The Blackfire Annals: Chasing Ghosts
Chapter Three: Hunters and Hunted

Luthe and the other dark elves decided that it would be imprudent to leave at night, given that the Outlands were populated by desperate people, and many of them had turned criminal to meet their increasing needs. Seeing the wisdom behind this, Carsten had agreed to these terms, and followed the lead of Luthe and his sisters. Or rather his sister. The younger dark elf, who he had introduced as Ciara, was in fact his sister. The other, who gave her name as Nari Blackroot, was a drifter that the two of them had met before they arrived in this village, and who apparently had made a name for herself as a huntress and natural healer. Unlike the other two, who wore hip quivers and carried hunting knives or short swords, she carried only a bow with a shoulder-slung quiver and no close combat weapon. Not that Carsten paid much attention to women usually, but this particular elf felt…different. And not just because, even in her hunter’s garb, she was quite obviously a beautiful woman who carried herself with an almost alien grace. Maybe it was his mother’s sprite heritage, maybe not. But he sensed a powerful magical aura emanating from her, one that would take considerable effort to suppress, let alone conceal altogether. However, his gut feeling was unreliable at best, and that could mean she was a normal (albeit gorgeous) young woman who just set off alarm bells in his head. In addition, he had noticed slight hesitation when she gave her name. Maybe she was telling the truth and just paused before she said anything; he often found himself forgetting important details. Still, Carsten doubted that. She had not paused when she said anything else, things that would have been harder to remember than her own name. Thus, he suspected a far more dangerous reason for concealing her name. Not that he blamed her; he had hidden his surname, something easy to do because his was a fairly common dwarf name. She, on the other hand, had no visible cause for hiding it, and that made him the more suspicious. The other two appeared uncomplicated. They seemed honest, straightforward, and trusting. That made them difficult to deceive, or so Carsten had previously believed. However, they seemed to trust Nari almost unequivocally, something he was not at all comfortable with. Why should they trust anyone like this? But that was not his place to question. At least not yet. As he watched Luthe dealing with the innkeeper, he was struck by the innkeeper’s familiarity with the dark elf, as though they had known each other all their lives. Finally, their transaction was complete, and the hunters could leave. As they slipped out of the inn, Carsten caught a glimpse of something moving across the street. It was a dark blur, so quick that he almost thought he had imagined it. However, he simultaneously heard a hiss similar to the sound of something flying past at high speed, and that made him pause.

“Is something wrong?” Nari asked. Carsten looked at her. Her voice was soft, but he had no difficulty hearing it. He shook his head, uncomfortable at her attention.

“No…” he murmured. “Nothing I can see.”

“Then why did you stop?” She asked.

“I thought…” His voice trailed off.

“You see things the others do not. You felt something out here,” she finished, looking back inside the inn. Luthe was tightening his belt while Ciara chatted with Hilde at the counter. “Just like you saw me for what I was when we met.” Carsten flinched.

“How…” he could not quite replace the words. “How did you…”

“You are not a pureblood dwarf, are you? Part elf, perhaps?”

Carsten shook his head. “Sprite. Helps with woodcraft, I replace. My mother taught me a few tricks no one else could, and that’s one of the reasons I’m as good as I am.”

“And you have probably realized I am not what I seem, either,” she said softly.

“Yes, but I do not know the extent of your abilities,” he said.

She shrugged. “I’m a healer. Beyond that, I only have a few talents, but I get by with them.”

“And Nari,” He said. “That is not your real name, is it?” She grinned again. She had a symmetrical grin, but it still seemed lopsided because she cocked her head.

“No, it is not. Just like you have a real surname.” She stepped out of the door. “But let’s leave each other’s secrets alone for now. And, Carsten…” She looked across the road.

“I felt it, too,” she whispered.

The other elves were not long in leaving the inn. Once they were in the street, Luthe led the way to the town’s north gate. Carsten looked from side to side, but he saw nothing like the shadow that he had seen, or rather felt, near the inn. Nari, too, seemed uneasy. Maybe because she was stronger in magical skill than he was, she sensed things like this more easily. But she was not reacting to anything she saw, so perhaps they were safe as of now.

