Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One

by L. James Rice

  The man’s smile sent a quiver through Dareun’s bladder. He decided to keep his mouth shut.

  The inquisitor tapped the pen in its well and wrote until putting a period on the end with tip-bending emphasis. “Should do nicely, yessir.”

  Dareun crept to his knees, signed, though it was difficult to recognize his own scrawl. The other men signed as witnesses. Woxlin rolled the scroll and was about to say something before the inquisitor interrupted.

  “You will leave now.” The inquisitor pointed to the door and gave the high priest a shove.

  “I promised this man generosity.”

  “For killing your lord priest? Generosity? And why did he not write in his own hand? Why did he not utter his confession of guilt for you to transcribe? We must have a reason.” His hands reached behind his back and produced tongs and pliers suited for a forge, and a hooked knife, slammed them on the table. “Now, get out.”

  “Woxlin, don’t leave me with this man. I confessed of my own free will.”

  The high priest turned, closing the door behind him as he exited.

  The inquisitor bore a pursed-lip smile. “Disappointed? Nah, I thank you. Normally, I’d need listen through your screams, pause and ask questions, wait for your confession. This way, we skip them pleasantries, mmm.”

  A fist clubbed Dareun, re-breaking his cheek. He cried out as he collapsed into moldy, reeking straw, squirmed as the man’s heel drove his face into the floor, dislocating his jaw. Pliers seized his right thumb and wrenched it from its socket, and for the first time since a child, piss warmed the priest’s leg.

  32

  SNOW’S EYE

  The Snow Owl sits White in the green of ice-covered pine,

  Invisible day or night. It sees you, a mouse, a sparrow, a bunny.

  Your eyes see only the Shadow of that which feeds on your flesh

  and vomits your bones.

  You rest forever rotting at the base of some tree, the forest floor,

  having given sustenance to that which consumed you.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Six Days to the Eve of Snows

  When the Wolverine said two or three days, it wasn’t due to distance; it was because of the grueling terrain and snow. The drifts in several stretches reached the bellies of their horses and more than once they dismounted to ease the labor of their mounts. They found shelter in a cave the first night and braved a fire. Ivin damned near caught his feet on fire trying to keep them warm. The next day he might have preferred flaming boots. They climbed to higher trails where winds lashed the mountains with a ferocity which cleared much of their trail. They made better time, but at the price of putting ice in their veins.

  Trees were a blessing among the rocks, ice, and snow, both shelter from the wind and a supply of kindling as they moved deeper into the mountains. Near midday, Pikarn’s voice managed to carry over the winds.

  “Snow’s Eye!”

  Ivin raised his eyes, excited, but when he realized the Wolverine pointed up, his stomach sank to his aching toes. An ancient tower jutted from the mountain’s stone, overlooking a crumbled wall stretching the width of the pass. The towers would control passage through this region of the Estertok Mountains, if there were trade or enemies, but weather and climate made the work and expense of erecting these defenses appear foolish nowadays.

  Dark figures wavered in and out of existence in the snow-clouded winds ahead. Pikarn halted the party, and they spread out the best they could, weapons in hand. It was a perverse relief when they realized the creatures were Colok rather than Shadows. Whether friendly Colok or not, they were flesh and blood if a fight were at hand.

  Modan rode to the front, haled the group and when answered by a roar he called them together. Ivin’s first sight of the Colok made him grateful these were friendly. Most were nine feet tall and covered in piecemeal gear that ranged from padded leather to mail, and if their teeth and claws weren’t intimidating enough, their steel weapons were more than capable.

  Modan said, “Zjin leads them. Steady hands, don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

  A Colok came forward, his black and white fur tipped by ice. “Choerkin?”

  Ivin had never heard his name take so long to say, but it was there amid the guttural growl. “I’m Ivin Choerkin, third son of Kotin Choerkin.”

  The man-bear smiled with teeth that could shred flesh from bone. “Come. Shadows.” Zjin turned, swinging his glaive in an arc over his head, and the Colok warriors formed a loose circle around the men.

  Ivin rode beside Puxele. “Did he say Shadows?”

  She shrugged. “Believe so. I haven’t seen a thing.”

