Chapter 7 – The Cave Of The Ice Witch
“All right, you louts! Time to get ready!” the Ice Witch shouted, causing the sasquatches to heave themselves to their feet. “If you fail to bring home a single bunny today, like those idiots yesterday, there’ll be hell to pay—again!”
“If you go a little hungry, you’ll have only yourselves to blame.” At that, the sasquatches all glared at one single member of their group. He muttered something spitefully but didn’t appear to have the courage to openly defy his companions.
And that’s well and good, the Ice Witch thought. Let the idiots glower at each other and fight among themselves; that worked for her. And on the off chance one of them turned their hatred on her, it wouldn’t matter. She had already taken precautions against such an eventuality…
These beasts do require quite a bit of babysitting.
Trouble to manage them, trouble to bring together such an easily manipulated horde. Look: with just a few sharp words, she had the entire group staring down one of its own members. All too easy. The only problem was, she suspected, that this little diversion had driven her order clear out of their heads.
The Ice Witch clapped her hands, making no effort to hide her irritation. “Come on, come on, have you already forgotten what I said?!”
“But this rat, he—”
“Hurry up, or that nasty sun’ll be high in the sky by the time you get out there!” A good glare and the sasquatches finally scrambled away in a cacophony of pounding footsteps. Today, she was once again going to have them loot the harefolk village—a straightforward task, but she figured that was just as well. It was too soon to make any bold moves. Now was the time to build up their strength.
Time was on their side. There was no need to rush. She would ensure that the spring sprites remained asleep, drawing out the winter, making her sasquatches ever more powerful. And then…
Then there will be nothing to be afraid of—were words she could never have said aloud.
Regardless, things would certainly be easier. She didn’t need to conquer the capital; taking possession of just one town would be enough. She could easily live for centuries then. The hare-men tasted rich, but she was getting tired of eating them. She was coming to long for the savor of a nice, young human girl…
“…Oh?”
The Ice Witch was just licking her lips when she smelled it. The aroma of a girl so young she might as well have still been in diapers. She looked around, nose twitching, to discover a figure standing squarely in the entrance to her cave. This person was short and slight, a waifish slip of a child dressed in priestly garments and holding a sounding staff.
“An adventurer?!”
“It’s Noman!”
Almost before the sasquatch had finished speaking, the girl raised the sounding staff higher. “O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, grant your sacred light to we who are lost in darkness!!”
There was a blinding flash, the brilliance of the sun annihilating the darkness of the cave.
§
“Now’s our chance!” Priestess cried. “Let’s go!”
“Indeed! And first blood goes to the lizards! Eeeyaaaaahhhhh!!”
As the sasquatches stumbled back, their eyes scorched by Holy Light, Lizard Priest dove among them with an earsplitting war cry. “O horns and claws of our father, iguanodon, thy four limbs, become two legs to walk upon the earth!!”
Behind him, a Dragontooth Warrior gave a voiceless cry, bones jangling as it charged forward.
Claws, fangs, and tail struck out at the sasquatches’ feet; they kept yelling and dancing backward.
“Gyaaah!”
“Yowww!”
It was made worse for them by the hail of arrows that came flashing through the air. The sasquatches had thick fur, but it still felt like being stung by poisonous insects, again and again.
They came pouring into the great room. Weaving among the sasquatches’ legs as if among the trees of the rain forest, High Elf Archer readied her next arrow. “C’mon, dwarf! You’re as slow as you are short!”
“Tch, Long Ears! I told you to have a little patience…!”
If the sasquatches’ legs were like trees, then a good blow from an ax should bring them down. Dwarf Shaman wielded his against the stumbling monsters like a woodsman in his element.
“Yaaah!!”
“?!?!?!?!?!”
There wasn’t even screaming anymore. One sasquatch, his toes clinging to his feet by only strips of skin, landed on the ground with an audible thump, holding his foot and sobbing.
“What in blazes are you all doing?!” the Ice Witch shouted, her hand still over her eyes from the blinding flash, interrupting the gibbering of her henchmen.
It was not an opportunity to miss.
“Right now, if you would…!” Priestess called out to High Elf Archer, and then started running. High Elf Archer had kicked off a wall to get some height and was aiming at the ears of the sasquatches.
“Leave it to me!”
There was her answer—and the shouting of the sasquatches. Priestess put them behind her, and three figures followed: Rookie Warrior, Apprentice Cleric, and Harefolk Hunter.
“Whoa, awesome…!” Rookie Warrior breathed, watching Lizard Priest slam a sasquatch with his tail and send him tumbling. He and both of the others looked positively excited as they ran through the chaotic room.
“I can’t believe,” Apprentice Cleric said, trying to keep her breath steady, “he just charged in there like that…”
“At moments like this, simpler can be better,” Priestess said bashfully. “Blinding and then going for the feet… It’s convenient.” Still running, she cast a glance back at the three behind her. Two of them, she had worked with before, but this was her first time battling alongside Harefolk Hunter. The hare was moving plenty quickly, used to dashing through the mountains. But as far as experience as an adventurer went—much as she hated to compare the youngster to herself—the rabbit had none.
