The Snow Song

by Heath Pfaff

  "Your wall is breeched!" I cried into the darkness, though it was quickly becoming brighter as torches were brought, to aid the human fighters. "Stand down and no more men need fall this day." I called out. "My men, strike at no man that does not strike at you first." I commanded my own army. Slowly the fighting abated, until the two forces stood toe to toe, eyeing each other, and waiting for orders on what should be done next. Risthis, it seemed, was not eager to fight any longer.

  "Bring your leader here. Let us talk. The sooner this business is passed, the better for both of us." I called out. There was a stirring amidst the enemy army, and I saw a man dispatched, presumably to get the nobleman I'd spoken to before. We waited in silence, the men of Risthis slowly backing away from the dangerous-eyed black cloaks they faced. Every minute of delay was another minute in my favor. The mere presence of the black cloaks was enough to incite fear, and fear made my army stronger, and theirs weaker. When combined with being inside their walls, we were no longer at a disadvantage. We had fewer men, but ours were better trained, more powerful, and far more dangerous.

  So far things were going as well as could be expected. Men had died, I couldn't be sure how many on each side, but fewer had died, I was sure, than would have resulted from a full out attack. That was one thing to be thankful for. The fewer lives resting on my conscience, the better.

  It took a while, but finally the noble who'd spoken atop the wall was brought to the front of his army. He looked disheveled, as though he'd been carried from bed, and his smug smile was gone, to be replaced by a look of poorly concealed fear. I stepped down from my perch and went to the front of my army to meet him. For his part, he stood stiffly, back straight, in some semblance of honor, though it may have merely been a paralysis of fear. I towered over him as I drew close, nearly two feet taller than the man, who I realized, was quite short when not atop a wall.

  "I want Telistera freed and brought to me. Our ships are to be prepared to sail this very night. If you give me what I want, I will be gone by morning, and you will need never see or hear from me again. I am prepared to pay for the supplies, and the men necessary to crew my ships. Do you understand?" My voice did not offer any compromise, and I set my face in an expression of angry determination.

  The noble's jaw dropped open. "That's not how you negotiate. You can't just come in here and . . ."

  "This is not a negotiation. This is the order of your king, who you have betrayed. I have judged you and yours guilty of treason, and your punishment is execution. I am willing to grant you all a pardon if you see to my orders immediately, but failing that, my judgment will be carried out now." I locked my purple eyes on the dull brown eyes of Risthis' ruler. He attempted to meet my gaze, but in a moment he averted his line of sight.

  "We will do as you say." He conceded quietly.

  "What was that?" I asked. "I didn't hear you, and if I didn't hear you, your men might not have heard you. I wouldn't want there to be any confusion in the hours to come." I knew my actions were humiliating the little man, but I wanted there to be no question as to who had come out on top in our encounter. I needed things done quickly, and without question. To accomplish that, I would have to play the part of the tyrant once more. I had done it many times in my role as king.

  "We will do as you say!" The noble called loudly, this time so loudly that all of his men heard. I felt the other Knights around me relax. There was no sigh, no shift in posture, but there was a sense of tension leaving the air. The fighting was done for the time being, and we had won.

  "Have Telistera brought at once. Have runners sent to see to my ships, provisions and crews. I will be making my way to the dock now, and I want my ships being loaded when I arrive." I ordered. The noble practically jumped out of skin while turning to give out orders of his own. He snapped at his men, taking his anger at me out on them. I had no doubt that the circle of blame for the events at Risthis would be massive. Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief. The immediate crisis had been averted. I would get my ships, and I would be away from Risthis, and Lord Lheec, and the land of men, before another dawn had crested the sky. I didn't know that it was yet too early to feel relieved.

  By the time I reached the docks, they had already sprouted into a cacophony of action. All the dock hands were running about, trying to get organized for loading the ships. Supplies were being carted out of warehouses, and men were being pulled from their beds to man the pulley systems that would load supplies aboard the ships. There, beneath the partial moon, I had my first chance to really look at the vessels that Telistera had built for me.

