Afternoon nap turned epic scene
He had decided to travel this direction the night before, drawn by the green and orange lights that glowed over what seemed to be nothing more than a non-descript spot in the middle of the flat snow-swept plains. Getting an early start at dawn, it had taken him a little over four hours to make headway before the sounds of a woman's anguished scream and the clash of steel he was all too familiar with was carried on the wind to his keen ears.
He broke into a run, toward nothing he could see in a haze of white.
Wind whipped savagely at his wrappings, strips of dark green cloth that once belonged to a wool cloak he had crudely fashioned into gloves and a scarf. The men who had crafted his supple leather armor had never left the walls of their tropical trading port home, let alone imagined a wind that could carry the sharpened crystals of snow from the plains into every gap and crevice of their customer's armor. He was just about to curse them again when suddenly his foot fell not onto snowpack, but nothing at all.
He fell.
With a grunt and a muffled "whumph" sound, his body found the floor of a room carved in the snowpack, littered with bodies still bleeding from a very recent, and possibly not yet concluded, battle. He thought quickly, taking stock of the situation before coming to his feet. Three very tall, unnaturally pale women with long, kinky brown hair and light blue silken robes had been slain to his right, their bare feet pointing toward a wide trench that must have served as a hall to this very room. They were unarmed, and their faces still depicted their surprise at their attack. One had a belly wound, the work of a spear, one clutched at a rough hewn arrow in her breast, and the last, the only one with her eerie eyes closed, rested her head in a spreading pool of blood. Three men, dressed in mottled grey furs from head to toe, lie smoldering with their weapons still clenched tight in their hands before a shining blue archway that had been shaped from ice to look like the opening it housed were wreathed in still, blue flames. Their positions and blackened front sides seemed to indicate that they had all stood around a small, fiery explosion before they died.
He stepped toward the arch, intending to investigate inside the rooms beyond it, when the sound of hoofbeats cut his thoughts short. He snatched up a spear from one of the men in smoldering furs, and a dagger someone had lost before crouching low against the corner of the room where the hallway entered, his right shoulder leaning hard against the wall, listening intently for the hoofbeats to get closer.
* * *
Atop his shaggy pony, the chieftan of the tribe that had taken war to these priestesses expected to find his men looting the temple of the icewitches, arms laden with the spoils of their heathen magics. His tribe laid claim to these plains, having squeezed out their lives by the secrets of its deceptive snows for generations, and his spirit guides had been clear about what had to be done when the first of his men sighted the eerie lights above the plains. They had discovered the trenches that led down into the snow for miles in perfect, straight lines coming from the north, and followed them to this gateway, a small room in which you could hardly fit a dozen sleeping men that housed a great double doored passage, formed unnaturally from blue ice the likes of which he had never seen. When his scouts told him that women wearing shimmering blue robes thinner than seal bladders
The chieftan pondered this as his steed tromped along the narrow trench, his brows furrowed beneath the furs of his wrappings. Had he not been lost in thought as he was, he might have noticed the spear that suddenly buried itself into the wall low across the opening of the trench, moments before his pony tripped over it and pitched him headlong into a wall.
* * *
With practiced timing, he waited for just the right moment before thrusting the epear into the snow of the wall, creating a wooden tripwire across the opening of the trench, and braced himself with the end he still held, like an oar, for the matter of moments it took for the pony's speed to splinter the haft of the spear and send it and its rider tumbling the short distance to the wall. He sprang to his feet, the dagger appearing in his hand as he rushed to the crumpled man groaning in the corner with his back to him.
The stranger ran his hand along the chieftans back, counting ribs as he hovered the point of the dagger over his splayed fingers, and when he'd found the spot, slipped the blade between his ribs, through his lung and into his heart, sending the chieftan to his spirit guides to join the other men of his raiding party.
The pony scrambled and tried to right itself, crushing the corpse of the woman who'd been slain by the arrow, but had broken its ankle in the fall. The stranger, moving with the certainty of a messenger of death, approached the beast and held its muzzle in his hands, cooing to it to calm it. The pony had just stopped struggling when the dagger parted the muscles of its shaggy neck and severed the link between its massive skull and its first neckbone.
