Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

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.