“Well these are new.” Frank said, watching the snow zombies stumble out of the treeline. The caravan had hurried south while the skies were clear. This time of year that meant it was only snowing some of the time.

“Crisk, what are these?” He asked the local that had joined them at Last Light.

“Snow Shades. They’re wind and cold. Won’t feel the bite of steel, but wood is good for them. Wood from the Tree’s better.”

The shapes stumbling out of the woods were vaguely human, with two legs and two arms, and a head, but it was all lumpy. Some lost bits as they shuffled, or fell as they came. They sure didn’t look threatening as the guard made his rounds by the side of the wagons, waving a staff through the ones that got close, and breaking them up. Up ahead, more guards were breaking and stomping them before the first bulls.

Frank separated from the wagon and stabbed one with his staff. There was the slightest flare of green from the tip as it broke the snow, and the already downed form broke apart into inert snow.

“For the dead, they don’t seem like much of a threat.”

“Aye, they ain’t. On a clear day, while you travel. But you haven’t gotten rid of one, only broken its form. It will go ahead of us, and make another. And another. We might need to stop for rest, but they don’t. Slow and about as threatening as a creaking ancient they might be, but if one of them touches you, the cold will cut right through furs or armour.”

Crisk grinned at him. “Now imagine what it’s like if we get snowed in and have to take shelter in the snow. They’ll be coming out the walls then. That’s always fun.”

He guffawed, shaking with merriment.

That did not sound like fun to Frank. That was the opposite of fun.

…

After breaking a few for staff practice? He did have to admit, breaking their mushy bodies in a single swing of his staff did feel good.

And the lightest touch of a bursting stone collapsed them as well. A bit odd, since torches and mundane fire didn’t, but Frank chalked it up to magic.

***

They were camping, four days out of Last Light, and two since the Shades started showing up. It didn’t stop. On the road, at rest, while going to relieve themselves, the Shades were always there, stumbling towards them. Not in great numbers, as when two of them got too close, both would collapse suddenly, but it was constant.

They slept in shifts, and Frank borrowed out his staff to some of the other pilgrims for their watches. Each of the locals had some way to deal with them. Crisk managed with the haft of his axe, which was of the same holy wood as Frank’s staff, Deli with her dagger, long as her forearm and made of some monster’s tooth.

Cherna was the most enthusiastic of them, bashing their heads in with her club. It wasn’t from holy wood, but it worked fine as well.

The guards took care of most of them, but some liked to sneak under the snow past the guard lines, so one had to be on watch and ready, always. Frank had avoided a surprise awakening, but one of the other pilgrims had woken with a curse when Cherna missed one and it started trying to hug a sleeper.

Katri used a short cane for it and he once saw her break one with an absent swing without looking, while cooking.

While a few monsters had attacked the caravan while they were heading to Lost Light, the dead in spirit form were new.

“It’s a cycle Frank.” Deli told him when he brought it up. “Only those that find bodies will survive the thaw. But every winter, with the Winds, the dead come again. Snow Shades are the first, as it takes little time to craft such forms and snow is everywhere, but others will be coming.”

It did not bring him peace of mind. Thing was, they had Health. While the man who’d been hugged lost some, he was fine. The threat was in being worn down, and they were still making distance each day. More than that, the drivers were hurrying, trying to use each scrap of light to move, slipping past peaks, and through valleys.

Deli was kind enough to give him the run down on the kinds of things to expect.

They saw the first Stick Shade the next morning.

***

Frank’s concentration shattered as a horn sounded. He left the cover of the cart and the stone behind, jumping out and looking around. Guards were forming up, as out of the nearby snowbank, more than four dozen Snow Shades stumbled out, in a line. They were too close to each other, but didn’t break. More, their lines were clearer, with features on their faces forming as they emerged from the snow. With Droopy eyes, and tilted mouths, mouths open and gnashing, filled with ice teeth.

“Sticks!” The call rose from the watchmen. The guard captain cursed, and started calling out names. Frank was heading to the forming line of men, when his was called. He turned back, frowning, as one of the more prolific hunters among the guards stood surrounded by four others, all of which had large axes with blessed wood shafts.

“Mageling!” The Captain bellowed, not even using his name.

