“Short thrusts!” Bregg’s command echoed in the firelit darkness, ringing out over the snaps and snarls of our attackers. I forced myself to check my thrust, holding the spear firmly in both hands and not letting it slide through my left hand as I stabbed at the knee-high, foxlike beast snapping at me. I held my right elbow high, guiding the point downward and keeping the shaft in line with my vision so I could aim accurately. I jabbed forward with a smooth snapping motion, poking the fox in the back with the blade as it lunged for me. Its own momentum carried it forward onto the spearpoint and sank the weapon deep into the creature. I twisted the haft, opening the wound and letting me yank the blade free easily.

It turned out that I really had no clue how to use a spear, even with my skill. The long thrusts I’d used against the enyarv were great when dealing with a predator with a long reach, but they were slower and put me off-balance at the same time. Against something like the stornbyor, they were fine, but against a swarm of six-foot-long and knee-high foxes that were much faster than the bear, those thrusts were simply too slow. The short stabbing motions were much more suitable; I just had to do them the right way, sighting down the shaft so I actually hit what I aimed for.

The fox lunged at me, but I’d only withdrawn the spear a few inches, and I stabbed back into it as it darted forward, pinning it to the snow and opening another hole in its back. I held my spear with the blade laying flat, and the point slid between the animal’s ribs and plunged into the organs beneath. Its muscle and cartilage meant I couldn’t get deep enough to reach its heart or anything, but I didn’t need to when each blow nicked its lungs. Blood already trickled from its open mouth, and it scrambled back and turned, running into the snow to escape. I let it; I wasn’t hunting the creature, and if I were, I could have easily followed the trail of its blood.

Another fox leaped into the place of the one I’d driven off, but it met my spearpoint as well. I stabbed it a couple times until it retreated, then moved onto the next. The snow walls flanking us funneled the beasts directly onto our spears, meaning I only had to worry about what was right in front of me. Bregg stood to my right, his spear faster and surer than mine, so I could literally stab in front of me the whole time and not worry about anything else. I’d heard once that the spear dominated the ancient battlefield, and I could absolutely see why. A wall of spearmen would be a difficult barrier to overcome, and they wouldn’t be all that hard to train. The basic short and long thrusts were fairly simple, and mastering them was just a matter of doing them over and over again. Actually becoming proficient was harder, as you had to learn to block, strike in different directions, and slash with the weapon as well as how to use the haft like a staff, but in a formation, against other humans? Stand shoulder-to-shoulder and stab the guy in front of you; that would be all you’d need to learn, really.

The foxes rushed forward, but we simply held our ground and jabbed at them as they neared. A couple of wounds convinced each of the creatures to turn and run; they didn’t even have to be deep wounds. The foxes weren’t the bloodthirsty monsters of Puraschim or the moon-maddened beasts of Soluminos; they were just animals. Once they realized that we weren’t food or easy prey, they quickly retreated into the darkness. Most of them trailed blood from the wounds we inflicted, and I was sure that some of them wouldn’t live until the dawn, but the majority probably would. Eventually, the last of them scampered off into the night, vanishing beneath the moonless sky as their dappled fur blended into the snow and ice, leaving us standing in the passage with blood-stained spears.

I watched the animals flee with an odd sense of satisfaction. They’d come to test us, and we’d shown ourselves to be the greater hunters. It didn’t matter that we didn’t kill any; all that mattered was that they acknowledged our dominance and fled our territory. They wouldn’t return. Other hunters might come, and that was fine; as they did, we’d handle them, too. That was the life of a hunter. There was only so much food to go around, and sometimes, it was easier to try and take it from others than hunt it yourself. If we weren’t strong enough to protect our food, then we really didn’t deserve to have it, did we?

I shook myself; I was spiraling into odd thoughts again. That had been happening lately, and I wasn’t really sure why. I suppose it could have been the hunting professions I’d taken, but I couldn’t remember a profession affecting my thoughts like that before. Maybe that was something unique to this world; I didn’t know. Whatever the cause, the simple fact was that the foxes had come to steal our food, and we’d driven them off. It wasn’t about right or wrong. They were hungry, but we had to eat, too. Fighting them was a necessity, nothing more.