  They’d heard right. They weren’t more than a thousand strides before Shadows slithered from trees to rocks, rushing ahead, crisscrossing the trail, but they didn’t attack. What power did the Colok possess which kept the Shadows at bay? Ivin knew they had magics, but no more than the priests at the Crack of Burdenis. Physical strength didn’t make sense, he’d seen a man shaken in the air like a child’s toy by a Shadow.

  Zjin didn’t let them slow down, but he wasn’t frightened of the Shadows. His confidence bled into the men, and hence the horses. His mount didn’t care a whit about the stalking Shadows, but shied at the Colok. Why? The question had time to bounce ear to ear before the horses tensed and Zjin brought them to a halt.

  Colok eyes focused on a ridge descending from on high ahead so he stood in his saddle, squinting to make out figures in the snow. Their awkward loping gaits left no doubt, Shadow-Taken. “Looks like we’ve got a fight, after all.” He lifted his shield from its saddle hook and drew his sword.

  Modan said, “Worry first about the Taken. Keep your asses in the saddle at all cost and stay close to the Colok!”

  Zjin and his people didn’t pull weapons, they set their feet and crouched, the bare skin beneath their eyes flushing red with the blood rage. The horses stomped as the Taken approached. Shadows gathered, hovering above the ground, instead of hiding in the dark spaces of nature. Ivin counted fifteen.

  The Taken wore the tattered clothes of priests, miners, and trappers and they swerved in and out of each other as they ran. It’d be easier to count milling chickens in a coop. If not for the Colok, this would be the day Ivin died, but because of them he had hope.

  Rinold eased his mount beside Puxele, an axe and shield in his hands instead of his usual bow. “Breathe deep, Little Sister.”

  Puxele’s eyes betrayed the nerves her voice hid. “Breathe any way you can, just make sure you stay that way. Goes for you, too, Ratsmasher.”

  Ivin’s throat was too dry for words. He exhaled a cloud before his eyes and gazed upon the enemy. They came at a dead sprint without sign of fatigue. A Taken larger than the rest led the group, his face twisted and garish, his eyes blind white.

  Rinold spoke before Ivin could think it. “Ah, shits. Suvarn.”

  There wasn’t time for sadness, the creatures didn’t lose a single stride as they leaped, soaring through the air higher than mortals should. Zjin and his people snagged them by arms, feet, necks, whatever they got their hands on, their claws tearing flesh and dragging them to the ground with devastating force. But the Colok didn’t have enough hands to kill them all. Suvarn and others careened into the wardens, scratching, biting, clawing, clubbing anything alive.

  Horses and men screamed amid the thunderous howls of the Colok and the flailing Taken. Ivin’s mount wheeled, and he struggled to bring her under control. In a blur he saw the Wolverine cleave a woman from shoulder to pelvis, Suvarn grappling with Modan, and a couple horses collapsing as the Taken slipped beneath the reach of blades to assault the horses’ legs. He spurred his mount toward Modan but Fronk’s horse reared in front of him, the man clinging to saddle and reins as the horse bucked to rid itself of a Taken. Ivin’s sword lashed out, severing a Taken’s arm before a leaping miner struck his shield. Ivin twisted his arm, as if deflecting a weapon, but the creature clung to the targe’s steel rim, clawing and kicki
ng.

  He toppled and his horse staggered under the awkward weight, struggling to keep its feet in the ice and snow. The saddle twisted under the wrenching weight of the Taken fighting to pull Ivin to the ground, and he leaned hard to his right, yanking the Taken with him to make certain the saddle didn’t spin beneath the horse’s belly.

  Fingers scratched at his face over his shield and he struck pommel and fist to the thing’s skull. Dark blood spattered up his arm over and over until Puxele removed the Taken’s head for him. His horse spun, and he saw Modan trapped beneath his thrashing mount, disarmed, screaming in a rage as he held Suvarn from throttling him. Suvarn’s teeth gnashed close to Modan’s face but before Ivin could get close, a Colok grabbed Suvarn’s head in its massive hand and crushed his skull. In a flicker of time, the face of a man he’d ridden beside was pulverized into unrecognizable gore.

  A screeching woman without eyes landed on the Colok’s back, biting and punching, and the Colok stumbled and flailed from the wounded warden, dropping onto its back to crush the Taken.

