Ashes of a Black Frost

TWENTY-TWO

Do you see? This is what that fool Konowa has brought down upon us all!” Kritton said, throwing his hands around to encompass the snow-covered desert. He glared at Visyna. There was a certainty of purpose in his eyes that would brook no dispute. In someone else it might have been viewed as fierce determination, but Visyna knew this was something different, something lethal.

He’s losing control, she realized. It was only a matter of time before he tried to kill them all.

Kritton continued to rage, all the while flailing his arms around. His uniform hung in tatters from his lean frame. His hair was unkempt and his caerna was little more than a rag.

She lowered her head and turned away, partly to avoid antagonizing him further, but also to protect her face from the wind-whipped snow buffeting her. After the warm confines of the tunnel, she was finding it difficult to catch her breath in the cold. None of them were dressed for this weather, and all of them were tired, hungry, thirsty, and nursing wounds. They wouldn’t last more than an hour or two in these conditions.

She waited, bringing her hands in tight to her chest to warm her fingers in case she had to begin weaving. Kritton cursed and walked away, shouting orders to the elves to keep their muskets pointed at the prisoners. Visyna searched their faces, looking for a sign of compassion, of regret, or even shame, but all she saw were masks of indifference. The look in their eyes was as cold as the steel of their bayonets. Visyna had no doubt in her mind they would kill all of them without hesitation.

Hrem appeared beside her a moment later. “I think I was right. There’s a fort just ahead of us on those rocks. That has to be Suhundam’s Hill.”

Visyna squinted into the wind. What at first she took to be more darkness resolved itself into the outline of a jagged collection of rocks topped off with a squat, square box. “We need to act before we get inside there. Kritton is coming apart.”

“Elves could die,” Hrem said, his gaze still fixed on the fort.

“They made their choice. It’s time we made ours,” she said, echoing his words from earlier. She tested the air around her. Now that she knew what to look for her fingers easily found the elves’ threads in the storm. She gasped when her touch found one more surrounded by a cold, black power. Could it be? “I think Konowa is here,” she whispered, looking up at the fort.

“That means the regiment is here, too,” Hrem said, glancing around them before looking back to the top of the wall. “I thought I saw movement up there, but I figured it was just the wind. If the regiment is already inside the fort then Kritton is going to walk himself right into a trap. All we have to do is stay calm and let it happen.”

Visyna couldn’t believe their luck. Would it really be this easy? Kritton barked more orders and the elves and their prisoners began to move. In this weather it would be easy for one of the soldiers to slip away into the night unseen, but where would they run? With no shelter from the storm they would freeze to death out here. She looked at the huddled group of soldiers and realized none of them would be running anywhere. Zwitty, Scolly, and Inkermon were keeping each other upright in a swaying, stumbling fashion. Chayii walked with one hand firmly gripping Jir’s mane. The elf stopped and started to swoon, then caught herself and stood up straight.

“Hrem, I must help Chayii. If she collapses, her hold on Jir will, too, and he’ll attack. Keep the others together.”

Hrem nodded and slid over to steady the trio while Visyna matched her pace with Chayii and casually slipped her arm around her waist. The elf was shaking.

“You must keep your hands free to weave, my child,” Chayii said, turning to look at her. Chayii’s face was gray and her lips were turning blue.

“You’re turning to ice,” Visyna said, gripping the elf more tightly and hoping to get some warmth into her.

“Jir is becoming increasingly difficult to hold, and the weather is not helping. I don’t think I can make it to the fort.”

No. Visyna looked around to make sure no elves were close. “I think I felt Konowa up there. I’m certain I sensed him. We just have to make it inside and we’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.”

“My son is there?”

Visyna squeezed her waist. “You just have to hold on a bit longer.”

At these words Chayii stood up a little straighter. Jir looked up at them and purred, his ears pointing straight up and his muzzle to the wind, sniffing the air. Could he sense Konowa, too, she wondered? A moment later the bengar’s purr turned into a snarl.

Visyna took her hand from Chayii’s waist and sought out the threads again. There were more, hundreds more.

“Rakkes!”

“Where?” Chayii asked, coming to a halt. The elves around them heard her shout and stopped, too. Kritton was there in a flash, eyes boring in on her.

“I warned you, witch,” he said, raising the butt of his musket in preparation to strike her.

Before it could fall, the shrieking cry of a rakke sounded off in the distance. It was answered at once by dozens more. The sound grew to a fury far outstripping the storm. Kritton lowered his musket.

