That flurry came out of nowhere.
"Dio, watch out!" The yell came from my right too late. The beastmen banked away, but I flew straight into the whirlwind of the frozen debris, suffering a thousand tiny cuts. Forced to close my eyes, I lost altitude fast and no sound reached me anymore. I became a plaything for the elements, thrown around by the winds, blind and deaf.
Not even the wyverns predicted this calamity, and I always relied on their sense of danger. Our formation scattered miles apart in just a few seconds, until I couldn't reach them. My mount smashed against the jagged cliffs on both sides of the valley and screamed in pain as it struggled against the currents.
"To the hell with this place!" I cried out, my straps stretched thin from the extreme forces. My luck ran out and my hands slipped. I fell upwards, at least that's how it felt.
The saddle disappeared but it was for the better since only the sound of a horrible thud reached me. The massive beast might shake that off, but I would have died by smashing against the same rocks. The rest of the formation fared barely better, spotting them momentarily, but at least the rear turned around in time.
I went down immediately and the same happened with the entire vanguard. Fortunately, the snow dampened the fall, but death seemed more desirable than to repeat that. From up high, I fell about a hundred feet but luckily didn't order us to fly any higher. Planned to glide through the valleys instead of over the peaks to save the beast's strength, but who expected a whirlwind hidden inside the fog?
"Ugh, at least I'm still in one piece!" I shouted to encourage myself, though everything hurt.
The young wyvern disappeared for a few moments, and in the next the majestic wings were caught up on the rocks, shredded into pieces, and showered the snow in green, poisonous blood. One of the undead champions fell hundreds of yards and bones scattered on a huge cliff, but that was all I could see with this poor visibility.
Two elder wyverns managed to rise above the storm after they dropped their riders along the way. An ogre landed roughly half a mile from me, and observing the impact, I oriented myself carefully. The next moment it all disappeared, but I was sure, he'd remain there. Gathered my strength and popped open a healing potion before heading his way in the waist-deep snow, I struggled to move and pushed against a cold wall that mercilessly slashed my skin.
"Just wait for me!" I yelled, but my voice could not penetrate the winds. It threw frozen snow into my face and forced me to keep my eyes closed. We prepared for the cold, but not for this insanity. Ghell fortress felt like a nice and warm place compared to this hellish storm. Without alternatives, I clenched my teeth to press on and tried to duck under the wind becoming as small as possible. At least my height helped me with that.
There was a good reason we chose to fly north, this part of the continent was hard to traverse. The twin volcanoes called Gates of Hell deserved their names to the last letter, still dozens of miles away. Even the most seasoned adventurers refused to cross this mountain range.
Yet it was still the safest route north since the Sea of Storms smashed any boat into pieces and shallowed anyone who tried to fly over. It took a few hours to cross the mountains even in the air, but I probably jinxed that.
Suddenly, it calmed down and I found myself in the eye of the storm. My journey got much smoother through the valley, but the wind built a literal wall of snow further out, which looked unbreakable. Suddenly as it arrived, the tornado disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The snow imploded and came down hard, the smoke from the volcanoes still twirling in the distance. They obscured my vision, but now and then, the cries of a wyvern reached my long ears. Now that the wind was gone, everything echoed strangely between the mountain peaks so it was hard to tell which way they came from. My sense of direction couldn't recover.
Then just like that, everything quieted down.
"What the hell was that?" I asked myself, mesmerized by the sudden change in the weather. But I needed to press on, from the middle of nowhere to the ogre a few hundred yards ahead. My legs felt inadequate for such a trek, but I had nobody else to rely on.
I ran out of breath before breaking through to the ogre champion. He remained unconscious too, with one of his arms and legs at an unnatural angle. It looked gruesome, but he breathed more calmly than me. As my luck would have it, he was the largest of the champions. Bastion earned his nickname for a reason, impossible for me to move him.
"You still alive?" I asked him but got no answer, pondering how to approach this... Baffled by his size, I made plans to relocate his twisted limbs, imagining how much pain he must have felt, and using a healing potion seemed futile before his body relaxed.