Priestess tried to be considerate toward Harefolk Hunter. Just as he had always been to her. “We’ll keep going deeper!” she announced, and Harefolk Hunter nodded. All that was necessary was to know what to do. “But which way?”
“Let’s see…!” Apprentice Cleric focused on the candle in her hand. Thankfully, the magic flame showed no sign of guttering despite the earlier battle. If anything, it was the ever-shrinking size of the candle that worried her—but it looked like they were all right for the time being. “Over there! Through the central passageway!” She pointed to one of countless tunnels.
Harefolk Hunter’s ears flicked. “But I’m not certain the sasquatches will be able to follow us inside…!”
“All the better!” Priestess nodded and kept her staff close as she plowed headlong toward the tunnel. “Let’s go!”
Yes, if the Ice Witch is indeed the master of the sasquatches…
Then she absolutely wouldn’t want to let the big apes get their hands on the silver arrow, Priestess thought. She would put it somewhere the sasquatches couldn’t possibly get. And if she could find the arrow, they could avoid fighting the sasquatches. They just needed to evade them for a moment.
It will take a little…okay, a lot of luck, but…
She was glad it had gone well so far. Priestess mentally gave a sigh of relief.
“I’m no expert here, but it’s gotta be this way, right? Dive in there and get it!” Rookie Warrior exclaimed, his club clutched in his hand. He was obviously in high spirits, perhaps inspired by seeing three Silver-ranked adventurers battling before his eyes.
Priestess smiled a little at the I’ve got this! kind of drive that emanated from his gaze. “That’s the spirit—but let’s hurry, and be careful. I expect next will—”
Before she could finish, a gust of fetid wind came from behind them.
“…Yikes, this might not be good,” Harefolk Hunter shivered, ears going flat.
Priestess had heard it, too. A strange sound. Zazaza, it went, like sand being shaken to the ground. Something was happening. Something. But what…?
“Ugh…”
“Not here, too…!”
Rookie Warrior and Apprentice Cleric both looked agonized, as if this was more than they could bear. The sound pressed in from behind them, as if to swallow the party up. Priestess, holding her staff and looking back, saw a devilish shadow rising from the mouth of the tunnel.
“Youuu…filthy…woooorms!!” The Ice Witch cursed at them, accompanied by a frigid gale that distorted the shadows around her.
No… Those weren’t shadows. They came on, chittering, like a rising tide to consume Priestess…
“Giant rats?!” she exclaimed.
“Oohdaaaaaraa!!” Rookie Warrior’s shout came at almost the same moment. He aimed a powerful two-handed blow at the creature directly in front of him, catching one or two more in the swing. They flew through the air, still making that bizarre sound, until they struck the tunnel walls, twitched once, and went still.
Rookie Warrior had spent too much time fighting rats and roaches in the sewers to miss the opportunity. He leaped in, swinging the club in his hand, bash, bash, bash.
“Sure wish they were paying us by the rat right now!!” he shouted.
“Quit babbling, here comes another!!”
Swinging a club takes a good deal of space, and their foes were many. That was no different from usual. Apprentice Cleric grabbed shards of ice from the ground, wrapped them in cloth and sent them flying like daggers. The rats stumbled back, exposing their bellies, which Rookie Warrior obligingly smashed.
“Try my chest-burster on for size!!”
The belly was the best place to break through the rats’ thick skin. He brought his sword, which he held in a reverse grip in his left hand, down on their chests, carving them open. Then he swung again, neatly landing a blow with his club and avoiding the spray of blood from the downed opponent all in a single motion. He knocked the corpse aside.
“Get any of that in your mouth and it’ll cost us, literally…!”
“Yeah, gotta save money where we can! Hey, how about you just cover your mouth?!”
“No time!”
Apprentice Cleric flung rocks, and Rookie Warrior kept his sword moving while they bantered. Priestess watched them in something like amazement, before she came back to her senses with a rush of breath. “…I think this might just work!” She nodded to herself.
“Not exactly the way I would’ve liked it, though!” Apprentice Cleric shouted. Even as she spoke, her sword and scales worked, lashing out at the nearest rat. She really was used to this. “I can’t promise we can stop them all, but for now, you can leave the rear to us…!”
“You heard the lady, step right up!!” Rookie Warrior exclaimed, making as much use of his club as he possibly could in the narrow space.
“Don’t get cocky!” Apprentice Cleric reminded him, glaring. Priestess thought she saw a flash of someone familiar in that look; she blinked.
“All right, we’re counting on you!” Priestess called.
“Sure thing!”
Apprentice Cleric tossed her the candle and Priestess resumed running with Harefolk Hunter. Cracks and smacks continued to ring out behind her. She heard a girl’s shout, a rat’s squeal, the Ice Witch’s cursing and spitting. Priestess rubbed her eyes, then spotted a Giant Rat about to get past her, one that had escaped the melee.
“Yah!”
Apparently, all it took to send a rat scrambling was a good whack—these were no goblins.
Harefolk Hunter, jogging beside Priestess, murmured, “…Everyone’s so incredible…”
“Yes!” Priestess exclaimed, trying to keep her breath steady even as she exulted in hearing her friends praised. “They’re all fantastic, aren’t they?”
