Frostfell

by Mark Sehestedt

  “I’m not leaving my son. Not again. He’s been taken from me twice already. Until we’ve dealt with this … this monster, Jalan isn’t leaving me.”

  The belkagen said, “Lady—”

  “No! Don’t you ‘Lady’ me. You said it yourself. This staff, this Karakhnir is our best defense against these fiends who want nothing more than to take my son. I’m his best hope of staying safe.”

  “Lady Amira, I—”

  But this time it was the omah nin who cut him off, simply by raising one hand. Haerul waited for silence, then said, “Your son’s best hope is to kill those trying to harm him, and your best hope for doing that is to attack them before they attack you. Do you truly wish to take your son into battle?”

  “No, of course not, but …”

  The omah nin raised his eyebrows and nodded. It was the same expression her brother used to make at her when besting her in some argument, and Amira almost threw her staff at the high chief.

  “Lady Amira,” said the belkagen, his voice mild, “will you hear me?”

  Amira looked at him, her mouth a razor-sharp line, and gave one stiff nod.

  “Remember the words of Hro’nyewachu. Jalan must go to the Witness Tree. Whatever is going to happen there, we must buy Jalan time. We must keep the Fist of Winter distracted at all costs. You and Karakhnir will do this like no other. The Vil Adanrath will fight, but it is you and your staff that the Fist of Winter will fear. You know this.”

  Amira did know it, though she hated every bit of it. Sifting through the oracle’s words, she grasped the last tattered string of the unraveling cloth of her argument.

  “I will give you the staff, Belkagen. Lead your people to victory. I will take Jalan to this Witness Tree and do … whatever must be done.”

  The belkagen shook his head and sighed. “I cannot. The staff is for you and you alone. I will not desecrate the gift of Hro’nyewachu.”

  And so it had been decided. And so it would begin any time now—Amira leading the first strikeforce upon Winterkeep while other packs came in from every direction. The plan was simple: Keep the enemy’s attention fixed on Winterkeep. The belkagen and Lendri would take Jalan to the Witness Tree.

  By sunset tonight, all this would be over, one way or another. Amira swore to her gods that Jalan would be free today, or she would be dead trying to free him.

  The belkagen and Lendri came to her not long after. Amira’s heart lurched, and she swallowed. The elves stopped near her fire.

  “It is time, Lady,” said the belkagen.

  Amira looked down at her son. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said.

  “You must.”

  “Please, Belkagen,” she said, her eyes welling with hot tears. “He’s just a boy.”

  “This is a cruel world, Lady,” said the belkagen. “You now face what all mothers face. Your boy can be a boy no longer. You cannot protect him forever. He must stand on his own.”

  “I don’t fear him standing on his own,” she said, and the tears fell, freezing on her cheeks. “I fear him falling alone. He’s not ready for this. Not yet.”

  “He will not be alone,” said Lendri. “The belkagen and I will watch over Jalan. If anything tries to harm him, it will have to take our life’s blood first. If it is the will of your gods and ours that Jalan die today, he will die beside friends. That is the most anyone can ask of the gods.”

  Amira sniffed, trying to contain her tears. She did the one thing she’d learned to do at a very young age: She turned her grief and heartbreak to anger. “I hate the godsdamned Wastes,” she said. “I hate them.”

  “She is a hard land,” said Lendri, “and she breeds hard children. Take heart and give grief to your enemies.”

  Something that was half-sob and half-chuckle shook Amira. “Ah, Lendri. Someday I’m going to introduce you to my mother. You’ll learn hard then.” She stepped forward, twisted a brass ring off her finger, and handed it to Lendri.

  “Here. Take this.”

  The elf took it and studied it, turning it in his fingers. “What is it?”

  “Something a dear friend once gave me. It’s magical.”

  “I am no wizard, Lady.”

  “You need not be, not with this ring,” she said. She explained to him what it did and how to use it. “It will work only once, so don’t waste it. It may not be much, but it helped me escape from that lecherous bastard Walloch when all my best spells were spent.”

  Lendri put the ring on the middle finger of his right hand and bowed. “Thank you, Lady. I will use this gift in service to your son.”

