Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

Konowa really couldn’t argue with that logic. The life of a soldier in the Calahrian Army was damn hard. Out here it was closer to a nightmare. If his elves had padded their meager pay with a few bribes here and there he wouldn’t judge them any the worse for it. They’d been dealt a crappy hand through no fault of their own. Getting a little something back seemed only natural. It made perfect sense to Konowa, yet deep down it filled him with unease. Deep, deep down, he hoped it wasn’t true.

The wagon found another rut jolting Konowa forward and back. If the conversation behind continued he could no longer hear it. He gave up trying to listen and shook himself upright while shedding drifts of snow from the folds in his robe. Brushing off more of it he noticed the flakes felt drier and colder than before. He rubbed a few flakes between his finger and thumb and immediately regretted it.

“Son of a witch,” he muttered, twisting his head to free his mouth from his makeshift scarf. He brought his stinging fingers to his lips and blew on the skin. When he pulled his hand back bright red drops of blood beaded on the pads of his finger and thumb from several small cuts.

“It’s more ice than snow,” he said, turning to Rallie.

She pushed the hood of her robe back far enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. A black cigar dangled from her lips, the end of the cigar burning bright orange in the night. “It’s worse than you think. This snow springs from the heart of Her forest. It’s tainted with metal ore. She failed in Her first attempt to plant Her forest here, so now she’s preparing the ground for another try.”

Konowa lifted his head and stuck out his tongue. The bitter tang of metal made him grimace.

“She’ll kill everything,” he said, sitting back down. He’d always believed the Shadow Monarch was mad, but in a controlled, specific way. The enormity of what She was attempting left him weak. “Rallie, She really is insane. She’s planning to destroy the entire world.”

Rallie’s cigar burned brighter as she took several puffs before answering. Her words flowed out with a stream of smoke. “I suspect that in Her mind this makes perfect sense. A world populated with nothing but sarka har, their roots ripping into the foundations of all the lands until everything is black forest. It’s certainly not what most of us would consider an improvement, but She is working at a distinct disadvantage,” she said, pointing to her head.

Konowa turned to stare straight ahead, hunching his shoulders against the cold. “And all because of the Wolf Oaks and the stupid need of my people to find a ryk faurre . Nature was doing just fine before we came along. All of this could have been avoided if we’d left well enough alone.”

“That’s a rather harsh assessment, don’t you think?” Rallie asked.

“Harsh? Look around us. Rallie, it’s snowing metal . Forests of sarka har are sprouting up everywhere, some of the buggers have even learned to walk, and we’re bound by an oath trapping us in shadow for eternity. No, I don’t think I’m being harsh enough. And when we get to Her mountain this all comes to an end.”

“So you really do intend to kill Her then?” The tone in Rallie’s voice was measured, but Konowa knew an accusation when he heard one.

“Rallie, Her crystal ball is cracked. You said so yourself. She’s already killed thousands, and for what? So some possibly sentient tree even more twisted than Her will have a lovely little place in the sun to spread its leaves? She’s a poison that needs to be eradicated before She can do any more damage.”

Rallie turned to look at him. Her eyes shouldn’t have shone that brightly from beneath her cloak. “I don’t dispute for a moment the horrors She has unleashed, but when the time comes, don’t forget that unlike Her you have choices. She cared for something so deeply that She lost Herself in it. Surely you can understand that.”

Konowa sat back a little from Rallie. “It’s not the same. All I’ve ever tried to do is what’s right. And look at what I’ve lost because of Her.” He realized his hand had come up to rub the tip of his ruined ear and he quickly brought it back down. “After what we’ve all lost? No, Rallie, there is only one choice before me.”

“You mean like at Luuguth Jor when you could have broken the oath?”

Konowa choked back what he was going to say next. He hated that Rallie was able to make something so simple and clear significantly more complicated just by asking questions.

“Life is messy, Major. We fool ourselves at our great peril if we think otherwise.”

“If She doesn’t die, how does any of this end?” Konowa finally asked, surprised that he was even considering the possibility.

“I assure you I haven’t the foggiest,” Rallie said, turning to face forward again. “But it’ll be most interesting to find out.”

Konowa waited to hear if she had more to add, but judging by the cloud of cigar smoke pouring out from her cloak it was clear she was done talking. The wind picked up, knifing its way through gaps in his robe. Cursing softly, he hunched in on himself to find some warmth. His eyelids closed of their own volition and he began to drift into sleep. He found some small comfort in the fact that with the winter storm still blowing and the horror of the walking sarka har now behind them, the regiment was slightly safer from attack. With the current state of the world, Konowa viewed that as a major accomplishment.

The creature that had once been the man Faltinald Elkhart Gwyn, Viceroy of the Protectorate of Greater Elfkyna, and until a few hours ago the Shadow Monarch’s Emissary, struggled to hold on to its sense of being. It moved across the windswept desert, oblivious to the falling snow and the chilling cold.

Its thoughts, once sharp and precise, now spun about a wobbling axis of rage and agony. Were it to rest for even a moment it feared it would simply cease to exist, its energy scattered to the far reaches of the world. Even now, precious fragments of memory and personality crumbled and were lost.

“Diplomacy is not the victory of negotiation, but the failure of war,” it muttered to itself. Shards of the life it once lived cascaded through its mind. It saw great halls lit with a thousand candle chandeliers, the light refracting off minutely faceted crystal goblets so thin they sang with just the exhalation of breath. It recalled a map skillfully made by jewelers using the finest gems and metals. It reached out a hand, grasping at something that wasn’t there.

The hand closed in a tight fist and it dug deep into the agony and found white, piercing pain and clung to it while the rest of its mind spiraled faster and faster into madness.

I am free! The shackles that had bound it were broken. With that knowledge its anger grew, coalescing into something clear and simple that it could grasp. The Shadow Monarch betrayed me! The elf witch struck a deal with the oath-bound soldier of the Iron Elves. But the creature had sacrificed much to be Her Emissary, not that human. It was. . unfair.

The creature felt a new emotion take hold, one more powerful than its rage or its suffering-revenge. “Talk loudly so that your opponent doesn’t hear the assassin creeping up from behind,” it said, seeing waiters in crisp white jackets moving silently behind a line of high-back chairs. A single flash of a knife and a guest’s soup would grow cold. It laughed, hoping it would soon settle the score with the soldier that had usurped it. Rakkes howled as it laughed and the creature became aware of the growing pack of rakkes surrounding it as it moved across the sand. Hundreds now followed it. The simple beasts looked to it for guidance. More and more rakkes joined as they moved in a northerly direction.