Chris Evans - Ashes of a Black Frost

The oath was broken.

“Thank you,” Alwyn said, and was gone.

Konowa blinked. He was alone on the mountaintop. The fire still burned. He flung his body off the rock, tumbling and sliding until he could no longer feel the icy flames. He came to rest in the crook of two rocks. The mountain was shaking beneath him. Rocks split and fractured as chasms dug too long and too deep collapsed.

Debris began falling past him. The irony that he would survive his encounter on the mountaintop only to be killed by a falling rock put a grin on his face.

He waited for the fateful blow, but none came. The mountain stopped shaking. He sat up, clutching his chest. When he brought his hand away and looked, the black stain on his chest was still there, but already he could feel warmth spreading through his body. He ripped the black acorn stuck to his chest, and this time it came away. As he held it in his hands he felt the coldness leave it. He thought about what his father said, about how its contact with him would have changed it.

He took in a tentative breath, waiting for a stab of pain to black him out, but beyond a level of overall agony he had become accustomed to, he felt pretty damn good. He gingerly climbed to his feet and looked up. The black flames had gone out. He looked around. There were no signs of sarka har anywhere. He clenched his fists. Nothing. No frost fire.

He climbed back up to the mountaintop. A thick, black ash floated in the air, coating everything. Nothing else remained to show the Shadow Monarch and Her forest had ever been there. The rock where the Silver Wolf Oak had grown had been scoured clean by the frost fire. Konowa kicked his boot through the black ash until he heard a familiar clink. He bent down and picked up his saber. He hefted it in his hands and made a couple of practice swipes in the air. He spun around, expecting something to be standing behind him, but he was alone.

Konowa sheathed his saber. There wasn’t even an echo. He wanted to feel something more, but after all this time, the feeling that overwhelmed all others was that for the first time in his life, he could see himself being happy.

It was a scary thought. He shivered, and decided it was time to get back. He took one last look around and started to set off back down the mountain, but paused.

He opened his hand and looked at the acorn. Could his father be right? Was this a chance for things to be different? After everything, maybe he could find a way to bond with nature. Gently, he knelt down and placed the acorn on the ground. He stood back up and looked at it. A light breeze drifted through the clearing, tousling his hair across his face. For a long time he stared at the acorn, waiting. Then he raised his boot and slammed his heel down on the acorn with all his might. The acorn splintered into several pieces. He lifted his boot and brought it down again and again and again until there was nothing left.

“Bloody trees,” he muttered, turning and never looking back.

“I’ll leave out the parts where I screamed,” he said to himself as he began composing his story for the others. The rest of it, he decided, he’d tell more or less as it happened.

More or less.

Konowa smiled.

It felt. . good.

Konowa walked along a path among the trees, occasionally reaching out a hand to brush against the bark as he went. Autumn was in the air. He still wore his uniform, although it no longer conformed to any regulations. His trousers were neatly patched with pieces of Hasshugeb robe, and his jacket no longer carried epaulettes or shiny buttons, the latter having long been replaced by polished pieces of wood from a few shards of the Black Spike . He reached up and scratched his head, still not used to not having a shako there. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of the musket on its sling. His right hand rested on the pommel of his saber with a light but firm grip.

The wind chased fallen leaves before him like a covey of startled quail. It had been three months since the battle on the mountain-top. Three months and he still kept a wary eye on the trees around him. Better safe than sorry. He paused and took in a breath.

“Okay,” he said to himself, closing his eyes, “I can do this.”

He stretched out his arms, palms up, and listened to the forest. It was alive with the sounds of birds and beasts and all manner of insects and other living creatures. The distant voices of the Wolf Oaks were there, too, but if they were talking to him, he couldn’t understand a word they were saying.

A squirrel scampered down a trunk nearby and paused to look at him. Konowa raised an eyebrow at it. “Father?”

The squirrel bushed its tail and darted back up the tree.

“Guess not.” He tried again, straining to hear more than the usual buzz of noise. He closed his eyes and concentrated. C’mon, something talk to me.

“You look like a juggler who’s lost his balls.”

Konowa opened his eyes. Yimt stood a few feet up ahead on the path. His teeth gleamed as he smiled. He was dressed in soft brown and green leathers, and carried a custom-tailored long bow on his back. His trusty drukar hung at his side off his old Calahrian uniform’s belt.

“The forest and I remain, unsurprisingly, not on speaking terms.”

“Just as well,” Yimt said, stepping forward as he shoved a wad of crute between his teeth. He offered some to Konowa who politely shook his head. “Brigadier generals that hear trees don’t stay brigadiers for long.”

Konowa snorted, and fell in step with the dwarf as they started walking back down the path. In the distance just visible through the trees, a small cottage and a neatly domed pile of rocks with a small wooden door sat by a river in a lush, green meadow. “I told you, I’m not taking the commission. Marshal Ruwl got me once, but not again. The Iron Elves are in good hands with Pimmer.”

“What about the message from Miss Synjyn, and the King? They all seem rather keen to have you back under arms,” Yimt said. His voice was filled with mirth at Konowa’s discomfort. “The Shadow Monarch and Her forces might be gone, but the Empire is far from stable. And you are the hero. I read all about it in the Imperial Weekly Herald ,” Yimt said, flourishing a scroll of paper.

Konowa made a face. “They can send Rakestraw’s cavalry out looking for me for all I care. I am officially retired. I’m back where I belong, in a forest. . among the trees. .” Konowa stopped walking and took the scroll from Yimt and unfurled it. A very lifelike sketch of several members of the regiment graced the top of the page along with the official citations commending their acts of bravery. Fifty-two had survived. It hurt to read that, but Konowa was grateful that many had come through. For a very long time he feared the number would be zero.

He easily recognized Corporal Vulhber, RSM Aguom, Private Scolly Erinmoss, and a beaming Major Pimrald Alstonfar. They formed the core of the fully reconstituted Iron Elves, and Konowa couldn’t be happier about that. He ignored his own sketch and grinned when he saw Yimt’s. Rallie had somehow managed to capture the glint of his metal teeth and mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Even newly minted Ensign Feylan of the Imperial Calahrian Navy was depicted. At this rate the lad would have his own ship in a couple more years.

Konowa’s joy dimmed as he scanned down to the posthumous awards. The list was long, much too long. Rallie had drawn the deceased with grace and humor, capturing them at their best, their eyes bright and their smiles genuine and strong, but it still hollowed Konowa out to look at them.

He let the scroll roll up and handed it back to Yimt.

“What about you? Don’t you have a wife and family missing you? You’re a free dwarf. Why not go home and open your law firm? I’m sure there are guilty men in jail right now for no other reason than you’re out here and not in a courtroom working your particular brand of magic.”