Ashes of a Black Frost

TWENTY-ONE

Konowa could make out two elves standing ten feet away, one crouching behind the other. They were backlit by the falling snow so that their faces were in shadow, but the pointy ears were a dead giveaway.

The one in front held a bow and arrow pointed directly at Konowa’s heart. The bow was at full draw and the elf’s hands were rock steady. He was dressed in what appeared to be palm leaves, twigs, weeds, and other natural litter to be found in the desert. Konowa knew Her dark elves chose to garb themselves in leaves and other material harvested from the sarka har, but he couldn’t recall seeing any dressed like this.

Konowa reluctantly took his eyes off the arrow still pointed at him and assessed the other elf. Unlike his partner, this one wore robes of the Hasshugeb tribes and was currently smoothing nonexistent whiskers on his face.

“Father?” Konowa said, not trusting his eyes.

Standing before him and finally transformed back to elf form from that of a squirrel, Jurwan Leaf Talker continued to work at whiskers no longer there. “What. . how did you get here? You’re elf again? What happened?” He heard boots on the stairs behind him stepping out into the courtyard and held up his hand toward the other elf. “Easy, lad, easy. Tyul, right?” he said. “Nothing to worry about, we’re friends. You remember us, right? We were on the big boat together. I’m his son, Konowa. Father, tell him to put down the bow.”

The bow remained at full draw, the arrow unwaveringly fixed on Konowa’s chest. The muzzles of muskets slid into his field of vision on either side of him as his soldiers took aim.

“Father, time to climb down from the tree and be an elf again. Tell him to lower his damn bow. Now!” Jurwan blinked and then bolted for a nearby ladder leading up to a wooden walkway that went all the way around the inside of the fort a few feet below the parapet. He was up it in a flash and gone from sight.

Konowa stood openmouthed. It wasn’t the reunion he’d imagined.

“The two of them are a few bricks short of a wall at the moment,” Yimt said, stepping out from behind the door to stand between Konowa and Tyul. “Mute as monks. Haven’t got a word out of either of them.” He pointed at Tyul and wagged his finger. “What did I tell you about shooting arrows at friends? No. Bad elf. Very bad.”

Tyul eased the bowstring forward and slowly lowered the bow. Konowa realized his mouth was still hanging open and he shut it slowly. He resisted the urge to wrap the dwarf in a bear hug. Yimt was a mess. He no longer wore his shako, his beard looked more like an eagle’s nest of twigs, and his uniform seemed more holes than cloth. The nastiest-looking hole was one centered right in the middle of his chest. It looked very much like a wound from a musket ball. “You little devil. Where in the hell have you been? We all thought you were dead.”

A chorus of shouts started to build as the soldiers recognized the dwarf, but Konowa quickly silenced them with a sharp wave of his hand. He looked past Yimt and took in the interior of the fort.

It appeared smaller and less imposing on the inside. Truth be told, it was less a fort than four stone walls roughly mortared together to form a box thirty feet by thirty feet. The walls themselves rose no more than twelve feet, but situated as they were on top of the rocky hilltop, they were still imposing to anyone trying to launch an attack from the outside.

Dilapidated wooden shanties lined the interior walls serving as barracks and storerooms. A large fire pit scarred the courtyard in the far corner. Stores lay tumbled in heaps wherever Konowa looked. Smashed-open crates with packing straw strewn everywhere, broken earthenware jugs, split burlap sacks, and wooden barrels with their staves kicked in. The elves stationed here had clearly grabbed what they could, tried to destroy the rest, and then taken flight. Judging by the amount of supplies still scattered about, it was equally clear that the Hasshugeb warriors had not yet looted the place or Konowa suspected there wouldn’t have been so much as a nail left.

He looked back at Yimt. “Did you find anyone here at all?”

“Quiet as a tomb,” Yimt said, “which I gather you’ve seen for yourself.” He used a thumb to point back the way they came.

Konowa nodded. The shock of seeing first his father and now Yimt alive was wearing off and his mind began to function again. “Visyna? Where is she? The rest of your squad? My mother? Jir?”

“All still alive last time I saw them,” Yimt said.

Konowa was glad the soldiers were behind him. His eyes teared up. Visyna was alive. The image of their first meeting in the forests of Elfkyna came back to him. She’d tried to skewer him with a blade, but the memory was a fond one. She was fire, but it was the kind that tempered his spirit and made him strong.

