Attackers

Attackers

chapter 5

I

In front of D soared an almost perfectly vertical wall of rock and snow. From here on out, his limbs would serve as his only tools for the climb.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll manage,” his left hand muttered sleepily. “It’s a good three hundred yards up to the rocky spot where that aircraft crash-landed. There’s no lack of bumps and crevices to wrap your fingers around. The problem is over there.”

Around two hundred yards from the top, the rockface jutted out more than thirty feet.

“That’s not a problem for you. The real enemy—” the hoarse voice gave a yawn, “—is this.”

Something white came to rest on the palm of his left hand, then abruptly vanished. A snowflake.

D turned to his right—northwest. Darkness was busy blanketing the sky. Like a strange gas, dark clouds were spreading toward them.

“From the look of that, inside of ten minutes this mountain’s gonna be looking at a blizzard—or more like a hurricane of snow. Dangerous even for me. Good luck! Hurry up and wake me from this sleep.”

“Now we’re ready to start a little cold-weather training before winter sets in.”

Silence descended. Then, a shocked voice inquired in a tone that might even be described as solemn, “That right there . . . Was that a . . . a joke?”

Saying nothing, D lowered the backpack from his shoulder and took out a single iron piton. Clenching it in his teeth, he approached the rockface. Apparently he’d already decided where he would start his climb.

Oh, but D was a sight to see! To climb a vertical wall of rock usually required a hammer, pitons, and vast quantities of rope. D challenged this rock wall with no rope to save him from a fall, no hammer to drive in pitons, and no more than that one piton, for that matter. It wasn’t even clear if he intended to use it. In fact, he kept the piton between his teeth and reached out for the rock wall with both hands. If anyone had been there to see him, they’d likely have let out an admiring sigh. His hands reached for the rock, and without seeming to apply any force at all, he began climbing smoothly. Smoothly? Hell, he began to climb that vertical rockface like a reptile that’d lived on that wall for millennia.

A hundred yards up, he reached the stony overhang. Not reducing speed in the slightest, he moved on to the underside of the rock. His fingers caught hold of the tiniest protrusions and reached into the faintest depressions. All his actions were carried out with lightning speed. Clinging to one knob, he reached his right hand out and touched another outcropping. The rock fell away beneath him. The Hunter arched his upper body like a bow. D moved with ungodly speed. Taking the piton from between his teeth with his left hand, he jammed it into the rockface. Of the footlong piece of iron, all but just enough to grip sank into the surface of the rock. Like a black bagworm, D hung there by one arm, but a heartbeat later his body became a spring, and he stuck to the rockface. Less than two seconds later, he began to move again.

After climbing another hundred yards, he found his back hammered by snowy winds that seemed to have been waiting just for him.

“Pretty much . . . made it . . . eh?” his left hand remarked torpidly. It sounded like someone babbling in their sleep. The wind and snow scattered the words.

–

D was standing on a fairly wide rock shelf. The emotion that should’ve been radiating from every inch of a gorgeous young man at such a moment wasn’t evident in the least. Not even struggling for breath, without a single hint of emotion in his eyes, D was staring straight ahead—at an object that rested on its side about twenty yards away. With one wing sheared off and its fuselage crumpled, the savaged aircraft bore faint resemblance to its original form. He had finally arrived.

Heading toward it, D was walking across rock still bearing the scars of the crash landing when a faint sound reached his ears. Gunshots. For only a second he halted, turning his face toward the edge of the rock shelf, but he immediately turned back again and resumed walking forward.

–

After less than an hour of waiting at the base of the collapsed ridge, the group came under attack by the mountain folk. On seeing how few of them there were, the attackers should have unleashed a fierce fusillade—but they didn’t. This wasn’t like back on the snowfields. Here avalanches had to be taken into consideration. Instead, arrows rained down on them. Not surprisingly, both Lilia and Dust were able to deflect any that looked likely to hit themselves, but Dust had to protect Vera and Lourié as well. As he was defending them with javelin and axe, an arrow took him through the shoulder. Lilia clucked her tongue.

