when Esset noticed a shallow series of depressions atop the snowdrifts. The snow here was crustier, topped with a thin layer of ice. Esset had a hard time imagining that anything light enough to walk atop it would be threatening at all—even the snow cats in the mountains would likely break through—but then again, they didn’t know what they were up against.
“Are those tracks?” Esset called ahead to one of the trackers at the front. The tracker looked out where he was pointing.
“I don’t think so,” the tracker said, but he looked uncertain.
“Not from any creature you’ve seen.” Esset watched the tracker carefully until the other man just nodded. Suddenly everyone in the group was looking at the tracks, but there wasn’t much to see. They were quite large in diameter, roughly twice the size of a man’s footprint. But they were just round depressions and not very deep, although it was difficult to get a good look at them since they weren’t right up against the path.
“Come on,” Perrin urged them forward again and led them to the cave mouth. One of the men dug a torch out of his pack, and he lit it to investigate how deep the cave went. One man was left at the cave mouth to keep watch while the rest of them went in.
They didn’t have to go far.
It was fortunate that they were all men used to war. The dour torchlight illuminated a gruesome scene; every member of the squad they’d been sent to rescue had been slaughtered, and their bodies were strewn about the tunnel. Thanks to the cold, they didn’t smell yet, but the sight would have made a greenhorn retch. It looked like some large animal—or animals—had torn their throats out.
“Alright. They’re dead, let’s get back to camp,” one of the men said, already edging back towards the tunnel entrance. Esset scowled at him.
“I, for one, want to know who or what did this,” the summoner objected. Beyond his natural curiosity, unknown enemies were never a good thing. They needed more information to find out what kind of threat they were facing.
“Whatever was chasing them, obviously,” the edgy man retorted.
“We stay and try to find out what that was,” Perrin said. He was the highest-ranking officer there—he called the shots. The edgy man looked unhappy, but at least he obeyed. Esset ignored him and approached one of the bodies.
“Looks like some kind of animal,” he commented. His skills in tracking weren’t great, but even he could tell that.
“No animal I ever seen,” said the other tracker. “Its teeth woulda been huge. Bigger than a snowcat.”
“Smarter, too, and in greater number,” Perrin said quietly. Everyone looked at him.
“Look at the bodies. Some were running further in when they died.” Perrin pointed at the trajectory of the bodies. “But some were running back out of the tunnel. They were caught between at least two creatures. I’d guess three or four.” He didn’t provide a reason for that guess.
“But they didn’t try to eat the dead,” Esset pointed out. Above and below the neck, they were for the most part untouched.
“You’re thinking the same thing I am, aren’t you?” Perrin asked him.
“Mage constructs?” Esset guessed. Perrin nodded. The squad leader didn’t look impressed, but he did look…satisfied? Maybe Esset had gained a few competence points in Perrin’s eyes.
“Creatures created by a mage. Seems likely,” the leader agreed. “Killing machines that can run over the snow—my guess is that these creatures were going to be their next move against us. Something quiet, maybe, that could sneak into camp, maybe even over the castle walls, and terrorize us while we sleep.”
“Like you say, seems likely,” Esset agreed.
“But their warlord is dead now,” one of the other men interjected. “Without him, the army will fall into chaos. One way or another, the war is over.”
“True, but we all know what vindictive bastards their mages are. Even with the warlord dead, they’ll probably still send these creatures after us if we don’t hunt them down first,” Perrin said. “They’re probably new creations, since we haven’t run into them already, which means they might not be as strong as they’ll get. And at this point they’re more likely to be in this one area. I don’t intend to let them scatter to the four winds.”
“But how do we track them? They go where we can’t,” the edgy soldier argued.
“We start by looking down this tunnel,” Perrin said. No one looked terribly happy about the prospect, but Perrin was their commanding officer. They updated their sentry at the cave mouth and then headed deeper in. They debated dousing the torch, since it made them a rather obvious target, but the truth of the matter was that they couldn’t see anything without it, and any animal opponents, whether they were mage-constructs or not, probably wouldn’t have trouble spotting them in the darkness anyway.
