by T. H. Lain
The gnoll hurled the heavy weapon far across the snow, yelping as the edge cut deeper into its palms. Regdar, weaponless but not helpless, drove a fist into the gnoll's throat. The gnoll lurched backward, trying to defend itself with its bleeding hands. Regdar responded by kicking its armored belly, knocking the gnoll onto its back. He was about to reclaim his greatsword when the other gnolls attacked him from behind.
A studded mace struck Regdar's left shoulder, cracking the bone. Regdar whirled about to face the attacker and tried to punch the gnoll, but it caught his fist in its free hand and twisted. The pain dropped the fighter to his knees. Another of the beasts wrapped its long fingers around Regdar's neck and squeezed, emitting a snarl of victory as it did so. A third gnoll pinned Regdar's struggling hands and arms from behind. Regdar would have screamed from the pain in his shoulder, but the grip on his neck was too tight. The human gulped desperately for air, neck muscles straining to keep his windpipe open.
Relief came when Hennet's spell hit the gnoll that was strangling Regdar. The gnoll released its grip and stumbled back in time for another missile to catch it mid stride. The creature's smoking corpse collapsed at Regdar's feet.
The gnoll with the studded mace raised the weapon to smash Regdar's skull, but Sonja stepped behind it and snapped its knee with a well-placed blow from her cudgel. The monster tumbled backward, and the cudgel cracked its forehead on the way down. The gnoll that held Regdar by the arms pulled away immediately, letting Regdar's inert form collapse to the ground. Near panic, it fled directly toward Hennet and his short spear. The gnoll dodged and twisted past the sorcerer. Hennet turned and tossed the spear, hitting the gnoll in the back and bringing it down. The sorcerer ran and yanked his weapon from the living flesh then drove it hard into the fallen gnoll's outstretched neck.
Moments later, the spell that held Lidda wore off, and she suddenly finished cocking her crossbow with a lurch.
"I missed the battle," she lamented. "I didn't do you any good."
"Don't blame yourself for that," Hennet told her. "It could have happened to any one of us."
Lidda turned around and surveyed the carnage that lay all about the snowy, bloodstained field. Regdar was sprawled across the corpses of two gnolls with Sonja kneeling at his side and grasping his wrist.
"Will he be all right?" Lidda asked, the worry clear in her voice.
"I think so," the druid replied, though there was uncertainty on her face, "but I have much work to do."
4
They pitched the tents early. Hennet, wounded by the gnoll priest's spiritual weapon, rested in a tent with Lidda while Sonja worked her spells on Regdar in the other. Sonja needed a certain amount of quiet for her spells to work. They only hoped that their fire wouldn't attract unwanted attention from gnolls or anything else. In their favor was the near-white out condition. Between the haze and blowing snow, visibility was almost gone. It was only Sonja's excellent sense of direction that would keep them on the right path from that point on.
Lidda was cleaning the crusted gnoll blood from Regdar's greatsword when Hennet asked, "How long have you known Regdar?"
"Quite a while," Lidda said, looking up from the sword. "We were both fledgling adventurers when we first met. I was having some problems with the militia in a small town. Regdar and another friend, a priest named Jozan, helped me out. He saved my life, but don't tell him I said so."
"Then you owe Regdar," Hennet suggested. "Do you travel with him out of obligation?"
"Not at all. I travel with him because I like him. Everyone becomes his friend in time. You will too; there's no reason you shouldn't. He's not as immediately likeable these days as he once was. Lately," she confessed, "I've been concerned about him. He's not the same as he was when we first met."
"I've been meaning to ask you something," Hennet said. "An indelicate question, to be sure…"
"Could that be," Lidda responded, "what's with him? Why is he so abrupt? Doesn't he ever say 'please'? Is he always like that?"
"I would have put it more diplomatically," said Hennet, "but yes."
Lidda considered before answering. "He can't be with somebody he loves."
"I know how that feels."