“Set up the refuge,” Vera called out to her.

“No can do on this slope. Not enough room for its footprint. It’d fall down the ravine!”

“Should we charge ’em?”

Lilia grinned at Crey’s suggestion. “Can you see who we’re fighting?”

She was entirely correct. No matter how carefully they looked, they could see no sign of anyone out in the endless expanse of white. That was the chameleon suits at work.

“We’re not dhampirs. We get our heads cut off, and that’s all she wrote. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“What the hell are you trying to pull?”

“I’ve decided to do my job as best I can. Our association must end here.”

“What?”

“Godspeed.”

Knocking down more incoming arrows with her longsword, Lilia made an unexpected dash for the rocky ridge.

Lourié let out a scream.

Throwing herself off the collapsed ridge, the Huntress appeared to be committing suicide. In midair, a black globe appeared. The refuge. Lilia’s form was engulfed by it. It would have been impossible to keep it from falling down the mountain if it were set up here, and she probably didn’t have time enough to allow the others to get in as well, so her shocking solo effort was somewhat unavoidable. But would even the handiwork of the Nobles’ civilization be able to survive a drop of several hundred yards into the ravine? Lilia was betting everything on it.

Snow billowed up from the bottom of the slope.

“Lousy bitch,” Crey cursed as an arrow jabbed into the ground right in front of him.

“How are you faring?” Vera called out.

“I’m good,” said Dust.

“You’re not good. You can’t use your right arm,” Vera countered.

“Take the kid and run for it.”

“Where?”

Crey somehow weathered the silence that came next. Their surroundings were already full of arrows. “How about we surrender?”

Dust shook his head at Crey’s proposal. “You fancy being eaten?”

“What?”

“What do you think the mountain folk eat up on a snow-covered peak like this? The flesh of climbers and fugitives. I’ve heard when they don’t have either of those, they draw lots to see who gets eaten.”

“If they’re as hungry as all that, why the hell don’t they just move somewhere else, then?”

“I don’t know much about their circumstances. But they say they were connected to the Nobles who used to live on this mountain.”

“Hmm. Ever catch any of ’em down by the foot of the mountain?”

“Nope. We have found remains, though. The toothed-up bones of five or six of them.”

“That’s sick!”

Just then, the world darkened. As flecks of white blew around them, Crey groaned.

“Just perfect! A snowstorm!”

“Relax. At least we don’t have to worry about the cold anymore.”

Sensing something in Dust’s tone, Crey glared at him. But he understood what the man was saying. Now that Lilia had run off and Dust was wounded, they wouldn’t be able to hold off their attackers the next time there was an assault. No matter how good Crey was with his Deadman’s Blade, an attack by invisible cannibals would spell certain death. A tinge of despair colored the outlaw’s still-intrepid face.

“Tell me something, Doctor: does it hurt when you die?” Lourié asked in a trembling voice as Vera lay over him like a shield.

“It’s all right,” she said to him kindly. “It’ll all be over soon.”

Silence enveloped the white world. The next time the killing lust coalesced, death would be unleashed, falling down upon them.

“Damn it all!” Crey groaned. Did he still vainly cling to an urge to fight?

The darkness increased in depth.

A scream rang out. At the same time, the reports of rifles echoed in the air.

“What’s that?” Crey twisted around with the agility of a beast.

Something had appeared on the snowfield ahead of them—where the mountain folk lurked. Crey could see one spot where the darkness was unnaturally heavy. Another scream resounded, so mindless it changed the looks on both Dust’s and Vera’s faces.

“Please, help me!” someone cried in a human tongue. “Don’t come any closer—stay back—nooooooo!”

