Frostfell

by Mark Sehestedt

  Still no one spoke. Lendri sat sipping whatever was in the bowl, the belkagen stared into the fire, and Gyaidun sat feeding small strips of meat to his raven, which bobbed up and down on his lap.

  Damn it all. Amira decided to break the silence. “When you and Jalan, when you were attacked, how many were there?”

  Lendri took another sip from the bowl, then fixed Amira with his gaze. She shivered, again feeling as if she were a rabbit being sized up by a hungry predator. “The boy,” said Lendri, his voice low and hoarse. “Jalan. He told me …” He glanced at Gyaidun and the belkagen.

  “Told you what?” Amira asked.

  “I told him you were here, that I would bring him to you. ‘She is not my mother,’ he said.”

  Now all three men were staring at her, the belkagen looking surprised and the big man’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. Even the raven stopped eating and fixed its black eyes on her.

  Amira straightened, taking on the regal pose she’d been taught by her mother. “I have no husband,” she said. “I am sworn to Cormyr, my life one of service. Jalan is not a child of my body, true enough, but I raised him from a babe. I loved—” A sob threatened to break out. Amira felt tears flooding behind her eyes. She bit her lower lip, took a deep breath, and swiped her sleeve across her eyes. “I love him as my own.”

  There was a long silence, then the belkagen spoke. “Among the Vil Adanrath, one who cares for a child, who loves and feeds a child, who would die and kill for a child … this is the parent.”

  Amira nodded her thanks.

  “Then why would the boy say such a thing to Lendri?” asked Gyaidun.

  Amira shot him a venomous glance. “As you may have noticed”—she looked to Lendri—“Jalan is not Cormyrean.”

  Lendri said nothing. Didn’t even nod. Just kept those predator’s eyes fixed on her.

  “I am a war wizard,” Amira said. “I serve the crown of Cormyr and have done so for almost twenty years, since I was a girl. When the Horde invaded fifteen years ago, I fought for my people. I was at Phsant and Inkar, but mostly my company roamed, harrying the Horde’s flanks, killing scouts, and raiding supply lines. I killed. I watched friends die.” She closed her eyes, not to relive the memories, but to concentrate on pushing them away. “During one battle … gods, we’d been fighting since dawn with no rest. The sun was setting when my company came upon the remains of a Tuigan camp. The warriors fled, for we had won the day. They … they slaughtered captives and their own slaves—men, women, children—rather than have them freed. But in their haste to be gone from us, they missed one. A boy, not even walking yet. My captain found him crying over the body of his dead mother, covered in her blood.”

  Gyaidun spat a curse in a language she didn’t recognize, and when she looked up, she saw fury in the man’s eyes.

  “I was young,” she continued, “little more than a girl myself. My captain gave the child into my keeping. I balked at first.” Amira smiled. These were the few memories of the war that did not wake her in a cold sweat at the darkest time of the night. “But I grew fond of him. Fondness grew to love. Months later when a suitable mother was found, my captain relieved me of my duty to the child. I told him that if he took the child he’d experience the wrath of a war wizard firsthand. I named him Jalan, after my older brother who’d died in the war.”

  “Why does he not claim you as his mother?” Lendri asked. The hardness was gone from his eyes. He seemed genuinely confused.

  “Jalan is fourteen.” Amira shrugged and tried to put lightness in her voice, but even she heard the bitter tone. “And growing up in House Hiloar is not easy, even for one born into the House. For someone who looks … ‘eastern,’ especially after the bloodiest war in generations with the eastern hordes … well, many among my family were less than kind to Jalan.”

  “The boy does not have Tuigan features,” said Lendri. “He’s far too lean, and his eyes—”

  “Tell that to my mother,” said Amira. “After the invasion of the Horde, all easterners are savages to many of my people. I shielded him as much as I could, but my duties as a war wizard often sent me abroad, and I had no choice but to leave him with my family. Their treatment of him ranged from coldly polite to cruel. It was … not the best childhood for him.”

  “You allowed this?” asked Lendri.

  “What choice did I have?” A cold edge tinged Amira’s words.

