Ashes of a Black Frost

THIRTY-EIGHT

They’d climbed almost two hours without a sign of any living creature except the sporadic carcasses of sarka har. They were all dead, or dying.

“What killed them?” Konowa asked, walking off the trail to get a closer look at one. It didn’t look like it had been attacked, more that it had just wilted and died.

“The natural order is so polluted here, and there is nothing of value for them to feed on,” Visyna said, her voice quavering.

Konowa was worried about her. She appeared weak and ill. He felt it in the ground himself, but it only fueled his desire to get to the top. “Perhaps you should-”

Visyna glared at him and he closed his mouth.

“I am going with you all the way. If you even think of suggesting otherwise the Shadow Monarch will be the least of your worries.”

Konowa smiled in spite of the situation. “As you wish.”

The snap of a single musket broke the unnatural quiet.

“Rakkes!”

The beasts poured out of the rocks like ants from a nest. “Steady! It’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” Yimt shouted, moving quickly between the soldiers and forming them into a double line as the first row knelt and prepared to fire.

Konowa judged that he was close enough to make his run now, but something gave him pause. The rakkes coming at them were not like those of even a few hours ago. These seemed disoriented, and weak. The first volley of musket fire crashed into them, knocking down thirty and sending an equal number backward where they shrieked and beat their chests, but gave little indication of charging again.

Soldiers cheered, but Konowa didn’t trust it. This wasn’t right. First the dead sarka har, and now less than maniacal rakkes.

“Archers!”

The sky darkened as hundreds of arrows arced toward them. Konowa’s sense of suspicion had been right. He went to grab Visyna to push her to safety, but Rallie stepped into his path and knocked him off balance. The arrows reached their apogee and began to fall straight toward them.

A sudden wind gust tore along the path blowing most of the arrows astray. The few that fell either hit the stony ground or bounced off the sarka har bark the soldiers wore as armor. Konowa looked to Visyna. She swayed where she stood, but she was weaving. Rallie had her quill poised above a sheaf of papers.

“Visyna!”

“We can hold them off,” she said, bravely smiling at him.

Konowa would have returned it, but the clicking sound of hundreds of pins on rock made him blanch. Dozens of korwirds were scrambling through the rakkes and charging at the Iron Elves. Konowa shivered at the look of the things. They clattered over the rock like armored snakes on hundreds of pointy twigs. Each was easily five feet long and possessed a pair of clacking pincers at its head. He’d never seen one before, but Yimt had gone into great detail about them so that there was no mistaking the nasty-looking things crawling toward them.

“Fire!”

Musket shot spewed out of barrels and raced across fifty yards to tear into rakke and korwird alike, blasting them apart in a mess of blood and chitinous plating. More arrows launched skyward and Visyna called up another wind, though not as strong as the last one. A soldier screamed and went down, his hands pressed over his hip where a black arrow had lodged, blood spurting between his fingers.

The scratch of Rallie’s quill across paper set a hum on the air, and more black arrows went wide of the mark. Konowa cursed. They were pinned down to the spot. They could hold off Her creatures, but there was no way to move forward. Dusk was already tinting the sky, elongating shadows on the ground.

“Colonel,” Major Alstonfar said, jogging up to crouch beside Konowa. He was sweating and breathing heavy, but he sounded calm and in control. “The men are doing a superlative job, but at this rate of fire they’ll expend their ammunition in the next half hour. I’ve ordered them to wait until they have a clear shot, but that will only buy us a little more time.”

Konowa reached out and patted the man on the shoulder, taking his hand back quickly as frost fire began to burn on Pimmer’s uniform. To his credit, Pimmer simply brushed the fire out with his hand. A rumbling roar came from somewhere up the mountain. Whatever it was, it was coming this way. “Tell the men to fix bayonets.”

“What is it?” Pimmer asked.

“No idea, but it won’t be pleasant,” Konowa answered, sprinting away to check on Rallie and Visyna. The women had taken up station behind a large boulder and were continuing to aid the regiment. Visyna was leaning against the rock, her hands trembling as she weaved. Rallie was crouched down by her side, a large sheaf of paper resting on a thigh as her quill flew across the page. “Do you know what’s coming?”

Both women shook their heads, too busy to speak as they concentrated on their magic. The hairs on Konowa’s arms stood up and a trickle of cold sweat raced down his spine. He turned and ran back toward the line, growing all the more frustrated that he had no good plan about what to do next. Were this any other battle, he’d order a tactical withdrawal to a more defensible location, but that wasn’t an option, not here, not when he was so close.

