Frostfell

by Mark Sehestedt

  “Gone from the hands of one master to another, I killed the man guarding me and fled. I grew up among various tribes, clans, and nomads. I was fifteen or so when the bandits I ran with were attacked by the Vil Adanrath. They spared me. Why, I don’t know, but they did. I spent many days as their captive. Eventually, Haerul, their omah nin—like a chief or a king—set me free, but I followed them, mile upon mile, day after day.” Gyaidun shrugged. “It is a long tale, but I came to live among them. Lendri was Haerul’s son. In many hunts, he saved my life, and I saved his. We …”

  They walked on, the horses plodding behind them. Amira was beginning to fear that Gyaidun had decided against sharing any more with her when he finally spoke up again.

  “They named me athkaraye—‘elf-friend’ in your tongue, maybe—and I gained many blessings, both of spirit and body, with the honor, but I will never truly be Vil Adanrath. They are an ancient folk, not of this world. But … Lendri and I, we swore our lives to one another. Life for life. Death to death. Blood brothers. Rathla.”

  “Blood brothers? Because you cut hands? Mingle your blood?”

  “Brothers of the same womb are called milk brothers,” said Gyaidun, “because they share the same mother’s milk. It is a sacred bond, but only so far. The gods choose your family. Rathla choose each other. The pact is sworn before the gods as we mingle our blood. He who breaks the covenant of milk is cast out from the clan.” Gyaidun took his free hand and traced the scars along his cheeks. “The scars of an exile, barred from the pack. But he who breaks the covenant of blood is lower than a dog. His own clan and family will hunt him down and scatter his body to the four winds.”

  “You broke the … the covenant of milk? That’s why you and Lendri were exiled?”

  “Do all ladies of your land ask so many questions?”

  “No.”

  Amira looked at him. His eyes still scanned their surroundings. There had been no malice in his voice. The ways of these easterners were strange to her, and after so long being among them—years fighting in the war and days that turned into tendays searching for her son in these lands—she had learned much, but she’d never been comfortable with their ways. Until now. Though the big man’s face was still a mask of serene seriousness, she saw it for just that: a mask. Something in his tone said that he was at ease with her. One desperate parent with another, willing to kill and die for a child. One warrior to another. For the first time since she’d been taken in by this big man and his rathla and thrust in the midst of their strange ways, she felt oddly … at ease.

  “I’ve never been quite … at home among my people,” said Amira. “Questioning my parents, my family, my ‘betters’ among the aristocracy, my arcane masters. I …” She stopped, searching for the proper words. None came.

  “Kweshta,” said Gyaidun.

  “What?”

  “Kweshta. It is a word of the Vil Adanrath. There is no good word in the Common tongue. It means a special one. One who does not quite … ‘fit in.’ But in a good way. A special one. Dear. Unique. You stand out among your people, part of them still, but set apart.” Gyaidun shrugged, and Amira thought she saw the hint of a blush in his cheeks. “Kweshta.”

  Amira felt her own cheeks growing hot. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Question?”

  “Why were you and Lendri …?”

  “Exiled?”

  “Yes.”

  “Enough talk for now,” said Gyaidun, and his countenance had gone hard and implacable. His eyes continued to search their surroundings.

  “I did not mean to pry,” said Amira. “I—”

  “Enough,” said Gyaidun. “All you do is pry. No more. Time to walk.” He quickened his pace, dragging the plodding horses behind him and putting distance between him and Amira.

  Amira could have easily kept up with him. The stubborn side of her nature—the dominant side of her nature—would have and almost did. But this once she let it go.

  They walked through most of the morning. Though the Mother’s Bed loomed large on the horizon, dozens of small gullies, dry washes, and little valleys broke the land between them and the hill. It was near midday before they came to the first rise in land that marked the foot of Akhrasut Neth.

  Gyaidun stopped to rest the horses, and Amira turned and looked off southward. By Gyaidun’s estimate they had traveled more than a hundred miles with Amira’s spell. If Jalan and his captors were indeed on winter wolves—and Amira had little doubt, given the tracking skills she’d seen Gyaidun display the past two days—their quarry could easily cross that distance in two nights.

