The giant snowbat was rare but not unheard of as Voek farmers had recorded lost animals in their flocks to the silent night hunter. Now, right before you was a living example of the beast. You could see how they might be able to snatch snowlynx and sabremaws with their talons and fly off easily and you were sure you were about to watch Kazrod disappear into the mountains as its latest victim. From behind you you hear Dushino's sure command and a very serious tone," Down!" With no time to think and his voice as clear a direction as you would ever need, both you and Kazrod bend your necks and thrust your bodies down into the snowpack on the ground. As you drop a whistle of a released arrow could be heard just above your heads and the giant creature as if sensing the approaching arrow turns its head and leans sharply to the left dodging the deathly dart. It then bares its sharp fangs and thrusts all four wings in unison and takes flight. Dushino starts chasing it up the slope, and you look up from your prone position in the snow, "Where is he going?" you ask yourself as much as Kazrod. The snowbat vigorously flaps its white and grey skinned wings, the resulting wash of wind and snow from it masks its escape and the thrust blows snow over your snowbound bodies.

Zelnard was watching all the action and was transfixed by the sequence of flying arrow and flapping wings. He notes everyone is fine and yells "Its flying ahead, up that valley", and the creature lands in front of the eternal ice plug of the cave — the same one you saw on the way up the mountain. The creature screeches, bows its head as it takes off again and flies directly at the blue ice. Dushino is still running toward the creature as the vibration from its call creates a hole in the ice through which it enters. Kazrod kneels and then stands up brushing of the snow and holds out a hand to you. Zelnard has made it to your position and says excitedly. "Did you see that?" Hard to miss from our position," you say. "No, I mean the cave door and the screech and "whoosh"" he says as he mimics the flight of the bat through the ice door with his waving hand. "Yes, it was all quite impressive," you manage to get out without slipping too far into your regular sarcastic tone. Dushino calls out to you all, "Come on, to the cave!" You were not sure that would be your response but Dushino, ever Hadenesque, had just saved your lives and you felt obliged to continue running up to the cave would be the right next move. 

We all rushed up to the door, but as we arrived the hole's last shrinking motion completed a seal and the ice door was once more a block of solid blue ice as hard as a blade. Dushino was aiming his bow at the door and had an eternal-ice arrow nocked. Breathlessly you say, "Shouldn't we be glad that thing is on the other side of the door. We are safe out here on this side". He ignores your cowardly comment and he looses the arrow. As he releases his two bent fingers from the bow he tells Zelnard to add a spell to the arrow. Zelnard was enthralled by the hunt and complied with a spell for water acceleration that I had only see done on rivers and waterfalls and you remember thinking at the time that that was a really great response to Dushino's request. As the arrow flies the young mage kept chanting the whispered spell for speed, power and flow and the arrow accelerated with the blue ice head now making a screaming noise as it travelled. The arrow flies straight and with a boom and visible circles of air bursting from its head the true arrow blasted into the ice door. At first I thought nothing had happened then as the sound from the arrow reached the blue ice door it seemed to melt in concentric circles from the point of the arrow outward. The arrow dropped to the ground and the entrance to the cave stood open to your unlikely band of champions. As your racing heartbeat slowed and you had some time to breathe you somehow know that this is the right way forward and you all needed to enter the cave.

In this episode Zelnard accelerated the arrow to the speed of sound. What evidence from the text supports that? Explain in Thy Quests below. 

Next: E8Q3 Combined Forces