But I needed to gather up my stamina first. Just one of his legs weighed more than my entire body and carried more muscle than I dared to dream so I decided to start with his arm instead.
"Come on, help me just a little." I struggled with the unconscious ogre, but this became an unbeatable challenge.
My entire weight was needed to try and roll Bastion to the side, but it took me too long. I straightened his broken arm and dug a hole in the snow for the legs, sweating bullets in the cold, but at least the snow stopped falling. On the other hand, the sky fell dark.
"Captain! Captain Dioneras! Dio!" It echoed through the valley, and I stopped to look at the beastfolk champion. He waved at me from a small cliff above us a hundred yards away, and I motioned him to come down and help.
Fang was a wolf-type beastman with silver hair, dog ears, and a large tail, but otherwise human-like features. He ran towards me on all fours, with most of his armor gone. He helped me straighten Bastion's leg without my instructions, and I finally jammed my potion between his jaws.
"Did you find anyone else, Fang?" I asked the beastman in the meantime but he shook his head. "Not even our mounts?"
"Just pieces of an undead." He reported. "I can't even tell, which one. They scattered all over the valley and the wyverns disappeared."
"I expected the rear to come and pick us up," I told him unsure how much time had passed since my landing. "The storm calmed down at least... But no sign of anyone so far."
"I did not receive telepathic messages either." The beastman claimed.
"Right. Maybe they just went the long way around and continued without us." It took some time to catch my breath, thinking about the ambitious orc witch who ditched us. "I can't even imagine what the Demon Lord would do to me if he found out about this blunder."
Fang trembled but from the cold or the fear, I could not tell.
"You put Omerta in charge of the rearguard. I bet she saw this as an opportunity..." He added as if confirming my theory. Nothing but trouble, as it seemed. "Well, whatever, at least we are alive."
"For now." I agreed, looking around in the valley. It was desolate, covered in a thick blanket of snow. The sunlight that reached the bottom was dampened by smoke. "Let's wait until Bastion regains consciousness, then find our way north!"
Alone here against the elements, our prospects looked bad. No camping gear, or even food with us, we lost everything together with the wyverns. We didn't bring crows to message home, or anything to start a fire with. But the snow was deep enough to dig a shelter for the night. My brain worked overtime and tried to salvage the situation. But this didn't seem like something we could escape on our own. How long since we landed?
My sense of time, direction, and cold all disappeared. My ears rang from the winds, eyes hurt and nose clogged up. Just a few kind words to warm me up, that's all I wanted.
"Oh, poor souls, are you all right?" I heard a pleasant voice all of a sudden. Yes, something like that already made me feel better. But it didn't make sense since I just looked around a second ago, and we were alone in the valley. The source was easy to find once I looked up. "I saw your people fly straight into the tornado, sorry that I reacted this slow... But dispelled it as fast as possible, I'm just a bit rusty..."
It was a strange creature that floated without wings.
It had a simple humanoid shape with almost no features, except the cat ears on top of the head. Otherwise, it was faceless, like a golem but emitted sharp light. I lived through the Collapse and saw all kinds of demons, monsters, and miracles, but nothing like this.
Yet, it somehow seemed familiar.
"We survived, just barely but thank you." I greeted the stranger. I slid my hand over my belt, where my dagger should have been, but only found my trusty buckler. The sheath disappeared, probably lost during the fall but failed to notice until now. "Who should we thank to save us from this terrible storm?"
"Oh, haha, don't worry about it." She said. While the face was featureless, a smug grin appeared in my mind. Did she use telepathy? She looked like a magician unlike any other. "I'm just a traveler from a distant realm, you probably never heard of it. But I'm only visiting anyway."
"Do try us, my lady." Fang bowed his head. The champion searched for his missing weapons in vain as well. "Our pride demands us to thank you properly, for saving our skins."
"It's, um... Not customary in the place, from where I came, so don't sweat it." She refused to tell us who she was, and gauging her power, it seemed foolish to force anything. We probably didn't stand a chance if we managed to upset her.
She appeared at the right moment to save us which seemed incredibly lucky. That reminded me of someone I never wanted to cross...