Luthe led the way through the market, where he haggled for supplies. They needed salted beef and hard bread for the road, in addition to insulated water-skins for the journey. He could not get them cheaply, for few people travelled far at this time, and so shopkeepers did not keep a large supply. That done, he asked directions to an inn with a name Carsten did not recognize. One of the more helpful shopkeeper, a stout faerie woman with graying hair, had given him the street name and building description, and the group followed it to the letter. They arrive at the inn, and Luthe stepped inside, where he was for about half an hour.

To pass the time, Ciara and Nari started chatting in the Outland dialect of elven Lirial speech, while Carsten reached into his pack and removed something from it. It was a beaten leather-bound book, marked with faerie runes on the top. Most people in the Outlands could not have read something in this particular language, but his mother had taught him to read it since he was four. He flipped through the pages, looking at various species. This tome had information on every known species in Pathonia, and he had been consulting it just about every day. Technically, though, the book was neither his nor his family’s; his mother had stolen it from the library the faerie folk kept just south of the Outlands’ border. The reason he was reading was his innate curiosity about these white dragons; he had never seen such a creature before. Plus, several clues told him that these beasts were far from ordinary.

First, they lacked any form of breath attack, something uncommon among dragons. Second, it had a stinging tail filled with translucent blue venom in it. He removed the stinger from his pack and turned it over in his hands, appreciating its long and deadly curvature. While he had not experienced the effects thereof, he had no doubt it was quite uncomfortable and most likely fatal. Lack of breathed attacks and venom indicated, according to the information in this tome, that the beast was a class of dragon known as a wyrm. Wyrms supposedly lacked the inner elemental fury of its more majestic kin, and he believed the information. Faeries were the only people that inhabited all three realms aside from humans, and they took copious stock of the wildlife wherever they found themselves, compiling all of their information in their library in the South. However, there were no records of any ice wyrms, only those that lived in temperate or hot climates. Desert Sand Lions, ocean-dwelling Electricutioners, tree-dwelling Vineweavers...he cut off reading with a silent oath. In reading, something struck him; none of the species mentioned inhabited the Waste, even though he knew the names of several such creatures. Suddenly, it made perfect sense. The beasts were not native to the Outlands; they had come down from the Waste. But these beasts, though not apex predators by any stretch, easily threatened hunters and other creatures in the Outlands. Therefore, anything that could have driven them out had to be truly a force to be feared. He slid the book back into his pack and took out his sharpening steel and began whetting the blade of his single-edged sword. Nari and Ciara still remained absorbed in their conversation, and so he felt no need to interject. Apparently, they were abuzz with the news that a wealthy elven prince had proposed marriage to one of the daughters of the dark elf king, Oriem Blackfire, nine months ago. While Blackfire had no older son who would sit on the throne after him, his daughters had queenly looks and bearing. However, one of them defying both her suitor and the expectations of everyone around her, she had vehemently refused.

“I heard she told him that she thought him overly foppish and self-obsessed,” Ciara said. “Although from what I’ve heard, she’s not much different.”

Nari shrugged. “I have met her. She is not quite so terrible if you get to know her. But yes, she can be bad sometimes. A lot of times, actually.”

“Who was the elf prince?” Carsten asked.

Ciara turned, surprised that the taciturn dwarf had said something, and in addition, that he had said it in perfect dark elf Lirial, without any accent or hesitation. “You…how…”

Carsten shrugged. “I’ve made a study of some languages. A working knowledge pays dividends. Stranger things have happened than a dwarf speaking Lirial. So, who was the prince?”

Ciara though for a second. “I think his name was Dathnil or Dothnis or something like that.”

“Dothnae,” Nari corrected. “His name was Dothnae Redbark.”

Carsten started laughing. “I’d have given good money to see the consternated look on his face. The stupid fool.”

Nari looked at him. “You know who he is?” Carsten stopped laughing long enough to nod.

