Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

Two more shadows emerged ten yards from the pair and angled toward them at a growing rate of speed.

“Rakkes!” Visyna shouted, her fingers flailing uselessly in the cold air. She couldn’t pull so much as a single thread to weave. She stomped the snow in frustration as the rakkes closed in. The Viceroy nonchalantly drew his saber and began to whistle loudly and with little sense of rhythm. Jurwan removed his right hand from his wounded left arm and waved it into the air, scattering drops of blood everywhere.

The rakkes roared and ran even faster toward them. Five more rakkes appeared from the other side, boxing the hapless pair in.

Yimt was already charging toward the rakkes with Hrem right behind him, but they wouldn’t reach them in time.

“Yimt. Hrem. Stop!”

The command cut through the night like a sliver from a single hair threaded through the smallest needle. If Visyna hadn’t been standing right beside her she doubted she would have heard it, but Yimt turned, startled. Hrem stopped, too, after plowing into Yimt and sending them both to their knees in the snow.

“Chayii, why?” Visyna asked, as the rakkes covered the last few yards to the Viceroy and Jurwan.

“My husband is up to his old tricks again,” she said, her tone a mixture of pride and annoyance.

A fifth shadow slid through the night. It moved so fast and so silently that Visyna couldn’t keep it in focus. A soft, subtle voice carried on the night air, and while she couldn’t understand its language, its meaning was clear; this was the power of a Silver Wolf Oak unleashed.

Tyul cut through the rakkes like lightning falling from the sky. He appeared, he destroyed, he disappeared. The creatures had no chance to defend themselves and no time to scream.

As the last rakke collapsed, Tyul came to a standstill, standing quietly in the snow as if he’d been there all along. No other living thing except perhaps Jir could look so calm and yet exude so much potential for violence. It was in the smooth, calculating grace of his stance. She would have found that attractive but for looking in his eyes. The elf was gone. What remained was little more than pure, natural force, a predator of the natural order driven and sustained by the power of a Silver Wolf Oak.

The smell of hot blood filled the air and Visyna brought her hand to her nose.

“What is-” she started to say, but Chayii held up her hand to silence her.

She took a slow, careful step toward Tyul, but the elf simply turned and disappeared into the night. Visyna looked down at the snow where he had stood and could see no sign that he had ever been there.

“A single company of lads like that and the Empire could rule the world,” the Viceroy said, walking up to them as he sheathed his saber. He stopped when he looked at Chayii and his smile froze on his face. “But of course, his affliction is a most tragic one and not something to be used for gain.” He sounded genuinely concerned if a little wistful.

“I see my husband does not share your concern equally,” she said, turning her gaze on Jurwan. “No doubt he cut himself deliberately so that the rakkes would smell his blood and come running, unaware they were being drawn into the hunting ground of one of the diova gruss .”

Visyna had heard that term before and remembered it meant lost one. It definitely fit Tyul. It wasn’t that the elf was insane, at least, she didn’t think so, just that he was so in tune with the natural order that he had become part of it as much as the wind and the rain. He would strike down rakkes and any other ill-conceived creatures that marred the world and upset the natural order.

“Chayii,” Visyna asked, “what will happen to Tyul when there are no more rakkes to hunt?”

The elf hung her head before answering. “Eventually, they lose themselves so completely that they can’t bear to feed on anything, knowing their very existence mars the world. They starve to death in one final act of guardianship of the natural order, giving back their bodies to the earth.”

“That’s crazy,” Zwitty muttered, drawing everyone’s attention his way. He looked guilty, but met their gaze and glared. “Well, isn’t it? What good is anybody dead to anyone?”

“I’ve often wanted to find out,” Yimt said, eyeing Zwitty as if sizing him up for a coffin. “But as with so many joys in life, that will have to wait. We need to keep moving. Anyone seen Inkermon? He jumped about the same time you lot did?”

Hrem shook his head. “It was all a white blur. He’s got to be around here somewhere though.”

No one mentioned the obvious, but Visyna could tell they were all thinking it. With rakkes roaming everywhere his odds of survival were slim. He was no Tyul.

“Well, if that creator of his put any sense in his brain he’ll follow the tracks and catch up. Let’s go.”

Visyna fell into step, watching Chayii gently take her husband’s arm and rest her head on his shoulder. Jurwan still wasn’t talking, but it was clear from his tactic with Tyul he was regaining his elfness.

A forlorn shako, a broken musket, and other bits of uniform and equipment surrounded several black marks in the snow where Iron Elves had perished. Yimt took the time to quickly sift through each one, muttering under his breath as he did so. In each case he picked up something and put the object in a haversack he’d found and slung over his shoulder.

“What’s he doing?” Visyna asked Hrem.

“Collecting something from each soldier, hopefully something personal their family back home might know and appreciate receiving, especially when there won’t be any body.”

“Damn,” Yimt said, standing up from the last spot. He was holding a small white book in his hand with a torn cover.

“Inkermon’s holy book,” Hrem said, his voice low and rough.

Visyna waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. She thought about it, and realized that for soldiers like Hrem and Yimt and Konowa, the squad, the regiment, was another way of saying family.

“Everyone stay sharp, we’re coming up on the main battle,” Yimt said, pointing with his steel bar toward the front.

Visyna had been feeling the pull of the energy in the air for some time and her head began to swim.

“I see a rakke!” Scolly shouted, harkening Yimt’s advice.

“Pointing would help,” Yimt growled, trying to follow Scolly’s eye line.

“It’s standing over there by the major.”

Everyone looked. Up ahead in a rockier area that hadn’t received the heavier snowfall, Konowa sat limply in the snow, looking up at the creature. He wasn’t defending himself.

“Help him!” Visyna cried, not knowing who or what could.

“My son, my son,” Chayii said, her voice trembling.

The rakke stepped forward, ready to kill him when it disappeared in a violent flash of frost fire. The shade of an Iron Elf stood over its body.

“The Darkly Departed are handy to have around, I’ll give them that,” Yimt said, starting to chuckle. His laughter died as the form of the shade sharpened.

Visyna screamed.

Kritton raised his ethereal blade and swung.

The swirling mass that had once been Her Emissary tore itself into ever tinier pieces, scattering its rage and influence among the shades of the dead rakkes. Alwyn had expected to fight the creature as he had before at the canyon, but he realized now that was impossible. It had devolved into a burning black core of hatred no bigger than Alwyn’s fist, but around it swirled an ever-growing maelstrom of shadowy death, each element a fearful particle of what Faltinald Gwyn had become.

Worse, the tear opened into the realm of the dead was expanding, and the creature’s manic anger was drawing more and larger monsters through into this world. Alwyn leaned forward, pushing the wall of frost fire that surrounded him into the path of the shrieking vortex. The pain in his stump flared and he winced. Tears welled in his eyes. His wooden leg creaked with the stress, its many interwoven limbs splintering as he moved through the magical storm.