  A Taken launched from beneath Puxele’s horse from the corner of his eye and he spun in the saddle without a flicker to spare. Luck and instinct drove his sword straight through the creature’s chest, and it slid dead from his blade. In the chaos of the melée he lost sight of the Wolverine, and the next glance he had of Modan, the man had struggled to his feet with a severe limp, and his bloodied horse had bolted, already thirty strides from the battle.

  Ivin spurred his horse but not quick enough. The Shadow came in a blur of darkness, striking its fist straight into the man’s chest. Modan’s head rocked backward, his mouth agape as Ivin’s sword passed through the Shadow’s neck. A mortal creature would have dropped in a splash of blood but the Shadow didn’t so much as acknowledge the blade passing through its substance.

  Ivin was powerless as Modan’s mouth hung open in silent horror like a fish speared and lifted from the water. Zjin came from behind the Shadow and swiped his massive paw at the thing’s head, and for an instant the Shadow’s darkness distorted. Strike after strike separated bits of Shadow, and a horrifying scream split the air, a shriek that left Ivin’s ears ringing. The Shadow released Modan from its grip and fled to the rocks and trees.

  Zjin saved Modan from a fall, lifting him by the back of his cloak and lay him across Ivin’s saddlehorn. With a grunt, the Colok dashed into the dwindling remains of combat. Three of the wardens and their horses were dead, and injuries could hide anywhere under the blood-soaked gear of survivors. Bodies of the Taken lay strewn in pieces across the battlefield, and the Colok dismembered them further, even after they were dead. The Shadows waited still and silent, emotionless.

  Puxele said, “What I understand, takes longer for the Shadows to return if they’re scattered.”

  Ivin could only nod, horrified. He turned to see Pikarn on his horse, the Old Man sat straight, unharmed, his axe and targe still in hand.

  “Modan?”

  Ivin sheathed his sword to better keep Modan from sliding off the horse’s withers. “He’s breathing, can’t say much else.”

  Rinold slumped in his saddle over the scattered remnants of Suvarn, tiny tendrils of Shadow already wriggling from the Taken’s flesh. “Goodbye, brother.”

  Puxele said, “We’ve got more brothers out there, I’m a-bettin’.”

  Ivin stared at the mountains beyond Shadows and carnage, savoring every breath. When he brought his eyes back down, Pikarn’s horse straddled a dead Taken.

  As Ivin kneed his horse to walk closer, he heard Pikarn. “Ungar.”

  “Your friend, from the Ihomjo mines?”

  The Wolverine wiped blood from his ax on his saddle blanket. “No friend, he was your Uncle Lovar’s man in them mines. We had an idea the holies were up to somethin’, but we always thought they were hiding a gold strike. Leaves no doubt in my mind them unholy whoresons dropped them mines to seal the entrance.”

  “Can you blame them?”

  “Yes, I can. And so do you.”

  The time for justifications was over. “I suppose I do.”

  “Mhhm.” Pikarn spit a mouth full of blood and rubbed his jaw. “Best we ride, no time for niceties with the dead.”

  With Shadows watching their every move, and tendrils already wriggling from the blood-drenched stone, Ivin couldn’t argue. But logic be damned, it hurt to leave them lying in this frozen waste.

  THE WARDENS and their Colok escort arrived at the wall with Ivin lost in dark thoughts. He stared at the snow-splotched stones, the rusted gate that once must have been magnificent, but his thoughts struggled with Modan and the blood on his gloves. They’d caught the man’s horse, and he managed to sit his saddle, but without Puxele and Rinold on either side, his wobbles would send him to the ground.

  Puxele said, “The dead are gone, but Modan is a tough, stubborn bastard, we’ll see him through this.”

  Ivin smiled the best he could. “Yeah. We will.” Worry about the living, not the dead. Why the hells is that so hard?

  He shook off a blood-soaked glove and rubbed his face, trying to bring some warmth back to his skin. The Shadows were farther away but still watching, defeated and victorious at the same time, and unconcerned either way. They watched, they waited, their time to kill would come again.

  Three Colok moved a boulder from a crumbling tower, revealing a door. Inside, the ground floor, basement, and second floor were still intact, and here they spent the night. Their kindling rushed into flame and the men huddled around the fire while the Colok sat clustered, leaning against each other in a circle, their thick fur and shared heat making them impervious to the cold.