“He’s the eldest son of Karyth Redbark, the Elven-king of Andrion. I expected the king to do something like this, though I do not think his heart was in it. See, Dothnae’s father has always been unity-minded, but Dothnae hates most Outlanders, I have heard. Karyth may have had a hand in it. He’s never been able to stay out of our affairs all the way.” Carsten scowled.

“Perhaps she didn’t want him to know she knew. I know she said what everyone knows about Dothnae, but she probably had some other reason in mind. From what’s been said about her father, his ulterior motives have ulterior motives, so perhaps his one of his daughters is capable of similar misdirection.”

“You think she would lie to him?” Nari asked.

“She may not have lied, but she certainly did not tell the truth. By the way, was that Arcaena?”

“What?” Ciara asked.

“The elf who turned Dothnae down. Which one was it?”

“His eldest, Arcaena,” Nari said. “Why?”

“I thought she might,” he said. “He is far too self-absorbed to make a good husband, or even a passable one.”

Nari shook her head. “From what I’ve heard, he is not so terrible. Why would you say she is not suited to him?”

Carsten shrugged. “She’s a dark elf, while he’s a light elf. I do not believe that he was thinking about such a decision. If he got her to agree to marriage, Karyth could possibly disown him. If Arcaena went along with the idea, Oriem would definitely disown her. They are not rebellious enough to marry out of spite, and they both need their parents.”

Ciara raised an eyebrow. “How so?” Again, Carsten shrugged.

“They are both high on themselves, and from my experience, parents deflate egos quite well.”

“So you think them overconfident?” Nari asked. Carsten looked sidelong at her.

“It only amounts to overconfidence if unfounded, Nari. And, from the rumors I have heard, neither of them is ordinary. So not overconfidence, perhaps, but rank egotism nonetheless.”

“Really?” Ciara said, a smile creeping across her features. “Well, tell us what you have heard.”

“Yes,” Nari agreed. “I am most curious.”

“That Arcaena is the most beautiful of Oriem’s daughters. According to popular opinion, she could rival Yariel Redbark for looks, and she supposedly is a master spellcaster. Dothnae, for his part, is an expert warrior, the quintessential knight. He is chivalrous, noble, and every bit the warrior. But they could not be less alike beyond their notoriety. Arcaena is very witty, by all indications, and Dothnae is quite serious. She is cool and even-tempered, while he has quite the temper.”

“Then it would make no sense for him to propose to her, if you think about it,” Nari put in.

Carsten laughed. “He was thinking, all right, but not about character matches.”

Ciara looked coyly at him. “Really? And you have never had thoughts in that direction, dwarf? You said she was beautiful. Have you seen her for yourself to judge?” Carsten nodded.

“She is,” he replied. “But it is precisely for that reason that I have no thoughts in that direction. Besides, she is not exactly my type.”

“Your type?” Ciara echoed.

“My type,” he replied. “She truly is stunning, and every inch a lady. Look at me, elf; I am rough, barbaric, and more than a little savage. Plus, I look like I put my head in a Battlewagon’s treads.”

Ciara giggled at that. “Oh, stop. You’re not so terrible. What you see on the outside is wallpaper. It is the heart that counts.”

Nari nodded. “Well said. She has a good way to go before she is ready to be a queen, but I do believe she has the potential. A truly selfless heart is the only way to be the leader we need. I do hope she turns out right.”

“Agreed,” Ciara said. “We could use some solid leadership.”

Luthe’s return disrupted further conversation, who exited the building beside them with a small, squat creature with a crooked nose in tow. The goblin (for goblin he was, and not true orc) had a blowpipe strapped to his back and two bandoliers of darts across his chest. His outfit was patched leather, and his boots and gauntlets were similarly beaten and damaged. He had a fur cloak toed around his neck with thick leather cord, though it looked a bit large for him. His intelligent yellow eyes shifted from one member of the odd-looking company.