  “Among our people—”

  The belkagen cut him off. “She is not of our people, Lendri. The bonds of duty to family and clan are not always easy to bear. This we know.”

  Lendri looked down. “The belkagen speaks wisely,” he said. “I ask your forgiveness, Lady.”

  Amira acknowledged his apology with a nod. She glanced at Gyaidun. Was he blushing?

  “To answer your question, Lendri, Jalan is on the verge of manhood. He often chafes at his mother’s influence—especially the past few years. I fear he blames me for many of the insults and cruelties he suffered from my family. Perhaps the blame is not altogether undeserved.”

  There was a long silence, then the belkagen spoke. “You are from Cormyr. A war wizard, you said. How did you come to be out here, a captive of slavers?”

  “Last year I was sent to High Horn. You’ve heard of it?”

  The men shook their heads.

  “It is a castle in the far west of Cormyr. In the mountains. A hard, cold place. Those sent there are either the most skilled warriors and wizards, sent there to make them the best of the best. Or they’re considered trouble and are sent there to be disciplined.”

  “And which are you?” asked Gyaidun. “The best or trouble?”

  “I’m both.”

  Gyaidun smirked and looked away, but the belkagen chuckled.

  “We’d been there a few tendays when I was sent out into the field. Some patrols had gone missing, and the knights looking for them wanted a wizard on hand in case they ran into more trouble than they could handle. We found the patrol in a valley, all dead, but only two died of obvious wounds. Scavengers had been at all of them, but using my arts I was able to determine how they died. It was early summer, still cool in the mountains but not cold, and yet—”

  “They were frozen,” said Gyaidun, his eyes bright and … hungry. “Like those slavers. Weren’t they?”

  Amira nodded. “We gathered the bodies and returned to High Horn. While we were gone, there was an attack. A dozen or so made it inside the castle. Several died. Good men and women. Friends. And the raiders took my son.”

  “A dozen or so?” said the belkagen. “How could so few breach a castle filled with your kingdom’s best and escape?”

  “Most of the raiders were pale-skinned men. Warriors. But one … it was … uh …”

  “A thing of darkness and cold malice,” said Lendri, his voice low. “Hooded in an ash-gray cloak.”

  “Yes,” said Amira. “How …?”

  “I saw him last night—or one very like him.”

  “Him?” asked the belkagen.

  “Him … it, I don’t know,” said Lendri. “His presence made my skin crawl and froze the air around me, but I heard him speak the words to his spell, and it was a man’s voice.” He took another sip from his bowl and swallowed hard. “But something was … wrong with the voice. Something twisted, as if the man were not used to speaking.”

  “He was alone?” asked Amira.

  “No,” said Lendri. “Others were with him. The whiteskins you spoke of. They are known here in the Wastes. And feared. Siksin Neneweth, my people name them.”

  Amira’s brow creased. “I don’t know the word.”

  The belkagen broke in. “Damarans call them Aikulen Jain, and the Tuigan Shen Ghel. Ice Walkers, Frost Folk it means.”

  “In the attack on High Horn, three of the raiders died. Two were Tuigan, but the other was one of these pale-skinned barbarians you speak of, these ‘Frost Folk.’ The senior war wizard at High Horn examined them, probing their minds. The Tuigan were just mercenar
ies, hired swords. Saelthos said he could read nothing from the other … only a sense of cold and frost. But he said he thought the man was Sossrim, not … Frost Folk.”

  The belkagen threw another log on the fire, sending sparks spiraling upward, where they were quickly snuffed out in the heavy fog. “Sossrim they once were,” he said. “But now they dwell farther north than Sossal, in the endless ice where months do not see the sun. You’ve heard of the Raumathari Empire in your Cormyr?”

  “Of course.”

  “In the years of war between Raumathar and Narfell, many from Sossal allied themselves with Raumathar against the demon hordes of Narfell. But in their desperation, some even among the Raumathari sought power where they should not. I have heard it told that in those ancient days some of the Sossrim swore loyalty to Raumathari wizards who sought power with demons, devils, and other foul beings from the outer darkness. Their own folk shunned them, and so they have lived in the far north, performing their vile rites. In the darkest winters, sometimes they raid far south, taking plunder and captives. But I have never heard of them striking all the way into Cormyr. So far … never have I heard of such a thing. And Jalan was all they took?”

