The next morning, the sky was pale and overcast, with a thin wind sweeping snow across the frozen plains. Outside the northern gate, Leah stood silent and still, her breath misting faintly in the cold. She was fully kitted out in her armour, her cloak hanging heavy at her back. Beside her stood the companions for the journey, Ibbi, Gabriel, and Daraena. And with them, twenty hobgoblin elites were lined up in formation.

  From the brutal duel the day before, Leah bore no wounds now. Neither did Ibbi. Whatever damage they had inflicted on each other had healed overnight.

  stepped forward from the gate.

  He bowed low, one hand over his chest. "I wish you well, my lady, for the journey up the mountain."

  When he rose and looked into Leah’s eyes, he hesitated.

  They were cold, razor sharp and emotionless. He looked away.

  "Once I return we’ll have another dungeon crystal." Leah said.

  Her cloak flapped as she turned, snow catching in its hem. She raised a hand and said firmly, "Let’s go."

  Without another word, the group began to march, twenty-three figures moving into the white northern waste.

  Zytherin remained at the gate, watching as the last of them disappeared into the distance.

  ***

  They walked until the ground beneath their feet began to rise, and the jagged silhouette of the mountain loomed high above. The wind picked up, sharper and more biting, howling through the towering stone as if the mountain itself resented their presence.

  Beside Leah, a broad-shouldered hobgoblin elite named Kogg trudged through the snow, his breath steaming in the cold. "There’re camps," he said, his voice rough and low, "running all the way from the base to the peak. But we’ll have to hike a while before we reach the first one."

  Leah gave a small nod and pressed forward with the rest.

  As they walked, the snow steadily deepened. Soon it reached Leah’s thighs, then her waist. Even thoug her resistance to the cold was high, the cold still clung to her like chains. With an irritated sigh, she stopped. Her wings unfurled, phasing through the armour on her back, and with a single beat, she lifted herself free of the snow, now hovering just above its surface.

  The others continued to trudge, but not all were slowed. Later on, Daraena appeared from ahead, her steps light and soundless. She glided across the surface of the snow as though it didn’t even register her weight.

  "I scouted ahead," she said. "The higher paths are blocked by heavy ice formations. Thick ones. Too clean to be natural."

  Kogg snorted. "A shaman’s work, most like. Ice magic. Probably trying to keep us from getting far."

  Leah glanced forward. "We continue."

  The group moved on until they reached a wide opening flanked by two towering cliffs. The path between them rose at an angle, a natural trail leading deeper into the mountain’s grasp. But up ahead, jagged spears of ice jutted from the ground, sealing the way like a wall of frozen fangs.

  Kogg pointed. "We’ll reach the first camp if we continue on this path."

  Without a word, Leah leaned forward, gliding ahead of the group. Her wings flared as she rose along the cliff’s wall, scaling it quickly. She landed atop the rocky ledge, her boots crunching on thin frost. Behind her, Ibbi, Gabriel, and Daraena followed, each finding their own way up the cliff face.

  Leah looked ahead. The path she now stood on extended only a short distance before dropping off again. Above, the mountain vanished into swirling snow, the peaks obscured by storm.

  She walked to the edge and peered over.

  Below Leah, the cliff dropped into a deep pit that carved its way across the land from west to east, like a canyon sliced into the mountain’s base. The depth of it was dizzying, and the snow swallowed much of the bottom in a white blur. Leah looked ahead, narrowing her eyes. The other side of the pit was just barely visible through the drifting snow.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Gabriel stepped up beside her, his cloak rustling in the wind as he peered down. "Did the snow goblins do this?"

  Daraena approached, her face unreadable. "Probably," she said. "Though I don’t know how they managed to remove that much snow, dirt, and stone."

  Leah gave no reply at first. Then, "I’ll move everyone across."

  She lifted into the air, wings whispering against the wind as she backtracked to where the hobgoblin elites were waiting below. She descended toward them, her presence quiet and commanding.

  "Lift your arms." she said.

  Without hesitation, they obeyed. From Leah’s body, blood tendrils uncoiled and stretched downward, wrapping firmly around each elite’s raised arm. With a grunt of effort, she began lifting them into the air.

  Once airborne, she flew over the cliff and sent out more tendrils to Ibbi, Gabriel, and Daraena. One by one, they were drawn up and suspended beneath her. Leah then slowly began flying over the pit.

  But once she was a quarter of the way across, she sensed blood moving from across the other side.