“Back to the tunnel. We need to go back there, now!”

“It’s too late for that,” Hrem said, walking up to place himself between the elf and Visyna. “Didn’t you hear those things? They’re behind us, too. Our only chance now is to make it to the fort. The rakkes will never get us in there.”

Mention of the fort snapped Kritton’s head around to look at the rocky hill. Visyna noticed the elves were watching the storm now and paying no attention to the rest of them.

One of the elves said something to Kritton in elvish and pointed toward the fort, but Kritton shook his head. “The plan was to meet at the foot of the path leading up to the main gate. The dwarf Griz Jahrfel will be there.”

“Kritton, if Griz Jahrfel is anywhere around here, he and the rest of his band of thieves are probably rakke meat by now,” Hrem said. “Listen to them. We have to get to the fort.”

Kritton raised his musket as if to fire. “You forget who’s in charge here! We will not go back in that fort!” Kritton shouted.

By now all the elves had formed a small square facing outward. This was exactly the chance Visyna had been looking for, but now that there were rakkes nearby she wasn’t certain if she should take it. She believed in her heart that Konowa was in that fort, and wanted nothing more than for him to charge out with the regiment to save them, but she already knew that was impossible. A regiment can’t move that fast, and it would be suicide to bring them out of the security of the fort.

She made up her mind.

While Hrem and Kritton continued to argue she moved over to stand in front of Zwitty, Scolly, and Inkermon. She turned to them as if offering them aid.

“Tell me if Kritton comes this way,” she said.

“What are you up to?” Zwitty asked, his weaselly face a scowl of suspicion.

“Saving your lives,” she said.

Ignoring the threads of life around her, Visyna focused instead on the weather. She closed her eyes and focused her attention skyward, picking out a single snowflake fluttering in the air several hundred feet up. Using it as her focal point, she began to draw more flakes to it, hoping to create a microstorm that would blind Kritton and the elves long enough to cover their escape.

Instead of massing together into a billowing pile, however, the flakes melted and froze together, forming a spinning chunk of ice. She grimaced, feeling the sting of the Shadow Monarch’s taint in the storm. Her dexterity was hampered by the pain. The more she wove the larger the ice grew. It was already man-sized and growing faster as it fell. The horror of what she had set in motion dawned on her. This wasn’t going to be a blinding storm, it was a single chunk of solid metallic ice.

She saw Kritton’s life force clearly in the storm. It was bound in the Shadow Monarch’s oath and pulsing with a black energy. It troubled her that it was so similar to that of Konowa’s, but unlike Konowa, she knew Kritton wasn’t going to change. There was more than just the oath staining Kritton’s energy. His rage and his need for revenge was consuming him, making him as toxic as the rakkes around them.

Visyna turned and opened her eyes. Kritton was still yelling at Hrem, but he paused in mid-sentence and looked at her. He saw her hands and his eyes grew wide.

He knows.

Kritton began to bring his musket up to his shoulder again. He was going to fire. Time stood still. Visyna knew what she had to do, but unlike the beetle in the tunnel, this would be no accident. She lowered her hands, removing the last of her hold on the falling ice. It occurred to her then she had the power in her to divert the ice so that it wouldn’t fall directly on Kritton, but she didn’t. A part of her was screaming that this was wrong, and that there would truly be no turning back, but her survival and that of the group meant more.

She made a choice.

There was a rush of air, a blur, and then a spray of red mist as the ice slammed into Kritton’s skull. The ice didn’t shatter then, but carried on to pulverize Kritton’s body into a four-foot-deep crater in the frozen desert floor.

Visyna cried out. The violence of Kritton’s death shocked her. Blood, snow, and ice exploded in every direction. A chunk of ice struck Visyna in the stomach, knocking her backward into the three soldiers, sending all four of them tumbling to the snow.

Visyna gasped for breath, her arms and legs twitching as she tried to regain control of her senses. A hand appeared out of the dark. She reached for it, yelping as the frost fire singed her bare flesh. Hrem hauled her upright then quickly let go. Scolly, Zwitty, and Inkermon staggered to their feet. Jir padded into view with Chayii still gripping his mane.

“That was one hell of an ace you had tucked up your sleeve,” Hrem said. There was a fierce grin of satisfaction on his face that Visyna couldn’t share. He held up his other hand. Yimt’s drukar was clenched in his fist. Did he want to give it to her as a war prize? She’d just murdered another living being. She knew she had done it for all the right reasons, but it still didn’t change the fact of what she had done. She shook her head and turned away.

