Frostfell

by Mark Sehestedt

  “Your House is a house of merchants, is it not?”

  “They are,” she said. “Liars, the lot of them. I can’t stand them either.”

  Lendri smiled, but his eyes were sad. “That, I understand. Family troubles seem to plague all peoples.”

  “Then you believe me?”

  “I see no reason for you to lie. But why do you hide the truth from Gyaidun?”

  “What good would it do him?”

  “None,” said Lendri. “But na kwast wahir athu kyene wekht unarihe—‘better a cold truth than a warm lie.’ I know my rathla. He would rather be hurt than ignorant.”

  “This hurt might be more than your rathla could bear,” said the belkagen.

  “That should be his decision. Not yours.”

  The belkagen sighed. “You must choose your own path, even if it means destroying your rathla, but I will tell you this: You have no truth to give your rathla. We know only that the Fist of Winter took Erun and twisted him into something vile and evil. That much Gyaidun already knows. His greatest hope—that his son is still alive—has met his greatest fear—the one who took him—and they are one. Your rathla is … confused now, Lendri. Hurting. Despair has gripped him. What we know, what Amira learned in Hro’nyewachu will only deepen that. Consider my words. I will argue this with you no more.”

  They sat in silence for a long while, the belkagen’s scowl deepening, Amira watching her sleeping son, and Lendri scratching Mingan behind the ears. “I will think on what you have said,” said Lendri, and stood and walked away, Mingan at his heels.

  “You think he’s going to tell Gyaidun?” asked Amira.

  “Most certainly,” said the belkagen. “I love those two like sons, but they can be stubborn as dwarves. Gyaidun is more obvious about it because he blusters and roars, but Lendri … that one, he is quiet and so hides it, but he’s even worse.”

  “What will Gyaidun do, do you think?”

  “Knowing him as I do, I can only be sure that it will be something foolish.”

  “And you aren’t going to stop him?”

  “He’s a grown man, Lady, and Lendri is five times your age, at least. If those two want to rush off and get themselves killed … well, it won’t be the first time they’ve tried, and they’re still here. Stubborn and hotheaded as they both are, they never cease to surprise me. I must trust them to follow their own path. But you …”

  “What about me?”

  The belkagen fixed her with that predator’s gaze that made her feel so small and said, “Now that you have your son, what will you do, Lady?”

  “Winterkeep,” said Amira.

  “What?”

  “Winterkeep. Iket Sotha you called it. That’s where the sorcerer was headed with Jalan.”

  “You are certain?”

  “Yes,” Amira answered. “Mystra help me, I am.”

  “This is what you want?” said the belkagen. “You wish to go to the enemy?”

  “I want to take the fight to them,” said Amira. “You said it yourself. Jalan won’t be safe till we end this. One way or the other.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Endless Wastes

  The sorcerer, still swathed in his scorched and torn ash-gray cloak, and his three remaining Frost Folk rode upon winter wolves to the shore of the Great Ice Sea. One riderless winter wolf trailed them. It was past midday, but the unrelenting storm was so thick, and the sky so dark, that it gave them enough cover to keep moving throughout the day. This close to the water the air was heavy with moisture, and the snow fell in great clumps, some almost as big as a man’s hand.

  One of the Frost Folk fell from the back of his wolf and lay in the snow. The man had half a Vil Adanrath arrow in his ribs. He had spent most of the day coughing, and the front of his body was smeared with his own blood. The wolf he’d been riding sidestepped and looked down on him. The man lay in the snow, unmoving except for the swift rising and falling of his chest.

  Another of the Frost Folk lifted his leg and slid off his own mount. He knelt beside his fallen companion, examined the wound, then stood and spoke to his master.

  The sorcerer still sat atop his wolf, both of them staring into the face of the storm. He turned at his servant’s words and looked down on the fallen man.

  “He is beyond help,” said the sorcerer in the tongue of the far north. “And the wolves are hungry.”

