His sword nearly dropped from the blood on his hand. 

It wasn’t his blood, but it might soon be. Lyall abandoned the false promise of safety behind his blade, wrenched his knee to his chest, and plummeted the heel of his boot through the razor teeth of the creature before him. Death mouths. Aberrations of rabid three-feet bloodlust with swamp-hued skin so wrinkled it threatened to slough off their stump bodies, there were far more of them in this dilapidated, underground military bunker than claimed. The one before him whose acidic blood spewing from its wound stained his heel flailed backwards into four more of its brood. 

Lyall regained control of his longsword and slashed. One creature fell. The next opened its grotesque mouth stretching ear-to-ear tall enough for a thrust to pierce out the back of its skull. Three charged into the fray from the corner ahead. The bunker, unused for a hundred years, maintained some of its former prowess by way of its maze-like halls and limited sight lines. Perfect for monsters that thrived in hunting in the dark, and not ideal for one with a metal breastplate and pauldrons with a beacon of light tied on his hip. Lyall’s continued fight played across the musk, cracked walls and hole-riddled floor as a broken zoetrope from the shadows cast by his lantern. 

The collapsed portion of the wall to his right became Lyall’s saving grace. It limited the death mouths' approach to one or two, and their cloudy eyes barely the size of a marble did at least balk from the shine of his light. With six—seven—eight crumpled on the floor before him, the flood had to break soon. If he could just hold out. The death mouths wore no clothes, let alone armor, and had all their vital organs helpfully clumped dead center in their chests. Lyall would clear out this batch, take a well-earned swig of water, and re-evaluate his approach. 

Unfortunately for him, one death mouth had some semblance of sense. Lyall didn’t see the largest one scamper as high as it could on the crumbled wall and crack both its fragile shoulders throwing a chunk of rock big as its round head at him. Instinct alone drew Lyall’s shield on his left arm up. With a force that would have caved in his forehead, the impact groaned then erupted the wooden barrier into a hail of splinter shrapnel leaving stinging scrapes on his face, a scalding reverberation in his forearm, and a cold, sharp throb in his ankle as he plummeted upon his side. Short and wheezing came Lyall’s next breath—and the only breath he had time for. 

To be prone was to die. Lyall ignored the white pain flashes in the corners of his vision to roll with the fall and shove up to an immediate bolt back the way he came. Gone was his sword tossed free in the fall. One death mouth did hoot in agony catching its toes on the sharp blade, but the delay of one meant nothing for the torrent of unleashed claws lashing at his back. Lyall didn’t dare imagine how many gave chase, but the cacophony of grating screeches expecting success warned it a veritable stampede. Lyall leaned low and drifted around the closest corner willing his legs to stop shuddering from the increasing throb in his ankle. 

Right, straight, left, straight—the walls blurred together as some distance was made. A folded piece of paper in his pocket trailed out the twists and turns covered so far, but this was no time to consult a map. Lyall felt confident in his path though...until a right turn unveiled to him a new, untrodden hall proven by the sickening sight of the body of a previous adventurer the death mouths claimed victim. Devoured were his insides, leaving the man on the ground little more than a discarded sack of black-spotted flesh and bone. However, the death mouths couldn’t fathom the concept of possessions, which dropped Lyall to a knee in a hasty search through the man’s pockets and bags. His hand clenched around a small ball of black, dimpled metal. 

Lyall charged forward since the brief respite returned the screaming horde to his ankles. The right of which shuddered and risked collapse. All the adrenaline pulsing Lyall’s veins instead of blood couldn’t convince it to stay steady. It’d give in soon, and then that’d be it. 

That future wasn’t an option. Lyall ran faster, creating another gap between him and his pursuers. Enough desperate guesses finally spat him out at a familiar sight. Four halls converged as the corners of a square loop surrounding a boarded-up room in the center Lyall hadn’t been able to get into, and the frustration that failure caused Lyall resurged anew as hope. If any of the twelve gods watched his pitiful situation they’d surely think him a fool wasting time running the loop and returning to his starting spot. However, Lyall counted. Nine lengthy strides for each side and then a left turn. Nine strides then turn. Nine, turn. 