High Elf Archer, Lizard Priest, Dwarf Shaman. Not to mention Apprentice Cleric and Rookie Warrior. Incredible people, all of them.
Not like her.
“…” Harefolk Hunter gave her a curious twist of their head. “Y’know, I meant you too, miss.”
“Huh…?” Priestess, suddenly rendered speechless, kept looking forward. She could feel her cheeks flushing as she ran. She was glad it was dark. “G-gee, did you…did you really?”
“Sure did.”
If that’s true…
If they really did mean it, it was no thanks to her own strength. It was all because of what he had done, though he wasn’t with them at that moment.
The candle’s flame burned with intensity in Priestess’s hand.
The silver arrow was close.
§
In the midst of all the confusion, the Ice Witch, true to her name, remained as cool as a frozen lake. The giants were thrashing and crashing behind her; in front of her rose the horde of rats.
Who was it that had made this happen?
She hardly even had to think about it to know the answer. It was that little girl, with her staff and her shouting. She was leading them.
The white garments. A priestess who had earned the love of the Earth Mother. Noman.
That girl, she’s the key!
“You… Hrgh!”
“There’s one! Another one, to the right!!”
“Seriously?!”
To her annoyance, two of the adventurers, hardly old enough for their jobs, dispatched her rats with confidence.
Eh, at least it should keep them distracted.
The Ice Witch laughed, exposing a throat as red as blood. Sharp fangs glinted with the reflections of the snow.
Then, instantaneously, her body split into countless tiny flakes, slipping past the rats and the girl and the boy. They shivered with a wind that chilled their bones, but they could pay it no more mind than that.
If they wanted to survive, they had to fight. That was true for everyone present.
§
“Ooh, think it’s something like this?” After a span of running through the gloom, trying to pay attention to both their feet and their backs, Harefolk Hunter stopped, ears twitching.
Priestess blinked, but saw a weathered oblong chest tucked in a depression in the stone. The candle in her hand flared up, so hot it was almost hard to hold. Looked like the rabbit was right.
“Can you open it?” Priestess asked, steadying her breath.
“Eh, we’ll find out,” Harefolk Hunter said easily, then reached behind an ear. “Gotta give it a try. If we don’t open it, we’re done for; that much we know.”
Hunter produced something as slim as a small twig and inserted it into the lock. After a good deal of feeling around, and breaking two or three of the twigs, there was a clicking sound.
“There, got it.”
“Are there any traps…?”
“Mmm, one way to find out. I haven’t inspected the lid yet.”
Priestess glanced back at the relentless sounds of battle that echoed through the tunnels behind them, but Harefolk Hunter nodded. It would probably be fine, Hunter seemed to think, with that special harefolk optimism. After all, the Ice Witch likely never imagined someone other than herself opening this chest. That wouldn’t give her any reason to booby-trap it. And if it set off an alarm, fine. It wouldn’t mean much now.
And a magical trap? We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.
A furry hand worked a dull, flat knife in between the lid and the chest, checking for a wire, and that was that.
“What say we try opening this thing?”
“Yes, please!”
The lid began to lift with a heavy creak, then finally hit the floor of the cave with a crash.
Inside was a dazzling glitter of silver.
An arrow of purest metal.
Priestess’s eyes widened: in her year or two of adventuring, she could count on one hand the number of treasures she had seen to equal this one. Opportunities to see magical equipment—Lizard Priest’s equipment notwithstanding—were few and far between. Yet, still she knew: this was no ordinary arrow. It was a holy weapon, the sort of thing told about in songs.
“With this…!”
“We just might make this work!” Harefolk Hunter said.
Holding fast to her sounding staff, Priestess reached out delicately for the arrow. She felt a subtle warmth run through her fingers. When she picked it up, it was light as a feather.
She held it out reverently. “Well, er, here you go.”
“Buh?” Harefolk Hunter’s small eyes went wide. “Who, me?”
“I have some experience with slinging, but I’ve never once fired an arrow…”
And anyway, this belonged to your father.
Priestess smiled. Harefolk Hunter swallowed audibly, then took the bolt in both fluffy hands. “O-okay, well, I guess I don’t mind taking it then…”
“Of course. Good luck with it!”
Once they had the arrow, Harefolk Hunter made sure it was stashed securely alongside the hatchet. Then the rabbit began feeling around. “The m-m-medicine…”
“Don’t panic, okay? You wouldn’t want to drop it.”
“No, of course not!”
This would do. Now all they had to do was get back. The two of them nodded at each other and began to head back the way they’d come. They had to work their way around rat corpses here and there, the bodies frozen with sticky, dark blood. They didn’t want to think what would happen if they took a false step and slipped here.
The sounds of battle gradually grew closer. Strikes and crashes. A boy and a girl shouting. The screeching of rats.
“It sounds like they’re still holding their own…!”
“Sure am glad we made it in time!”
Priestess and Harefolk Hunter nodded at each other, the cleric smiling. Not much farther now. She tucked up her skirt and ran, calling out happily, “We’re back…!!”
