Kadrigul remembered seeing the structure from the hillside above and how Soran had circled it on horseback in a short time. The man was right. They should have come out by now. Even the few forks in the path had not bent them around enough to walk in a circle. Something was wrong.
"Keep going," he told them.
The man who had spoken looked to the other Creel. The others all seemed to look to the man nearest Kadrigul, the one holding the other torch. He swallowed and stood straight. "No, my lord. We go no further. This is madness."
Kadrigul swept his sword out and forward in an arc aimed for the man's belly, but he was ready for it and jumped back. Kadrigul's blade glanced off the wall in a small shower of blue sparks.
All the Creel had swords drawn now. They fanned across the path three across, with the two torchbearers behind.
"Please lord!" their leader called out. "Not this! I beg you. We mean no disrespect. But this… this is madness. This is no place for men. Can you not feel it?"
The wind had picked up. Not strong, but a good steady breeze. As it cut its way through the shards, the entire structure whistled, and damned if Kadrigul couldn't hear a music in it-a soft, sad song, almost a lament, that sang of cold and ice and the darkness between the stars.
"We go on," Kadrigul said.
"Please, lord…"
The man in front of him, the only one holding his sword with a steady hand, dropped his eyes and said, "Please."
Kadrigul heard a swiiisht, like someone swinging a green twig through the air, then one of the torchbearers fell backward screaming. His torch went down fire first into the snow and snuffed out in a small cloud of hissing steam.
The other Creel screamed and leaped away. Kadrigul saw something long, thin, and dark wrapped around him, snaking across one shoulder near his neck then under the opposite arm. Curved thorns, some half as long as a man's finger, sprouted from it, shredding the Creel's thick clothes and biting into the flesh beneath.
Kadrigul's gaze followed the line of the vine through the snow beyond. Just where the light from the last torch and glowing shards ended, Kadrigul saw a small figure, no taller than a halfling, but scantily dressed in strips of fur and leather. One of the hunters that had attacked them in the hills. It held the vine in gloved fists and watched them through eyes that glowed with a feral light. A long cap festooned with bones and feathers dangled from one shoulder. The creature saw Kadrigul watching him, then hissed, dropped the vine, and fled back into the dark. But rather than going slack, the vine tightened.
The Creel screamed in agony, his cries drowning out those of his terrified companions, as he was dragged away into the dark, leaving a trail of bloody snow behind him. There was no way such a little creature as that hunter could pull away a full-grown man. Something else was in the dark.
The roar of a tiger hit them, so loud that Kadrigul felt his teeth rattle.
Still screaming, the Creel scattered, two heading off together down a side path, one going down another, and the remaining torchbearer bounding past Kadrigul. He let him go. The more distractions the better.
But the man had taken the light with him.
Kadrigul was alone in the dark.
Kadrigul had lived most of his life in the far north, in lands where summer came colder than most winters in southern lands. In winter, night could last for months. To stay alive, to thrive in lands that would kill even the hardiest of Nar, his people had learned to survive the cold and hunt the dark.
Once his eyes adjusted, he found that he could see quite well. In this high country, the stars seemed very close, and their stark light reflected off the snow and the great shards that thrust up from the ground like fallen watchtowers. It was the shadows between that gave him pause.
He followed the trail of the two Creel, but he took his time, not rushing around corners or past a crossing where anything could be hiding behind the shards. The screams of the men had continued for a long time as they ran. The ones in front of him soon grew weak with distance. But Kadrigul distinctly heard one from behind him cut off abruptly. The tiger did not roar again; he had no idea where it was.
Kadrigul rounded a corner and saw that the snow in front of him was scattered all the way across the path and stained dark. Steam rose from it. Blood. He could smell it. Pushed up against the bottom of one of the shards was a wet, grayish pile that, by the smell, Kadrigul knew were entrails. But no body.
One set of tracks continued beyond. Two other pathways led off to either side, but there were no tracks. The snow was pure and untouched.
Kadrigul heard a skittering overhead and looked up. He saw a dark shape against the sky, a quick glimpse of two glowing eyes, and then they shot out of sight.
He leaped over the blood-no sense in picking up its scent-and took the left path, his feet trudging through the unbroken snow.
He took the first path to the left he found, then two more to the right, hoping to throw off pursuit but still moving away from where the first Creel had been taken.
Kadrigul sheathed his sword and went to the shard leaning at the greatest angle. He went to the back of it and tried to climb. No luck. It was dry as bone, but slick. He could make it no more than a few feet off the ground before sliding back down.
A tiger roared. Kadrigul froze. It was some distance away, but still loud enough that he could feel the shard vibrating under his hands. It was the deep, bone-rattling roar that tigers used to stun their enemies. It roared again, but this time the roar ended in a fierce growl. The tiger had caught whatever it was after. Time to move.
Kadrigul forsook the path and began to weave through the shards themselves, but he soon regretted his decision. In places, the bases of the shards ran together at odd angles, making it hard to find proper footing. In open ground between them, the snow was often knee deep. Either way, he'd be at a disadvantage if it came to a fight.
As soon as he found a path again, he took it.
He heard the tiger again. Not roaring or growling this time. It was a great scream of anguish, high-pitched and almost pitiful. But it was still behind him. He moved on.
Kadrigul soon came to a wide part in the path, where the great shards all leaned away, forming a fence in the shape of a long V. The moon had not yet risen over the mountains, but the stars shone down, their light reflecting off the snow and shards so brightly that Kadrigul cast a long blue shadow at his feet.
Ahead, the path took a sharp turn to the right. He was halfway there when a small figure stepped out from between the shards, blocking his path. One of the little hunters. The creature's eyes glowed with a frosty light.
Kadrigul stopped a half-dozen paces from the creature. Even in the starlight, he could see its skin had a bluish tint, and the ears protruding from the rim of the cap were far too sharp. The creature spread both hands outward, almost as if proffering himself, and Kadrigul saw that something was wrapped around him, from his fingertips all the way to his shoulders.
The creature smiled, showing sharp teeth, and flicked both wrists. A length of vine fell and coiled in the snow at his feet, and as it hit the ground, soft tendrils along its length stiffened into sharp thorns. The same whiplike weapon that had taken the first Creel.
Kadrigul turned. Another of the creatures was blocking the path behind him-this one holding a spear that was twice his own height. He heard rustling above and looked. More of the creatures were perched on the shards above, like birds on a ship's rigging, looking down on him with their glowing eyes. He counted four on one side and three on the other. Nine in all.
"So be it," Kadrigul said, and drew his sword.
The creature who had first blocked his path began swinging the thorn-covered vines, one in each hand, twirling them in intricate patterns to each side and over his head, cutting the air and sending up clouds of snow as they hissed over the ground. Kadrigul had no shield, so he held his empty scabbard in his off hand, ready to block the vines.