The flood of death mouths surged the corner thirty feet down and thoughtlessly mangled each other in their singular focus of getting to him. Lyall had time enough for two breaths now. The bone of his ankle audibly cracked from the force burdened upon it, yet Lyall pushed off into a sprint. Nine strides, eight strides, nine, seven—he needed to even his gait. Still, two more loops and achieving matching lengths revealed the truth in which Lyall put all his faith. The death mouths were stupid. Not even the one who threw the rock considered waiting to trap Lyall from the other direction. They followed around and around. 

Lyall rounded the fourth corner, wrenched free the knot tying his lantern to his hip, and smashed it on the edge of the starting corner. The umbral lit halls fell into total darkness and shot ice down his spine, mocking his idiocy. Lyall, blind, ran faster. Nine strides, turn. Nine strides, turn. His cheeks and nose flinched at each corner in fear of a full slam into unforgiving stone. The agony in his ankle went numb in warning of its imminent failure. Nine strides, turn. Nine strides— 

Lyall threw his left hand out and awaited connection with the wall. The instant it fell upon open air once more, Lyall spun, pitched forward the lantern and the black ball from the body, and leapt the other way down the initial hall depositing him into the loop. Even had his ankle not forsaken his weight and sprawled him upon the cold ground, the contrasting, roaring blast of the tracking firebomb erupting would have knocked him off his feet anyway. Hot sweat instantly pooled down Lyall’s face and curled him into a protective bundle. How maddening the shrieks were of the burning death mouths, trapped by the small brushes of his broken lantern’s leaking oil on their feet the magic fire of the bomb greedily sought out. 

Several minutes the fire scorched, although the shrieks faded within the first. Lyall waited until the overwhelming light that would have truly blinded him had he looked began to fade before scooting closer to the flickering flames creeping around the corner. They happily lit the torch pulled from his bag. After another minute, Lyall managed a proper glance into the loop where he saw nothing but ash on the floor and walls black with soot. He’d played a risky game and won. 

The magical fire died. Lyall stuck the torch in a crack in the wall, groggily yanked his bag before him, and drained his waterskin, catching the trickles sneaking free upon his chin with his thumb and sucking. His vision sparking from the slightest shift of his right leg necessitated the taking of a rolled scroll from the bag’s side pouch. With a reluctant sigh, Lyall unfurled it by his ankle and tried not to blink faster as the arcane words inked upon it lifted themselves from the paper and coiled around his injury. Warm, tingly, and soothingly the vice of words pulsed for a time Lyall wished he could properly relax. His eyes flicked the different directions studying the undulating shadows created by the torch while his pointed ears twitched at every pebble rolling down the weakened walls. 

The words vanished with a poofing refresh of chill and faint whiff of mint. Three tentative taps of Lyall’s foot guaranteed the ankle’s healing but another suffocating sigh as he stood. The map came out of his pocket. 

“Now to figure out where my sword is...” 

Lyall pressed on with the map in his left hand and a dagger from his belt in his right. He managed to find the man’s body swiftly—and spare a ruffle of the dry hair—yet didn’t come across his sword and the remnants of the shield gifted from his mentor until the passing of half an hour. Any sensible man would turn back. At least take more time to rest. 

Lyall didn’t stop. Not until he mapped the entire bunker. Not until he discovered the open space the death mouths used as their den. Not until he confirmed no other of the creatures remained within the walls. And certainly not until he found the journal of a famous general hidden within a secret compartment of a desk his client sent him to retrieve. 

Over an hour it took to weave his way free of the maze. Lyall climbed the narrow stairs past the fortified entrance hall, remembered he’d hurt his arm too after shoving open the stone doors nearly flush with the ground, and stepped into the clear air of the forest, breathing deep.