  Amira turned to Gyaidun and said, “If we linger here waiting for Lendri and the belkagen, Jalan’s captors will be miles ahead of us.”

  Gyaidun nodded. “I’ve considered that. If they’re headed for Winterkeep as you say, their path is some miles north of us. We came almost due east. If they continue in the direction their tracks were headed, they’re headed northeast—straight to Iket Sotha if”—slight hesitation—“the belkagen was right. If you can work your magic again … you can, can’t you?”

  “With rest and study, yes.”

  “We can get ahead of them. If Lendri can gather the Vil Adanrath, we’ll spread out. The pack will find them.”

  “If Lendri or the belkagen can find them,” said Amira. “You said yourself that you two are exiles.”

  “Haerul will come.”

  “Haerul?”

  “My wife’s father.”

  “The one who cast you and Lendri out?” Amira smirked, but Gyaidun was looking off southward and didn’t see it.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Amira snorted. “What makes you so sure?”

  “If there is even a whisper of hope of finding his grandson, he’ll tear a hole to the Nine Hells—and gods have mercy on any who stand in his way.”

  “We’re after Jalan, Gyaidun. Jalan. If we learn something of your son, I swear on my family I’ll help you if you help me save Jalan. But right now we know Jalan is alive. That is certain. Your son is just a … a hope.”

  Gyaidun gave her a dark look, then turned his back and began leading the horses up the hill.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Endless Wastes

  Dark and cold. Cold and dark. They had filled Jalan since waking. Through the dried flesh and stale drink that served as his evening breakfast, through the binding of his wrists, the forced march, the wind in his face, the stench of wolf … through it all had been dark and cold. Even the distant stars seemed only points of ice in darkness.

  But that cold darkness cracked. A fire in the valley below, a distant promise of warmth, broke through the night. From it Jalan could hear the last of the screams. After running half the night, Jalan’s captors had come across a band of nomads. They’d fallen on them like an autumn gale, tooth and claw ripping into their sentries, sword and spear stabbing and cutting even as the nomads had struggled out of their blankets and yurts.

  Jalan sat on the rise above the carnage. His guard had dismounted from the huge white wolf and pulled him down after. Better that the wolf not be encumbered as it slaughtered. Tired and terrified as he was, Jalan had not been able to look away. He guessed it was well past midnight but a while still till dawn, the moon long since set, and he could see little but the occasional shadow passing in front of the distant fire. But he could hear them. Hear the nomads screaming—first in warning, then in defiance, then in despair. They did not cry for mercy. Just as well, Jalan thought. The wolves and their riders had none.

  Jalan shivered. Even with their cloaked leader down there amid the carnage, still his unearthly cold lingered. Heat, warmth, light … Jalan remembered them only as abstracts. Concepts. He knew they existed but could not remember their feeling. Despite the screams and the blood he knew soaked the grass, the deepest part of him longed for the fire glowing in the valley below.

  A scream—a woman’s, Jalan thought—rose high, then was cut off, almost instantly, and just behind
the sighing of the wind over the grass Jalan thought he half-heard and half-felt the sound of jaws shredding and bone crunching. Then the wolves below set to howling, filling the night with their song.

  Jalan’s guard grabbed his bound wrists, lifted him to his feet, and dragged him down the slope. Jalan’s feet moved of their own accord. His body longed for the warmth of the fire, but his mind fled screaming at being pulled nearer to the one in the ash-gray cloak that he knew walked the shadows below.

  They entered the camp, passing groups of wolves crouched over the remains of their prey. The guard pulled Jalan to the fire, took the bonds from his wrists, and dropped him to the ground.

  The fire burned low, but the light and warmth pulsing from it like lifeblood pulled Jalan in. One of the huge wolves stood just inside the circle of light cast by the fire. It crouched over what had once been a Tuigan nomad but was now no more than an unmoving mass of cooling blood and gore that steamed in the chill night air. The wolf lifted its snout from its feast and looked at Jalan, its muzzle a contrast of white fur and wet darkness that Jalan knew was blood. Light, hungry and hot, reflected in its eyes, then it lowered its muzzle to its meal.

