fought and Tibs ran. This should have been easy on them, instead of her.
From here, he could see that this wasn't the tallest mountain, in the distance, he saw much higher peaks. The flat area was fifty paces long before it reached the drop. On each side it was half that, then became uneven, with trees growing and a hostel built among them. If he'd kept track of the twists and turns in the trail correctly, the drop would look over the city, and while Tibs would love to see that view, he couldn't move yet. He had to catch his breath.
"And it was the shortest leg of our trek."
"That's impossible," Jackal said. "I'd have to walk all day to be this exhausted."
Tibs looked up. The sun wasn't even at its zenith, and they'd gotten a late start. He agreed with the fighter. In spite of the evidence, he felt too tired for this to have been a few hours' walk.
The entire trek up and around the mountain had taken three full days and this morning. Even with Kroseph's directions, finding where it began had proved difficult and required asking around, and getting strange looks. Finding someone who spoke one of the languages Tibs and his friends spoke was more difficult than they'd expected.
Once on the trail, Tibs had loved the space he had. Trees let him climb to get a view around them, and as they moved higher, he got a better and better view of the city, at least until the trail took them around the mountain. Then what he saw were stony valleys with a road winding between outcroppings. Even when there were no trees for him to climb, he ran further up the trail, then back to his friends.
He'd never felt so free.
With that freedom came one instance of fear. Something had darted out of the foliage and Tibs had screamed as he'd recognized a bunny running in his direction. He'd taken his knife out and stood frozen as the rabbit fled. He was still frozen, waiting for rats to come out of hiding and mob him, when his friends ran to his help.
Jackal laughed as Tibs explained, then vanished in the bushes. He returned a few minutes later holding a furry creature that Tibs recognized.
"Just a rabbit," The fighter said. The thing he held shook, and Tibs realized it was terrified. "A real one, not created by the dungeon."
Tibs looked around. "So there aren't any rats?" He carefully touched the rabbit's furry forehead, and it tried to wriggle out of Jackal's grip, its claws digging into the fighter's earth skin.
"There's probably some around," Carina said, "but here they're more likely to run away from you. You should let it go, Jackal."
It was softer than the rabbits in the dungeon, and when the fighter put it down, it ran away, disappearing under a bush.
Tibs had none the less remained closer to his friends after that.
The first hostel had a store next to it, with a friendly owner who spoke Pursatian with a slight accent, so Tibs did the translating. She sold them supplies for the trek, since like Jackal, they'd expected it to be a short walk. The shopkeeper had been amused at that, and informed them it was a few days walk even if they hurried.