by A. C. Cobble
Rhys knelt down and scooted the man’s scimitar away from the body. It was free of the blademaster’s glyph, but the wide blade was smeared in purple demon blood. Rhys looked around. “Well, it doesn’t look like he killed one this time.”
Grunt stood and started scouting the edge of the old keep. “Nong wouldn’t have been brought down by a single demon. A swarm did this.”
They quickly examined the rest of the space. There wasn’t anything to see. Towaal acted like she wanted to explore the structure in more detail but Rhys confronted her. “We don’t have time to investigate everything, remember?”
She set her hands on her hips, preparing to argue. Rhys held up a hand and overruled her. “If a swarm did this, then we really can’t afford to stay here. If they are nearby, they’ll sense us soon and we’ll have no choice but to fight.”
Towaal looked ready to continue the argument then deflated. She motioned for them to go. Rhys began the descent down the tower, followed by Corinne and Amelie. Ben stood at the top, waiting his turn. He looked out over the landscape around them. It was a higher view than they’d seen of the immediate area so far. He could see that for days they would be moving through the same terrain. Thick woods flowed like a river around rocky ridges and outcroppings. In the distance, he could see where the mountains started to rise.
He thought he could pick out two high, knife sharp spines of rock reaching out like grasping hands. Those hands were encircling the valley they believed contained the Rift. From a distance, it looked peaceful and calm. There were no telltale black masses of demons covering the hills, or any other sign of the danger he knew they would face.
Towaal started climbing down in front of him. He looked to see where the others were placing their hands and feet. He wasn’t a natural climber and didn’t enjoy heights, so seeing Rhys two thirds of the way down and progressing quickly made him feel a bit better…until behind him he heard Grunt utter a sharp curse. “Bloody hell,” grumbled the man.
“What?” asked Ben, spinning around.
Grunt was staring out on the other side of the tower.
“Where are the others?” demanded the hunter.
“Still climbing,” replied Ben, moving to join Grunt and looking in the same direction as the man. He held up one hand to shade his eyes then growled his own curse.
In the distance, maybe half a league away, there was a black mass moving down one of the bare rocky ridges. While Ben watched, it disappeared into the forest below.
“How many?” asked Ben.
Grunt grunted. “Enough. Call the others back up. We’re better off with the elevation.”
The party climbed back up to the top of the ancient tower and spread out, looking down into the forest and hills below.
“I don’t see anything,” complained Amelie to Ben.
“I saw it, just for a heartbeat, but they’re out there,” he responded.
Corinne had her bow in hand and Grunt was carrying his crossbow. None of the rest of them had ranged weapons.
Rhys briefly gave Ben and Amelie a tutorial about utilizing the upper ground to their advantage.
“Let me summarize,” said Ben after Rhys walked them through some tactics. “When their heads come up, chop them off?”
Rhys grinned and nodded. “You’ve got it.”
Amelie had both of her blades out and was swishing them restlessly back and forth.
“Those won’t be much use against a large demon,” mentioned Corinne.
Amelie looked to her questioningly.
“Stick to the skinny ones,” advised the huntress. “A demon is a big pile of meat. It will be difficult to get in a killing blow with a light weapon like yours. And when fighting a demon, if you get close enough to hit them, you want it to be a kill.”
Amelie breathed deep and replied, “Thanks for the advice.”
Corinne nodded briefly. “When we get back to civilization,” she said, tapping one of the hand axes that hung from her belt, “we should get you some of these. Less reach, but more penetration. Swing it hard enough and you can crack even the thickest demon skull.”
Ben stalked the edge of his side of the tower. As the minutes passed, nothing happened. None of the companions questioned what he and Grunt saw, but he could feel them getting impatient.
Grunt, muttering under his breath, kept asking himself where they were.
After a bell, Amelie suggested, “Maybe they didn’t see us.”
“This close,” replied the hunter, “they should have sensed us.”
