Emily moved through the trees as quietly as she could, trying to mimic Alex, at least in some fashion. The guy was a ghost, barely leaving a footprint in the snow. The longer Emily watched him, the more she realized just how bad her bumbling through wilds really was. There were treasures and dangers that she couldn’t yet see. Animal markings Alex skirted them around, or bushels of berries, nuts, even some edible barks.
“Damn if we just had a ranged weapon I could have secured us some meat.”
Emily followed Alex's line of sight to a tiny brown bird perching on a set of nearby branches. The thing was probably not very good eating, and they had enough rations for a while, but when she had brought this up he'd scowled and said.
“You always collect food when it’s available; dipping into our reserves every night is asking for trouble.”
Emily didn’t argue with him but it did make her curious. All this knowledge and yet the man looked as though he hardly stepped outdoors. At first, Emily thought it was book smarts but she soon saw he worked with practiced ease. He shelled what looked like a pinecone and extracted the nuts with efficient movements before depositing them into a small pouch on his waist. He did all of this with a single dagger while they were still moving.
“Where’d you learn to do all that?”
Alex glanced up from his work a startled look on his face.
“Hmm... just things I picked up here and there.”
Emily hummed as she hopped over a fallen trunk.
“I dunno, it seems strange for you to know about the surroundings.”
“What makes you say that?” he asked looking back now.
“You don’t look like the type of guy who needs to know these things, more like you get everything given to you”
A dark look glazed over Alex's eyes.
“Looks are deceiving, I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve ever gotten, and I'll have to do it for a long time still, so let's just keep talking to a minimum while on the trail.”
Emily pressed her lips into a line, now she’d done it.
Most people wouldn’t be surprised at how little Emily interacted with people when it wasn’t fighting or ordering them around. In certain regards that made for an abrasive nature but most of the time she wasn’t with them long enough for it to matter.
With so many unknowns, especially the question of this mid-winter feast, she needed to at least not piss the guy off.
So instead she did her best to learn from simply watching. Crossing icy streams, climbing jagged obstructions, and sweeping through foliage that clung to clothing. Hours passed and the landscape shifted to rocky terrain at a gentle incline. They were ascending as time went on, and Emily saw more and more grey rock poking out through the fallen snow. They were just cresting a hill when Alex looked over to Emily and spoke for the first time in hours.
“Hold for a second somethings strange up ahead.”
Emily stopped gracelessly and moved to the nearest tree keeping low to the ground.
Alex had his ear cocked in the direction they were heading and then made a ‘wait here’ motion before moving ahead.
Emily waited one whole minute before her patience came to an end. Creeping forward she crested the hill, making sure the nearby shrubs were hiding her. She could hear the sound of distant howling wind, rushing through cracks.
What slowly came into view was a massive cliff, as though the earth had cracked open and separated into one large gorge, spanning about 50 meters wide. The side they were on was lower, the opposite end creating a wall of sorts. Blessedly, it looked like someone had built an overpass, and not just a simple wood and rope deal.
This thing was made from grey stone, not unlike the surrounding rock. It needed to be because even from here Emily could feel a strong wind issuing forth from the gorge, buffeting the nearby trees and vegetation. Snow could not settle near the edges as it was blown back into the skies, only to land as neat mounds nearby.
Though it was hard to make out from here, a dozen forms could be seen on the overpass. Squinting, Emily could just make out touches of red on their still forms. Whatever they were, they weren't human, their gray skin made that obvious.
She wanted to get a closer look but the bush beside her moved, Emily splayed her palm in the direction but then she spotted Alex.
He had his finger to his lips and pointed back the way they’d come. Nodding Emily followed him to a quieter location.
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“I told you to stay put.”
Emily had no response to that so she just shrugged.
“I waited, but you took too long. What were those things on there?”
Alex pressed his lips together and looked back in the direction of the gorge even though it wasn’t visible from here.
“They’re cragwings, and they’re dead. I couldn’t get close enough but in all likelihood, our ‘friends’ likely came through here and put them down. The problem is I’m not seeing the cragmother.”
Emily shrugged.
“Okay, maybe it fell off the side?”
Alex wore a thoughtful expression.
“They're adept flyers, unless someone killed it instantly it could recover from a fall.”
Emily got where he was going with this.
“So, either it's still there, or we go around right?”
Alex didn’t say anything but the look he gave confirmed it.
“How long will going around cost us?” she asked.
“Two days, at minimum.”
Emily thought it over and shrugged.
“I’m happy with either outcome, if it's here then we kill it and move on. I'm also not against a two-day detour.”
Frowning Alex’s hand went to the pommel of his weapon as he began to fiddle with it.
“You don't want to fight this thing.”
Emily couldn’t help the dazzling smile that played on her lips and he paused.
“...You shouldn’t want to fight this thing.” he reaffirmed.