  The belkagen cleared his throat and said, “Amira.”

  “Yes?” Only a slight flutter shook her voice.

  “It is time. We must wake Jalan and go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Winterkeep

  Late morning. The low, slate-colored sky threatened overhead, and Amira looked down for the first time upon the ruins of Winterkeep. Only the seven pillars—all broken at various lengths—were visible. The piles of broken stone and boulders that the belkagen had told her littered the ground were now only great drifts of snow.

  But Amira had seen it all before. In Hro’nyewachu she’d seen Iket Sotha die, and in her mind’s eye she could still see the seven-pillared colonnade, the wooden mansions and outbuildings, and the wall of finished logs painted in the royal colors of Raumathar.

  The air was so cold that the snow seemed more of a frozen mist coming off the sea. From where she crouched on the slight rise of land, Amira could see the ruins, but beyond that was only a constantly shifting canvass of white and gray.

  She turned around. Leren and two massive gray wolves crouched behind her. Fanning out behind them were more Vil Adanrath, both elves and wolves. Some of the elves carried weapons, but a few had stripped down to loincloths so that they could change to their wolf forms in battle. Even with the small bit of kanishta root wedged in her jaw, flooding her body with warmth, just watching the nearly naked elves crouched in the snow made her shiver.

  “Any sign of the enemy?” asked Leren.

  Amira found it an odd question, elf eyesight being far superior to her own. But then she realized that she could sense something. Through the thick hide of her gloves, she could feel power pulsing through the staff, connecting her to their surroundings, almost as if the staff were a young sapling with thousands upon thousands of roots spreading throughout the ground. To the north, scattered throughout the ruins of Winterkeep, that life seemed to twist and warp, as if shunning something there.

  “Something’s down there,” she said. “I can’t see it, but I can sense it.”

  “Iket Sotha is very old,” said Leren. “Terrible things happened there long ago, and many foul creatures lurk in its depths. Perhaps that is what you are sensing?”

  “Perhaps,” said Amira, but she didn’t believe it.

  Off to their right in the distance came a long howl, plaintive and ending on a low note. It was the signal to begin their advance. One more off to the south would be the signal to the belkagen to get Jalan to the Witness Tree.

  They set off at an easy trot, Amira leading them. The wolves fanned out, flanking them but slowing their pace so as not to outdistance the others.

  Two-thirds of the way down the slope, they were approaching a series of humps that Amira had taken for snow-covered boulders. But as they drew close, the mounds erupted, and a half-dozen Frost Folk threw off their blanket of snow and the cloaks under them. Axes and swords raised, they charged Amira and the Vil Adanrath.

  Amira raised her staff, and a wave of elves and wolves swept past her. She cursed as an elf and his wolf-brother leaped between her and her intended target.

  But the Frost Folk turned and ran, heading for the ruins. A Vil Adanrath arrow sent one crashing into the snow, and three wolves fell upon him, rending and tearing. The tall men were surprisingly swift, not outpacing the elves but matching their speed. When they reached a large snowdrift they stopped and turned
. A pair of winter wolves came round one side, three round the other, and two climbed the crest of the drift. Upon the topmost wolf—a great white beast larger than a stallion—a figure hunched inside an ash-gray cloak.

  Amira screamed and charged.

  The Frost Folk and winter wolves held their ground and waited for the Vil Adanrath to come to them. To Amira, the battle was a cacophony of growling and shrieking wolves, shouting men and elves, the clash of steel on steel, and the cries of the dying. Once the forces met, all was chaos, but Amira kept her focus on one thing only: the sorcerer.

  He came down at them, his winter wolf charging the smaller wolves, teeth bared and a growl coming from its chest that caused the air itself to tremble. Amira saw one of the black-feathered arrows of the Vil Adanrath pierce its side, but so great was its battle-rage that it didn’t seem to notice. Three wolves and an elf stood between it and Amira, but they scattered as the great wolf bore down upon them.

  Amira held her ground—she could feel it trembling beneath her feet—and raised her staff. The winter wolf was coming so fast. She knew she’d only have one chance at this.