  “Yes. They slaughtered any who stood in their way, and the … uh, the dark one called down a killing frost, but they took no plunder. Only my son.”

  “Why?” asked the belkagen. “Why travel more than a thousand miles through foreign lands for one boy?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. I only want my son back.”

  “Have you ever noticed anything special about the boy?”

  “You’re asking a mother?”

  The belkagen smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “You study the arcane. You know what I mean.”

  “Dreams.”

  Both the belkagen and Lendri seemed to tense at this. “Dreams…?” asked the belkagen.

  “Jalan was always a vivid dreamer, even as a small child. I can only remember images and words from dreams, but Jalan … he could recall sounds, shapes, even smells and touch in solid detail. And he said he often dreamed of a shining song.”

  “A shining song?”

  Amira shrugged. “Only a dream. I never thought about it much.”

  The belkagen and Lendri shared a look. “The elves do not sleep like other folk of the world. We rest and”—he seemed to be searching for the word—“walk the dreamroad. Dreams can be very powerful and hold great meaning.”

  “I sometimes dream I can fly,” said Amira. “It doesn’t make me a bird.”

  “What did you do?” Lendri broke in.

  “About birds?”

  “About your son. When you returned to the High Horn and found him gone.”

  “In Cormyr,” said Amira, “the war with the Horde is still fresh in the minds of many, especially among the knights and wizards. I don’t know any who didn’t lose someone. When it was discovered that Tuigan and other easterners had penetrated one of our westernmost outposts … well, it was treated with extreme concern.

  “Three expeditions were mounted to pursue the raiders, each led by a war wizard. Since the murderers had my son—and since my family has contacts in Nathoud—I volunteered to lead one team. Two of us caught up with them about fifty miles east of the Sunrise Mountains. We caught them late in the day. By surprise. But still they fought like cornered dogs—except for the cloaked one, who cowered and hid and left the fighting to his men and other hired blades. They fled before us.

  “But when the sun went down, the … dark thing, he … uh, seemed to ‘wake up’ and fill with terrible strength. He killed over half our force.” Amira shivered at the memory and pulled her cloak around her. Full night had fallen, and their campfire did little to penetrate the thick darkness. “It was as if he called down the heart of winter itself. Strong men died in their tracks. All but a few of us were killed, but we took many enemy lives as well. A few of us managed to get away with Jalan and flee. We ran through the night. More died. In the end, it was only the sunrise that saved us. Exhausted as we were, we pushed on.”

  “You said three teams were sent out,” said Lendri. “Your team met with one. What of the other?”

  “What few of us survived met them in Almorel. We’d hoped to find a portal thereabouts and make it as far west as we could. We watched for the pale barbarians and the dark thing, but we were foolish.” Amira stared into the fire, and her voice hardened. “We underestimated our foe. Whoever is leading them put the word out to every thug and bandit in the Wastes. That loud-mouthed bastard Walloch and a bunch of his men hit us leaving Almorel. Killed the other war wizard, took my staff and book, and when I’d used my last spell … well, you figure out the rest. That’s where you three enter the story.”

  “Will more of your war wizards come to help?” asked the belkagen.

  Amira looked around and saw a waterskin lying on the ground. She reached for it and took a long swallow before replying. “I wouldn’t hope for it.”

  “Why? Does your order forsake its own so easily?”

  “They may not know what happened yet.” She avoided the belkagen’s gaze. “May not know for days. Tendays even. And even if they do, they have no idea where I am. Our last known location was Almorel. They’ll start searching there, but it could take them days to find me. And if I’m on the move every day, it could take tendays before they catch up.”

  “On the move?”

  Amira held the belkagen’s gaze. “I’m going for my son. You said that if I waited, you could help. Give me some hope, some chance of success. But that raises another question I haven’t been able to answer: Why did you help me in the first place? Outside Almorel, when Walloch’s force hit us, there were others on the road. Lots of others. Travelers, merchants, Tuigan warriors … those who didn’t flee just watched that slaver and his men slaughter us. What makes you three so different?”

