Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

A low, rumbling snarl raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She turned and saw Jir limping behind her, his wounded shoulder causing him significant pain. She reached back with one hand and the bengar came close enough to let her fingers brush the top of his head. It surprised her that Jir should be so docile. She’d expected the elves to kill the beast out of hand, but in his wounded state the bengar appeared helpless. For reasons she couldn’t comprehend, Jir had been allowed to follow them, and he seemed to understand the arrangement and made no outward signs of aggression. It was as if the bengar understood that this wasn’t the right time to seek revenge.

A tongue like bark licked her hand and she pulled it back in surprise. She looked back at Jir, who returned her stare with an intelligence she had never seen before.

“I regret having to invade another creature’s mind, but it was necessary to keep him calm, and alive,” Chayii whispered between her teeth.

Visyna turned to look at her. “You’re controlling him?”

“In a manner of speaking. I have connected with him, drawing out much of his rage and need to hunt,” she said.

“What does it feel like?”

Chayii turned to look at her. Visyna tried to move away and put her shoulder into the tunnel wall. Raw, savage violence flashed in the elf’s eyes. Chayii’s lip curled into a snarl and the muscles in her neck rippled with suppressed energy. She rotated her head slowly, easing her shoulders down.

“I have never partaken of the flesh of another animal in my entire life,” Chayii said, “but it is all I can do not to rip out the hearts of these elves and feel their blood trickle down my throat.” As she said it her hands flexed as if she were extending claws.

Visyna hoped the horror that suddenly welled up inside her didn’t show on her face. She looked around quickly to see if any of the elves had overheard, but no outcry arose. Perhaps, like Konowa, these elves had lost much of their hearing from constant exposure to musket and cannon fire. She knew her own hearing had suffered since deciding to accompany the Iron Elves.

“Do you have a plan on when to release Jir and we can escape?” She opted not to voice her growing concern that they would likely share Yimt’s fate at the hands of Kritton before much longer.

Chayii shook her head. “I am doing what I can to control Jir. It is up to you, my child, to figure out what we do next.”

The hope of a moment before dimmed, but did not die. She’s right, Visyna realized. Thoughts of being little more than a damsel in distress brought blood rushing to her cheeks. I can do this. She brought her hands in front of her and gently began to weave the air. There was power here she could use. She lowered her hands and began to think. Even elves can’t march forever. They would have to stop sometime to rest. When they did she would have to be ready.

“Are we there yet?”

This time Visyna smiled. “Soon, Scolly, soon.”

Trailing the unknown shadow among the rocks, the rakkes moved cautiously at first. The green death was instinctively terrifying, but it was more than seeing one of their own kind eaten alive by it. Buried deep in their primal core lay a memory that any other sentient creature would have understood to be a nightmare. They couldn’t fight the green death, only flee from it, and that went against their very nature.

They didn’t understand why they were here, or even how. Each retained the memory of its death centuries ago-drowning, falling, burning, beheaded-horrors a rakke could understand. But to be here in this time and place, and faced with a death they couldn’t tear with claws or rip apart with fangs added to their distress. They knew, however, that the thing that set the green death free could be torn. It would bleed, and so they trailed it, desperate to feed on its flesh while equally terrified that their own flesh would be devoured before they got the chance. A high wind drove between hairline fractures in the rocks issuing forth a razor shriek that dominated all other sound. Stone and sand tumbled as claws sought purchase on rocks slick with ice and snow as the rakkes picked up their pace, growing bolder with each passing minute they went undetected. They were many and it was alone and unaware it was being hunted.

The shadow continued on, moving from cover to cover, but having to expose itself more to the open in order to keep up with the rakkes on the desert floor below. Each sighting amidst the wind-driven snow spurred the rakkes on. They were closing in. Soon, they would feed.

A heavy gust of wind kicked up a mix of snow and sand, momentarily blocking the shadow from the rakkes’ view. When it had passed the shadow was gone. Surprised, the rakkes lurched forward, forgetting their caution of before and now only focused on picking up the trail of their prey before it could slip away in the night. They bounded over rocks in blind pursuit, howling and yelping to each other as they worked themselves up into a killing frenzy. Long-extinct red-throated screams ripped through the air, seeking to flush out their quarry.

It worked.

The rakkes scrambled up and over a twenty-foot-high pinnacle of granite and descended into a shallow valley in front of another chunk of granite where the shadow stood waiting for them.

It was smaller than they had imagined; its hunch-backed body balanced on just two thick, short legs. Two ragged wings sprouted from its head and its face was covered in a thick matt of windblown fur, but its eyes were visible and without a glimmer of mercy. The green glow of impending death, however, came not from its mouth, which now smiled revealing gleaming metal teeth, but from the long black metal pipe with a wide-mouthed nozzle the demon held in its hands. Only now did the rakkes see the copper-wound hose that hung from the back of the pipe and curled up behind the demon to attach to the brass tank strapped to its back.

“You should have stayed extinct, you stupid buggers,” Yimt said, squeezing the trigger on the weapon.

Three things happened at once. The heel of Yimt’s left boot slipped on a piece of ice and his leg shot out in front of him dropping him straight down onto his backside. Instead of hitting all six of the rakkes the arc of the green phosphorescent insects shooting out of the weapon’s metal nozzle only covered the two on the far right, their howls of fear and pain drowned out by the frenzied glee of the four remaining rakkes now lunging forward.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Yimt shouted, struggling to climb to his feet before the rakkes could reach him. He clutched his chest, his hand covering a torn hole in his uniform. He stood up and swayed under the weight of the weapon on his back. Realizing it was too late to run he squeezed the trigger again, moving the nozzle side to side to spray the oncoming rakkes. Nothing came out. Elevating his cursing to greater heights he shrugged his shoulders out of the straps holding the tank to his back and heaved the entire weapon at the charging rakkes now scrambling up the other side of the crevice toward him.

The brass tank hit a rakke in the head with a satisfying clang and the hose of the metal barrel got caught up in the legs of the one behind causing all four rakkes to stumble and go down in a tangle of limbs. Not waiting to see if the tank had burst open, Yimt rolled over and crawled on his hands and knees up and over the rock he was on and rolled down the slope on the other side until a pile of rock debris stopped him.

He sat up with both arms crossed over his rib cage and let out a growl of pain. The sound of yammering rakkes clawing at the rock just the other side of where he sat got him to his feet, though the effort had him spitting blood. He searched around in the dim light looking for a weapon and a place to hide, but the first rakke had already crested the top of the rock above him. The creature’s howl vibrated off the rock around them and Yimt lost his footing again, going down to one knee.