“This is Scurjal,” Luthe explained, and the goblin dipped his head in a nod. “He’s another hunter who will be helping us for some time. He’s agreed to work for the same rate as Carsten, so we should be fine for money.” Scurjal mumbled a greeting to all of them, and then they moved on toward the north gate. Carsten suddenly felt the same chill he had next to the inn, and something moved across several rooftops. He shook his head. Had he imagined these surreal feelings and sights? He did not think so, and looking at Nari’s face, she had felt it too. Her pace quickened accordingly, and he could tell that she wanted to leave as well.

The others seemed blissfully unaware of any danger, and continued on much slower than he would have liked. Nevertheless, they were soon outside the city. Once they had gone out of sight of the walls, Luthe consulted a small map he kept in a small pouch on his belt.

“All right,” he said. “There’s another village to the northwest, but we’ll have to go out of our way to get there.” He rolled the chart up. “And sleeping in this cold, even with camping gear, is a death sentence.”

“Will we reach there by nightfall?” Carsten asked. “Travelling at night would be foolish, even for a little time.”

“But this far south, can the phantoms be that much trouble?” Ciara asked. “We haven’t heard reports of them here.”

“But they are,” Carsten replied. “I’ve seen what they can do, and I’ve seen what’s left after they do.”

“You’re sure it was these phantoms?” Nari asked. Carsten shook his head.

“It’s difficult to identify a never-before-seen animal,” Carsten replied. “But travelers have confirmed that these killings match the phantoms’ work. So no, I won’t sleep in the open.”

Luthe shrugged, taking a few steps down the snow-covered path. “Neither will we. Let’s get on the road.”

The two dark creatures were in the village inn, their presence masked by their innate ability to draw shadows to themselves. They were rummaging through the dark elves’ room.

“Their scent is strong. Especially the sorceress…” the first hissed. “We have missed them.”

“There is another,” the second whispered. “His scent is strong.”

“Which one?” Asked the first. “Another elf? A man?”

“No…” the second murmured. “Nor it is not mere magic. He seems harmless, no power at all. Still…” His voice trailed off, but his eyes flashed as he calculated the possibilities, similar to choosing a move in a game of chess. Then, he saw something. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Hmm. That does not bode well. We must return to the fortress at once.”

“Why?”

“He is the one the mistress seeks. We must report what we have found. The elf will be caught at another time. Her father would never take her back after this latest rebellion against him. This other one, though fills me with uncertainty. Fog clouds him, like a veil. Perhaps he has hidden himself from us.”

“And perhaps another more powerful sage masks him from us. But why?”

The other shook his head. “I know not. Come.” As abruptly as they appeared, the figures seemed to vanish from the room, leaving only wisps of black fog.

Outside the Village

Carsten felt the protective shield hit him like a wave, driving him to his knees. He swore and stood again, wobbling on his feet. That had been his mother’s spell; of that he was certain. He had felt such protection before, when she had hidden him the night of his birth. He remembered that night crystal clear, even though he could remember nothing between then and his third birthday, oddly enough. Nari turned and stared at him.

“What happened?” She asked. “Are you all right?” He nodded.

“I will be perfectly all right.” She wrinkled her nose at him, but the others continued walking, and Nari and Carsten had no choice but to follow suit. He heard her voice in his head.

You have been hidden from me. Can you do that? I thought you said you were unable to use magic.

That is not my fault, and I cannot, he protested. It was my mother.

What do you mean? She asked.

She cast a protection spell. She masked my-our-presence.

Why? She pressed. He turned his head to look back at the village they had left. He felt a chill run through him again. He felt certain now that Nari’s presence and the shadow’s appearance were related. You know, she thought, I felt that chill again. Carsten nodded.

She felt it, too. Whatever it was. They are looking for someone. Maybe us.

Their journey led them across a wide-open field, empty of any signs of life except for the travelers. They all kept the hoods of their cloaks tightly about them, as the biting Outland winds would exploit any crack in their defenses. The wind whipped the snow up in wave-like undulations across their path, sending crystals of it into their faces and clothes. Carsten’s cloak whipped in the wind, billowing against his best efforts to hold it close to him. The others were still walking forward in the same stolid trudge that they had been using all day, trying to push through the snow without getting stuck. It was slow, though; six inches of snow might not seem like a lot to most people, but for Carsten and Scurjal, it was a lot of work. Six inches is quite substantial when you have few to spare. However, all of them kept moving, and the plain soon began to incline, and here Luthe again consulted his map. Scurjal looked at the chart with him. Apparently, the goblin was a cartographer in addition to being a hunter, and that had been one of Luthe’s reasons for hiring him. He pointed up the slope.

