Ashes of a Black Frost

by Chris Evans

  “Keep watch,” she whispered, leaning forward to concentrate on the beetle. She brought her hands in front of her and concentrated on the energy coursing around her. The men of the squad were easy to pick out, their energy laced with the darkness of the oath. She quickly found the slender thread of the beetle’s energy and with soft, smooth strokes began to tease it apart, looking only to weave a single strand of it in the hopes of slowing it down.

  The beetle continued to crawl across the floor, unaffected by her efforts. Her face flushed and she flexed her fingers and started again. She found its thread and gave a gentle pull.

  Crack. The beetle’s energy unspooled like a dropped ball of yarn. She looked past her fingers to see the insect dead on the floor, its tiny body broken in two.

  “Impressive,” Hrem said, reaching out and picking up the bug with his huge hand. He studied it for a few seconds then incinerated it with frost fire.

  Visyna couldn’t breathe. “I was . . . I was only trying to slow it down,” Visyna said, dropping her hands in her lap. “Its energy was too thin.” It was a bug, and she knew Hrem would think she was foolish, but she didn’t care. She had just killed a living creature. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  Hrem nodded. “Then slowing down a bunch of elves should be easy.”

  Visyna looked at him in shock. “It’s murder.”

  He returned her stare. “Then so be it.”

  The sound of footsteps echoed off the tunnel walls.

  “On your feet,” Private Kritton ordered, coming to stand in front of Visyna’s small group. A makeshift bandage of torn blue cloth covered his left shoulder. A dark, wet stain in the center of the cloth attested to the wound from Chayii’s thrown dagger back at the library. Even now, Visyna felt an urge to want to help the elf. She chided herself for the thought. Let him suffer, he deserves it. He’d shot Yimt in cold blood. He’d poisoned the elves with his mad need for redemption. It was clear he would never stop until something, or someone, stopped him.

  No one moved. Kritton’s eyes narrowed as he looked them over, then without warning he lashed out with his boot, kicking Scolly hard in the ribs. The soldier yelped in pain and curled up in a ball clutching his rib cage. “I said on your feet, now.”

  Hrem was up in an instant, moving far faster than a man of his bulk should move. Frost fire burned in his hands. Several elves appeared with muskets cocked and ready to fire. Each muzzle was aimed at a different member of Yimt’s old squad. There was no way they’d miss.

  “Easy, Hrem, he’s not worth it,” Visyna said, gently laying a hand on his arm. Frost fire arced from his sleeve to her skin. The shock of the magic stung her hand, but she kept it there for several seconds, wincing at the pain.

  Teeter helped up a whimpering Scolly, while Zwitty and Inkermon rose to their feet on their own. They grouped close together, each one’s fists clenched. Their bravery was all the more impressive because even as they prepared to fight they swayed on their feet. Chayii remained crouched by Jir, her hands buried deep in the fur on the back of his neck. A deep, rumbling growl echoed throughout the tunnel.

  “You have something to say, big man?” Kritton asked, wincing as he clutched his left arm to his side.

  “Don’t touch him again. Don’t touch any of us again, ever.”

  Kritton sneered. “Or what? Your precious major isn’t here to save you now. All I see are a bunch of misguided fools doing the bidding of a bastard in league with Her.”

  “Funny,” Hrem said, his voice low and steady, “I was going to say the same about you lot.”

  “It’ll be the last thing you say,” Kritton said, his right hand falling to rest on the hilt of Yimt’s drukar.

  Seeing it worn by Kritton angered Visyna, but she knew she couldn’t afford to indulge that emotion, not here, and not now. A few growls from the rest of Yimt’s squad suggested they were not as likely to hold their feelings in check. If Visyna didn’t do something soon things would spin out of control.

  “It would help if you told us where we are going,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded calm.

  Kritton and Hrem continued to glare at each other.

  Scolly coughed and doubled over gasping. Teeter kept him from falling and helped him stand up again. When he did they all saw blood trickling from his mouth.