“You’re still wasting too much energy,” Bregg told me with mild disapproval. “Remember, let the sharpness of your blade do the work for you. You don’t have to shove it forward; speed matters more than power.”

“I was trying,” I said a little breathlessly. I was panting slightly from the aftermath of the battle, but Bregg might have just been napping from how little exertion he seemed to show.

“Try harder.” He grabbed a handful of snow and wiped his spear down with it, removing the blood slowly freezing onto it, and I did the same. Frozen blood tended to make the spearpoint hang up in something when I stabbed it, making me work harder, and I had no interest in that. Using a spear was difficult enough as it was. It wasn’t about thrusting with my arms; the power came from my legs and hips, rolled through my shoulders, and carried down my arms into the blow. My whole body participated in each strike, and it ached when I went to bed each night.

Aeld hadn’t been kidding when he said the trip would be a difficult one. The days each started simply enough, with a lesson with Aeld. He didn’t show me any other rituals or practical ways to use a spirit—I think he learned his lesson there—and we mostly worked on sensing spirits, focusing intent, and how to use a circle to protect yourself. I could do all those things thanks to my Ritualism skill, See Spirits ability, and prior experience with spellcasting, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that. Besides, I got a skill out of it, so I couldn’t really complain.

Skill Gained: Meditation

Rank: Neophyte 3

Benefit: +1% per rank to focus while concentrating on any action

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Sara told me that it basically made it harder to distract me when I really wanted to focus on something. I could see any number of uses for that.

After my training, we packed up and headed deeper into the mountains, trudging along for hours in total silence. I expected us to follow a path that wandered through the valleys, skirting the slopes, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t have been a good idea. The peaks channeled the wind and slowed it closer to their bases, meaning the snow piled up in the valleys, drifting higher than our heads in places. While the snowshoes would make that trek possible, it would be a lot more tiring. That forced us to stick to the lower slopes, following winding trails along icy ledges. We clambered over snow-covered boulders, picked our way along narrow paths, and hiked up and down for miles each day. Sometimes our path doubled back on itself, winding most of the way around one mountain only to cross to the next and head back the way we’d come. The wind blew constantly, biting into me through my heavy fur, and I had a feeling that without my Cold Resistance, I’d be a lot more miserable than I was. As it was, my fingers were torn and bleeding after a day, cut on frozen stone and sharp ice, and I felt like I’d fallen down one of those mountain slopes by the time we finished making camp every day.

Of course, there were some upsides to that. My body, while strong, was brand-new and unused to that sort of exertion. It was adapting quickly, though, and for the first three nights when we stopped, I was greeted with the same message.

Due to extreme exertion, you have gained:

Prowess +1, Vigor +1, Celerity +1

After that, the notifications came every other day, then stopped entirely as my body apparently adapted. Still, I’d gotten six points to each stat, which was nice. I was still tired and sore after the day’s trek, but my fingers no longer bled, and I didn’t feel like I was about to collapse for the first hour when we stopped. That was good because Bregg didn’t give a damn how sore and tired I was; he put me on the first watch of the night with him every night. We spent an hour of that time on weapons training, as he taught me how to use a spear more effectively, and the training had paid off handsomely. I was up to Initiate 3 in Spear Focus already, and I’d gotten a new ability.

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Lunge

Active Ability

Do double damage with your next strike with a thrusting-type weapon. Take a -25% penalty to defense for 5 seconds after.

The ability was nice, but the defense penalty it inflicted by leaving me ridiculously off-balance for several seconds made it next to useless in the battles we fought. We mostly faced groups of creatures, and if I’d used Lunge on one, another would bite my ass. Probably literally, knowing my luck. It was a finishing move against a dangerous foe, and we rarely dealt with those.