He took a moment to cough so that he could wipe the tears away without anyone noticing.

Yimt waited until Konowa signaled he was okay, then made a point of coming to attention and saluting. It wasn’t easy for him, his face grimacing as his right arm came up. “Regimental Sergeant Major Yimt Arkhorn requesting permission to rejoin the ranks, sir!”

Konowa returned the salute then held out his hand. Yimt looked momentarily surprised, but smiled and shook his hand. The dwarf’s grip was hard and steady. Relief flooded through Konowa. He had the regiment’s steel spine back.

“We need to talk in private, Major,” Yimt said, keeping his voice low so that only Konowa could hear him.

Konowa turned and faced the troops. “Corporal Feylan.”

Feylan snapped to attention while struggling to wipe the smile off his face. The other soldiers perked up on hearing Feylan’s new rank. “Get men to the front gate and see if you can spot the regiment. I want the rest rounding up whatever supplies are here and stacking them by the gate.” Konowa lowered his voice as he continued. “And see if you can’t coax my father down.”

“Grab some gravel in your fist and shake it,” Yimt said to Feylan. “Sounds like nuts. It works, but make sure you’ve got something to feed him otherwise he has a tendency to bite.”

“Er, yes, RSM,” Feylan said. “I’ll get one of the lads on it.” He saluted then spun on a heel and started barking orders. The troops scattered to their tasks.

“Bright lad, that Feylan,” Yimt said. “He’s got the knack of delegating already.”

“Wants to join the navy if you can believe it,” Konowa said.

“Hot buttered nuns, is he daft? He’d be wasted on a ship,” Yimt said, his cheeks flushing red. “I leave this regiment for a few days and the lads start losing the plot. Good thing I’m back.” Yimt scuffed one of his boots in the snow then looked up into Konowa’s eyes. “How is he?”

Konowa had been hoping he wouldn’t ask about Private Renwar, but he couldn’t keep the truth from him. He knew time was precious, but he took it anyway to bring the dwarf up-to-date on everything that happened. Yimt’s eyes grew wide at the description of the bone dragon and of the marching and flying sarka har, but when Konowa mentioned Private Renwar’s transformation, he hung his head.

“I’m sorry, Yimt,” Konowa said, feeling a bond beyond officer and sergeant. “Rallie thinks there’s hope for him yet, and I hope she’s right, but he just keeps drifting further away from this world and into the next.”

Yimt lifted his head. His face gave nothing away, but Konowa knew the hurt he must be feeling.

“He wasn’t made for this life. Oh, he’s tough enough in his own way, in ways I never could be, but a boy like that deserves more, you know?”

Konowa reached out and placed a hand on Yimt’s shoulder. “We all do. And maybe, with a little skill, a lot of luck, and you giving the troops a good kick and bellow now and again, we might all just get it.”

Yimt flashed a smile, his pewter-colored teeth gleaming. “I like the sound of that, Major. And truth be told, trying to march two squirrelly elves across the desert just doesn’t compare to a proper regiment. Of course, seeing as there ain’t one in sight I guess the Iron Elves will have to do.”

Konowa managed to keep the smile on his face as he spied Pimmer walking toward them. “Very nice to meet you, RSM,” the diplomat said extending his hand. “I’ve heard many tales about you in the short time I’ve been with the regiment, and if even half of them are true, well, I’d love to hear a few more.”

Yimt reached out and shook his hand, ignoring the black frost that sparked when their flesh touched. “An honor to meet you, Viceroy. Not every day you meet a diplomat on a scouting party,” Yimt said, looking at Konowa out of the corner of his eye. “And well armed, to boot.”

Pimmer beamed and winced at the same time as he gently took back his hand and patted the pistol tucked into the leather belt keeping his robes in place. “Well, it’s not exactly safe out here. One never knows when danger is going to rear its head. I find it best to be prepared for all eventualities.” He looked over at Konowa and hurriedly added, “And the major has been giving me a crash course in military tactics. It’s all been quite fascinating.”

Before the conversation could detour any more Konowa interjected. “What happened to you and the others? And how in the world did you find my father and Tyul?”

