He stepped between the ribs without pause, striding along the aged cobbles to the island shore where it met a small, part-ruined bridge. The sound of displaced water drew his gaze to a quartet of reptiles peering at him from the marsh. He held the bone fragment up and advanced towards them, grunting in satisfaction as they all promptly disappeared below the surface.

“It appears we have procured ourselves safe passage,” Book said, grinning in approval.

“There is no safe passage in the fallen kingdom,” Priest said. He went to the tumbled bridge and began to make his way across. “There are other things here that even the Kraken would have feared.”

Four

Chapter Four

The City of Spires

T he crocodiles continued to trail them through the marsh, multiple long wakes marring the still waters on both sides of the road. They would occasionally veer towards the shore only to scramble away in a welter of flailing limbs and tails when Pilgrim or one of the others brandished their shards of bone. Eventually, as the ground grew firmer and the waters more shallow, the reptiles disappeared. The Mad God’s menagerie, however, was not done with them yet.

At first Pilgrim took them for some unfamiliar form of vegetation, dark, jagged shapes hanging from the bare branches of tall trees that now began to dominate the landscape. As they passed beneath, it became clear these trees bore a different kind of fruit. The first creature to unfurl its wings revealed a fox-like face and large pointed ears. The wings were easily the length of a man from tip to tip and the beast’s body the size of a large dog. It twisted as it detached itself from the branch, letting out a chirp that was more of a scream, hurtling towards them with wings half furled and long fangs bared. They all raised their bone shards and the creature seemed to halt in mid-air as if it had struck an invisible roof. Hissing, it spread its wings wide, sweeping itself aloft. The other creatures all fell from their branches in unison, swooping down on the company before retreating to a safer height as they sensed the kraken’s power.

“Flying jackals,” Seeker said, one hand clutching her bone shard and the other her scimitar as she squinted up at the circling beasts. “Great bats from the southern jungles.”

“We must press on,” Priest insisted. “If we don’t reach the city before nightfall…” He left the rest unsaid but it was clear to Pilgrim that this forest held more dangers than just flying jackals.