The naturally-formed stone tunnel gave way to too-clean walls a ways in. It was all still the natural stone, but it had been cut so neatly that the cave walls were perfectly flat and shiny like glass.
“Mage carved…” Esset thought aloud. The mage would have used blood magic to accomplish this feat—magic gleaned from the pain and suffering of others. Esset could almost taste a metallic tang in the air, but he knew it was only his overactive imagination—sensing magic wasn’t one of his abilities.
Perrin glanced at him, but only nodded. Given the amount of effort this construction would have taken, Esset wondered what exactly they were heading towards. This chance discovery seemed to be evolving into something bigger.
A whuff of breath and a small, soft sound was their only warning before a creature lunged out of the darkness at them. It was large, pale, and fast, and it went after the torch-bearer first. The torch went flying, and the man screamed as his arm was mangled. The beast vanished into the darkness as Esset spoke a summoning incantation.
A fiery wolf appeared out of the air beside Esset. Its body was ashy black but cracked with veins of molten fire like a hot coal filled with magma. Looking into its eyes was like gazing into an abyss of fire. It couldn’t breathe flames, but when it opened its maw, a wave of heat and light roiled forth from the furnace within.
Esset kept a tight mental rein on the fiery wolf—it was a vicious creature, and without Esset’s control, it would attack allies just as enthusiastically as enemies. Fortunately, Esset had gained a lot of experience maneuvering his creatures over the course of the war. The wolf leapt into the darkness after the beast that had attacked them.
Bizarre shadows flashed around the tunnel as the wolf snapped its jaws and the light within escaped. They could briefly see the pale shape of the creature as the fiery wolf caught up to it, but then it vanished from their sight as the wolf’s jaws closed. An unnatural shriek echoed down the tunnel before fading into a hiss that gurgled at the end. Esset grabbed the torch from where it had fallen and rushed towards the wolf.
The torchlight revealed the unnatural body of a mage construct, just as they’d guessed. It was covered in white skin except for its feet, which were oversized and covered in long, coarse hair. Its body was large but skinny, and its head was wedged like a canine’s—a greyhound, maybe—only larger. Its jaws definitely had a lot of snapping power, and there were very long fangs protruding from its snout. It also had a long, whip-like tail. It was clearly a species that could never survive in this climate alone—it would rely on the mage that created it to survive. Still, its light frame and broad paws would enable it to run atop the snow with ease, and its white skin would make it difficult to spot on a snowscape.
“These things would be impossible to see at night,” Esset remarked, feeling sick to his stomach at the thought. “And with how fast they move…”
“Perfect for taking out sentries.” Perrin and the rest of the squad had gathered around the carcass. “And with those claws, they might even make it over the walls.” The creatures had been built for a deadly purpose, that much was certain.
“We gotta find the rest of these things and kill them,” Perrin said grimly.
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The squad’s numbers had been reduced—the injured man and one other returned to the cave entrance to wait with the sentry, and Esset found himself at the center of their group, protected from all sides against ambush. His summons were more effective against the constructs than any human soldier, so they were protecting their best weapon. Esset’s wolf stalked ahead, unhappy about the lack of enemies to attack. Esset found most of his concentration set on keeping his own creature from turning around and attacking them.
“Light ahead!” Perrin warned them with a harsh whisper. The torch was immediately put out so the dim light ahead was visible—only the wolf stood out in the darkness, and Esset kept it further back to prevent it from being seen. The group edged forward slowly, hoping to sneak up on whatever was presumably near the light source.
The tunnel opened into a large, unnatural cavern. Like the tunnels, the walls, floor, and ceiling had all been formed from the natural stone, but they had been cut too perfectly, carved out with a glossy finish only magic could manage. A pair of undead stood listlessly just inside the opening—they didn’t make fantastic sentries, but they were still a threat. Taking them down would probably attract attention, so the group observed what they could from where they were.
A few more undead occupied the space inside the cavern, but so did four more of