  “You pathetic bastard,” Teeter said, letting go of Scolly and taking a step forward. He pointed a finger at the elf. “You don’t know where you’re going, do you? All you know is you fouled it all up and now you’re taking these elves with you.”

  Kritton broke his stare with Hrem and turned on Teeter. The elf’s jaw was clenched. “Shut your mouth.”

  Teeter took another step. “You’re a coward and a liar, Kritton. All you’re doing is running. That’s all you’ve ever done. There’s a noose waiting for you now so you’re running and you’re taking these elves with you to the gibbet. Yes, that’s right,” Teeter said, turning to look at the elves. “Desertion, murder, and looting are all hanging offenses, or do you think they’ll pardon your crimes for some long-lost baubles and beads?”

  No, no, no, Visyna thought, please don’t provoke him.

  “Our honor will be restored!” Kritton shouted, his voice trembling. “Everything we’ve done has been necessary. We’ve destroyed Her forces wherever we found them. The rakkes . . . the rakkes paid for the humiliation we’ve endured.”

  The elf soldiers looked uncomfortable at Kritton’s mention of the rakkes, though Visyna couldn’t understand why. The tension in the tunnel was growing. Hrem turned his head slightly and looked at her. She felt trapped. She had to try to weave some magic now.

  Teeter refused to back down, continuing to shout insult after insult at the increasingly agitated elf. Visyna took in a slow breath and held it. With her hands down by her side, she sought out the life energy around her. She found the elves easily.

  Avoiding Kritton’s aura, she began to weave, careful to keep her movements as small as possible. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her neck grew warm as she focused. The wrongness of what she was doing filled her with dread.

  She had just begun to tease apart the strands when the oath magic flared and caused her to lose focus. Teeter’s clenched fists were wreathed in black frost. He was still yelling at Kritton and didn’t appear to notice.

  “Teeter, let it go!” Hrem said, recognizing this new danger. Zwitty gasped.

  The elves shuffled back a couple of steps before Kritton barked at them to stay where they were. His eyes narrowed. “Do you see? This is the curse Swift Dragon brought down on the regiment, and if he has his way, it will be your fate, too.”

  Teeter was no longer yelling, but his anger remained. “Get out of here and take your kind with you,” he said, his voice low and menacing.

  “You don’t frighten me,” Kritton said, “or do you forget that I’m just as cursed as you?”

  The frost fire blossomed into ice-black flame and began crawling up Teeter’s arms. His jacket shimmered and the buttons gleamed as the fire took hold. The ground beneath his feet sparkled as if he stood on broken glass.

  “Put it out, Teeter—you know what happened to Zwitty,” Hrem said.

  “I had it under control just fine,” Zwitty said.

  “I’m not doing anything. Not until they leave,” Teeter said. His face was cast in a flickering light of sharp shadows as the black frost fire reached his shoulders and covered his chest. He wavered where he stood.

  Visyna stifled a cry as she sought out his energy in the web around her. The oath magic was spiraling out of control.

  “Hrem, do something,” she said.

  He held out his hands and shrugged. “I can’t do what Renwar did. None of us can.”

  She looked over at Chayii, but she shook her head.

  Teeter took a step toward Kritton. “Run . . . now.” He was completely wreathed in black flame. The temperature of the air plummeted and the tunnel filled with white mist from their breath. The fire grew in intensity
, feeding off Teeter as it did. Kritton backed up several steps.

  “This would have been your fate!” he shouted, turning to look at the elves. “This is what I am trying to save you from. This is why everything we did was necessary!”

  “Put out the fire now!” Hrem shouted.

  Teeter turned to look at him, then at the others. Even through the flame Visyna could see he was trying to smile. “I plan to.”

  He spun, and opening his arms wide, lunged at Kritton.

  Smoke and flame filled the tunnel as several muskets fired at once. Visyna screamed and covered her ears too late as the blast assaulted her senses. Hot, acrid smoke and burning embers slapped her face. She reeled backward and would have fallen if not for slamming into the tunnel wall.