“Elves’ map is wrong,” he said in broken Pigdyn, the common language that all people groups at least understood. However, goblins were considered by even most other Outcasts backwater barbarians who had no grasp of the finer points of civilization. For their part, the goblins did little to dispel this notion, since they regarded outsiders’ opinions about as much as they did dragon scat. Therefore, they made little study of Pigdyn, believing it regulation imposed on them by outsiders. Apparently, though, Scurjal had at least studied it enough to express himself in broken sentences, which he continued to do. “Pass not here anymore. Closed off by landslide.”

Luthe looked up the slope at the pass, which was still hidden by the horizon. “Are you certain? If it’s closed, we have to go a mile around.” He rolled up his map, shaking his head. “We travel up the slope to go around the pass anyhow, so we should at least get a look.” The goblin shrugged, and they went back to moving through the snow at the same slow, unrelenting pace. Nari looked around before she started moving. Her senses were going crazy; she could feel something powerful, and close by. Scanning the landscape, however, she saw nothing moving at all. She began to walk again, taking a few steps before the nausea hit her. She dropped to her knees, her stomach roiling like a witch’s cauldron and her head feeling like it would split open. She shut her eyes in a vain attempt to close out the pain, but the agony remained. Nari felt it more keenly now; her senses were reaching farther, beyond her immediate area, searching for what it was that had first agitated them. Suddenly, she saw it; momentarily, in a flash so brief she thought it merely a hallucination, two sightless blue eyes, set in an unnaturally pale face. It looked like a woman, but before she could scrutinize it further, the vision was gone. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.

“Nari!” Ciara called from up the slope. “Are you all right?” Nari nodded.

“Fine,” she replied. But even as she said the words, she knew them to be a lie. She was far from it. What she had seen was no illusion; but who was it? No one she knew matched that description, and she was not about to try to establish that connection again. Such conduits often worked both ways, feeding information to the person contacted, as well as the initiator. She pushed the thoughts aside, focusing on not slipping as she climbed up the slope.

The pass was closed off, but more than that. The mountains on either side were ravaged, their surfaces gashed as if by the blade of a giant axe. Rocks had tumbled free of their places on the mountainside, falling into the snow in the narrow pass, forming a wall of ice, snow, rock, and dirt that was impassible. The cliffs directly above the pass were sheer, and climbing them would mean almost certain death and definite discomfort to life and limb. Luthe looked down at the mess before them, and then at the holes at their feet. Frozen to the ground in some places were what looked like broken shafts of digging tools, and Scurjal even found an intact shovel, but he dropped it immediately, as though it burned him. Also, there appeared to be tent spikes driven into the frozen earth, although there was no village near enough for a mine to function in these conditions. Nor were there any buildings where ore could be stored, or, for that matter, processing information. Luthe looked down at the closed pass, snorted in disgust, and then turned away.

“I suppose that ends that,” he growled. “Come on. This will put us behind by three hours. If we don’t hurry, we’ll be out after nightfall.” The others looked at each other, consternation writ large on most of their features. They looked down at the holes at their feet, unsure of what to do. After half a second, Ciara shrugged and followed her brother down the slope. Nari followed, and then Scurjal. Carsten, however, stopped, kneeling in the dirt and examining a rough-edged black object carefully. After several seconds, he slipped it into his pack and followed them down the slope to the path. Scurjal also lingered behind, making a sign with his fingers, several loops followed by placing his left hand over his heart. It was a gesture Nari recognized; it was customary for goblins to make such signs in the presence of powerful magical forces or the dead, and they did it to ward off evil. She shuddered.

“Not good,” the goblin murmured. “Bad things be here before elves. Make holes, shut pass. They are abroad once more.”

