Fingers of Frost - Part Two

This week: part two of my grimdark fantasy story set in the same world as Nagual.

"I've... brought you a meal," she said, hoping to buy herself some time and talk her way out of imminent death. "Just a little something for you to eat, so I can have free passage through your swamp." She cringed at the sound of her voice as it echoed back to her from the oppressive frozen swamp. The heavy crossbow in her hands rattled as she aimed it at coalescing pockets of shadows all around her.

A great sniffing echoed through the dark trees and she whirled, pointing the Blackfire-forged steel bolt at growing patches of darkness, where the creature’s influence was starting to grow and pour out of the frozen rime. Bubbles broke the surface of the frozen swamp around her faster, releasing more foul stench into the air. Rotten flesh, excrement, decomposed material... the fetor threatened to overpower Sonea. Her head spun from the enchantment, the edges of her vision blurred, and the shadows under the trees extended toward her. She was succumbing to the creature's mental assault.

The squelch draws its strength from the land it inhabits. Hunters are advised to be most careful when engaging these creatures in their swampy lairs.

She ground her teeth, focusing on the words to keep herself from panicking, or falling under its spell.

The sniffing echoed around her again, reflected back from gnarled trunk, withered branch, and blackened pool. The sound was lulling her into a sleep she would never wake from and through it all, the dull drone of instruction ran through her mind. 

The Company recommends teams of Hunters dispatch the creature by first dispatching its territory. Incendiary devices are especially useful—

Fire.

The word cut through the lecture in her mind and she focused everything on the single idea. She hefted the crossbow into her right hand and reached for her belt. Her fumbling fingers found the flap of her pouch and plucked out a flare, one of the standard items in a Hunter's field kit. As the world darkened around her, she smashed the bottom of the stick against her thigh, igniting the amberdark powder at its tip.

Orange light exploded outward, driving back tendrils of magic from both her mind and the forest around her. The black bubbles in the water hissed, echoing the cry of frustration from the hidden monster. Shadows retreated from outstretched branches around her and her vision began to clear. She could see again, breathe again.

"Tell you what," she said, holding the flare in her left hand and aiming the crossbow with her right. "I'm just going to leave you this snack and get out of here, okay?" She kicked the bag of rotten, bloody meat into a nearby pool and backed away from it. She kept waving the crossbow around her, but she never took her eye off the bag for more than a second. Squelches were greedy and an easy meal was far preferable to a meal armed with fire and steel.

Sonea counted her heartbeats as time passed. Her blood pounded in her ears like a distant drum. The flare battled the squelch's primordial magic—light and shadow pulsing against each other—looking to gain an advantage over the other. Acrid smoke rose from the metal cylinder in her hand, driving back the oppressive air. The whole swamp waited. Sonea barely breathed.

A great eruption fountained ice, water, and bones into the air as the squelch leaped up from beneath the bag of meat. A flurry of clawed, webbed hands and needle-like teeth was all she saw before the monster submerged and the waters stilled. Only shreds of the bag remained.

Sonea crouched, trying to control her breathing as the quiet stillness in the swamp stretched on. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, deafening in the sudden quiet of the marshy clearing. She counted the beats, thankful for the moments of life she had been granted.

It had taken the bait.

…tune in next week for the conclusion of Fingers of Frost…