  There were three of them, taking up a good portion of the dock area. The first of them finished was the one furthest out to sea, and it looked as though it might take sail at any moment. The other two were slightly less organized appearing, since they would be loaded after the first ship, as it was easier to move the cumbersome equipment to the end of the dock, then back into shore, so that the cranes and pulley systems would be out of the way when the ships were ready to get underway.

  They were massive crafts, large enough to hold a good deal of men each, but they still managed to be narrow bodied, designed with speed in mind. The wood used to craft the hull had been chosen from a wide variety of options available. Telistera had settled on a peculiar red hued wood that was half as heavy as traditional building materials, but nearly twice as strong, and far more resistant to water logging. There had been many problems. The wood was rare, and difficult to come by. The strength of the wood had been a problem of its own, as conventional tools did not last long in shaping and manipulating the lumber. Telistera had been forced to reinvent the tools of ship crafting as well as the basic design of the ship itself. The end result, however, was a better understanding of wood working, a better set of tools that could be used well into the future, and three ships of a strength and design never imagined before.

  In the darkness, the hulls of the three ships looked gray and blue, as did all else in the world, but the red hue of the wood gave them a decidedly darker cast that was almost ominous. Just looking at the ships, however, one could see that they were something special. Each had ten cannons per side, as well as two cannons in the bow and aft. They were equipped with other weapons as well, though I knew little of them at the time. Telistera had insisted that they would be necessary for crossing the sea, and I had not doubted the conviction that had been in her eyes. She warned that she had seen all of her fellows lost to the creatures of the deep, and she didn't intend for that to happen again. I wanted to say that I did not believe in such monsters, and in a way I did not, but there was no denying Telistera's belief in them. I trusted her judgment on the matter. Once, in a time that seemed forever gone, Brutal had spoken of similar beasts, and I had found the stories difficult to believe then as well. Monsters of the deep, could they be any worse than those we found on land?

  I watched the preparations for a time, my black cloaks around me, waiting for their next set of orders. The other Knights had split up and were seeing to preparations, keeping a watchful eye to insure that there were no deceptions from the ground crew. I was just beginning to wonder if something foul had befallen Telistera, when I spotted her tall and imposing figure making its way down the main street of Risthis towards the dock. People struggled out of her way as she came. There was a look about her that sent any who crossed her path away in a hurry. Watching her approach, her silver eyes reflecting the moon's light like silver-blue torches in the night, I could see why people would flee. She was tall and attractive, but also powerfully muscled, and lethal looking. Watching her move was like watching a powerful beast of the wild, beautiful, but deadly at the same time.

  She pushed her way through the black cloaks as effortlessly as she did the other people, using her staff weapon to nudge aside any who were hesitant to move. They eventually cleared way, but not without locking her with their terrible fiery eyes. I could see that the only thing holding them back from attacking her was the bond of magic that entrapped
them. She came to a stop before me, her eyes full of thunder, her hair disheveled. She looked as though she'd spent a few uncomfortable nights in a cell, and I guessed that was exactly what had happened.

  "Telistera." I greeted her as she drew near, offering her a respectful bow.

  "Noble." She returned the bow, though only slightly. It was not a slight on her part. Her people didn't bow, and she had never really taken to the custom.

  "I'm sorry about your accommodations these past few days. I hope you were at least kept comfortably." I doubted such was the case.

  "Jailers here have loose fingers, and believe they are entitled to more than they are, with regards to their prisoners." Telistera said, her back stiffening, and a fierce look lighting her features. "They will not make that mistake again. Once I'd maimed three of them, they stopped making unwelcome advances, and once they realized that I was only staying in my cell at my own choosing, and not because of the strength of the bars, things went smoothly enough. I figured you would settle matters when you arrived. You did not disappoint me."

  "I'm sorry it took so long, and I'm sorry that you had to go through this at all. Our world of politics and politicians knows naught but corruption. They seem to feed upon turmoil, and grow strong upon the chaos of people suffering. I look forward to leaving it all behind." I echoed aloud the sentiment I'd expressed internally many times. The mistreatment of my silver-eyed ally only furthered that sentiment.