"But you're with the person you love," she said, pointing to Sonja's tent through the snow. Hennet twitched.
"Sonja, yes, but in the past it's happened that…" Hennet trailed off, suddenly unsure of how to finish his sentence. He changed the subject. "Does Regdar always fight so rashly, rushing into danger like that? I'm surprised he's lived this long."
"No," Lidda replied. "That's something new since Naull disappeared. I'm worried about him. Naull's disappearance has had a real effect on him, that's for sure. I guess he feels disconnected from other people, even me. I'm worried this behavior might get really get him hurt."
"You say I'll get to like him in the end?" asked Hennet.
"I guarantee it," said Lidda with a smile.
"Say," said Hennet, "we've discussed the romantic status of the rest of our little party. What about you?"
This surprised Lidda. Her stature often made humans, Regdar included, forget that she was an adult woman. For Hennet to bring it up now touched her greatly.
"Most of the men I meet are just a little too tall for me," she said. "Really, they couldn't even kiss me without making themselves look ridiculous. But if you should happen to know any available men of any race who happen to be under four feet tall…"
Their laughter echoed across the stark white landscape.
Across the camp in the other tent, Regdar awoke from the magically induced sleep Sonja had placed on him. His eyes crept open and beheld the face of an angelic being of light. The wind outside howled threateningly, but Regdar felt safe and sheltered from the storm. Sonja's once-immaculate white robes were splattered with bloodstains, but this did little to diminish the feeling of peace she inspired in Regdar. Her smooth, white features, her smile, open yet mysterious… he was enraptured. Never, not even at their tenderest moment, had he seen Naull the way he was seeing Sonja now-healer, druid, warrior, angel.
"Welcome back, Regdar," she said. "That was some fight."
"Yes, it was," the fighter replied. "Is everyone all right? How's Lidda?"
"Safe. Uninjured. Hennet took a few thumps from the gnoll priest's magical morning star, but he's fine now, too."
Regdar ran his hand over his neck and shoulder. The pain was nearly gone. "My sword?" he asked.
"We have it. You know, Regdar, if you keep fighting like that, you might find yourself beyond all my spells next time."
"They would have killed Lidda," he explained. "She was helpless. I did what needed to be done."
"I know, Regdar, I know, but in the future, please, an ounce of caution." She smiled down at him, and he gave up all resistance.
Her hand was on his chest. Regdar felt close to her indeed.
This was the first time they'd been together away from Hennet. He felt a warm rush of embarrassment. When Jozan healed him all those times, it was a quick, dutiful thing, then it was back to the fray. Now, supine and incapacitated under Sonja's tender care, he felt his cheeks burn red.
Part of him liked it quite a lot.
When Sonja healed his leg at the bridge, Regdar thought that it felt different from ordinary healing, more personal somehow. Now he was sure of it. In a way that was hard to express, he felt Sonja must have put something of herself into him. The closeness of it touched him deeply.
"We should get going," Regdar said, reaching for his armor only to cringe at a lingering pain in his shoulder.
"No you don't," said Sonja, gently pushing him down. "It's getting dark. We're here for the night. The Fell Forest isn't far off, if Hennet reads the maps right. Tomorrow we should reach what I think is the center of this cold zone. There we should find whatever brought on this 'plague of ice,' as the gnoll called it. I like its turn of phrase. It suggests contagion."
Something sank inside Regdar, and he felt a profound insignifi
cance amid the scope of this crisis.
"Sonja, let me ask you something."
"Anything."
"Before we met on Berron Bridge, Lidda asked me about something she called an ice age. Sages say that this whole world was covered in ice in ancient times. She wondered if this was the same thing happening all over again. I didn't think so at the time, but now I'm starting to wonder. I don't know what to think. Is this some sort of replay of the distant past? The beginning of a new ice age?"
