Honestly, sometimes I wondered what was going through his head.

While I was musing to myself, Alverd began rooting through the bushes, trying to rustle up some game. Given what I know of the world, it astounded me that Alverd, who had hunted before, insisted on using himself as live bait. He was swinging his sheathed sword at the snow-covered bushes and making weird little chittering noises as he did so.

Sometimes, people baffle me more than the mysteries of the universe.

It had taken us a full day to reach the mountain pass and climb to a point where we felt no one would consider coming after us. Thus we were here, in the wilderness, looking for food instead of staying in a nice warm inn or drinking ale in a boisterous tavern. As far as I knew, the entire country of Guilford was still looking for the two of us, and if they caught us…

I didn’t want to think about that. I pulled my arms tight around my body, trying to warm myself. My cloth robe wasn’t thick enough to insulate me from the cold, and the perpetual fog layer at this elevation guaranteed that the sun would never shine upon this freezing place. The only illumination was coming from the small lighting spell I had cast. The little ball of blazing radiance hovered around my head, but even then visibility was barely twenty feet in front of us. If it started snowing, I would bet easy gold that that number would drop down to single digits.

After another day of trekking through the dark and hoping for the best, it became apparent that nobody was chasing us. It was safe to assume that the Guilfordians thought we would freeze to death up here. Knowing that, we slowed our pace to keep an eye out for wild game. Unfortunately, food was scarce on our second day, and despite our efforts, we weren’t able to scare any game out of the brush as we pushed on through the murk. I called out to my friend, who had begun to wander a bit too far away.

“Alverd! Try not to stray too far from the light. If we get separated, we might not find each other again.” He gave the bush one last swipe before giving up. He jogged through the thick snow to me, thick clouds of frost-laden breath heaving out of his mouth. “Peace, friend. I’m not so foolish as to chance such odds.”

I noticed his teeth were chattering; I could hear them clicking together even from several feet away. He tried to pretend it wasn’t so bad, but I saw through it. “Alverd, are you alright? If you’re getting frostbite, we should find shelter. That armor of yours will kill you up here.”

It was true. At such low temperatures, Alverd’s armor was more of a detriment than a help. The armor was designed to stop blades and arrows, not the cold. I could have sworn I saw a layer of ice starting to form on its surface. If we didn’t find somewhere to warm ourselves and get some food, we’d be corpses in a matter of hours. Alverd nodded, and pulled his cape tighter around himself.

The hard truth was that we weren’t likely to find anywhere to make camp. Even if we did, it probably wouldn’t be conducive to building a fire. With every step I was losing hope that we would make it through this frozen hellhole. The likelihood that we’d even reach Ishmar on the other end was infinitesimal. Minutes turned into hours and I could feel myself starting to get sleepy. Still, I pressed on, knowing that if I stopped to rest it’d be the last thing I ever did.

At some point, the light floating around my head pointed out a dark shape looming from the fog ahead. It was huge, bigger than Alverd by a significant margin. As I drew closer, I waited to see if it would jump out and attack. I angled my staff at the shape, the tip pointed straight at the center of mass. I moved forward carefully, waiting for Alverd to catch up to me. We continued our slow and steady approach, but when the shape made no effort to attack, we laid down our arms.

The object turned out to be the corpse of one of the “steel beasts” the merchant had mentioned. Both sides of the beast’s carcass had multiple wheels, like a cart or chariot. It had a head of sorts seated upon its large, box-shaped body. The head had a long, narrow snout that pointed into the nothingness, an assortment of icicles hanging beneath it. At the front of the beast was a hole, burned through the outer shell by a force that had to be magical, because it was perfectly circular and made with pinpoint accuracy. I looked through the hole to sate my curiosity, only to recoil in horror when I saw the skeletal remains of a person long since dead inside.

Had the steel beast consumed the man, and in his futile attempts to escape, he had blasted a hole through the beast’s metal skin? As much as I wanted to stay and find out, we didn’t have time. Alverd’s teeth were chattering even harder than before, so much so that he could no longer hide the sound. Given how many icicles I could see inside the belly of the steel beast, it didn’t look like it was any warmer inside of it. Besides, I didn’t really feel all that certain about crawling into some dead thing’s stomach to stay warm.

A series of loud creaks and bangs echoed through the air. Alverd perked up his ears to listen, as did I. Making our way in the direction of the sound, we stumbled across a crumbling fortress, a giant structure made of stone with parapets of cold granite jutting out of the snow. The front gate was swinging in the howling wind, crashing against the stone wall periodically, producing the sound we’d heard earlier. We rushed inside, eager to escape the cold. After passing what had probably once been a stately courtyard, we pushed through another set of frozen doors and into the fort itself.

Snowdrifts lay across the interior courtyard, left to build over countless years. The corpses of soldiers in unfamiliar garb lay strewn about, many of them leaned against walls or slumped over makeshift barricades. The was no way to identify the fallen soldiers given their long exposure to the elements. But based on their positions, it seems each of them had died defending the courtyard from some foreign attacker. Given how the door leading into the fort itself had been broken open, it was apparent they’d failed to repel the invaders.