  Telistera shrugged. "It's done now. I wouldn't think too highly of the voyage ahead. It will not be easy. The waves claimed many of my people, and what lies beneath the waves claimed many more. The journey is long. It took my people more than two years to cross the ocean. It will take us less time, but it will still take years. You will miss the land." She paused for a moment before adding. "Even this land."

  "I suppose I will." I admitted, though at that moment I couldn't imagine that I would.

  "First ship is loaded, and there is crew aboard willing to make the trip for the gold promised!" Fen's voice cut across the dock as he came running in our direction. He looked excited, his face lit by the exuberance created by the motion around us, and the sea that stretched out forever to the horizon. He looked as young as he was in that moment, no warrior at all, but a boy pulled from his life and cast into a role that he should not have had to fill. I wondered about his family, and what they would think of where he was now.

  That thought, made me think of my own family. I had not done so in years. I had not seen them since before I'd left for my training as a Knight of Ethan. I wondered if they even knew that I had become the king. It seemed unlikely. No one knew me as Lowin. It had always been King Noble, Drake Slayer. I thought back on my life, and realized that I had never missed them the way I should have. There had been too much happening to stop and think about my mother and father. I hoped that they were alive and well, but I didn't know. Maybe someday, I thought, if I came back, I would check on them. If.

  Fen's voice interrupted my dark thoughts. "The hold-master says she'll have the first ship ready to sail in a few minutes, and then we just need . . ." He was never able to finish that sentence. He was still walking across the dock in my direction when a massive explosion tore through the air, and everyone stopped what they were doing immediately. The noise was so loud that I couldn't determine from which direction it originated. I looked back to Fen, and saw him lift his arm to point, and then suddenly he was gone in a blur of motion, and a splatter of red blood and mangled flesh. With him went a piece of the dock, and about thirty black cloaks, also torn to bloody splinters.

  I looked in the direction Fen had been pointing and my heart sank. I could see twenty trails of smoke snaking their way up into the sky, the telltale signs of cannon fire. Risthis had fired upon us. They had fired upon their own harbor.

  "To the ships!" I bellowed. Dock workers were scrambling to get away, and the Black Patch Brigade stood stoically, waiting for death to take them. At my order, every one of my men began to move. In the chaos I could not see what was happening. I didn't know who was alive, and who was dead, though I knew Fen was no more. The Knight who had never really been one of us, and he never would be. Rage tore through my body like a burst of fiery pain. Suddenly I wanted to kill every one of the men of Risthis. I drew my sword and started up the wood planking, heading towards the smoke trails coming from further up in the city. I intended to kill them all. In that moment, with the Fell Beast inside of me licking its drooling maw, I had all intentions of slaying every man in armor in the entire city of Risthis.

  Laouna. A voice whispered in my mind, and I stopped in my tracks. Malice. I spun around, looking back at the chaotic remnants of my army. Where was Malice? I didn't see her anywhere. She had been near me before the explosion, but some of those strikes had hit very close to me.

  "Malice?" I yelled, running back down the dock, all thoughts of revenge fleeing before the incredible fear of losing another person in my life. Dock workers ran by me, terrified expressions on their faces. Another explosion rippled through the air. My body reacted on impulse this time. The world slowed around me, even as I was spinning around to watch the next volley of attacks. The metal shrapnel flew through the air at surprising velocity, even when slowed by my accelerated perception of time.

  I watched in horror as black cloak and human man alike were torn to shreds at the impact of the incoming fire. I surged forward, trying to move as many as possible from the volley of death, knocking one out of the way, before dashing to the next, but there were twenty incoming rounds, and too many people to move. I watched as a cannonball barreled into a group of children huddled beneath an open crate, the game of dice they'd been playing lay forgotten a few feet away. I watched as a woman carrying a sack of grain tried in vain to push one of the black cloaks from the path of an incoming projectile before the flying piece of metal reduced them both to a bloody pulp. They were too far away, and I was not fast enough to save anyone.

