This is the twentieth chapter of the Fang & Bone serial; click here to visit the previous installment of Fang of Triseria. Please share your thoughts on the story in the comments, or visit the project hub for more information.
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Most of the walk from the sight of the town had been silent and uncomfortable. Fang had walked several yards ahead, as Erryl fell behind, taking a rear position behind Corea by a dozen or so feet.
Occasionally, he would clear his throat and flick his hand forward when she looked back. She understood that it was her falling behind in the middle, and she would need to keep pace. She would oblige as she scanned the treeline along the road.
They’d been walking for at least two hours, by her count, with no sign of a ghoul, and only the company of birds in the trees. She thought she had seen a thin rabbit ahead, but Fang snapped at it, and whatever it had been had darted into the safety of the brush.
The road itself was overgrown, with deep ruts of ancient wagon tread filled in with small blades of grass peppered with the occasional hardy weed. There was a more defined path, that of previous patrols. Corea hadn’t expected to see a sign of her brother, yet, but she felt a great pain as she marched. A pain that she would never attribute to Egg’s punch.
Eryll cleared his throat again, and she turned; he flicked his hand forward, and she picked up her pace again. This would get old, fast.
The sun had crossed the middlemost part of the sky by the time something happened. Fang, yards ahead, had stopped suddenly, and yelped a dog’s whine, like when someone stepped on a hound’s tail. Corea herself had stopped and began to approach, but Erryl cleared the distance and held his hand back toward her, blocking her progress, his rapier extended.
Errly then whistled. It sounded like a bird’s call, but she didn’t recognize the bird. Corea and Erryl stood as Fang took several steps back and turned his back to the road, toward their destination. He looked miserable and hunched, walking back toward them. Erryl lowered his blade and strode toward the Wolf. Corea followed.
“What?” was all Erryl asked.
Fang looked sick, his ears drooping. Corea thought that he would have looked pathetic if he hadn’t looked like he could kill her with a glance, otherwise.
Fang whimpered and buried the tip of his nose into the back of his hand.
“Slime.”
Erryl sighed. “You are the most vicious fighter I have ever had the pleasure to work with, but I marvel at what actually fazes you sometimes.”
“A slime?” Corea asked, stepping toward Fang. He ignored her, breathing through the fur on the back of his hand.
“A slime, young Corea, is one of many monsters that are found in the world. Putrescent little living puddles. They are not uncommon; I am surprised you have never heard of them.”
“I’ve heard, but I don’t see it? Also, my brother killed one once.” She glanced at Fang. “Why is he scared?”
At that, Fang looked at her, his eyes sharp, annoyed. He grunted.
“Not fear.”
Erryl shook his head. “Our friend has a tremendous sense of smell. That comes at the risk of sensitivity. It’s why I carry wolfsbane on me.”
Fang grunted and peered behind him, his ears moving, trying to pick up movement.
“How would you describe what you smell, my friend?”
Fang stepped further back down the road whence they had come. He now had his nose buried into his forearm, draped by the cloak. It was as though the scent had pushed him away.
“Imagine every dead thing a vinegar jelly picks up and let’s rot inside it.”
Corea swore she heard him gag. She gagged, too.
Erryl turned to her. “What do you know of them, Corea?”
“I know their acid can melt just about everything over time, but you can use it for a lot of things if you treat it right.”
Erryl smiled, and Fang grunted. Erryl continued, “spoken like a farmer, but a good observation regardless. Let me ask again, what do you know of the creature itself?”
Corea wasn’t sure what he was asking, but she answered as best she could. “Well, they are these jelly things that wander, eating whatever they can pick up as they move. They don’t really have a shape, and they don’t think. They don’t have brains or anything. They can slip into any gap they find. If they roll into a critter’s warren, they can fill the whole thing up with their… I guess you’d call it body?”
“Not bad, but if you are going to travel with us, you need to learn to hunt. And you are wrong on one key thing. No, they do not have brains, not as we understand them, but they do think, and they think quite hard about how to eat everything and anything.”
Erryl glanced down the road.
“And I want you to kill it,” he added matter-of-factly.
She stared at him for a moment. His smile was not quite friendly or reassuring, but something severe and forced. It was inscrutable.
She glanced back at Fang for guidance, but he had already retreated several more feet back down the road, staring past her and Erryl. His ears drooped, and he still had his cloak in front of his snout. He would periodically shift, looking for the source of the smell.
Corea looked down toward her waist and drew her knife, holding it up. She felt stupid holding it in place and standing in silence. She felt like a child playing pretend in the moment.
Fang’s sudden yelp caught her attention, and she glanced at him as he took several steps back, eyes locked on something ahead of the party. She turned to look up the road, and that is when she saw the slime ooze out from the brush. The green, jelly substance rolled up on itself, settling into place like a broad bubble, like on the surface of a stew.
