The dungeon lets out its breath and the wind carries the stench of decay.

  Lakal’s coat flutters with the momentary breeze and he smirks at the cold, dark opening to the final chamber. “Come on then, Garl. Lead us in.”

  Garl grumbles and glances at me once more; the smile that spreads across his face is grim. “Make the wanderer go first.”

  “And take the glory? You’ve had your fun, Garl, you’ve taken back what was yours. Now it’s time to show your courage.” Lakal claps him on the shoulder. “Come on. I’ll be right behind you.”

  I see Garl hesitate. His knuckles whiten on his spear haft and his eyes dart about the entrance as if looking for an escape in the darkness. Then he shifts. He straightens and holds his spear across his body, point forward, and takes a step into the room beyond.

  I blink.

  Garl disappears. The moment he steps through the portal, it is as though the dark itself flows over his body and consumes him. Lakal chuckles, shoulders his glaive and gestures for the other Heightened to follow. He ignores me.

  I wait.

  There are sounds in the dungeon that I hadn’t noticed as I strained to stay alive. The walls creak, small things scurry just out of sight, and there is an interminable drip, drip, drip that marks the passage of time. My heart slows until it is the same. Drip. Beat. Drip. Beat. My hands shake and I pull the claw closer. The wind is chill on my naked chest.

  He couldn’t leave me with my dignity, at least?

  There’s a louder sound back from the corridor behind me. Something moving, the scuttling of metal feet and the scrape of something rusted and sharp. My mind fills the void of knowledge with creatures of teeth, flesh, and steel.

  I’ll die if it finds me.

  I don’t know anything but my body is certain; it sweats and shivers and my teeth chatter with the fear of being stronger than I’ve ever been and yet…alone. Weak.

  I shuffle towards the final room and its consuming barrier as if it will provide me succor. I hold my claw out like a talisman to ward off the nightmare that comes for me and wish, wish that I was Marked, or more. If I were Banded or…there must be more beyond, if I were just that then I would live and I could survive alone and see the sun shining on my face and I would be contented.

  I’m alone. Weak. Shivering with cold and fear in equal measure.

  I’ve killed.

  I’m Heightened.

  I am more than ever.

  I see the shadows of something in the flickering lights not so far around the corridor corner and I hold my claw tighter. I stand straighter just as Garl did and I think in that moment that perhaps I have steeled myself as he did. I cannot forgive him. I cannot forgive Lakal and I won’t, but I understand them.

  I step backwards and let the darkness flow over me like water.

  New death is a peculiar smell. It’s meat. It’s all the things that a person can no longer hold in once their muscles lose strength. It’s less than you would think and more than anyone should experience.

  Half the tribe are dead. Bodies and bodies are lumped in pieces; they’re shredded and shattered and splashed across the walls in macabre mural. I turn and one smiles at me. Their face is flat on the ground before me and their skull somewhere else.

  I should move before I’m made the same way but the shock of what I see and what I smell is too much for me. Lakal is dancing across a room twice the height of the corridor and ten times the width and the same length. It’s cut into pieces by pillars of cold grey that are chipped by the furious fighting amongst the scattered chairs and tables.

  The creature is worse.

  It’s hunched, as tall as the ceiling and then some more. It is a thing of flesh and metal. I cannot see where the red and ruined skin ends and the rusted metal begins. It has four legs and four arms and each limb is tipped with metal, pocked and pitted and sharp as blades.

  Lakal knocks one arm aside with his glaive and grasps another with a hand that shines with silver. He grunts, turns his blade, and severs the limb at the fleshy crease. The creature screams with the sound of a scrap avalanche and rears back.

  Garl is there too. He pricks at the beast with the tip of his spear, worrying at its soft places and stepping back before he is caught by a flailing limb. He’s brave. The others were close to the entrance when they were caught but the remaining Heightened have followed his lead and are stabbing or throwing things to distract the beast for Lakal to attack.

  I don’t have anything to worry it with. My claw is short and I would need to clamber onto its back to make a difference.

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  I slip. The blood is slick and slippery by the entrance; it’s pooled and cooled as it seeps from the bodies of those who didn’t make it through those first fateful minutes. I right myself and hold my claw tightly. I must be numb to some of the grotesquery because by all rights I should be screaming in fear and clawing my way out of the charnal house. Instead I lean back and press my hand to the dark barrier back to the corridor and feel the supple solidness to it. There is no way back but forward.

  I want to see the sun. I can’t be a coward if I’m to be great.

  I move forward with steady purpose, lean down to pluck a hard object from amongst the rubble, and launch it as the other Heightened do. It makes little difference to the great, writhing creature, but I feel pride as even with my monocular vision my missile strikes true. The beast is well armoured by its metal and its sheer bulk so even as I join the ranks of the leaf tribe with frightened but determined glances tossed my way and launch rubble and any object at the creature, I am waiting for Lakal to finish the work.

  The Marked is more confident now that he’s struck a wounding blow. Lakal flows between one strike and the next with preternatural speed; his glaive flashing in the flickering light. This Marked isn’t like Oran or Lucil; his powers are built into his flesh, protecting him from the lashing assault of the beast and lending strength to his swings. Oran would have dripped fire from afar before diving in with his sword and Lucil would have wielded her spear disconnected from her body while pummeling the beast with flying debris.

