The trip down hill was less troublesome than Frank expected. It took him a little while to understand that somewhere along the way, Lilijah had led them up a trail and onto the treetops, covered in hard packed snow. That's why all the trees were gone. They were walking on them.

The constant fresh snowfall slid over a layer of snow hardened and crushed on top of the dense forest, driven by the endless winds. Frank was pretty sure that wasn’t how snow, or trees were supposed to work, but it let him walk in his boots without needing big snow shoes.

At the same time, a member of the party hit a patch of loose snow on the regular and would sink up to their knee or waist into it. It was a difficult patrol, going up and down invisible tress, like little hills and valleys made from the snow.

It felt like he was moving through desert dunes from one of the wildlife shows, except it was cold during the day.

As they went down, the winds calmed and the soft snow grew thicker. The party already had a few owl-like birds, and even a hare. They were good catches, if probably not what the young hunter had expected when setting out. Convincing Deli of the plot had been as easy as explaining it. Brar had taken a bit more work, but so far so good.

Lilijah was pissed, but keeping her head, as long as the topic of her preferences didn’t come up directly. The trouble was that they were out here on their own. If they got into a dispute with another party over a catch or a hunt, it was an easy, and likely well known handle on one of his party members. One that could be used to anger or provoke her as needed.

He’d need to do something about it, but Frank was no therapist.

"How am I supposed to even start to address what are clearly issues near and dear to her heart?"

It was a matter for later. So far, the Oaths were holding, and while sour, their Hunter was doing her job. Frank was acting as her back up, using his own Awareness to keep track of threats. While he couldn’t hunt and track nearly as well as her, he did notice some tracks she missed, which was to be expected at the same Reaction. He still had no clue how she actually found all the bird nests, but it was neat.

He wasn’t the one that found the tunnel.

Lilijah had taken them on a winding road that ran between the avalanche channel and the direct path to the Snow Lake. She spotted some branches at the edge of the avalanche channel, broken and torn out, along with some long, pale hairs. Beneath them, there was a circle of loose snow about four meters across.

A sign of a Strongarm Burrower passing by, Lilijah told them. One was nearby, but the tracks pointed that this was where it left their side of the channel.

They couldn't follow it onto the loose snows.

The party got quiet, for the final leg of the patrol. Tense, no longer digging for more critters. Frank had been looking forward to glimpsing the Dead Court, even knowing he wouldn’t see anything. Visibility remained limited, as snow fell sporadically and mountain mists limited vision. The mists weren’t too thick, but at a hundred meters, perhaps, the world faded into pale fog.

Finally, they made it down to the Snow Lake. The solid snow floor cut off, as if on a shore line, with loose flakes of fresh snow dancing in the nearly calm winds. The fog thinned out this low, turning to snowflakes entirely about eight or nine stories above the lake surface. It was colder down here, too.

This low hanging cloud break let them see for kilometres around them, across the white flat expanse. All the way to the distant shore on the other side. It was less mist, and more a cloud.

“No wonder it feels wetter and warmer. But where did it come from?”

The snow here was loose, thin, and impossible to walk on without snow shoes, which only one of them had. The lake covered the entire bottom of the valley, filling it with snow dozens of meters deep, or so it was said. The whole lake was covered in Snow Shades, hundreds of them, wandering about. Many of which headed towards them.

Humanoid piles of soft snow, all limping towards them. Tirelessly, endlessly. It was something out of a zombie movie, but without the flesh or noise. Just plops of snow, moving about.

In the distance, near the centre of the lake, there was a large dome of wind whose howl could periodically be heard from the shore.

“It is said that every Winter in every Valley, when the Winter Winds come, the snow builds.” Deli began telling, in her musical voice.

“As the snows build, they get thicker, and thicker, until it is packed so tight it cannot move at all.”

Bursts of wind split off from the dome, here and there, carrying flurries of it. Dancing in the air above the lake like sky serpents of frost and rime, dying as the struck the surface, leaving eerie trees made of fractal ice on the lake surface.

“The dead come then. The Shades. In their hundreds, thousands. They pile into the bottom of the rising lake of snow, and as they ever do, they repel one another. The snow shifts, it dances from their efforts.” Deli recited, like a well-worn tale.

One of the blasts came their way, and as it passed, Frank could almost feel his eyebrows freeze. The winds in them were arctic, but only lasted a few seconds, thankfully.