  She narrowed her eyes and looked ahead. From behind a jagged boulder, a group of snow goblins stepped into view. They were draped in pale hides, and they carried long staffs covered in faint runes. They then drove the bases of their staffs into the ground. A strange shimmer sparked across the cliff wall before them.

  Ice erupted from the wall. It shot forward with impossible speed, forming into a giant serpent mid-flight. Its eyes glinted, and its fanged jaws stretched wide, hungry for her.

  Leah's body dropped like a stone. The icy snake roared past overhead, missing her.

  She twisted around, wings flaring, and saw the snake curve back towards her, still hunting.

  Annoyed, Leah pulled taught on the tendril that held Ibbi. "Solve this." she said, and flung her forward.

  Ibbi flew like a missile, hand snapping behind her back to grab the great axe she carried. She brought it around with force, just as the snake lunged. With a thunderous crack, Ibbi slammed into the snake’s mouth and shattered its head in an explosion of ice shards.

  Ibbi began to fall, but Leah’s tendril lashed out and caught her midair.

  Leah turned her gaze back to the other side. The shamans were already preparing another spell.

  Before they could complete it, Leah began hurling her soldiers through the air. Hobgoblin elites shot forward like cannonballs, straight at the shamans.

  The shamans raised their staffs, and an enormous wall of ice erupted from the ground, but it was too late.

  The hobgoblins smashed through it like bricks thrown at windows, bursting through the brittle ice and crashing down with their blades already swinging.

  Some shamans were cleaved in half before they could react. The rest turned and tried to flee, only for Ibbi, Gabriel, and Daraena—also thrown across the gap—to fall upon them.

  It was over quickly.

  Leah, now lightened of her burden, flew the last stretch and landed on the far side.

  She walked calmly through the aftermath.

  Blood stained the snow, and the bodies of the snow goblin shamans were already being dragged towards her by her soldiers.

  She raised her hand and pumped each corpse full of her blood. One by one, their bodies twitched, and their eyes glowed red. Sixteen new blood hobgoblin shamans stood before her.

  Leah walked up to one and gave a command.

  "I want to see you create some ice."

  The goblin bowed and tapped its staff into the ground. A pillar of crimson ice erupted beside it, jagged and cold.

  Leah studied it. "I see it’s red now," she touched it, and immediately pulled away her hand. "and extremely cold."

  She straightened and motioned forward.

  "Let’s carry on."

  ***

  They continued on through the snow, their numbers swelling as they fought and absorbed more snow hobgoblins into their legion.

  The deeper they went, the more frequent the attacks. Snow hobgoblins ambushed from ridgelines, leapt from cliffs, and emerged from buried traps. But none of it mattered. Each fight ended the same, with Leah’s blood tendrils harvesting the fallen and adding them to her army.

  Eventually, in the distance, two large stone pillars rose from the snow like ancient teeth. Between them was a wide pass, and standing before it, a massive horde of snow hobgoblins.

  Kogg came up beside Leah and pointed. "That’s the camp," he said. "Looks like they were waiting."

  The hobgoblin horde let out a thunderous roar and surged forward.

  Leah stepped ahead of her legion, drawing her sword. She activated blood armour, and leapt up in the air, hurling herself right in the midst of the horde.

  She crashed in like a meteor. Her sword cut through skulls, faces, and armour like it was paper. Her tendrils whipped out, burying themselves into bodies, draining blood as she spun and carved.

  Behind her, her blood legion charged in. Hobgoblins were torn apart in the opening seconds. Her new blood shamans raised staffs and sent out waves of red ice to freeze enemies in place.

  The fight spread quickly into the camp. Tents were torn down, fires kicked up flurries of ash, and the screams of dying hobgoblins echoed through the mountains.

  An hour passed.

  By then, the battle had become a slaughter.

  The remaining snow hobgoblins were fleeing, but the blood legion gave them no escape. They hunted them down, dragging them back to Leah for conversion or finishing them where they stood.

  Leah stood at the centre of the camp, her blade dripping red. She had just finished slashing through a hobgoblin elite, his neck split open in a single, clean cut.

  The goblin fell to his knees, clutching the wound. As blood poured between his fingers, he looked up at her with defiance.

  "You… won’t make it up the mountain," he rasped. "You’ll never… see the king."

  Leah stared at him, then drove a tendril into his chest. His body seized as she drained him dry.

  She turned her head upwards, eyes narrowing as she looked towards the snowy peaks above.

  "So," she said, voice low and cold, "there is a king."