  The sorcerer dismounted. His wolf turned and joined his fellows in their meager meal. The man never even screamed. One swift snap from a wolf’s jaws, and it was over for him. The two remaining Frost Folk turned away from the carnage and watched their master.

  Ignoring them, the sorcerer climbed to the very lip of the promontory. Standing in the full force of the wind, the remains of his cloak and robes fluttered and cracked. It didn’t seem to bother him, not even when his cowl flew back, exposing his long hair and pallid skin to the biting frost. The Frost Folk watched as their master basked in the frigid wind off the Great Ice Sea. The intense cold and fury of the storm seemed to lend him strength, reinvigorating him, but still he leaned heavily upon his staff. A foe—a woman!—had managed to do something no other had in generations. She’d hurt him. Hurt him badly.

  The sorcerer stood there a long while, his men watching. When he sat upon the very edge of the rock, the Frost Folk exchanged a furtive glance. Their forefathers had served the Fist of Winter for hundreds of years, their devotion born out of the rewards given to them by the dark sorcerers, but also out of fear. They served their fiendish masters because the Fist of Winter gave them the gifts necessary to survive in the far north, where months passed without the light of the sun. The Fist of Winter gave the Frost Folk power to overcome their enemies and to eke out a living in a world of ice and darkness. But the glance these two exchanged said something that none of their people had dared speak aloud for generations. They had a new fear: that their masters could be beaten, that there were stronger powers in the world.

  The sorcerer clutched his staff to his chest and leaned back, breathing deep of the storm’s fury. Slowly at first, but gathering strength as he found his rhythm, the sorcerer began an incantation.

  What little warmth still gripped the air lost its hold. No longer did the snow fall in great, wet clumps. The flakes shrank and froze, hard as minuscule diamonds. Even the gray daylight dimmed to a thick gloom.

  A silver eldritch light flickered around the sorcerer. Beyond the sound of his voice, the hiss of driving snow, and the hard slap of the waves on the rocks below, came the sound of voices riding on the wind.

  Amira finished stuffing the last of her supplies into the pack and pulled the straps tight. Jalan lay beside her, still sleeping beside the fire. She’d have to wake him soon. He’d awakened a while ago, but only long enough to have a few bites of food and swallow a mouthful of water. She had held him while he ate, and the fact that he let her filled her with a mixture of relief and dismay.

  Jalan had not let her hold him like this for years. He was on the verge of manhood, and though she missed holding her son, she understood why it made him uncomfortable. She’d welcomed holding him this morning, but doing so only emphasized how deeply Jalan had been hurt. Not so much on the outside—he looked underfed and exhausted, but other than the torn and bruised skin from too-tight ropes, his captors had done him no real harm. But his spirit had been hurt. Pensive and sometimes sullen Jalan had been replaced by a scared little boy who jumped at sudden sounds and huddled away from shadows.

  Amira heard footsteps behind her—heavy and deliberate, so unlike the furtive tread of the elves—and she knew at once who it was.

  She stood and turned to look up at Gyaidun. She almost didn’t recognize him. His countenance had lost all vitality. His features, which she had first seen as hard and chiseled, now seemed merely haggard and tired. Even his eyes seemed fragile and hollow.

  “Amira,” he said. He stopped, his mouth hanging open as if he meant to continue, but then he shut it and shook his head.

/>   “Gyaidun,” she said, and was ashamed to hear the accusation in her voice. Her head knew she should feel pity for the man, but her heart was angry. “Did you come to say your farewells?”

  “Farewells?”

  “Lendri told me you aren’t coming with us.” No, she thought, you are staying here while your blood brother goes off to face certain death.

  “I can’t, Amira,” he said. “I can’t come and … and try to kill my own son.”

  Amira stood and hefted her pack. She felt no pity for that monster in the ash-gray cloak, not even a little, but still she tried to force some gentleness and warmth into her voice. “Gyaidun, he … he isn’t your son anymore. You know that, don’t you?”