After training, we spent several hours silently watching the darkness, waiting to be relieved. For the first few nights, our camp stood open, surrounded only by a low, shin-high circle of cleared snow that contained whatever spirit he set to watching the place and keeping the wind out. To keep watch, we created large piles of snow and buried ourselves inside them, leaving a hole through which we could see and breathe. I thought that was to hide, but it turned out, away from the fire, it got cold as shit each night, especially with the wind cutting through my fur. The snow was chilly, but it was a lot warmer than being out in -20 temps. Cold Resistance was nice, but it only did so much.

After those first nights, though—and multiple attacks—we changed the setup of the camp. The walls rose higher, creating actual ramparts. Those extended outward from the two entrances into a funnel shape that let two guards defend against a large number of attackers. Bregg hadn’t seemed happy with that arrangement, but he hadn’t complained either, and I for one was glad for the new setup. Sure, it reduced our ability to get the heck out of Dodge if the camp was overrun, but it also made dealing with the creatures that attacked us a heck of a lot easier—and something attacked us pretty much every night without fail. We never went an evening without some predator or another trying to get into the camp, and most nights they hit us at least twice.

At first, I’d assumed that was why Bregg wanted me to take a watch each night. Each battle gave me a little more XP, most of which went into Spearman because it was either that or Warrior. Twice, though, we’d drawn fiercer predators—once a pair of snow-leopard-like monsters that appeared from the darkness and leaped on us with no warning, and once a bigger beast with a weasel-like body and a muzzle filled with jagged teeth that swarmed over the walls and directly into the camp. I’d put the XP for those into Isyagarl, bringing it to level 3, and the rest had gotten Spearman to level 4, giving me another ability that wasn’t too bad but wasn’t great.

Ability Gained: Zone of Control

Passive Ability

Benefit: Enemies take a 1% penalty to Celerity per level of Spear Focus when within striking range of your spear.

The ability only slowed creatures by about 8%, but it certainly helped with the foxes; Celerity was my lowest stat at the moment at 14, and reducing theirs made me just fast enough to keep up with them. I’d gained a lot from the nightly battles, and while I enjoyed sleep as much as the next guy, I liked getting stronger and more capable even more.

Skill Changes

Endurance: Savant 11 (+3)

Tracking: Adept 4 (+2)

Weapon Focus (Spear): Initiate 3 (+3)

As the days passed, though, I could tell that something was wrong. The alteration of the camp was the first clue; the fact that we’d stopped burying ourselves in snow and endured the frigid temperatures was the next. The hunters made camp each night with expressions of wariness and discontent, and while none of them complained where I heard, their body language screamed that these attacks weren’t normal. Of course, I was an outsider, so they weren’t going to tell me about it. That just meant that I had to ask some questions if I wanted any answers.

“We’ve been attacked an awful lot, Bregg,” I noted idly as I inspected my spear, making sure I’d gotten all the blood off it.

“The High Reaches are dangerous,” he replied shortly, not looking in my direction.

“Sure, but this dangerous?” I gave him a skeptical look. “We’ve taken precautions. We bury the food in snow each night to mask its scent. We’ve hidden our fire so that the glow doesn’t spread. We’ve even tried hiding our trail as we travel each day.”

“Those are just reasonable precautions that any hunting party would take,” he pointed out.

“We didn’t take them the first few nights,” I argued. “And I can tell that everyone’s unhappy with the situation. This isn’t usual, Bregg.”

He sighed and squatted down on his haunches, staring into the darkness. “No, it’s not,” he finally agreed after a few seconds of silence. “Before you ask, though, it’s not my place to talk about it. You can ask the letharvis if you’d like, but you won’t get any good answers from him.”

“Is something wrong with the animals?” I pressed. That was the sort of thing I needed to know to do my job, after all. Odd animal behavior had been my first clue in Soluminos to what was happening, and I supposed it might be a common theme. Animals tended to have much better senses than humans—or any other intelligent race I’d met so far—so it made sense that they might feel a growing imbalance first.

