Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

A rakke howled from just outside the swirling wall of snow.

A moment later, Visyna felt the creature impact the wall. Its screams were cut short as the small group continued moving forward and over the rakke’s smoking body. Jir growled and barred his fangs at the sight of the rakke, but other than giving the corpse a good sniff, he left it alone. Visyna stepped over it while doing her best not to look, but the smell of singed hair and flesh made her gag.

“Well, that’s all right then,” Zwitty said, his voice startling loud inside the small area. “Any rakke stupid enough to try to get through this is in for a nasty surprise. Good. But could you turn down the heat a bit?”

“I can’t,” she said, wiping her eyes again. She licked her lips and tasted salt. Her skin felt like she was lying in the sun at high noon. “I’m sorry. It’s only going to get hotter.”

There was a commotion on the other side of the wall and several rakkes began screaming in pain. Fortunately, none of them fell down in their path, but now the snow and sand beneath their feet was turning to mud. Walking was becoming increasingly difficult. If anyone slipped they would fall through the wall. If that didn’t kill them, the slavering beasts on the other side would. They were all walking a tightrope with just one wrong step meaning a horrible death. “I’m going to have to stop,” she said. Her legs were shaking and she was having a hard time walking. Between the fear and her exhaustion it was becoming a challenge just to stand upright.

“Are you mad? We’ve barely-” was all Zwitty managed before the sound of a thump suggested Hrem had knocked him off his train of thought.

“The fort is still quite a piece away,” Hrem said.

“I know,” she said, lifting her sandals out of the mud one at a time only to sink back down again. “I just can’t keep this up. I’m sorry, I thought I could but I can’t.” It was as if the muscles in her legs had been replaced with solid lead.

“You’ve done everything you could, child, no one is blaming you,” Chayii said, her voice calm and without a hint of accusation.

I am, she thought to herself. Her hands were cramping and her hold on the spinning wall was faltering. If she didn’t dissipate it soon, she might lose control of it completely and risk all their lives.

Her right foot caught as she pulled it from the mud and she stumbled. She fumbled her hold on the storm. She struggled to get it back, but it would take more strength than she had left to pull it in tight and keep it strong. The best she could do now was focus it outward, pushing the swirling snow and heat further away while still keeping it swirling around them. Visyna knew before long she would lose even that ability, and when that happened, they would be completely exposed.

And when it happens, I will have killed us all.

Viceroy, I want another exit, now!” Konowa shouted. His right knee was throbbing after jumping the last six feet off the ladder, but pain could wait. He limped across the courtyard of the fort, his mind a whirl of conflicting emotions.

Visyna is alive! And his elves. . he sped up his gait and to hell with the stabbing sensation in his knee as he tried to process everything. After all this time, they were just a few hundred yards away. Everything and everyone he’d wanted and searched for were now on the outside of the fort.

But it wasn’t what he expected.

The soldiers he thought of as his sons and brothers weren’t the elves out there, but the raggedy-arsed collection of human misfits he’d led into battle from Elfkyna to the Wikumma Islands to here.

The smell of leather, polished copper, and sawdust snapped him back to the here and now. He’d come to a stop under a tattered canvas awning tacked to the inside of the fort’s west wall and held up by two broken cart shafts at the other end. It created about the saddest, leaky, and sagging roof he’d ever seen, but it did serve to keep most of the snow off Pimmer, who had taken refuge underneath it. The spot had clearly been a workshop at one point. Everything from boot soles to leather and canvas straps, bits of brass and pewter, and clay jars littered the ground. Pimmer sat on an overturned bucket while his ever present map was spread out on a door resting on bricks, which created a more than adequate table. His small brass lantern gave off a surprising amount of light.

RSM Arkhorn sat off to the side on a tangled mound of coiled rope, chain, and burlap sacks. He was turning the handle of a small grinding stone set upright in a wooden yoke while holding a piece of copper sheet to it. A rat-sized pyramid of copper dust already filled an earthenware basin set at the base of the grinding wheel.

“I think Kritton’s dead,” Konowa said, “Visyna killed him. Or at least, I think she did. Dropped a huge chunk of ice on him.” The image still shocked him. Between the snow, the dark, and the distance he couldn’t be sure, but even if his eyes couldn’t confirm it, something in his heart did. . or at least, very much wanted to. That huge chunk of ice had come plummeting from the sky and hit someone. He had no idea she could do that.

Yimt stopped grinding. “Blast. I was looking forward to putting a permanent crimp in his spine myself. You’re sure he’s dead?”

“If he’s not, he’s at the bottom of a crater with his head in his boots.”

Yimt let out a low whistle. “I owe that lass a pint. Is she okay?”

“As far as I can tell,” Konowa said, starting to pace then stopping when the pain in his knee flared up. “I saw a storm. She weaves weather so it had to be something she made. It hid everything from sight, but that’s about all it’s probably good for. There are a lot of rakkes between her and the fort. We have to find a way to help her.”

Pimmer looked up from the map. The expression on his face wasn’t encouraging. “We’ve gone over this a hundred times from a dozen different angles and there’s no other way in or out except the main gate and the entrance we used.”

Konowa wasn’t satisfied. “They must have built more bolt holes. There has to be another way.”

Pimmer shook his head. “I’m sorry, Major, but I don’t see it. And even if there were. .” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Meaning what?” Konowa asked, the pain in his knee forgotten.

“Meaning,” Yimt said, “what would we do with it? There’s hundreds of yards between us and them, and then there’s a vertical climb to get up here. And that’s not counting the rakkes. There’s precious little we can do for them by charging outside these walls without a plan.”

Konowa couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This isn’t like the regiment. They have the Darkly Departed. They’re trained soldiers. Rallie’s with them. They’ll be fine. Visyna’s out there alone.” As soon as he said it he paused and rubbed a hand against his forehead. “Visyna and your squad and my mother and hopefully Jir are out there alone. They’re the ones that need our help.”

“As I was saying, Major, we’d be little more than fresh meat for the rakkes if we venture out without a plan. However,” Yimt said, looking over at the Viceroy, “we’ve been working on something that should put a lit fuse up their keisters. We were concocting it with the lads in mind, but now that Visyna and her group have arrived I’d say they could use it more.”

The two of them smiled. Konowa found his hand reaching for his saber of its own accord. Yimt Arkhorn and Pimmer Alstonfar had come up with a plan to inconvenience hundreds of rampaging rakkes.

And they’d done it together.

“Tell me,” he ordered.

When they finished, both looked at him for his response. For several seconds, Konowa was absolutely speechless. Finally, he nodded and took his hand off the pommel. “Let’s do it. Now, explain to me again why I’m the one who’s going to be set on fire?”