  Every face I looked at, I just wanted to find Malice. She wasn't amidst the people on the dock. I saw four rounds hit heavy on the second ship, three of them bouncing off of the hull to fall violently into the crowd of people still trying to get away. The fourth tore through the mainmast, a lucky shot, but one that assured the ship would not be leaving dock. The third ship, I saw, was aflame. The sails had caught fire, and the crew was jumping from the sides. Flaming cannon balls. I watched it all in slow motion, everything happening like some sickening dance, poetic and terrible.

  I let the world slide back into pace around me.

  "To the first ship! Everyone to the first ship! Cast off anchors, make sail!" I called out, screaming until my throat bled. It was time to go, or we would not be going at all. If the first ship had not been the furthest out on the docks, it probably would not have been safe either. I fell back into the depths of my speed, flashing around the dock, avoiding the places where it was collapsing into the sea. I couldn't find Malice. I couldn't find any of the other Knights of Ethan. Black cloaks lay dead, or dying, all around me. I let myself slow down again, thinking that in my speed I might be missing something. Another explosion ripped the world apart.

  Something heavy hit my body and I was spinning backwards, pressure on my chest. I hit the ground hard. The place where I'd been standing exploded before I'd even recovered my breath.

  "We have to leave now!" Telistera yelled above the ruckus while getting back to her feet. It had been her that knocked me to the ground. She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the ship. I looked back over my shoulder.

  "But Malice . . ." I started, but she cut me off.

  "We sail now, Noble, or we don't sail. This is for Kaylien." She was still dragging me. I fell in behind her, reacting numbly. I followed her to the ship, which was already pulling out of dock. We grabbed a hold of a rope ladder as the ship began to cut through the outgoing tide, and climbed our way to the chaotic deck. The climb was hard for me, but I barely noticed it. My mind was in shock. The events that had just transp
ired seemed a confusing blur. Even as the ship was clearing the dock I ran to the back of the ship and stood atop the railing, my remarkable eyes scanning the ruined tatter of the city's edge for some sign of Malice amidst the rubble.

  Another explosion sounded, and another volley of rounds tore into the docks, smashing into the already ruined ships. Fire was everywhere, and I could make out nothing amidst the mess of bodies and death. Black figures burned, the smell of fur, and flesh roasting in flames filled the air, and black smoke billowed into the sky. I stood atop the rail and watched the world burn. The wind tore at my cloak, sweeping it out in front of me. In that moment it seemed I could hear all the world screaming in anguish at the atrocity before me.

  "Malice!" I screamed into the night.

  What fools men, who kill and maim each other, when each wants only to live and be happy. As I watched the docks of Risthis burning, a fire so bright it was like a damning sun upon the horizon, I wondered if there was truly anything worth saving left in our doomed people. Was humanity worth all that had been lost in its name? Despair held my heart, a force that clutched down until it seemed I would be unable to draw a single breath.

  "Lowin?" A voice called across the ship's deck, familiar and as enchanting to my ears as any sound I'd ever chanced to hear. That voice was hope in the face of bleakness. I spun, turning my back to the burning hell of Risthis, and my gaze locked upon the distinct green eyes of Malice. She stood amidst the horde of confused black cloaks and sailors, like a beacon, a pillar of solidarity in a world that seemed on the verge of crumble.

  I ran across the deck to where she stood, darting between the remnants of my army still awaiting orders, and threw my single arm around her, lifting her to my lips until I joined my flesh to hers and kissed her with all the passion I could muster. In that moment, I could think of nothing but the fact that I had come close, so terribly close, to having lost her again. I kissed her as only a lover can, deep and passionate. She replied, clumsily, in kind. It was that clumsy effort that reminded me of her fragile mental state. I pulled my lips from hers hesitantly. Her cheeks were bright red, flushed with color, and her face wore a surprised, but pleasantly startled expression.