Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

Pimmer nodded. “And you, Colonel?”

“Just see that it’s done.”

Pimmer saluted and passed along the order to Yimt.

A volley of Long Watch arrows cleared the woods for twenty yards. The Iron Elves stood up and charged, their bayonets ablaze with frost fire. Any rakke or korwird in their path was stabbed to death. The few remaining dark elves stepped forward to plug the gap, but those not killed by the Long Watch fell to the blade of Tyul. The elf slid between tree and elf, slashing and stabbing with an economy of movement and absolute precision. Konowa could have watched him all day, but already a new pack of dyre wolves was racing through the sarka har and more rakkes were massing.

Konowa ran past the soldiers. He spied Yimt and slowed. “I’ll be back,” Konowa shouted over his shoulder, running up the path. He looked down at his saber as he ran. Stygian black frost crackled along the length of the blade.

A black blur preceded him up the path and took a rakke by the throat, shaking the beast so hard the head ripped off. Jir dropped the body and launched himself at the next beast, swiping his claws at its thighs and quickly pouncing on its chest when the creature screamed and fell. A moment later there was a snap and the screaming stopped.

Konowa leaped over Jir and kept running. It was his turn now.

He wasn’t sure how many rakkes and dark elves and other creatures crossed his path. He slashed and stabbed as he ran, ignoring the arrows that flew past his head and the claws that tried to rip his face. The frost fire arced out from him like lightning, striking creatures five and ten yards away from him. Soon, he had no need to swing his saber at all. As the sun dipped below the mountain and darkness settled in, he followed the path by the light of his own black flame.

He was well into the thorny thicket of Her forest at the very peak of the mountain before he realized it. He’d expected a ferocious response, but the sarka har here could only flail in mad desperation. He pushed his way through, destroying the blood trees with sturdy swipes of his saber. Instead of feeling emboldened, he grew increasingly cautious. It was a trick, it had to be. The Shadow Monarch was too powerful. Her forest and Her creatures couldn’t be dying, because if they were dying. . Rallie might be right.

He paused, breathing in the cold air. He watched his breath mist in front of him. It doesn’t matter! You came here to end this. End this!

Konowa stood up straight and gripped the pommel of his saber so hard that black flame shot twenty feet in the air from the end of it. He slashed through the last ring of trees and emerged on the rocky summit where the Shadow Monarch knelt by Her Silver Wolf Oak.

The power here was caustic. The acorn against his chest flared, driving needles of cold deep into his heart. He coughed, breathing in the mix of cold, toxic magic permeating the surrounding rocks. The ground beneath his feet groaned. Large fissures crisscrossed the summit from which moans and screams echoed from the far depths. Konowa moved carefully around them, staying well away from the edges. He could make out claw marks where rakkes and other creatures had emerged.

The Shadow Monarch turned to look at him as he approached, and like the dream, a small, scared, elderly elf woman stared up at him.

“My child,” she said, reaching out Her hands to him. Her voice grated on his ears. It was high and shaky, far from the commanding voice he’d often heard in his dreams.

Konowa stopped and looked around the space. Even here the sarka har looked sick. He studied the Silver Wolf Oak and felt revulsion at what he saw. What should have been a tall, straight tree was instead a gnarled, twisted mess of branches sloughing off their bark. Its metallic leaves were either wilting or already fallen, and black ichor oozed from hundreds of cracks in its wood. It was dying!

He knew She couldn’t stop him. Neither could the Silver Wolf Oak. All he had to do was walk forward the last few paces and strike. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet.

“Why?” he asked, swinging his saber around to encompass everything. “Why? Why do this?” He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. “Why any of this?”

The Shadow Monarch began to babble. Konowa waited, expecting a trap. Tears were running down the old elf ’s face as She gently tried to piece back together the dying Silver Wolf Oak.

“She doesn’t have any answers,” Rallie said, stepping into the clearing. “She never did. Her mind is all but gone. It has been for a long time.”

Konowa spun, the acorn against his heart burning cold. “You? Rallie?” His world was spinning. No, she couldn’t be.

“All this time, and you really thought She was the power behind all of this?” Rallie asked.

It felt as if someone had pushed him off a cliff. His muscles grew weak and he felt dizzy. Rallie pulled a cigar from her robe and placed it between her teeth, then brought out a tinderbox and lit it.

“I don’t understand,” Konowa said, trying to keep his wits. He could hear the slithering and creaking of branches all around him. Something was happening. He knew he was missing a piece to the puzzle, but what?

“No? I’m not surprised,” Rallie said. Her cigar hadn’t lit so she tried the tinderbox again. Sparks flashed, but the cigar would not catch flame.

Konowa blinked. In all the time he’d known Rallie, he’d never seen her use a tinderbox. “You witch.” His strength returned in a rush. “I may not be the brightest candle, but I know a forgery when I see one.” He raised his saber and took a step toward the Shadow Monarch. She still knelt by the tree, keening softly now and rocking back and forth.

“Finish Her, Konowa, and this will be over,” Visyna said, appearing out of the trees to stand beside Rallie. Again the acorn flared and Konowa cried out in pain. He dropped to one knee.

“You aren’t Visyna,” he said through gritted teeth. “Your parlor tricks won’t work on me.”

“Then kill Her and be done with this,” Yimt said, emerging from the right. Konowa fell to both knees as the pain pierced through to his back. “Kill Her, and set me free.”

Branches began moving around Konowa. He forced himself to his feet. He ignored Yimt and turned his attention to the Silver Wolf Oak. “You said me .”

“Kill Her, Konowa, kill Her,” the Duke of Rakestraw said, stepping out of the trees just a few feet away from him. His long red locks fluttered about his face, and he held his long sword, Wolf’s Tooth, in his hands, but the cold pain squeezing Konowa’s chest told him what he already knew. That wasn’t his friend. Tears filled Konowa’s eyes, but turned to ice as they froze on his cheeks.

“You. . said. . me.” He took a step forward, then another and pointed toward the Shadow Monarch. “You called to Her all those centuries ago.”

Jurwan approached with his hands outstretched. “It is really me, my son. You must focus. Kill Her, and this will be done.”

Konowa laughed, though it felt as if his ribs were breaking. Cold seeped into every joint. He ignored the images of his friends and family and looked past the Shadow Monarch, and directly at the Silver Wolf Oak. “This wasn’t about Her. It was about you.

Kaman Rahl made the same mistake She made. You’re the real power here, not Her.”

In answer, the avatars of those he loved began to close around him. Konowa held his saber in front of him, coaxing the frost fire to a shimmering black furnace. He heard the grinding of wood on wood. The figures around him shuddered, and he saw through the facades to the twisted mess of ichor and wood forming the structure on which the illusions projected.