Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  Slumped over the neck of the horse trudging along beneath him through the snow, Raz’s amber eyes gazed unfocused upon the road ahead. Though some sane part of his conscience knew well that there was nothing there, the rest had long since betrayed him to the fever. At first they had been nothing but shapes, dark splotches against the snow. Over the course of the last day or so, however, the shadows had taken form, and now Raz watched as the distinct pair gallivanted around him and his horse. The siblings’ laughter seemed to echo through the hollows of his mind as he watched them duck and dodge between the trees, crossing back and forth before him, chasing one another through the snow. They seemed happy, now, free of the burdens that had weighed on them in life. Out here, in the woods beyond the binding walls of Azbar, they had finally shed all worries and cares, and for the first time Raz got to see the pair in truth for the children they were.

  It was an odd comfort, a sense of pseudo-tranquility, witnessing the dead in the peace that follows life.

  One of the shades strayed closer, and as she grew more distinct in proximity Raz extended out a shaking, tentative hand. The girl stood on tiptoes in the snow to reach up for his clawed fingers. Raz hoped, for what felt the hundredth time that day, that when they met he would feel the pressure of her skin through the gauntlet, the softness of a child’s touch against the leather.

  When her fingers found his, though, they passed through steel and flesh like smoke.

  “Lueski…” Raz mumbled dully, turning as the horse moved on so as to watch the smiling girl, her blue eyes bright behind a loose curtain of black hair. “Lueski… I’m so sorry.”

  The shade didn’t respond, though. She only giggled, then skipped up ahead to rejoin her brother.

  The rest of the day kept on like this, with Raz feeling himself falling further and further into the fever. By nightfall he had begun seeing other things among the woods, some as pleasant as the vision of the Koyt children, some far less so. At times the snow would melt abruptly around him to reveal the dense greenery of the forest that hid beneath winter’s coat, reminding him briefly of the utter wonder he had felt when he’d first reached the North after his flight from the fringe cities far to the south. At other times his fitful dozing would be disturbed by ghastly sights, ghosts of the dead that haunted him from beneath the trees, their bodies mangled, just as he’d left them. Krom Ayzenbas’ tattooed chest was ripped open so that his ribs looked to form the petals of some grisly flower. Ergoin Sass did nothing to replace the entrails spilling out upon the ground about his feet, fallen and hanging from the great gash across his midriff. The eight final champions of the Arena took turns in their appearances, their bodies painted with blood and gore, all sporting the ugly wounds that had claimed their lives.

  The final ghost to appear in the last of the Sun’s dying light was that of Quin Tern himself, his face and hands blackened by frostbite, gleaming eyes following Raz cruelly from the shadows as the horse kept on.

  Night came, and for the first time in days the snows finally abated. Storm clouds gave way to a shockingly clear sky, and if Raz had been of a mind to look up he might have been reminded of evenings spent as a child, sitting atop the roof of his parents’ wagon, attempting to memorize the intricate constellations that patterned Her Stars. As it was, though, all Raz knew was that, as the Moon rose, the grisly visions faded, shying away from Her gaze. Only Lueski and Arrun were left to keep his company, ambling along on either side of his horse. Several times he fell into bouts of slumber in the saddle, only to be jolted into wakefulness as the animal snorted or shifted abruptly beneath him. He wanted to stop, wanted to make camp and light himself the largest fire the world would ever see. He tried to convince himself several times that it was the prudent move, the right choice to make. Maybe warmth and rest were what he needed to rid himself of this sickness. Maybe the flames would burn the malady right out of his chest.

  But no. In the end, he knew better. He was starting to taste the infection on his breath, now, a sort of rotten, sickly sweet flavor with every exhale. It was in his lungs, he knew, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Nothing, that is, except forge forward, and pray in irony to the Twins that he would come across the faithful of another god before it was too late.

  And so Raz kept ahorse, ignoring the ache of his back and the pain of his legs for doing so. He was mercifully spared the chafing suffered by man, the saddle finding little to rub away against the slick scales of his dark skin, but it was a silver lining he found only in passing, his mind intent on the visions, the fever, and a single burning recollection.