  Jalan looked down, forcing his eyes away from the gruesome sight, and fell to his knees beside the fire. He could still hear the chomping and tearing of the wolf’s feast, and he covered his ears to try to block the sound.

  Beneath his knees, Jalan could feel the ground trembling with the approach of heavy footsteps. His eyes were clenched shut, but he knew whose footsteps they were.

  A hand winter-cold grabbed his wrist and pulled it away from his ear. “This disturbs you?” said a voice. The dark one in the ash-gray cloak, Jalan knew. “Our mounts must eat. The miles fill them with great hunger. Be grateful we found these poor wretches. Our wolves were beginning to look to you with ravenous eyes. Now, they will not. At least for a few days. And you, you have fire. Warmth. For now.”

  The hand released him, and Jalan felt the thing walk away a few steps. He dared to open his eyes. The leader stood at the edge of the firelight next to one of his pale-skinned minions, speaking to him in a language Jalan could not understand.

  The guard disappeared behind one of the nomad tents then returned a moment later, carrying a leather satchel. He reached into it, then handed Jalan a few strips of dried meat.

  Jalan’s stomach gave a wet tumble. With the carnage and horror surrounding him, he knew his stomach would not hold any food.

  “Not hungry?” said the leader. “Good. Good. Power there is in fasting, in denying the flesh its cravings, the blood its warmth. To your purest essence it brings you. Good.”

  The thing in the cloak came back and crouched beside Jalan. He leaned in close. Jalan flinched but could back away no farther without going into the fire. He looked into the deep folds of the hood but could see only a sharp chin, likely very pale but now a bright orange as it caught the light from the flames. The leader leaned in close, so close that Jalan could feel the cold bleeding off his skin like the bite off ice. The leader opened his mouth wide and breathed in deeply.

  “Yesss,” he said. “Oh, yes. Fear. I can taste it. Smell it. It comes off you like mist off the water. Terror burns your blood and smokes out of your very pores. Soon, very soon, you will know no fear, no terror, no nothing. No fire in your blood.”

  Quick as an adder, the leader’s pale hand shot out and grasped Jalan’s wrist.

  Jalan screamed and struck at the hand, but it was like striking stone, cold and immovable. The leader pulled Jalan’s arm to him, in no hurry, moving with slow and unstoppable strength, and in the midst of his struggles, Jalan saw firelight reflect off a blade. Before he could cry out, the dagger whisked across the back of Jalan’s hand, then disappeared into the folds of the ash-gray cloak.

  Blood, almost black in the meager glow cast by the fire, welled from a perfectly straight gash across the back of Jalan’s hand. The ice-grip pulled Jalan’s hand toward the blackness waiting inside the dark one’s hood. Jalan screamed and tried to drag himself away, no longer caring if he fled into fire, but it was futile. He closed his eyes and felt the thing’s tongue, cold and slick as a fish, slide across the wound, then he was free.

  He fell to the ground beside the fire and heard the man say, “Yes, you are the one. Yesss.”

  When Jalan dared to look up later—he didn’t know how long it had been, but the fire beside him had burned down to coals—the thing in the ash-gray cloak was gone. The wolves were no more than lurking shadows in the near darkness, and the pale-skinned men were nowhere in sight.

  Jalan hugged his throbbing hand to his chest and fell into the only peace he knew—sleep.

  Just shy of the hilltop Lendri crouched naked in the grass and waited. Mingan was off with the rest of the pack not too far away. Lendri had been running as a wolf most of the night, but he wanted this opportunity to talk to the belkagen and the language of wolves had no words for this conversation.

  After the confrontation that morning, Lendri’s father had not only ordered all but a few of the hunters of his pack north, he’d sent scouts out to the other packs. In his wildest expectations, Lendri had hoped his father would send his own pack to help them. Haerul had not only done that, he’d called for every pack of Vil Adanrath within a hundred leagues to gather at the Mother’s Bed as well. Lendri had seen his father angry many times, had even seem him truly furious once. But this … the omah nin seemed almost fey.

