Neri hunched down low. The snowlion stood on the crest of the rise, some hundred yards away. The cat’s long white mane tustled as a breeze swept a sheet of snow in the air. He was within bow shot, lazily stretching and licking his bloodstained muzzle. Prince Ror had spotted its den and was ready with his spear in case Neri’s shot wasn’t fatal. Neri paused for a moment to savour the feel of his hunting bow in his hand. His warbow was a deadly weapon, made of stout spring steel, and fired with almost the force of a human made arbalest. But the bow he held in his hand was no issued piece of gear. The obaki ramhorn limbs of the bow were as smooth as the skin of a still lake, and its solid grip of ash as firm as iron, but far more supple in the hand. Mist was her name, and she was the lady who vied with the Owl Guard for his love. I’ve missed you, he thought as he feathered a shaft.

They’d expected to be on the mountain for three or four days, as snowlions were elusive creatures, but they found one almost instantly. Khum’Ha, Hale called them, the orcan name for the beasts. Neri felt Hale had shown a surprising deference for the orcs. He’d listened intently as the young human spoke of his time in Eruhal while they rode the ohr-tempus to Magni, and then ascended the short stretch from there to Obrus’s high western summit. It seemed to Neri that of all Hale's experiences in Eruhal, he had been most moved by his meeting with the Red Eyed Goat and the King of Graves.

“I’ve always wanted to meet those men,” Neri said. “As have I,” his Prince chimed in. Hale claimed to have been unnerved by the experience, but Neri sensed from his voice that he deeply revered the mighty Woten'Ku. Hale was not alone. The King of Graves was unlike any other man. If the tales be half true then he was still the largest and strongest man that lived, huge and fearsome with skin of darkest grey. And one does not earn such a moniker without doing great and terrible things. Under his guidance, the many broken tribes cut down by the fear-mad Eruhali came running to his ever growing shadow, swelling the ranks of the Netherclaw tribe until they became a wandering nation. His foes were lost within his shadow as well. All things in his path were drawn in, and those who stood by him formed a ring of spears that gleamed white in the sun, while those who resisted him were crushed.

Ror carried the conversation along, speaking of further experiences he'd hoped to share with Hale. Hale asked intently of the provings and the mass forges. Ror happily indulged his every curiosity, deftly avoiding the topic of mannarim when talking of the forges. It seemed that Hale some knowledge of it's forging, but his Prince was clever with his replies.

Neri liked Prince Ror. He respected Lobuhl, and esteemed him well as a commander, but he liked Ror. Ror showed more than the common concern commanders felt for their soldiers; he treated Thrond’s men at arms like his brothers and friends. Neri had felt ashamed when Ror approached him to ask after Jem. The Prince knew the names of Jem’s father, mother and siblings, and had just come from bringing them all gifts to show the Crown’s gratitude for their family’s loyal service. “He admired you greatly,” Ror had said to Neri. “I watched him rise the ranks. When he made the Owl Guard, I asked him what drove him so fervently, and he told me he wanted the honor of standing in your shadow.” Neri had just recently learned of Jem’s adoration, only days before the man died.

Neri had welcomed the offer to join the hunt. It was the one time he felt at peace. He fought only one foe, and it was not a battle for territory, gold, iron, tin, or long dead grievances. It was a battle of two hunters, two warriors, both born to die and kill, sharing their primal purpose in one final, lethal moment. There was nothing more pure.

This hunt lacked some purity, however. It was more of a show for the human royal than anything. He even had Chief Yormun's nephew serving as his bodyguard. It could have been worse, of course. What Neri had seen pass for a hunt among human nobility was devoid of any sport, as the nobles and their entourage ran down a frightened animal with hounds and horses. He had to admit, though, that Hale had shown himself game. He struggled with the ascent, favoring much more gradual passes over vertical climbs, but he never whinged about the cold or difficulty of the trek. If only he could learn to keep quiet. Neri had often marvelled at human adaptability, being able to learn almost any skill, and yet he pitied them for their lack of instinct. There's so little they’re born knowing, Neri thought as Hale crunched his way upward, Buri waiting impatiently further along the rise.

I need to do this quick, he thought, not wanting Hale’s clumsy ascension to alert the Khum’Ha of their presence. He stood hunched almost into a crouch, with his knees less than an inch from the snow held Mist sideways to hid it from view, and with a breath loosed his arrow. It flew hard and swift to take the big cat in the throat, but the sound of crunching snow cause it to turn, and the arrow stuck in its flank just behind its foreleg. The Khum’Ha roared and turned, kicking up a drift of snow as it bolted for its den. Neri ran after the cat reflexively, cursing Hale in his mind. When he came upon the den he skidded to a halt. His prince had been waiting on top of the den and had dug through a weak point of its roof. He leapt high into the air with his spear pointed down, and drove its point through the roof. Chunks of snow covered rock erupted from the cavity as he came crashing through. The Khum’Ha roared and his prince howled, their war cries echoing off the icy walls of the den. There was a gurgling retch, a squelching of wet flesh, then silence.

Neri raised a hand and signaled Buri to move in with his bow drawn, then lowered two fingers toward Hale. The scraping of steel on leather and wood told Neri that Hale understood what was happening, even if he did not understand the hand speech of dwarven soldiers. Neri stood by the mouth of the den, just to the side and out of view from within the snowlion’s lair. He nocked another arrow and readied Mist in a motion faster than sight. Buri took position on the other side, and Hale moved to the front of the den with his longsword over his head. This snozz-brained imbecile. Does he expect the snowlion to come rushing at him with a mace and buckler? This is a hunt you unemployed jester, not a proving.

Buri reached angrily with his arm and flung Hale aside. He looked about to object when Neri heard a sound and signaled with his hand for silence. The sound was soft, from deep inside the den. The rhythmic tearing of flesh being separated from bone, blood pouring into the snow, an obaki ram bleating in the distance, and then the soft crunch of stealthy feet on snow. Ror emerged with his skinning knife in hand. Bits of flesh were clinging to its blood-soaked blade.

“I’ve got it started,” Ror said casually. “Show Hale how a Khum’Ha is dressed Buri. Neri, with me. There’s a lower level to the den. There may be a lioness with cubs.”

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In a male’s den? Their quarry was a big alpha. Snowlion alphas lived alone, but even lesser males only shared a den with one or two other males. No snowlioness would risk the lives of her litter by allowing a male into her den. Ror’s an experienced huntsman. He surely knows there could be no lioness or litter in this den. Neri followed his prince out of curiosity as much as subservience.

They wound through the narrow passages of the den until they reached the warm hollow where the cat had slept. There was no lower level, as Ror had said, but there was a pile of large rocks near the far corner of the sleeping hollow. Snow had been packed in the spaces between the rocks to make a crude wall. Ror had moved a few of the rocks already, and went to work digging the rest of the packed snow out with his knife. When he’d finished Neri helped him fling the rocks away and behind them they found a small ohr-drill, the kind used to bore blasting tunnels for the expanding of mineshafts. It’s narrow bit was burnt black and the point was dull from heavy use.

“Who would be mining up here?” Neri asked.

Ror gave him a grim look. “No one. But there’s other uses for a blasting tunnel. Halfur and I stood a ways south of the brow not long ago. We were looking at the Titan’s Torch through a spyglass and he caught a whiff of burning metal. He has the nose of a wolf, so I took him at his word. It seems I was right to do so.”

A dark revelation came to Neri, and the blood in his veins began to boil. “Do the goblins mean to take us from above?”

“My father’s commissioned a mass recruiting to account for the men taken by the plague,” Ror’s voice was somber. “We’ll have to increase the guard in the citadel, or evacuate it for now.”

“A bold suggestion, Dread Highness. Will your King Father consider such a move?”

“He’ll consider it.”

“How many men have we lost?” Neri regretted the question the moment he uttered it. He needed to know the strength of Thrond’s forces, but he did not wish to know how many had died. It’s the way they’ve died. A soldier deserves better than poison or plague.

“Over a thousand,” said the prince, “and the number climbs each day.”

“Has Chief Yormun discovered anything in the food stores?”

The prince nodded. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a shout from outside the den. Ror went to go see what had happened, and Neri went to work rebuilding the wall around the ohr-drill. Best its users don’t know we found it. When he came to the entrance of the Den only Buri remained.

“Where are the princes?”

“A bear rider came with a message,” Buri replied in his flat, half-angry tone, “the human princess has taken ill.”

“Well,” Neri said, “that rules Salimod out, I suppose.”

Buri cocked his head.

“We found a blasting drill in the back of the den, all burnt up from boring.”

Buri looked toward the den, then down the slope where the bear rider had come with the message. “Princess Cara collapsed after Lobuhl arrested a goblin in Salimod’s employ. She’s been unconscious since, but she has a fever and shaking fits. The bear rider said nothing of vomiting.”

“Perhaps humans are affected differently. And maybe her collapse was due to pain in her belly.”

Buri gave Neri a single nod, then looked up at the Torch and squinted. “We’ll learn nothing up here.”

Neri nodded in agreement and went to work packing away the snowlion meat. They divvied up the kill between their two packs, rolled up the pelt, then made their way back to Magni. Neri heard a scuffling sound. As the began their descent down one of the sheer cliffs over the Brow. He turned his ear toward the sound and strained to hear. He felt a faint trembling through the mountainside. He drummed the code for “hold here” into the mountain with his fingers. Buri drummed an acknowledgement and Neri bouldered his way around the cliff to a spur of rock that overlooked the Sholai glacier. As he neared he heard a boot slipping against ice, silence, then the soft thud of a body landing in deep snow. He hoisted himself so he could find a better vantage point.

Below the northern face of the cliff the Sholai snaked downward for miles. There were many rocky perches along its path that had turned to frozen graveyards as less experienced adventurers found themselves stranded and either froze or starved. One such perch was directly below him. He took his spyglass out from its pouch and examined at the perch. There were three of his own kin, their bodies all curled up and white with hoarfrost, and a fourth body that was tall and thin and shrouded in a gray and white cloak. Neri tried hard to make out what kindred it was. Its limbs were broken and twisted about, clearly from the fall, but he could not see the corpse’s face. He thought for a moment he saw white hair, but felt instantly foolish as the body was half buried in snow.

He told Buri what he saw and the bigger dwarf asked if Neri knew a way down to the perch. Neri indicated a path that could take them there, but it was treacherous, and so they left their packs. As they carefully made their way down the side of the mountain, Buri asked the question that Neri had been afraid to ask himself. “Who gave our dead man the ohr-drill?”

Neri let out a sigh as he clung to the mountain. A drift of snow began to fall and was nestling his golden beard. “We’ll need more fact before determining that. Let’s discern the intruder’s kin for now.”

Neri felt an unwelcome sense of vindication when they came to the corpse. He had seen white hair, somehow, amidst the white snow. They had to tunnel their way to the body to avoid inadvertently burying it completely. It a was a man of less than six feet tall, thin limbed and wiry. His ruined body was wrapped in thick white and grey furs and a cloak lined with white fox hair. His hood was partly cast off his crushed head, and his silver-white hair was drenched in hot blood. Buri pulled the hood back further to reveal a long, knife shaped ear with skin as black as a shadow.