Free Saint Elm's Deep (The Legend of Vanx Malic) by M. R. Mathias

least he hoped she was.
    Endell was off to Vanx’s left and was a bit more practical than the rest of them. He had a loaded crossbow in his arms and was standing there sipping his flask. He had three other crossbows laid out, loaded and ready to pick up and fire. As if he sensed Vanx’s eyes on him, he held up the flask in toast, grinned, and took a long pull.
    The bundle of dark fur a few paces behind Endell was Xavian. The wizard had chosen the old tracker to be his protector while the killing went on. Vanx had offered to protect him personally, but Xavian had refused after seeing the thin-staved, plain-looking longbow Vanx planned to use. If Xavian wanted to trust his life to a man half drunk, then so be it.
    Poops’s howling was becoming more insistent, or maybe the wind was picking up, better carrying the sound to Vanx’s ears. Or maybe, Vanx suddenly realized, it was because the snow leaper had ceased its mewling and was standing stock-still with wide, terrified eyes.
    “It comes!” one of the twins half-shouted, half-whispered.
    Vanx heard a thick, breaking sound, like an old tree trunk being bent over until it snapped. It was a terrifying noise, and for a fleeting moment Vanx looked down and felt as prone and helpless as the snow leaper. Then he saw it coming and had to swallow back his fear and surprise, for it was far bigger than he’d imagined.
    A ridge of snow was being forced up—a swiftly approaching ridge at least as high as two grown men were tall. It was like seeing huge fish swimming just beneath the surface, or a flesh worm crawling under someone’s skin. He couldn’t see the shrew yet, but by the goddess, he knew it had to be huge to displace so much ice and snow.
    “Be ready to loose,” Brody called out in his curt fashion.
    The mound curved toward one of the twins, then lowered in height until its movements were no longer detectable.
    “It dove! Damn the gods!” Chelda yelled as she danced around looking at the ground.
    Seeing her, the others were suddenly concerned with their own immediate areas. If someone had approached at that very moment and seen them, it would have looked like some strange, primitive ritual, complete with a sacrificial animal and a frantic dance, was taking place.
    “We’re all bait now,” Brody called with a sort of smug satisfaction in his voice. “How the hell is the shrew supposed to know which one of us is the bait?”
    Vanx gave the ground a sharp look as he tried to think of what they could do to protect themselves. Then, cutting through the air like a ghostly howl, he heard one of the haulkats cry out. Poops’s stream of barks ended abruptly with the crunching of wood and Smythe’s horrible scream.
    “It hit the sleds!” Vanx yelled. He was halfway there before the others even started in the right direction. He stopped when the shrew reared up. He pulled and let an arrow fly, but knew it was a feeble gesture. Then he saw Poops barking at the thing’s feet and started running again to save his tethered friend, for the beast was coming down on the dog and looked to be turning back into its hole.
    A mortally wounded haulkat, dragging long loops of its own steamy innards and the tattered remains of one of the sleds, met Vanx and then tried to veer away from him. Vanx caught it by the restraining line and yanked it to a halt. His heart fell. It was the sled he’d tied Poops to, the one in which Smythe had been bundled. There wasn’t much left of the thing; just a few of the hitching boards and one bent iron skid.
    Without another thought, Vanx charged to where the attack had occurred. It was a good thing, too, for no sooner had he taken ten steps away from the dying haulkat than the snow below it erupted in a terrible roaring explosion of claws and teeth. Vanx didn’t stop to look back for long, but in that fleeting glimpse he saw that the haulkat was gone from the surface now, and that only a gaping blood-spattered hole and the swiftly trailing line of