That was when it happened.
A brutal, freezing wind went rushing past them.
§
“Wha…?” Priestess blinked to clear the frost from her eyebrows. Beside her, Harefolk Hunter was saying something. Far off, she could hear Rookie Warrior and Apprentice Cleric. But all of it was drowned out by a piercing, whining sound in her ears.
She found herself smack in the middle of a blizzard.
Cold, she hunched forward, only to discover something that felt soft. Her fingers were touching bare skin.
“Wha…? Oh… No…?!”
I’m naked…?!
As she realized she wasn’t wearing a thread of clothing, Priestess blushed furiously and curled into herself. Cold and humiliated, she shivered. Even though her face felt hot, she was freezing to her bones. The blizzard blew so hard it hurt, squeezing tears from her eyes. She felt a prickling in her neck. She groped for her sounding staff, found it, and somehow managed to support herself.
When she rose up and tried to walk, the wind assaulted her delicate body, tossing her from side to side. She couldn’t move a single step. With no idea what to do, Priestess began to sniffle and sob.
“Hey.” The impossibly quiet, cold voice came when the confusion in her spirit was at its greatest.
Priestess blinked again, straining to see anything through the white haze around her. “Oh…!” Her face broke into a radiant smile, like a flower turning toward the light of the sun.
Grimy leather armor, a cheap-looking metal helmet. A round shield on his arm. A sword of a strange length at his hip.
There was no question—it had to be…!
“Goblin Slayer…!”
Ignoring the prickle at her neck, Priestess rose and ran to him. The wind howled, the ringing was still in her ears; she could hear nothing else.
“Yes. Are you all right?”
Yet somehow, his soft voice reached her. He held out a hand to her, roughly, the bumpy leather of his glove touching her skin. Priestess almost closed her eyes, savoring the feeling as he brushed her cheek. She could almost forget the pain in her neck.
“Y-yes, I am… But why are you here…?” She looked at him, into his visor, almost whispering. As ever, his expression was invisible to her. There was just that one glowing eye inside the helmet. She touched her neck as if running a comb through her long locks. Her hair was standing on end. Sniff, went Priestess. A scent of blood such as she had never smelled before seemed to come to her. “Er, a-are you injured…?”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “But maybe you can cast a miracle for me later.”
Priestess swallowed. She brushed aside the hair on her neck, took up her sounding staff. “And the goblins…?”
“Goblins?” He stopped as if the word sounded strange to him, shook his head gently. “I was more worried about you.” His voice was so soft, and he touched her on her neck. The leather glove pierced like ice, and she shivered. “I have a request. Give me the silver arrow.”
“Oh, of course. Er, the silver arrow, right?”
I understand. Priestess nodded. It was a happy nod. She smiled. She took a deep breath, letting courage fill the heart in her small chest. And then she spoke:
“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, lay your revered hand upon this child’s wounds!”
§
The blizzard was erased by a scream that pierced Priestess like a hot poker.
“Ah… YIEEEEAAAAAGHHHHHH?!”
Priestess, suddenly finding herself back in the cave, watched the Ice Witch writhe; she let out a breath, expressionless.
An illusion… Or maybe a charm.
It was one of the supernatural powers that vampires were said to have. Priestess shivered; she could still feel the cold, sharp stinging in her neck. What would have happened had she simply let things go on? It was terrifying to think about. What would have happened if she hadn’t been so quick to remember the Monster Manual?
He would have continued to act the way she wanted him to. Worrying about her, praising her, touching her face. Of course, for quite some time now he had been showing her consideration in his own awkward way, but…
“But never quite like that.”
He’s pretty much hopeless, after all.
Priestess smiled a little at that one precious thought, held deep in her heart. That was why, with the slightest hope, she had intoned the miracle. A healing miracle, that would do him no harm at all on the slim chance it was really him.
But to a cursed Non-Prayer, to the undead, the miracles of the gods were as poison.
I finally invoke Minor Heal for the first time in forever, and this is how I use it? She wasn’t entirely pleased about that, but she turned to one side and looked.
“Ice Witch!” Harefolk Hunter bellowed, in a voice that echoed through the cave, so loud she would never have believed it came from that tiny rabbit. Hunter stood before the witch, holding a small crossbow. The string sang as it was pulled back, and even in the dark of the cave, a droplet of snow-pure silver glimmered at the end of the arrow.
Recognizing the light that suffused the bolt, the witch spat as if it were killing her, “Damn youuuu!!”
“This is the arrow of the hare tribe!”
The twanging of the bowstring had the tone and beauty of a musical instrument. The arrow cut through the chilled air on its way to complete the mission for which it was created. It pierced the Ice Witch through the heart, her accursed blood spilling out.
“?”
This time, she didn’t scream— No, as a matter of fact, she did, though at a pitch too high for human ears to hear. The witch struggled and flailed, trying desperately to pull the arrow from her chest. But the arrow burned her fingers until they turned to soot and crumbled away.
This was the end.
The Ice Witch, even in the convulsions of death, fixed her eyes and all her hatred on one person.