  “Now!” Lakal shouts to Garl as the marked knocks the creature’s remaining limbs wide to expose its corpulent belly. Garl dives in without hesitation and thrusts his spear deep into its flesh. It screams that inhuman screech once more and lashes out, catching Garl on his leg and sending him pinwheeling across the room to crunch into the far wall.

  The other Heightened have stopped throwing objects; there are fewer than before. The creature has killed more without me noticing, its writhing picked up rubble and threw it back at us even as we did the same. But its flailing isn’t random. I see it. The limb that Lakal cut into so early has regrown; tipped once more in pitted and rusted metal. Lakal doesn’t see it as it comes for him. He doesn’t see the point of it until it tears into his shoulder and lifts him wholly from the ground.

  There is a moment now, with Lakal suspended and Garl broken against the wall, that I believe that I’m going to die. I’ve feared it. Even thought it might be true. But I’m trapped in a small room with people who I can’t even call allies and are still dwindling. Our hope grew complacent and he is paying for his hubris.

  I move. My limbs so much stronger than they’ve ever been and yet so lacking compared to the Marked above. I’m insignificant to the creature; it doesn’t register me until it is too late and I slam my shoulder into the haft of the spear still sticking from its body. I turn it as I strike; upwards, inwards, and into the vital places that Garl missed.

  Our world stands still.

  It dies with a whimper and a breath of decay.

  “Blazing sun.” Lakal grunts as he is dropped. He pulls the spike from his body in a spray of blood but his wound stops seeping a moment later. His skin shimmers as it closes into a puckered mess; the Marked has to lean on his glaive to remain standing. He looks at me for a moment with a curled lip and then turns and hobbles over to Garl.

  For his part, Garl has sat up. Being tossed across the room did less than I’d thought and he’s bleeding but shares a smile with Lakal as he’s pulled to his feet.

  “We did it.”

  “Aye, we did it.” Lakal looks back at the massacre by the entrance and the few heightened who remain standing. None are without injury. “Not sure it was worth the cost.”

  “I told you we should have sent the wanderer in first.”

  Lakal sucks his teeth. “Yeah, maybe you were right. At least he made himself useful at the end. Come. Let’s see what the architects have rewarded us with.”

  They walk over the rubble of the room towards the back and a small door twinned with the entrance but still closed. There’s light falling through the windows.

  “It should be me.” I stagger a pace and stumble. I’m covered in the cooling blood of the great beast, sticky and gross on my skin. “I killed it. The reward should be mine.”

  Lakal glances back at me, turns again, and continues walking. He laughs, whispers something to Garl, and they laugh together. My face burns with fury and I find my footing well enough to stagger once more towards them. “Don’t walk away from me. Don’t you laugh. I killed it. It was me. You can’t steal my reward.”

  They don’t turn. I slow and the other Heightened pass me too until it is me alone beside the great hybrid beast of flesh and metal and them together as a tribe of survivors passing through the last door. It closes behind them and I sink to my knees.

  I whisper. “I killed it. I did everything right. I should…my reward.”

  I sit beside the corpse of the dungeon boss for an age; until my knees are fiery knobs, my body is cold, and my aching heart beats slow. The leaf tribe don’t emerge from behind the final door. I watch. For so long I watch and hope there is a change in mind and tone, but there is nothing but the quiet creak of the dungeon and the slow beating of my own heart.

  I can’t stay.

  There is nowhere to go.

  Outside in the corridor will lurk still that beast I heard and ahead are beasts made man. I can stay and I can starve. My stomach pangs and my mouth waters. I don’t have to go hungry. My eyes rove slowly from the scattered detritus on the ground to the hulking form beside me.

  The boss was grim to start. Its flesh is misshaped, ugly, and rancid. Its body is more metal than organic and yet…my tongue laps out to wet my cracking lips. I whisper again into the lifeless room a wishful prayer. “When I ascend, can I have the power of flames?”

  I move, slowly at first and then faster as I find my feet. It isn’t a natural hunger that drives me for what being, person or monstrous creation of the architects, could hunger for flesh so obviously foul? My stolen claw is at hand and I plunge it into the mess of one its arms and pull out a chunk. It is pulpy red and pale on the outside and darker in. It oozes blood and ichor in equal measure; both are cold and turgid. There is no joy in this.

  I bite. I lick what remains off my lips as the cold mess slides down my throat. Something inside me is sated but a larger part is made ravenous tenfold. I gorge. Bite after bite. Hunk of flesh after hunk and I am made grotesque too. I fall back when my stomach can hold no more of the creature’s awful body.

  The ceiling is paneled. The lights that flicker intermittently are sunk into every third tile; many have gone dark with the violence of battle so it is a patchwork sky into which I stare as tears blur my view.

  I’m wrong.

  “What am I?” I ask the world and beg for an answer. The slow creaks, skitters, and groans of the dungeon placate me. I’m alone and sated and the dark is creeping in. I cannot keep my eyes open even as I blink away tears. “Not here.” I mutter. “It’s not safe. The others.” My head lolls and I my final sight is of the remains of the leaf tribe who would never leave the dungeon. Will I?