“What things?” Nari asked.

“The cold ones. The cold ones have come again,” he whispered.

“What are you talking about?”

“The giants of the ice. They have returned.” Nari shook her head. Was he talking about the phantoms? She did not think so; the phantoms were ice creatures, but they were animals nonetheless. They lacked the intelligence to close off the pass, and the deep gashes scored in the mountain had been made by some kind of digging tool, she could see. Carsten was turning the object he had found over in his hands. Finally, he seemed to tire of it and slid it into his pack. He moved off, shaking his head. Nari followed them, Scurjal’s word almost forgotten already.

The road they took now hugged the mountainside, and it was much harder. The dark elves used their agility to maneuver through the maze of boulders and debris in front of them, but they still had trouble. In addition, many of these rocks were frozen over, making them difficult or impossible to climb and difficult to slip past. Carsten, of all of them, seemed to have the easiest time among the stones. However, their pace had slowed to a crawl, and it was about half an hour of this agonizingly slow pace before Luthe said what they were all fearing would be the case.

“We cannot make it to the village,” he said. “We’ll have to spend the night on the road.” Carsten slid off a large rock, his boots crunching in the snow.

“Do you have anything to build a fire?” He asked. “Look north. There’s a storm coming; if we do not replace a heat source, we freeze to death.” This much was true; the horizon was covered with a massive dark bank of clouds, and they were sweeping south with tremendous speed.

“Do you have anything?” Nari asked. Carsten nodded.

“I brought some wood and a fire-starter kit in case we needed it. I think I could build one fire, but nothing more.”

Ciara pointed up ahead, to a place where the road was nigh impassable because of boulders that had fallen across the path. “We cannot put tents up in the pass, and so we’ll need to replace a cave or other shelter.”

“Besides,” Luthe said, “I do not even have one. I left it back home.” Ciara reddened with anger.

“I told you to bring the blasted thing!” She exploded. “But no, the great hunter wouldn’t listen to me. We’ll need it before we’re done, mark my words.” And before anyone could say anything, she spun angrily around and began moving again, her gait suggesting a little more than usual exasperation. Shaking his head, Luthe followed her. Carsten looked at Nari and shrugged.

“Ah, well. I’ve traveled with worse.” And he went after the other two. Scurjal was next, with Nari bringing up the rear. At least tonight would be warm and dry, if not comfortable.

There were surprisingly few caves in the mountains where they were, which frustrated the group to no end. They stopped once for the midday meal, cold meat and bread, and then they continued in their search. How hard could it be to replace one unoccupied place to stay in mountains thought to be full of them? But it was proving difficult; by midafternoon, they had circled three peaks, and come up empty all three times. Luthe’s anger was mounting.

“How difficult can this be?” He asked no one in particular. “The sun goes down in four hours, and we still haven’t found a place to stay the night.”

“I told you we needed tents,” Ciara muttered. Her brother glared at her.

“We will not need them,” he shot back. “We just need a little more time and luck if we are to replace a cave to spend the night.” He began walking further on. Ciara looked back at the others, mouthing I told him to bring a tent. She kept going anyway, content to let her brother be wrong.

Luthe was not wrong, as it turned out; the cave just took a lot longer to replace than any of them had anticipated. The sun had nearly set, and most of the others were losing patience with him. In addition, a storm had kicked up, and snow was flying in a blinding white wall right at them. However, despite their compromised visibility, they did replace a reasonably large cave about halfway around the fifth peak, and it looked unoccupied. Luthe stepped inside and scanned the walls.

“No bones, orcs, dragons, or bears.” He grinned. “It should do.” Carsten shook his head and pulled off his pack.

“Say what you want. I still do not think this is a good idea.” He removed the fire-starter kit and the faggot of wood. He dumped dwarf accelerant (something similar to gunpowder, but more flammable and less explosive) on the wet branches before he struck his flints together, sending a cascade of sparks down onto the waiting timbers. Almost instantly, the wood flared to life, despite the water. The dwarf watched the fire with satisfaction for several moments before he got to his feet.

