Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

The rock walls whizzed past much closer than Konowa thought was safe. He squinted into the wind and saw that due to the prevailing wind the snow had drifted more to the western side of the road, creating a ramp that was angling them toward the east side, and the rocks that lined it.

“Everyone lean left!” he shouted, throwing his body sideways. The whole toboggan lurched and began to tilt as it climbed up the snowdrift on the west side.

“Too much! Back to the right!”

The toboggan lurched again and a loud crack sounded from somewhere beneath him.

“She’s breaking up, Major!” Pimmer shouted from somewhere behind him. “She can’t handle the strain!”

“We’re almost there!” Konowa shouted, trying to reach for his saber then forgetting the idea when he realized he’d have to release one of his hands from its death grip on the supplies. The toboggan hit a bump-it might have been part of a rakke-and became airborne. The bottom of his stomach fell away and he suddenly felt as light as a feather. It wasn’t a good feeling.

The desert floor appeared through the snow. It was close, and on an angle that looked more vertical than horizontal. A cluster of rakkes stood at the bottom of the snow-covered stairs looking up.

“Rakkes dead ahead off the bow!” Corporal Feylan shouted, embracing his naval ambitions in his excitement. “Brace for impact!”

In the final second before toboggan, Iron Elves, and rakkes met in what would be recorded as the first and last battle of the HMT The Flying Elf, Major Konowa Swift Dragon, brevet naval captain, said a silent prayer to blind, dumb luck.

“Viceroy!” he yelled, the wind and snow stinging his face. “You know how to make a distraction!”

Konowa’s understanding of physics was, as he was the first to admit, more of a complete misunderstanding. The looming change from the steep descent down the snow-covered road to the flat snow-covered desert rushing toward him was blocked by a huge mound of accumulated ice and snow. It looked less like a soft pile of fluffy snow and more of a hard, ice-encrusted ramp. He chose to keep his eyes open as he’d already lived his life once and a lot of it he would just as soon forget. He wanted to see the next few seconds, especially if they were to be his last.

What saved Konowa and the riders of HMT The Flying Elf was luck in the form of the combined body mass of thirty-five rakkes. The toboggan launched itself into the air and immediately took a nose down position as it sailed through the air toward the desert floor. At that angle it would have shattered on landing, but the rakkes took the initial impact of the toboggan, absorbing the force of over two thousand pounds traveling faster than an eight-team horse carriage.

A rakke’s skull, though heavy and thick to protect what little brain it had, wasn’t designed to withstand the blunt impact of that much force. Konowa had never seen a body disintegrate two feet in front of him before. The spray of rakke material stung his face with a wet mask that dried instantly in the wind.

If the creatures screamed, Konowa couldn’t hear them. He did, however, feel the force of the wood pulverizing them as it shuddered toward touchdown. More rakkes appeared and while these, too, were smashed by the toboggan, the body parts now flying through the air were considerably larger and posed a real danger.

“Duck!” someone shouted entirely unnecessarily. Even Jir had had the sense to crouch down as limbs and heads began flying overhead.

HMT The Flying Elf touched down some thirty feet away from the foot of the road and rebounded at once, throwing up a hundred-foot-tall geyser of ice, snow, wood, and more rakke parts. This time Konowa did hear screams, but he had no time to check who they were. He was too busy holding on. His hips then his legs flew up into the air, and for a moment, he was doing a handstand before the toboggan slammed down again and Konowa did, too.

Three more bounces and one more handstand occurred before Konowa was able to remain firmly on the pile of supplies. Rakke howls rose and fell away as the toboggan roared across the snow, bowling over the creatures with little regard and minimal drag on its high rate of speed.

“That was marvelous!” Pimmer shouted, his voice filled with glee.

“Miraculous is more like it,” Konowa yelled, rising up slightly to look beyond the next group of rakkes running to get out of the way. Three didn’t, but one did. Konowa stuck out his boot and caught the rakke at the base of its skull with his heel as they flew past and immediately regretted it. The crack he heard had been the rakke’s spine and not his ankle, but he was still seeing stars for the next several seconds.

“Everyone keep your hands and legs inside!” Visyna shouted. “We’re traveling much too fast.”

Konowa was still grimacing with pain so he didn’t bother to look over his shoulder. He had a feeling she was looking right at him.

“Shades!”

The shades of dead rakkes flitted in and out of sight up ahead. Maybe they’re still trying to get the hang of it, Konowa wondered, hoping that provided enough of an advantage to allow the toboggan to slide through. He risked taking his right hand off the supplies and grabbed his saber, drawing and calling on the frost fire as he did so.

The part of him that was forever six years old grinned while the rest of him tried to convince himself this really had been the best and only plan of action. The blade of the saber sparked to life with frost fire and began trailing an eerie icy black tail of flame and frost like a comet falling from the heavens. Unlike the living rakkes, however, these shades moved to intercept the toboggan. Konowa suddenly realized there was no way he’d be able to swing his blade in a wide enough arc to cut a swath big enough for them to pass through safely.

“I hope this works!” he shouted, swinging his saber down to lodge it into the table top acting as the bow. Black flame engulfed the wood and the entire front of the toboggan, sending huge, flickering tongues of frost fire back along the toboggan. Jir yelped and stuck his head beneath his front paws while screams and shouts rose from those immediately behind him.

“What are you doing?” Visyna and Pimmer shouted at the same time.

Konowa didn’t bother to reply. The answer was about to happen. . now!

The first shades of dead rakkes hit by the flaming toboggan exploded in a shower of sparks. Their shadowy forms fractured and disintegrated like smashed crystal as the black flames consumed the tumbling pieces until nothing remained. The toboggan barreled on, making living and dead rakkes one and the same.

“A most novel idea, Major,” Pimmer said, crawling up beside him. “We appear to be through the rakke wall. Any thoughts on how to put out the flames?”

His grin vanished. “Oh. .”

The flames, fed as much by the wind as the supply of rakke shades, were quickly clawing their way back along the supplies.

“I am sorry about this,” Konowa said, meaning it. He hadn’t set out to destroy the man’s pride and joy. “We’ll just have to jump off and let it burn out.”

“That sounds wise, especially considering I saved a few kegs of black powder and loaded them on the toboggan.”

Konowa looked down below him. He could just make out the curve of a keg at the bottom of the pile. “How could you be that stupid?”

Pimmer looked crestfallen. “I’m afraid I placed them on the bottom to provide some ballast and keep our center of gravity low, like on a ship.”

“Everyone jump off!” Konowa shouted, turning and looking back down the length of the toboggan.

The looks he received were a mix of horror and incredulity. Even Jir perked his head up as if to see if he was serious.