usual owlbears and stirges from time to time, the odd band of brigands, thieving peddlers, small problems that a few armsmen and foresters with good bows could handle.
Lately, it seemed, at about the time the worst winter snows ended and folk considered the useful part of the Year of the Awakening Wyrm to have begun, the High Duchy of Langalos had somehow acquired a big problem.
Something that left no tracks, but killed at will…passing merchants, woodcutters, farmers, livestock, and alert war bands of the Duke's best armsmen alike. Even a high-ranking priest of Tempus, traveling with a large mounted and well-armed bodyguard, had gone missing somewhere along the wooded road west of Starmantle, and was thought to have fallen afoul of the mysterious slayer. Could this be the 'Awakening Wyrm' of the prophecies?
Perhaps, but hired griffon-riders flying over the area had found no sign of large caves, scorched or broken trees or any other marks of large beasts … or any sign of brigands or their encampments, for that matter. Nor had the few foresters who still dared to venture anywhere near the trees seen anything…and one by one, these were disappearing too. Their reports told of a land that seemed barren of any beast so large as a fox or hare, the game trails were grown over with ferns.
So the High Duke had reluctantly opened his coffers while he still had subjects to tax and refill them and had hired the classic solution: a band of adventurers… in this case, hireswords who'd been thrown out of service to wealthy Tethyrians for a variety of reasons, and gathered as the Frostfire Banner to seek their fortunes in more easterly lands, where their past indiscretions would be less well known.
The money offered by Horostos was both good and needed. The Banner were ten in all, and numbered among their ranks a pair apiece of mages and warrior-priests, yet they went warily. This was unfamiliar country to them… but death knows all lands, intimately and often.
So it was that cocked but unloaded crossbows hung across several saddles, though it was bad for the strings, and no one rode carelessly. The forest stayed lovely…and deserted.
'No stags,' Arvas grunted once, and his companions, nodding their replies, realized how silent they'd fallen. Waiting for the blow to fall.
A goodly way west of Starmantle the road looped around and beneath an exposed spur of rock, an outcropping that pointed out to sea and upward like the prow of some great buried ship. Once the sun sank low and the Banner knew they had to turn around, they settled on the rocky prow as their camp.
Ton's as good a place as the gods provide, short of bare hilltops. One to watch along the road and down the cliffs, and two to face the forest along the neck of it, here, tie up our horses below and be-damned to anyone trying to use the road by night, and we're set,' Rolian grunted.
Paeregur gave a wordless grunt as his only answer. The tone of that grunt sounded unconvinced. The silence of fear hung heavy over the camp that night, and evenfeast was eaten in hushed tones.
'We're as close to death as we've ever been,' the halfling muttered as they rolled themselves in their cloaks, laid weapons to hand, and watched the stars come out over the water.
'Will you belt up about dying?' Rolian hissed. 'No one can come at us unseen, we've set a heavy watch, the dippers and the shields are ready for a fast wakening.. what more can we do?'
'Ride out of here and go back to Tethyr,' Avras said quietly…yet the camp had grown so still that most of them heard him. Several heads turned, wearing scowls.. but no one said a word in reply.
Overhead, as deep night came down, the stars began to come out in earnest.
'What's that?' Rolian breathed, beside Paeregur's ear. 'D'you hear it?'
'Of course I hear it,' the warrior replied quietly, rising silently to his feet and turning slowly, his drawn blade glinting in the light of the new-risen moon. He could hear it best to the west, somewhere very close by, a thin, aimless chiming sound. A bridle? A bell on a minstrel's instrument, or on the harness of a wayward horse? Or…the little fey ones, come calling?
After a moment he took a few cautious crouching steps across the rock spur, picking his way between the still forms of his sleeping fellows. A thin thread of mist was drifting in the lee of the rock spur…strange, that, with the moon rising…but there was nothing to be seen. Not even seabirds, or an owl. In fact, that was why this was so eerie…the woods were still. No scuffling, no night cries or the shrieks of small animals being caught by larger prowlers… nothing. Paeregur shook his head in puzzlement, and turned slowly to go back. There it was again, that faint chiming.
He turned back to the west again and became a listening statue. After a time the chiming was gone. The tall warrior shrugged, glanced down at the horses below the prow…and froze.
Where were the horses? He took two quick strides to the other side of the prow, in case they'd all shifted to the east of the overhang…their lead-reins were long enough…but, no. They were gone. 'Rolian,' he growled, beckoning sharply, and ran along the prow to its very tip, where the still, cowled form of Avras sat facing out to sea, his sword across his knees. Hah! Some watch guard he'd turned out to be!
'Avras!' he hissed, clapping a heavy hand on the warrior's shoulder, 'where are the horses? If you've been drinking again, so help me I'm g…'
The shoulder under his hand crumpled like a thing of dry leaves and kindling, and the faceless husk of Avras pivoted toward him for a moment before collapsing into ash. The man's skull tumbled out to bounce off Paeregur's boot before falling out and down to the road below with a dull clatter.
Paeregur almost fell off the spur recoiling in horror. Then he scrambled back along it to the first of his sleeping companions, and turned the blankets back with the point of his blade. A skull grinned up at him.
'Gods,' he sobbed, slashing with his sword tip at the next cloak. His blade caught on the garment and dragged it half off, bones spilled out in a confusion of ash and collapse. Paeregur knew real gut-wrenching terror for the first time in his life. He wanted to run, anywhere, away from here.
Rolian was taking a damned long time to arrive.
Paeregur glanced along the spur to where Rolian had been sitting beside him, facing the forest…had been whispering to him, only a few breaths ago. Where had…?
The chiming, coming again…only this time, from among the wall of dark trees they'd been facing-sounded almost mocking. A little mist was curling around their trunks, and Rolian…
Rolian was standing in those trees with his sword in the crook of his arm and the laces of his codpiece in his hands, in the eternal wide-legged pose of men relieving themselves in the woods, facing away into the darkness. Paeregur started to relax, then fresh fear coiled in the pit of his stomach. Rolian was standing very still. Too still.
'Frostfire
He came to a stop behind that still form and tried to peer past it. Fangs? Eyes? Waiting blades? Nothing, the moonlight was enough to show him nothing but trees. He stretched out his sword gently. 'Rolian?'
The warrior gave a long, formless sigh as he toppled forward into the trees. He broke into three pieces before he hit the ground, his blade bouncing away among dead leaves … and left Paeregur staring at a pair of empty boots and a tangle of slumped clothing. Ye bloody grave-sucking gods!
The tall warrior took two quick steps back from that place and spun around. Was he the only one left alive? Had any…but no. He almost shouted with relief: the mage Lhaerand was on his feet, face pinched with sleepy disapproval, as was the giant among them, slow-witted but loyal Phostral, his full plate armor make him a gleaming mountain in the moonlight. Two. Two of them all.
'Something has killed all the others,' Paeregur told them tightly. 'Something that can slay in a moment, and silently.'
'Oh?' Lhaerand snarled. 'Then what's that?'
It was the chiming again, only loud and insistent now, as if standing in triumph over them. Suddenly the mist was back, sliding past their feet and bringing its own chill with it as it drifted along the spur. Paeregur's eyes narrowed.
'Lhaerand,' he said suddenly, 'can you hurl fire?'
'Yes, of course,' the mage snapped. 'At who? I…'
And as if it could hear his words, the mist thickened into bright smoke, and struck, snakelike, at Phostral. The
