Frost

by Mark A. Garland

  "Perhaps," Dorin repeated.

  Frost studied them, waiting. He let go of their hands. "She has spoken of you often and always," Dara said at last, to Frost at first, but then she turned to her brother. "She will want to see him."

  "I know," Dorin said, looking down, but then he met Frost's gaze and his eyes rose again.

  "Tomorrow?" Dara asked.

  "Tomorrow," Dorin said, "we will take you to her. You can stay with us here tonight. If you must."

  "Of course he must," Dara said, though not so much scolding him as perhaps thinking out loud.

  Frost decided he would learn what the problem was later on. It was no doubt foolishness in any case. For now he let a smile of satisfaction find his features, then turned to his Subartans and raised his hands, priestlike. "This is at last a good day!" he said. "The first good news I have had in far too long." He turned again and gave his expansive torso a loving pat. "We accept your hospitality," he told the twins. "The road has been long and hard. Now tell me, what have you got to eat?"

  Dinner included a honey sweetened bread and a thick pork stew full of carrots and cabbage, and afterward, bits of bread boiled in lard and rolled in sugar, a treat Frost ranked with those made by the finest royal bakers. At least just now. The ale was thin and slightly sour, but not so bad as to force one to put it down. As they rested after dinner the conversation began at last to flow. Small talk at first, the past few seasons' weather, the villagers' never-changing lives, the burden of taxes, the sickness that had taken many of the cattle three years ago before it stopped of its own accord, or by the will of the Greater Gods. Frost listened, gracious and patient as he could be, then he pressed his own needs—he had a lot of catching up to do, a lot he needed to know.

  "What has Shassel told you of the past?" he asked, when the topic, or something close enough to it, arose.

  "Bits and pieces," Dara said, looking away from the table toward the darker corners of the room.

  "Can you offer a little more detail?"

  "We are young, you see," Dorin said. "Most of the past happened before we were born, so we tend to forget a lot of it." He kept a straight face as he and his sister exchanged a knowing glance, one Frost read as dark.

  "Fine, just what you remember, then," Frost went along. "Tell me how Andair came to the throne, and of his reign."

  "That is easy, you left," Dorin said.

  "To find Andair," Frost replied. "He made a fool of me, he betrayed me and many others. He owed a great debt."

  Dorin scowled. "You could not have looked very hard."

  "He returned some years later, I'm not sure when," Dara said, "but in time to befriend his old and fading uncle."

  "Lord King Weldhem," Frost clarified.

  The twins nodded.

  "But dear Uncle Weldhem knew nothing of Andair's deceit, as Shassel tells it, or he never allowed himself to believe it," Dara said. "So when Andair returned swearing he had done nothing wrong, he was able to convince the king of it."

  "Convince him that his only rival, Wilmar, had conspired with you to make him seem the villain," Dorin added. "Weldhem never could bring himself to proclaim Wilmar a criminal, or even banish him, but when the king finally died, Andair was in place to assume the throne."

  "He has been a poor king," Dorin said. "The taxes and fealty are bad enough. Now there is talk of tolls on the roads! But he does nothing to solve any of our problems. It is impossible for even many of the smaller barons to get an audience."

  "Perhaps Andair is interested in other things," Frost said.

  "Aye," Dorin said. "He now occupies his time with hunting, counting, women, and preparing for war."

  This was something else Frost had wanted to discuss. "War with whom?" he asked.

  "The Grenarii Empire to the north," Dorin continued. "They say Kolhol is their greatest king. They say he has designs on all Worlish, but Briarlea first of all. He has an army more than adequate for the job and Andair takes that seriously enough. He has been busy building his own loyal army of late."

  "With fiefs granted to his chosen lords and riches taken from the land or his uncle's coffers," Dara huffed. "And with magic."

  Dorin nodded. "He has a sorcerer as well, known as Gentaff, very powerful and hired at great expense. They have been keeping the Grenarii at bay, at least so far."

  "And what of Lord Wilmar?" Frost asked. "Has there ever been any word of him?"