He hurried over. Frank knew the voice of an officer bellowing orders when he heard it. He’d used it himself often enough.

“There he is. Deadbeat, take the party, and hunt that Stick down. We’ll hold the line. Frank, you’re with him.” He commanded him.

The six of them took long and swift strides through the snow at a steady pace. Frank almost had to jog to keep up, before he felt Deadbeat’s command aura wrap around him and found the beat of the march coming to him naturally. Part of him rebelled at the idea that he would be the one serving here, but he pushed it down. They were the experts. He was here as magical support.

“Good staff.” Deadbeat addressed him gruffly, mid-stride. “Shows some foresight. Carver, right? No balls or bursts?”

“Not without a stone. I’ve a few. They burst fine when I throw them. Just go everywhere.” Frank replied.

“One mark, two?”

Spellmarks were the standard measurement of length. Same length for all Magelings, for the same kind of working, if they put a single mote of mana in it.

“Mostly one, sometimes two.” A mark was a bit less than a meter, as best he could tell. It’s not like he had one, to compare.

“How’s your mana?”

“Full, but shallow.”

“Well, if we only get one or two bursts, we’ll have to make them count.” Deadbeat concluded grimly.

“Not that shallow.” Frank corrected himself. He wasn’t in the Empire anymore, or a professional unit. Standards were lower out here.

Every one of them started laughing. It was downright menacing, how the laughter was full of deadly anticipation. “Good on ya, Mageling. Good on ya. You head him boys and girls, no need to step softly now! Hunt and Kill! Break and Clear!”

They started jogging, breaking several Shades as they ran past, Frank in the middle back of the triangle. The trees broke them up as they went, but at least one guard was always with him. More and more shades came for them, and these ones were faster than the others. More, he could see them reforming behind them, and more standing up ahead. They were harder to deal with, and the party was starting to take blows.

He was just starting to reconsider this whole thing when they broke into a clearing. It was filled with Snow Shades, a hundred, two hundred of them. All rising from the snow, forming as his party ran right into them.

In the middle of the clearing, a dead tree stood, and from its branches a scarecrow hung. Or at least it looked like one, woven from dead branches, and rattling in the wind. They charged it.

“No need to whittle their numbers and wait for a chance, if we’ve got one to break them with us! Make us a hole!”

Frank could see what she was talking about. While faster, moving at a walk, rather then at an awkward shuffle, the Shades were still lagging behind their jog.

Up ahead, the Stick had seen them coming and made a wall of Shades, eighty, a hundred of them all clumped up before the tree. An anvil to the slow march of the hammer behind them. It might only take one swing to break one, but more were forming as the guards swung.

Frank called on the fire, feeling it almost jump to his call, the same moment coming and passing again. It might just be him, but it was easier to make it past the breath-taking phantom pain, shake it off, in battle.

He threw them, one after the other. While the warriors had to be careful with their swings, not to lose their weapons while killing one to the grasping hands of another, Frank’s stones were meant to be swallowed by the snow. They disappeared into the crowd, and moments later, large tongues of flame erupted from two points in the line, utterly shattering it.

With how packed the Shades were, two stones took out nearly forty of the things. The party jumped into the breach. The scarecrow was already sporting a few burning arrows from the huntress running beside him, but once the axes got to work, it was done.

Or so Frank thought.

The scarecrow glowed a pale blue, the cracks in it leaking cold light. But before the last blow shattered it, the light jumped into the dead tree. An unearthly wail shook the clearing as every Shade collapsed. Frank could just barely make out spectral forms in the dawn’s light, as they were pulled towards the tree, like water in a sink, when the plug was pulled.

Deli had neglected to mention that.

The guards didn’t hesitate, already striking the tree with their axes. Frank followed the example of the huntress. She was lighting the arrows with the torch on her back, and sending them into the dry branches. He could throw, but it was as likely to fall back down as stay up. How could he…

He grabbed an arrow, already burning, and thrust one of his already armed stones into the burning wicker below the tip. She hissed, and adjusted aim. The arrow vent into the trunk itself, about halfway up the tree, in the middle of the treetop.

