With a hundred men, kobels and captives alike to back him Tunu was not even feeling the ground under his feet anymore.
His mind was back, barely emerging from the frenzy. Once plunged in the woods, with trees breaking down their cohesion and the foliage dampening their screams, it had been possible for him to regain some senses.
But Savae was with him and that alone kept him frantic.
Before them the air grew colder with every step. Their breath struggled in an air become thin. How high in eternal snow a beast had to go to know this feeling, one none of them had experienced; they were too excited to even care.
Had two scouts not appeared, it would have finished there.
But two fawns emerged, one carrying the other, and gestured for the whole mass of warriors to stop.
He let his companion drop on the ground, lifeless.
More than that, that fawn was white as chalk. And the fawn, distraught, crouched to hold him in his arms and cry. Whatever words he was using the kobels could not understand.
They could see, however, that dry skin akin to peeled off paint.
The other scout had hardly escaped, his motions stiff, his breath difficult. After sobbing over the body he collapsed too, exhausted. They watched as the last spark died in his eyes.
Everyone had gone silent.
"Cowards!" Savae exclaimed.
She rushed ahead and into the trees. Tunu did not think twice but ran after her, followed her straight toward that monstrous presence.
Behind them the warriors were screaming again, seeking courage to follow them. A few of them, and then dozens, hurried with no hope to catch up.
The mist fell on them all.
It reached Savae first. The warrior shivered, coughed and watched the blood she had just spit: it was white.
She had crumbled but before her shoulder touched the ground Tunu had caught her.
"Hang on!"
Her eyes turned to him. Even then at death's door she sought to kill what she saw, but a haze as her mind failed. He yelled, felt his own breath falter and rushed back with the female in his arms.
Bodies of warriors crumbled all around, wriggling on a bleached grass.
"Fall back! Everyone fall back!"
He emerged at the edge of the mist, let her down and helped another kobel crawl out. Still tendrils flowed around, that deadly air still flowing forth.
"All of you, back to the mountain! Back, now!"
They had never heard their champion, the legendary kobel, with such a fearful voice.
But those still healthy, even with their breath short, helped those who could not walk anymore. Four picked up Savae and carried her away. He watched for a moment, then went back and picked another warrior rasping against a tree.
There was no time, his heart warned. His own heart was hammering to keep the muscles awake despite that devouring cold.
It was that monster or the hill would be gone.
So, once the kobel was held by others, Tunu breathed in and threw himself back into the mist, to rush this time straight ahead as far as he could.
He thought the edge of it had been deadly but soon realized it had been only forgiving. Once thickened, the air had simply lapsed. There was nothing left for him to breathe. He could feel it, inside his flesh, the blood flow slowing down, drying out where it stood.
It would not stop.
His heart beat too hard, too warmly to let him lapse.
So he emerged. There in the mist too thick his kobel eyes could not see a thing; his horns perceived it all, beginning with the hooves's vibrations that had dead trunks crumble like salt.
There it was, the winged deer. Antlers so large it would have struggled in the woods, had the woods not been pulverized around it. A somber fur on the deer head and deer neck, on the deer chest and forelegs.
Somber feathers on wings sprung from its shoulders, closed tight against the body. Somber feathers in a bird's tail and bird talons that sliced the powder on which it walked.
The monster's eyes were two black orbs in which burned sparks uncounted.
Facing it the scaled lizard had wanted to boast, to defy it, to scream. But so short was his breath that he struggled to just stand up.
That heartbeat was the one he recognized from the two times he had faltered. Whatever power kept him up was running wild to beat this deadly mist.
So he did not wait, lunged and saw the creature rearing. Hooves so thin on legs so frail, yet it had moved like the wind.
He was forced back, saw the winged deer charge and dodged, rolled to the ground coughing.
Faster, his heart beat. Faster, his heart would beat faster!
That deer was now in full charge, circling around to fall on him again. He charged as well, met the antlers with his two hands and got a grip, slid for several meters until the monster was halted, unable to break free from his clutched fists.
So it opened its jaws, revealing flat herbivorous teeth just before spewing a flow of white smoke bursting out, overflowing on the ground.
Before it could fill the whole area, before it even grazed his legs the kobel had leaped back. He knew, he knew not to be hit by that breath. He could understand the thick mist around him was still nothing compared to the real deal.
For a moment Tunu wavered.
His mind raced for a way to approach that creature, only to think of the many ways it would kill him. For a moment he doubted but his heart would not let him. His heart only kept beating faster and faster and faster still!
Unstoppable!
So he charged and the beast with him, crossing each other and missing by nothing, again and again as they searched that opening. But the winged deer had time on its side and Tunu, exhausted, thought he had found a fault in which to strike.
The antler struck him, shredded half of his body and sent him toppling back on the ground.
He stood there, trying to get up. His heart screaming to get up. He stood there thrashing, his wounds already closed. He stood there when the deer pummeled him with its hooves.
Strike after strike after strike taking out whole chunks of him, bashing the rest against the powder. Yet the flesh still reformed faster than that monster could undo it and when it aimed straight for the heart Tunu hit back, shredded those legs in one swing of his claws.
They turned to clouds then formed back, intact.
But the deer bleated, an unholy shriek all the same. It had given a second for the kobel to try and stand up once again.
He didn't get the chance.
The monster's breath engulfed him and he felt it, but for an instant before even his senses faded, the whole body turning to dust.
And the deer would not stop spewing that white smoke in a long, unrelenting breath.
Faster. And faster. And faster and faster and faster and faster, faster, faster!
Until blood flowed again, until the muscles tightened and a monstrous scream burst from within that deadly breath. An enraged shriek so powerful that the mist, as if blasted by an invisible force, cleared out.
All around and far away the mist dispersed, revealing dried bark and bent trees, dead grass on rocky, fractured grounds. Closer even nothing remained but stone, as if the plain here had peeled off to reveal the hidden, flat cliff of a mountain.
The monster stopped its breath, trotted away, wings open, and bleated again.
Again the monstrous shriek answered and from the smoke emerged two vast, membranous wings. Claws at their tips ripped the stones to bring the whole body forth.
The body of a wyvern.
A wyvern with blood red scales, copper horns and claws. A wyvern that had not yet finished to grow, the tail still taking shape, long enough to circle around and surround its body.
Its rising head hid behind it the silhouette of the hill.