The deafening bellow of the great roc tears through the mountain air. The massive creature banks hard, its shadow darkening the bridge as it wheels toward Zilk, who crouches on the far side of the span.
Across the weathered planks, Shifty stands frozen, his small frame trembling. The poison still courses through his veins, burning like liquid fire, and he’s seriously questioning every single life choice that has brought him to this gods-forsaken precipice. With shaking hands, he sends his cats scrambling toward a gnarled tree—at least they’ll survive this—before he breaks into a desperate sprint toward Crystal, who’s nearly fainting from the blood she has lost.
The dragonborn spellcaster stands swaying, facing down a bone knight who snarls something vicious and threatening at her through his helm. Crystal’s response is immediate and merciless. She lays down a Wall of Fire directly atop the knight, and his limbs and head erupt into brilliant orange flames. The knight crumbles onto the ancient road, his plate mail belching an inferno from every joint and seam.
Breathing hard, Nike slashes at their own bone knight, while the abyssal rabbit, Rinaldi, bounds forward to assist. The rabbit—deceptively vicious despite his fluffy appearance—sinks his teeth deep into the knight’s exposed neck, just above the gorget. The man bellows in agony and claws at the creature, trying desperately to yank the animal free. Stubbornly, impossibly, Rinaldi holds fast, his jaws locked. The knight finally manages to fling the rabbit to the side of the road with a wet thump, then immediately casts Darkness, plunging Nike, Shifty, and Crystal into an inky, suffocating blackness.
Biblo parries a brutal blow from his bone knight, the impact jarring his arms, then steps smoothly aside to let one of his tortoises—Georgie, he’s pretty sure—snap at the knight’s ankle. Sadly, the knight’s reflexes are still sharp, and he avoids the animal’s wicked beak. Winding up to strike at Biblo, the knight hoists his greatsword high over his head, muscles tensing beneath his armor…and promptly trips over Georgie’s low-slung shell. The great weight of his platemail does the rest, dragging the unfortunate fellow over the side of the cliff in a shower of loose stone. His shouts grow fainter and fainter until they’re completely lost in the howling wind far below.
⚔
Meanwhile, high above the road atop the tower’s wind-scoured ramparts, two figures stand silhouetted against the grey sky—one ghostly and translucent, one small and very much alive. Ilya stands facing the ghost with forced bravery, clearly awaiting his own riddle, when Ratrick bangs the trap door open with both hands, practically tearing it from its hinges.
“My boy!” Ratrick exclaims, rushing forward and hugging Ilya fiercely to him, relief flooding through him.
The ghost’s voice cuts through the frigid wind like a blade: “Each must answer his own riddle! The boy receives no help from others!” The words echo off the stone, final and absolute.
Ilya cuts his eyes to his adopted father, looking worried. He begins to wring his hands as if in terrible anguish, his small face a picture of fear.
But as Ratrick looks more closely—really looks—he realizes Ilya is sending a very subtle message in Thieves’ Cant. The boy’s mouth says, “Oh, Papa! I don’t think I’ll be able to do this! I’m so frightened!” But his hands say something else entirely: “Can you help me if I cannot answer my riddle, Papa? Is there a way?”
Trying desperately to hide the pride surging through him—the boy has mastered the code!—Ratrick signals back with the smallest of movements: “Of course, my boy, if I can! We’ll find a way.”
The ghost drifts forward until it stands directly before the boy, and intones in its dry, hollow, ancient voice:
I am often held but seldom touched,
always wet but never rust,
often bites but sometimes bit,
to use me well you must have wit.
The words hang in the cold air. Ilya’s mouth drops open and Ratrick can feel his heart sink.
Ilya’s hands move again, subtle and quick: “Papa, do you know the answer? Please?” Ratrick, very slightly, very carefully, shakes his head. No.
The color drains completely from the boy’s face.
⚔
Crystal drops her Wall of Fire—the spell flickering out like a dying ember—and falls hard to her knees, bleeding heavily from a dozen wounds. Shifty pounds back down the road to the wounded dragonborn, his small hands already glowing with healing light as he casts Cure Wounds on her. The worst of some of Crystal’s injuries bind closed, and she’s able to stagger shakily to her feet.
The roc bears down on Zilk with terrifying speed, and the bugbear suddenly finds himself caught tight in the talons of the enormous bird, the crushing grip driving the air from his lungs. The creature banks sharply over the river valley, and Zilk’s stomach drops as he realizes—with absolute clarity—that there are 800 feet of empty air beneath him. He’s knows he would not survive a fall from this height.