  Gyaidun looked away.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I really am. What happened to your son, to Erun, it’s … unforgivable. Monstrous. It’s … blasphemous. But it happened. That thing you saw may have been wearing Erun’s body, but the heart of what made him Erun isn’t there anymore, Gyaidun. I know.”

  “You learned this,” he said, his voice raw, “in Hro’nyewachu? She … she told you this?”

  Amira hesitated. The belkagen had warned her of the dangers of sharing the secrets of the oracle. “Told me?” she said. “No. I saw it, Gyaidun. I saw it happen again and again through the centuries.”

  Gyaidun stood there, letting that sink in, then said, “You’re going to kill him.”

  Amira took a deep breath and looked Gyaidun in the eye. He towered over her. Still, as he was now, broken and hurt, she felt stronger, felt as though she should be the one protecting him. But this was one truth from which she could not protect him. That would be no mercy.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m going to try. If I don’t, he’ll do the same to my son. And others.”

  “You know this?” he said, and the slightest flicker of the old Gyaidun’s fire lit his gaze.

  “I do know it,” she said. She put her gloved hand on his forearm and squeezed.

  He stared down at her hand, then looked up at her. “Watch out for Lendri,” he said. “The Vil Adanrath will fight to the death, but they won’t help him. He’ll be on his own out there.”

  Not if you’d come with us, she wanted to say, but she didn’t.

  Gyaidun turned and walked away. She watched until he was little more than a pale shadow cloaked in falling snow, then there was only the snow.

  “Don’t judge him too harshly.”

  Amira turned, and the belkagen was standing only a few paces away.

  “I really thought he would come with us,” she said. “Even with hope for Erun gone, I thought he’d want vengeance at least. Not, this, this …”

  “Despair?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gyaidun is not a coward, Lady.”

  “I know he isn’t.”

  The belkagen looked down at Jalan and asked, “Do you pray, Lady?”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “Pray for Gyaidun. After what happened, he has embraced one of the gravest sins: Despair.”

  “I have never seen despair as a sin.”

  He looked her in the eye and smiled. “Then you’ve never considered it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Despair is the forsaking of hope, believing that you know all paths. Embracing doom. But no mortal can see so far—even those like us who have been shown”—the belkagen stopped and swallowed—“shown such things. We are given the greatest burden of all, I think, to be shown some of what lies ahead that we might still dare to hope.”

  Amira scowled. She had the feeling that the belkagen wasn’t talking about Gyaidun anymore. What had the old elf seen in Hro’nyewachu? She’d asked, but he’d refused to answer. In some ways, he seemed little more than a simple, old mystic who’d spent too long out in the sun, but at times like now she found him more inscrutable than the greatest masters of her Art.

  “I know Gyaidun is no coward,” she said.

  “You know it now, but later, when this fight is done … the thought might come to you. When it does, know that it is a lie.”

  Amira looked down at Jalan, who was still sleeping. She didn’t look up as she said, “You really think there will be a later?”

  “Dare to hope, Lady. We must dare to hope.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Endless Wastes

  The land lay on the verge of true darkness when the lone guard saw them. They came from the west—a dozen ghostlike shapes only slightly darker than the surrounding snow. Still crouching in the shadow of the great rock, the guard took a wooden pipe out of his belt pouch and put it to his lips. He blew a long note that rose and fell with the wind. The nearest of the approaching shapes stopped. The guard stood and stepped out of the shadows. He waved his spear in three wide arcs.

  The figures resumed their run, and by the time full dark had fallen they had gathered around the rock—twelve winter wolves and eight Frost Folk riding. Their leader brought his mount forward until he towered over the guard. Steam from the great beast’s breath enveloped the guard in an icy cloud.

  “We have come,” said the new arrival. “To where does the master call us?”

  The deepest shadow under the great rock moved. It stood, a tall man wearing the tattered remains of an ash-gray cloak and cowl. Snow and frost clung to him, and there was no warmth in his breath to cloud before him. He stepped forward until he stood beside the guard. The winter wolf before them let out a small whine and took several steps backward, its ears low and its tail between its legs.