A musket fired. Everyone ducked, but the shot had been aimed away from them. Rakkes yowled. A rock sailed overhead. The elves were all turned to face outward. More muskets fired.

“The rakkes are closing in,” Hrem shouted. “We have to try for the fort. Can you do more of that weather stuff?”

Visyna was still reeling. It wasn’t remorse, but more shock that she had deliberately taken another life. She tried to probe her feelings further, wanting to feel something beyond disbelief, but her mind was too full of images of blood-splattered ice and the horrible sound of crunching bone. She knew it would stay with her the rest of her life.

“Not like that, but I should be able to keep us partially hidden in the storm.” She suddenly felt the need to explain herself. “I can’t kill them all, Hrem. I did what I had to do to stop Kritton, but I can’t take the lives of all these elves. Even if I had the power I don’t think I could do it.”

“You won’t have to,” Hrem said, looking away.

Visyna followed his gaze. The elves were disappearing into the snow, firing their muskets as they went.

“Are they running away?” she asked.

“Don’t know and don’t care,” Hrem said. “After what you did to Kritton, they probably figure they’re safer with the rakkes. If anything, they should prove a nice distraction for us. We’re a lot smaller group. We have a better chance of remaining undetected.”

A volley of musket fire made further conversation impossible. Visyna ducked again. Rakkes screamed in pain from somewhere close.

“You’re risking our lives,” Zwitty said, pointing a finger at Hrem. “You really think one of these elves won’t put a musket ball in our back as a parting gift? They were ready to end every last one of us down in that tunnel. We set out toward the fort on our own and they might just fire a volley at us.”

“Would you rather stay here and wait for the rakkes?” Hrem asked.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Scolly said, looking at Zwitty. “Those rakkes are terrible.”

Zwitty looked at Scolly, opened his mouth and then closed it in a frown. He lowered his hand. “No one wants to meet up with those damn rakkes, I’m just saying it’s our lives if you’re wrong, Hrem.”

“It’s our lives regardless,” Visyna added, marshaling her energy. “We have to get to the fort, it’s the only chance we have. I should be able to weave a small storm within the storm that will keep us hidden.”

“Can you control it?” Zwitty asked. The concern in his voice was obvious. They had all seen Kritton’s death. Cannon balls weren’t that destructive.

Visyna knew her cheeks were burning. She hadn’t meant to create a massive chunk of ice, but in the end it saved them. She saved them. “I won’t be focusing my energy above us, only around us. You’ll all be fine, just don’t touch me, and don’t stray outside the area I protect.”

“And if we did?” Zwitty asked.

Visyna said nothing, simply looking over at the crater where Kritton had been standing.

The musket fire lessened. Visyna could still see a few of the elves through the snow, but it was as if her group no longer existed. Now that Kritton was dead, maybe his toxic concepts of honor and revenge would no longer sway the elves. She wanted to believe that was true, but she had already made up her mind she wasn’t going to stay here to find out.

She noticed Chayii still holding on to Jir and walked over to them. “Konowa must know we’re here. We just have to make it to the walls and we’ll be safe.”

“You have a lot of faith in my son,” Chayii said. It was a statement. Visyna detected no sarcasm.

“I do, but I also have a lot of faith in myself, and in you and Jir and the rest of the squad, even Zwitty.”

Chayii’s eyebrows went up and Visyna tilted her head. “Well, faith that he doesn’t want to get left out here all alone.”

The elf smiled. “In that case, my faith in him equals yours.”

Visyna paused, listening to more musket fire. Before she could stop herself she blurted out the question she knew she had to ask. “Do you want me to save them? The elves?”

Chayii stood up straighter. Her eyes peered deep into Visyna’s and for several seconds she said nothing.

“No,” Chayii said. Her voice was free of any emotion. “They are beyond our help.”

“But Konowa. .” Visyna started to say, then paused. She wanted to say that Konowa’s whole life had been about finding his elves. And now that they were so close, they were about to slip away.

Chayii smiled at her. “I think you already know the answer. These are not Konowa’s elves. They were once, but not anymore. If by some miracle they were to survive, Konowa would have no choice but to court-martial every one of them. You know what the penalty for their crimes is? He would have to sign their death warrants.”

Visyna knew it was true. “Is there nothing else we can do?”

“We can save ourselves, my child,” Chayii said. “That will be difficult enough.”