Fortunately, his hands are still free. He manages to tug out his longbow and a single arrow, fumbling with cold-numbed fingers. He loops one end of his hemp rope around the arrow’s shaft and ties it fast. The bugbear draws back the bowstring with all his strength and releases. The arrow sails true through the frigid mountain air, burying itself deep into one of the bridge’s wooden trusses with a solid thunk.
The rope is yanked taut nearly instantly, jerking Zilk violently from the surprised roc’s claw. The bugbear swings beneath the bridge in a dizzying arc, nearly looping the entire span before dropping back again, like a massive pendulum.
⚔
Nike navigates carefully through the magical darkness, one hand grasping blindly before herself, fingertips trailing along cold stone.
Finally—painfully—she emerges from the suffocating blackness, only to find herself face to face with the bone knight caster. Snarling at them, he draws his greatsword with a metallic rasp. The long blade gleaming with malevolent intent turns abruptly away from Nike. Crystal has also stumbled out of the darkness, and she immediately summons a Hypnotic Pattern, her hands weaving the spell with desperate precision as she hopes against hope to captivate the roc. “Turn your faces from my spell!” she calls urgently over her shoulder, her voice cracking slightly. “Now! Don’t look!”
Everyone in the party obeys instantly, squeezing their eyes shut or turning away. But the bone knight confronting Nike isn’t quick enough. He pauses, his greatsword wavering uncertainly. His eyes glaze over, pupils dilating as the spell takes hold. Crystal feels the connection snap into place—he’s charmed.
“I’ll bet you can hit that enormous roc with an arrow,” Crystal tells the entranced knight conversationally, her voice smooth and compelling despite her fear. “I bet you’re an excellent shot.”
Obediently, moving like a sleepwalker, the knight nocks an arrow with mechanical precision and looses it at the enormous bird bearing down from overhead. The arrow flies wide, disappearing into the grey sky without coming anywhere close.
Crystal sighs. “At least he’s trying,” she thinks.
⚔
Back atop the tower, icy wind whipping around his small frame, Ilya whispers urgently out of the corner of his mouth, barely moving his lips: “Do you think the answer might be…a tongue?”
The Ratrick’s eyes light up and he nods fiercely, “Yes!”
Ilya squares his shoulders, takes a breath, and calls out clearly to the stern-faced ghost: “A tongue! The answer is a tongue!”
At first, the pale, menacing figure standing atop the tower does nothing. Then it fades to the merest whisp. The world around Ilya suddenly dissolves, tower and ghost melting away like morning mist. When reality reasserts itself, he finds himself standing next to Ratrick at the foot of the bridge, in the shadow of the enormous bird wheeling overhead.
“Good work, my boy,” whispers Ratrick, hugging Ilya tightly to him, his voice thick. “You didn’t even need my help. You figured it out all on your own.”
Around them, chaos reigns. Above them circles the largest bird either has ever seen, its shadow swallowing the mountainside.
⚔
Nearby, Nike sends a crackling Witch Bolt at the monstrous creature, but the blast goes wide, zinging uselessly out into the slipstream behind the rapidly roc. Likewise, Shifty’s Sacred Flame—bright and holy—is easily avoided by the massive bird, which banks away from the divine fire with practiced ease.
Crystal, gritting her teeth, sends up a second Hypnotic Pattern, her hands trembling with the effort. The roc sails past it without even slowing, continuing to bear down on the terrified group with single-minded purpose. Crystal swears viciously under her breath and braces herself, preparing for the momentary arrival of death from above.
⚔
Meanwhile, as his swing gradually slows, Zilk hauls himself hand over hand up the rope to the relative safety of the bridge’s surface, his arms screaming and muscles burning. The roc sails past him without a second glance, clearly intent on something—or someone—else. Whatever it is, Zilk doesn’t particularly care to find out, because there’s precious little he can do about it, anyway. The bugbear turns and flees across the bridge, his heavy footfalls making the ancient wood creak and groan.
⚔
Gerald the tortoise finally catches up to Biblo and his brother, Georgie, their shells clacking against one another in greeting on the frozen road. The barbarian’s rage has dissipated like smoke, and clear thinking has reasserted itself with uncomfortable clarity. As Biblo watches the enormous roc bear down on his companions—Ratrick clutching Ilya, Shifty stumbling backward, Nike standing defiant—an idea strikes him suddenly.