The rumbling grew louder. Konowa unsheathed his saber, the frost fire sparkling along the blade at once.

“Steady now,” Yimt ordered, moving behind the line and offering encouragement to the troops. His drukar was clenched in his right fist, and like Konowa’s saber, sparked with black frost.

A long, guttural scream was answered by a dozen more, and a pack of misshapen dyre wolves bounded from among the sarka har and raced toward the Iron Elves. Each wolf was easily the size of Jir, but where the bengar was sleek muscle, fluid movement, and controlled violence, these creatures were starvation thin and ran with a stilted, drunklike gait. A sickly yellow foam drooled from their muzzles filled with serrated teeth and black pus oozed from their milky white eyes.

Before the order to fire could be given, Tyul sprang up from the rocks and moved in front of the firing line and began loosing arrows at the wolves. Four went down in a matter of seconds, but not even the elf’s lightning-fast reflexes could take them all before they reached the line.

“Tyul! Get the hell out of there!” Konowa shouted, running forward.

Tyul never turned, but continued to fire arrow after arrow as the wolves bore down on him. When the creatures were only a few yards away the twang of many bowstrings reached Konowa’s ears. Arrows whistled past his head, between the Iron Elves, and struck the wolves in mid-jump. The bodies fell and slid along the ground and stopped just inches from where Tyul stood.

Konowa turned. Elves of the Long Watch emerged from the shadows, their bows still active as they engaged Her elves and the rakkes and korwirds. Jurwan walked among them, still as serene as if he were out for a walk on a warm, summer day.

“Father?” Konowa shouted.

“The elves of the Long Watch may not listen to the advice of another elf,” Jurwan said, “but when their own Wolf Oaks saw the rightness of aiding you, they felt compelled to help.”

More rakkes appeared among the trees, their gibbering calls growing in intensity. Konowa knew he had to act now.

“Tell them thanks!” he shouted, and turn and ran back to the line. “Major, fix bayonets and on my order, wheel right and clear that line of trees. The elves will cover you. Once you’ve secured that find cover and keep them busy.”

Pimmer nodded. “And you, Colonel?”

“Just see that it’s done.”

Pimmer saluted and passed along the order to Yimt.

A volley of Long Watch arrows cleared the woods for twenty yards. The Iron Elves stood up and charged, their bayonets ablaze with frost fire. Any rakke or korwird in their path was stabbed to death. The few remaining dark elves stepped forward to plug the gap, but those not killed by the Long Watch fell to the blade of Tyul. The elf slid between tree and elf, slashing and stabbing with an economy of movement and absolute precision. Konowa could have watched him all day, but already a new pack of dyre wolves was racing through the sarka har and more rakkes were massing.

Konowa ran past the soldiers. He spied Yimt and slowed. “I’ll be back,” Konowa shouted over his shoulder, running up the path. He looked down at his saber as he ran. Stygian black frost crackled along the length of the blade.

A black blur preceded him up the path and took a rakke by the throat, shaking the beast so hard the head ripped off. Jir dropped the body and launched himself at the next beast, swiping his claws at its thighs and quickly pouncing on its chest when the creature screamed and fell. A moment later there was a snap and the screaming stopped.

Konowa leaped over Jir and kept running. It was his turn now.

He wasn’t sure how many rakkes and dark elves and other creatures crossed his path. He slashed and stabbed as he ran, ignoring the arrows that flew past his head and the claws that tried to rip his face. The frost fire arced out from him like lightning, striking creatures five and ten yards away from him. Soon, he had no need to swing his saber at all. As the sun dipped below the mountain and darkness settled in, he followed the path by the light of his own black flame.

He was well into the thorny thicket of Her forest at the very peak of the mountain before he realized it. He’d expected a ferocious response, but the sarka har here could only flail in mad desperation. He pushed his way through, destroying the blood trees with sturdy swipes of his saber. Instead of feeling emboldened, he grew increasingly cautious. It was a trick, it had to be. The Shadow Monarch was too powerful. Her forest and Her creatures couldn’t be dying, because if they were dying. . Rallie might be right.

He paused, breathing in the cold air. He watched his breath mist in front of him. It doesn’t matter! You came here to end this. End this!

Konowa stood up straight and gripped the pommel of his saber so hard that black flame shot twenty feet in the air from the end of it. He slashed through the last ring of trees and emerged on the rocky summit where the Shadow Monarch knelt by Her Silver Wolf Oak.