“Let’s wait a bit longer,” interjected Towaal. “They either sensed us or they didn’t. If they did, we shouldn’t have long to wait. If they didn’t, and they’ve moved on, then it’s worth waiting another bell to be safe.”
Pacified, they all settled down. Ben sat on a flat block that could have been part of a wall circling the top of the tower long ago. His longsword was drawn and resting across his knees. Idly, he ran his fingers along the blade and looked down at the trees below. It was a windless day. Nothing moved.
Silently, they all looked out like spokes on a wheel.
After another bell, they started getting restless again.
“We could be up here all day waiting on nothing,” complained Corinne.
“I know what I saw,” barked Grunt in response.
Corinne stalked back to the edge of the tower and looked down. “Whatever you saw, it doesn’t seem interested in climbing up here after us.”
“We spent too much time up here,” declared Towaal. “We shouldn’t have taken the diversion and we’ve lost half a day of travel.”
Rhys raised an eyebrow at her.
“I know,” she grumbled. “It’s my fault too.”
Sulking, Grunt slung his crossbow back over his shoulder and stated, “Fine. We’ve waited long enough. I know what I saw, and it was a demon swarm, but you’re right—they’ve had plenty of time to get here. If they aren’t here, they must have not sensed us. Let’s go.”
The stocky hunter started down the tower and they followed behind him. On the ground, they quickly moved back into the creek bed and recovered their packs. Ben felt a slight breeze and a chill wind picked up.
Within half a bell, swirling flakes of snow danced around them as they marched onward.
That evening, Ben and Rhys strung up several tarps between three bare tree trunks to create an open shelter. They angled one of the tarps to prevent most of the wind and snow from blowing in on them. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.
After a simple dinner, Rhys produced one of his silver flasks and passed it around the group. Everyone took a sip, even Lady Towaal. They all knew that a large demon swarm could be too much for them to defend against. Seeing one in the distance was an unpleasant reminder that while the Wilds seemed peaceful on the surface, the deadly risk was real.
Towaal was the first to roll up tight in her bedroll. Everyone else followed quickly behind.
Amelie had the first watch. Ben met her gaze before he tried to get some rest. He was confident she was alert and would spot anything coming near them, but he still could not sleep for bells. By the time he finally did lose consciousness, it seemed like he was immediately shaken awake by Towaal.
“Your watch,” she whispered.
He groaned and crawled out of the fleeting warmth of his bed roll. He stomped his feet into his boots to get them settled. Wrapping his cloak tightly around himself with one hand, he kept the other hand and the hilt of his longsword free.
The wind had continued to pick up through the night and now it was blowing steadily, bringing a cloud of snow with it. The ankle-deep accumulation crunched under his feet when he stepped out from under the tarps and began circling their camp.
Snow-heavy clouds obscured the moon and stars. The little light that got through illuminated the world in white and black. Flurries whipped up by the wind stung Ben’s face and blinded him between rapid blinks of his eyes.
He traipsed around, strain
ing to see more than a few paces in front of him. On one side of the camp, he saw a log with a clear patch on it. Where Towaal was sitting, he surmised. He couldn’t imagine settling down in the cold and wet and waiting out the watch. Staying on his feet and moving were the only ways to stay alert and warm.
After three orbits of the campsite, he felt nature’s tug and shuffled further away from his sleeping companions. He found a suitable tree and braced for the cold when he adjusted his pants to relieve himself.
Teeth chattering, he looked around and frowned when he noticed something. Behind the tree, he saw a knee-high snow drift that accumulated next to a rock. Through the center of the drift was a gap slightly wider than his shoulders.
Finished, he shook quickly and then went to investigate.
Something had passed through the gap, he realized. He knelt down and tested with a hand and was surprised when he could feel indentions in the snow, like tracks where something had walked. He traced the size of the indention. It was too small to be even Lady Towaal’s footprint.
