Ashes of a Black Frost

by Chris Evans

  “Then keep bloody pushing!” Yimt shouted back.

  A blur off to the left caught Konowa’s attention and he was shocked to see Pimmer running for all he was worth toward the toboggan. “What are you doing, man? This was your idea! Get on!”

  Pimmer jumped on and the toboggan broke free and began to slide across the snow. Konowa pushed until he thought his eyes would pop out of his head. The toboggan inched forward, slowly picking up speed. Blood pounded in his ears. I’m getting too old for this, he decided, easing off for a moment to catch his breath. The toboggan leaped ahead a few feet and his heart raced as it started to slip away from him.

  “Jump on! Jump on!”

  Konowa pumped his legs and dove, landing headfirst in a bag of flour that burst open on impact.

  He came up gasping for air. “Do we have everyone?” he shouted, turning to look behind him. Rakkes screamed and picked up pieces of wood and threw them at the toboggan. Too late he wondered what would stop the rakkes from simply sliding down the hill after them?

  Jir bounded up beside him and dug his claws into the stack of supplies. He stuck his head up into the wind with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out. His stubby little tail wagged furiously.

  “Cover your ears!” Pimmer shouted, using his thumb to point back at the fort.

  Konowa looked, then flinched as the fort vanished in a black orange flash. The explosion rocked the toboggan and set it hurtling even faster down the slope. Rakkes and rubble rocketed into the air. Konowa had seen gunpowder explode before, but never this much. It sounded like a thousand thunderclouds detonating at the same time. The walls of the fort buckled and flew outward, scattering cartwheeling chunks of masonry down the hill and toward the toboggan. Body parts and bricks began falling all around them.

  People screamed. Something heavy hit Konowa in the back between the shoulder blades knocking him forward again into the flour. He pushed himself back up and looked down at his side to see the grinning, severed head of a rakke staring back at him. He picked it up by the smoldering hair on its head and flung it over the side.

  He became aware of a new sensation, that of falling. He turned and faced forward as the toboggan whooshed down the snow like the bow of a ship plunging into the trough of a monster wave.

  The rock walls whizzed past much closer than Konowa thought was safe. He squinted into the wind and saw that due to the prevailing wind the snow had drifted more to the western side of the road, creating a ramp that was angling them toward the east side, and the rocks that lined it.

  “Everyone lean left!” he shouted, throwing his body sideways. The whole toboggan lurched and began to tilt as it climbed up the snowdrift on the west side.

  “Too much! Back to the right!”

  The toboggan lurched again and a loud crack sounded from somewhere beneath him.

  “She’s breaking up, Major!” Pimmer shouted from somewhere behind him. “She can’t handle the strain!”

  “We’re almost there!” Konowa shouted, trying to reach for his saber then forgetting the idea when he realized he’d have to release one of his hands from its death grip on the supplies. The toboggan hit a bump—it might have been part of a rakke—and became airborne. The bottom of his stomach fell away and he suddenly felt as light as a feather. It wasn’t a good feeling.

  The desert floor appeared through the snow. It was close, and on an angle that looked more vertical than horizontal. A cluster of rakkes stood at the bottom of the snow-covered stairs looking up.

  “Rakkes dead ahead off the bow!” Corporal Feylan shouted, embracing his naval ambitions in his excitement. “Brace for impact!”

  In the final second before toboggan, Iron Elves, and rakkes met in what would be recorded as the first and last battle of the HMT The Flying Elf, Major Konowa Swift Dragon, brevet naval captain, said a silent prayer to blind, dumb luck.

  “Viceroy!” he yelled, the wind and snow stinging his face. “You know how to make a distraction!”

  Konowa’s understanding of physics was, as he was the first to admit, more of a complete misunderstanding. The looming change from the steep descent down the snow-covered road to the flat snow-covered desert rushing toward him was blocked by a huge mound of accumulated ice and snow. It looked less like a soft pile of fluffy snow and more of a hard, ice-encrusted ramp. He chose to keep his eyes open as he’d already lived his life once and a lot of it he would just as soon forget. He wanted to see the next few seconds, especially if they were to be his last.