The cry was cut short, and a single gunshot echoed across the snowfield. And then—stillness.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Crey inquired in a low tone. He didn’t know how, but the mountain folk had been wiped out in the blink of an eye—that much was certain. But rather than rejoicing, this was cause for whispering. How he knew that, he wasn’t sure.

“It’s coming!” Dust said.

“What is?” asked Vera. Beside her, Lourié too had his eyes peeled.

“The darkness. Look.” Crey seemed to understand.

A faint darkness enveloped the group’s surroundings. A still-denser darkness was slowly closing on where the mountain folk had been. Whatever lay within it had wiped out the mountain folk. It had dealt with cannibals of unparalleled wickedness in mere seconds. At the very least, it seemed unlikely to pay them a friendly call.

“Doc,” Dust called to the woman, keeping his voice low. “Take care of that kid.”

Perhaps realizing that the man wasn’t talking about defending him, the boy’s face went as white as a sheet.

II

“Do you know what it is?” Crey asked, sounding tense for the first time.

“I don’t wanna think about it—”

Dust’s reply wasn’t really an answer at all, but it pointed Vera’s mind at the impossible. It can’t be. It just can’t. But it was something that could throw a shadow across the sun, and use the darkness while slaughtering humans. It can’t be.

“Jump for it, Doc!” Crey shouted.

“Huh?”

“If that’s what I think it is, you’re better off dead. Plus, Lilia’s at the bottom of the ravine. She’s a dirty dealer, but she’d probably help you folks, at least.”

“Yeah, do it,” Dust advised her.

“Okay, but only if you guys do, too.”

“I ain’t too taken with the idea of splattering in the ravine,” Crey replied, his eyes focused straight ahead. “Besides, turning tail without a fight’s as good as suicide. That don’t sit too well with me. If you’re taking anyone with you, make it your bodyguard over there.”

“As soon as I’m dead, jump for it.” Dust’s eyes, too, were trained straight ahead. There was no question he was an excellent bodyguard.

“I can’t do that. Dust—I . . .”

“There’s no way around it. As far as the business with my daughter, sorry about that—but at any rate, my job here is to keep you safe.”

“Five yards off. Hurry up and get going!”

Dust got up. “You’re up next!”

“Leave it to me!” Crey thumped his chest. Still, there was something untrustworthy about the man. In the fateful moment when their lives hung in the balance, there was no telling whether or not he’d come through for them.

The heavens howled. The darkness enveloped Dust.

“Stop!” Vera cried out.

Her cry was coupled with a shout of “Don’t go!” from the diminutive figure that dashed from her side—Lourié.

“Mister!” The tone of the boy’s voice spoke volumes about a bond that he’d apparently forged with the rough giant of a man during this trip. His tiny form was swallowed by the darkness. Or rather, the boy plunged into it on his own.

At the instant pitch blackness closed him off from the world, Lourié stopped in his tracks. It wasn’t due to the cold, nor was it out of fear of the omnipresent black that plastered his field of view. He was paralyzed to the very marrow of his bones by a presence that radiated darkness. And it wasn’t so much a something—it was someone! A short distance from him, he sensed Dust’s presence. But there was someone else in the darkness!

So good of you to come.

Those were the words Lourié’s ears caught. He couldn’t quite tell if it was a voice or the sound of the wind. But he felt certain that the words came from the other presence. Was it a man, a woman, or the wind? That he couldn’t say. And yet, he felt quite distinctly that the source of that voice or sound was shrouded in delight.

So good of you to come.

He heard it again.

I’ve been waiting. Waiting for young blood brimming with life. My child, I shall catch your blood in a golden goblet and drink it dry.

“Who is that?” Lourié finally managed to ask. “Who . . . Who are you? You called me your child—I don’t know you!”

My children number in the millions, said the presence. Now, you shall join their ranks. Consider it an honor.

“Stop it!” Dust bellowed, but he seemed a million miles away.

“I came up here in search of my father. You—you’d better stay away!”