“No,” he said simply, dashing that hope. “They’re doing exactly what I’d expect them to do. And that’s all I’ll say about it.” His tone was final, and I’d gotten to know him well enough to know that further questions wouldn’t get any better answers. Bregg was nothing if not stubborn.

“Fine,” I sighed. “What about this mission you’re all on? Can you tell me about that, at least? Where are we going, and how much longer until we get there? Since I’m supposed to be helping you with it, it might be useful if I knew what it was.”

He remained silent, and for a moment, I wondered if he was just going to clam up for the rest of the night. After a few seconds, though, he sighed heavily. “That’s reasonable,” he said at last. “We’re investigating a report of Oikithikiim activity.”

I almost asked what an oik-whatever was, but I stopped myself, not wanting to reveal too much ignorance. “What sort of activity?” I asked instead.

“One of the galdunders spotted an Oikithikiim ship hugging the coastline of the Nurshurhof. Since our valskab is the closest to the High Reaches, we were sent to investigate. The four-legs are always trying to find a way into the Haelendi.” While his words were bitter, and he practically spat the last sentence, he might as well have been speaking Greek for all I understood.

“Sorry, John,” Sara said apologetically. “I might be leaving a bit too much untranslated. ‘Galdunder’ roughly means ‘great master of spirits’; ‘Nurshurhof’ is ‘endless cold waters’, and ‘Haelendi’ translates to ‘raised place of sanctuary’.”

“So, a ‘galdunder’ is like a high shaman, the ‘Nurshurhof’ is the North Ocean, and ‘Haelendi’…” I paused. “Okay, I can’t think of a good analog for that, but it’s short and easy, so that’s fine.”

“Do you want me to translate those that way from now on?”

“Yeah, that might be helpful. I’ve got ‘letharvis’ and ‘valskab’ down, but no need to make things more complicated than they are.” I stopped as I realized something. “Wait, what about that oik-thing?”

“That doesn’t translate, I’m afraid. I think it’s a name for something or someone, and it doesn’t seem to be in the Menskallin language.”

I pondered what Bregg had said in light of the new translations. “What do you think they’re doing?” I finally asked.

“It’s possible that they’re trying to establish a settlement up there, but if they are, they’re fools,” he snorted. “You can live up there by fishing in the North Ocean, but that’s not possible most of the year. The ice will already be creeping back in now that the Bright Season is past, and within a passage, they’ll be frozen in. The beasts will have gone south to the Haelendi to wait out the Dark Season, and there’ll be nothing for them to eat, not to mention it’s colder than the highest peaks up there.”

He looked around at the towering peaks surrounding us. “There’s a reason nobody lives in the High Reaches, young hunter. They’re only this hospitable for maybe three passages a year. By the time of the Rise, the snow will be higher than your head in the valleys, and the wind blowing off the northern ice will be cold enough to freeze a stornbyor in a couple hours. Once the Dark Season hits, ice covers everything, and the cold will kill you in minutes without protection. The only things alive up here then are sleeping beneath the snow and ice, waiting for the sun’s return and the Time of Growing Light.”

“Then why bother investigating? Why not just let the cold and the seasons kill them off?”

“Because whatever else they are, the Oikithikiim aren’t stupid. If they’re up there, it’s for a purpose, and that purpose isn’t good for we Menskallin. They’ve been treacherous since the world turned warm and they had to flee their homeland, and we never should have trusted them—and we never will again. Any of them who step foot in the Haelendi or High Reaches fall to our spears and spirits, and they deserve nothing less.”

Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all. It sounded like these oik-people were another intelligent species, and they and the Menskallin—what I was now--didn’t get along at all. In fact, it almost sounded like the two groups were in some sort of war, even if it was just a cold one. Pun totally intended. That was fine, but I had a feeling the war would play into the reason I was here. Was I supposed to stop it? Help one side win? Or was it just a red herring? I had no clue, but one thing I was pretty sure of.

Somehow, I was going to get dragged into that war, whether I liked it or not.