Erryl glanced back and shook his head at Fang. “It’s a small one, you ferocious beast, you.”
Fang said nothing, simply shaking his head. After a moment, he hunched over, wretching and stumbling.
“Well, he is going to be as useless to us now as tits on a goose. Alright, child, listen closely.” Erryl crouched and pulled his bag from his shoulder, setting it on the ground. The sturdy leather held the bag’s shape as he ran his fingertips through various pockets, pouches, and what appeared to be a wooden case within.
As Erryl continued searching for something unknown, Corea glanced back toward the slime. It continued its slow approach, seemingly indifferent to the presence of herself and the two men.
It was an ugly, but fascinating thing. She watched as what was essentially a pale green bubble undulated slowly across the road. She couldn’t make out anything specific from this distance, but the surface shimmered as the slime seemed to wiggle forward, and less than an inch at a time. Within the pale green translucence, she swore she saw the remains of a rabbit suspended in the gooey body.
Or at least what was left of a rabbit.
“Ah, here we go.”
Corea turned her gaze back to Erryl, who now had his rapier unsheathed. She noticed he was rubbing something across the surface of the blade – not the entire blade – but a measured, practiced distance. She realized it was chalk.
“These foul little slimes are acidic, as you so astutely mentioned earlier. On most contacts, the acid is very weak, but where there is one slime, there can be several, and enough acid will eat into your steel.”
He stopped chalking the rapier and held the chalk to her in his open palm. She grabbed it. It was a simple stick, like what Mr. Gorten used at the inn.
“We neutralize the acid with chalk. There are a few other things that’ll do it, but it’s always wise to carry chalk. Not just for killing slimes, but you always want to find as many uses for what you carry as possible. Understand?”
Erryl glanced past Corea, where the slime had emerged; there was rustling in the nearby brush. A moment later, another slime, around the same size, sloshed through branches and leaves and bubbled up onto the road.
Fang barked. “Would you get on with it already? There are two of them now! They stink so much!”
“Ignore him.” Erryl rose to his feet and smirked at Corea. “Another thing to know is how to kill these things.”
Corea stood up next to Erryl, applying chalk to her knife tip and along the blade.
“Since we have a new guest, I’ll show you what to do with the first one. Walk with me. Keep my pace.”
Corea nodded. Erryl crept forward, not exactly at a tiptoe, but each step was deliberate and placed at an even pace. As they approached the slimes, the stench grew worse. For a time, Corea had considered that Fang had been overreacting, but at this distance, feet away, the smell turned her stomach. She’d smelled rotten meat that was more pleasant than this – and Fang had been right about the vinegar element of it, too. She stumbled a bit and noticed even Erryl had masked the scent with his left wrist beneath his nose.
He glanced toward her, his eyes watering. She felt her eyes water too.
“Look into the slime’s body,” he whispered. He nodded toward the slime that was only four feet from them. “Creep closer, but no sudden movements. They will lash out.”
She moved forward a couple of steps to where she could clearly see several things within the bubbled surface, including the remains of the rabbit – it almost appeared wrung dry.
“There is a bubble inside the creature. Think of it like a heart or brain. It’s not very big, but it is distinct. You need to pierce it. Have you ever played marbles?”
Corea glanced back, and she took a few steps back toward his side. “Yes. I have some in my pack…”
He shook his head and seemed to smirk. She’d missed something.
“It’s like poking a marble with a stick. Get through the jelly and tap the marble. The thing will practically melt.”
He readied a stance with the rapier angled downward. She took a couple of steps to the side and watched him shuffle forward, almost like a crab; his upper body was locked into place, but his legs slid across the road in an odd, weaving shuffle.
She had barely caught the actual strike; it had been so fast, all she had seen was his arm expand outward and retract back into his stance. But the effect was immediate, and the slime began to bubble along the service and seemingly melt, as though the jelly had been exposed to the heat of a forge. There was a small hiss of acid and a puff of foul scent, but the thing was apparently dead.
That, however, caught the attention of its companion, and the other rancid bubble began to inch toward the remains.
“Now you.”
Erryl stared at her and nodded toward the slime.
“GO.”
Corea did not hesitate and approached the bubble, slowly. She noticed now that the slime had seemingly picked up speed, excited by something, and she wondered how that had worked. Within a couple of feet, she glanced over the dome-shaped body, seeking the marble shape beneath the slick surface. She found it floating in the ichor near the corpse of a bird hatchling. She held her breath and stabbed into the ooze, aiming for the internal bubble.