  There was yelling, screaming. Inkermon crashed to the floor with two elves on top of him. Scolly dove on top of them, his fists a blur as he pummeled the back of an elf’s head. More elves charged past her knocking her off her feet in the process. She slid down the wall scraping her back and landing sharply on her tailbone bringing tears to her eyes.

  “You bastards! You bastards!” Hrem shouted, tearing into the elves and scattering bodies everywhere. His fists swung like massive sledgehammers, dropping elves into crumpled heaps. Black frost sparkled on several of their uniforms, but did not burst into flame. Visyna struggled to her feet determined to help, but a body fell on her legs pinning her in place. Frost fire crackled and sparkled on her legs and she screamed, pushing the body off. It was Zwitty. Blood trickled from a long gash above his right eye.

  This time she did get to her feet, but the fight was over. Elves had them penned in from both sides, their muskets ready to shoot them all down. She rubbed her eyes, blinking and shaking her head as her vision slowly readjusted.

  Teeter’s body lay sprawled on the tunnel floor, the frost fire consuming it rapidly. In a matter of seconds it was gone. The air started to warm, and her breath no longer misted in front of her face. More tears filled her eyes as Teeter’s shade materialized briefly and then faded, leaving only a cold, empty space.

  “We go, now!” Kritton shouted, his eyes wide with fear and anger. He kicked at elves to get them moving, motioning them to haul the human soldiers to their feet. Visyna willed herself to move. Scolly and Inkermon helped Zwitty up as she fell into step with Hrem.

  “There was nothing you could do,” Hrem said. His knuckles were bloody and the left sleeve of his uniform was ripped from shoulder to cuff.

  She knew it was true that there was nothing she could have done, but hearing him say it made her feel guilty all the same. She began to trace a tiny pattern in the air with her hands, seeking out the threads of the elves around them. Hrem looked over and tilted his head in question.

  “No more of us die,” she whispered.

  He nodded, and they kept walking.

  A cold shock rippled through Private Alwyn Renwar as he led the regiment toward Suhundam’s Hill. His vision fogged and the ground beneath him spun. He drove his wooden leg down hard for support, breaking through the ore-stained snow crust.

  More Iron Elves had been killed. The ranks of the dead shuddered, the feeling moving through Alwyn like an ice flow. No one alive should ever experience this. It was cold, and loss, and hopelessness, and it eroded away a little more of his humanity.

  He started to seek out who they were, then stopped. He no longer wanted to know. Soon enough, the shades of the dead soldiers would appear, their cries adding to the chorus of agony and fear that marked the existence of all the fallen. What made it worse was remembering a time in the very recent past when these same men had lived and laughed and smiled. To know them now as nothing but shadows of unending torment and despair was a burden he couldn’t bear much longer.

  Death, he knew, would be no release. For him, insanity offered the only way forward.

  “And how are you doing this less-than-ideal evening?”

  Alwyn turned, surprised to see Rallie standing behind him. He saw the column of soldiers a few yards behind her, waiting.

  “More of them have died,” Alwyn said, turning away again.

  “You mean of us, don’t you?” Rallie asked, walking to stand beside him. Despite the wind, her cloak barely rippled. “You are still among the living, yes?”

  “Am I?”

  For an answer, Rallie reached out with her quill and jabbed the point into the flesh of his hand. He yelped, snatching his hand away and shaking it. A warm, soothing sensation enveloped his hand before frost fire sparked and burned the feeling away leaving him cold and shivering.

  “Either you have excellent reflexes for a dead man, or you’re still very much alive,” she said.

  Alwyn studied her through his gray eyes, seeking out her energy. An ancient power radiated from—“Oww!” he said, feeling the sting of her quill jab him again, this time in the earlobe. As before, a feeling of warmth began to spread throughout his body before the oath magic overwhelmed it. Alwyn shook himself as anger surged inside him.

  “The wind took it,” she said, staring him directly in the eyes as if daring him to contradict her. Power coursed through Alwyn. He was the destroyer of Kaman Rhal’s dragon of bones. It was he who blasted the Shadow Monarch’s emissary to pieces. Who was Rallie to—“Oww!”