  "Wilmar returned as well," Dorin said. "Though he grows old and sickly before his time. He has a son our age, Tramet. Dara spent much of her time with him before we came to live here." He tipped his head toward her. "They got along very well." Dorin's smile was positively mischievous.

  Dara looked about to blush, though Frost guessed it would take more than romantic innuendoes to accomplish that.

  "Shassel was once a close friend of Wilmar's wife," Frost said, moving along. "Are they still?"

  "His wife never lived to see Worlish again," Dara said. "Wilmar and Tramet are but serfs now, one of the many families who have lost their lands, and whose sons have been forced to swear fealty to Andair."

  "I am surprised Wilmar would yield to such a thing," Frost said, sitting back in his chair and finishing off the cup of ale before him. "A pity."

  "Wilmar and Andair confronted each other, years ago, not long after Wilmar's return," Dorin explained. "No one knows what was said, but Wilmar was granted a serf's land and hut—a small part of the lands that were once his—which Shassel said was preferable to a swift beheading. But he and Tramet are forbidden to set foot inside Weldhem."

  "So is Shassel," Dara said.

  "So are we," Dorin said.

  "Is that so?" Frost asked, not terribly surprised.

  "We were given like treatment," Dorin said. He swept the air with one hand. "This is all the land left to us. The rest was taken."

  Frost felt disturbed by all of this, but by one as yet unanswered question in particular. "Shassel allowed all this?"

  "She was not here for most of it," Dara said. "She left for a time, not long after you did, but she does not talk much about it. We know she went east, deep into the Hubaran Forests, perhaps even beyond. After some years she came back. She has done much good since her return."

  "Yes," Dorin said. "She took us in, and she has helped countless others to survive, even to resist Andair and his young lords when the need was there—there was a time when they warred against each other, and many peasants were caught in between."

  "She helped keep Andair hemmed in as well," Dara said. "He may be a dishonorable wretch in every way, but he is no fool; I think he knows he will have to face Shassel if he goes too far."

  Frost nodded. "She has that effect."

  "Still," Dorin said, "Andair seems always ready to press her limits, to test her. He knows she is growing old and frail, and now that he has Gentaff at his side, many have warned her that the two of them are plotting to finish her. Briarlea is not a safe place for her these days, yet without her, it is not so safe for any of us."

  "Does she show herself in Weldhem at all?"

  "No," Dara said. "Not since she was barred from the city—though that seems to suit Shassel well enough."

  Frost smiled. "I have no doubt." He missed her now, not only because she was all that remained of the world and family he had known, or because he still hoped she might be his best chance of determining the true fate of the Demon Blade, or even because she might be an ally in a world filled with far too many who were against him, or could not be trusted. If nothing else, Taya had provided bitter reassurance of that during his stay in Calienn. He could not even trust Dara and Dorin completely yet.

  All those things mattered, some greatly, but he missed her the most because of who she was, her spirit, her soul. His own father had been the royal court wizard, and had died in some far-off land in fulfillment of that duty. It was Shassel that helped Frost's mother raise him from a tender age, and showed him the truth and ways of his own born abilities—showed him the t
hings his father never had the chance to. Many things, though not all. Sorcery was a thing taught best by those closest to you in spirit and body, mind and blood.

  But magic, Frost was sure, was not the only thing a boy learned from his father, or shared with him . . .

  "What of your father?" Frost asked. "You didn't say."

  "No, we did not," Dorin said.

  This time the exchange of looks between the twins was clearly troubled—an old wound of some kind, one that had left scars that never completely healed. Frost waited, but it was as if the subject was so large and burdensome that they could not begin to come to terms with it. Their look was familiar to him, much like the mix of pain and guilt that had marked his own reflection for so many years. A disturbing thing on the faces of the young.

  "I would hear of it," he said.

  "We grow tired, it's late," Dara said, breathing a wearied tone into her voice.

  "It is important that I know," Frost encouraged her.

