Through Winter's Shadow Passing
First Day of the First Month 293 AC
Cold howled the winds through the high passes Mountains of the Moon where lowlanders never dared to tread and even clansmen rarely ventured, but few rewards indeed there were on the desolate slopes. Here only thorny stunted things that even a goat might disdain hung on precariously to the crumbling stone, the last vestiges of life before the pure and pale white of the ever-snows that not even the brightest longest summer could dispel. And yet it was upon these empty lands that walked three figures wrapped in heavy furs with rope and spikes of iron upon their belt to clamber upon the stone where the stone paths failed them.
Two were hunters, one old the other young there were, and one girl not long past her flowering who bore a staff of bone white weirwood and moved with uncanny surety over the treacherous paths: to seek with eyes of flesh and one to follow a vision seen in dreams. Somewhere far above an eagle called, the cry sharp and cruel.
"Bad luck for us given what we're about," the elder hunter, Orrel son of Bael said with a dry smile upon his aged features. Not many of the Sons of the Mist would have dared say that with the Godspeaker right there, or even thought, but having dangled her on his knee when she was a wee noisy thing his the old man certain privileges.
"Got a bellyache again, grandad?" the girl asked archly. "Don't worry, I'll make you some nice gruel to settle it tonight. I know just what herbs to use, too..."
"Do I look like a bloody rabbit to you, girl?" Orell asked. Turning to his other companion he asked again, "Well, do I?"
"I ain't answering that," came the answer. "Ye she's probably not gonna make into a rabbit to prove her point... me I'm not so sure 'bout."
"Wouldn't hardly be able to..." The girl's teasing cut off abruptly as ahead of them the snow on the high slopes began to swirl more swiftly. "Stop!" she called urgently.
The others obeyed without question, not that any was needed.
"There's something in the ice, in the snow. Something that's been here a long time..." the young woman said slowly. "I thought it was gonna be in the last pass, but it's here."
"Just looks like regular snow to me," the younger clansman said, peering ahead warily.
"Well it's not," Dalla replied. "It's not strong enough to move past the snow but it's there... How long'll it take to turn about and use another pass, the long one?"
"If the Burnt Cock bastards we talked to in the valley are to be believed, and they were probably being honest what with being scared shitless of curses, two weeks to backtrack,
if the weather holds," Orell replied.
"Fuck..." Dalla cursed. "They'll be too big by then. Give me your weapons to bless."
"What for?" Orell asked, nonetheless handing over his war axe.
"'Cause we're gona have to cut up ghosts..." she paused a moment, head tilted slightly to the side as she looked into the swirling snow. "Well, you're gona cut up ghosts. I'm gonna try to magic 'em away." She uttered a quick prayer in the Old Tongue over the blades.
"Right," Orell snorted. "If we're going in there, best tie ourselves together," he advised.
Thus bound together and bearing the blessings of their gods, the three advanced upon the swirling white.
Blades cut the frigid air once, twice... blindly reaching for sparks of ice cold blue hanging upon the wind like frozen stars, taunting in with voices that cut like chilled blades through living flesh:
"Join us... Join us... Let loose your garb of rotting meat..." they pleaded in dreadful earnestness.
Then lightning flashed amid the swirling white as words of ancient power rang between the peaks, the dead called no more and the wind stilled.
OOC: Well that was almost the end of Dalla... but she seems to be rather lucky where it counts, like not having her lightning bolt ignored by incorporeal targets.