“Happy?” He asked, dropping the fire-starter kit into his backpack. Luthe looked at the wood and nodded.

“Thanks. We should probably buy some kindling in the next town. Don’t know if this will happen again.” Ciara took some meat out of her pack, speared it on her hunting knife, and held it over the fire. She sat back heavily against a rock and ran her hand through her hair.

“We had better get more. Maybe we should buy a tent, too,” she said. But she was smiling as she said it, and Luthe knew she was no longer angry at him for his mistake. Nari pulled some bread out of her pack and began munching pensively. Carsten alone of all of them had not started eating; instead, he was standing at the edge of the cave, his left hand at his side. Though the dwarf could feel the heat of the flames on his back, he did not turn to face the fire. Instead, he peered into the blinding storm. He thought he might be able to see movement below through the wall of white in front of him, but he could not be sure of it. Taking the rough stone he had picked up from the site of the craters, Carsten started turning it over in his hands. At first, when he had seen the gashes scored in the mountain earth, he had believed them random acts of defacement by a roving orc tribe. However, further examination revealed a far more profound and dangerous truth. The rock in his hands seemed insignificant, of no concern unless kicked barefoot. Any dwarf worth his blacksmiths training knew better; All of them spent several years of their life in the study of metallurgy, and thus knew the names of all manner of various metals, ores, and their areas of greatest abundance. This stone was one of these ores, and, when subjected to a dwarven process, yielded shilthain, or black steel. But why there was shilthain in these mountains, and who could have been trying to strip-mine the frozen earth, he did not know. However, shilthain was rarely used for weapons or even tools by other races, because they believed the metal to be cursed. It was said that any who wielded such weapons unworthily suffered horrible fates for their foolish presumptions. Carsten did not believe this, but he could not deny that some people who had taken the weapons had endured terrible things. Still…he shook his head.

“Are you all right?” The voice came from behind him. It was Luthe, whose eyes were written over with concern. Carsten shrugged again in his usual nonchalant way.

“Fine. Just…” he looked out into the storm. “…missing someone.” His last thought remained unvoiced. Or something.

Their meal was not extravagant, but then, they had all had worse. They drew lots for the night watch, and Carsten drew the shortest one. Everyone else went to sleep, but he sat up, sharpening his knife with his steel. He looked around the cave, as though anticipating something. Finally, after he had honed the blade to a lethal edge, he took out his throwing axe and did the same. That finished, he took the ore chunk out of his jerkin. He turned it over in his hands, wondering exactly what it meant.

“That stone. What is it?” Carsten’s head jerked up. Nari was sitting on a stone near him. She had removed her fur vest and cloak, leaving her in a layered leather jerkin, though she was not wearing her boiled leather vambraces. He shrugged and tossed it to her. She caught it with a fluid motion and studied it. “It is not impressive,” she said finally. “I cannot understand why you picked it up.” Nari handed it back to him.

“Looks are just wallpaper, remember,” Carsten said. “The digging tools were my first clue that those holes might have been more than simple vandalism of nature.” He slipped the ore piece back into his shirt. “That little rock is a piece of an ore we dwarves use to make shilthain.”

“I have never heard of it. Is it some kind of metal?” Carsten nodded.

“It’s rare, and it’s supposed to be cursed. I never mined the stuff myself, but I know what it looks like.”

Nari scrunched her eyebrows. “But if it’s cursed, why mine it? And who could mine in weather like this?”

Carsten shook his head. “I don’t know the answer to the who. But you can be sure I’m going to replace out. As to the why, shilthain weapons carve iron like a knife cuts cheese. They are by far superior. An army with shilthain weapons would be a mighty force indeed.”

She shifted on the rock. “You know, Scurjal said something about ‘cold ones’ being in these lands. What do you suppose that means?” Carsten reached into his pack and pulled out the book that he had brought with him.

“Maybe the information is in here,” he muttered. “What did you call them?”

“He called them ‘giants of ice’ and the ‘cold ones’,” she said. “And what is that?”