There was a cold logic to what Chayii said that Visyna couldn’t dispute. Hrem strode up to them with the other three soldiers close behind. The musket fire began to pick up in intensity again, and this time it didn’t slacken off. Rakkes roared and called to each other all around them.

“We really need to go,” he said.

Visyna looked one last time at Chayii, who turned away to face the fort. It loomed before them like a dark block. It seemed impossibly far away. She knew she was cold, tired, hungry, and scared and did her best to ignore it. The snow swirled around in patches, providing sporadic views of the desert. She caught glimpse of packs of rakkes and bodies sprawled in the snow.

“Stay close.” She began to weave the air, pulling at the threads around her. Musket fire crackled all around her, making it difficult to concentrate. The responding screams and roars from the rakkes only made it worse. She shook her fingers and rolled her head from side to side. She went deeper into herself, ignoring the chaos and searching for something solid to hold on to.

Konowa. She smiled and growled at the same time. He was less base and more a potent element in an alchemist’s cauldron, but he was energy and life. The key, and one she wasn’t sure she’d ever fully comprehend, was to get the mixture of who he was just right. She had no illusions that she could ever change him. . at least not completely, but however far he’d drifted from his origins he remained a creature of the natural order. That was enough.

Visyna pictured him in her mind, seeing the elf that he was. She accepted the darkness and the violence that was in him, knowing the choices he’d made had been as difficult as they had been necessary. It didn’t mean she agreed, and it certainly didn’t mean she wasn’t going to help him become a better elf, but for now she found it in herself to accept him the way he was. She’d killed an elf this night because he couldn’t change. The regret weighed heavy on her heart. She would move heaven and earth to help the elf she loved find the strength that Kritton could not.

The ground around her erupted in a geyser of snow and sand. A single column of tightly swirling snow a foot thick climbed twenty feet into the sky. She gasped and slowed down her weaving, allowing the column to settle at a height of six feet.

“The Creator be praised,” Inkermon said, wonder and fear evident in his voice.

Visyna wanted to say his so-called creator had nothing to do with it, but that wasn’t helpful.

“Could you ask him for a little help?” Visyna said, turning her concentration back to the column of snow.

“What, pray to him? Now?” Inkermon asked.

“I could use it. We all could.” She risked a quick look over her shoulder. The soldier appeared stunned.

“No one’s ever asked before,” Inkermon said. He stood up. His knees wobbled, but he stayed upright. “I’m always ridiculed. I have only ever tried to spread the word and offer them a path to redemption.”

“Mercy, Inkermon, don’t get all weepy on us,” Hrem said. “I can’t speak for the rest of them, but I admire a man with firm convictions. Just maybe keep in mind other men might have different ones.”

“There is only one true. .” Inkermon started to say, then let the rest of his words get taken by the wind. “A prayer right now would be appropriate. Yes, I will call on his aid that we may yet live to do his bidding.”

Visyna smiled. She had no idea who or what might exist beyond this world, but if they wanted to throw a little help their way she wasn’t going to turn it down. She shivered and lifted her hands out in front of her. With a flick of her right wrist she began to tease apart the column, unfurling it like one of Rallie’s scrolls. As she did she coaxed it into a curving wall, bringing it around to fully enclose them in a five-foot-diameter space.

“Not a lot of room in here,” Zwitty muttered.

“Can you ever give your mouth a break?” Hrem asked.

“Look, I’m not saying I want to be on the other side of this thing,” Zwitty said, his defensive whine in full pitch. “I’m just saying it’s tight quarters is all. She’s the one that said we can’t touch her while she’s doing her spells. That’s not going to be easy trying to get to the fort now, is it?”

“It will be challenging,” Chayii said, her grip loosening on Jir’s mane as she crowded in to stand in front of Visyna. The bengar sniffed at the swirling snow a foot away from his muzzle, but had the sense not to touch it. The soldiers shuffled close to stand beside and behind her in a crescent.

“This is the best I can manage,” Visyna said. It truly was. The dawning realization that she now had to maintain this wall while walking several hundred yards over increasingly difficult terrain and surrounded by rakkes made her question if she could really do it.

“Not much though, is it,” Zwitty said, clearly unable to contain himself. “Now that boulder of ice you used to crush Kritton, now that was some good magic. This, though, it’s just a bit of snow swirling around, isn’t it?”

Before she could shout a warning, Zwitty yelped.

“That could have scoured the skin right off my bones!” he shouted. “It’s scalding!”

