I made the executive decision to have us rest for longer than we usually would in the morning. The campfire had been allowed to go out in the middle of the night for the sake of rationing our wood, so we woke up rather stiff. We re-started it and waited out the morning chill with a hearty meal and some athletic stretching to ease the stiffness in our muscles.

When we were as well fed and rested as we could be, under the circumstances, we began walking deeper into the valley.

“Go through the valley until you come out on the other side and look for the large blue pillar of ice. You can’t miss it.” I remembered Victor saying.

We followed the winding valley for a couple hours, speed sacrificed for caution and stealth, but that sacrifice paid off when we exited the valley with no serious incident and walked into a clearing. We looked around and immediately saw what Victor was talking about.

A large cerulean cylinder, half as tall as any one of the hills surrounding us, stood at the far side of the clearing, nearly directly in front of us. I immediately made a beeline right for it, but felt Al tug on my sleeve:

“Wait!’ He hissed.

We all stopped and stared at him. He just pointed at the pillar, and we turned to look. After patiently waiting for a few moments, a large figure lumbered out from behind the azure formation.

It was moving on four limbs but even then, the top of its head came up to my chin. Its fur was white but with a black stripe that vertically split the center of its face and ran down its back and stomach. Its jaws were relatively short next to its massive size and tipped with a large black nose. This was juxtaposed, however, with two saber like fangs that hung down towards the ground and glittered a robin’s egg blue. Atop its bearlike frame jutted spikes that shimmered the same color and ran down its back along the black stripe, ending at its’ tail. Its’ tail was large and flat, though it started out thin and broadened out like a square paddle.

The Arthus didn’t appear to have spotted us as it made its way around the pillar, but it was clearly defending its territory. It was a variant of the normal black-with-a-white-stripe version, which made it even more dangerous than usual, since its’ abilities were unknown. We kept our distance and watched from the cover of the valley that we had scrambled back into.

We sat like that for around 2 hours, waiting for the beast to leave, but it always stuck close to the pillar. Even when it wandered for a bit, it never ventured terribly far. It occasionally munched on an indistinguishable corpse that it had stored in a nearby patch of snow.

“What’s the plan, little bro?” Ann whispered, looking at me.

Technically, there were no official leaders of a group as small as ours but there typically was a de facto strategist who steered group tactics. I would have preferred that role to go to Isaiah, but he had silently pushed me into it instead. I was starting to regret that, as all eyes turned on me.

This stupid thing would probably leave eventually, to go hunt or something. But we were on a tight timetable to find the Glasrock, mine it, and get back home. Simply discovering the stuff probably wouldn’t cut it. We needed to bring back a good haul of it. That meant mining, which took time. Which dwindled the longer we sat here, fidgeting.

This, on top of the fact that it could always come back and cause us problems later, made my decision for me.

“Semicircle formation, Julia and Ann on the wings.” I grimaced.

This could get ugly.

There was no room for an ambush. The senses of an Arthus were known to be very keen and the land surrounding the pillar was barren, with the closest hill several hundred yards behind it. Running would do nothing for us besides tire us out, as it was far enough away from our hiding spot that the beast would have plenty of time to see us and react.

So, we moved out steadily in a semicircle, with Julia and Ann trotting a bit further ahead and to the side of Isaiah and me, while Al was watching our backs. No fancy maneuvers were going to help us here.

The thing turned to face us almost immediately, like it knew that we were here already. It snorted out a challenge at us, its breath puffing out in a visible cloud, and it slowly trundled over to meet us. As we got closer, Julia and Ann began to fan out on either side of the creature, preparing to strike at its undefended sides. As a response the fiend roared out a challenge.

And the spikes on its back began to glow.

The light was a bluish white that reflected off the bone white of our drawn weapons. As those spikes glowed brighter, the temperature of the area plummeted. Our fingers grew numb, and our movements got slightly slower as the cold took its toll. The monster was seemingly unaffected by its’ own power, though. It reared up and struck at both me and Isaiah, one paw crashing down on each of us.

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Isaiah grunted as he took the claw directly on his shield, but he held firm. I needed to use both swords in order to deflect the crushing force of the brutal strike. That left me open to a rapid follow up bite, the beast simultaneously twisting out of the way of Ann’s slash and towards me, putting me in range of its mouth.

I barely manage to jump back and out of the way of the bite, jaws clasping shut right in front of my throat. Ann’s attack only scored a shallow cut in its side while Isaiah was slowly pushed back with just the force with its left paw. But the worst off was Julia.

The Arthus had twisted so that it took Julia’s strike at an angle, limiting its damage, but it also moved so that it was facing nearly directly away from her. This put her in range of its tail, and she only narrowly managed to get her spear in between herself and the flat, clublike appendage. Even so, the tail struck her with a mighty WHUMPH, and she went bouncing along the ground.

Isaiah took advantage of the opening the Arthus gave him and, gripping his shield with one hand now, slammed his axe in its unprotected side, eliciting a howl of pain from the beast. The fiend jumped back, using its right paw to deflect a follow up strike from Ann, but the damage was done.

I immediately swallowed my fear for Julia. “Al will save her.” I told myself as I forced myself forward, trying to hold onto our momentum.

The fiend danced around, displaying surprising agility as it tore into Isaiah’s shield and tried to pull the same trick on Ann that it did on Julia. However, Ann wasn’t buying it, consistently dancing closer to me to stay out of range, even if she had to interrupt her attacks. I was the only one who managed to do any damage, as the monster had only dedicated one claw to fending me off.

