Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  “Talo, please.” al’Dor was whispering through streaks of glistening tears. “Please. Don’t leave me…”

  Raz got up slowly, using Ahna to haul himself to his feet. It seemed that the Woods themselves grew still in reverence as he began to walk, unsteady on shaking legs, letting the dviassegai fall to the ice behind him. As though the wind were bowing its head in sadness, a clear silence gripped the clearing. It wasn’t the muffled, oppressing dullness of snow, nor the eerie emptiness of the Woods. This was a stillness of the world itself, a calming of spirit and soul and elements.

  An elegy of the very land.

  Raz made his way steadily through the snow, not feeling its cool chill against the steel of his armor, nor the resistance of its weight as he walked. He reached the edge of the island and climbed, claws gripping as they found stiff earth. Gently he pushed aside the boughs of the old pine and bent to pass beneath them.

  All the while, he never looked away from the broad, broken body of Talo Brahnt.

  The man lived yet, by some cruel miracle. He was seated, his back against the trunk, arms hanging limply at his side. His eyes were half open, watching al’Dor work with his good hand, and there was a sad sort of smile on his lips as he witnessed the desperate need with which the Priest wove his magics.

  Lips that bubbled with hardening blood.

  The man was a mess. One shoulder looked out of place, either dislocated or broken high up on the arm. The left side of his face was lacerated and bruised, as though it had found some rock beneath the snow when he was thrown, and Raz realized with shocked anguish that he could see the streak of pale bone behind cut skin and torn, silver brown hair. Blood dripped from his ears and nose, and Raz followed the trails down, along his neck, past his collarbone, and on to the real damage.

  al’Dor had managed to tear open the front of the High Priest’s robes, revealing what had only a few minutes before been the strong figure of a once powerful man. Silvery blade scars crossed each other over Brahnt’s skin, leaving a latticework of pale lines through thick grey chest hair. Other marks were dispersed about as well, the writhing patches of long-healed burns, the lumped, purplish scars of past puncture wounds. Talo Brahnt’s body told a violent story of a different life, one lived by the sword rather than by the faith.

  And now it looked as though it would have fit better as a sad fate found at the end of that old path…

  Brahnt breathed in shallow, wheezing swallows even as he watched his partner work. Nothing moved except the bruised skin of his abdomen, almost every rib broken and splintered, some even protruding through bloody holes from his sides, ugly reminders of the great wound. His thick robes had foiled the cruel edge of the bear’s claws, it seemed, but all the same four dark, discolored streaks ran the diagonal length of his chest, from right shoulder to left hip. The center of this area, where the sternum of the ribcage was, seemed oddly dented, almost caved in.

  His chest had been crushed.

  “Brahnt…” was all Raz managed to say as he fell to one knee opposite al’Dor.

  At his name, the High Priest slowly turned his head. His sad smile seemed only to grow as he met Raz’s amber eyes, revealing bloodstained teeth.

  “I-I’m afraid,” he wheezed in inhaling gasps, “that this is… this is where we part ways… lad…”

  On his right side, al’Dor started to sob.

  “Shh, h-handsome,” Brahnt said, rolling his head back to look at the Priest and trying to raise a hand to reach the man. “Shh. There’s nothing… nothing to be afraid of now.”

  “No,” al’Dor said as he cried, ignoring the outstretched arm while his right hand continued over the man’s body, his left clutched awkwardly to his chest, twisted in an odd way. “No, no, no …”

  With every word, the magic he was working seemed to intensify in strength. Raz watched, half horrified, half mesmerized, as slow moving tendrils of golden light, like captured lightning, shivered over the skin of Brahnt’s chest.

  “Enough, C-Carro,” Brahnt said weakly, coughing blood and trying again to reach for him. “Please… Enough…”

  al’Dor only gave a jerking, denying shake of his head, and again ignored the plea, continuing to work his spells.

  It was Raz who stopped him.

  Gently he reached out and took al’Dor’s right hand in his, halting its motions. The Priest made a feeble attempt to pull away as the magic sputtered out and died, but it was a half-hearted try, and after a moment he stopped even these minimal struggles, his sobs becoming deeper and harder. Raz guided his hand, then, pulling it to the side slowly until it settled atop Brahnt’s.

  al’Dor’s knuckles turned white as he clutched at his lover’s fingers, interlacing them in his.

  It was darker now, but the Moon was bright above, slipping through the branches to illuminate and reflect off the snow and ground about them. Raz watched Brahnt continue to gaze at al’Dor for a moment, then turn his head once again to face him.

  “I never… never got to ex-explain,” the High Priest wheezed quietly.

  “Explain what?” Raz asked him gently, meeting the man’s gaze as bravely as he could.

  “Why they’ll… like you. Why our p-people will… will like you.”

  With what seemed like a great effort, Brahnt lifted his left hand up, bringing it to chest level. There was a dim flash of white, and their little shelter beneath the tree was suddenly bright with ivory light.

  Once again, Brahnt held the flames out to him.