Which she just ignored. She wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t care which option they went with. Getting another kill could help her rank up and recover some of her former strength. Alex was the one under some self-enforced time limit. Two extra days meant there were bound to be more of those scruffy gremlin elves on the way.
Alex continued to play with the dagger, drawing it a couple of centimeters and then letting it fall back into the sheath.
“Alright, we’ll go with the bridge, if it's here then we make a break for it. Turning back on what-ifs is a waste of time.”
Emily nodded sagely.
“Alright then, what’s the plan?” she asked.
“Honestly? Run across. Cragmothers birth their swarms in their territory but they’re only a little larger than the rest. If it arrives, and we can get across safely, it shouldn’t follow.”
Emily peeked through a gap in the trees and looked at the bridge for a second time. Nothing had moved or changed so she looked back at Alex.
“Simple, I like it. This gonna be fun.”
Alex had a serious expression, but Emily didn’t miss the way his lips twitched upward.
“Let’s go, we get as close as we can before making a break for it, be warned it’s fast and uses its tail for attack.”
They got into position and began to creep towards the bridge. Just before they did though, Alex stowed his daggers and found himself a hefty-looking branch.
They broke from the treeline and moved into the shadow of the nearby snow mounds. Edging closer toward the overpass itself, Emily noticed near the opening of the bridge the snow had been pushed aside to make a gap.
Footprints had compacted the mounds of snow into a thick layer of ice, though by the looks of things it was mostly large animal prints here instead of human boots.
Getting a good grip, Emily looked over to Alex and they both counted it down. The moment she hit one Emily took off sprinting. The opening end of the bridge was simple and she could see a small guard rail had been added to the sides. Rushing onto the bridge, they pushed through the howling wind as it buffeted them. Emily glanced down into the gorge, expecting to see bubbling magma. Instead, at the bottom of what seemed to be a drop of hundreds of meters, she saw glittering ice. It churned like a stream as an underground river snaked below, with countless chunks of ice breaching the surface like pieces of a mosaic mirror.
The sounds of cracking ice echoed up and bounced along the gorge’s walls, as though calling to her. Tearing her eyes away, Emily refocused on running, they were almost halfway up the incline when the first few corpses appeared.
Now that she could get a better sense of these things Emily noticed their grey bodies resembled that of a bat with a long stingray-like tail, barbed and everything. They were about as large as a labrador, with a wingspan of twice that. Its mouth was filled with small sharp teeth, one bite could easily take off a hand. Small rocky protrusions covered their skin, but she also noticed most of them had been bludgeoned to death. The few that had blade marks on them, though they did not go deep. Emily then realized why Alex had picked up the branch, daggers wouldn’t work against this thing.
Glancing over she saw he was focused ahead, they were over halfway now and though she tried to listen out for an enemy approaching, she could hear nothing over the sound of howling wind and ice.
Putting on another bust of speed Emily reached the three-quarter mark, risking a glance over her shoulder. From here she could see they’d climbed a decent way up, but still no big monster.
By now Emilt could see the other side of the bridge and spotted more cragwing corpses lying just where the overpass met the land. She didn’t slow down though, and neither did Alex, not with the finish line in sight.
Emily's foot had just touched down on the other side of the overpass when something flush with the gorge wall separated and dove into the air. At that point it was behind her and Emily turned to face it, noticing Alex had already turned and began swinging.
The thing had been camouflaged incredibly well against the wall like a stingray, the only reason Emily even knew it was there was because it moved.
Alex’s swing was timed perfectly, connecting with the creature's center mass.
This was beyond reaction times, he would have had to spot the creature long before Emily had, wind up, and swing before he even knew where it was coming from. Because this thing was fast, incredibly so.
When the branch connected at full force it cracked into one of the creature's wings, sending it spiraling over their heads and crashing to the ground.
It thrashed for a moment and then righted itself, one of its wings now twisted at an odd angle.
Its size was two to three times that of the ones on the bridge and Emily wanted to smack Alex. This thing was the size of a bear, and it was pissed.
Emily saw it rear up and dove to the side, landing in a pile of snow as its jaws snapped shut on the empty air behind her.
Lifting her hand, Emily called a blood bolt from her chest and shot it at the creature's eyes. Unfortunately, it turned so quickly that the bolt hit it in the jaw. The force of the hit ripped through the outer flesh but didn’t go much deeper than that. It did however stun the thing.
Alex saw this opening and ducked under its wide sweep to deliver another blow with the branch, cracking into the cragmother's other wing. At the same time, the branch gave out, having delivered two devastating hits, it broke down the middle, sending a hail of woodchips and splinters everywhere.
The creature screeched and thrashed in pain and before Alex could jump back, its barbed tail swiped out and sunk into Alex’s left thigh.
Puncturing straight through his leg and ripping him off his feet.