However, my strikes were only shallow ones, as that claw was still very deadly, and the chill was sinking even further into our skin. Our bodies were starting to grow even more numb and our movements even slower as the fight wore on. Then Ann tried something crazy.

She started to tremble more violently, seeming to indicate that the cold was taking a harsher toll on her than on us. Which it probably was. Noticing this, the fiend pounced, swinging both paws into Isaiah’s shield and pushing him away from me. It snapped its jaws at Isaiah’s head, fully committing to killing our tank.

Isaiah managed to get his axe up in time to block the bite attack but that meant he took one arm off his shield, causing him to go tumbling backward from the force of both paws. This maneuver also put Ann comfortably in the tail’s range, which she could not dance out of. She didn’t even try as the tail swished triumphantly toward her.

That’s where the crazy came in. Instantly, Ann tensed and leaped with all her might. She tucked her legs into her body as the strike sailed just under her. She hit the ground just before a follow up swing could really get under way. Now behind the beast, she closed the distance and struck right at the base of the tail, severing it totally.

Reacting quickly, the creature got its front paws back on the ground and kicked back with its hind paws at maximum strength. Ann leaped back but not fast enough. She barely managed to get her blade between the rear claws and her body, so she only went flying and wasn’t cut to pieces.

As all of this was happening, I naturally exploited the opening that I had been given to make mincemeat of the fiend’s exposed side. By the time it had kicked Ann away and maneuvered to face me, I had already wailed into the beast’s tough hide several times, its’ left side a mass of gashes. The sturdiness of the creature was the only thing that kept it alive. As it turned to face me, I saw that it held Isaiah’s axe in its mouth, which it spit out before snarling at me.

I snarled right back and went on the offensive, fatigue nearly forgotten. The Arthus was the one on the backfoot now, as it had lost so much blood that its’ once fast and deadly attacks now seemed downright lethargic. I danced around paw strikes, circling towards its’ wounded side as I struck back, drawing more blood.

We moved in circles, as the monster moved to avoid allowing me near its’ vulnerable area. It took several more hits as it tried to finish me off, but was unable too, its’ paw strikes deftly turned aside by my blades. Eventually, it mustered its strength and reared up to hit me with everything it had left. I braced myself for the onslaught, but it never came.

At exactly the right moment, Isaiah came crashing, shoulder first, into its’ weakened side. It let out an angry cry as it came crashing down, its’ attack foiled. I took the opportunity to slash open its’ exposed throat and end the fight.

Wordlessly, Isaiah and I split up. I walked towards Julia as he headed toward where Ann had gone flying. He was pretty beaten up, bleeding from a cut to the head and obviously very bruised, but both of us were in better shape than the girls. I winced a little in guilt. This fight had been my decision, but I was the only one walking out of it relatively unscathed.

Swallowing my self-doubt, I made my way over to where Julia had been thrown. Al had, fortunately, been tending to her and feeding her berries while she had been knocked out. The method for doing that was mashing them into a paste, mixing that with some water, and pouring it into the unconscious or semiconscious person’s mouth. The unique taste of the berry would then, hopefully, naturally trigger the swallowing reflex. It was dangerous and some efficacy was lost in the process, but it couldn’t be helped if the injured person was unconscious.

Thanks Al’s tender ministrations, Julia was just waking up as I ran over. She bolted upright, reaching for her spear unsteadily, as the worst of her wounds were still closing. I sighed in relief as she stumbled to her feet.

“Don’t worry,” I said as I ran up to her, “It’s all over.”

She looked at me, the fear in her eyes slowly receding to more mild concern. “Is anyone hurt?”

“Ann went flying but I doubt she was hurt worse than you. Could have landed on her feet for all I know. Isaiah is going to help her now.”

I turned and saw him helping an unsteady Ann to her feet. She was favoring her right foot but that was nothing that a few berries couldn’t fix. I grimaced at that thought.

“Al, what’s our status on medicine?”

He looked at me, distressed, “I used 6 on Julia. She hit her head hard and was in critical condition. I needed to make it into a paste as well, and you know how that is.”

Ann and Isaiah had walked over to us now and I saw that her limp had begun to subside. Isaiah looked at me and, reading my mind, said:

“I gave her 3. She broke her leg in the fall, and we can’t afford to have her slowed down even a little. She had a nasty cut as well.”

That drew my eye to the gash on his forehead. I flicked a berry at him which he caught, before raising an eyebrow.

“Just eat it. We shouldn’t risk infection.”

He popped it into his mouth and turned to go harvest the Arthus corpse.

Even with the sun still overhead, the fight with the beast had left us all totally shivering and exhausted. The cold had seeped in so deeply, we were forced to start another fire in order to stave off hypothermia. I chafed at the delay, but we had little choice.

The girls were still healing, so I had them rest around the fire as Isaiah and I went to work butchering what we could from the corpse. We couldn’t take everything, but we wanted the teeth and the spikes, as well as choice cuts of meat, which we fried on the fire and saved. The meat of an Arthus was a rare delicacy.

Since we had the fire going already, we also took some time to boil some snow and top off our water supply. All this fighting had us going through water very quickly, and it was better to have and not need than to need and not have. We took the time to really tear through our food stores as well, as we now had extra and were famished.

All in all, we spent several hours resting and recovering, to the point that the day was getting old as we finally put out our fire and walked toward our final destination.