The Vultarian Mountains clawed at the sky, jagged teeth of rock tearing through a perpetually bruised firmament. Here, at their foothills, the air bit with a ferocity that stole breath and stung exposed skin. Elias shivered, a performative shudder that made his lute bounce gently against his back, but the cold was real enough to make the tips of his ears ache. Beside him, Thorne, ever the stoic, seemed to absorb the frigid assault without so much as a flinch, his broad shoulders squared against the impending climb.
The ground under their boots crunched with a brittle, crystalline sound, thin layers of frost coating forgotten stones and skeletal patches of mountain grass. Winter's vanguard had already claimed these lower slopes, hinting at the true, unforgiving dominion further up. Elias pulled his worn cloak tighter.
"Well, now," Elias mused, his voice carrying a lightness that felt at odds with the stark landscape, "if this is the welcome wagon, I'd hate to see the main event." He glanced at Olaf, the ethereal spirit who usually hovered around him like a curious, iridescent cloud. Today, Olaf's luminous form had diminished, his usual vibrant glow muted to a soft, hesitant pulse. A low, uneasy hum emanated from the spirit, a sound Elias had come to recognize as Olaf's own unique brand of shivering. The spirit's nervousness was palpable, a chilling counterpoint to the physical cold. Elias's brow furrowed slightly; Olaf was rarely this unsettled.
As the path began to wind upward, carving a precarious line between frost-rimmed boulders and sparse, twisted pines, they started noticing them. The first was small, tucked into the crook of a gnarled branch – a collection of bird skulls, bleached white and lashed together with sinew, adorned with a few iridescent crow feathers. Then another, larger, further on: a deer antler, still bearing traces of velvet, intertwined with a spine and a collection of rodent bones, all bound by rough twine. They swayed, almost imperceptibly, in the thin mountain wind, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to stretch and shrink with unnatural speed.
"Curious decor, wouldn't you say, Thorne?" Elias offered, trying to inject some of his usual flippancy into the air, though even to his own ears, it sounded forced. He ran a curious finger over a particularly intricate arrangement of small, sharp teeth. "Perhaps some local artist with a penchant for the macabre? Or a particularly fervent worshipper of the—"
Thorne cut him off with a guttural grunt, his gaze fixed on a new totem that loomed from a cleft in the rock—a collection of what looked like human finger bones tied to a larger, cracked skull. His hand instinctively went to the hilt of his greatsword, the scarred leather of the grip familiar and reassuring. A deep frown etched itself onto his already severe face.
"Not decoration," Thorne rumbled, his voice a low, gravelly counterpoint to the wind's keening. "Warding totems. Warnings." He eyed the intricate lashing, the precise placement of certain bones. "Old witchcraft. Older than most scholars would admit still lives."
Elias felt a prickle of unease trace its way up his spine. Thorne wasn't prone to theatrics, nor was he easily disturbed. If the ex-knight, a recognized these as threats, then they were indeed threats. Elias glanced at Olaf, whose glow now barely registered above the surrounding gloom, his humming a barely audible tremor.
The totems grew more frequent, more elaborate, and undeniably more unsettling the higher they climbed. Some were almost monumental, reaching several feet into the air, crowned with skulls of things Elias couldn't quite identify – a beast with a single, twisted horn, another with a gaping maw full of needle teeth. The feathers became longer, darker, many of them unmistakably raven or crow, often stained with a dark, dried substance that Elias didn't want to think about. They pulsed with an unspoken menace, their rhythmic sway in the wind seeming less like natural movement and more like a slow, deliberate dance.
They paused at a particularly tall totem, taller even than Thorne, that dominated a narrow pass. It was a grotesque masterpiece of dread, constructed from the ribs of some large, unfortunate creature, forming a cage-like structure. Perched atop it was a blackened eagle skull, its bone scorched, its eye sockets hauntingly filled with a luminescent blue resin that seemed to track their movements. Long, iridescent black feathers, impossibly still, hung from its jaw, almost reaching the ground.
"Well, that's certainly… striking," Elias said, trying to force a smile, a flicker of his usual charm. He nudged Olaf gently. "What do you think, little light-bringer? A bit much for the foyer, perhaps?" He aimed a light, teasing jab at the skull with the toe of his boot, but stopped short when a sudden gust of wind whistled through the hollowed-out skull.
