Chapter 126: Grip of Winter
The soft crunch of the snow beneath our feet echoed hollowly through the village, bouncing off the frozen walls and returning to our ears. A large mound of snow dominated the village square, rising as high as any of the single-story homes. Unlike the pure frost coating the ground, the pile seemed much darker, crimson almost.
"They didn’t..." Soltair muttered, kicking into the pile.
A sharp clatter rang out as several fragments of bone scattered before his boot. Surprised by the sudden stench of blood, which wafted through the break in the snow, I took several steps back before I steadied myself. Surely, this entire pile couldn’t be...
Fyren whipped his sword from its sheath and slashed toward the pile. Flames arced from the blade and coiled around the pile. Steam erupted as the searing flames hit ice, rolling out to obscure the entire village. The stench of boiling blood replaced the metallic tang from before, so potent my eyes watered. In between coughs, I summoned a gust of wind to clear the air.
Within seconds, the roiling banks of steam dissipated, revealing the most gruesome sight I’d ever witnessed. Bile rose in my throat as I gaged. I thought I’d gotten used to the sight of carnage, but this was on another scale entirely.
Fyren was the first to respond, shaking his head and saying, "I suppose we no longer need search for the villagers."
It was as he said. Nothing less than the population of a village could create such an immense pile of bodies. The flesh had sloughed from the bone, leaking through the cracks and filling the pile like putrid cheese. The starchy white of the remaining skeletons had been soaked in blood, retaining its color even as Fyren’s fire evaporated the fluids. Free of its icy constraints, the putrid slurry flowed outward, slowly creeping toward our feet.
Trithe backed away, her face blanching with revulsion. "I...who would do this?" she stammered.
"It’s similar to that other demon cult we discovered. But even that paled compared to this," Soltair replied darkly. His face twisted in disgust as he gingerly stepped atop a corpse, reaching up to grab something within the pile.
From all appearances, it was a scale, similar to the ones that coated my tail and horns. But, unlike my gentle ridges, this was thick and heavy, stretching as wide as a dinner plate. It seemed translucent but was so saturated with blood that its original color was impossible to determine.
"Dragon scale?" Soltair asked, waving the dripping scale toward Trithe.