His clawed hand digs frantically in his spell component pouch hanging at his belt, and he casts Shape Water, pouring every ounce of concentration into his spell.
The arcane energy gathers up the snow and ice from around one of the narrow ledges above him, maybe thirty feet up the cliff face. In a frenzy, it swirls together into a ball that grows bigger, then longer. It takes on an elongated form, and a smaller ball forms at one end—a head, perhaps. Four stumps extend from beneath it to support the figure, almost like legs. The magic fluffs up the back of the snow sculpture, and suddenly it has the appearance of wool as it resolves into an unmistakably sheeplike form, complete with a fluffy tail.
Now, all Biblo can do is hope.
⚔
It works: the roc opens its enormous jaws to emit an ear-shattering shriek that rattles loose rocks from the cliff face. Its dive toward the cowering companions is abruptly altered, the hurricane force of its massive wings blowing stinging grit and ice into their eyes, forcing them to shield their faces.
The gigantic bird is now headed directly toward the cliff, where an unlikely sheep seems to graze peacefully on a ledge high above the road.
Not caring one bit how this works out for the distracted roc, Ratrick scoops up Ilya in his arms and sprints across the bridge toward Zilk, followed by all the rest of his battered comrades and their various animal companions, everyone running for their lives.
⚔
Rinaldi bounds from the ground to Nike’s shoulder, and in one impossible leap, launches himself upward toward the roc like a furry missile. The abyssal rabbit scrabbles up the great bird’s scaly leg with his claws, burrowing upward through the creature’s musty feathers toward the roc’s massive head. Popping out near the roc’s eye—that great golden orb the size of a dinner plate—Rinaldi ferociously attacks it with his razor-sharp teeth, sinking them deep.
The roc screams in agony as it’s blinded on one side by the rabbit, gore flowing from the ruined eye. It shakes its head violently, the motion flinging Rinaldi to the other side of its face, where the rabbit immediately bites again before throwing himself off the roc in a graceful arc. Nike catches him mid-fall, pulling him close. Blood spatters down from overhead onto the fleeing companions.
Crystal gathers what little ki energy is left to her to hurl a third — and her absolute klast— Hypnotic Pattern spell at the roc. The creature’s single remaining eye glazes over as it cruises through Crystal’s spell, the pupil going wide and unfocused. It banks sharply back over the precipice to begin circling the group in lazy, confused loops.
“The tower did this to you!” Crystal shouts up at the creature, her voice hoarse but commanding. “If you destroy the tower—” she points dramatically at the ghost’s tower where this entire nightmare began “—you will break the curse and you can fly free! ”
On its next circuit over the valley, the roc dips low and rears itself up, swinging its enormous talons forward with devastating force. These shove against the top of the tower, which teeters for one breathless moment—then tumbles into the chasm below, stones booming and crashing all the way down until the sounds fade finally into nothing.
“Go be free, now!” Crystal screams triumphantly, raising her fist to the sky. “You’ve earned it!”
The roc dips one massive wing to her—an unmistakable gesture of acknowledgment, perhaps even gratitude—and disappears into the low-hanging grey clouds above them, leaving only the icy wind in its wake.
⚔
Beyond exhausted measure, the group slogs upward on the slippery road. They trudge in silence until the darkness of the fading day makes it too dangerous to proceed without risking a fall. They finally set up camp in a small depression that offers minimal shelter from the wind, and share their meager provisions—cold rations and chilly water. They are too impatient to wait for the fire to warm them, and then prepare to bed down in this frozen, unforgiving place.
Nike, with Rinaldi tucked safely into their hood, his warm body pressed against their neck, offers to take first watch. Someone has to, and they’re too keyed up to sleep anyway.
Almost immediately, things turn frightening.
Moving quietly around the perimeter, Nike passes their dozing allies.
Suddenly, their attention is drawn to dark shapes higher up on the mountain. As they watch the two figures approaching, Nike becomes still—so still they hold their breath, frost forming on their lips. Rinaldi shifts slightly, staring out over her shoulder, his eyes gleaming red.
Yetis. Enormous ones, their white fur barely distinguishable against the snow. Headed directly toward their camp with purposeful strides.
Nike cannot tell if they’ve spotted the group yet. Cannot tell if there’s time to wake everyone, to run, to do anything.
And no one has yet had a chance to rest. Not really. Not enough to matter.