"I'm not a sage," Sonja responded, "and I don't know much more about ancient times than you. Maybe the world was covered in ice during some forgotten era. If it was, I promise you, it was a natural phenemon. I do know that nature is a pendulum. Sometimes it swings toward chaos and evil, sometimes toward order and goodness. It could just as easily fluctuate between heat and cold. But what's beyond these tent walls is not natural. It offends nature, and it offends me.
The druid reflected for a few moments before continuing. "Can I share something with you? It's something I haven't shown the others yet. I'm afraid it might unnerve them. I don't want to alarm them with something that I don't entirely understand myself."
Regdar nodded eagerly.
"I discovered this earlier." She reached beneath her robe and pulled out a small, delicate flower, cold violet in color.
"What is it?" asked Regdar.
"Cryotallis. When I was a little girl I called them 'snowblooms' and never picked them. I found it poking its sad head over the layer of snow, just as snowblooms always do."
"What's the problem?" the warrior asked.
"Snowbloom grows where I came from, in the glacial lands of the far north. It does not grow here. It cannot. Furthermore-" she looked at the little blossom-"this flower shows weeks of growth. The cold zone was not at this extentweeks ago. This flower should not be here."
A chill passed between the druid and the fighter. He did not have to ask her the implications of this. He understood them all too well.
Truly, foul magic was at work.
5
The wind came up in the night, howling across the snowy plains, a mournful noise like the earth itself crying out in pain. The thin felt of the tents proved woefully inadequate against the snow, so the travelers abandoned them. They turned the tents into a windbreak and huddled around the fire for warmth, keeping a watch while trying desperately to get some sleep. Adventurers learned to sleep through such distractions, but this night, it proved nearly impossible. The snow piled so thick that it threatened to bury them. Only Regdar slept well, probably owing to Sonja's spells. He lay still the entire night, neither tossing nor turning, though Lidda was sure that at one point he uttered the name "Naull."
"If we died out here," Hennet whispered to whoever else might still be awake, "do you think anybody would ever find our corpses?"
"Maybe someday they'll thaw our bodies out of a block of solid ice," said Lidda. "The sages of the future will put us on display in their studies. We'll be their only proof of life before the 'big freeze'."
"Is that's what happening here?" Hennet asked. "The freezing of the entire world? The death of mankind?"
"And halfling kind," added Lidda. "Not to mention gnomes and elves. Dwarves might he all right, what with…"
"No." The interjection came from Sonja. "Life will survive, even if civilization dies."
"Sure," joked Hennet. "We can all become mammoth herders."
"Believe it," said Sonja. "Humans can adapt to living in almost anything, including this kind of cold. My parents did it. Others can do it."
"Untold thousands will die," protested Lidda.
"And their offspring will never know a world hut this. They will he hardened stock, and they will endure. When I visited the druid circle to which my parents once belonged in the great southern forests, I met some druids who prayed for just such a disaster to come along to remove the blight of civilization and return mankind to the level of nature."
"Good to know somebody's happy about this," Hennet said, his voice thick with disgust.
"Not this," answered Sonja. "This is not nature."
"So you keep saying," asked Lidda, "but how can you know?"
"Yes," asked Hennet. "Not that I don't trust your instincts in this matter, but how can you tell this is some magical abomination and not some cruel quirk of nature?"
"I can't explain how I know," said Sonja, "but I do know."
This she said with such conviction nobody questioned her further.
The three of them tried fruitlessly to get back to sleep.
At length, Lidda spoke again. She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the cold sun was creeping over the horizon, and the fire was burned down to coals.
"Do you know who this benefits?" she asked. "White dragons. I bet our big, white friend out there is behind all of this."
"What do you think, Sonja?" said Hennet. "Is it possible?"
The druid shrugged. "White dragons are dangerous enemies, vicious and unpredictable. Some of them bury themselves in their lairs for centuries on end, caring for nothing but their hoards. I once watched a single white dragon slave rear back and destroy a half-dozen of its frost giant masters when one of them kicked it. But they're not known as planners. To be responsible for this, that white dragon would have to be far more intelligent than average. Or it had help."