“But it can’t break, it has nowhere to go. It is not a Sticks that they build, deep beneath the lake. No, they gather there, and hundreds at a time, and push and pull, and roll the snows, until it and the surroundings are all soaked in their power.”

In the passing gust, they all heard thousands of wails.

Deli went on: “Then, something changes, some boundary is breached. What was an effort, to stay, to press in, becomes as a hole in a bucket, as every Snow Shade in the lake is pulled into one point, one gem. Forged from the combined wills of all of them. The Heart of a Snow King.”

Something moved within the dome. Shapes and forms poking their heads out. More than a dozen armoured Skeletons, some with Skeletal Horses walked out of the edge of the unnatural storm. Fortunately, Skeletons didn’t have some Greater Knight Commander variant, as far as Frank knew. But a mounted Skeleton was still nastier then the regular kind.

Hundreds of bone arms and skulls came out with them. Bones, in their hundreds. Watching them, waiting, as within the dome of wind some massive figure could be glimpsed moving, at least six stories tall.

The dome moved.

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“A Snow Shade of truly giant size. So long as its Heart persists, the Snow King lives on. Bringing winds so cold they might as well be from beyond the Tree, children of the Eternal Storm. No mere mortal can survive in them for long.“ Deli recited, before containing in a more practical tone:

“It takes extensive preparations, thick furs, and at least Body four, to even attempt the storm it brings with it.”

Dozens of Bones abandoned the dome of wind, rushing across the snow on light hands and feet. None of the Skeletons followed.

Frank ordered the party back another two dozen steps. They were already well back, just below the mist ceiling, but it was best to be safe. They could fade back into the heights, if they made it to the shoreline.

As the foolish bones came on, they came. Monsters. Predators. Hunting people, yes. But the dead too.

A massive hand, the size of his whole torso came out of the snow like a shark striking from the water, and suddenly pulled one Bones out of sight. And another, and another.

In fours, fives, in twos and threes, the Bones tried to run, scattered and tried to reach the safety of the winds again. Some made it, but nearly half perished during their short jaunt. Emerging from the depths of the lake like fish from water, three massive apes rose from the snows, watching the line of the dead. Nor were they alone as here and there birds flew by, grabbing smaller pieces.

The monsters were eating the Bones by the handful. They had large arms and shoulders, their torsos sticking out of the snow.

Each was like a gorilla in shape, but much larger, from what Frank could tell from the size of the Bones in the distance. Their torsos were large and triangular, almost three meters wide, but narrowing down towards the waist. They had obscenely arms and shoulders, and were covered in pale, white fur. The apes were using those large hands to shovel bones into their maws, crunching down on them.

“Every year the Snow Kings keep their Dead Courts. Where Greater Dead might gather to trade or take up servants. Or shelter from a monster hunting them. For while the King’s form can be broken, he will be eternally reborn so long as his Heart beats, somewhere in the lake.”

“And even big towns allow it to form, because it keeps out worse things. Or so I’ve heard.” Frank part said, part asked.

“Aye.” Brar replied. “The King cannot leave his lake. It’s inconvenient, but not terrible to work around. It is a jealous sort and will not allow another of the true horrors to form. One that might take to wandering out of the lake, after it is born.”

The Strongarm Burrowers sunk back into the lake, disappearing from view. Running into a family of them was exactly what Frank didn’t want to do. In the distant wail of the winds, he could pick out a more familiar tone. There was at least one Wailing Woman in that Court.

“And who knows what other monstrous dead.”

“Let’s head back.” He announced. They’d done their due. Seen the sight, though it left him cold. Earth had nothing like it, at least not on the surface. “The dinosaurs, once, maybe.”

The party had marked a few tracks that might be of interest, but none that would need an immediate sounding of the horn. They were done for the day.

“So long as we run into a lone stray, and not a family group, it should be manageable. Fighting one of them would be a nice workout.”

***

They were a third of the way back up to the town, when they heard a tree groan in the distance, and the Snow Shades started growing sharper, more defined.

“A Sticks?” Frank asked.

“A newborn, hurry.” Lilijah shouted, rushing off.

She would have gone off on her own, slipping out of reach before Brar could block her, if Deli didn’t race after her and hook her with her spike over the shoulder. The girl nearly crashed to a stop.

She glared at the party. “Hurry up!”

Frank shook his head. He understood the need for speed but going alone… “Can you take it alone?”

“No, but she can keep up, and we can take it!”