  The northbound road for Ystréd, he quoted to himself as the morning Sun blazed orange and pink over the trees to his right. I’ve only to stay on the northbound road for Ystréd.

  The trouble lay in that Raz had no good sense of where, exactly, Ystréd was, much less how far he had to continue his trek through the snow to reach it. It was only one among many questions he was kicking himself for not discovering an answer for sooner, at the very least before he made this hasty flight northward once more.

  Again, though, there was nothing to be done about it. Raz had long since given up on the hope of making out markers along the road. Anything shorter than a signpost was well buried beneath the snow by now. He held out on the chance that he might cross paths with a traveler willing to lend a hand—or at least assure him he was on the right path—but Raz had his doubts anyone but he could be foolish enough to brave the wrath of the freeze come in full.

  All that was left to him was to keep going, and hope by the Sun and Moon and all Her Stars that he didn’t come across a fork in the road.

  With the morning light, the specters returned, but Raz was too worn and weak to be bothered by their grim spectacle today. He barely noticed the dead as his horse ambled on, just as he barely noticed the animal itself meander back and forth casually across the road, wandering around in search of what grass it could scrounge beneath the snow.

  Noon came and went, the clear sky refusing to betray the world once more to the grey clouds of winter just yet. Soon after—at least to Raz’s mind—the Sun had begun to dip downward, and the somber yellows and reds of dusk gave way minute by minute to the night.

  It was as the last vestiges of this sunset faded, bowing graciously to the overwhelming darkness, that Raz heard the unmistakable sounds of man.

  At first he didn’t allow himself to hope, chalking the noise up to nothing more than an added element of his hallucinations. Head bowed beneath his hood and eyes only half open, he kept on, lost to the sway of the horse. As the sounds grew louder though, Raz forced himself to look up, gritting sharp teeth at the burning ache that ripped through his back at the motion.

  It was only when he made out the glow of flames, firelight dancing through the pines a little ways off the road to his right, that Raz realized what he was seeing.

  For the first time in days, a little of his strength returned to him. Holding tight to Ahna with one hand, the dviassegai still balanced across his thighs, he pulled his horse’s reins around with the other to line the mount up with the light, kicking it into a trot through the snow. As the horse stepped off the clearer path into the woods, the dull thump of hooves through fresh snow was replaced by the crunch of iron shoes breaking through packed ice and frozen underbrush. As they got closer Raz could make out voices, the distinct sound of at least four or five men. By the time he pulled his horse into the firelight, laughter and the vulgar lyrics of some raunchy evening ballad were clear over the strumming of a lyre in minimally skilled hands.

  All of it stopped, though, as Raz and his horse lumbered to a halt among the festivities.

  It was a small camp, by any standard. Five men sat around a hearty fire in a space between the trees, the ground around them roughly cleared. Back behind them, a little deeper into the woods, Raz saw the silhouettes of horses, their forms draped with thick blankets to ward off the cold of the night. They were moving around a small, open-air cart, laden
with what looked to be packs, food, and spare bedrolls.

  Raz would have taken the group for travelling merchants, perhaps intent on making Azbar and its newly booming economy while they still could, except that each of the men had a sword either looped around their waist or sitting within easy reach.

  There was a pause as the five men stared in complete shock up at Raz. Whatever they’d had planned for the evening, it certainly did not seem to have involved a half-dead, half-frozen atherian ambling suddenly into their midst. Raz did his best to meet their gazes, noting through his fevered haze the scars many sported across weathered faces, as well as the thick leather and iron armor they wore even as they settled in for the evening. Had he been in his right mind, he might also have noted the tension that fell slowly upon the group, and the inching of hands towards hilts.

  “Ystréd,” Raz croaked, wincing at the harshness of his voice and the jolt of pain that stabbed at his throat and lungs as he spoke. “Take me—Take me to Ystréd.”