The priestess who stood brushing off her vestments, pointing her sounding staff at the witch.
She was the one, the cause of all this.
I’ll kill her! Kill her! Kill her!
It was all she deserved. The witch was charring up to her throat, and now all she had left to use was her eyes. Her red, bloodshot pupils reflected Priestess, shimmered with light, and then—
“Lord of judgment, Sword-prince, Scale-bearer, show here your power!!”
—a miracle from the gods struck her.
Upraised sword and scales. Drenched in rat blood, leaning on the shoulder of her childhood friend, was a girl. The two of them had finished off the vermin and realized something strange was happening behind them.
And so—for their friends, for the Law, for Order, for these beautiful mountains in which the white rabbits lived—the girl, her gaze hard, brought down the sword of the Supreme God.
The lightning, so hot it caused the air to boil, changed angle as only supernatural power could have made possible, funneling itself into the silver arrow.
“??!?!?!?!”
Destroyed at last, this time the witch truly didn’t make a sound, her ghastly convulsions a sort of macabre dance in the throes of death. In the space of a blink or two, her body was seared away. The liquid that exploded from the red eye, all that was left of the creature, grazed Priestess’s cheek and a few strands of her hair before burying itself in the wall. But nothing more. The pile of ashes on the cave floor was carried away by a cold gust and vanished after a brief moment.
The silver arrow, its mission complete, rusted over even as they watched, all but rotting away.
The only trace left of the vampire once known as the Witch of Ice was the thin streak of blood on Priestess’s cheek.
And so it was finished.
§
The crash of thunder was audible even over the desperate battle in the main room. The giants, numerous but with no leader, weren’t sure how to take it. The adventurers darted among their legs, dealing a strike here and blow there, biting like venomous insects.
“Dwarf! I’m heading that way!”
“Got it! What was that about head size and wit, again…?”
“And yet, giants are themselves the apex of one branch of evolution!”
They could not let down their guard. All three of them understood that.
The girl—the priestess, and the three who went with her. Until they completed their mission, not a single foe could be allowed to escape. They had no time to let their guards down. They fired their bows, swung their axes, and lashed out with their claws and tails and teeth, relentlessly.
Tiny arrows hurtled into faces and eyes; toes were hacked off; hips were struck with tremendous force.
It was unendurable. Howling and screaming, the giants stamped with their feet and brought their fists crashing down. What the adventurers saw as a huge main room was a tight space for the giants. There was no way of reining in the chaos.
That was when the peal of thunder came. The sin-cleaving sword of the gods sliced through the din of battle within the space of an instant.
“Wh-what the heck…?”
“Was that thunder…?”
The monsters, perplexed by a sound they never heard anywhere but on the tops of mountains, stopped and stared at each other. Even the adventurers, their shoulders heaving, ceased attacking. The three of them gathered in the center of the room, exchanging quick words.
“…Wonder if they did it, then,” High Elf Archer whispered, her long ears flicking up and down.
Dwarf Shaman adjusted his hands on his ax. “You can’t tell?” He eyed her. “C’mon, elf. What’s the matter with those ears you’re so proud of?”
“A huge racket like that just messes with my hearing…”
“Goodness,” Lizard Priest said jovially, his eyes rolling in his head. “Whatever may have happened, the result is just as you see… I believe.”
Indeed it was. In the now-silent room, footsteps could be heard rushing from the inner chamber, gradually growing louder. It was none other than the four who had left earlier.
Rookie Warrior, holding his club with both hands, covered from head to toe in dark blood. Beside him, Apprentice Cleric, holding up her sword and scales with a look of genuine pride. Harefolk Hunter, holding a crossbow and blinking while hopping along.
And there at the head of the column, wearing a look of determination and holding up her staff—and with a single thin wound running along her cheek—was Priestess.
“Wh-what’s this…? What happened to the Witch of Ice…?”
“If it ain’t Noman…”
“…Dunno.”
The giants began murmuring among themselves. Priestess bit her lip and took a step forward. Then she breathed as deeply as she could, rattling her staff with a dramatic flourish.
“The Witch of Ice…is dead!”
There was a beat before the giants understood what she had said. But what happened next—it could only be one thing.
“Wha—whaaaaaa…?!”
“It’s all over! That’s why I told you, I said, don’t let’s go down that mountain!”
“I’m thinkin’ it’s a little late for that!!”
Confusion reigned over all. The giants tossed aside their precious drums and everything else as they made a beeline for the cave mouth. The adventurers looked at each other for an instant, conferring about whether to pursue them. High Elf Archer had an arrow in her bow, Dwarf Shaman a rock in his sling.
“No… It’s all right.”
They were stopped by a word from Priestess. She watched the giants go, their pounding footsteps fading away, and let out a breath of relief.
“You sure?” High Elf Archer asked, rushing over to her. Her slim elf fingers brushed Priestess’s cheek gently, causing Priestess to squint; it tickled. “They’re getting away…”
“Yes,” Priestess said with a small nod and a shy smile. “They aren’t goblins, after all.”
High Elf Archer frowned deeply at that, sighed, and then finally giggled. “…True enough. Not goblins at all.”