  She thrust her open palm at the wolf’s head and shouted, “Dramasthe!”

  The bolt of yellow energy shot from her hand. It struck the beast full in the face, and in the moment of clarity that often came to her in battle, when moments seemed to stretch out to days, she saw bits of scorched flesh and skin shower outward, and the wolf’s left eye exploded.

  Its growl rose to a shriek, and the animal tumbled into the snow face first, sending up a great cloud of frost mixed with bits of smoke and blood. The rider in the ash-gray cloak went down as well, and Amira lost sight of him in all the flying snow and debris.

  The winter wolf jumped to its feet and ran off northward, shaking its head in agony.

  Amira saw the ash-gray cloak rising, perhaps even shaking a bit, and she thrust her staff forward with a cry. “Keljan saulé!”

  The runes etched into the staff flared, bathing Amira and the surrounding snowfield in a warm glow, and a shard of light shot out. It struck the ash-gray robes, and the figure flew backward as if struck by a giant’s club. He hit the ground several paces away and fell into a smoking heap. Amira watched, ignoring the carnage around her and preparing another strike, but the sorcerer did not move.

  She ran forward, her staff ready. Out of the corner of her eye. She saw one of the Frost Folk fall, a black wolf’s jaws locked around his throat.

  The sorcerer still had not moved. The mass of gray fabric smoked from her strike, and the surrounding snow steamed as it melted. She slowed as she approached, and still the figure had not moved.

  Keeping the point of her staff aimed directly at the dark mass, the words of the spell ready on her lips, Amira stepped forward. The stench hit her—a foul odor of burned fabric and flesh. One hand, pale as the snow in which it lay, was flung outward, almost like an orator’s motion in mid-speech.

  Amira put the tip of her staff inside the cowl and pulled. The fabric came away, and a lifeless head fell backward against the outstretched arm. It was not the emaciated face she remembered, the corpselike visage covered in pallid skin. This man’s features were white, his hair whiter still, long and healthy.

  It was one of the Siksin Neneweth, one of the Frost Folk, and he was quite dead.

  The knowledge hit Amira, freezing her insides.

  They’d been fooled.

  Only one thought came to her mind, and it passed her lips unbidden.

  “Jalan!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Isle of Witness

  Nothing moved on the Isle of Witness. The island itself was really just a huge pinnacle of rock breaking the surface of the Great Ice Sea. Nothing but moss and a few shoots grew there. The soil was too rocky and the wind was too harsh. Even the great dead tree at the island’s summit stood implacable, as it had for hundreds of years. Only the thickest boughs remained, and they were hard as iron from the countless ages of bitter cold and salt-tinged air.

  A stone stairway—once decorated with many signs both sacred and arcane, but now weathered and broken—descended from the base of the Witness Tree to the northern shore of the island. At the base of the stair the air rippled, almost like a heat mirage, then darkened and solidified into the folds of a greatcloak. It was made from the skin of some great animal, and bits of fur lined the hem. The arcane symbols upon it glowed briefly, a warm green light. The great hump of a cloak rose and billowed. Straightening, the belkagen drew back the folds of his greatcloak, and Lendri and Jalan emerged.

  The trio straightened. Lendri’s eyes were wide with uneasiness, and he flinched at being exposed to the wind off the sea, snow and sleet striking his face. Their breath steamed for an instant before crystallizing and joining the snow, and even Lendri, who was seldom bothered even by intense cold, shivered. Only the boy seemed unaffected, and his eyes had a dullness to them, like resignation or even drunkenness.

  The belkagen’s brow creased. Cold was to be expected, but this … already his hair had frozen to bits of ice, and even blinking hurt. Realization of what this meant hit him.

  “No. Oh, no!”

  He turned. On the hill above them, emerging from behind the thick trunk of the Witness Tree, stood the Fist of Winter—all five of them, and they looked down at the belkagen and his two charges.

  “Back!” shouted the belkagen, throwing the folds of his cloak around Lendri and Jalan. He held them tight and ducked under his hood.