Over the roar of the wind came a new sound, a distant, high-pitched howl. Hennet started. "What was that?"
"Probably nothing to worry about," said Sonja. "Just a wolf."
"Nothing else is normal here," Hennet said. "Why should the wolves be?" Already he was out from under his wool blankets and preparing himself for battle. This roused Regdar, who poked his head out, scratching his forehead.
"What's going on?"
"The mighty sorcerer heard a wolf," Lidda joked.
"Is that all?" asked Regdar and put his head down again.
"Now you laugh," said Hennet, "but we've seen the way nature is being stirred up. We don't know how a wolf would react to us."
"I wouldn't worry," said Sonja. "I have a certain way with wolves."
"There they are now," said Hennet. Gray and black forms stalked through the white haze, their wiry legs pacing through the snow, some with their muzzles lowered to the ground and sniffing for new scents. They were fairly close but seemed to be keeping their distance. One looked over at the party, giving them only a quick glance before looking away.
"Quick, let's move," said Sonja. Her voice was calm but urgent. "We're not far from those gnoll bodies. The wolves probably picked up the scent and are here to scavenge them. It's best we leave now."
In record time they dismantled their camp and were ready to move. They plodded through the deep snow under Sonja's leadership, leaving the wolves far behind.
"You're sure we're going the right direction?" asked Lidda. "We can't see the forest or the mountains anymore, so how can you be sure we're headed toward the Fell Forest?"
"You'll have to trust me on this," answered Sonja. "My direction sense is good, even in a blizzard."
"We don't have much choice," said Lidda. "If we're going to move at all, someone needs to pick a way."
High above, the sun inched across the sky, a bright spot plastered onto the cotton clouds. The wolf howls kept up from behind, seemingly drawing closer. One wolf followed them, and Sonja couldn't explain why. If the pack was feeding on the gnoll corpses, why would one shadow them? Though Sonja said nothing, her expression became more puzzled as the hours went by. In time they reached a set of low, snow-covered hills.
"These weren't marked on my map," said Regdar.
"Nor mine," Hennet agreed. "I'll have to share some strong words with the mapmaker when we get back. Assuming he's still alive."
"Can we go around?" asked Regdar.
"We might waste more time doing that than going straight across," Sonja said. "There may be valleys we could get through more quickly than traipsing over every hill. Let's spend some time seeking them out."
The occasional, eerie, wolf howl in the distance broke the silence.
"Something's not right," Sonja said. "Something's stirring them up and it's not just the weather."
When the wolves howled to the south, the marchers veered north. When they heard wolves howling in the west, they turned east. Soon they found themselves hopelessly off track so that even Sonja's vaunted sense of direction seemed to be confounded. The clouds were so thick that no sign could be seen of the sun itself, not even a brighter portion of the sky. All was uniform and gray.
"Maybe we should stop avoiding these wolves," suggested Hennet. "They'll move if we come too near, won't they?"
"Normally, they would," agreed Sonja, "but I don't want to risk it. I suspect they're under outside influence of some kind. I don't know what it is. Maybe a lycanthrope or a vampire that has influence over wolves. Maybe something else. In any case, I don't want to face a whole wolf pack in this terrain and after yesterday's fight."
So they trudged on, weaving from east to west, until their path led them over a low ridge and the valley they sought opened before them.
"Let's hurry," Sonja advised. "I'll be happy to put these wolves behind me."
The floor of the valley was deep with snow, almost up to their knees, and the surrounding hills channeled the wind so blowing snow constantly pelted their faces. Still, the level ground was easier going than hiking across the ridges. The farther they went, the more jagged, rocky, and rugged the hills around them became. Sheer cliffs lined the valley walls. Occasionally these were cut by snow-drifted ravines. At points it ceased to be a valley so much as a canyon that twisted and wound its way through the hills, but mostly proceeded in what Sonja assured them was still the proper direction.