Indeed they weren’t. The battle was over, the threat of the Ice Witch was gone, and the long winter would finally yield. The hare village was saved.
Harefolk Hunter was gazing at the now-vacant room when a voice came from high overhead.
“If we have gained victory, then we cannot wish for more!”
Hunter’s ears flicked, and the hare looked up to see the massive Lizard Priest. The lizard flicked out his tongue and said somberly, “As far as eating hearts… You have indeed proven that you bear within you the strength of the blood from your father.”
Harefolk Hunter nodded in agreement. Father was dead. The hares were victorious. Father’s blood ran in the hunter’s veins. Harefolk Hunter didn’t know anything about the lizardman religion but understood that Lizard Priest was saying something respectful and important.
All of the blood that had been spilt up to this moment had been worthwhile. “…That just means my dad was really awesome.”
“Guess so,” Rookie Warrior said, tossing his sword and club away tiredly and flopping down on the ground.
“Ugh, have a little dignity,” Apprentice Cleric chided, giving him a jab, but she didn’t look much better. She slumped down next to him. Beside her, Harefolk Hunter sat and exclaimed, “I’m starving, too! I’ve got some dried vegetables, you two want any?”
“Yeah!”
“Me too…!”
Exhausted, or perhaps just finally relaxed, the three of them sipped from a water canteen and then dug into the rations. They showed none of the vigilance they normally would have…
Lizard Priest took in the sight, then nodded. “A battle finely led, that was,” he said to Priestess, twisting his neck toward her.
She bashfully scratched her cheek, the wound still visible. “Oh, heavens. I didn’t do anything… It was thanks to all of you.”
“What?” Apprentice Clerk put in, swallowing a carrot. “That Minor Heal was incredible!”
“Huh, you used Minor Heal?!” High Elf Archer jumped into the conversation, exclaiming, “Haven’t seen that in a while!” with eyes shining with curiosity. Her long ears sat back against her head and she leaned forward, looking, to Priestess, very eager.
“Well… I didn’t really want to…”
Leaving aside what it was she didn’t really want to do.
Lizard Priest made a strange hands-together gesture toward the freshly garrulous party. That was one thing resolved. On to the next problem. “What can you tell us, Master Spell Caster? About these drums of war.”
“…Mmm, well. Ahem. How to put it…” Dwarf Shaman, off by himself examining the sasquatches’ forgotten drums, rubbed his belly and made a face. “These’re pretty decent, if a bit too blood-soaked.”
They must have once been for festival or ritual use. The instruments were of a quality not to be expected in a place like this. But in the giants’ hideout, they had been buried in garbage—including the remains of the giants’ victims. Magical spells and items are readily influenced by the thoughts and feelings that surround them. All the more so when those thoughts and feelings come from people who are themselves associated with sprites. If these drums, so long used to sing the praises of winter, were ever to produce a pure sound without further deepening their curse, it would be only after they had been purged of the rage and hatred that pervaded them.
“I’m thinkin’ it might be good to have our furry friends hang on to these and purify them.”
“Well, I suppose it would be not quite as it would at my own village, but…” Lizard Priest stood beside Dwarf Shaman, a reverent look on his face, and gazed at the drums. In his mind, he suddenly heard a bold sound, a beat praying for the courageous deaths of friend and foe alike in battle.
That was how battle should be. Lizard Priest’s eyes rolled back in his head. “In that case, we shall return these to the village, and all shall be done.”
“We can hope so, anyway,” Dwarf Shaman said, stroking his beard in a way that suggested he didn’t entirely believe it.
“Something trouble you?”
“Maybe it’s just that we don’t have Beard-cutter here,” Dwarf Shaman replied. “Or maybe it’s that I’m not used to riding this high at the end of a quest. Whatever it is, something just don’t quite feel right.”
“Most difficult, that,” Lizard Priest said, rolling his eyes jovially, and Dwarf Shaman agreed, stroking his beard with a smile. “See if your disposition does not change after a celebratory cup back at the village.”
“Sounds like a damn good idea, Scaly.”
Perhaps something also nagged at Priestess, watching them, for she found her thin fingers rubbing absently at her neck.
§
When they got out of the cave, they found the chill of the wind had mellowed substantially; they were greeted by the gleam of sunlight on snow. “Wow,” Priestess breathed, causing Harefolk Hunter to chuckle.
“You’ll hurt your eyes looking right at it. At least without something to dim the brightness.” With one furry paw, the hare took out a wooden board with a slim gap in it. As Hunter held up the device and secured it with string, much like a pair of glasses, High Elf Archer murmured, “Ooh, neat.” She was blinking furiously—maybe she had stared too long at the light—but she nonetheless gave Lizard Priest a little poke. “Sure, it’s bright and all, but I’ll bet you’re happy the cold’s let up a bit.”
“Well, I had an excellent chance to move in that cave. My blood is good and warm now.” He nodded, then gave an exaggerated shiver. “But it is rather chilly with only scales. Some feathers or a bit of fur would be welcome about now.”
