Chapter 39: Ice Wraiths

  Peter had been right.

  The hike was brutal, it felt like an endless mile of trudging through powder that swallowed boots up to their calves. The wind clawed at every seam in their armor and every sliver of exposed skin. But sure enough, another shape eventually broke the horizon, a rounded bulk hunched under a crust of snow. Another face in the storm, mustache and all.

  They didn’t hesitate this time. Alex pressed his hand to its blind eye, fed a surge of aether, and the stone pulsed with light. The storm peeled back in a sudden ring of calm, a hundred feet of blessed reprieve carved out of the blizzard.

  Not enough to connect with the first statue. Not even close. But it was at least something—air they could actually breathe, snow that didn’t freeze their eyes to their sockets.

  Alex exhaled. “Two down.”

  “Eight to go,” Allie said flatly.

  The statue’s gaze was angled slightly left of the path of its predecessor, just off from the mountain wall, but still pointing out into the storm. The squad gathered, exchanged glances, then turned their backs to the fleeting peace and stepped out once more into the teeth of the tundra.

  The blizzard swallowed them instantly.

  A few dozen yards. That’s all they managed before it happened.

  The presence Alex had been feeling since the waterfall finally made itself known. The smooth ambient air and water aether the thing hid itself inside of suddenly snapped taut, like a tripwire being pulled. Aether flared around him like a warning siren, the wisps convulsing out of rhythm.

  Then the snow storm at the edge of his vision moved. The snow exploded upward in a geyser just behind Garret, a shape surging from the whiteout. It was massive, sinuous, its outline bending in and out of sight like a mirage made of fog or haze. The stalker had decided it was time.

  Alex spun to face the movement. “Contact!”

  At first it was only an impression, a mere shadow sliding across the white. Then Alex’s [Aether Sight] locked onto the beast's aether flow, and the creature came into focus; four legs, a long tail, with eyes that burned cold blue, flickering between every gust.

  It slipped from view, then reappeared a dozen feet to the left, then was gone again just as quickly. Alex scowled, blinking through the sting of ice. For half a heartbeat the storm stuttered, and he got a clear look at the thing.

  The beast was Leopard-like, all sinew and speed. Its fur was snow-pale, mottled with bluish spots like frostbite blooming across one's skin. The whip of its tail ended in a wicked ice blade that caught what little light the tundra gave off and threw it back as a wicked shimmer. Its paws—small and delicate looking—pressed down with barely a sound. But, even with their proportionally small size, Alex didn’t like the mental picture of those claws raking across his stomach. The beast's head was sleek, narrow, a predator’s mask in appearance; caught between tiger and fox, with glowing eyes. It was bigger than a wolf, but smaller than a lion, and fast. Too fast.

  “Eyes on it!” Thompson yelled. He pivoted, lightning crackling along his hand and arm.

  “I would if it’d sit still!” Garret growled. His head swung about, trying to track the creature as it rapidly slipped in and out of view, changing angle and location around him with each step. His shield whipped up as he shuffled to cover Allie.

  The chimera flickered, reappeared in the corner of Alex’s sightline, then lunged as a rush of snow detonated in its wake.

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  Alex dropped to one knee as razor sharp claws surged towards his head, his aether shifted through his channels as he fired off three condensed [Wind Lance]s in rapid succession. One of the air bolts glanced off the blade of the beast’s tail, while the other two missed their mark entirely.

  Lance darted forward, his sword gleaming as he slashed. But the chimera vanished again, leaving only a phantom trail of snow. Then it was behind them.

  Henry turned first, his massive frame intercepting the blow in mid strike, halberd against tail-blade. The impact rang out like steel on steel as the beast’s tail slammed against his weapon, shards of ice spraying across the team’s formation.

  “Spread! Don’t bunch up, or it will just out maneuver us!” Alex yelled out. He adjusted his aim, firing off another set of [Wind lance]s, unsurprisingly, they both missed as the beast slipped back into the blizzard.

  For a few heartbeats, there was only the storm; wind screaming, snow swirling, every shadow was eyed like a threat. Then a blur cut through the circle once more.

  Allie cried out, a streak of blood spattering the snow where claws dug into her arm. Another flicker, and Peter yelped as the beast’s tail lashed past him, the shoulder plate of his armor dented in a shower of ice shards.

  Garret swung his shield wildly, catching nothing but air. “This thing’s cheating!”

  The chimera blinked in and out of existence, faster than eyes could follow, its claws raking at them from every direction. They were losing ground, hemmed in by a predator that owned the storm.

  “Enough,” Alex snapped, “Square up! Get ready to hit it when I call it.”

  His gaze cut to Holly who was doing her best to chase the chimera around in the snow. Even with her speed though, the thing was too slippery, too evasive for her blade to catch up. He managed to get her attention after another failed attack. “Clear the storm, like the statues!”

  Her eyes widened in understanding, then she nodded. She slammed her foot into the snow as aether whipped out of her like a tidal wave. The air surged in all direction, pressing outward like a shockwave. The blizzard buckled, then tore apart in a shrieking gale, snow blasting back for dozens of feet.

  The tundra went quiet. And the chimera was there.

  Its ghostly mirage-form faltered, half-in and half-out, before snapping fully into the world proper. It was crouched low, its glowing eyes fixed wide as if caught in a spotlight.

  “NOW!” Alex roared.

  The squad unleashed hell.

  Aether shrieked as spells converged on the beast, a gout of fire roared across the snow from Garret, serrated rocks tore upward from the frozen ground thanks to Lance, Holly’s spells launched air blades howling through the clearing, and beams of blistering light seared through the creature’s pale hide from Allie and Peter.

  The chimera twisted, fast as lightning, dodging the first couple of blasts. But not all of them.

  An air blade caught its flank. A stone spike drove into its leg. Light beams burned into its chest, staggering it just long enough for the next jet of blistering fire to land. The tundra lit in a violent flash, the storm scattering ash, ice shard and blood in the wake of their combined assault.

  The beast screeched once, then collapsed into the snow.

  A notification flashed in Alex’s vision, confirming the kill.

  “Good,” Alex gave a thumbs up to the team. “That was a pretty swift fight, hopefully, we killed it fast enough to stop it from learning how to adapt to us and sending that information back to the others.”

  “Send it back?” Peter asked.

  Alex nodded then looked off toward where he knew the city was waiting at the center of the mountain, even if he couldn’t see it through the storm.

  “I have a feeling that these chimera are all mentally linked together. Psychically, or through a Hive mind maybe? Even when we kill an entire squad, the next ones seem to have already learned how to protect from our skills. They had to have learned it from the ones we kill, but… I don’t know how. Its gotta be information sent to their minds in some way. Shared senses maybe?” He shrugged, uncertainty on his face.

  “So killing it before it could send that info out will mean they don’t adapt?” Allie asked.

  “I don’t know. Like I said, hopefully it will.”

  “Hopefully,” Thompson repeated grimly. “But don’t kid yourself. That’s not the last one of those bastards we’ll see. They’ll learn, one way or another.”

  As they talked, Henry dug into the carcass with efficient brutality, his vines churning through flesh and prying loose a still-pulsing beast core before putting it into a storage pouch. The party didn’t linger on the kill. There was no time to strip fur or claws, and their packs held no space for trophies.

  The wind was already clawing back at the clearing after Holly’s spell, the blizzard eager to bury blood and corpse alike. The squad regrouped, shoulders set against the cold once more. The statues were still out there, ten in total, waiting like milestones in the white void.