Then she redoubled her kicking and punching, determined to fight to the bitter end.

The men and women deeper in the cave abandoned all thoughts of retreat and came on furiously. Hanaleisa had inspired them. Hanaleisa had shamed them.

The warrior monk took some satisfaction in that as the horde was beaten back and the fallen man was pulled from the undead grasp. She doubted it would matter in the end, but still, for some reason, it mattered to her. They would die with honor and courage, and that had to count for something.

She glanced at her brothers just as Pikel, on his fourth try, finally completed his spell. A shining white orb as big as Hanaleisa’s fist popped from the dwarf’s shillelagh and sailed over the heads of the lead defenders. The orb hit a skeleton and bounced off. Hanaleisa’s mouth dropped open in surprise as the skeleton that had been hit locked up and iced over.

“What—?” she managed to say as the small orb splashed into the water. Then she and everyone else gasped in shock as the radius of the pond around the orb froze solid.

The fighters in front yelled out in surprise and pain as the icy grasp spread to them and knocked them backward or grabbed them and froze them in place. An unintended consequence, no doubt, but no matter, for the monstrous advance, including the insidious undead fish, was immediately halted.

Frigid trails spread from the center of the ice, moving to the sides and away from the defenders, following Pikel’s will.

“Now!” Hanaleisa called to her fellows at the left wall, and they moved furiously to turn back the undead tide.

Those not caught in the ice chopped vigorously to free their companions. They moved with desperation when they saw newly arrived undead from behind the frozen area coming on undeterred, climbing up on the ice and using their stuck companions as handholds to help them navigate across the slippery surface.

But Pikel had bought the defenders enough time, and the battered and bruised group retreated down the tunnel, deeper under the mountains, until they crossed through a narrow corridor, a single-file passageway that finally opened—mercifully—into a wider chamber some hundred strides along. At the exit to that tunnel, they made their stand. Two warriors met the undead as they tried to come through.

And when those two grew weary or suffered injuries, two others took their place.

Meanwhile, behind them, Rorick organized a line of defenders who had found large rocks, and when he was certain he had enough, he called out for the defenders to stand aside. One by one, his line advanced and hurled rocks into the tunnel, driving back skeletons and zombies. As soon as each had let fly, they ran off to find another rock.

This went on for some time, until the rocks hit only other rocks, until the monsters were driven back and blocked behind a growing wall of stone. When it ended, the stubborn monsters still clawing on the back side of the barricade, Pikel stepped forward and began to gently rub the stone and dirt of the tunnel walls. He called to the plants, bidding them to come forth, and so they sent their vines and their roots, intertwining behind and among the stones, locking them ever so securely.

For the moment, at least, it seemed that the threat had ended. It had come with many cuts and bruises and even more serious wounds, and the man who had been pulled down amid the undead wouldn’t be fighting any time soon, if he managed to survive his injuries. And the defenders were deep into the tunnels, in a place of darkness they did not know. How many other tunnels might they find under the foothills of the Snowflakes, and how many monsters might find those as well, and come against them yet again?

“So what are we to do?” a man asked as the enormity of their situation settled upon them.

“We hide, and we fight,” said a determined Temberle, sniffling through his shattered nose.

“And we die,” said another, an old, surly, gray-bearded fishing boat captain.

“Aye, then we get back up and fight for th’other side,” another added. Temberle, Hanaleisa, and Rorick all looked to each other, but had no rebuttal.

“Ooooh,” said Pikel.

CHAPTER 11

LIVING NIGHTMARE

I need to get you new mounts,” Jarlaxle said with an exaggerated sigh. “We done a thousand miles and more from Mithral Hall,” Bruenor reminded. “And pushed them hard all the way. Even with the shoes….” He shook his head. Indeed, the fine mules had reached their limit, for the time being at least, but had performed brilliantly. From dawn to dusk, they had pulled the wagon, every day. Aided by the magical shoes and the fine design and construction of their load, they had covered more ground each and every day than an average team might cross in a tenday.

“True enough,” the drow admitted. “But they are weary indeed.” Drizzt and Bruenor looked at each other curiously as Pwent shouted, “I want one o’ them!” and pointed at Athrogate’s fire-spitting boar.

“Bwahaha!” Athrogate yelled back. “Be sure that I’m feeling big, ridin’ into battle on me fiery pig! And when them orcs figure out me game, I squeeze him on the flanks and fart them into flame! Bwahaha!”

“Bwahaha!” Thibbledorf Pwent echoed.

“Can we just harness them two up to pull the damned wagon?” Bruenor asked, waving a hand at the other two dwarves. “I’ll nail the magical shoes on their feet.”

“You understand the pain I’ve known for the last decade,” Jarlaxle said.

“Yet you keep him around,” Drizzt pointed out.

“Because he is strong against my enemies and can hold back their charge,” said Jarlaxle. “And I can outrun him should we need to retreat.”

Jarlaxle handed the mule off to Drizzt, who slowly walked the weary beast around to the back of the wagon, where he had just tethered its partner. Their days of pulling the wagon were over, for a while at least.

The hells-born nightmare resisted Jarlaxle’s tug as he tried to put it in the harness.

“He’s not liking that,” said Bruenor.

“He has no choice in the matter,” Jarlaxle replied, and he managed at last to harness the beast. He clapped the dirt off his hands and moved to climb up beside Pwent and Bruenor on the jockey box. “Keep the pace strong and steady, good dwarf. You will find the demon horse more than up to the …” He paused, and in pulling himself up, encountered the skeptical expressions of both dwarves. “I give you my mount, and you would have me walk?” Jarlaxle asked as if wounded.

Pwent looked to Bruenor.

“Let him up,” Bruenor decided.

“I’ll protect ye, me king!” Pwent declared as Jarlaxle took his seat next to the battlerager, with Pwent between the mercenary and Bruenor.

“He’d kill you before you ever knew the fight had started,” Drizzt remarked as he walked past.

Pwent’s eyes went wide with alarm.

“Oh, it is true,” Jarlaxle assured him.

Pwent started to stutter and stammer, but Bruenor nudged him hard.

“What, me king?” the battlerager asked.

“Just shut up,” said Bruenor, and Jarlaxle laughed.

The dwarf king snapped the reins, but instead of moving ahead, the nightmare snorted fire and turned its head around in protest.

“Please, allow me,” Jarlaxle said with obvious alarm as he grabbed at the reins, which Bruenor relinquished.

With no movement of the reins at all, Jarlaxle willed the nightmare forward. The demonic creature had no trouble pulling the wagon. The only thing that slowed the pace was the drow’s deference to the two mules tied to the back, both exhausted from the long road.

And indeed it had been long, for they had covered most of the leagues by morning, and the Snowflake Mountains were in sight, though fully a day’s travel away.

Jarlaxle assured them that his magical beast could continue after the sun had set, that it could even see in the dark, but out of continued deference to the mules, who had given the journey their all, Bruenor called for a halt that mid afternoon. They went about setting their camp in the foothills.