The power here was caustic. The acorn against his chest flared, driving needles of cold deep into his heart. He coughed, breathing in the mix of cold, toxic magic permeating the surrounding rocks. The ground beneath his feet groaned. Large fissures crisscrossed the summit from which moans and screams echoed from the far depths. Konowa moved carefully around them, staying well away from the edges. He could make out claw marks where rakkes and other creatures had emerged.

The Shadow Monarch turned to look at him as he approached, and like the dream, a small, scared, elderly elf woman stared up at him.

“My child,” she said, reaching out Her hands to him. Her voice grated on his ears. It was high and shaky, far from the commanding voice he’d often heard in his dreams.

Konowa stopped and looked around the space. Even here the sarka har looked sick. He studied the Silver Wolf Oak and felt revulsion at what he saw. What should have been a tall, straight tree was instead a gnarled, twisted mess of branches sloughing off their bark. Its metallic leaves were either wilting or already fallen, and black ichor oozed from hundreds of cracks in its wood. It was dying!

He knew She couldn’t stop him. Neither could the Silver Wolf Oak. All he had to do was walk forward the last few paces and strike. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet.

“Why?” he asked, swinging his saber around to encompass everything. “Why? Why do this?” He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. “Why any of this?”

The Shadow Monarch began to babble. Konowa waited, expecting a trap. Tears were running down the old elf ’s face as She gently tried to piece back together the dying Silver Wolf Oak.

“She doesn’t have any answers,” Rallie said, stepping into the clearing. “She never did. Her mind is all but gone. It has been for a long time.”

Konowa spun, the acorn against his heart burning cold. “You? Rallie?” His world was spinning. No, she couldn’t be.

“All this time, and you really thought She was the power behind all of this?” Rallie asked.

It felt as if someone had pushed him off a cliff. His muscles grew weak and he felt dizzy. Rallie pulled a cigar from her robe and placed it between her teeth, then brought out a tinderbox and lit it.

“I don’t understand,” Konowa said, trying to keep his wits. He could hear the slithering and creaking of branches all around him. Something was happening. He knew he was missing a piece to the puzzle, but what?

“No? I’m not surprised,” Rallie said. Her cigar hadn’t lit so she tried the tinderbox again. Sparks flashed, but the cigar would not catch flame.

Konowa blinked. In all the time he’d known Rallie, he’d never seen her use a tinderbox. “You witch.” His strength returned in a rush. “I may not be the brightest candle, but I know a forgery when I see one.” He raised his saber and took a step toward the Shadow Monarch. She still knelt by the tree, keening softly now and rocking back and forth.

“Finish Her, Konowa, and this will be over,” Visyna said, appearing out of the trees to stand beside Rallie. Again the acorn flared and Konowa cried out in pain. He dropped to one knee.

“You aren’t Visyna,” he said through gritted teeth. “Your parlor tricks won’t work on me.”

“Then kill Her and be done with this,” Yimt said, emerging from the right. Konowa fell to both knees as the pain pierced through to his back. “Kill Her, and set me free.”

Branches began moving around Konowa. He forced himself to his feet. He ignored Yimt and turned his attention to the Silver Wolf Oak. “You said me.”

“Kill Her, Konowa, kill Her,” the Duke of Rakestraw said, stepping out of the trees just a few feet away from him. His long red locks fluttered about his face, and he held his long sword, Wolf’s Tooth, in his hands, but the cold pain squeezing Konowa’s chest told him what he already knew. That wasn’t his friend. Tears filled Konowa’s eyes, but turned to ice as they froze on his cheeks.

“You. . said. . me.” He took a step forward, then another and pointed toward the Shadow Monarch. “You called to Her all those centuries ago.”

Jurwan approached with his hands outstretched. “It is really me, my son. You must focus. Kill Her, and this will be done.”

Konowa laughed, though it felt as if his ribs were breaking. Cold seeped into every joint. He ignored the images of his friends and family and looked past the Shadow Monarch, and directly at the Silver Wolf Oak. “This wasn’t about Her. It was about you.

Kaman Rahl made the same mistake She made. You’re the real power here, not Her.”

In answer, the avatars of those he loved began to close around him. Konowa held his saber in front of him, coaxing the frost fire to a shimmering black furnace. He heard the grinding of wood on wood. The figures around him shuddered, and he saw through the facades to the twisted mess of ichor and wood forming the structure on which the illusions projected.

His mother appeared in the circle surrounding him. Her sad eyes found his. She reached out her hands. “Kill Her, my son. Kill Her and set me free.”

The cold now was so intense Konowa was having difficulty breathing. His entire body was shaking so hard it took all his strength to hold on to his saber. He watched with horror as the frost fire on the blade began to sputter.