Yimt limped over to an empty wooden crate. “Sorry, sir, not quite up to snuff at the moment, but I’ll be fightin’ fit with a little breather.” The dwarf sat down hard on the crate which groaned in protest but did not break. “Your father and Tyul saved my skin. The beasties, rakkes that is, had me cornered and I’m not afraid to say I was in a spot of bother. Your father and Tyul diced those monsters up like so much onion. Course, neither one of them is quite sound in the noggin’. I thought the young one was going to do me, but instead he shot the rock right out of my hand. He’s completely daft, but the lad can shoot.”

Konowa looked over at Tyul. He was sitting in the middle of the courtyard and appeared to be meditating, or maybe sleeping. “So my father hasn’t said anything?”

“Not that I can make sense of. Every so often he’ll start chittering away about something. I thought maybe it was elvish, but I think it’s squirrelish. Still, the fact that he’s not actually a squirrel anymore has to be a good sign. And he’s wearing clothes now.”

Konowa decided that yes, it was an improvement. He had his father back, at least part of the way. The old elf was tough. If he managed to make it this far, he’d eventually make it the rest of the way home to himself.

“So then. . what happened to you?”

Yimt pointed to the hole in his uniform over his chest. “Courtesy of that yellow-bellied coward of a snake, Kritton,” he said, spitting out the words.

Konowa was still staring at the frost-burned scar tissue visible through the hole when what Yimt said registered.

“Kritton? He’s here?!” Konowa asked in disbelief. “How?”

“Can’t say I know how he gets around these days, but I can tell you about the why.” Yimt took the next several minutes to explain the scene in the library. “Buggers were looting the place like rats in a cheese shop. They had wagons-full of more knickknacks, bric-abrac, and artifacts than you could shake a stick at. But even that would be excusable,” Yimt said, showing his rather expansive view on a soldier’s right to grab a few items in the course of a good battle, “if Kritton hadn’t got it into their heads they needed revenge. He’s turned them. Any one of ’em could’ve put a musket ball up that elf’s backside and been a hero, but not a one made a move. And the weaselly elf bastard shot me.”

Konowa closed his eyes for a moment then opened them, looking past Yimt. “We saw the mutilated bodies. I recognized a lot of the muscle cuts. We learned how to skin deer that way back in the Hynta. Kritton is poison all right, but they didn’t have to drink his swill. They made their choice. I can’t worry about that now. The regiment is just outside the fort.”

“But how on earth did you survive a musket shot at close range like that?” Pimmer asked. “Were you wearing armor beneath your uniform?”

Yimt smiled, showing off his pewter-colored teeth. “In a manner of speaking. A dwarf rib cage is like iron, hell, it actually is part iron. It’s all the crute we chew. If he’d shot me in the gut it would have been a very different story, but lucky for me the bastard aimed right at my heart.”

“Incredible. You’re indeed full of surprises, my friend. Do you have any idea where they were headed?” Konowa asked.

Yimt scratched at his beard. “I think they’re trying to head back home.”

“There’s no way the tunnels go all the way to the coast. They’d have to surface somewhere. .”

Konowa looked around him. “Viceroy, any indication on your map of any other secret entrances into this place?”

Pimmer turned over another empty crate and with some difficulty kneeled down and spread the map out on it. He held out the storm lantern which Konowa grabbed and positioned over the map.

“I’ve spent some time looking over this, but I’m afraid I just don’t see anything indicating a tunnel leading into the fort.”

“What’s this bit of scribble over here?” Yimt asked, pointing a finger at a small rock formation outside of the fort a few hundred yards off its southern side.

Pimmer leaned over for a closer look. “That’s just the privy. In Birsooni it translates as hole of dark earth, which I took to refer to midnight soil, which we all know means sh-”

Konowa coughed. “They wouldn’t build a latrine outside the fort like that. Couldn’t that also mean tunnel opening? Everything would look dark down there without light?”

“But why all the way out there? Why not bring it right into the fort?”

“Geologic reasons perhaps,” Yimt said. “Might have been too difficult trying to tunnel through this stuff. Everything looks like it was done fast and with less than a master stone mason’s attention to detail.”

“Whatever the reason, that could be a tunnel,” Konowa said. “If it is, then we need to explore it.”

Pimmer rubbed his chin as if debating his next words very carefully. “Not to throw a damper on things, but won’t that take time, time we don’t have.”