Suddenly, the presence stood before the boy. He couldn’t even speak. Thought itself eluded him. It was as though the daunting mass of a rock wall loomed before him. No interest as to the nature of this being stirred in him. Its very existence was too strange.

Come.

What was that supposed to mean?

A part of Lourié’s anatomy suddenly stopped. At the same time, the presence quavered. A slight abnormality had occurred in a star that’d formed over the course of hundreds of millions of years. It had been introduced from the outside.

This time the boy heard it clearly. Interesting, the presence murmured. The voice held clear surprise—and a ring of being deeply touched. You should see this, too.

Lourié felt something heavy come to rest on his shoulders. Were they hands? His body turned like it was a sheet of paper.

And Lourié saw. He couldn’t tell how far off it was. But he was there. The figure in black had a rifle in one hand and was staring his way in a manner that could only be called quiet. But how beautiful was the face below that traveler’s hat! It was the unearthly air that radiated from every inch of him that made it seem so. The snowstorm abated. No fear. Even the wind stopped. Intoxicating. D.

I recognize him as my foe, the voice declared close to the boy’s ear. A foe for which I, Duke Gilzen, would search the entire world.

The next instant Lourié found himself standing alone, whipped by the wind and snow. A number of voices were calling his name. He felt neither relief nor excitement. The wind struck his cheeks, and snowflakes melted against him. Oddly enough, he didn’t even feel the cold.

“Are you all right?”

That was Dust. His rough hand caught the boy’s shoulder, shaking him. Both head and body wobbled.

“I’m fine,” he replied.

“Are you okay, Lourié?”

That was the doctor, Vera. Her face was right in front of his. She was peering at him intently. Her worried expression changed.

“That’s odd.” Reaching out one hand, she lifted his eyelid. There was no pain. He didn’t even shed a tear. She took his right hand. “His pupils are dilated. And he doesn’t have a pulse.”

Dust’s eyes glinted with curiosity.

Vera put her hand under the boy’s nose, waited about three seconds, and then shook her head. As she gazed at Lourié, she wore a look of terrible solitude and loss. She stated plainly, “This child is dead.”

“Nonsense!”

Even Crey raced over.

Dust conducted the same tests as the doctor, saying, “I can’t believe it, but it’s true. The kid . . .” Not surprisingly, he couldn’t bring himself to say the rest: . . . is a corpse.

“But you can speak, right?”

“Yes,” Lourié said with a nod.

“And it seems you can move your body. How about your senses?”

“I’m not cold.”

The doctor pinched his cheek. “Does that hurt?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all.” Vera heaved a sigh. “I really shouldn’t be saying this, but what the blazes is going on here?”

“Squirt, can you remember anything?”

Lourié had already prepared himself for that question. “He came up to me—and all of a sudden, I just stopped.”

“He?” Dust furrowed his brow. While he’d been enveloped by the same darkness, apparently he hadn’t seen anything.

Lourié closed his eyes. He wasn’t tracing back through his memories; he was guarding against the waves of terror bearing down on him.

“Huge like a rocky mountain, and cold as a wall of ice . . .” he mumbled. Both his voice and his body trembled.

After a bit, Vera murmured, “A Noble, then?” It was a solid conclusion.

“Is that what lived up on this mountain?” Crey ran his fingers back through his hair. “You mean the one who ran the whole Frontier back before we had it divvied up like we do now? I heard he was a real demon, so mean other Nobles would look away. As I recall—”

“He was banished for defying the Sacred Ancestor, attacked, and sealed away deep in the earth,” Vera continued. “I haven’t heard any rumors, but the aircraft that crashed on the mountain . . . Could it be . . .”

They all stopped moving. Horrifying memories gave them the expressions of the dead. They were ultimately revived by the boy.

“But we’ve got him on our side.” His voice had such a ring of hope to it; it was easy to forget the wind-whipped snow. “He’s a lot bigger than the other guy, and a lot stronger, and much colder—and yet so much warmer, too.”

