The Eye of Winter's Fury Read Online Free PDF Page B

sent here to die? The Wiccan’s boots trudge closer, his animal stink filling your nostrils. He mutters something in his gruff language.
    Then darkness.
    It is as if a shadow has been cast over you, turning day to night. You look up, aware of a thunderous beat, like giant wings, getting louder and louder. Then the crack of snapping branches. The Wiccan warrior seems equally surprised, craning his neck to study the skies. The axe blade has stopped inches above your head.
    ‘Sanchen!’ he growls.
    A blue-black shape drops from the heavens, accompanied by a flurry of broken branches and leaves. It lands with a teeth-jarring thump, wings of mottled white obscuring an immense body. Then they sweep back, revealing a nightmarish creature – its body rippling with scales.
    A demon prince.
    It rises to its full height, over three metres tall, its head crowned by a pair of gold-banded horns. Runed armour clings to its broad chest and shoulders, coating the beast in arcane sigils of dark magic. They smoulder like coals, sending thin columns of smoke spiralling up into the gloom. You cower down at the base of the tree, feeling dwarfed by the size of the monster and its dread aura of power . . .
    ‘Halt!’ The demon raises a hand towards you, its dark brow creased with concentration. ‘Halt, I command you!’
    It takes a moment for you to realise the demon is addressing the warrior. The axe has started to tremble, as if the Wiccan is fighting against something unseen, his muscles straining.
    ‘I told you all, not the boy.’ The demon’s crimson eyes flick to you. ‘Go, Prince Arran. Or this will be your end!’
    He knows my name.
    The warrior is now grunting and hissing with exertion, his axe edging steadily closer. Whatever magic holds him in thrall, he seems intent on breaking it. And if he does, the axe will complete its downward arc, cleaving your skull in two.
    ‘Make your choice,’ the demon hisses.
    You quickly find your feet, edging around the paralysed Wiccan and his trembling axe. The demon watches you intently, the rain streaming from his wings and horns. He saved my life , you realise suddenly. He wants me to escape . You turn away, to look upon the forested valley. It rises abruptly into a series of steep hills, thick with boulders and nettles. In the distance, you can dimly make out a bluff of grey rock, its summit lost to the chill, low-hanging cloud. As if on cue, a peal of thunder breaks overhead, followed seconds later by a pulse of ghoulish lightning. The steady drizzle quickly becomes a deluge, pounding against the earth in thick grey sheets.
    Shivering, you turn back to the demon. ‘I . . . I have nowhere to go,’ you shout, dispiritedly.
    The demon gives a roar of fury, more deafening than the storm. ‘Fool! The fates have set you on this path.’ He gestures angrily towards the valley. ‘Do not try my patience. GO!’
    The vehemence in his words sets you to running, your feet slipping and sliding through the river of mud. You feel a little foolish, dashing madcap into the forest with no idea where you are headed. But you are alive. And for now, that is both a surprise and a comfort. Holding your hood down over your face, you charge into the stormy tumult, desperate now to put as much distance as you can between yourself and the horrors at your back.

    Turn to 11 to begin the first stage of your adventure.

1
    You place the plain glass orb onto the podium. (Remove this item from your hero sheet.) After studying the complex carvings at length, you discern pockets of magic focused in three of the outer circles. One pertains to frost, one to earth magic and the last to the darker shadow arts. By activating the runes around a circle, you will be able to call on the spirits that embody that power.
Will you:
 
Activate the frost runes?
719
Activate the earth runes?
667
Activate the shadow runes?
518
    2
    Progress through the tunnels is slow and frustrating, your way often blocked by gaping chasms or