  “It’s like it has a mind of its own,” Rallie said, removing the sharpened end of her quill from his shoulder. It had pierced the cloth of his uniform and his cotton undershirt underneath. This time instead of warmth there was heat as the point entered his skin dead center in the middle of his acorn tattoo. He felt frost fire tracing the outline of the tattoo and its motto “Æri Mekah (Into the Fire and Right the Hell Back Out)” but unlike the previous two times it did not consume the power he felt from her quill.

  Rallie held the quill loosely between her fingers, twirling it slowly. Alwyn raised his hands in surrender.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer right away, but started walking. Alwyn watched her for a few steps then followed after her. He caught up with her and fell into step. His tattoo continued to burn, but now it was a tolerable heat. In a very strange way he found it comforting, as if one small part of him was still him.

  “The major will be waiting for us, so I think it best we keep moving,” she said.

  “You’re not going back to your wagon?”

  “One of the lads used to drive a beer wagon. I’m not sure camels are quite the same as dray horses, but I think he’ll get the gist of it quick enough. Besides, with one damaged wagon wheel it’s not a very smooth ride. So I decided I’d take the chance to stretch my legs. And I’d like the company.”

  Alwyn tried and failed to read Rallie. He looked for fear, or mockery, but all he sensed was genuine interest on her part.

  “Sometimes what you see is what you get,” she said.

  He walked in silence, only partially listening as Rallie somehow got onto the subject of distilleries. The regiment trailed them at a distance. A new feeling enveloped him. He was never alone, not anymore, but right now he felt a degree of peace and solitude as he walked beside Rallie. There was something soothing about her voice.

  “Are you casting a spell on me?” he asked, suspicion rushing his words and making his tone sharp.

  “I have been called mesmerizing in my day,” she said, “positively captivating even. But no, no spell beyond the simple act of keeping a friend company. There’s a power in that greater than anything I’ve ever encountered.”

  Alwyn turned his head to see if she was laughing.

  “Well, in a deeply emotional way,” she explained, resting a hand over her heart.

  Before Alwyn could stop himself the words rushed out. “Everything is pain. I’m losing my friends, Rallie. I’m losing my grasp on this world. Soon there won’t be anything left to keep me here.”

  “Nonsense. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Alwyn had expected sympathy, perhaps shock on her part at his plight, but not this.
“That’s what you think this is? I’m becoming the living dead, cursed for eternity with tormented shades as my companions, and you think I’m feeling sorry for myself?”

  Rallie pulled the cigar out of her mouth and jabbed it at him. He recoiled.

  “As I keep having to explain to you, you’re not dead, not by a long shot.” She put the cigar back in her mouth and clamped down on it as a gust of wind raced across the desert kicking up sand and snow. “Your survival instinct still works. It’s your brain that’s giving you problems. You’re overthinking things. Wallowing, as it were, in a sea of woe. I can’t help the dead, but the confused and despondent I can still help . . . if they’re prepared to help themselves. I was telling the major something similar. Start with hope and build.”

  Alwyn thought about that. Was there still hope?

  “I don’t know if I know how to do that, Rallie. What hope is there for them? For me? We’re all bound by Her magic.”

  “Magic done can be undone. That’s why we’re going to meet Her on Her mountain. Which is why we’re currently trekking across this desert. You’re getting yourself twisted in knots about grand, horrible things when what you need to be doing is putting your attention on the here and now.”

  “But the shades—”

  “Will remain that way unless you and the rest of the living do something about it,” she said, cutting him off. Her voice softened as she continued. “I know they’re suffering, as are you. For now, it can’t be helped. You’re their emissary now, and they look to you for answers, so give them something to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rallie swung a hand around taking in the emptiness. “Put the buggers to work. They’re dead, but that’s no excuse for lying around moaning and lamenting that state of affairs. They need focus, and you can give it to them. You know what’s at stake. You know what has to be done to free the regiment from Her oath. So buck up, chin up, and get moving.”