The interior of the fort was a disaster. The place looked like it had been ransacked with any remaining furniture torn and slashed to pieces. From the looks of things, we’d entered some kind of guard post. Rusted weapons lay abandoned on racks of weathered wood, and tattered tapestries hung along the walls.

At first it seemed likely that the fortress was some kind of early warning post, designed to send word to Bertwald in the event of an Ishmarian invasion. But as Alverd and I pushed further into the fortress, the less my hypothesis made sense. I didn’t recognize any of the imagery of the few tapestries that had survived, and even then those had been ravaged by time to the point where they were barely intact. Another odd point was the lack of corpses inside the fort. It was almost as though the entire garrison had made their stand in the courtyard.

If the place was a guard post, then there had to be a pantry somewhere, even if it was a long shot that any edible food was still in it. We searched, but no luck. Alverd and I prowled the halls, lit up for the first time in gods knows how long by my light spell. Eventually we found our way to the common room, and when we got there, we realized we had intruded on someone’s home.

“Hey,” cried Alverd. “I think something’s here.”

Alverd had opened the door to the common room while I was still rooting through a cabinet, looking for any food that may have been preserved by the cold. I ran over to the door, determined not to be left behind. I flung the door wide and found Alverd rooted to the spot, right in the middle of the doorframe.

And he was staring down a tarketan. The beast took one look at the two of us, and rushed forward to attack, jaws open. Suddenly the lack of corpses made perfect sense.

Imagine a bear. Now give that bear curved, bull-like horns, a second set of arms ending in razor sharp claws, and the self-assured superiority complex of an apex predator. Its dark fur looked as though it was stained with blood in the dim light of my spell. Its eyes glowed a malicious red, and its slavering jaws were peeled back to reveal jagged teeth. Its horns even had what appeared to be dried blood splattered along their glistening length. I saw Alverd slowly reach for his sword as he backed slowly into the room I was in.

With a roar that shook the icicles hanging from the ceiling, the tarketan swiped a set of massive claws at my friend. Alverd jumped back, his sword sliding free of its sheath with a metallic clang. The swipe carved through empty air. His shield was already held in front of him, the eagle emblem shimmering in the dim illumination as it angled toward the tarketan. The beast let out another roar and swung a paw at it. It impacted the shield with a dull thud, but bounced aside as if it were deflecting a rock. Alverd snarled and lifted his sword, then struck. In a sweep of steel, the tartekan’s lower-left arm hit the ground in a bloody mess.

The monster screamed in agony, a jet of crimson spraying from the stump. Alverd pressed his advantage by aiming a stab straight at the creature’s midsection. The tarketan countered with another savage blow from its opposite arm, but Alverd simply ducked under the swing with a quick spin, which he leveraged into a powerful stab straight through the creature’s chest. I saw the blade go straight through the creature’s body and out through its back. Yet, the creature still attempted to tear Alverd’s head off with another swipe.

Barely managing to duck the wild attack, Alverd tried to pull his sword from the tarketan’s torso but the blade was nearly buried up to the hilt in the beast and it wouldn’t give. If Alverd let go of his shield to use both of his hands, he would have lost his only defensive tool. At such close range, there would be no way he could defend against three other arms. I could hear Alverd grunting with effort as his exhaustion, poor position and desperation combined to put him in a terrible spot from which he could not extricate himself.

As Alverd struggled with the monster, I was already moving to help him. Despite how tired I was, adrenaline gave me the strength I needed. I took the simple light spell and pumped as much arcane energy into it as I could. The ball drew power from the elements around it; water from the air, sparks from my nerves and fire from my own body. The swirling orb of magical might swelled to triple its size as I aimed it at the tarketan.

Alverd took one look at my spell and immediately let go of his sword, flinging himself away from the tarketan with his shield raised. With a grunt of effort, I willed the ball of light at the monster. It streaked away with a shrieking noise, barreling straight for the monster’s head. As the spell closed the distance, I threw my arms up to shield my face.

There was a flash of overwhelmingly bright light and a wave of force knocked me halfway across the room, slamming me back first into a support column. Splinters of wood flew by me and I thanked the gods none of them hit my face. I could feel my ears pop as a sonic boom swept past me. Then, as soon as it had begun, the explosion subsided. An eerie quiet descended as I gasped for breath. After a few failed attempts at regaining my wind, I looked over at where I had last seen Alverd.

I don’t know why I was worried. His shield had absorbed the brunt of the blast, leaving him completely unharmed. Not a hair on his head was mussed. Sure, his cape in a state of disarray, but other than that he was totally fine. Damn it. Even when it comes to earth shattering explosions, Alverd’s unfazed. It’s just not fair, I grumbled to myself internally. How he managed to come out of such things not only unscathed but looking good while doing so…

…that just confused me the most out of everything. It kind of made me angry, too.

But he was my best friend. What could I do?

“So…if I recall,” I yelled over to Alverd as I massaged my sore behind. “Tarketan makes for some good stew.”

Alverd barked a laugh that was almost a wheeze. He struggled over to what remained of the tarketan and pulled his sword out of the beast. The blade had sticky red blood all over it. He wiped it off on the beast’s still-smoking fur with disgust. As he slid the sword back into its sheath, he gave me a smile. “So, which part do I get?”