When they reached the end of the pass, Raelea gazed out over a vast vista of open untouched plains with widely scattered dark forests providing a contrast and a guide to the sheer size of the plains.

Over on the horizon a blue smudge marched along it running from the sea far to the east and disappearing into the misted distance far to the southwest, pointing it out she asked, “Krarrnic, is that the plateau?”

Shading his eyes he said, “Probably, my eyes are not as young as yours, but I do remember some of the younger tribe members saying they could see our home when we reached this point. It is six hard days travel from here to the foot of the cliffs and another four to climb them. I’d suggest we get moving, the path down is more treacherous than that on the other side. The tribe lost a member coming up, but we were hunted and had to attempt it in poor conditions and in the middle of the night.”

They moved off and thankfully made it below the tree-line before dark, they made camp and after eating were quickly asleep. Even with their advantages the work of the last few days had been wearying.

Raelea woke quickly when a hand touched her shoulder. She tensed, her protections and enhancements activating but relaxed slightly when she heard Krarrnic’s voice saying quietly, “We’re about to have company, the spirits do not know what they are only that they are undead, my size, and moving this way with violent intentions. Wake the little one and prepare, I will scout them.”

Krarrnic disappeared from not just view but all her senses, she’d have to ask him how he did that later. Poking Pif she woke him up and sent, “Spirit-friend says we have bads incoming, get ready.”

She felt rather than saw his nod and they left the tent, going out into the cold, moonlit and eerie snowscape.

Krarrnic appeared beside her and whispered, “Eight creatures come, four from the forest to our left and the other four up the trail. They pollute the spiritworld with their presence, I will have one of my spirits try to take control of one on the left. I suspect Pif’s fire will be devastating because they have the feel of old, brittle vegetation to them so if he could cover the path initially I feel that would be best.”

Raelea nodded and waited after relaying the instructions to Pif.

The first thing she noticed was a foul stench, rotting meat, wet fur, and the smell of wet slimy leaves.

Stepping out of the forest to their left were nightmarish shapes, beastmen corpses of various kinds grown over and through by viciously thorned brambles. As they ran forward their heads lolled loosely and their blank white dead eyes stared unblinkingly.

With a whoosh four sizzling balls of white-blue fire shot down the path and struck three of the running figures engulfing them in flames, the fourth barely missed, creating a cloud of steam as it ploughed into a snowdrift.

On the left Raelea blurred forward, smashing a kick into a leg and feeling the bone snap like a dried twig as it fell to the ground. Even before it finished bouncing she caught another by it’s arm and whipping it in a circle slammed it headfirst into the hard frozen earth. With a wrenching twist she tore the arm she still held off. Dropping the arm she blurred over and grabbing the other leg as the broken one flopped around she stomped her foot down on it’s hip and tore the leg off.

Both stopped moving as soon as the brambles around them were shredded.

The other two who come out here were rolling around on the ground in the shallow snow viciously battering each other with thorny limbs.

Behind her she heard another whoosh and the clearing lit like midday as a jet of blue cored flame lashed out from Pif’s hand and engulfed the remaining creature as well as the already burning ones, his expression as the brambles burned to ash and they fell still was slightly disappointed.

Dashing over she waited until there was an opening then grabbing the canes of the one without the spirit riding it she tore them loose. It collapsed with all animation gone.

The spirit ridden creature stood and as it walked over to Krarrnic he said, “It is an unnatural thing that pollutes the spiritworld but it is only slight and I have no doubt there are more of them around because Fae Chanar do love creating armies. I’ll keep this one and can take one more as combat aids to get us to the foot of the path.”

Raelea said, “I know you said the path is treacherous in the dark but I think something knows we’re here or this side of the pass is lousy with those creatures, I doubt we’ll sleep any more tonight.”

“Hrrm, I wish I could say you were wrong…” He sighed loudly and looked longingly back toward the tent. “But I can’t, we’ll break camp and head downward.”

“Hopefully we can find whoever or whatever is making these things. Some of those corpses were reasonably fresh, I’d estimate a tenday or less. It’s probably none of our business but if we can stop them, we should.”

Moonlight flickering in his dark eye sockets Krarrnic nodded, “I agree but we are on a strict time limit here, the spirit of light will only appear after the thaw but we have probably a little over a tenday before the Freezing sets in on the plateau, to reach the spirit of light in time and to survive the Freezing we must be at the wintering house before then. Still if we can stop this in the very limited time we have, we should. But if not, we’ll take care of it on the way back.”

They broke camp and headed off down the path Horse unhappy about the darkness and Pif grumbling about not getting to go back to sleep. But Raelea handed him a bag of fatmeat and the grumbles ceased, replaced by happy munching.

