The young hunter decided to leap onto the second snow creature and sliced it down the center. His blades went right through the creature and seemed to have no effect at all.

“Dammit!”

Pausing for a second gave the creatures a chance to attack him. Both of them started bouncing off the passage walls. He ducked and rolled around in a desperate fashion to avoid being hit by them.

One of the creatures managed to glance off his left shoulder and this caused a shooting pain to run down to his hand. His arm froze up, like his shoulder had been blasted by icy coldness. His fingertips froze and his arm went numb.

Now Osian knew the damage these creatures could do.

Luckily they had not hit him hard and he still had usage of his good sword arm.

He tried to think about what he could do to defeat these creatures. He didn’t have any heat other than a flashlight. His sword seemed to have no effect on the snow creatures. What else could he do but try and escape. The only exit was via the ice wall that had been broken down. It was about twenty feet away and he would have to get past both snowballs to get through it.

Not knowing what else to do he grabbed a chunk of ice from the broken wall and hurled it at the closest creature. It simply bounced off, like he was throwing something at a blanket of fresh snow.

The creatures moved again and started bouncing around the passage in effort to attack him. They bounded around randomly, but at the same time seemed to have a coordinated effort as they continued to gurgle at each other. Osian rolled around to avoid being hit and only managed to get further away from the ice wall opening.

Taking his sword he tried once again to hit one of the creatures, but this time he stabbed straight through the center. It did gurgle when he did this, but seemed to have little effect.

“How am I going to defeat these things?” He thought to himself.

He made a dash for the broken ice wall, but the snow balls countered his move and blocked him off. Osian didn’t even know if there were more of these things waiting to come through the opening.

He felt like he was screwed.

The snow balls bounced around the passage again, but he managed to avoid their attacks as he rolled backwards. He was pinned back in a corner and had little room left to defend himself.

What else could he possibly do to affect these creatures. He got frustrated and swung his sword and hit the ground in frustration. His sword clanged off the exposed stonework and reverberated. A hollow dinging sound rang out across the passage and the snow balls squealed loudly.

“What?” He thought.

He quickly pieced it together and realized that either the vibration or the noise seemed to cause the creatures some kind of discomfort.

He swung his sword again and it clanged off the stonework. The same kind of sound erupted, but even louder this time across the hallway. The snow creatures squealed in pain and one of them diminished in size.

He hands hurt from striking the stone floor, but he knew he could handle it.

Angered by his tactics the creatures started bouncing around again. They had him pinned and cornered, so he had rolled away with surprising agility. In doing so he managed to end up right beside the broken ice wall opening. He immediately maneuvered to escape, but one of the creatures managed to graze his leg. The frozen stig made him collapse to one knee. He had to roll away in order to avoid more damage.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Osian grimaced in pain from his injured left arm and right leg. He knew that if these things managed to hit him in the chest he would most likely die.

Looking around the floor of the passage he realized that this section was mostly covered in ice. The stonework floor was buried under about three inches of thick ice. So he hacked away at the ice, but it was tough to break through the magical ice.

The clanging sound was the only thing that seemed to affect these creatures, so he had to find a spot to strike the stone.

Looking around there were only three sections in the passage that had exposed stone. So not wasting any time he rolled towards one of them and swung his sword again hitting it dead center. The sound clanged even louder than before. He managed to catch the angle of his blade and made a huge reverberation sound.

The snow creature squealed in torment and they seemed to diminish in size and again. Osian continued to clang his sword back and forth across the stone surface again and again. Sometimes he didn’t catch the angle right and it made not much sound, but other times he managed to make a huge ringing noise.

Little by little the creatures wore down and diminished in size till they were like a soccer ball.

Angrily they tried to fight back and started bouncing all over the place in effort to hit the young recruit, but he managed to avoid their attacks more easily now that they were smaller.

Unfortunately his defensive efforts pulled him away from the exposed stone floor and back into the icy covered passage. The creatures continued frantically bouncing all over the place and got closer to him. Osian’s only chance was to get to another exposed area of stone and try and finish these creatures off. His leg was hurt and felt swollen from the frostbite damage.

He stumbled towards the next open patch of stonework, but the snow creatures cut him off. He was pinned against the wall and surrounded on either side by a snowball. They advanced towards him menacingly.

He would have to go through them to reach the next open patch of exposed stone floor.

Leaping as best he could, Osian soared through the air to escape the snow aberrations. Both creatures managed glancing blows on him as he flew past. The damage stung deeply and he struggled to remain conscious for a few seconds. When he landed the pain in his abdomen was severe. It was like he had been stabbed by an icy blade.

The stone flooring was exposed beneath him, but the snowballs started bouncing around in active defense. Osian knew that he would pass out soon, so his only hope was to try clanging his sword enough times to defeat these things before he lost consciousness.

One. He stuck the stone surface. The creatures shrunk down to the size of a large pomelo. Osian's eyes glazed over from the pain. He wouldn’t last much longer.

Two. He struck again and the snowballs reduced to tennis ball size. He struggled to stay conscious as the pain spread.

Three. With the final strike on the stone the creatures simply vanished.

Osian passed out and crumbled to the floor.

+ + + + +

It was sometime later when the youngster awoke. He was sore all over and different parts of his body were swollen. The passage before him was empty and it took him a few seconds to remember what had happened to him.

“I did it!” He thought.

He had managed to defeat some snow creatures and felt very lucky to have done so. The Snow Witch must have tried to separate the hunting party in order to try killing each of them off separately. He wondered how Tayla and Master Typhon were doing.

Staggering to his feat the recruit managed to hold himself up by using his sword as a makeshift crutch. He crossed over the broken ice wall in the passage and into another room. This room had only one exit - a single sliding wooden door. So he opened it up and that led to another long ice passage.

Taking the route available we hobbled along at a slow pace. The scrapping across the ice as he hung over it like a drunken soldier.

Up ahead he sounds and immediately recognized them as the sounds of fighting. He could hear laughter and two female voices. One was unmistakably the voice of Tayla and the other one he couldn't recognize.

Osian started to move faster, but he was unable to run with his damaged body. He crossed the passage as fast as he could and eventually reached a large central opening in the pagoda.

As he looked across the divide he could see Tayla in combat with the Snow Witch.

The snow witch was floating in the air and dressed in torn filthy white robes that bristled in the wind. Her hair was snow white and her face was even whiter. She had large icy green eyes and a bright glow emanated from them. The demon witch held up her claws in an attack pose and was about ten feet off the ground.

Tayla was staring down at the ground desperately trying not to look at the witch's face. She held her two weapons and seemed badly injured.

Where is Master Typhon?” Osian wondered.