The following day went swiftly, Azrael had selected his team by the night before and had requisitioned supplies in the morning. The poison did prove to be a slight difficulty, but although he exhausted the oengarrdt sap supply, a suitable replacement was found quickly – it so happened that one of the herbalists assigned to his team had a large supply of strychnine and ground amanita caps. With several sacks of the poisons among his team, he gathered them around the mages quarters late that afternoon.
Their assigned magicians assembled at the portal. “Are you all prepared? We cannot teleport you directly, as you’d originally wished, but we can lead you there – Diran here knows a path through the Feywild that will cover the distance in less than a night if we run it without pause.” A few of the men groaned aloud, but no other dissent was heard.
When they were all prepared, Azrael performed a short chanted ritual, drumming out a pattern on his leg with a small wooden rod and humming a tune. The accelerating effects of the ritual settled in, and he led his team through the portal and into the Feywild.
All around the boles of trees loomed oppressively, and the light had a grey-blue shade of impending storm. Frost rimed everything, extruding in sharp needles from every angle of the iced trees. Rocks and weeds were covered with a thick fur of white, and mists like the smoke of a tavern drifted languorously across the ground. Very rarely, a distant hoot as from an owl or a chittering insectlike screech could be heard in the distance.
“This may look like a version of our world, but be aware it is not ours. The Winter Court has spies everywhere, and any one of them could betray our presence. Do not stray from our path here. We are trespassing, and as long as the Winter Court doesn’t take notice we should be fine. If they do, well, then we’ll have to hurry. A lot.” The magician held tightly to his wand, looking quickly over his shoulder. “In any case, we should hurry. Get a move on, double-time.”
After an hour or two of hasty jogging along the frosted paths Azrael spoke up. “Paletteer, how far do we go in here?”
The mage looked back over his shoulder at Azrael. “Why does the sun come up?”
“What?”
“The question ‘how far ‘ makes about as much sense as that, in this place. Now be quiet and keep moving.”
Before much further time had elapsed, the lead mage fell back a bit until he was even with Azrael. “How good are you with that bow?”
“Fair enough to hit a man with it at range. Why?”
“See the lights behind us and a little to the right?”
“Yes?”
“Those aren’t just lights. They’ve been following us. I think some form of pixie or minor fey. Be ready, and tell your men quietly to be ready. They might or might not have tipped off the Court. We haven’t strayed from the path, so we’re still within treaty bounds, but one could read our presence here as members of the Cairn Jale as trespassing.” Azrael saw then that the mage had his orb ready, the leather cup-pocket on his shoulder was unsnapped. He nodded.
He then made a few hand-signals without looking back, and heard the confirming grunt over the scuffle of boots in the snow.
They ran on.
It almost seemed hours passed, except Azrael noticed the light never changed – it neither dimmed nor brightened, and the sense of chill never really seemed to leave. The exertion of the run kept them warm, but it was never unclear that the surroundings were bitterly, mercilessly cold.
As he was contemplating this changeless aspect of this part of the Feywild, it almost seemed he imagined the sound of horns. It wasn’t until moments later that he came to the conclusion that he was not imagining it at all – and the horns were getting closer. He snapped the fingers of his right hand sharply, twice, and heard the echo down the line behind him. Accelerating a bit, he caught up with the mage ahead of him.
“Distance check. I hear horns approaching, in case you don’t.”
“Yes, I heard them. We’re not far now. Diran has been looking around more lately, so I think we’re getting close.”
“Diran!” Azrael hissed forward. “Status?”
The lead mage fell back, his orb actually out and in his hand, Azrael noticed. He also noticed Diran was wearing a leather glove, apparently to keep a stronger grip on the thing. “We’re definitely close – I think we can make the other portal before whoever that is catches up with us. Your men are ready, are they not?”
“They are, but they’ve also been running in the cold for who knows how long. I’d much rather we make a hasty exit rather than fighting. Our weapons are also probably chilled up, and I loathe the thought of fighting with brittle steel.”
“Oh gods, you don’t want to be fighting at all in here – the very fact we brought steel with us will land us in a pot of hot water with the Courts. We don’t want to be shedding fragments of steel here, they’d never be able to clear them away.” Diran looked even more alarmed at this thought than he had at the consideration that they might actually be caught.