“Forget it, Scaly. I don’t think I could imagine calling you Furry,” Dwarf Shaman quipped, taking a long swig of wine. He held out the fire wine to Lizard Priest, who took a mouthful and then offered it to High Elf Archer.
Her ears went back and her eyes went wide. “Oh, stop. I told you, I don’t need it!”
“Some palates never mature, I see. Here, youngsters. Have a tipple?”
Rookie Warrior and Apprentice Cleric looked at each other, both of them already totally spent. They had been locked in desperate combat with giant rats until not long before. Fatigue was written all over their dirty faces.
“Well…”
“…Maybe just a sip, then.”
They accepted the wine and took tentative tastes, sticking out their tongues at the dryness of it. But it soon warmed them, a gentle flush spreading across the faces of the boy and girl. Very effective, it appeared. They handed the jug back to Dwarf Shaman with their thanks; he snickered at High Elf Archer.
“…Oh, what?”
“Nothing. Just thinking that maybe it’s just a little too soon for you, m’long-eared lass.”
“If you’re looking to start something, then it’s on, barrel-belly!!”
High Elf Archer’s ears laid back on her head, while Dwarf Shaman just smirked at her. They were off and arguing. Priestess, well used to her companions’ banter by now, simply giggled.
Now all they had to do was take the drums and get down the mountain. Their adventure was finished. They had climbed the snowy peaks, done battle with the sasquatches, snuck into the cave of the Ice Witch, taken the silver arrow, and destroyed the villain. The handout the Supreme God had given Apprentice Cleric was now fulfilled. The adventure was a success. A complete triumph. All they had to do was go home. To go there and back again: that was an adventure.
And yet…
…what was that prickling she felt in her neck? Priestess touched her nape gently, then started walking, the snow crunching underfoot. They needed to get back down to the village and let them know what had happened. And there was still the matter of the sasquatches, whom they had let live.
Priestess felt unusually nervous; she didn’t want to stay here long.
“Let’s go, everyone.”
The adventurers nodded, and the party set out for home. Nothing remarkable happened on the way. With the winds of winter abated, there was no foreboding that any snow-bound predator was going to leap out at them. High Elf Archer and Harefolk Hunter kept their ears working vigilantly, but it hardly seemed necessary. After the fatigue and the aftereffects of fighting set in, they began to feel a certain heaviness come over them. Not indolence, exactly, but there was certainly no spring in their step.
Priestess and the others chatted, though, enjoying the scenery—the whiteness of the snow and the great blue of the sky. When they looked down into the valleys running among the peaks, the snow seemed to pile there like a sea at high tide. They almost wished they could just fly down there…
Such a thing was impossible, of course, but the thought was irresistible.
The mountains were indeed no place for regular folk. Perhaps they weren’t even a place for gremlins like the Ice Witch. This was the throne of a violent god. Surely that was why the Supreme God had summoned Apprentice Cleric. To shatter the evil that was here.
“…I wonder if I was really able to do it.”
Priestess heard the barest whisper from the girl carrying the sword and scales. She turned back to say something, but then thought better of it. Rookie Warrior was speaking softly to Apprentice Cleric, to which she responded with a smile. That was enough, then. There was nothing for Priestess to say. She turned forward again, leaning on her staff as she walked lightly along.
One might expect descending a mountain to be easier than scaling one, but it really wasn’t by much. Of course, her heart was light. They just needed to get down there. But the stress on her body was the same.
Taking occasional breaks, the party made steady progress toward the hare village.
“?”
How far had they gotten from the Ice Witch’s cave before the column came to a halt?
“Something the matter?” Lizard Priest asked, sliding up beside Priestess, who had suddenly stopped walking.
She only murmured “No” without taking her eyes off one particular point.
“Huh? What’s going on?” High Elf Archer inquired from nearby. She came up beside Priestess, who was pressing on her neck, and followed her gaze. The steep slope of the hill was dotted with dwellings long ago abandoned. “Hmm?” High Elf Archer said, but then a second later, her eyes opened wide. “Oh!”
Smoke. Smoke was rising from the village.
“A battle, per’aps?” Dwarf Shaman said doubtfully.
“I should imagine,” Lizard Priest nodded confidently. “The smell of flesh and blood, the aroma of war. The question that remains for us is, war with what?”
“But that village is abandoned, right? What good would burning it do…?”
Were there bandits there or anything of the sort? Nobody would be upset with the party for ignoring something that had nothing to do with them. Priestess, though, felt a blast of cold and shivered. A chill ran up her spine; she felt as if some strange thing were licking her neck.
“Goblins…?” The word came to her like a handout, like an inspiration.
Rookie Warrior and Apprentice Cleric shared a look. Harefolk Hunter seemed flummoxed. But not the others.
“…Awww, man, I could’ve guessed,” High Elf Archer groaned, putting her hands to her cheeks and looking up at the sky. Ever since she had teamed up with that man, she couldn’t catch a break!
It wasn’t totally fair to blame the heavens. Dwarf Shaman gave her a little smack on the butt, ignoring her yelp. “No time for gripin’, lassie. Spend that energy thinking about what you’re going to do, eh?”
“Y-yeah, I know that!” High Elf Archer pursed her lips.
