Despite the front she had put forward the night before, Jadis had mixed feelings about running off alone and leaving her companions and lovers to guard Stavros and his Reavers by themselves. Not that there was really all that much to worry about. With the capture of the smugglers, the soldiers had recovered most of their belongings, including their weapons and armor. Nora even had her staff back. The prisoners were also tightly secured with steel manacles and ropes that left no room for even slippery sorts like Jockel to wiggle free. Then there was the fact that Aila had put down an abundance of magic traps all around them, plus more around the camp itself. Kerr, Thea, and Bridget were all on watch and more than capable of handling themselves.
Jadis still worried. She was travelling far, far further afield than she had before, crossing a distance that would have taken the wagons another day and a half. If anything went wrong, not only would she not be nearby to help, but she also wouldn’t even be close enough to hear Sabina’s boom enchantment or see Nora’s lightning. Jadis would be utterly in the dark until she got back.
On the other side of things, she had seen the worry in Aila’s eyes when she left shortly after dawn. That worry had been mirrored in the eyes of Kerr, Eir, Thea, Sabina, and Bridget. Even Willa had looked worried about her leaving. Still, Jadis had survived in this same forest for well more than a month when she was all on her own. She’d been a lot weaker than she was now, too. She knew she could handle most threats she might encounter, and she could definitely run away from anything too much for her to handle. Hopefully. Considering how classes, levels, and skills worked, there was just no knowing how powerful a seemingly weak entity actually was. Jadis had to make sure to keep that in mind if she ran into anything unknown in the woods while she traveled alone and without knowledgeable companions to fill her in.
Putting aside her concerns, Jadis focused on the road ahead of her. Running as fast as she was, she had to put a fair amount of concentration into maintaining her balance and avoiding obstructions. Big obstructions, anyway. The small obstructions weren’t much of a hinderance at all for armored bulk and steel-shod feet. She didn’t know how fast she was going, but she had the feeling there wasn’t a horse alive that could catch up to her.
The day was cloudy, the wind from yesterday having brought dark gray clouds to cover the sky. As she ran along the westward road, snowflakes began to fall. It started as a slight flurry, but before she’d run for a full hour the snow was coming down steadily, turning the land and trees around her white. It didn’t look like the snow was going to stop anytime soon, either. Jadis was glad the running was helping to keep her warm, too, since the temperature seemed to drop as the day progressed. Or was it getting colder the further west she went?
The wind had indeed mostly died down, but as she thundered down the road Jadis felt as though she were running further and further into a gigantic icebox. It was as though an aura of cold was radiating outward, pushing against her. It wasn’t yet cold enough to cause her harm, but she could literally feel the difference in temperature between her front and her back.
There were more demons, too. Jadis made no attempt to stop and fight any, but she still saw more and more groups of demons making their way west as the morning continued. There were mostly small groups, but occasionally she saw larger mobs, ones closer in size to what they’d fought the day before, and bigger demons with increasing frequency. She spotted grundwyrms, nithetre, and even a giant cave spider at one point, the huge black ten-legged beast skittering through the woods amidst a pack of twisted wretches that looked like they’d stolen their corpse-bodies from things that live underground.
And then Jadis saw the mountain.
The split peaked mountain was barely visible, the dense snow clouds obscuring the view. Still, Jadis was able to make out enough to see that it was a match for what she had been looking for. The road turned more southward, passing around the high hills that extended outward from the base of the mountain. The valley that was created between the two smaller mountains flanking the taller split peak was tucked far back and away from the view of the road, stretching miles northward.
Jadis left the road, striking out into the untamed forest. Her speed was decreased as she had to move more carefully through the wilderness, but not as badly as it might have been. She still had Kerr’s Path Less Travelled skill duplicated and it aided her in her fast progress towards the mountain. She kept to the east side of the valley, following along one of the hills with the intention of climbing a high ridge once she got closer to the split peak so she could get a good view of the valley, or as good as possible considering the weather.
She had gone maybe a third of the way into the valley when she heard the most terrifying sound she’d ever experienced in her life.
A tremendous shrieking roar echoed in the frozen air, instantly forcing Jadis to freeze in her tracks. It felt as though a jet had just passed directly over her heads, the ear-splitting sound causing the breath to vibrate inside of her chest. The roar was far louder than any living thing had any right to be, which was the truly horrifying part Jadis realized. The sound wasn’t artificial, created by man’s machinery. A living being had made that sound. A creature was actually out there that was big enough to make that sound.
“Fuck me this is a stupid idea,” Jadis mumbled to her selves as she ran up the hill to get as high as she could.
Her every instinct was telling her to run as far and as fast as she could away from whatever had just roared like that. However, she also felt an overwhelming curiosity to actually see the originator of that sound. There was no way she could just leave now without getting a look at whatever that thing was. Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but the cat hadn’t been wearing heavy plate armor nor had it been able to sprint faster than a cheetah. She had to take a chance.