  "You would be wise to let it be," Dorin said, looking sage as a man twice his age. Whatever had happened, this part of the past had shaped him in some way.

  Frost folded his arms across his broad chest and cocked his head to one side, sagelike in kind. "I have never been much for letting be, especially when doing so deprives me of something I value. I am willing to help you in whatever way I can, but I need your help, and your trust."

  "Trust?" Dorin said, venomous now. "And what good has trust in you done any one of us? What help did you give when we so needed it? Shassel speaks of the great Frost, so clever and so powerful. It makes a fine story for children, like tales of the Demon Blade or the Council of Wizards, or the news we hear of you and your great battle with a demon of the darkness. Many others are fool enough to believe such things, but perhaps they have always believed in myths and fables. I have learned other lessons, and so has Dara."

  "Your brother seems upset," Frost said, attempting to sound sanguine, yet sympathetic. "But tell me, has he a reason?"

  "Good reasons," Dara said. "Our father for one."

  "Enough!" Dorin snapped, leaning nearer, seizing Frost's attention again. "Where were you? What kept you away so long? What do you want from us?"

  "I went in search of Andair, and in search of answers to some of the very same questions I see in your eyes," Frost said. "Then I would have been no good to you in any case, but now . . ."

  "So you say, but I am already tired of your tales. You left by choice. You could have stayed and taken your place in your family—wherever that led, whatever that meant. No matter what else had happened, you could have helped. You would have been here when Andair returned instead of leaving all that to women and children, or men without the gifts you were born with. Everything might have been different if you had!"

  Dorin held a breath for an instant, emotion lending a jittery nervousness to his hands and a redness to his face. He knew he was losing control.

  "You might have saved our mother," he went on, attempting to measure his words more carefully. "You could have kept us from making the mistakes we made, and our father might still be alive. But now we will never know."

  "Never know what?" Frost asked, as the boy's assertions buffeted him. So many of them, in fact, that it was hard to know where to begin to argue them. "You still have not explained."

  "You could have shown us the magic," Dara said, now only slightly less provoked than her brother. "Shassel has tried her best, but for her it is difficult, especially these days, and early on she had no idea that we—" She cut herself off, and sat biting her lip, clearly struggling to hold something back that was perhaps much bigger than she was. Abruptly she looked up at Frost again, and he could feel the grasping pain in her heart as though it was his own. "You could have warned us, Frost," she said, as a tear slipped free of her eye and pooled, then ran down over her cheek bone. Anger took her expression again. "We didn't know! We thought—we thought we were doing right, doing what we had to do! But you—you chose to leave like your father did. You never got yourself killed, but enough others have died in your place."

  "You do not know enough about me, nor I about you," Frost said, though he still wasn't sure precisely what was going on. He was missing too many parts of the story. "We should start over. I am curious what you would learn of magic, and what you already know. And I must explain a great deal. Then you will explain, and all before this goes any further."

  Dorin stood up and tossed the chair away. It tumbled along the floor and struck the wall. Dara stood up and put her hand out toward him in caution but he ignored her.

  "It is true!" Dorin said, spitting the words. "All truth, as we have always believed." He aimed a finger at Frost. "You know it best of all. I can't think what Shassel ever saw in you, because you do not deserve her respect, or her trust. Or ours. You never earned them, yet she gives all that and more to you even in your absence. I'd wager that some of us find it easier to live with guilt than others."

  "Dorin!" Dara snapped, glaring at him, though Frost caught no hint of sympathy for himself.

  Dorin glared at her for an instant, then he turned and went round the table, where he pushed out through the door and slammed it shut behind him. Dara turned to Frost and simply stared at him—or through him, perhaps.

  "Now you," Frost said, and Dara's eyes refocussed. "Yell all you like. Then, perhaps, you can bring yourself to talk with me and help me understand."

  "I am sorry," she said, "for all of us. Even for you. Nothing more." She moved past him and followed her brother outside.