The sound was not merely wind. It was a low, mournful, yet undeniably responsive note, a lament that seemed to answer Elias's provocation directly. The blue resin eyes of the skull seemed to brighten for a fleeting second, an illusion born of the dying light and Elias's heightened nerves, but potent nonetheless. The mood, already fragile, shattered. Olaf recoiled visibly, his faint light flickering like a dying ember.
Thorne didn't speak, but his hand tightened on his hilt, his eyes scanning the surrounding crags with an intensity that missed nothing. He was a shield, braced. He was a man who knew the smell of ambush.
As they climbed further, the sense of being watched grew from a prickle of unease to an oppressive weight. It was as if invisible eyes were tracking their every step, their every breath, from every shadowed recess of the mountain. The silence between the gusts of wind was profound, almost deafening, broken only by the crunch of their boots and the faint, anxious hum of Olaf. Elias felt the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, his bravado rapidly eroding under the relentless scrutiny.
Thorne, ever vigilant, kept his hand glued to his blade, his stance coiled and wary, a predator sensing another, larger predator in its territory. He moved with a deliberate quietness, his eyes flicking from the path ahead to the sheer rock faces above, cataloging potential perches, hidden ledges, dark caves. Elias glanced at him, noting the subtle shifts in the knight's posture, the way his head was cocked, listening for something Elias couldn't yet hear.
Elias tried to joke it off, to break the growing spell of dread. "Perhaps it's just the mountain folk, Thorne," he ventured, his voice a little too loud, a little too strained. "A bit territorial, certainly, but perhaps they appreciate a good tune?" He unslung his lute, his fingers finding the familiar, polished wood a small comfort. He strummed a few experimental notes, a light, plucking melody, hoping to scatter the gloom with a burst of music.
But the sound, usually a source of warmth and connection, echoed strangely here. It didn't dissipate into the vastness of the mountain. Instead, it reverberated off the sheer cliffs, amplified and distorted, as if the very stone was catching the melody, carrying it, and then sending it back, not to Elias, but to something listening high above. The notes seemed to hang in the air, then drift higher, seeking, searching. It ceased to be a song and became a call.
Olaf let out a faint, high-pitched whimper, shrinking behind Elias's shoulder. Elias's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat. He glanced up, his gaze sweeping across the shadowed crags and sharp, broken peaks. And then he saw it.
For only a fleeting second, a dark, feathered silhouette, larger than any eagle, too quick to properly discern, slipped between two jagged teeth of rock high up on the cliffside. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the chilling impression of vast wings and an ancient, predatory grace.
A cold dread seeped into Elias's bones, colder than the mountain wind. He didn't need to look at Thorne to know the knight had seen something too, or at least felt the subtle shift in the air. The unspoken understanding passed between them, a shared recognition of imminent danger.
"Right then," Elias murmured, his voice now devoid of any pretense of humor, "time to pick up the pace, wouldn't you say?"
Without another word, the three of them—Elias, Thorne, and the barely glowing Olaf—quickened their steps. They moved quickly, but with a new, heightened carefulness, each sense honed, each nerve taut. Elias re-slung his lute, his hand now resting on a concealed dagger. Thorne's hand remained on his greatsword, his head swiveling, eyes darting, assessing every shadow, every potential threat. The wind seemed to howl with renewed urgency, the totems swaying wildly now, a macabre forest of bone and feather come to life.
Just as they rounded a particularly treacherous bend in the path, another totem appeared directly in their way, a crude but sturdy construction of thick bone segments lashed together, a shield against the unseen. They almost collided with it.
Then, without a touch, without a breath of wind strong enough to stir its foundations, the thickest bone segment, the central pillar of the totem, splintered. A clean, sharp crack echoed through the pass, impossibly loud in the sudden silence. The bone, thick as Elias's forearm, didn't break from old age or weak lashing; it sheared apart cleanly, as if cut by an unseen claw, leaving a jagged, fresh wound in the ancient material.
The top half of the totem teetered, then crashed to the ground, scattering bone shards and dried feathers across their path.
The sound vibrated in the air, a declaration. They were not merely being watched. They were being hunted.