  “To Winterkeep,” said the sorcerer. “We go to Winterkeep.”

  Sitting before the meager fire, Jalan curled up next to her, Amira gripped her new staff as she studied its runes. She’d never seen their like, and she had studied most of the languages of Faerûn, both ancient and modern, living and dead. Still, there was something familiar about them, something she felt she ought to recognize. It nagged at her, just as the staff itself seemed to … to sing to her.

  It was not unlike the times she’d lulled Jalan to sleep as a baby with a lullaby—oftentimes nonsense words where the sound and melody were more important than the meaning.

  Something within the staff spoke to her like that—not in words or even meaning, but in a deeper connection that had more to do with the beating of her heart and the passions of her flesh than the knowledge of her mind. Even now, she could feel it flowing through her, and she felt a strange communion with the golden wood, and through it to all the land around her. So strong was the sensation, that she could feel the sun setting in the distance, even though it was hidden behind countless miles of falling snow and cloud.

  She heard movement and looked up to see a pale elf sitting down across the fire from her. At first she thought it was Lendri, but it was not. In his exile, Lendri had collected various bits of other cultures upon his person. His clothes and supplies showed he had traveled among half the peoples of the Wastes, but the one before her now was all Vil Adanrath, dressed only in leathers and the fur of various animals. His hair was wild and free, and though it was now sprinkled with snow, still it drank in the firelight and seemed to glow with its own warmth.

  “I am Leren,” said the elf, speaking each word with careful precision. He held his palms open before him and offered a small bow. “Son of Haerul, Omah Nin of the Vil Adanrath.”

  “I am Amira,” she said, her voice low so as not to wake Jalan.

  “Amira Hiloar, War Wizard of Cormyr. Yes, I know.”

  Amira did not know what to say, so she said nothing.

  “I have seen you with the belkagen. He speaks well of you.”

  “He saved me and my son,” she said, and placed a gentle hand on Jalan’s shoulder. “He and Gyaidun and Lendri. They saved our lives.”

  Leren flinched at the mention of his brother and Gyaidun’s names. “I did not come to speak to you of the hrayeket.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “My father sent out summons to all the packs. Many have come,
and others may come still, but he and the belkagen agree on this: We cannot wait. The belkagen says our enemies will be here soon, and he says you know this also.”

  Amira nodded. “The belkagen speaks the truth.”

  “Then we must prepare. The omah nin will make amrulugek. You know what this means?”

  “Yes. A council.”

  “Council, yes. The omah nin asks you to come.”

  A shiver went up Amira’s spine. She’d spoken with a few of the Vil Adanrath over the last day or so, but for the most part they kept to themselves. She thought it was mostly because they avoided Lendri, and when he was in camp, he was most often around Amira’s fire. The belkagen had acted as a sort of go-between, and Amira had liked that just fine.

  The Vil Adanrath made every hair on her body stand on end. She’d known elves all her life, but none like these. Shapeshifters who could walk as wolves as easily as elves—and even when they walked on two legs the wolf never quite left their stride or their eyes.

  “Will the belkagen be there?” she asked.

  “He will.”

  “And Lendri?”

  Leren flinched. “That one is hrayek. Exiled. He cannot join our council.”

  “He may join our fight and risk his blood but not sit at our fire?”

  Leren said nothing, simply sat and watched her.

  “I will come,” she said. “But I do not like Lendri being excluded.”

  “You do not know his crimes,” said Leren, though there was a tone of respect in his voice.

  “And you do not know mine, but still you ask me to your council.”

  “Your crimes were not against the Vil Adanrath.”

  Amira scowled. “Fine. When is the council?”

  “The scouts should return soon. We meet then. Someone will come for you.”

  Leren stood to go.

  “My son,” said Amira. “I will not leave him.”

  The elf looked down on Jalan. “Your son may come.”

  Amira did not have long to wait. Leren had been gone just long enough for full dark to fall when the belkagen trudged up to her fire, his long cloak trailing in the snow.