“Who’s that?” Crey asked, his features twisted in mock puzzlement.

“Don’t play dumb,” Dust told the outlaw, grabbing him by the elbow.

“You got me there.”

“He saved you, didn’t he?” Vera inquired gently.

“That’s right.” The boy nodded.

“Then he’ll probably help you again. I’m sure he must know a way of turning you human again.”

The boy knew it, too. No matter what became of the world, there was always hope. He realized that in the darkness.

The wind and snow that lashed them were merciless. Yet a mysterious feeling of goodwill enveloped the four of them. It was almost a sort of warmth.

“Anyway, shouldn’t we set up camp or something?” Crey suggested, coming back to reality.

“You’re right. We’ll freeze out here. And we’ve got to come up with a plan for getting over that ridge.”

“Keep an eye on the kid.”

Dust had just walked over to where his gear had been set down when Crey called to him, “Hold up.”

What now? Vera’s eyes seemed to say as she looked at him accusingly.

“That presence—oh, those guys completely slipped my mind. Damn it!” His narrowed eyes were turned toward the faint gloom over the distant snowfield. Everyone focused their eyes on it.

A hundred yards off, there were indeed shapes moving around.

“The mountain folk.” And having said that, Crey gave a sickly groan. Dust had elbowed him in the gut.

“You don’t have to spell everything out for us. We know.”

Indeed. They all knew the score. Anyone who lived in this world did. But for the briefest of times, the eternal and immutable truth had slipped from their minds: those whom the Nobles fed upon became creatures like the Nobility. Vampires. They were coming. The group that had been devils among men had been transformed into demons of the night.

“That can’t be. There might be a shadow over the sun, but it’s still daytime!”

Vera’s assertion was correct, but the figures in white who forgot all about concealing themselves would make a liar out of her.

III

“Here they come!” Crey grinned.

“You’re looking pretty happy about this,” said Dust.

“Damn straight. Fakes or not, now that these clowns are like the Nobility, they won’t use their ranged weapons and chameleon suits. To show off their immortality, they’ll come at us freakin’ bare handed! That suits me just fine. Look after the woman and the kid, okay?”

“You’re feeling pretty full of yourself.”

“Hey, leave this to me.”

A slender gleam appeared in Crey’s right hand. It was the same Deadman’s Blade that even D had wanted to see—would it now demonstrate whether its reputation was deserved?

“But it’s daytime—how can they be out in the sunlight?” Vera asked.

“Hold that thought. I’ll catch one and ask him for you,” Crey replied cheerfully, stepping forward.

Dressed in white, the mountain folk advanced on him as if they were wading through oncoming surf. Weathered by the sun, yet deathly pale, their faces were those of ghosts. Their lips alone were strangely crimson, and the stark incisors that peeked from them were those of the Nobility—the fangs of a vampire. Noble and pseudo-Noble alike suffered from a hunger that would not be sated for all eternity. Having spotted four victims with warm blood in their veins, they had saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths, and their teeth gnashed as they reached out their hands and dashed toward Crey.

“Mr. Crey!” Lourié cried out to him.

Crey had expected as much. “Relax. Nothing to worry about here!”

“No, I was just going to ask you not to kill too many people.”

“You little dope. We’re dealing with lackeys of the Nobility. On top of that, they mean to make us like them. It’s kill or be killed.”

“But—they’re human beings.”

“They were human beings, dummy.”

“I don’t think it’s very nice to go around calling people stupid at the drop of a hat.”

Crey had to desperately fight the urge to scream. I’m about to unleash hell with my knife to protect this squirt? he thought.

Something whooshed past his cheek. One of his foes’ arrows.

“Son of a bitch!”

Bracing himself low, he prepared to jump.

