R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“You are an egg and nothing more,” Matron Mother Quenthel sharply interrupted. “Do not think yourself worthy to train Yvonnel Baenre.”

Minolin didn’t dare respond.

“Yvonnel the Eternal,” Matron Mother Quenthel said, turning back to Gromph. “The babe’s instruction will begin at once.”

It took Gromph a moment to figure out what she meant, but when he did, his eyes widened and he gasped audibly, in disbelief, “No.”

Baenre’s smug smile mocked him. Both she and Gromph imagined the tentacles of Methil crawling over the naked flesh of Minolin Fey-Branche, finding their way to the growing consciousness of the life inside her, imparting the memories and the sensibilities that Gromph had saved within the split skull of his dead mother.

A muddy gang of five crossed into the northern end of the pass that led south through the Spine of the World. Their trip from Ten-Towns across the tundra had been uneventful, but hardly easy in the days of the early spring melt, where bottomless bogs hid cleverly among the patches of ice and sludge, where sinkholes opened suddenly to swallow a rider and his mount whole, where mud bubbles of trapped gasses grew like boils as the ice of winter relinquished its hold. Such bulbous sludge mounds appeared all about the trail, sometimes blocking it, and were known to explode, sending forth a shower of cold mud.

This group had found more than their share of those natural mud bombs, particularly the three walking beside the tall mount that carried the man and the woman. They appeared almost monochrome, head-to-toe layered in brown, where even their smiles, on the rare occasions they managed one, showed flecks of mud. Heavy boots pulled from the grabbing ground, sucking sounds accompanying each step.

“Sure but I’m not to miss this foul land,” said the dwarf, and she lifted her boot and turned her leg, scraping at the mud pack. Her effort cost her balance, though, and she stumbled to the side, crashing against the large steed, which snorted in protest and stamped its fiery hoof hard, splattering mud and sending the dwarf and her two cohorts ducking.

“Ah, but control yer smelly nightmare!” the dwarf bellowed.

“I am,” Artemis Entreri casually replied from his high perch. “It did not stomp you into the ground, did it? And believe me when I tell you that the hell horse would like nothing more.”

“Bah!” Amber the dwarf snorted in reply, and she wiped a patch of mud from her shoulder, then snapped her hand out at Entreri, throwing the mud his way.

“It is not the best season to be crossing the tundra, I expect,” said Brother Afafrenfere. The monk had trained in the Bloodstone Lands, in the mountains of Damara, right beside the frozen wastes of Vaasa, so he was the most experienced of the troupe in the manner of terrain found in Icewind Dale. “Another tenday in one of the towns would have served us well.”

Afafrenfere never looked up as he spoke, just kept his head low under the cowl of his woolen hood, and so he did not see the scowl from the woman riding on the nightmare behind Entreri.

“Another tenday deeper into the spring would have meant more monsters awake from their winter nap, and prowling around, hungry,” Entreri said, and the others all recognized that he made the remark merely to calm Dahlia, who had been in a foul mood since they left Drizzt Do’Urden on the slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn a dozen days before. None of the five hardy adventurers were afraid of such monsters, of course, and indeed, they were all itching for a fight.

They had awakened from a sleep in an enchanted forest, a slumber that had seen the passage of eighteen years, though had seemed no more than a night’s sleep to the band. After their numb shock at the revelation, they had tried to look on the bright side of their magically created dilemma, for, as Amber had pointed out, they had gone to sleep as fugitives, with many powerful enemies searching for them, yet had awakened in freedom, in anonymity even, if that was their choice, likely more so than any of them had known in decades.

But since that night on Kelvin’s Cairn, the mood had turned sour, particularly with Dahlia, and none had found much relief from the dismal pall while tramping through the endless mud of Icewind Dale.

“We’re not yet in civilized lands,” warned Effron, the fifth of the group, a small and skinny tiefling warlock with a broken and twisted body, his collar and shoulders mangled so that his right arm swung uselessly behind him.

All eyes turned his way. These were among the first words he had spoken since their departure from the mountain.

“You have seen them, then?” Entreri asked.

“Of course, shadowing us, and it frightens me that I travel with companions who have not noted the clear signs.”

“Ye think ye might be talkin’ less in riddles for the rest of us?” Amber asked.

“We are being followed,” Afafrenfere answered. “For more than a day now. Large forms, bigger than goblins, than hobgoblins, even.”

“Giants?” the dwarf asked with a glint in her eye.

“Yetis,” Afafrenfere replied.

“Do tell.” Entreri crossed his arms on the neck of his conjured nightmare steed and leaned forward, seeming amused.

“Vaasa is known for such beasts,” the monk explained. “They are quite ferocious, and a mere scratch of their claws is known to cause disease and a lingering death-that is, if you are fortunate enough to avoid being eaten alive by them.”

“Never heared o’ them,” said the dwarf.

“Nor I,” Dahlia added.

“Then let’s hope they remain no more than the warning of a tired monk on a muddy trail,” Afafrenfere said, and started away.

“Well, since you two are up high and not crawling in the mud like the rest of us, perhaps you should keep your eyes to the horizon,” Effron said. There was a clear undertone of disdain in his voice, underlying the general discontent that had followed the quintet out of Ten-Towns, an argument that had become particularly virulent between the twisted tiefling warlock and his mother, Dahlia.

Dahlia returned his words with a sharp glare, but Entreri continued to lean, and to wear his amused grin.

They climbed a narrower trail through a maze of tumbled boulders, which had them all on edge since the huge stones provided fine cover to any would-be ambushers. The path soon leveled off, then began a descent into the gorge cutting through the towering mountains. Any who ever crossed this way could not help but imagine enemies far above, raining death upon them in the form of arrows or stones.

Entreri and Dahlia led the way on the nightmare, and it was a fortunate choice. Barely had the group returned to level ground, walking amid a boulder-strewn, wider section of the trail, when the ground before them exploded. A large and thick, hairy creature leaped up from the concealment of a puddle of mud.

Seeming like a cross between a tall man and a burly bear, the hulking creature lifted up to its full height in the blink of an eye, heavy arms raised high above its head, dirty claws ready to swipe down.

The nightmare reared and snorted puffs of black smoke from its wide nostrils, but it was not afraid as a normal horse surely would have been. Hellsteeds did not know fear-only anger.

Dahlia went with the movement, gracefully rolling off the back of the mount as its forelegs rose up into the air. She landed on her feet, though the mud nearly took them out from under her, and skidded aside quickly, scrambling away from the dangerous rear legs of the battling nightmare. She started as if to charge around the horse and Entreri, her magical quarterstaff at the ready, but no sooner had she landed than Amber called out from behind. Reflexively glancing that way, Dahlia saw that this tundra yeti had not come after them alone.