  Not one of the men did more than blink. A few eyes darted around him, as though expecting further company to follow Raz through the dark, but as a whole they said nothing.

  “You will be compensated,” Raz wheezed. “My friends… My friends will see to it.”

  Still nothing.

  At last, something like apprehension tugged its way to the forefront of Raz’s thoughts, instinct managing a small cry of warning through the fog of sickness.

  Raz, already bordering on delirium, had no trouble brushing the suspicion aside.

  “Please.” His voice sounded like cracking branches, rough and sharp from disuse. “Ystréd. Take me to Yst—”

  WHAM.

  Something hard and heavy collided with the back of Raz’s head through his hood, and stars exploded across his vision. At once what little strength had been left in his limbs deserted him, and he crumpled, sliding sideways off the saddle. He hit the ground with a clattering crunch of flesh and steel against frozen earth, Ahna’s heavy haft falling atop him. His horse, unsure of what had happened to its rider, screamed and reared, coming down so close to his head Raz felt the thump of hooves against ground on his face.

  “Dammit it all, Kisser!” a man’s rough voice roared, and a form leapt up from the fire to dart across Raz’s darkening vision. “Get the horse away from ‘im! Here!” The man grabbed the reins of Raz’s mount and shushed the animal, trying to calm it as it reared again. “Shhh. Shhhh, boy! It’s all right. Calm, boy. Caaaalm.”

  The horse’s panic subsided slowly, and eventually it allowed itself to be led away, apparently in the direction of the others and the cart. At the same time, Raz felt a boot come down on his shoulder and shove him over.

  A face appeared, and it took a moment for Raz to realize that this one was younger and less harsh than the five he’d seen before. The boy had curly brown hair set over hazel eyes, and thick scruff of the same color that lent itself well to his looks.

  “Lifegiver’s saggy tits,” he hissed, looking down on Raz. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  Another face appeared, then another. Before long five heads were hovering, blurry and spinning, above Raz. He lay beneath them, shivering and weak, barely aware of the words exchanged and the happenings around him.

  “S’not possible…” one voice said.

  “It is!” another nearly squealed in excitement. “It’s him! It’s him!”

  “What in the blazes is the lizard doing all the way out here?” a third demanded.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” the young one called Kisser appeared to reply. “Don’t look like much, though, do he?”

  “An’ small wonder.”

  This last voice was the first Raz had heard, the one who had yelled to have Kisser get the horse away from him. As he watched, the five heads Raz could see shifted to make room for a sixth, and the way they fell silent was enough to tell him, even in his delusionary state, that this was the one in charge.

  “See the blood?” the man asked, pointing a fuzzy hand at the left side of Raz’s chest. “See the shivering? This one’s got one foot up Laor’s arse. Strip him of his weapons and tie him up, then get him closer to the fire before he dies of the cold.”

  “Eh?” Kisser looked up in surprise. “We’re not gonna kill him?”

  “Kill him? And give his head enough time to rot ‘afore we can get it south? How much do you think an empty atherian skull will be worth to the Mahsadën? Don’t be an idiot. Now get to it!”

  At once the other five jumped to follow the orders, bending down around Raz. When he felt rough hands move across his body and armor, he realized he was losing the fight to keep his eyes open. As he finally fell into the black, giving in to the fever and the blow to the head, the last thing he saw was a single face, clear and terrifying in a way none of the others had been, staring down at him.

  Quin Tern’s hungry leer was filled with unbridled glee, framed grimly against the frostbitten flesh of his dead features.

  II

  “It is said that, in his later years, the Lifetaker came to develop a deep regret for the blood spilled by his hands. I am relieved to discover this, for I admit to great consternation upon the discovery that my position among the Laorin was once filled by what some history books have dubbed ‘the single greatest killer to have walked tall in the Common Age.’ It appears, however, that my concerns were premature. Though his time as High Priest was short, the impacts of his life cannot be denied, for they ripple into the peace we witness even today, some four hundred years after his time.”

