Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

Kritton.

The elf’s shade appeared before Alwyn. It was a dark spectral being in searing pain, yet it wasn’t like the other shades of the deceased Iron Elves. Kritton’s shade exuded an awareness and a presence the others did not, not even RSM Lorian.

“Take your place among the fallen and defend the regiment,” Alwyn said. He phrased it like an order, but would Kritton obey? Alwyn’s relationship with the shades was a precarious one. He walked on the edge, just one slip away from joining them wholly. But as long as he still lived he wasn’t one of them. He did command the dead, but only because they chose to follow. He had bargained with the Shadow Monarch and won them a freedom of a kind, but they remained dead, and in servitude. Alwyn saw the futility of it. “Rakkes have encircled us and Her Emissary approaches.”

Alwyn turned from the shade, expecting it to obey, and focused his attention on Her Emissary. It took him a moment to realize he was wrong. Her Emissary no longer serves the Shadow Monarch. The realization would have filled him with hope a few days ago, but now he knew the cost behind it. The Shadow Monarch’s former servant was utterly mad and destroying itself in the process. It was literally and figuratively flying apart, and growing more dangerous in the process. How do you destroy something like that?

“I have always defended the regiment,” Kritton said, his voice an icy tendril worming its way into Alwyn’s mind.

Alwyn blinked and turned back to Kritton’s shade. “Then do so again,” he said. “As the oath bound you as you lived to the regiment, and through it, the Shadow Monarch, it binds you now to me. You must feel this.”

“You can’t understand what I feel,” the shade of Kritton said, moving forward so that it stood only a foot away. “You are not elf. You are not one of the tainted ones soiled by Her vile touch. You were not betrayed as I was.”

“This is not the time or the place to discuss betrayal, Kritton,” Alwyn said, finding it easier now in the face of Kritton’s anger to exert his own power. “You are bound by the oath as we all are. You have no choice.”

“You lie! I hear it in your voice. I do have a choice. I may not have the power, but I have the choice. You yourself tried to break Her oath. Yes. . I feel this.”

Alwyn focused on Kritton. Power arced between them in ugly barbs of harsh light. Kritton’s shade began to scream. It flailed and tried to break free, but it was no match for Alwyn.

“Stand and fight with the others. You know this is our duty. We are all soldiers of the Iron Elves. Forget the oath that cursed us and remember the one you made with the regiment. All of us must fight.”

“I do not accept that!”

Alwyn raised his hand to strike Kritton down, then paused. He felt Rallie’s power being exerted to keep the rakkes at bay. The shades of the dead should have been more than sufficient to handle them, but they had fallen back and were no longer attacking. The living soldiers of the regiment were yelling and pleading for the shades to resume the battle, but the shades now refused to move. They were waiting for something.

They were. . afraid.

“They do not want this fate any more than I do, any more than you do,” Kritton said. “And you know this.”

Alwyn thrust a hand and drove it into the heart of Kritton’s shade. He felt it scream as he closed his fingers tight. “You are right, Kritton, but I remind you again that we took the oath, and now we will see it through.” He released his grip and withdrew his hand. Kritton’s shade wavered and blurred before resuming its remembered shape of the elf.

Several shades drifted closer to the war of wills between Alwyn and Kritton. Would any of the other shades come to Kritton’s aid? Was their pain so unbearable that they would rather flee than fight?

Alwyn looked the dead in their eyes, steeling himself for the empty horror he saw there. “Our only chance is if we stick together as one. We are all Iron Elves, living and dead. There is no other way.”

The shades appeared to accept this, and a moment later a cheer went up from the regiment as they dead moved forward and began to attack again. Alwyn noted, however, that none ventured near the approach of the thing that had once been Her Emissary. The creature’s spiraling madness spread fear before it like a tornado.

“. . the advantage is yours. . for now,” Kritton said, moving off to join the other shades.

Alwyn watched it go, but knew he had bigger problems to deal with. Gwyn, though the thing drawing near no longer resembled the man in form or being, managed to hold some core of itself at the center of its own storm even as the rest of it was torn away.

Is this to be my destiny, too? Alwyn wondered. Will I become little more than a maddened collection of violence and death? He half-expected Rallie to appear at his side and tell him he was being foolish, but she was busy, and in the end, he still had a duty to perform. And that, he realized, was what would keep him sane. He was a soldier. He was an Iron Elf. As long as that was true, he could never become the monstrosity Gwyn had.

He adjusted his caerna and brought his hand up to adjust his spectacles, then remembered he no longer wore them. He brought his hand down and knocked on his wooden leg for luck, then limped forward to meet the threat.

“And how is this better than my plan?” Konowa whispered, scrambling over an ice-slicked rock and sliding down the other side to land awkwardly and fall to one knee before catching himself. “We’re still outside the walls risking life and limb.” He stood, brushed the snow off his trousers, and strode after Yimt. How the blazes does anyone with legs so short move so bloody fast? The dwarf had a knack for navigating among the tumbled rocks of Suhundam’s Hill like a mountain goat.

“Almost done, sir,” the dwarf said, easily bounding up and over another boulder. Yimt spooled out more twine from a bobbin slung from his belt. A continuous line now led all the way back to the secret entrance they had come through just a short twenty minutes before.

Konowa ignored the view from below as Yimt’s caerna blew in the wind, and instead marveled that he could move so nimbly after having been shot in the chest. Dwarves had a reputation for toughness, but just how tough Konowa had never fully appreciated. It was truly impressive.

“That’s how I feel,” Konowa said, letting gravity pull him the next few yards before digging his boot heels into the snow to slow himself down as another pile of rocks loomed before him.

“Think low and wide, Major,” Yimt whispered back over his shoulder. “The idea is to spread yourself out over a bigger area, and keep your body close to the ground. Makes a fellow more stable, especially a lanky one like you.”

“I’ll be low and wide and splattered all over these rocks if you don’t slow down,” Konowa grumbled. He finally gave in to his heaving lungs and stopped at the next boulder. Unlike the slow, tense climb up to the fort of a few hours ago, this descent was barely controlled chaos. Konowa’s body was now bruise on top of bruise. If he ever lay down he seriously wondered if he could haul himself back up again.

Yimt turned and trotted back up to where Konowa had halted. “Your orders, if you recall, sir, were to, and I quote, ‘get down the damn hill as fast as you can bloody well move.’ “

“Yes, you’re right,” Konowa managed, bending over double. His face was flushed and he’d already undone the top four buttons on his jacket despite the cold. He straightened back up and started to move off, but Yimt placed a strong hand on his arm and held him in place.