Now you worry about time. “We’ll make time,” Konowa said, making sure his tone gave no room for argument. “RSM, when the regiment arrives, I want that rock pile searched. If it’s a tunnel entrance, I want to know what’s down there. Viceroy, look at that map again. If there are any other oddities on there that could mean a tunnel or hole or anything like that, I want to know.” His words were coming out faster than he intended, but he didn’t care. Visyna and Kritton were both alive, and they were somewhere nearby. He knew it. And he was going to find both of them.

“This does shed new light on things,” Pimmer said, standing up and wandering off with his map held close to his face. Konowa watched him walk over to where Tyul was sitting and plop down in front of him. He spread the map out between them, sheltering it from the snow with part of his robe, and began talking. The elf ignored him though Pimmer didn’t seem to notice.

Konowa turned back to Yimt, who was staring up at him with a questioning look.

“What?”

“It’s just that the last time I saw you look that happy, you were killing something,” Yimt said.

Was Konowa going mad? He’d just walked through a field of horrors and this is how he reacted? But it wasn’t that. He struggled to understand the feeling swelling inside him. It was. . balance. All his life he’d been angry, thinking that one day he’d find peace and be able to come to terms with the world and his place in it. But he’d had it all wrong. He’d been miserable with his anger, but it gave him purpose. To lose it would be to rob him of something important. He needed his anger, but he needed more, too. He needed to be part of something. For a long time the regiment had served that role. It was his family. The time in the forest during his banishment had been hell. He realized that despite his outward bravado he wasn’t so different from everyone else. He wanted to be part of something more than himself. Maybe he could find it with Visyna. All he knew for certain was that the time was coming when he would have to make choices. Permanent, inviolable choices.

Konowa looked at Yimt and decided he could risk revealing a little of what he was experiencing. “What do you call it when you suddenly realize something that makes your whole life make sense? Everything just comes into view like a fog has lifted?”

Yimt snapped his fingers. “You, Major, just had what they call in technical terms an e-piff-anny. It’s named after some lass from way back. It means you came to an abrupt understanding of something. It’s like when you wake up after a night at the pub and for a minute you don’t know why your bed is wet and lumpy and your beard smells like the wrong end of a goat, not that there’s a right end, and you suddenly remember the wife chasing you out of the quarry with a battle-ax yelling at you not to come back until you sober up.”

“Ahh, that sounds. . possible,” Konowa said, surprised that he actually got the gist of what the dwarf was saying if not the full meaning. “Um, I’ll probably regret this, but a goat?”

“Turns out I stumbled into the local cheesemongers shop a few doors down and took a table of cheese curds as a big bed. Wound up buying seventy-five pounds of a right tangy cheddar. Lucky for me the wife had put up some prune preserves, because after two weeks of eating cheese I was-” whatever Yimt was going to say was thankfully interrupted by a shout from the front gate.

“Major, you’d better get over here!”

Even before Konowa made it to the front gate he knew it was trouble. He sprinted the last few yards and came to a stop by the soldiers standing guard. They were all pointing down to the desert floor.

“Rakkes, sir, hundreds and hundreds of the buggers! They’re swarming in from all over.”

The chill that ran down Konowa’s spine had nothing to do with the black acorn. The regiment had yet to reach the bottom of the hill, but the rakkes already had.

“They just came out of nowhere, Major. One minute it was quiet and the next they were everywhere.”

Konowa gripped the edge of the wooden gate. The snow-covered desert plain below the hill was dotted with hundreds of rakkes. They bounded through the snow from every direction, all homing in on the regiment now stranded several hundred yards from the bottom of the road leading up to the gate. Deep in the heart of the swirling dark mass of rakkes, a vortex of black light spun on a wobbling axis. Images of a twisted, mangled figure walked in the center of it. The rakkes kept well clear of the spinning darkness. Konowa cursed under his breath.

“What is that thing?” Corporal Feylan asked, using his musket to point.

“One viceroy too many,” Konowa said. Corporal Feylan brought his musket tight into his shoulder ready to fire.

Konowa reached out a hand and knocked the muzzle down. “That’s a thousand yards if it’s a foot. You couldn’t hit that thing if you tried that shot for a month straight. And I doubt it would even notice a musket ball going through it.”

Feylan looked like he wanted to try anyway, but he grounded his musket. “We can’t just stand here, sir. We have to do something. The regiment is marching right into a noose. They’ll be ripped to shreds.”