  Modan had a place of honor by a fire while heaped with extra furs. He moaned throughout the night, a purple-black bruise marking his chest and back. They applied salves, but best they could tell it eased his pain not at all.

  The next morning their Shadow stalkers were nowhere to be seen. They rode up the side of the mountain until the frozen snow rose high enough they could walk their horses to the top of the wall. They dismounted for the uneven, oft-icy steps leading to Snow’s Eye. As the day wore on, dark thoughts of death and dying turned to fatigue. Burning muscles and sweat on an icy wall returned focus to staying alive.

  A wide platform of parapeted stone greeted them at the doors to Snow’s Eye Tower, along with a half dozen Colok guards. Bellows, roars, and hand gestures passed between their guides and these guards. The doors opened and they entered with horses in tow.

  Fires lit the great hall of the tower. Tapestries still hung from the walls, depicting scenes of glorious victories and gods, long forgotten.

  Fronk and Rislin carried Modan inside and lay him beside a fire. A priest came from a spiral stair and marched to the wounded man the moment he noticed Modan. “Where’s his wound?”

  Ivin answered. “His chest. A Shadow attack.”

  The priest squinted. “He survived a Shadow?” He parted the folds of Modan’s cloak and extra layers, revealing a swollen welt of black and purple. He sucked his breath. “Mmm, oh dear.”

  “Can you do anything?” Pikarn asked.

  “I don’t know.” The priest looked to Pikarn as he lay hands on the man’s wound. “You must be the Wolverine.”

  Ivin heard the nickname spoken aloud so rarely it surprised him, and more surprising perhaps, the old man didn’t correct him.

  “Do your best.” Pikarn went to tend to his horse.

  Ivin stared, hoping to see a miracle bring the swelling down, for the colors to fade to flesh tones. Nothing of the sort happened.

  “Healing is not my strength, and honestly, it’s difficult to tell what’s wrong with him. Are you the Choerkin?”

  “Yes. Ivin Choerkin.”

  “I’m Tokodin of Vohan. We’re fortunate they didn’t demand a particular man of the blood. We’ll talk more soon enough.” The priest closed his eyes, muttering a prayer, but nothing happened far as Ivin could tell, until…

  Modan’s body spasmed and
went stiff as a board, his eyes flying wide, and a scream rattled the walls of the hall. Tokodin’s whispers turned into fervent commands and Modan calmed.

  “Well, I can ease his pain, at least, and make certain he moves on to the Road of Living Stars with our blessings. Saving him, I don’t know.”

  Ivin towered over the shorter man as Tokodin stood, wanting nothing more than to slap his scarred face, slam him back to his knees, to demand more prayers and healing. Instead he nodded in acquiescence. “You’re the priest who speaks with the Colok?”

  “Yes, sort of. You can speak to them as well as I, the few who understand our tongue, but I’ve had more time with them to better understand their message. We should settle beside a fire with your commander and talk.”

  Ivin led them to an open fire, and called for Pikarn, before whispering, “And don’t call him Wolverine again.”

  Tokodin’s eyebrows shot up. “Ah! Yes! Right.”

  Pikarn arrived with a small cask under his arm and cracked the spigot on the ale.

  Tokodin smiled with a predator’s glint in his eye. “Istinjoln brew?”

  The Wolverine sat with a huff. “Woxlin said they had plenty of gruel, so I assumed they wouldn’t miss a sniff of ale, either.”

  “They may hate you in Istinjoln, but I love the both of you.” They saluted each other and drank. “Gods have mercy, that’s the best ale I’ve ever had.”

  Ivin agreed, although it might be the hellish situation making it taste so good. “Why are we here, Tokodin?”

  He wiped foam from his lip. “Grolkan is our host. This tribe is known as Broken Snow, or at least, best we got for a translation.”

  Pikarn let the words slide, but Ivin couldn’t. “We? Who’s we?”

  “Mecum and me. We can thank Mecum for the Colok being able to speak to us. They took him about a year ago and forced him to teach several of them our tongue.”

  Pikarn thudded the man’s mug with his own. “Straight to it, Priest.”

  “Yes, of course. Now I’m put to it, I’m not sure how to say this, rightly like. Without, well… anyhow. Grolkan is not happy with Istinjoln. He believes—going against all I told him!—that Istinjoln is to blame for the Shadows.”