They changed positions fluidly, without conversation, and soon the silence was filled with the sound of Skagi’s falchion and Chanoch’s greatsword scything the grass. Each time they sliced through the blades, the smell of rot grew worse, until Ashok put his mask up over his nose again.
Two hundred feet or so into the brush, the nightmare stopped dead. Ashok dug in with his knees, but the beast wouldn’t move. His ears pressed flat against his head, and he snorted a breath. Ashok felt the tension all down the nightmare’s body. Orange flame hovered at the roots of his mane.
“What’s wrong?” Vedoran asked.
“I don’t know,” Ashok said. “He senses something.”
“I hear it too,” Cree said. “That’s not your blade, brother?”
Skagi bobbed his weapon in the air to show it was not him who’d made the noise. Ashok heard it then too, and the rest of them tensed.
A scrape in the underbrush, moving fast and very low to the ground. Vedoran drew his sword and put his back to the nightmare. “Form up, make a circle now!” he cried.
They closed ranks around the nightmare. From his high vantage, Ashok tried to see what was swimming in the grass, but the disturbance moved too fast for him to track whether it was beast or man or hag.
Suddenly, there came an explosion of movement and cries ahead of them. The nightmare reared and screamed. A flock of ravens burst out of the underbrush-at least fifty of them-and swarmed the circle of shadar- kai.
“Stand fast!” Vedoran cried. He swung his blade overhand and took two of the birds out of the air.
Ashok grabbed the nightmare’s reins, as much to steady himself as to calm the beast. He swung the chain in a protective arc and tangled one of the large ravens. He dragged the chain in and grabbed the struggling bird. It snapped at his fingers with its black beak.
The bird’s feathers were like slippery wax. Ashok started to cast the vicious creature away, when suddenly its wings and body collapsed into a mass of feathers and bones. The body parts turned to writhing maggots in his hands.
Ashok cursed and hurled the vermin away. Skagi and Chanoch cut three more out of the air and got showered by the maggots. The rest of the birds flew away, until the raven cries were a distant echo.
“Everyone still got their eyes?” Skagi said.
“My eyes are safe, but not my appetite,” Chanoch said as he brushed the maggots off his armor and stomped on them. “Filth! Everything smells like death.”
“Calm down,” Vedoran said sharply. “Work your blades up front. We’re not stopping for a distraction. Ashok, move on.”
“I’m trying,” Ashok said. The nightmare still wouldn’t move. With his head down, the beast stamped the ground with his fetlocks burning. The few strands of green grass around his feet curled up into black husks.
The rustling sound came again, that time from behind them. Vedoran sliced the grass with his blade. Ashok twisted to look, but there was nothing there. Vedoran took two steps forward, then two more and sliced again.
“Vedoran,” Ashok said, “Don’t stray too far-”
Then it came. A dark shape burst from the grass to Vedoran’s right and completely enveloped the shadar- kai. Vedoran fell into the high grass and disappeared from view. A breath later, the grass crumpled in a line moving away from them, as if something were eating a path through it.
“Form a line behind me!” Ashok called out. He jerked the nightmare around by the reins and showed the beast his target. With an enemy in sight, the nightmare charged, burning up the ground with Skagi and the others running behind them.
The nightmare got close enough for Ashok to see Vedoran being dragged through the grass by a small humanoid figure. Green-skinned, with ragged strands of black hair plastered to her back, the hag blended with the undergrowth and moved with preternatural speed. She dragged Vedoran by his left lower leg, her talons encasing his boot and twisting until Vedoran cried out.
When she heard the nightmare’s hoofbeats approaching, the hag spun and hissed up at Ashok, exposing her black teeth. Her eyes were a deep, burnt orange and full of hate.
Ashok released the nightmare and fell upon the hag with his chain outstretched.
The hag dropped Vedoran and reached up, grabbing Ashok’s spiked weapon even as her body absorbed the impact of his. They rolled into the underbrush, Negala hissing, biting, and spitting black ichor in his face.
Ashok pushed back, and his chain dug into the hag’s flesh. He wrapped it around her body once and tightened his grip. Her skin was like stone, but she still felt the pain. She shrieked in a voice that rang shrilly in Ashok’s ears. The cry cut off abruptly, and Ashok felt a blaze of heat against his back.
He saw the hag’s eyes widen. Quickly, Ashok rolled to the side as the nightmare reared up, his flaming hooves poised to come down and cave in the hag’s skull.
The trees and the grass warped around them and turned white. Ashok heard briefly the howl of the Shadowfell wind and saw the open plain spread before him in all its colorless magnitude. Then the scene disappeared, the bog heat swelled around him, and the hag was no longer wrapped in his chain.
The spikes dripped blood, but Negala had disappeared. Ashok looked around frantically. She couldn’t have escaped behind him; the others were closing the gap. In front of him Vedoran had his blade out, but he looked disoriented. He stood up and wavered on his feet.
“Did you see that?” Vedoran said.
Ashok nodded. “The illusion broke for a moment, when I cut her, and the nightmare had her cornered,” he said.
“Was it a fatal wound?” Vedoran asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ashok said. “But it and the nightmare were enough to make her run.”
“We need to get out of this grass,” Vedoran said. The nightmare paced back and forth between them, snorting. The beast nudged Ashok’s shoulder as if in accusation.
“Sorry,” Ashok said, and reached up absently to touch the beast’s forehead. “Next time, we’ll have her.”
He noticed Vedoran watching him. “Are you all right?” Ashok asked.
“Fine,” Vedoran said. “My thanks.”
Before Ashok could reply, the others ran up. Skagi looked furious.
“If you killed the godsdamned thing without us, I’ll take your head right now,” he said.
“She got away,” Vedoran said. “Ashok and his beast nearly had her.”
“We should keep moving,” Ashok said. “Take advantage of the time while she nurses her wounds.”
“Agreed,” Vedoran said. “Same formation as before.”
They fell into line, and Ashok mounted the nightmare. As they pressed on, the tall grass thinned, and the air gradually turned colder. Ashok’s breath fogged, and he found himself holding his hands closer to the nightmare’s warm body.
“She’s trying to freeze us out now,” Skagi said. “Ugly bitch,” he added, pitching his voice louder.
“I don’t think it’s for us,” Ashok said. “I think it’s the nightmare she’s attacking.” He noticed the beast’s stiff- legged movements. The cold dimmed the nightmare’s fire and made his red eyes dull. The beast snorted and pranced, forcing the blood down his legs for warmth.
“The nightmare almost crushed her,” Vedoran said. “Makes sense she’d want to return the favor.”
“Sounds like she’s not threatened by us at all,” Skagi said, laughing. “She only fears the pony.”
Ashok and Vedoran exchanged a glance. “I don’t know whether to be comforted by that or not,” Vedoran remarked.
“They are similar creatures,” Ashok said. “They manipulate the mind.”
Snow began to fall. The swampy pools iced over, and the sounds of the animals were gone. There was no pretense that it was a bog anymore. Soon they were all covered in a thick coating of freezing wet snow.
“I complained about the dust, but this is intolerable,” Cree said, shaking out his wet hair.
The nightmare slowed his steps until he was barely keeping pace with the group. Breath wheezed in and out of the beast’s chest.
Ashok leaned forward to whisper in his ear.
“You’re not going to be felled by this,” he scoffed. “By a small, ugly creature that howls and shrieks. You are
