Hunched atop Brek was a creature out of nightmare. It was larger than a man but translucent, and its blue radiance filled the small room. It seemed to waver before his eyes, and its lack of definition made it challenging to ascertain its true features, but Eskaras had the impression of a skeletal form swathed in some billowing, gossamer substance. He could not tell if it crouched or floated over the thrashing guard. Its elongated head hung low between bony shoulders, leering close to Brek, and tapered talons seemed to sink into the man’s flesh without drawing blood.
At Eskaras’s cry, the monstrosity swung its head to face him, and he found himself staring into bottomless eye sockets above a wide, gaping grin that bristled with crooked fangs. It showed no concern at his presence, but instead regarded him with a savage anticipation that made his flesh crawl. It’s a coldwraith, he thought in shock. His grandmother had scared him with tales of such things when he was a lad, and he had always thought her daft.
Eskaras leveled his crossbow and fired. He felt a surge of satisfaction as the bolt flew true to strike the coldwraith between the eyes, but then he quailed as it passed harmlessly through to shatter on the stone wall beyond. He recalled his grandmother’s assertion that iron would discomfit a coldwraith, but only a magical weapon could slay one.
The creature’s eyes-or rather the depthless hollows where its eyes should have been-narrowed in anger, and it whirled and swept toward him in one fluid motion. He stumbled back from it as a gaunt arm lashed out at him, trailing that swirling, diaphanous material. He tried to block the strike with his raised arms, but the talons passed through leather, chain and flesh alike without leaving a mark, and left a biting cold behind. His crossbow tumbled from nerveless fingers, his unwilling muscles convulsing as he fell back. The creature flowed over him to perch weightless upon his chest, and its horrid face filled his vision. The aching cold pierced him like daggers of ice, and he went rigid in agony. The wraith inhaled deeply as if savoring the scent of a rich meal. Eskaras’s limbs grew heavier, and he watched in horror as the life force was drawn from his body in vaporous strands and wafted into the toothy maw above him.
From the corner of his rolling eyes, Eskaras saw an unsteady Brek regain his feet, his sword still in knotted fist. Run, you thick-headed lummox, Eskaras thought fiercely, but he could not force a word past his clenched jaws. Brek lurched forward and sent his sword in a whistling arc through the creature, but as with the crossbow bolt, it passed through without resistance. Eskaras felt the flow of life from him cease as the thing turned its head toward the other man. Brek spun on his heel and left the bastion at an awkward run.
“I will draw it off!” Brek shouted over his shoulder. “Ring the bell, sound the alarm!”
The coldwraith glided after his friend, sinuous and swift, its unnatural grace a mockery of the cold-stiffened movements of its prey. The creature’s eerie blue glow went with it, and some of the chill faded from the room. Shivering, Eskaras rolled over and pushed himself to his hands and knees. He tried to rise, but his jerking muscles betrayed him and he fell to the flagstones again. He heaved himself up with curse. He braced himself against the bastion’s doorway, and by the time he reached a standing position, he was mastering his wayward limbs once more.
Too long, he thought, frantic. It is taking much too long! And, as he raised his eyes, his fears were confirmed.
The coldwraith returned, flowing into the bastion and blocking his path to the alarm bell. A quick glance out onto the battlement showed Brek, fallen not half a dozen paces past the arch, lifeless eyes staring in mute apology.
Eskaras drew his sword and faced the creature. He had seen the awful speed of the thing firsthand; if he tried to escape, it would run him down as it had Brek, and he could not bypass it to reach the bell in this confined space. He set his jaw and tightened his grip on his weapon. It was time to prove Brek wrong about his aim for the second time tonight. In a sudden movement, he twisted and then uncoiled, hurling the sword with all his strength. It spun through the creature without contact and without altering its trajectory, whirling through the air, the polished steel flashing blue and gold fire in turn. The weapon flew true, and it struck the brass bell with a resounding clang, setting up further clamor as the bell rocked and the clapper inside rang against its sides.
Distant shouts erupted from below, and Eskaras smiled in grim satisfaction; it had worked better than he dared hope. His fellow guards would come, and the thing would not be free to make its way into the city.
The coldwraith’s eye pits narrowed, as if it understood what he had done. Perhaps it did, he thought. Perhaps there was intelligence behind its relentless malice. He had no way of knowing.
It rushed at him. He tried to spit in its face as it came, but the cold was upon him again, and his jaws were clenched so hard he feared his teeth would shatter. Something struck him hard in the back, and he realized the world had tilted without him realizing, and the floor had risen to meet him. Pain and exhaustion swept over and cut through him, and everything disappeared beneath a tide of darkness.
They attacked as night fell. Amric and Valkarr waited on the slope of the crag, standing just far enough apart that nothing could pass between them without coming within range of their dual blades. Amric breathed, slow and even, his mind clear and his senses extending to embrace this latest battleground. Further up the slope, at the foot of the sheer forward face of the crag, he could hear the snorts and stamping hooves of the frightened horses, and Halthak murmuring low words to soothe them as he held tight to their reins. Of Bellimar he could hear nothing, but he felt the old man’s presence up there as well, as still as the rock about him.
He and Valkarr had recognized the bloodbeasts the moment they broke from the trees, having fought their ilk before back home. They would fall before mundane weapons more readily than the infernal black things of the morning, but there were also more of them. They fought in a pack, and were deadly for entirely different reasons. Amric hoped the healer and the old man would prove able to restrain the horses during the impending battle, for the creatures that were coming would not ignore them as the black things had done, and these could rip a defenseless steed to shreds in a matter of moments.
Scrabbling for purchase, the mass of wiry, twisting bodies swarmed up the rocky slope, seeking to crash over the two warriors like a wave clawing at the sand. Confident their quarry was now cornered, the creatures abandoned the wraith-like silence of the hunt and gave voice to snarls and eager mewling. As always, he could not decide if their movements were more reminiscent of a wolf or a great cat, for they had attributes of each and seemed some wretched combination of both. As they neared, he saw their glistening, blood-slicked forms, as if mortal predators had somehow shed their outer hides. By their grisly appearance, they should have left scarlet droplets and paw prints with every step, but none of the moisture, their sustenance, escaped them. The telltale shimmering in the night air above their backs marked the slender tentacles lashing there, sharp at the edges and wickedly efficient at drawing the blood of their prey. Amric waited, head held low and forward to protect his face and eyes.
Then the bloodbeasts were upon them, and there was no more time for study. The one in the lead launched at Amric, slavering jaws open wide. One sword swept up to shear through flesh and bone, dropping the creature without a sound, and the other darted forward to pierce the breast of the next fiend hot on its heels. A dark form hurtled by him as he freed his weapons, and filament-like tentacles caressed his forearm, leaving a stinging wetness in their wake. He felt a familiar surge of revulsion as he saw rivulets of his blood lift away from the wound and drift through the air to join the ghastly coating of his attacker. The bloodbeast emitted a frenzied whine of pleasure. Spinning to one side, he cut it down before it could get behind him, avoiding the lunge of another and hacking the front legs from beneath yet another. Beside him, Valkarr was shifting back and forth, unerring intuition guiding his footing as the press of straining, crimson forms broke against the web of steel he wove before him.