Eyes wide, he bolted upright. The snow was falling, which meant any tracks were fresh. They hadn’t seen any animals or living people since they left Free State. There was only one other being he knew of in the Wilds.
He rushed back to the camp and blurted, “Wake up!”
Towaal was the first to spring to her feet, still half-awake from her watch. The others were slower, but no one slept heavily due to fear of demons and the cold. Within heartbeats, all of the companions were standing and alert, weapons in hand.
“What is it?” demanded Towaal, looking around for signs of an attack.
“I found tracks,” breathed Ben.
“Tracks?” asked Towaal, confused.
“There shouldn’t be any tracks out here,” protested Grunt.
Rhys pulled a stick of firewood from their pile then wrapped a rag around it that he pulled from his pack. He doused the rag with the contents of one of his flasks then stuck it in the fire. The makeshift torch burst into flame.
“You’re drinking that stuff?” questioned Corinne.
Rhys smiled grimly. “I’ll let you try some later. Ben, show us these tracks.”
Ben led them out of the camp to where he had been standing.
He pointed toward the tree he was near and said, “I was standing here when I noticed them.”
Rhys hovered his torch near the tree. He paused when he saw a pale yellow stain on the snow. “You had better not be kidding,” he grumbled menacingly.
“Uh, that’s not the track,” Ben hastily explained. “Over there.” He redirected them to where he saw the disturbed snow drift.
This time, when Rhys moved the torch closer, they could all see something stout had brushed through the high snow. Leading away from the drift were barely visible tracks.
“Oh, damn,” muttered Grunt.
They all pressed close, hands on weapons as they examined the finding.
“This will be gone by morning,” mumbled Rhys, holding his free hand out to catch the steadily falling snowflakes.
Grunt, peered closely at the marks in the snow. “It could be demon. Hard to tell in the dark. A big one if it was a demon, mature. One thing for sure though, it’s a fresh track.
“How fresh?” asked Towaal.
Grunt poked his finger to the bottom of one of the indentions. “About a knuckle and a half,” he said, sitting back on his haunches and eyeing the snowfall. “Maybe a bell, bell and a half?” he speculated.
Towaal frowned. “I was on watch then, and wide awake,” she added quickly.
She turned and pointed to the log Ben saw earlier, thirty paces away. “I was sitting there. I should have seen anything nearby.”
“And anything passing here would have seen you,” said Rhys.
Towaal looked at him sharply.
“But,” Corinne said, “that makes no sense. I’ve never heard of a demon seeing a person and not attacking.”
“Demons get smarter when they mature, right?” asked Ben.
Everyone nodded. Grunt asked, “What are you getting at?”
“How big was this one? I mean, how smart would it have been?” continued Ben.
Grunt shrugged.
Ben finished his thought. “Maybe if it was a smart demon, it saw Lady Towaal and didn’t attack. Could it have been scared?”
“Scared!” exclaimed Corinne. “Of a woman with a belt knife?”
She shot an apologetic look at Towaal before continuing, “No offense meant. It’s just, why would a demon be scared of an unarmed woman?”
Rhys looked at Towaal. “Is it possible?”
She frowned, deep in thought. “Maybe. I need to think.”
No further answers came from Towaal, despite Corinne asking repeatedly. They all decided it was far too risky to try to track the demon in the dark, so they returned to camp. Rhys volunteered to finish out the watch. Trying to sleep, Ben and Amelie laid down next to each other.
“Do you think that’s true?” asked Amelie. “That it was scared of Towaal?”
Ben rolled onto his side to face Amelie. “What else makes sense?”
She didn’t reply. They both lay silently until finally falling into an exhausted sleep.
Bitter Cold
Knee-deep snow and a bitter chill greeted them when they woke. Ben’s breath puffed in front of his face in a white cloud. His cheeks and nose felt numb to the touch.
Rhys had already started stoking the fire. As soon as everyone was awake, he told them whatever tracks were there last night had disappeared under the freshly fallen snow.