  Lendri heard the rustle in the grass of another wolf coming up behind him. He didn’t turn, but a few moments later the belkagen came forward and crouched beside him. He followed Lendri’s gaze. The Vil Adanrath were spread out in the lands below them, rushing northward like a fire in the grass. They’d run all day and into the night, stopping only for enough rest to keep them from dying. Lendri had promised to meet Gyaidun at the Mother’s Bed in three days.

  “Why?” Lendri asked.

  “I knew you’d need help,” said the belkagen. “Your father is one of the greatest omah nin I have ever known, but his honor is surpassed only by his pride. I knew you’d need the weight of my testimony.”

  “You knew that two days ago when you all but begged Gyaidun and me to forsake this hunt.”

  “I said from the beginning that I would help rescue the wizard’s son. With guile and cunning, we may get away with him. But you and your rathla, you do not seek to save the boy. You seek vengeance.”

  “You’ve given us no reason to think we can’t have both.”

  “This foe is beyond any of you,” said the belkagen, and his voice sounded old and tired. “Together, you and I may have succeeded in rousing all our people to lead them to their deaths. You know that, don’t you? If we survive, will you be able to live with that burden?”

  “Death is part of life, the end of even the most cunning hunter. Our people know this.”

  “To accept death is not to seek it.”

  Lendri turned to face the belkagen and gave him a hard look. “Better to die fighting for one of our own than spend the rest of our lives with our tails between our legs.”

  The belkagen snorted and looked away. “You sound like your rathla.”

  “I take that as an honor.”

  Silence built between them before the belkagen spoke again. “Gyaidun is one of the greatest men I have ever known. But he is still a man. He is not Vil Adanrath. Like all his people, his flame burns hot and bright, but it is not long for this world. His courage lacks the wisdom of our years.”

  “Better to die a flame than live as ashes.”

  The belkagen flinched, and for the briefest moment Lendri saw genuine fear in his eyes. No, not fear. This was colder. Dread.

  “What is it, holy one? You hide something in your heart, something that eats at you.”

  The belkagen looked away, his eyes gazing northward, but Lendri could see that he was looking elsewhere. A long howl drifted out of the north—Mingan inquiring why his brother had stopped. The pack was moving on. Still, Lendri
waited.

  “Hro’nyewachu,” said the belkagen, his voice scarcely more than a harsh whisper.

  “The Heart of the Piercing?” said Lendri.

  The belkagen nodded. “To become belkagen, one must brave the Heart. It is the source of my power. But not without a price. For all the blessings Hro’nyewachu gave me, some days I would give them all back to have not received the burden she gave me. So many years I have seen it before me, like the smoke of wildfire on the horizon. But with the coming of this war wizard, now I see the glow of flames, red as blood, and I smell the smoke. And now, you and your rathla have me rushing toward it.”

  “What is it? This burden? This thing you fear?”

  The belkagen looked at him, and in the pale silver of starlight Lendri saw unshed tears welling in the old elf’s eyes. “The one burden no warrior should ever bear.”

  Lendri scowled. He had no idea what the old belkagen was talking about. He did not doubt the belkagen’s sincerity—or the depth of his fear—but he had no idea what the holy one feared. And he knew the belkagen would not tell him. The visions of Hro’nyewachu were sacred, its mysteries meant for the belkagenet alone. Warriors did not walk that road. “Are you saying there is no hope?” asked Lendri. “Truly?” The belkagen turned away and pointed northward. “Mingan returns looking for us. The pack has left us behind. We must hurry.”

  Lendri grabbed the belkagen’s shoulder. “Answer me, holy one. Is there no hope? Do you know this?”

  The belkagen gave him a sad smile, but behind it, lurking in the depths of the old elf’s eyes, Lendri thought he saw a bit of the young mischievous warrior Kwarun. “Better to die a flame than live as ashes. Your words. You are wise beyond your years, Lendri, and you have reminded me of the path of wisdom. Thank you.”

  “Then there is hope still?”

  “Hope is for those who seize it. Now, run with me.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN