Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

He caught himself daydreaming and stomped his boot on the ground. It was time. He motioned to Major Alstonfar and the order went out.

The Iron Elves shouldered their muskets, and marched forward, and into battle.

They’d climbed almost two hours without a sign of any living creature except the sporadic carcasses of sarka har . They were all dead, or dying.

“What killed them?” Konowa asked, walking off the trail to get a closer look at one. It didn’t look like it had been attacked, more that it had just wilted and died.

“The natural order is so polluted here, and there is nothing of value for them to feed on,” Visyna said, her voice quavering.

Konowa was worried about her. She appeared weak and ill. He felt it in the ground himself, but it only fueled his desire to get to the top. “Perhaps you should-”

Visyna glared at him and he closed his mouth.

“I am going with you all the way. If you even think of suggesting otherwise the Shadow Monarch will be the least of your worries.”

Konowa smiled in spite of the situation. “As you wish.”

The snap of a single musket broke the unnatural quiet.

“Rakkes!”

The beasts poured out of the rocks like ants from a nest. “Steady! It’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” Yimt shouted, moving quickly between the soldiers and forming them into a double line as the first row knelt and prepared to fire.

Konowa judged that he was close enough to make his run now, but something gave him pause. The rakkes coming at them were not like those of even a few hours ago. These seemed disoriented, and weak. The first volley of musket fire crashed into them, knocking down thirty and sending an equal number backward where they shrieked and beat their chests, but gave little indication of charging again.

Soldiers cheered, but Konowa didn’t trust it. This wasn’t right. First the dead sarka har, and now less than maniacal rakkes.

“Archers!”

The sky darkened as hundreds of arrows arced toward them. Konowa’s sense of suspicion had been right. He went to grab Visyna to push her to safety, but Rallie stepped into his path and knocked him off balance. The arrows reached their apogee and began to fall straight toward them.

A sudden wind gust tore along the path blowing most of the arrows astray. The few that fell either hit the stony ground or bounced off the sarka har bark the soldiers wore as armor. Konowa looked to Visyna. She swayed where she stood, but she was weaving. Rallie had her quill poised above a sheaf of papers.

“Visyna!”

“We can hold them off,” she said, bravely smiling at him.

Konowa would have returned it, but the clicking sound of hundreds of pins on rock made him blanch. Dozens of korwirds were scrambling through the rakkes and charging at the Iron Elves. Konowa shivered at the look of the things. They clattered over the rock like armored snakes on hundreds of pointy twigs. Each was easily five feet long and possessed a pair of clacking pincers at its head. He’d never seen one before, but Yimt had gone into great detail about them so that there was no mistaking the nasty-looking things crawling toward them.

“Fire!”

Musket shot spewed out of barrels and raced across fifty yards to tear into rakke and korwird alike, blasting them apart in a mess of blood and chitinous plating. More arrows launched skyward and Visyna called up another wind, though not as strong as the last one. A soldier screamed and went down, his hands pressed over his hip where a black arrow had lodged, blood spurting between his fingers.

The scratch of Rallie’s quill across paper set a hum on the air, and more black arrows went wide of the mark. Konowa cursed. They were pinned down to the spot. They could hold off Her creatures, but there was no way to move forward. Dusk was already tinting the sky, elongating shadows on the ground.

“Colonel,” Major Alstonfar said, jogging up to crouch beside Konowa. He was sweating and breathing heavy, but he sounded calm and in control. “The men are doing a superlative job, but at this rate of fire they’ll expend their ammunition in the next half hour. I’ve ordered them to wait until they have a clear shot, but that will only buy us a little more time.”

Konowa reached out and patted the man on the shoulder, taking his hand back quickly as frost fire began to burn on Pimmer’s uniform. To his credit, Pimmer simply brushed the fire out with his hand. A rumbling roar came from somewhere up the mountain. Whatever it was, it was coming this way. “Tell the men to fix bayonets.”

“What is it?” Pimmer asked.

“No idea, but it won’t be pleasant,” Konowa answered, sprinting away to check on Rallie and Visyna. The women had taken up station behind a large boulder and were continuing to aid the regiment. Visyna was leaning against the rock, her hands trembling as she weaved. Rallie was crouched down by her side, a large sheaf of paper resting on a thigh as her quill flew across the page. “Do you know what’s coming?”

Both women shook their heads, too busy to speak as they concentrated on their magic. The hairs on Konowa’s arms stood up and a trickle of cold sweat raced down his spine. He turned and ran back toward the line, growing all the more frustrated that he had no good plan about what to do next. Were this any other battle, he’d order a tactical withdrawal to a more defensible location, but that wasn’t an option, not here, not when he was so close.

The rumbling grew louder. Konowa unsheathed his saber, the frost fire sparkling along the blade at once.

“Steady now,” Yimt ordered, moving behind the line and offering encouragement to the troops. His drukar was clenched in his right fist, and like Konowa’s saber, sparked with black frost.

A long, guttural scream was answered by a dozen more, and a pack of misshapen dyre wolves bounded from among the sarka har and raced toward the Iron Elves. Each wolf was easily the size of Jir, but where the bengar was sleek muscle, fluid movement, and controlled violence, these creatures were starvation thin and ran with a stilted, drunklike gait. A sickly yellow foam drooled from their muzzles filled with serrated teeth and black pus oozed from their milky white eyes.

Before the order to fire could be given, Tyul sprang up from the rocks and moved in front of the firing line and began loosing arrows at the wolves. Four went down in a matter of seconds, but not even the elf’s lightning-fast reflexes could take them all before they reached the line.

“Tyul! Get the hell out of there!” Konowa shouted, running forward.

Tyul never turned, but continued to fire arrow after arrow as the wolves bore down on him. When the creatures were only a few yards away the twang of many bowstrings reached Konowa’s ears. Arrows whistled past his head, between the Iron Elves, and struck the wolves in mid-jump. The bodies fell and slid along the ground and stopped just inches from where Tyul stood.

Konowa turned. Elves of the Long Watch emerged from the shadows, their bows still active as they engaged Her elves and the rakkes and korwirds. Jurwan walked among them, still as serene as if he were out for a walk on a warm, summer day.

“Father?” Konowa shouted.

“The elves of the Long Watch may not listen to the advice of another elf,” Jurwan said, “but when their own Wolf Oaks saw the rightness of aiding you, they felt compelled to help.”

More rakkes appeared among the trees, their gibbering calls growing in intensity. Konowa knew he had to act now.

“Tell them thanks!” he shouted, and turn and ran back to the line. “Major, fix bayonets and on my order, wheel right and clear that line of trees. The elves will cover you. Once you’ve secured that find cover and keep them busy.”