“You must do this,” Chayii said, moving closer as the ring tightened.

Konowa shook his head and swung his saber around him like a drunk. He almost toppled over, but caught his footing in time. “No! I won’t. I want to know why. Why mark us? Why seek us out?”

The sound of branches moving grew in volume. The circle opened leaving Konowa no route except straight forward. The group of people he knew closed to within arm’s reach, but Konowa could no longer lift his own. The frost fire on his saber went out. Tears of frustration streamed down his face and froze. “I want. . an answer!”

A branch reached out and circled around his right wrist. Frost fire burned at the spot, searing his skin. The branch tightened, and pointed his saber at the Shadow Monarch. It pulled him forward.

Konowa dug in his heels leaving a trail of black flame in his wake. “Why?”

Chayii moved to his side. “Kill Her my son, kill Her.”

Konowa wrenched his arm until his shoulder joint burned and lights began to flash behind his eyes. “Tell. Me. Why!” He pulled his arm and broke free of the branch. More snaked toward him. Frost fire burst again along his blade and he began slashing wildly at any that came close, setting them afire. The Shadow Monarch cringed, throwing Her hands over Her head.

Chayii moved toward him, but he held his saber in front of him and kept her at bay. “My son, this can all be over. She killed so many you love. She killed me. Kill Her, and the oath is broken.”

A new cold washed over Konowa’s body. The shades of the dead Iron Elves appeared, taking their place beside him. The circle of avatars surrounding Konowa moved back. RSM Lorian on Zwindarra. One-eyed Meri. Private Teeter. And Private Renwar. They said nothing, but there was no need. They and he were one. Their pain was his. Their need was his need.

“Break the oath. Set them free,” Chayii said.

Konowa stepped forward again. “No.”

Waves of anguish washed over Konowa as the shades writhed. He was prepared for battle, but this was something else. Life after life cut far too short flashed through his mind. Husbands that would never return to their wives. Sons who would never see their parents, and fathers who would never hold their children. The sorrow left him breathless. He sobbed until he thought he’d pass out.

“Why?” he screamed, staggering another step forward.

The image that was Chayii shattered, and in its place he saw the Silver Wolf Oak as it saw itself, as it wanted to be. It stood tall and proud, a towering, monstrous example of a Wolf Oak, its leafy crown a sky-blotting collection of glittering Stars. “This is why,” a new voice emanating from the Shadow Monarch said. “I was destined for more! I am more, and I will be, once She is gone.”

Konowa roared. “You’re a tree! You’re a damn, bloody tree! Why? Why all of this? If you hate Her, kill Her yourself. Why mark me?” he asked, pointing to his ruined ear. “Why mark any of us?”

“You wonder why I marked you? Why I marked the others? She is dying. She was always going to die. Do you know what happens to a Silver Wolf Oak when its ryk faur dies?”

A light of understanding dawned in Konowa. “You die, too. Not right away, but you wither and die. The bond has its price.” Konowa understood better now why Tyul was the way he was. “If you kill Her, you kill yourself.”

“And so I need a new bond, a new life to take Her place. The acorn your father gave you was my gift. She did my bidding as Her own. But now I need more. Her strength bleeds away. I need a strong elf, one not enraptured by the natural world as all these other elves are. As She was. And so I sought to set some of you apart in the hopes that one day I would find one strong enough to bond with and create a new world.”

The acorn against Konowa’s heart cracked. He felt the first tendril of what was inside pierce his skin and start to worm its way into his flesh.

“I created you, my child, and now we will be one.”

Konowa screamed and reached for his chest. He ripped his tunic exposing his flesh. He grabbed the acorn and pulled, but he couldn’t remove it. The saber fell from his right hand. Everything was going dark. More branches snaked around him.

He looked to the shades for help, but they were trapped in a shimmering wall of frost fire. He was alone.

A branch wrapped itself around his right wrist while another reached to the ground for his saber.

The saber wasn’t there. Konowa forced his head up. The Shadow Monarch stood next to the Silver Wolf Oak, his saber in Her hands.

“I cannot kill you, my love, my life,” She said, the tears streaming down Her face. “I saved you, I gave you life.” Her voice was broken with sobs. The love and agony in it made Konowa hurt.

The branches of the Silver Wolf Oak shook and thrashed in an attempt to get to the Shadow Monarch, but they were so interwoven now around Konowa they could not reach Her. She moved forward until She stood beside the tree’s twisted trunk. Her sobs grew louder as She sunk to Her knees beside it.

Branches snapped as the sarka har flailed around them. The entire mountain began to tremble. Konowa stumbled as the rock heaved beneath him. The air turned so cold he could no longer breathe. His vision grayed at the edge.