  —KALUN VOS, HIGH PRIEST OF CYURGI’ DI, C.390 A.S

  THERE WAS a brief knock on the room door, and Talo Brahnt was plucked from his thoughts as he jumped at the sound. He sat at a small, lopsided escritoire set up in front of the diamond-paned window of his and Carro’s small room. Before him, pinned flat by several unlit candles and his inkwell, a blank piece of parchment lay waiting for the stroke of the quill he had ready in his right hand. He’d been intent on penning up a letter to Kal Yu’ri, High Priest of the small Laorin temple in Azbar, hoping to get news of how Raz i’Syul Arro was faring in their absence. Talo was quite sure that—though the atherian may not have said so outright—he had been sorry to see the Priests leave, their attentions drawn away from the plight of the Arena by more pressing matters closer to home. It was this thought that had carried Talo away, dragging him into reminiscence of how he’d asked Arro to join him and Carro on their trek northward, and how the man had—with surprising conviction—refused.

  And so Talo found himself staring off into a clear morning sky, a rare sight so many weeks into the freeze, with a quill suspended uselessly over still blank parchment.

  Suspended, that is, until he had flinched and flung dark ink everywhere.

  “Damn!” Talo cursed, leaping up from his chair and dropping the quill onto the desk, plucking at the sleeve of his white High Priest’s robe, now blotched with mismatched black spots. As he did so, the door behind him creaked open slowly, and Carro al’Dor poked his head into the room.

  “Road workers say they should have the way north clear by the end of the day. You’re sure you want to wait and—What did you do to those robes?”

  Talo quailed as the big man stormed into the room. Though Carro was well known as a wise and gentle man at heart, he had all the features and bearing of the Sigûrth father who had raped his mother and abandoned her with an unwanted child. He was as tall as Talo—his head barely fitting an inch or so below the frame of the door—but whereas Talo kept his peppered beard cropped and his straight silver-brown hair in a long tail down his back, Carro had taken on some of the cultural traditions of his ancestral people. His blond beard was bushy and braided, tied off with bands of metal and carved wood that had grown in multitude as the years passed. Similar rings were knotted into the dreads and braids of his thick, wild hair. Despite the white robes of his faith, any who did not know Carro al’Dor well always had a hard time believing he was a Priest of the Lifegiv
er, much less a skilled healer and among the best scribes the Laorin had to offer the world.

  At that moment, Talo couldn’t blame them. All of the fierceness of his clan heritage was painted clear in Carro’s blue eyes as he stalked forward, glaring at the splotches along the stained sleeve.

  “How is it,” he growled, grabbing Talo’s arm to pull the ink spots up to his nose and exam them, “that you manage to do this not half a day after I wash our clothes!”

  “Don’t blame me!” Talo exclaimed, trying to tug himself free. “Next time don’t come barging into a room when a man has finally found some peace and quiet for a change!”

  “Some day we are going to have a discussion regarding the definition of ‘barging,’ handsome,” Carro retorted with a snort, dabbing a finger on the largest of the blotches and rubbing the wet ink between thumb and forefinger. “Hmm, still damp. Shouldn’t be too much trouble…”

  Moving his hand so that his palm hovered about half an inch over Talo’s sleeve, Carro ran it along the length of the High Priest’s arm. There was a dim glow of white light, and Carro pulled away to reveal nothing but faint discolorations where moments before had been a pattern of black splots.

  “Better, but I’ll have to work out the rest once we get home,” Carro mumbled, examining his work. Then he looked up at Talo again. “Now, did you hear what I said?”

  “Roads will be clear by afternoon,” Talo repeated with a nod, pulling at his sleeve to examine it himself. “Good. We can leave then. This damn storm didn’t seem ready to ever give up. Let’s hope we don’t get caught in anything like that for the rest of our trip.”

  “Let’s hope,” Carro said with a nod, crossing his arms. “But why wait for the afternoon? If we leave now we’ll have a full day of riding before we lose any light, instead of just a few hours. I could have the stable boy—”