Breakfast was quick and cold. They wanted to get moving as soon as possible.
Ben and Rhys untied the tarps and shook off the heavy snow. They were specially treated to repel water. They were sturdy, but Ben worried how much snow they could really take before leaking.
Rhys remarked, “We’ll need to find better shelter from now on. We can’t camp out in this every night and expect to stay healthy and rested.”
Towaal overheard and Ben saw her grimace. He knew she wanted speed, but speed was pointless if they ended up frozen to death.
Again, Ben glanced around to see if anyone was taking out his or her snow boots. No one did. Instead, Grunt went in front and broke a trail through the knee-deep powder and they all followed closely behind in his footsteps. By mid-morning, they switched and Ben took the lead. They rotated throughout the day so the trailbreaker didn’t get too exhausted.
At midday, a painful ache set into Ben’s legs and his toes were burning.
“As long as you can feel them, you’re okay,” assured Grunt. “When you stop feeling them, shout out. That’s when we need to do something about it.”
Ben groaned and stomped his feet hard. A jolt of mild pain shot up from where his frozen foot impacted the ground and he figured he was still all right.
After an afternoon break, Corinne took the lead and they kept following the same creek they had been for days now. It wasn’t straight. It meandered down from the north but had a wide bed. They made good time walking across the flat. Particularly now, walking through the trees would take twice as long because deep drifts of snow would form around the trunks.
Suddenly, Corinne held up her hand and stopped. The group watched her silently as she edged forward. Ben knew there was no immediate risk because she left her bow on her shoulder.
She waved them closer and they saw another set of tracks. This one was clearly from a wide, low-moving creature.
“That’s no deer,” joked Rhys grimly.
“Obviously,” snorted Corinne. “My concern is what was it doing down here? The creek is small, but the water isn’t completely frozen yet. Demons loathe water. It didn’t come for a drink.”
They all looked around but couldn’t see anything other than white snow, steep, shoulder-high banks where the creek rose to during the season, and a thick forest of birch trees beyond that—nothing that explained a demon’s movements.
Gr
unt muttered, “Who knows why it was down here. Who knows why demons do any of the things they do?”
Corinne turned to him. “Come on, Grunt. You’ve tracked more of these creatures than I have. How many times have you found signs of them near water? They just don’t go near it.”
Grunt shrugged.
“I’m worried this is something else, something new,” said Corinne.
Rhys had wandered over to the creek bank and scrambled up it. He looked north and south then hopped back down onto the flat.
“It’s not something else, it’s definitely a demon,” responded Rhys. “But it might be new.”
He squatted down by the path in the snow and pointed. “You can’t see where the feet have landed very well because the chest brushed a lot of the snow and obscured the path. Here and here, you can see where hands went down.”
Ben walked forward and studied the marks Rhys pointed out. It all looked like holes in the snow to him.
“I’ve tracked them in the snow before, long ago, and this is what it looks like. This was a small demon. I estimate no more than waist-high standing up and maybe five stone in weight.”
Corinne eyed Rhys. Ben waited for her to comment or argue with Rhys’ assessment of the tracks, but she finally just nodded appreciatively.
Grunt interjected, “A demon that small is new, immature. They react in predictable ways. This…” He gestured at the water. “This isn’t normal.”
Rhys nodded. “That’s what I mean. This is something new, different.”
The rogue stood back up and adjusted his pack and weapons. “Up on the bank, the tracks are obvious. The demon has been following along this creek. It came down right where I did, circled in this creek bed, then climbed back up and continued on its way.”
Ben frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s scouting,” Rhys answered bluntly.
“Demons don’t scout,” objected Corinne.
“This one is,” replied Rhys.
They stood silently for a moment, contemplating what Rhys was telling them.
“I believe Rhys is right,” remarked Towaal.
“What do you know that you aren’t telling us?” asked Grunt.
