Chapter 17 - Part 7

It was still daytime, technically, but the high walls of the hidden pass through the Icehorn Mountains guaranteed that it was always dark unless it was actually around noon. A bitter wind blew, sending snow gusting along, hampering vision.

Strongest One stood atop a boulder, trying to see through the sleet. In life he had been a huntsman who had taken a dare, and his companions had become food. He did not remember this much, nor did he care. He was born dead, born with hunger, rising up from where the others had slain him.

“Something comes,” sniffed another. Like Strongest One, this one had desiccated flesh drawn tight across its bones, and eyes burning wild with malevolence. He really could not smell, like all undead his lungs were dead lumps of tissue, but it was habit from when he had been a living thing.

“Demon?” squeaked another one, this one shorter than the others. This one had tattoos on his face from when it was part of the snow goblin tribe that had wandered too far and become food.

They all crouched at that word, having learned the hard way not to approach the masters of the blasted land at the other end of the pass, but the sniffer shook his head. “A rider and a horse,” it said, drawing its lips back from its needle-like teeth.

“We go now!” snarled Strongest One. “It is too cold to wait!”

The group of six wights stood up and charged, heading with the wind to the succulent morsels ahead. They heard the horse whinnying.

The rider of the horse saw them coming before they saw the rider, and a pair of flasks went tumbling through the air to meet them. Both broke on the nose of the wight who liked sniffing, and he howled as the holy water burnt through his face. The others snarled with hatred, pushing past him, trying to get at the horse and the rider.

The horse kicked out, its hooves somehow enchanted, tearing the short wight across the head. The rider had dropped back her cloak, revealing herself to be a female bugbear with a scar on one cheek. The bugbear held up a silvery arrowhead with a flame carved onto it, and began chanting.

A light burst forth, a silvery, painful light, a thing that grabbed the wights at their core and made them run. They forgot about their hunger, forgot about their horseflesh, and shrieked, running from that light. Every wight that tried to advance was met again with the raised symbol, and a slivery flame that promised death to their kind. After two strong presentations of the symbol they were fleeing heedlessly, chased by the rider now as they ran from her glowing symbol.

The symbol was not her only weapon. The bugbear fired a small hand crossbow at them as she pursued them, her mount easily keeping pace with the creatures. Each dart possessed only a mild sting, but several stings add up. After a half-mile of running, the wights had lost two of their number, including the sniffer, and had twice been subject to the painful, threatening silvery flame when they lagged.

The wight that had been a snow goblin a year or so ago was the first to dart for the cave as they arrived to it. He knocked aside the snow on netting that disguised the opening and rolled on in, heading to the back where the bones and the fire pit were. Another two followed after him, and those two pushed the boulder blocking the entry into place.

Strongest One stopped, pounding on the boulder, but they ignored him. He turned to face the bugbear, his teeth bared.

The bugbear dismounted smoothly and opened a pack as it kept its holy symbol held up high. “You made me use all my hand crossbow bolts,” it said casually, rifling through the pack. “Guess I’m not a good enough rider to aim well at a trot.”

Strongest One hit the boulder again, and then crept backwards. That stabbing light from the symbol made it hard to plan. “You go away now, we don’t eat you!” the wight bluffed, hoping that this bugbear would go away and leave him be.

“The Silver Flame does not shrink before evil,” the bugbear said, withdrawing a flask from the bag. “And neither do I.” It whipped the flask straight at Strongest One, catching him on the leg. The holy water that burst all over his leg burned terribly.

Strongest One howled and began to run, staggering on his wounded leg. Then a javelin went through him. He stopped to pull it out, but the silvery light rose again, driving him to his knees.

A longsword forged from flametouched iron was bursting through his chest before he could realize that the bugbear had walked up behind him.