Up ahead of him, the men in white tumbled backward, one after another. They had to be twenty or thirty feet away, at most. Gnarled fingers clawed at the air with eternal curses, and bright blood spilled from mouths vainly opening and closing. The white snow beneath their fallen bodies was swiftly stained crimson. The fact that they were still looking all around was proof that they didn’t know their attacker’s position. And they were all being taken down.

The four people could only gaze in mute surprise at the arrow vanes jutting from the hearts of the fallen. They had an ally with a bow in the area. And said ally was absolutely deadly with it! Nearly ten foes had been eliminated in as many seconds, and each had been pierced through the heart with a single shot. That didn’t seem the sort of thing any ordinary—or respectable—human could do. After all, the snowstorm still raged.

The second the mountain folk had begun to fall, Crey had shouted, “Hit the deck!” and lain flat on the ground. Though he wasn’t the kind of man to flinch from any foe, he had no way of knowing how accurate the mysterious shooter was.

“Where are they?” Crey inquired, though even he didn’t know whom he expected to answer.

“Dad?” Lourié cried out. As if he had been struck dumb for precisely this reason, the boy got up and looked all around, unable to contain his explosion of emotion. “Dad! Is that you, Dad?”

Before the kid could start jumping about, the guardsman pushed him back to the ground, and he too looked all around as he said, “Did you say it was your dad?” Dust’s narrow eyes went wide.

“Are you sure, Lourié?” Vera asked as she crawled closer. “I haven’t heard much about your father—was he a huntsman?”

“That’s right. It must be him. My father saved us.”

The boy was trying to get up again as if he’d lost his mind, but Dust kept one hand on him to hold him down.

“Simmer down. Does your dad have the kind of skill we saw just now?”

“He does.”

“Calm down,” Dust said, putting strength behind his arm. Lourié’s body stiffened, and the pain cleared his head. “That’s not the work of a mortal man. Is your dad some kind of monster?”

“No.” Lourié had taken a few seconds to reply.

“Then something other than a human must’ve saved us. You know why?” Moving only his head, Dust looked at the doctor and the outlaw. Both shook their heads. Dust said to the boy, “I don’t know, either. And so it might be that the shooter wasn’t necessarily out to help us.”

“What then?”

At the boy’s nervous query, Dust gave him a friendly slap on one feeble shoulder. “Maybe they wanted to keep all the food for themselves.”

“I agree,” Crey said, raising his right hand like a schoolboy, while Vera gave him a scathing look.

“It’s too soon to say for sure. Perhaps they have some reason for not wanting us to see them.”

Crey snorted derisively. “So, we’ve got ourselves a bashful little ally? If there were anyone like that around, we’d have long since caught wind of it. First off, how would they even survive up here on the mountain?”

“The mountain folk get by,” said Vera.

“Those clowns aren’t even human anymore. Snow hares and snow panthers I could see, but they eat bewilderers and beast shrooms, making ’em half monster themselves! And they eat human flesh, too. Human flesh!”

“Oh, stop it!” the doctor scolded him, no longer able to restrain herself, and the outlaw actually buttoned his lip. “Have they gone?”

Telling the boy to stay put, Dust got to his feet. Crey was still lying flat against the ground.

“That was close. Do you suppose they ran off?”

“Whoever it was killed off all the white suits. Would’ve known where we were from the very start. If they’d wanted to, they’d have punched every one of our tickets.”

“Good point,” Vera conceded, grabbing the nearby Crey by the elbow.

“What do you want?”

“Get on your feet already. A man’s supposed to look out for women and children, isn’t he?”

“For your information, I’m an outlaw,” Crey said, baring his teeth. “My main gig is bodyguarding, but I do some killing on the side. I’ve got thirty counts against me, and I’m proud of it. If they ever catch me, I’m looking at the death penalty a dozen times, minimum. A person in my line doesn’t look out for women and children.”

“Nothing on this mountain has anything to do with your line. There are just men, women, and children up here. And if you’re a man, you can’t just leave the weak to fend for themselves, can you?”