“A book of species and races my mother…liberated from the High Library in Andrion in the Free Realms decades ago. If it’s a race, it should be here…” he thumbed through the pages. “No, that’s not it…no…no...blast, it’ got to be here…no…no…no,” he snapped the book shut, causing Nari to jump. “Nothing.” She stared at the book.

“Then I guess we wait and replace out,” she said quietly. Carsten scowled.

“The first rule of battle is to know your enemy. I’m not exactly comfortable being ignorant of our enemies.”

“We do not know they are enemies,” Nari pointed out.

“If they can scare goblins, they aren’t all or even mostly flowers and puppies. That should tell us they’re violent, if little else,” he pointed out.

“True,” she admitted. “Anyhow, I need sleep. I am truly exhausted. Wake Ciara in two hours. It is her turn on watch.”

Ciara’s dreams were interrupted by someone shaking her. For some reason, she had quite a vivid dream about…someone she had not recognized. She looked up sleepily at Carsten, whose hand was still on her shoulder.

“Sorry,” he whispered to her, “but you’re on watch now.” She rolled over and slowly sat up, stretching. Her ribcage hurt, she noticed as she twisted around. She had lain on her stomach on the hard ground, a mistake she would not make a second time.

“It is still dark,” she murmured. “What time is it?”

“About two in the morning,” Carsten answered. “I know it is far too early to get up, but you really should.” Ciara slowly got to her feet, her eyes still half-closed in sleep.

“All right. Get to bed. I will take over.” Carsten nodded, rolling his sleeping blanket out on the cave floor and wrapping himself up in it.

“Good night,” he said softly.

“Good night,” she replied, settling in for her two-hour shift.

The dawn came late that morning. That meant that all the hunters woke up later than they normally would have. Still, they set about taking apart the camp with efficiency. Luthe had been the last on watch, and he was quite tired. Their breakfast was sparse, still the same fare of dried meat and bread. No one was exceptionally pleased with it, but they all knew they had no other choice; little in the way of food would keep for as long as they needed it to, and they would not be able to buy perishables for a while yet.

“The village is about six miles away yet,” Luthe said. “A straight shot would be about a quarter of that, but we cannot do that with the pass shut.”

“Then we are still traversing mountains,” Carsten growled. “How far from there is the place where we lay the traps?”

“About twelve miles,” Ciara replied. “Sorry, but there is nothing for it. That is the area that has the highest number of sightings and attacks.”

Nari nodded. “Then let us go.”

Sveldehym

The armored woman looked at the dwarf lord, his arms crossed belligerently across his massive chest. The Huntresses had arrived in the village less than a week after Carsten’s departure and proceeded to camp outside it.

“I told you. My son is dead,” he said, his eyes burning with rage. “He was killed by the phantoms two nights past. My men found what was left of his body. I thought you’ve have heard of it.”

Telara, the golden-haired queen of the Huntresses, shook her head. Truth be told, she was not here for Sigurd’s whelp, but there was no reason to let him think otherwise. “I do not think you are telling the truth, dwarf,” she growled, as menacingly as she could manage. “I think your boy is not as dead as you let on. But we shall see soon enough.” And she turned to leave

Sigurd stepped in front of Telara, barring her path. “You have no jurisdiction here,” he growled. “Your laws state that, unless you’re pursuing a wanted criminal or seeking a missing Freeman or Freewoman, you have no right to enter our domain. Those were the terms of the treaty, the terms your ancestors agreed to.” Telara glared at him.

“I am seeking a missing Freewoman,” she growled. “But who and why is none of your business. Now let me go, and we will leave. Worry not, we shan’t trouble you again. And Sigurd…”

“Yes?”

“I’m not looking for your son. But if we replace him, we will bring him back. Alive.” The dwarf raised an eyebrow.

“Really?” he asked. “I am not sure I believe that.” Telara shrugged.

“What you believe has little bearing on reality if it is untrue,” she replied. “But I am not going to harm him if I replace him.” Sigurd shook his head.

“You will not replace him,” he warned her. “If he is not hiding from you by now, then there’s nothing to replace.”