Visyna felt his hand briefly touch the wall without having to see it. “Do not touch it. The longer the wall is maintained, the hotter it will become. I should warn you, it will likely become very warm in here.”

“I’m still freezing my-Well, it’s freezing right now so a bit warmer would be just fine,” Hrem said.

Let’s hope that’s all it becomes, Visyna thought, easing back on the pace of her weaving. It was going to be a delicate balance. The rakkes would sense the use of magic, so all the swirling snow in the world would only mask them for so long. She’d need to keep them hidden with enough of a barrier to dissuade any curious rakkes from trying to see what was inside.

“Hrem, you’re all soldiers. We need to walk at a steady pace.”

“That I can help you with. All right, ladies and gentleman. Nice and easy. I’ll give the cadence and you just follow along. Ready? By the right. . and by that I mean your right foot. . forward. . march.”

As Hrem called out a soft “left, right, left, right” Visyna used the tempo to help her weaving. She soon had a comfortable rhythm going. Chayii kept her hand on Jir, but for now he seemed perfectly content to pad along with them. He still favored his wounded shoulder, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down.

“Left, right, left, right, I see the fort straight ahead, left, right, left, right,” Hrem said, saying the words at the same tempo as the cadence.

“Any sign of rakkes?” she asked. “I have to concentrate on this. It’s difficult to see beyond it.”

Hrem didn’t answer right away. “Well,” he said, dropping the cadence, “we’re about to find out just how hot that snow is. Can you brace yourself?”

Visyna risked a quick push of her senses beyond the wall and immediately regretted it. “There’s hundreds of them!”

“I can’t see all that, but I can see enough. We don’t even have any damn weapons,” he said.

Sweat began dripping off the end of Visyna’s nose. She blinked and more drops stung her eyes. She couldn’t afford to wipe her hands across them so she rubbed her face into the cloth of her sleeve while still maintaining her weaving. It was already hot inside the circle and they had barely traveled twenty yards.

“Just stay close. . and keep moving,” Visyna said, really talking to herself. She already knew she couldn’t keep this up all the way to the fort.

A rakke howled from just outside the swirling wall of snow.

A moment later, Visyna felt the creature impact the wall. Its screams were cut short as the small group continued moving forward and over the rakke’s smoking body. Jir growled and barred his fangs at the sight of the rakke, but other than giving the corpse a good sniff, he left it alone. Visyna stepped over it while doing her best not to look, but the smell of singed hair and flesh made her gag.

“Well, that’s all right then,” Zwitty said, his voice startling loud inside the small area. “Any rakke stupid enough to try to get through this is in for a nasty surprise. Good. But could you turn down the heat a bit?”

“I can’t,” she said, wiping her eyes again. She licked her lips and tasted salt. Her skin felt like she was lying in the sun at high noon. “I’m sorry. It’s only going to get hotter.”

There was a commotion on the other side of the wall and several rakkes began screaming in pain. Fortunately, none of them fell down in their path, but now the snow and sand beneath their feet was turning to mud. Walking was becoming increasingly difficult. If anyone slipped they would fall through the wall. If that didn’t kill them, the slavering beasts on the other side would. They were all walking a tightrope with just one wrong step meaning a horrible death. “I’m going to have to stop,” she said. Her legs were shaking and she was having a hard time walking. Between the fear and her exhaustion it was becoming a challenge just to stand upright.

“Are you mad? We’ve barely-” was all Zwitty managed before the sound of a thump suggested Hrem had knocked him off his train of thought.

“The fort is still quite a piece away,” Hrem said.

“I know,” she said, lifting her sandals out of the mud one at a time only to sink back down again. “I just can’t keep this up. I’m sorry, I thought I could but I can’t.” It was as if the muscles in her legs had been replaced with solid lead.

“You’ve done everything you could, child, no one is blaming you,” Chayii said, her voice calm and without a hint of accusation.

I am, she thought to herself. Her hands were cramping and her hold on the spinning wall was faltering. If she didn’t dissipate it soon, she might lose control of it completely and risk all their lives.

Her right foot caught as she pulled it from the mud and she stumbled. She fumbled her hold on the storm. She struggled to get it back, but it would take more strength than she had left to pull it in tight and keep it strong. The best she could do now was focus it outward, pushing the swirling snow and heat further away while still keeping it swirling around them. Visyna knew before long she would lose even that ability, and when that happened, they would be completely exposed.

And when it happens, I will have killed us all.