  What saved Konowa and the riders of HMT The Flying Elf was luck in the form of the combined body mass of thirty-five rakkes. The toboggan launched itself into the air and immediately took a nose down position as it sailed through the air toward the desert floor. At that angle it would have shattered on landing, but the rakkes took the initial impact of the toboggan, absorbing the force of over two thousand pounds traveling faster than an eight-team horse carriage.

  A rakke’s skull, though heavy and thick to protect what little brain it had, wasn’t designed to withstand the blunt impact of that much force. Konowa had never seen a body disintegrate two feet in front of him before. The spray of rakke material stung his face with a wet mask that dried instantly in the wind.

  If the creatures screamed, Konowa couldn’t hear them. He did, however, feel the force of the wood pulverizing them as it shuddered toward touchdown. More rakkes appeared and while these, too, were smashed by the toboggan, the body parts now flying through the air were considerably larger and posed a real danger.

  “Duck!” someone shouted entirely unnecessarily. Even Jir had had the sense to crouch down as limbs and heads began flying overhead.

  HMT The Flying Elf touched down some thirty feet away from the foot of the road and rebounded at once, throwing up a hundred-foot-tall geyser of ice, snow, wood, and more rakke parts. This time Konowa did hear screams, but he had no time to check who they were. He was too busy holding on. His hips then his legs flew up into the air, and for a moment, he was doing a handstand before the toboggan slammed down again and Konowa did, too.

  Three more bounces and one more handstand occurred before Konowa was able to remain firmly on the pile of supplies. Rakke howls rose and fell away as the toboggan roared across the snow, bowling over the creatures with little regard and minimal drag on its high rate of speed.

  “That was marvelous!” Pimmer shouted, his voice filled with glee.

  “Miraculous is more like it,” Konowa yelled, rising up slightly to look beyond the next group of rakkes running to get out of the way. Three didn’t, but one did. Konowa stuck out his boot and caught the rakke at the base of its skull with his heel as they flew past and immediately regretted it. The crack he heard had been the rakke’s spine and not his ankle, but he was still seeing stars for the next several seconds.

  “Everyone keep your hands and legs inside!” Visyna shouted. “We’re traveling much too fast.”

  Konowa was still grimacing with pain so he didn’t bother to look over his shoulder. He had a feeling she was looking right at him.

  “Shades!”

  The shades of dead rakkes flitted in and out of sight up ahead. Maybe they’re still trying to get the hang of it, Konowa wondered, hoping that provided enough of an advantage to allow the toboggan to slide through. He risked taking his right hand off the supplies and grabbed his saber, drawing and calling on the frost fire as he did so.

  The part of him that was forever six years old grinned while the rest of him tried to convince himself this really had been the best and only plan of action. The blade of the saber sparked to life with frost fire and began trailing an eerie icy black tail of flame and frost like a comet falling from the heavens. Unlike the living rakkes, however, these shades moved to intercept the toboggan. Konowa suddenly realized there was no way he’d be able to swing his blade in a wide enough arc to cut a swath big enough for them to pass through safely.

  “I hope this works!” he shouted, swinging his saber down to lodge it into the
table top acting as the bow. Black flame engulfed the wood and the entire front of the toboggan, sending huge, flickering tongues of frost fire back along the toboggan. Jir yelped and stuck his head beneath his front paws while screams and shouts rose from those immediately behind him.

  “What are you doing?” Visyna and Pimmer shouted at the same time.

  Konowa didn’t bother to reply. The answer was about to happen . . . now!

  The first shades of dead rakkes hit by the flaming toboggan exploded in a shower of sparks. Their shadowy forms fractured and disintegrated like smashed crystal as the black flames consumed the tumbling pieces until nothing remained. The toboggan barreled on, making living and dead rakkes one and the same.

  “A most novel idea, Major,” Pimmer said, crawling up beside him. “We appear to be through the rakke wall. Any thoughts on how to put out the flames?”

  His grin vanished. “Oh . . .”