Four times bramblemen rushed at them from the darkness as they went but only by two or three at a time. The first two that attacked Krarrnic hijacked one and the other burned quickly under Pif’s attentions, after that the two spirit-ridden ones and Pif took care of any further attacks easily.

The forest had thickened as they descended and by the time they reached the foot of the mountains the sky slowly brightening toward dawn was only visible in small patches.

The path they followed when they reached the foot of the mountains disappeared into a section of forest choked with nearly arm thick bramble canes protected by viciously hooked thorns large enough to pierce Raelea right through.

Raelea and Krarrnic shared a glance then shrugged and stepped into the shadowed rustling darkness of the bramble choked forest. Small glowing eyes blinked in the gaps between the massive canes but vanished when looked at directly. Strange calls came from the depths of the forest, animal and bird calls mostly but there also seemed to be garbled words in a unknown languages that the charm of tongues built into Raelea’s Implement didn't or couldn't translate.

The atmosphere under the brambles was close, oppressive, nervous. Every turn in the path, every clearing, even every slight widening of the path they expected to be attacked but it never came. While the spirits said there was nothing there and they could sense nothing themselves, it did nothing to make the trip any less uneasy because they still felt like they were being followed.

They felt like they were being hunted.

Their spirits lifted and even Horse broke into a halfhearted trot when they rounded a corner and could see bright sunlight and gently waving grass though a gap in the brambles on the other side of a large clearing. Raelea was not particularly surprised when the canes rustled as they shifted and closed off the clearing as soon as they stepped into it.

Then the bramble wrapped corpses stepped out of the darkness between the larger canes and stood silently in ranks, three to five deep all around them.

Raelea just rolled her eyes and shook her head, waiting for reveal.

The group ahead of them parted and a creature both pitiful and monstrous rode out slowly on a brambled bear. At first glance it was just a Goblin with some sort of large hairy growth on her left shoulder, but as she got closer horrifying details became clear. Ribs showed through rents in the skin of her torso, one leg was a mummified ruin covered in stretched grey and brown skin. The growth was no such thing it was the patchily haired, moss grown and diseased looking head of a young Satyr, sewn to her shoulder.

She gazed at them with milky dead eyes while the Satyr head nodded, swayed, and trembled.

She said, “Goblin? Boy Goblin? Boy Goblin here? Boy Goblin should not be here, should be with Master and his females, safe protected. Loved by Master, loved by his females. Run Boy Goblin, run to Master, run to your females.”

The Satyr’s nodding stopped and his head bolted upright as he howled, “Hurt, burnt, cut, stab, pain! Pain is all he gives, pain is all there is. Brambles grow, thorns tear but still less pain here than there…”

Punching the Satyr in the face she shouted, “Shut up idiot, we should loves Master… Master loves us and we owes him all.”

With a sly and lidded look the Satyr said, “Owe him death we do, walking death, brambled death… nothing more! Send the dead to his door, rip and tear… nothing more! Smash the Master to the floor, pluck his eyes, bathe in gore… nothing more.”

She looked at the Satyr scathingly, “Fool, Master controls the deadies much better than you do. Even if I would let you try, your puny pets couldn’t touch him. We should go back to Master, he loves us, he needs us.”

“No!” The Satyr leaned over and sunk his small very white teeth into the Goblin’s ear and clamped down, judging from that ear's tattered appearance it was far from the first time.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow leggo my ear you lunatic Druid, ok, ok, we won’t go.” A cunning look filled her eyes, “But we could send some presents to Master… couldn’t we Goatboy?”

“Send him presents? Why would he care, he sent back the bear.”

“If they’re here, they ran like sneaks over the mountains where the Master doesn’t watch. I say he would want them, I say they ran from him, I say we take them, bramble them, and run them back to Master. I say he'd care.”

“Master might, suspect you're right. But I don’t care and won’t run them there.”

The Goblin’s voice became wheedling, “If we give Master presents, he might give us presents, might give us new toys, might give you a body of your very own.”

The Satyr head had gone back to swaying with an idiot’s grin on his face but when she mentioned his own body the sway halted instantly, “Body for me? You hold my key, never FREE! NEVER TO BE!”

He started headbutting the Goblin, the cut down nubs of his horns bloodlessly cutting into her skin.

“Ow, OW!” She slapped him, a couple of good belts across the face and shouted, “Stop that and do it or you get the bag again!”

“FINE! You win, let’s begin.”

Her milky eyes fixed on them as a vicious grin lit her face and rustling the bramblemen moved forward.