Frank wanted to sigh. Lilijah might be able to run away or evade most things that might be hiding in the forest or under the snow. That’s what Hunters did. Deli didn’t have the same options, not for movement out into the avalanche channels, or the cloak to disappear at a moment’s notice.

“If you can’t take it alone, you wait for the party. No splitting.”

“But it will grow!”

“Then let it.” Frank told her. “We can take it.”

Lilijah ground her teeth, but she obeyed. She still rushed them, as quick as she could, to the tree. It wasn’t far, which was fortunate as Deli was starting to flag. Their scout hadn’t picked the path to ensure she’d still have Stamina to fight, by the end. Frank had a feeling Deli would be barely walking, by the time they made it back to town. He’d need to talk to Lilijah about it.

In the shadow of the town, the snows were shallower on the hillside, with trees still sticking out. As they came to the tree, it was still stuck among many other, breaking branches, as it tried to pull itself loose.

Dozens of shades had already gathered, but Brar and Deli made quick work of them. Brar with a steady pace, bashing them with shield and axe, and Deli with wide, sweeping blows of her axestaff. They simply didn’t have the numbers to hold them back when Frank joined in. As soon as they broke through, Lilijah launched herself forward, taking axe and hammer to the doll of Sticks hanging from a branch.

Frank wasn’t sure if it was the youth, or the construction of this one, but it broke with ease. More, the light that boiled out of it tried to take the tree, but it was like it didn’t quite have the oomph for it. It sank into, and smoked out of the bark in turn, struggling, before suddenly releasing a large circle of pale blue mist, filled with sparks that scattered all around the field. Where it passed, Snow Shades fell apart.

It tingled.

Slowly, the tree slumped, dead.

And it was frozen, dead inside, Frank could see up close. Cracked in places.

Lilijah took out flint and steel, to set it on fire. Frank helped her along. Apparently, Sticks needed a dead tree to perform their trick. The still living ones would resist, so burning this one would deny another dead a home it could just move into.

***

The tree was cheerily burning and they were just about ready to move on, when Lilijah twisted to the side, looking at a snow bank nearby. “Ware! Incoming!” She shouted, drawing her bow. Frank heard and saw nothing, but he knew better than to doubt Threat Sense.

Frank gathered his mana as a Strongarm burst out of the snowbank in a spray of snow, broken splinters and twigs. Some of the splinters flew almost like arrows, but Brar stepped in front of Lelijah, shield raised, and both Deli and he had Medium Armour to shield them.

The monster, for it was no animal, didn’t roar or make any sound but for the cracking of wood as it emerged. Frank greeted it with a two mote comet to the centre of its chest, forewarned by the scout. Flames burst over the large torso, splitting and flowing over its chest as the giant guerrilla monster screeched.

The four spellmarks tall creature was too big to be engulfed by the blast, but it left a large patch of its chest furless and the hide covered in burns. The natural armour burned away by the blast and heat.

Brar and Deli advanced on the monster and Lilijah pulled out three arrows to dip them in her venoms.

“Think you can slow it down?” Frank asked her.

The young woman nodded.

“Speak up, I might not see you, scout!”

She scowled, but answered. “I can. But with that much resilience, the venom won’t last long.”

Before Frank could order anything else, or start his next breath and cast, it reached back for a tree and ripped a large branch from it, longer than Frank was tall. Then the Strongarm threw it, over the heads of Brar and Deli. Right at the two of them. Well no, Lilijah managed to slip to the side.

It threw it straight at Frank, the source of the fire. He dove for the snow, managing to get some cover. But even so, the branch slammed into him and tossed him back like a human football, rolling over him as it went.

He heard Deli cry out: “Frank!”

He was fine. It had missed him, mostly.

He felt like he was run over by a truck, and he’d lost the sense of direction of which was up and down while rolling through the snow, but he’d be up in a jiffy. He just needed a moment for his head to stop spinning, for Health to do its part.

Health = 23/42

Mana = 6

It had dropped quite a bit. Seven whole points from an area attack at range that he avoided, for the most part. They’d have to be careful.

Frank just hoped they hadn’t been distracted by that pitiful attempt to dodge.

“But that’s what you get with Agility two. I’m meant to have a shield, stand in a Legion wall. Or have Agility four and deflect! But noooo, I had to go and get myself cursed. Come on Frank, get up man, there’s a monster to be fought, and a victory to celebrate after!”

Frank felt a familiar heat light up in him, all along his spine, from groin to brain. Driven by it, he lurched to his feet.

They had a monster to slay and his party needed him.