The Web of Iron

Chapter Eleven: New Land

William was not having a good day.

The wind howled around him. His breath came out like steam in the fridged air. The snow beneath his boots made his pace slow. The scraggly trees around him provided little shelter as he stumbled on. The only reason he wasn't dead was that his armor and cloak had returned to him. If he had appeared in this broken and freezing land without them, he should have frozen to death in minutes.

Than Elranor for small miracles.

He'd never felt anything this cold. Not even in Carn Gable on a freezing winter. He knew he had to find shelter and find it quick, or he was as good as dead.

William trudged out of the trees and saw before him a farmstead in the distance. Perhaps he could seek shelter there. The snows were difficult to push through and it was a labor to get to it, but he made it. Making for it he drew closer. He found the door broken open. Within, he saw a charred corpse. Looking back, he saw skeletons. Dozens of them. Yet they were not the bodies of men, but of minotaurs.

Then he heard the sound of tearing and looked up. A creature he had seen before as a statue was picking at a corpse. It was dressed in furs and wore a bow an arrow over one shoulder. It had the beak of a vulture, and two wings like those of a hawk.

He had seen this creature before in a statue worshipped by demons. It was a symbol. A symbol of an of an evil which had haunted him all his life.

"Melchious," he said, drawing his sword.

The beast looked up, beak dripping with blood. "In a manner of speaking. Now that these worms are done, you're next, Gabriel."

"You won't find me easy prey, monster," He hefted his shield, the cold forgotten.

"Of that, I am in doubt," said Melchious.

Then he surged forward, a whip of flame coming from his hand as he slashed. William raised his shield, and the whip slashed it. The force sent him staggering backward, and he warded off several more blows. His shield was smoking.

He rushed at the beast, but Melchious leaped into the air and drew his bow. Firing several arrows, William caught them on his shield. One of them glanced off the side of his helm.

"Enough running coward!" roared William. "Come down here and face me!"

"Why should I?" asked Melchious. "Does the hawk sink to the mouse's level?"

Another three arrows shot at him, and he narrowly warded them off. "The hawk has better success!"

"Only one of my arrows needs to reach you," snarled Melchious. "My venom will do the rest."

Venom. So his arrows were poisoned. Melchious circled around him, firing arrows, and William could hardly keep up. William backed up, soon his rear was guarded by the wall of the farmstead.