“Easy, Feylan, you’re not thinking. One, there’s damn little the handful of us could do from up here, so I’d rather not draw attention to ourselves at the moment.”

Feylan lifted his musket again, his nostrils flaring. “But that’s the point, Major. If we draw their attention the regiment will have a chance.”

Konowa grabbed Feylan by the collar and pulled him forward just past the front gate. “What do you see right down there littered all over the rocks?”

“It’s more dead rakkes.”

“But they’re not just dead, are they? They’ve been tortured. Their bodies were mutilated and set out on display. Now who do you suppose all these new rakkes are going to think did that?”

“Whoever’s up here in the fort. .” Feylan said, his voice trailing off.

“Exactly,” Konowa said, letting go of the soldier’s collar and patting him on the shoulder. “We’re relatively safe in here as long as we don’t do anything stupid. Even if the rakkes do climb up the hill they’ll have a devil of a time trying to get in. This fort isn’t much, but it’s on top of a chunk of steep rock, and that counts for a lot.” He put his hand on Feylan’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “Sometimes, lad, the smartest thing you can do is nothing at all.”

“But. . you mean we just sit here and watch?”

Konowa pointed toward the desert floor. Black frost etched jagged lines in front of the oncoming rakkes. Icy flames rose from the ground then guttered out. In their place stood the shades of the regiment’s dead. The deathly remains of Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian sat astride the great, black warhorse Zwindarra. Konowa shivered in spite of himself. “We let the Darkly Departed do what they do best.”

Lorian charged, leaning forward over Zwindarra’s thick neck. The horse glided more than galloped across the snow and smashed into three rakkes. Blurred images of slashing hooves and Lorian’s ghostly saber flashed among the rakkes and blood splattered the snow in great swathes.

The other shades followed suit, cutting through the rakkes with a fierce abandon Konowa couldn’t remember seeing before. Something, or someone, had definitely fired them up.

“Major, a word?”

Konowa turned. Pimmer stood behind him with his pistol in one hand and a brown leather wrapped telescope in the other. The Birsooni map was folded and tucked in the front of his belt and his small brass storm lantern now hung from a loop of heavy twine around his right shoulder. In his layers of Hasshugeb robes the diplomat looked like a desert warrior ready for anything.

“You were right,” Pimmer said.

“About?” Konowa asked. He really didn’t have time for this, but hearing “you were right” granted the man a little leeway. It wasn’t often Konowa heard those three magic words.

“The map. It turns out that notation does mean tunnel. I think you’d better look.” He handed Konowa the telescope and pointed to the ladder leading up to the southern walkway.

“That’s good to know, but exploring it will have to wait at the moment,” Konowa said, turning back to watch the unfolding battle on the desert floor below. At first he thought a fog had rolled in, but realized it was the freezing mist of spilled blood. His stomach heaved. The black vortex continued to move forward, but as of yet had made no obvious signs of joining the fray. That worried Konowa. A hand on Konowa’s arm spun him around to face a stern-looking Viceroy. “I’m afraid I didn’t make myself clear. I know it’s a tunnel because people are emerging from it as we speak.”

Konowa grabbed the telescope from Pimmer’s hand and tore across the courtyard. “Keep a close watch on that twisted Emissary, but don’t do anything. I’ll be back!” he shouted over his shoulder. He skidded to a stop at the foot of the ladder and leaped, barely touching the rungs as he vaulted up the ladder and landed on the wood plank walkway attached to the wall. It shook alarmingly, but he barely noticed as he ran across it to where Private Meswiz stood clinging to the top of the wall. He pointed down toward the desert.

“They started popping up like rabbits by that pile of rocks. At first I thought I was seeing things, but they’re there all right.”

Konowa peered into the night. “Are you sure? Maybe it was just rakkes roaming around. I can barely see anything.”

“I know I saw people with muskets, sir, at least, I’m pretty sure that’s what they were.”

Konowa pulled the telescope open to its full length and sighted it where the soldier was pointing. Everything was black.

“What’s wrong with this thing?”

“The lens cover. .” Private Meswiz said.

“Damn it,” Konowa muttered, ripping the cover off and re-sighting the telescope. He struggled to find the spot again. “I don’t see . . wait, there are figures there.” Something about that one looks familiar. . He moved the larger tube to bring the image into focus.

He lowered the telescope.

Kritton.