  The flames, fed as much by the wind as the supply of rakke shades, were quickly clawing their way back along the supplies.

  “I am sorry about this,” Konowa said, meaning it. He hadn’t set out to destroy the man’s pride and joy. “We’ll just have to jump off and let it burn out.”

  “That sounds wise, especially considering I saved a few kegs of black powder and loaded them on the toboggan.”

  Konowa looked down below him. He could just make out the curve of a keg at the bottom of the pile. “How could you be that stupid?”

  Pimmer looked crestfallen. “I’m afraid I placed them on the bottom to provide some ballast and keep our center of gravity low, like on a ship.”

  “Everyone jump off!” Konowa shouted, turning and looking back down the length of the toboggan.

  The looks he received were a mix of horror and incredulity. Even Jir perked his head up as if to see if he was serious.

  “It was a mad plan to start with, you don’t need to embellish it!” Visyna shouted back. “We’re still going too fast!”

  Konowa couldn’t help but notice how attractive she looked with her hair blowing wildly in the wind. He’d have to remember to tell her that. Later. “There’s black powder on here. When the frost fire hits it it’s going to explode!”

  “You arse!” Visyna shouted. She glared at him for a second then began weaving the air. Konowa felt the power of her control over the elements around them. It suddenly started snowing much harder. Big, fluffy flakes pasted him like a cold, wet wool blanket.

  “I don’t think that’s going to put out the fire,” he said, taking a quick look at the front of the toboggan and the growing bonfire there.

  “This isn’t over!” Visyna shouted, grabbing a hold of Chayii. His mother just looked at him with disappointment in her eyes, a look he’d seen far too often. And then the two women in his life stood up and dove off the side of the toboggan and into the snow.

  “The Viceroy did it, not me!” he shouted after them, knowing that was the six-year-old part of him again. “I’m just trying to help!”

  “And to think you were complaining about a little bit of copper fire a few hours ago,” Yimt said, his face and beard a mask of snow.

  “This was the only—Look, I’m still in charge here!” Konowa shouted, anger rising that he was being scolded by apparently everyone. “And I order all of you off the damn sled!

  “Damn toboggan,” Pimmer offered helpfully.

  Konowa grabbed the diplomat under both arms and held him up. “Thank you for pointing that out. Try to roll when you hit the snow.” He heaved, his anger sending the diplomat flying in a graceful arc, which ended in an explosion of snow.

  He turned to look back at the rest of the passengers. “Anyone else need assistance?”

  Yimt began kicking supplies and soldiers off the toboggan with equal force. “Never a dull moment in the service!” He jumped, grabbing a flailing Zwitty in one hand and a metal tin in the other. The rest followed in a melee of limbs, prayers, and curses, the latter aimed, he was certain, directly at him.

  By now the flames were licking all around Konowa. He knew he was impervious to their effect, but he had no such protection from gunpowder. “Time to go, Jir,” he said, motioning for the bengar to move. Jir growled, and the hair on the back of his mane stood straight up. “This is no time to get squirrelly,” Konowa said, and shook his finger at him. “Jump or I’ll boot you off.”

  Jir growled again and bared his fangs. Konowa realized the poor creature was terrified.

  “Look, I don’t like it either, but we have to get off this thing. Everyone else is gone, it’s just you and me, and I’m not leaving you behind.” He held out his hands and motioned for Jir to come to him.

  Konowa doubted the bengar understood the words, but the tone in his voice must have registered. Jir stopped growling and slinked over to rest his head against Konowa’s thigh. Frost immediately arced between Konowa and Jir and the bengar stood up in surprise. Konowa lunged, grabbed Jir by the mane, and pushed him over the side as the bengar flailed the air with his paws.

  “You can thank me later!” he shouted, after the howling bengar landed on the snow, snout first. He skidded along like that for a few yards before emerging from a growing snow pile and began running after the toboggan as it pulled away. “Thought they always landed paws down.”

  Konowa turned to face forward again and was surrounded by black flame. It was surprisingly peaceful, as if he’d just dived into a cool lake on a hot summer day. The feeling only lasted a moment.