It was then, in the settling moments after his trap had done its work, that out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw one of the three slain women sit up.
He broke into a run, toward nothing he could see in a haze of white.
Wind whipped savagely at his wrappings, strips of dark green cloth that once belonged to a wool cloak he had crudely fashioned into gloves and a scarf. The men who had crafted his supple leather armor had never left the walls of their tropical trading port home, let alone imagined a wind that could carry the sharpened crystals of snow from the plains into every gap and crevice of their customer's armor. He was just about to curse them again when suddenly his foot fell not onto snowpack, but nothing at all.
He fell.
With a grunt and a muffled "whumph" sound, his body found the floor of a room carved in the snowpack, littered with bodies still bleeding from a very recent, and possibly not yet concluded, battle. He thought quickly, taking stock of the situation before coming to his feet. Three very tall, unnaturally pale women with long, kinky brown hair and light blue silken robes had been slain to his right, their bare feet pointing toward a wide trench that must have served as a hall to this very room. They were unarmed, and their faces still depicted their surprise at their attack. One had a belly wound, the work of a spear, one clutched at a rough hewn arrow in her breast, and the last, the only one with her eerie eyes closed, rested her head in a spreading pool of blood. Three men, dressed in mottled grey furs from head to toe, lie smoldering with their weapons still clenched tight in their hands before a shining blue archway that had been shaped from ice to look like the opening it housed were wreathed in still, blue flames. Their positions and blackened front sides seemed to indicate that they had all stood around a small, fiery explosion before they died.
He stepped toward the arch, intending to investigate inside the rooms beyond it, when the sound of hoofbeats cut his thoughts short. He snatched up a spear from one of the men in smoldering furs, and a dagger someone had lost before crouching low against the corner of the room where the hallway entered, his right shoulder leaning hard against the wall, listening intently for the hoofbeats to get closer.
* * *
Atop his shaggy pony, the chieftan of the tribe that had taken war to these priestesses expected to find his men looting the temple of the icewitches, arms laden with the spoils of their heathen magics. His tribe laid claim to these plains, having squeezed out their lives by the secrets of its deceptive snows for generations, and his spirit guides had been clear about what had to be done when the first of his men sighted the eerie lights above the plains. They had discovered the trenches that led down into the snow for miles in perfect, straight lines coming from the north, and followed them to this gateway, a small room in which you could hardly fit a dozen sleeping men that housed a great double doored passage, formed unnaturally from blue ice the likes of which he had never seen. When his scouts told him that women wearing shimmering blue robes thinner than seal bladders
The chieftan pondered this as his steed tromped along the narrow trench, his brows furrowed beneath the furs of his wrappings. Had he not been lost in thought as he was, he might have noticed the spear that suddenly buried itself into the wall low across the opening of the trench, moments before his pony tripped over it and pitched him headlong into a wall.
* * *
With practiced timing, he waited for just the right moment before thrusting the epear into the snow of the wall, creating a wooden tripwire across the opening of the trench, and braced himself with the end he still held, like an oar, for the matter of moments it took for the pony's speed to splinter the haft of the spear and send it and its rider tumbling the short distance to the wall. He sprang to his feet, the dagger appearing in his hand as he rushed to the crumpled man groaning in the corner with his back to him.
The stranger ran his hand along the chieftans back, counting ribs as he hovered the point of the dagger over his splayed fingers, and when he'd found the spot, slipped the blade between his ribs, through his lung and into his heart, sending the chieftan to his spirit guides to join the other men of his raiding party.
The pony scrambled and tried to right itself, crushing the corpse of the woman who'd been slain by the arrow, but had broken its ankle in the fall. The stranger, moving with the certainty of a messenger of death, approached the beast and held its muzzle in his hands, cooing to it to calm it. The pony had just stopped struggling when the dagger parted the muscles of its shaggy neck and severed the link between its massive skull and its first neckbone.
It was then, in the settling moments after his trap had done its work, that out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw one of the three slain women sit up.