It was near dusk and bitterly cold. Starlex was by one of the outside fires making a cup of strong tea to bring to Batag, the old healer in the village, when she saw the young Skaard scout staggering into the encampment. His footsteps slowed to a sudden halt, and with a groan, he pitched forward. A cloud of snow puffed as he landed on his hands and knees. Starlex set down the tea and rushed to his side. When she reached him he had rolled onto his back, his ice-blue eyes skyward, the light in them dimming in the waning light. She leaned in to help him and reeled back in horror.

Something had slashed him from throat to waist, clean through his leather jerkin. The blood rushed from his wounds, staining the snow around in him in a dark red cloud.

A few elderly men appeared, picked up the boy, and carried him to Batag's tent, but their movements lacked urgency as if they knew it was a lost cause.

Starlex held a torch over the cot where the boy lay unconscious while Batag peeled back his torn jerkin. Starlex had never in her life seen such a wound. The boy's blood-soaked hands held in his guts.

A Skaard word bubbled on the boy's lips and then he closed his eyes. He took a quick, ragged breath, then died.

"Did he say 'mother'?" Starlex whispered.

"Yes," old Batag replied with a deep sigh. "She and the father were killed by the Thrades four moons ago."

There was a moment of silence, filled only by the crack of the firepot.

"Do you think the Thrades are close?" Starlex asked, her voice low and throaty.

Batag shrugged, replying in the common tongue, "This boy may have walked far. His wounds look fresh though. Hopefully, it was only one Thrade. They sometimes stray from the rest and come into the camp looking for food."

Starlex was afraid to inquire about what kind of diet the creatures preferred.

Batag set a candle in a holder of carved bone at the boy's head and began to recite a prayer in the Skaard tongue. Starlex bowed her head and prayed too, not knowing the words but feeling their meaning.

When she left the tent an hour later, her heart was heavy. The sharp wind stung her cheeks as it whipped through the camp. The firelight flickered as it fought against the wind.

She was moving toward her own tent when she spotted Wallick, a thin old man with a bent back and a long white beard. His trembling hand pointed at where the road disappeared into the darkness. "The Thrades are coming," he whispered. "I can smell them."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Starlex sniffed the air. Above the familiar tang of icy and sea was burnt smoke, and something else, something rank. A smell of decay she knew from the times she would stumble upon a dead animal in the woods.

Wallick cupped his hand to his mouth and in the Skaard tongue shouted, "To the caves!"

The camp exploded into action. Someone blew a horn. Torchlight reflected off the ice-covered ground as people ran from their tents clutching dangling children to their chests. A family rushed past Starlex, knocking her off her feet into a snowbank. Dazed, she stared at the glowering sky, forgetting for a moment the danger all around her.

A sound of thundering hooves broke her confusion as she crab-walked backward to get away from the encroaching stampede. The riders entered the firelight. Leading the charge, wild-eyed and dripping sweat and blood, was Bonn Skaard. Spotting Starlex crawling in the snow, he leaned out of the saddle, stretched, and pulled her onto the gray stallion's back.

She barely had time to grip him tightly about the waist when a monster fell upon them, a black wall of stench and power punctuated by red, blazing eyes.

The point of Bonn's dagger bounced off its thick scaly skin, before finding the space between its eyes and plunging in. With a groan, the Thrade fell forward, red ooze sliding down its face.

Starlex winced with fear and revulsion as Bonn turned the stallion in a tight circle. Several Skaard soldiers appeared, including Leiffen on foot. He shouted at the others to fall back as he shot a flaming at a line of three Thrades moving toward them with swatting paws tipped with nails as long and sharp as spears.

One Skaard on horseback charged at the line, his sword whirling overhead. One Thrade swatted it away like a toy and opened the Skaard's chest with the fan of its claws. He fell from his horse with an agonized cry and was dead before he hit the ground.

As Starlex clung to his leather jerkin, Bonn heeled the stallion to a gallop. One of the creatures approached from the rear, combing its claws through Starlex's silver hair. As her head jerked back with searing pain, Bonn turned in his saddle and jammed his dagger between the Thrade's eyes.

Starlex watched horrified as the monster sank behind them, uttering a howling groan as Bonn dug in his heels and ran the horse to the high hills.

When they reached the jagged promontory of gray rock, Bonn slid off the horse, pulling Starlex to the ground.

"Get to the cavern!” he shouted.

She ran blindly toward the bulging mountain. Training her eyes on a flaming torch at the mouth of the cave, she climbed toward it. Bonn called for Leiffen, and soon he was by his side, raining down fire-tipped arrows on the advancing Thrades.

Her heart beating wildly, Starlex followed the torchlight to the mouth of the cave.

She stumbled down the icy ramp until she was within the cavern. There she found the people of Rhynforde huddled together around the steaming pool.

She approached the old man, Wallick. He was sitting alone on a boulder lighting his pipe with a trembling hand.

Batag appeared by his side, her wrinkled face ashen beneath her fur cowl. "I've sent the others on the underground paths," she spoke with a quavering voice. "We are too old and frail to make the journey. We will stay here to face our fate." She reached out and clasped the old man's hand. He looked up at her with sad, twinkling with love in the low torchlight eyes.

Starlex turned to see a line of women and children slowly moving beyond the pool toward a black tunnel carved into the rock. A middle-aged mother carrying a torch led the way.

"You better go with them," Wallick said with a grumble. "You'll never make it through those caves alone."

"No," Starlex said, training her eyes on the mouth of the cave opening to the dimming sky. "I will stay here and wait."