“Well, then I guess you’d better find us that portal and get my team out of here!” He allowed himself to fall back a bit, to dress the line and make sure his men were all tuned for the possibility of a fight.
Within moments, snow began to fall, a thick flow of tiny grains of ice that seemed to settle into everything. Cold seeped into armor, into joints, every inch of exposed skin became inflamed.
And still the horns grew nearer. It was definite now, the horns were hunting horns…though their direction and actual distance remained unclear. Azrael and his team scanned the surrounds as they ran, jittery with the possibility that at any moment blood might erupt from the shielding snow.
Diran pulled up sharply. “We’re here. Get a perimiter set up while I open the portal, and as soon as it is open, get through it.”
A series of hand signals deployed Azrael’s men all around him, weapons out and ready. The mages were mumbling and chanting when the first attack came.
Azrael almost didn’t notice it. A horn blew from the left at what couldn’t have been more than twenty yards away, and as he turned to look for the source, a glittering arc of air moved through the corner of his eye to the right. Turning back, he saw one of his swordsmen rolling on the ground, clutching at his neck. The snow around his head was already pink and red, steam was rising up from the frost and ice there. For a moment, his eyes caught focus on a whispy snakelike form arcing through the air, back into the falling snow.
Pulling a fire-enchanted arrow from the quiver at his side, he let his eyes blur slightly in order to catch irregular movement in the swirling mists. Just as he did he caught sight of a similar form sliding into his men from the fog – and in a split second he unleashed the arrow to see a satisfying burst of flame following what appeared to be a tentacle of air back out of sight, and to hear a howl over the wind.
“Strike that thing – now!” He called. His two closest swordsmen whipped their blades across the length of the reaching appendage, while another archer sent a volley of two shots back towards its source. The first sword struck, and for a moment held, while the second one severed the thing completely – and with a tinkling of crystal, the writhing limb became a shower of tiny icicles falling to the ground. The howling in the mist came to an abrupt halt.
Even as he turned his attention back to where he’d heard the horn, Diran called out “Portal!” over a sudden wind-gust. The wind was sweeping wisps of snow and ice through a circular opening in the air before the magician, who promptly dove into it with his companions.
“Team, evacuate – Joergg, take Goran’s satchel!” Azrael fell back to the hole, arrow nocked and ready, watching as the human dragged the satchel of poisons away from the body of the fallen swordsman. When he looked back, a great stout column of something slammed into the ground just behind Kamaran, who was hastening back to the portal. With stunned shock, Azrael realized it was a great leg, as if belonging to some mutated oversized oliphaunt – he could not see the body of it, it was so high, only a vague shadowy outline. Even before a warning could exit his lips, an enormous white claw dipped down from the skies and severed Kamaran’s head and left shoulder from his body, pulping the man’s chest within his armor. The gasping head and grasping hand both fell to the snow, where they began to immediately coat with ice. For a moment, it almost seemed a crimson rain was drizzling from the grey and windy sky. The claw withdrew, carrying the twitching remainder of the body to some unknown fate above his ability to see.
A fact for which Azrael was thoroughly grateful.
The last of his men through the portal, Azrael threw himself headlong out into moonlight and warmth – looking back quickly, he saw indeterminate humanoid shapes forming out of the mists, charging towards their former position with weapons of gleaming crystal. As quickly as they appeared, the portal snapped shut behind him. The sound of wind in trees, insects, and night was such a sudden change that he felt momentarily disoriented.
“Everyone alright? Is anyone injured?” He looked around, to quickly find that the only injuries his team had suffered were the fatal ones back in the Feywild.
“Rest up. Make camp here. Gods know you need it.” As two of the men gathered wood for a fire, he conferred with Diran.
“Did we arrive in the right place? Where are we?”
“Yes – we’re about two hours’ march from the village of Escombe, just Northwest of here.” Diran finally allowed himself to look as exhausted as he felt.
“Good job, then. That side trip might have cost me two men, but we’ve covered two hundred and fifty leagues in a night. Not something Arkhosia will be expecting. Get some rest.” He turned back to the glimmerings of the campfire. “Someone darken that fire. Kama…Joergg, you’re on first watch with me. The rest of you, get some sleep.”
It was some hours before the image of Kamaran’s wordless mouthings left his mind. It would be several hours more before one of his men would work up the courage to tell him he still had the man’s blood crusted on his face.