  One of the sorcerers stepped forward, laughing. He lowered his tattered hood. Pallid skin and dead, black eyes seemed unconcerned as he smiled into the full force of the storm. It was Erun. He motioned with his hands and mouthed the words of a spell.

  The belkagen froze. His cloak wasn’t working. Erun—or what had once been Erun—had used his own foul arts to nullify the power in the cloak.

  “Give us the boy,” said Erun, shouting to be heard over the wind and waves. His voice was harsh and subhuman, as if his will forced his throat to utter sounds strange to it.

  The belkagen stood and pushed Lendri and Jalan behind him. He held his staff up, shielding them.

  “You cannot have him,” said the belkagen. “Not again.”

  But the belkagen stumbled forward as Jalan pushed past him and rushed up the stairs.

  Lendri lunged after him, but Erun drew a single-edged sword with one fluid motion and shouted, “Silo’at!”

  Biting frost funneled outward against the gale and struck Lendri full-force, sending him flying back into the rocks, frost and ice coating him from chin to waist. He hit hard then rolled over, groaning, trying to rise only to have his body betray him.

  Jalan ascended the last few steps on all fours, then fell and hugged Erun’s legs. While the belkagen watched, dumbstruck, Erun placed one emaciated hand on the boy’s neck and spoke an incantation. Jalan flinched as if he’d been slapped across the face, then collapsed.

  “What—?” the belkagen spoke his thought aloud.

  Erun smiled. There was no humor in it, merely the baring of teeth. “My hold on him is no longer necessary.”

  “All this time …”

  “I let you take him, old fool. You think that wench could have beaten me so easily? I let him go, and through him I watched you. Heard you. And so when I knew you’d be bringing him back to me, I … let you.” He shrugged, though coming from the sorcerer it seemed an obscene gesture, unnatural. The shoulders moving beneath the tattered cloak and robes reminded the belkagen of a dung beetle flexing its carapace. “It has long been a weakness of mine,” Erun continued. “I like to play with my prey.”

  The enchantment broken, Jalan, trembling from cold and terror, tried to scramble back down the steps, but the sorcerer bent and snatched him, quick as a scorpion. He held the boy by the hair and pulled him back. Jalan screamed.

  “Jalan, no!” said the belkagen. “Erun, don’t hurt him!”

  The sorcerer shook the boy until tears leaked out of Jalan�
�s terror-stricken eyes and froze on his cheeks.

  “Erun?” said the sorcerer. “That is not my name. I merely wear that boy’s skin. What was Erun has been sleeping for a long time—and having most unpleasant dreams. Oh, how the boy screams.”

  Amira stood on the black, ice-slick rocks of the shore, looking across the water to the island. Staring into the storm, snow and sleet stinging her face, she could just make out five figures standing beneath an old, long-dead tree. The wind off the Great Ice Sea tossed their cloaks, but through the waving fabric she was sure she saw Jalan.

  She clenched her fist and punched her hip in frustration. The great pinnacle of rock was several hundred paces offshore, but it might as well have been a league. She’d tried again and again to use her magic to transport her out there, but something was blocking her spell. The core of her mind could feel the power hammering against some unseen barrier, and nothing she tried could break through. Even if the water hadn’t been broken by tall white-capped waves, the temperature itself would’ve made swimming impossible. She’d freeze before she got halfway, assuming she didn’t drown.

  She turned to the elf who had accompanied her to the shore. It was Turha, one of the female omah from last night’s council. “Is there any way out there?” Amira asked. “Boats?

  Anything?”

  Turha shook her head. “Nothing. In summer, one must swim. In winter, we walk the ice. Now …”

  Two other Vil Adanrath, one coated in blood, were coming toward them, three wolves at their heels. The bloody one had a bow.

  “You!” Amira shouted. She pointed to the figures on the island. “Can you hit them from here?”

  The elf looked at the target. “Not in this wind. Even if I could, my arrows would not stop th—”

  “Damn you all!” Amira shouted. “Does no one have anything useful to say?”

  Desperate, Amira peeled her gloves off with her teeth, dropped them, and began to work at the knot of her cloak.