  Lendri ignored the question. He simply sat drinking from the wooden bowl and staring off into the distance. The belkagen held her gaze for a long moment, then looked to Gyaidun.

  The big man shooed the raven off his lap—the bird gave an angry caw until it saw the remains of the belkagen’s dinner lying not far from the fire and went after it—then shrugged and said, “I was born a slave. Never much cared for slavers since. I’ve made it a point to make their lives difficult whenever I can.”

  “That’s it?”

  “We helped,” said Gyaidun. “Why suspect our reasons?”

  “I’m a stranger to these lands. Trusting doesn’t come easy for me.”

  “If we wanted you dead, we could’ve killed you or left you to die. If we have not earned your trust by now … why chase the wind?”

  “Maybe it isn’t me dead you want.”

  Gyaidun snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself, woman.”

  Amira blushed. “That wasn’t what I meant. How do I know you aren’t slavers yourself? Maybe you just saved me to collect the price instead of Walloch.”

  “I … we never asked for your trust,” said Gyaidun. “Not asking now. No one’s keeping you here.”

  Amira’s eyes widened, and she looked to the belkagen. “You convinced me to stay. I wanted to leave long ago. It was you who said I should stay, that you’d help—”

  “Lendri and I are going after your son,” said Gyaidun. “But no one invited you. Best that you stay here with the belkagen.”

  “Curse my House if I will, you—”

  “I care nothing for you or your House.”

  Amira stood, her face a mask of fury. “You stupid, arrogant—”

  “Peace!” said the belkagen, and he stepped between them. “Lady, please sit.”

  “I’ve sat enough. Damn you, you convinced me to lie about all day. Jalan’s getting farther each moment!”

  “Enough!” said the belkagen. The predator’s gaze had returned to his eyes, and his nostrils flared in anger. His jaw clenched, and he stood with all the poised authority of a king, his staff held high. “You will sit and hear me or I will tie you
down—for your sake and the sake of your son.”

  Amira sat, her mouth pressed in a flat line. Gyaidun was staring at her, not smiling but watching her.

  “And you—” The belkagen turned to Gyaidun. “You will sit silent and ponder the courtesy due an honored guest. Disrespect the lady again, and I’ll thump you into the lake.”

  The big man returned the belkagen’s glare. “The … ‘lady’ speaks much of what I’m thinking, Belkagen. The trail goes cold. I could’ve put leagues behind me before sunset.”

  The belkagen’s staff thumped to the ground, and he leaned heavily on it a moment before sitting. “You would leave your rathla behind?” he asked, but Amira could hear the weakness in the elf’s argument.

  “Once Lendri was healed, he could have caught me. Easily.” Gyaidun spoke carefully, with respect, but Amira could hear that it was silk over a blade. Something was going on here. “But you persuaded me to stay,” he continued. “Just as you did the lady. Why?”

  The belkagen shot them each another look. “Think. Both of you. Lendri says that this dark one is traveling with the ones who have Amira’s son. He seems to weaken during the day. Most likely Jalan’s captors rest during the day and travel at night. Even if this dark thing does not need sleep, the Siksin Neneweth do. Most likely they have slept all day today. We—and I do mean we—will certainly do all we can to save the boy. But we cannot rush after them like a pack on a bloodscent.” He looked at Amira. “You said that the first time you caught them, that … thing killed most of your force by himself. What can four expect to do?”

  “We didn’t know what we were facing the first time. I do now.”

  “Do you? What is this ‘dark one,’ then?”

  Amira locked eyes with the belkagen, but it was she who dropped her gaze first.

  “I thought as much,” said the belkagen. “Then hear me. My people have walked these lands for many hundreds of years, and I myself walked here long before your grandfather was born. Not all lore is kept in books inside your stone forts, and the tales of these lands reach far back to the days of Raumathar and farther back still. You have heard of Iket Sotha? ‘Winter’s Fort’ in your tongue, I think.”