“I don’t wanna hear weak this and weak that out of you. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s skirts like you who’re all high and mighty when it suits you, then turn around and play the weak-little-female card.”

“That’s a woman’s prerogative. Stop your complaining.”

“At any rate, we’re safe now. Let’s set up the tents.”

Dust’s words spelled the end of their quarrel.

The snow blew wildly into their faces. Now that the living dead had been picked off, a new specter of death had come to spread its wings.

The refuge hadn’t proved of any use. Although Lilia had hit the switch as soon as she jumped, the refuge had been assailed by a ferocious cross breeze that tore it from her grasp. On top of that, though she’d landed feet first in a heavy covering of snow, her right foot had been sprained by the rocks below, and it didn’t look like she’d be able to stand anytime soon. Even here at the bottom of the ravine, the wind and snow blew just as hard. Lilia wasn’t rattled. Her winter coat was still in good shape, and though the refuge had eluded her, once she tracked it down, she’d have sufficient food and medicine. She’d even be able to perform a simple medical procedure.

“Guess I’ll see how well I handle the cold until I get this foot fixed.”

She looked up. The sky was already tinged with darkness, allowing her to make out nothing save the whiteness of snow. Suddenly a chill ran down her spine. Not fear, but a physical phenomenon that was enough to invite it. She was cold.

Her eyes raced to the control panel on the left breast of her coat. The temperature read zero. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the shock of the fall had probably caused the device to malfunction.

Lilia looked up at the sky again and clucked her tongue. “Mark my words, I’ll be relaxing with a long, hot shower before this is over.”

Now the refuge was her only hope. Taking the longsword from her back to support her weight, she barely managed to get up on her left leg. Even advancing a single step sent acute pain shooting through her right foot. Apparently she’d broken bones in her ankle and knee. Still, Lilia had to grin.

“That’ll clear away the cobwebs!”

In the snow, her body heat would soon be drained and sleepiness would beset her. When that happened, pain would undoubtedly be the best way to keep herself awake.

But things didn’t go at all as planned. Search as she might, she was unable to locate the refuge. Lilia, covered in white, spent an hour in her fruitless quest, and now she collapsed in the snow.

“Not done yet!”

At this rate, there was no advantage in her having abandoned the rest of the group. Every time she moved her right foot a dull pain spread through her, making it hard to get around. Her consciousness suddenly started slipping away. Quickly raising the sword she was using as a cane, she drew the blade from its sheath and set it down to her right. She took a backhanded hold of the hilt with her right hand. Then, rolling up her left sleeve, she bit into her bicep. About ten seconds later, she felt something warm spreading through her mouth, which had been frozen.

Lilia sucked down her own rapidly cooling blood. The blood that poured out without end seemed hot. While she was focused solely on drinking, something moved down by her feet. Her eyes shifted to catch it. It was the still-compacted refuge. Before she could feel joy at this, Lilia was chilled in another sense. There was someone just beyond the refuge. Someone whose very presence could keep even a Huntress honed by countless battles from moving a muscle.

“That must be delicious. What could be better than your own blood?” The low, solemn voice seemed to ricochet off the snow and the wind.

Yeah, it’s really good, Lilia replied in her mind, pinning all her hopes on her right hand. Taking the blade she’d set down to her right, she made a backhanded slash. It mowed right through her opponent’s torso. But the movement stopped at his waist. Although it came to rest softly, the blade wouldn’t move, as if it were embedded in a rock wall. A rock wall that seemed to boast an infinite mass.

“You nicked my finger a little,” the voice said.

It took some time for her to comprehend what that meant. “You stopped my sword—with your fingers?”

“Quite impressive talent you have. As child’s play goes, that is,” the voice continued. Disturbingly, it didn’t seem to be mocking her. It continued, “That settles it!”

Before Lilia could even frame the question Settles what? a black figure filled her entire field of view.