“Still, we have a choice: to go there, or to head back.” Lizard Priest turned to look at Priestess, then rolled his eyes as if to say that all of this amused him. “What shall we do?”
“We go,” Priestess said without hesitation. Then she bit her lip, staring hard at the village before she asked sharply, “How does it look?”
“Well, now,” Lizard Priest said, baring his great, terrifying fangs. He knew the question; that man had asked it of him often.
Though there be still a bit of egg shell on her tail…
“If our foes are indeed the little devils, then I think we need hardly bring the drums with us. There is still the question of how long it will take us.”
“…I agree.”
He was right. There were two problems. The drums—they should let the village know about the danger, too. Then there was the issue of how long it would take to get there.
What would he do?
Priestess thought. “There was always a plan,” he said. Always. That’s what he had told her, so there must be something now. There had to be.
“…We still have spells, right?”
“Mmm,” Dwarf Shaman said, pounding his belly proudly. “Quite a handful, in fact.”
“In that case…”
What to do? Consider baggage, equipment, spells, the whole situation…
“H-hey, what about us? What should we do…?” Rookie Warrior’s hesitant question broke into Priestess’s ruminations. He couldn’t hide his tiredness, but nonetheless he stood there, looking her straight in the eye. The gleam in his own eyes said clearly that he could still fight.
That look was what inspired Priestess to say, “Please hurry to the village.” She and the others would take on the goblins.
Maybe Rookie Warrior thought this was a show of pity, because he puffed out his chest proudly. “W-we can still fight… Yeah, we’re doing great!”
“‘We can still fight’ is just another way of saying you’re already on the edge,” Priestess said, shutting down his show of heroism. How many, many times had he said the same thing to her? “If you can win by doing something crazy or stupid, that’s one thing, but if you could count on winning that way, then we wouldn’t worry about it in the first place.”
She was anxious. Her head was spinning. Her voice was cracking. Each time she breathed in, her lungs stung with the cold. “And there’s the example of the training ground. It would be terrible for the harefolk village to get attacked…”
“…We have to let them know, don’t we?” Harefolk Hunter, seeing that the hare village might not yet be safe, nodded nervously. “You just leave it to us. We’ll get the drums there, too, and make sure everyone knows what’s happening.”
“All right,” Priestess said with a bow of her head.
“Guess that settles it,” Apprentice Cleric said, letting out a breath. “Come on, let’s get down this mountain. No time to waste now.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Rookie Warrior said piteously. “First on the farm, then at the training ground—I never got to actually fight!”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, if this pains you, then make yourself able to walk a little longer,” Lizard Priest grinned, slapping Rookie Warrior heartily on the shoulder.
“Eyowch!,” he yelped.
“For there is nothing more stalwart than an infantryman who can march a long distance. Don’t you agree, Master Spell Caster?”
“True enough. A dwarf soldier can fight from dawn till dusk and not get tired.”
“As long as he doesn’t get hungry,” High Elf Archer smirked, to which Dwarf Shaman responded with a puff of his chest, “Indeed so. Give us wine and food, and we can fight forever. That’s the pride of the dwarves.”
High Elf Archer, apparently well acquainted with the pride of the dwarves, said nothing more, but simply smiled, cool and pleasant. “You heard the lady—that’s her disposition. We’ll handle things here. There’s got to be someone behind all this.”
The words made Rookie Warrior nod listlessly. So it wasn’t over. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for all of them to be destroyed then and there. “Fine… I get it. We go back, we tell them, we wait, and then we all go home.”
“There’s a good boy,” High Elf Archer snickered, then gave him an elegant wink. He went bright red, earning a jab from Apprentice Cleric. She ignored his yelp and bowed her head politely.
“See you soon, then…!”
Priestess was bound to notice the emotions hidden in those words. She nodded, replying with a gentle wave of the staff in her hands. “Yes. Soon.”
Each of the three youngsters looked at the others and nodded, and then off they went with the magic drums in tow. Their steps were sure; it seemed there would be no need to worry about them as they went down the mountain.
“That leaves…just one last problem, then,” Priestess said softly, looking away from the departing figures.
The columns of smoke rising from the village had increased in size and number. Fires? Or an attack by fire? Whatever it was, they would have to face it. And if he had been there, then…
“…” Priestess made a fist and tapped it against her chest.
“How are we going to do this, though?” High Elf Archer asked, restringing her bow. “That place is a hike.”
“If we just go tumbling down the mountain, we’ll never make it,” Dwarf Shaman said with a thoughtful frown and a gulp of wine. “By the time we get there, it’ll all be over.”
“Have you any notion of what you’ll do, Milady Priestess?” Lizard Priest sounded like he was downright enjoying himself.
Priestess shook her head, smiling wistfully; she took a breath in and let it out again. It was all right. Surely it would be. This was what he would do, she was confident. So it couldn’t be wrong.
Spells, gear, situation—she had considered them all. That covered everything, she was fairly sure.
No: even if there was something better, this was the best plan she had right now. And to think of a better plan later would do none of them any good.
And so, with all her strength, Priestess said firmly, “Yes. I have a plan.”
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