She retracted her blade but noticed nothing had happened. She stood, puzzled, for a half second, and then yelped as a slime-tendril lashed out from the seemingly placid surface. She felt the jelly whip her across the hand as she retracted her knife to her body and felt the hand tingle.
She took several steps back.
“The surface of the bastard is going to throw you off, so you’ll need to adjust. I find it tends to be a little deeper than you’d think. Try again.”
Corea shook her hand, adjusted the blade, and moved closer to the again-placid bubbled surface. She thrust the knife in deeper this time, to the point where her fist plunged into the surface. She felt an immediate tingle and nearly let go of her knife, but as the slime began to dissolve around her hand, she regained her grip.
“Good, now, hurry!” Erryl had swept in beside her and thrust a small vial toward her. Collect the ichor, collect the marble. Hurry, before the acid is useless.”
Corea’s hand still tingled, and it was very uncomfortable. It was like she had fallen asleep on it. She dropped her knife and fumbled at the vial, popping the latched cork and glancing at the rapidly liquifying remains of the slime.
Her first real kill, she thought. Then she shook her head. No time.
She found the “marble” in a mass of jelly that hadn’t quite liquified just yet and scooped up the little ball with as much of the material as she could on a couple of swipes with the vial. As she had scooped the small, round object in, she noticed it was soft, not quite as gelatinous as the rest of the body, but certainly not hard, like glass.
She held the glass vial to her face to get a sense of what this was. She hadn’t even noticed that Erryl, crouched, was already applying something to her hand. She didn’t know what it was, and nor did she care at that moment. She was too intrigued by what had been her first battle.
It wasn’t much.
But I‘m not much, either, she reckoned.
“What you have there, child, is something very valuable, as you are already aware. Slime ichor is very potent, with a thousand uses. The trick is to keep the organ with the slime. The innards neutralize quickly when exposed to air, but keeping the organ, even pierced, with the slime will slow the reaction down and preserve it for a little longer.”
Erryl rubbed some form of ointment on her tingling hand, and she immediately felt a cooling sensation. She glanced down, noticing how red her skin looked across the back of her hand. Whatever poultice he applied had started to soothe the irritation.
“What you are feeling is the mint.”
She nodded and reached for her knife, but didn’t see where it was.
The roadman held the knife toward her, handle-side first.
“Your blade. Thank you for not stabbing our mutual friend with it this time around.”
Corea flushed, embarrassed still. She took the handle and drew the knife closer to her body. Erryl rose to his feet. He continued speaking.
“You should know these things can get quite big. I’ve heard of one as big as three houses roaming the plains of Sanara that nobody has managed to kill. Some say larger ones still haunt some dungeons and caves all over Aurin.”
Corea nodded absent-mindedly. She hoped she’d never see a slime as large as that the Barber mentioned.
The smell had begun to diminish and was not as overwhelming. As far as Corea had figured, whatever caused the slimes to melt seemed to also cut their stink, and she was thankful. She still smelled decay, as now the remains of whatever the slimes had been digesting were exposed to open air, but it felt less intense.
She knew it was less intense as Fang’s thudding footsteps approached from behind her and Erryl.
“It still reeks here. We need to move before-”
A rustling from the undergrowth along the road further ahead made Fang pause. Within a moment, three more slimes shlorped their way onto the road, in the direction of the party.
Fang took several steps back.
“Fuck.”
“We seem to have a migration, my friends.” Erryl sniffed. “Interesting.”
“Migration?”
Erryl turned back to Fang, seemingly ignoring Corea’s question. She looked back as well, and Fang, covering his snout as best he could with two massive cupped paws, nodded solemnly.
“Damn,” Erryl added.
Corea asked again about the migration. But Erryl was still quiet; he seemed unsure of what to say. It was Fang who broke the silence through the muffling of his hands.
“They’re drawn to death.”
Corea wasn’t sure why Erryl couldn’t rattle that out. He was quite talkative. Why did it take the Wolf?
“Well, we just killed these two slimes, right?” she asked.
Fang was silent. He stared at Corea, his eyes appearing almost concerned… about her? She wasn’t sure what he was getting at. It was something that frustrated her immediately – some knowledge she was too simple to be let in on. She hated that.
“A slime migration moves toward battles. Nobody knows what draws them there, but if there is mass slaughter, they seem to find their way to it. Like carrion birds. No… more like a tide.”
“This was a battle, though, right?”
Erryl shook his head.
“This is nothing. Migrations are always aimed toward a significant number of deaths – that is why they come to battlefields and consume the dead of armies if left undefended. There was a fight in this area, somewhere on the way toward the old town, and it appears several people died.”
Corea suddenly understood and stared at the emergent slimes, inching their way toward her. They would consume what they could here and continue toward the old town.
She prayed silently that Garen would not be among the remains that drew the local slimes.
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