The box canyon appeared suddenly, a natural dead end where rock walls rose vertical and impassable on three sides, the only exit the passage Soren had just followed.
And there, at the far end, massive and magnificent and absolutely furious, stood the Glacier Elk.
Gods, it was beautiful.
The creature was easily the size of a small house, its body covered in fur so white it seemed to generate its own luminescence, muscles rippling beneath its hide with the kind of raw power that suggested it could charge through castle walls without slowing.
Its antlers were architectural impossibilities, spreading wider than its body, each tine sharp as forged steel, decorated with ice formations that looked almost deliberate, almost artistic.
Its eyes were the blue of deep glaciers, ancient and intelligent and absolutely certain it could kill this presumptuous human who'd dared chase it into a corner.
