Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

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.