As the cold light filled them and they started moving, the stone burst. Waves of fire washed over the snow covered branches and set them alight. As the tree began to uproot itself, and swing down on the fighters, Deadbeat shouted: “Fall back! No need to risk it if we can burn it down!”

As they got some distance, the field clear of Snow Shades, she asked:

“You got another one of those in you, Mageling?”

Frank grinned, feeling more alive than he had in the last two weeks.

***

After the second blast delivered by an arrow from safety, they watched it burn as it tried to catch up with them with its lumbering steps.

“It’s a right pain, normally, to set fire to it. All the snow in the treetop.” Deadbeat waved at the lumbering tree. “But magefire don’t seem to care for it. Makes things easier on us.”

While she was pleased with it, three of the guards grumbled.

“What? If you want to test yourselves, go right ahead. I’m not stopping you.” She replied, with irreverence.

They kept grumbling to themselves, but one did speak up. “It’s bad enough when the snow’s there to soften the blow. I’m not so desperate for progress to look forward to thumps by a Sticks that’s on fire. Burns are a pain, much worse than bruises.”

“Eh. Suit yourselves. A job’s a job. And this one was right quick. How often can you pull it off, Mageling?”

Frank considered it. If this was the Empire, there was no way in hell he’d tell the truth. He still held back, a bit: “Oh I could go again. Give me a bit of rest, and I might have a third performance in me.”

Health = 36/42

Mana = 4

“Oh, we’re going to get to know each other well, won’t we?” She replied with a hungry grin, her eyes shining at the prospect of violence to come.

Frank was used to the violence by now. He smiled back. She didn’t flinch.

***

“So how did you get those scars?” Deadbeat asked him, cozying up to him on the way back. The Leadership had passed, and they were just a group again, not a party.

“Field Ritual. Wiped my whole company. I only caught the edge of it.” He’d been in the center, but if he mentioned that, he’d have to admit to other things as well.

“Company? Those are the private ones? Merchants and nobles and such? Mercenaries?”

“Yes, that’s about right. It more complicated than that, but then,” they spoke at the same time: “that’s the Empire for you.”

She frowned in distaste. “Never did like going too far south. Folk start getting ideas, if you know what I mean. You’ve been refreshingly free of em, for a green robe. Haven’t tried to bribe any of us, nor spy on one for blackmail and such. Not even once.” She commented, bluntly.

Frank tried to put it into words.

“Pilgrimage is a new start for me. I’m thinking of settling in, if not this high up. I don’t mind the snow, but I’ve heard stories about your winters.”

“All true.” She bragged jokingly, but there was that hint of cruelty to it. One most locals had, in jokes, in songs. Death, and standing against it, it was in their bones.

Frank was just surprised she was giving him any attention. After a moment to consider it, he decided to return the bluntness.

“What changed?”

“I’ve talked to Cherna. She said the Tree bloomed for you. That you came out of there happy as a Kit in fresh snow.” She ran a hand over his scarred cheek. The touch did things to him not fit for polite company. But they were hardly a polite people.

“These will be going away, won’t they?”

“In time.” He confirmed. He hadn’t tested the Skill yet, but as it settled, his confidence was growing. He wasn’t sure if that was just placebo, or if some instinctual understanding of it as it integrated was confirming his hopes. But day by day, he grew sure it would deal with the Curse, in time.

“Then they’re marks of pride, not shame.” She told him, kissing him on the same cheek and sauntering away when he paused.

Survival. Recovery. Overcoming adversity. A capacity for magical violence.

Frank shook his head. “The things a culture can find attractive. She’s not even wearing a skirt.”

***

Frank was forced to eat his words once they got back to camp. Deadbeat went to the Captain to report, but after that? She pulled a short, shimmery sliver miniskirt from her pack and wrapped it around her waist, over her pants.

Frank wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Some of the looks she was giving him were downright predatory.

As they set out for the day’s march, the Snow Shades kept coming. Just in the same dribs and drabs they had before a Sticks showed up. But Frank had a feeling things would get worse. He shared his concerns with Crisk.

“Well sure it will, but we’ll be long gone by then!”

***

The next two days were anything but peaceful. They dealt with three more Sticks, and chased away one giant bird with arrows. But on the third day, First of Presence Falling, a snowstorm appeared on the horizon.