  “Right, this is going to explode,” he said to himself, and prepared to jump. He was halfway to throwing himself off the side when the battle somewhere out in the snow between Private Renwar and Her Emissary caught his attention. The acorn made a grating sound as it constricted with an icy burst of energy. Konowa bent over double with tears streaming down his face. He struggled to right himself as the toboggan continued to tear through the battlefield. He wasn’t steering, but the pull of the conflict between Renwar and Gwyn was drawing him and the toboggan toward them. The power in the night was astounding. It was as if all the breathable air had been replaced with raw energy, and he wasn’t breathing it so much as absorbing it.

  The toboggan began to pick up speed as it homed in on the dueling pair and Konowa knew his time was now. The temptation to ride it out and draw even closer to the swirling battle of power almost kept him on the toboggan.

  Almost.

  With a scream he didn’t pretend was anything but, he flung himself off the side. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d experienced the sensation of flying and falling, but he knew if he never felt it again he’d be entirely okay with that. The snow-covered desert floor came up and punched him in the face and everything went white, cold, and suffocating for a while.

  After what could have been an eternity or a few seconds he lifted his head and sucked in some air, choking down a mouthful of the bitter-tasting snow in the process. He gingerly climbed to his hands and knees as the earth pivoted and spun beneath him. He shook his head, which didn’t help one bit. Everything was vibrating, and not in that warm, slightly drunk-feeling way. This was harsh and unsettling. He stood up, surprised to see his saber still clutched in his hand.

  “Where’s my . . . damn shako?” he muttered, poking around in the snow with the point of the blade in the vain hope of finding it. He turned around in a small circle intent on finding the hat while a voice deep inside was screaming at him to pull himself together. “Not without my shako,” he said to no one, then dry-heaved.

  Sweat dripped off his nose and his whole body began to shake. “Think I should sit . . . sit down,” he said, starting to walk instead. That’s when the sights, sounds, and smells of battle assaulted him all at once. He staggered and had to use his saber as a cane to stay upright. Rakkes howled and screamed. Musket volleys rippled and snapped through the air as the acrid smoke of gunpowder mixed with the falling snow turning everything a dusty, pale gray.

  He heard shouts, saw shadows, felt the cold wind on his face. I
t occurred to him then that he was still sweating a lot as more liquid poured down his face and dripped off the end of his nose. He reached up with his left hand to wipe the sweat away and thought it felt awfully sticky. He looked at his fingers. They were covered in blood.

  “Oh . . .”

  Got to keep moving, he thought, even as his knees buckled and he sat down in the snow. The weight of the world pressed down on his shoulders. He watched the snowflakes spin and float in the air. That was him. Weak and blown about by the wind. He shook his head again. No, that wasn’t him. He had purpose. He had strength. Still, right now that was just so many words.

  “. . . just close my eyes for a minute,” he said, aware that the ground was shaking. Something loomed over him and he looked up.

  A rakke stood two yards away. His shako was clutched in its claws. It opened its mouth and peeled back its lips to reveal the full length of its fangs.

  Konowa tried to lift his saber, but his right arm stayed limp at his side. The rakke stepped forward, looking around as if trying to detect a trap.

  “Run,” Konowa mumbled, not sure if he was talking to himself or the rakke. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t move and the rakke took another step toward him.

  Something hard and impossibly cold pressed against his breast until he thought it would burst through and shatter his chest. Still, it wasn’t enough. He watched the rakke approach, the shako still dangling from a claw. He ignored the creature’s milky eyes and its drooling fangs. All his attention was on the shako.

  “That’s not yours,” he said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. Images of a locket and four words inscribed inside—Come back to me—kept him from slipping into unconsciousness.

  The rakke seemed to understand what he meant. It looked down at its claws and brought the shako up to its face. It sniffed at the hat and then tore a chunk out of it and threw it to the snow, spitting out the piece a moment later.

  Konowa got one leg underneath him and tried to stand. “You really shouldn’t have done that,” he said, struggling to stand upright. He wobbled and collapsed back down, the strength from anger not enough this time.