“You have to!” Konowa choked. He struggled to move forward, but the cold and the shaking ground made it impossible.

The Shadow Monarch turned to look at him. “No, I can’t. I won’t. But if I cannot be with my love in this life, I will be with it in the next.” She turned the saber so that the point was facing Her chest, and then She fell forward.

The mountain shuddered. Rocks cracked and blew apart as the Silver Wolf Oak’s roots ripped through the deep, climbing back to the surface to ensnare Konowa in their grasp. The first roots broke free and wrapped themselves around his ankle, but they were too late.

The summit exploded in a shower of black, crystal flame. The Shadow Monarch’s body vanished in a gale of frost fire. The flame ignited the ichor dripping from the Silver Wolf Oak and set it ablaze. It flamed at once, burning so dark the night appeared as day. Konowa burned, too, only now, he had no protection from the frost fire. He stumbled blindly through the flame, struggling to find a way out. He tripped and fell, landing hard on a rock. He struggled to stay conscious as the black flames roared skyward, consuming everything on the mountain peak. He knew if he stayed here, he would die.

The pain tried to keep him pinned to the ground, but the fire inside made him roll. He climbed to his feet, still reeling. He couldn’t see. Everything was aflame. Sarka har shrieked as they burned. The Silver Wolf Oak’s branches thrashed and tore itself apart in its funeral pyre of ugly, black flame.

A wave of cold air suddenly surrounded him. He looked up. The shades of the dead stood beside him again, shielding him from the raging fire. Private Renwar stepped forth. His shadowy form solidified for a moment, revealing the young lad Konowa had first met. They locked eyes. Alwyn smiled, and saluted. The other shades followed suit. Lorian. Meri. His men. His brothers.

Konowa struggled to stand upright and returned their salute, the tears streaming freely down his face. It wasn’t the salute that made him cry. It was seeing their smiles.

The oath was broken.

“Thank you,” Alwyn said, and was gone.

Konowa blinked. He was alone on the mountaintop. The fire still burned. He flung his body off the rock, tumbling and sliding until he could no longer feel the icy flames. He came to rest in the crook of two rocks. The mountain was shaking beneath him. Rocks split and fractured as chasms dug too long and too deep collapsed.

Debris began falling past him. The irony that he would survive his encounter on the mountaintop only to be killed by a falling rock put a grin on his face.

He waited for the fateful blow, but none came. The mountain stopped shaking. He sat up, clutching his chest. When he brought his hand away and looked, the black stain on his chest was still there, but already he could feel warmth spreading through his body. He ripped the black acorn stuck to his chest, and this time it came away. As he held it in his hands he felt the coldness leave it. He thought about what his father said, about how its contact with him would have changed it.

He took in a tentative breath, waiting for a stab of pain to black him out, but beyond a level of overall agony he had become accustomed to, he felt pretty damn good. He gingerly climbed to his feet and looked up. The black flames had gone out. He looked around. There were no signs of sarka har anywhere. He clenched his fists. Nothing. No frost fire.

He climbed back up to the mountaintop. A thick, black ash floated in the air, coating everything. Nothing else remained to show the Shadow Monarch and Her forest had ever been there. The rock where the Silver Wolf Oak had grown had been scoured clean by the frost fire. Konowa kicked his boot through the black ash until he heard a familiar clink. He bent down and picked up his saber. He hefted it in his hands and made a couple of practice swipes in the air. He spun around, expecting something to be standing behind him, but he was alone.

Konowa sheathed his saber. There wasn’t even an echo. He wanted to feel something more, but after all this time, the feeling that overwhelmed all others was that for the first time in his life, he could see himself being happy.

It was a scary thought. He shivered, and decided it was time to get back. He took one last look around and started to set off back down the mountain, but paused.

He opened his hand and looked at the acorn. Could his father be right? Was this a chance for things to be different? After everything, maybe he could find a way to bond with nature. Gently, he knelt down and placed the acorn on the ground. He stood back up and looked at it. A light breeze drifted through the clearing, tousling his hair across his face. For a long time he stared at the acorn, waiting. Then he raised his boot and slammed his heel down on the acorn with all his might. The acorn splintered into several pieces. He lifted his boot and brought it down again and again and again until there was nothing left.

“Bloody trees,” he muttered, turning and never looking back.

“I’ll leave out the parts where I screamed,” he said to himself as he began composing his story for the others. The rest of it, he decided, he’d tell more or less as it happened.

More or less.

Konowa smiled.

It felt. . good.