  Frost sat in the quiet room for several minutes, glancing from side to side, exchanging one contemplative glance with Rosivok, then another with Sharryl, who had remained completely silent throughout the exchange. It had not precisely concerned them, after all.

  "I am curious to see what might happen next," Frost mused, trying to sound calm, though he found it a struggle to put any starch in his voice.

  "They will come back, I think," Sharryl said.

  "They do not know you," Rosivok offered, saying so much with so few words, as always.

  "And I do not know them," Frost replied. "So you see, they are right."

  Now it was Frost who stood up and went outside. The twins were nowhere about, but they had likely not gone far. To the village of course. To friends, perhaps. People Frost had no wish to face this night, and the good sense not to try. He didn't know the details, not yet, but he knew . . .

  He knew enough to let it be.

  The sun had just set leaving a sky filled with fading orange light. Smoke curled from fires burning in the nearby village, spreading a sweet roasted-wood scent on the still evening air. He was tired, and so were his Subartans, but what he felt was more than fatigue. For the first time since leaving Ariman he wondered why he had come here, what he had hoped it would be like?

  "We should fix our bedrolls," he said, turning and throwing his voice through the open door behind him. Then he went back inside.

  The two warriors made their beds on the floor. Frost lay awake in Shassel's bed watching the fire burn to coals, thinking, dozing but not sleeping, until the twins finally returned sometime during the night. They said nothing and went straight to their own beds. Frost fought the urge to speak to them. They had gotten something out of their systems earlier this night. The rest would come, given time. Finally he drifted off to a restless sleep, until a ragged scream and the clash of iron brought his eyes open wide.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Another crash, and someone else shouted. Frost didn't recognize either of the voices, but when Dara yelped he knew well enough. Shapes moved all but unseen in the darkness. Frost shook himself alert and spoke to the lamp that had rested at the center of the table. A flame sprang from the wick and revealed the lamp's location in the far corner of the room, where it had tumbled to rest after the table had been knocked aside.

  Frost counted three men, though one was already quite dead and lying on the floor just behind Rosivok in a growing pool of b
lood. Another fought with Rosivok still while the third cornered himself with Sharryl and the twins. Both intruders brandished swords, but the one in the corner had seen fit to bring a studded war club as well.

  "I can't get to my sword!" Dorin shouted, eyes dancing back and forth between the attackers and one of the storage chests along the wall near Frost.

  "Or my dagger!" Dara chimed. "Frost, there! That one with the sewing coming loose!" She thrust a finger at one of the storage chests.

  Frost drew a breath as he slid his legs off the bed and set his feet on the wooden floor. These were not trained soldiers any of them, not dressed in simple commoners' clothing and without so much as a shield for protection. Which would be their undoing. "There is no need," he said.

  "But Frost—"

  Dorin's protest was cut off by a howling scream that sounded of rage first, and death just after that. The man attempting to advance on Sharryl and the twins dropped club and sword at the same time and tried to run toward the door. He nearly got to it before he collapsed, holding his middle in a failed attempt to keep his insides from sliding out through the fresh opening Sharryl had rendered in him.

  All eyes focussed on Rosivok and the remaining intruder—who had picked up one of the chairs near the table and was using it to bat and block. It was obvious that already his arms were getting tired, and he had begun to swing the chair lower, had begun to let his sword arm droop.

  Rosivok swung the subarta almost from behind him and struck the chair with force enough to crack the wood and send splinters scattering. The attacker rallied, dropped the broken framework and lunged, striking ahead with his sword. Then he dodged left, bobbed and came in again. A competent parry, but one Rosivok sidestepped, then used to his advantage as an opening presented itself. The next blow opened up the man's right thigh just below his hip. When he staggered, Rosivok drove the steel of his subarta forward once more, and finished him.

  Frost gestured toward the hearth, and the fire crackled up, adding more light and warmth to the room—though he knew cold was not the reason Dorin and Dara were both shaking so. They stepped away from the corner and Frost saw the blood on Dara's arm. He came to his feet at once and met her at the center of the room.