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The ipain with every movee as he reached up for the air, heard a groan hed and looked away Druzil had overheard part of Aballister’s conversation with the spirit of Bogo Rath, and though that conversation had been cryptic, the iht hold a particular grudge against Cadderly Certainly thewith purpose; it hadn’t even taken the ti men

Druzil willed himself into a state of invisibility and flapped his leathery bat wings, rising up in pursuit of the ghost, thinking that perhaps he had been wrong to doubt Aballister’s promises that this would be an enjoyable mission

A Taste of Whafs to Coe rooerie of exoticpriest and his friends," the wizard said quietly, coes, each occupied by strange-looking beasts that seemed a mixture of two or ry?" Aballister asked one winged leonine monstrosity, its tail covered with a multitude of iron-hard spikes The creature roared in reply and butted its e

Then fly," the wizard cooed, opening the cage door and running his skinny hands through the uide you to my wicked son Do teach him a lesson" The old wizard cackled heartily He had spent ion He had actually created the place while studying in the Edificant Library Aballister’s biggest

concerns at that ti over his shoulder,sure that his as in accord with their strict rules Little did they know that Aballister had circuazes, had created this extra pocket of real space so that he could continue his erous, experiments

That had been more than two decades before when Cad-derly was a babe, and when, the wizard mused, the leonine monster and the three-headed beast behind it were also babes

Aballister laughed aloud at the thought: he was sending two of his children out to kill the third

The terful beasts followed Aballister out of the room and out of another door in the extradie above Castle Trinity, where Dorigen, her crystal ball in hand, waited

"We are too high up," Vander protested as the party trudged along a narrow mountain trail ly branches, bare of leaves, dotted the trail, but ed in some places, polished smooth hi others In this place, winter had already come in full The snow lay deep, and the wind’s bite, despite Cadderl/s ical protection spells, forced the coers fro numb The narrow trail was mostly bare to the stone, at least, perpetually windblown so that little snow had found a hold there

"Weto yell to be heard through the growling wind "Many goblins and giantkin are about, fleeing Shilmista in search of their mountain holes"

"Better to face the voice of the twelve-foot-tall giant, thick red beard crusted by blowing ice, had no trouble cutting through the din of the wind "You do not know the creatures of the lands where the snow does notfroh, and Danica looked to Cadderly, hopeful that Vender’s warningbird I spotted, floating on the winds a le," Cadderly insisted, though only Ivan had actually seen the soaring creature "Soe, and I doubt"

"A mile away?" Ivan balked,

"I doubt that it was a mile," Cadderly finished, to which Ivan only shook his yellow-haired head, adjusted his helmet, which sported a pair of deer antlers, and cast a less-than-friendly glare Cadderlys way

By that tiue with, as Danica came up behind hirireement with the others

"I fear no monsters," she explained defensively, for she alone understood the pains the young priest had endured to get this quest underway "But the land here is treacherous, and the wind uncomfortable at best A slip on the ice could send one of us tu down the ht and continued os thick above us"

Cadderly did not have to follow her upward gaze to understand that she was referring to the very real threat of an avalanche They had passed the rehmelt

Cadderly took a deep breath and reh, and he re ahead to Vander "Except for the very tops of the o"

Vander started to protest - Cadderly expected that the firbolg would argue that these fearful snow creatures ht easily come down from the mountaintops when the snow lay so deep He had barely uttered the first syllable of protest, though, when Cadderly interrupted hi lead on without further argu only delayed the tio back down to runted and turned about, flipping his white bearskin cloak back over one shoulder to reveal to the others that his huge hand rested uneasily on the sculpted hilt of his giant-sized sword

"As for the wind and the ice," Cadderly said to Danica, "we shall be careful with our steps and hold fast to our resolve"

"Unless we get plucked off by a passing bird," Ivan said dryly

"It was only an eagle," Cadderly insisted again, turning on the dwarf, his anger flaring Ivan shrugged and walked away Pikel, seeo wherever the others led him, bobbed happily at his brother’s side

"Ye ever seen an eagle with four paws?" Ivan snarled over his shoulder when he and Pikel had moved away

Pikel considered the question for a longaway, and let out a profound, "Oooo"

Then the green-bearded dwarf skittered quickly to keep pace with the sto and h to acco and the dwarves had beco tales of their respective hoed terrain and wicked beasts

Cadderly cahts, still trying to reconcile histhe trials he knew that he would soon face, both at Castle Trinity and after Castle Trinity

Danica allowed Cadderly to get some distance away before she resu a mixture of contempt and pain at the way Cadderly had just rebuked her

"He is scared," Shayleigh said to Danica, co to her side

"And stubborn," Danica added

The elf maiden’s sincere shts Danica was glad that Shayleigh was beside her oncean almost sisterly bond with the spirited elf Given Cadderly s recent h she desperately needed a sister

For Shayleigh, the trip was both a debt repaid and an act of sincere friendship Cadderly, Danica, and the dwarves had co their tih had cohty elves had joked at Shayleigh’s expense, at the thought that an elf could so befriend a dwarf, but Shayleigh took it all in without complaint

Less than a half hour later, on an exposed section of trail where the h the drop to their left rereat hands out to the sides to halt the dwarves It had begun to snow again, the hipping the icy flakes so that the coht about their faces In that poor visibility, Vander was unsure about the unusual shape he noticed on a wide section of trail up ahead

The giant took a tentative step forward, drawing his massive sword halfway from its sheath Ivan and Pikel leaned backward and looked to each other fro

With sih they had no idea of what had put Vander on the alert

Then Vander relaxed visibly, and the dwarves shared another shrug and tucked their hands back under their thick cloaks

Two steps later, the shape, which Vander had identified as a snowbank, coiled up like soainst his outstretched fingers

Vander cried out and leaped back, grabbing at his suddenly bloody hand

"The da with his double-headed axe The blade passed right through the weirdnearly a quarter of the creature’s bulk away

But that quarter was just as alive, and just as vicious, as the ht

Vander rushed in, chopping his sith his one good hand