Taking the slope in great leaps and bounds, Jadis scaled the foothills, the land transitioning to the side of one of the surrounding mountains. As she ran, thoughts of when she had crested the mountain ridge a week or so ago flitted through her mind. At that time, she had been met with the sight of Nora’s lightning bolts, signaling that Willa’s troops were under attack. Jadis could feel the tension building inside her at the anticipation of what she might see this time.
Eventually Jadis found her selves at the top of a tall cliff face, the nearly vertical wall of stone stretching hundreds of feet into the air. The lack of trees before the cliff gave an open view of the valley, though as she came to a stop among the wind-twisted trees that survived along the windswept mountain ridge, she found that her view of the valley was obscured by the thickly falling snow. She stood there, watching the white treetops for any sign of movement, any landmark that looked out of place, yet the snowfall had become so strong that she couldn’t make out the far side of the valley anymore.
“Now what?” Dys huffed out as she caught her breath.
“This fucking snow is ridiculous,” Syd cursed.
“Maybe we should turn back,” Jay sighed as she shivered in the cold wind. “It sucks to go back empty handed, though. Can’t even say we saw—oh fuck!”
Jadis’ musings were cut off as another piercing, inhuman cry echoed across the mountains, this time even louder than before. The wind, already freezing, grew even colder as it whipped past her with gale force. All three of her stumbled slightly at the sudden overwhelming gust, then fell back further as the snow became a wall of white. Squinting against the sudden storm, Jadis braced her selves against the hurricane before the wind abruptly cut off and she was left stumbling again against nothing, no force to push her back.
Jadis caught her selves, blinking to clear her eyes from the snow that had come through her visors. As she cleared her vision, she saw that the snowstorm had abated, the sky before her having opened up. Except, it hadn’t. There were still dark storm clouds overhead, the skies around the mountains were still shrouded in walls of white. The valley alone was clear. Clear except for one single colossal creature flying overhead.
Its scaled body was ice blue along its back and dark gray along its chest and stomach. Huge spikes like icicles lined its back, running down the ridge all the way to the tip of a long, sinewy tail that whipped in the air behind it. A pair of massive bat-like wings stretched wide to either side of the beast, each one bigger than the creature’s body was long. Four powerful legs were tucked up against its body, giant claws tipping its curled fists. As it glided high through the air, it turned in an arc, revealing its long thick neck and viper-like head. Its mouth opened and another earsplitting screech echoed, a blast of frozen wind issuing from its mouth as it swept over the forest, the power of the freezing breath toppling trees even as it flew hundreds of feet over the treetops.
A dragon. A motherfucking dragon. Jadis gawped at the sight, her mouths hanging open as she watched the actual fucking dragon circle the valley. Intellectually, she had known dragons were real. She’d heard references to them more than a few times since coming to Oros. She’d been hoping that maybe one day she might actually see one, if she were lucky.
Well, now she was seeing one. Words could not describe how she felt in the presence of such a creature, though she still struggled to find them. It wasn’t just the size, which she could tell was massive even at a great distance. It was the power the dragon radiated. This one creature was the apex predator, the ruler of its domain, the king of all it surveyed. There was nothing in this world it couldn’t dominate if it so chose to. Those were the feelings that ran through Jadis’ mind as she watched the dragon sweep across the far side of the valley.
Jadis continued to stare, mesmerized by the awe-inspiring sight. As she gawked, her weapons practically forgotten in her hands, the dragon circled the southern side of the valley, the direction she had come from, and swept up the east ridgeline. In moments she got a close look at the monstrously massive draconic beast as it flew practically level with the ridgeline she was standing on. The dragon’s head passed by, close enough to her overlook that she could see the individual scales pattered across its ice-blue face. She could see its red eyes, slit like a snake’s, all six of them. She could see the scars of old battles where great claws had torn its flesh, now healed, running down its neck.
She could see the dark wriggling tentacles of a demon protruding from a festering wound in the side of the dragon’s shoulder.
All four of her bodies were driven back as the air pressure of one flap of its wings sent the ice dragon rocketing by her. She caught her selves, steadying against each other as her mind whirled with what she had seen. The dragon had a demon burrowing into its flesh. Was it being possessed? Had it been already? Was it even possible for such a huge, powerful creature to be possessed? Shit, if it was, what would that mean for Far Felsen? She could already imagine the gigantic dragon strafing the city from the skies, blasting its defenders with its icy breath. It would be a slaughter. How would an army even begin to fight—
Wait. Four bodies?
Jadis paused, her distracted mind catching up to her surroundings, taking into account things other than the dragon. Jay stood in the middle, carrying her oversized war hammer. Dys was to the left of Jay, her huge battle axe in one hand. Syd was to the right of Jay, leaning on her lance. All three of her selves turned their heads, looking at the fourth Jadis standing to the right of Syd. She was identical to the others, wearing full cold flame steel armor, in the exact same style as Jadis, except instead of a hammer, axe, or lance, she carried a huge twohanded sword that was as tall as she was.
The fourth turned her head to look back at the other three, her face obscured under her dark helm.
“What the fuck…?” all four said at the same time.
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