  “Take th-them.”

  Raz shook his head, reaching out to put a hand on the man’s shoulder carefully.

  “Save your strength, Brahnt,” he started. “You need to—”

  “Take them, you b-bloody fool,” the man growled weakly as blood began to stream from his lips.

  Raz hesitated, eyes moving to the flames.

  “Take them, Raz.”

  It was Carro who said it. The Priest didn’t look up from where his eyes were fixed on the ground beneath his knees, left arm still clutched to his chest, right hand still clinging to Brahnt’s.

  Raz reached out.

  This time the flames fell into his palm as Brahnt poured them shakily into the cup of his fingers. Raz jerked reflexively as the magic settled into the leather of his gauntlet, bearing with it a sort of ethereal weight, like the better part of his arm had been submerged in a pool of water. It didn’t burn though, as he was frightened it might. Instead the fire flickered warmly in his hand, reflecting in white and red shivers against the bloodied steel of his claws.

  “All f-fire… can burn, boy,” Brahnt croaked, and Raz clung to his every word as he gazed into the flames. “Ours burns… ours burns at our c-command. Ours burns… at our bidding.”

  The hand that had conjured the magic moved to settle on Raz’s forearm.

  “Your fire… burns t-too. Your fire burns… burns hotter than ours, and more savagely. Your fire is… darker, d-deeper. But Raz… it does not consume you.”

  At that, Raz tore his eyes away to look at Brahnt.

  “It could… c-could have,” the High Priest continued in a rasp. “Maybe… it did, once. But it does not consume you. You… You control it, now. You c-command it. There is… is violence in the world, Raz. We… the Laorin know this. And we hate it, yes… but we kn-know it.”

  Raz felt the man’s fingers twitch against the steel of his bracers, and knew he was trying to squeeze his arm through the gauntlet.

  “Consider for a moment… what you are. Consider what you… r-represent. You are the world’s violence, Raz. You… you are death, and blood. You are… are the darkness to our l-light. And yet… you are light itself, as well. You are… kind. You… you are c-caring. You seek to protect, seek to… shield the world. Syrah… Lueski and Arrun… Me. You are… a s-sword, Raz. You are a bloody… sword. But you are a sword raised in the… the defense of all.”

  Brahnt’s gaze took on an almost pleading cast, making it clear how much he needed Raz to hear his words.

>   “They will… will like you for that, l-lad. They will… love you, for that. They will love you, because your fire… your f-fire does not consume you. Do you… understand?”

  For a long time, Raz only looked at the man. He had no way to convey how carefully he had listened, how passionately he had heard this final message.

  In the end, he simply nodded.

  It seemed enough for the High Priest, who smiled and let the magic fade from Raz’s hand.

  “G-good,” the man said through the newly restored dark, coughing again and spraying more blood down his front. “Now, on the t-topic of… of swords… Do you have yours?”

  Raz felt a chill crawl down his spine, but he didn’t voice the fear. He just shook his head.

  “Be a friend and… and g-get it. Give Carro and I… a moment.”

  At once, Raz got to his feet. Turning, he ducked under the edge of the tree, onto the snow, and into the full light of the night sky once again. For a time he stood there, looking up at the Moon and Her Stars, offering up a prayer for the strength he would need.

  Then he started down the island’s embankment, back onto the ice, and made for the still outline of the ursalus, a great shape of indistinct black against a backdrop of bluish ice.

  He returned a few minutes later, having taken his time to extract the gladius from where it sat, buried nearly to the hilt above the stump of the bear’s neck, and cleaning it against the animal’s matted fur. When he stepped under the branches again, he averted his eyes from the men for a second, allowing them to finish a private moment. When he looked back, al’Dor was wiping red from his lips and beard, and the blood was smeared about Brahnt’s mouth.

  The High Priest turned his eyes on Raz again, and Raz felt the great emptiness that had become his heart expand and swallow every part of him as he saw that the man had tears in his eyes.

  Raz knelt down beside him, blade hanging from his side.

  “What-what’s that for?” Carro asked, his voice hoarse and braking, eyes on the gladius.

  Raz couldn’t answer him.

  “It’s… m-mercy,” Brahnt wheezed, squeezing the Priest’s hand. “It’s… kindness, Carro. Please… let him be…”

  al’Dor’s eyes, red and raw with tears, widened in sudden realization. For a second Raz thought the man was going to throw himself at him, or cast some blasting spell that would send him flying back out into the snow. He at least thought the Priest would howl his denials, shaking his head and sobbing in refusal to accept what was to be done.

  al’Dor, though, demonstrated a strength Raz had only seen hints of in the time he had known him. Instead of speaking, the man’s eyes moved from the sword to Brahnt’s tearful face, then down to the terrifying image that remained of his body. He was a healer, Raz realized. He must have known—of all the people beneath that tree—what Brahnt’s wounds meant. Lungs filling with blood. The slow constriction of the heart and the arteries around it. The pain of broken bones and ruptured organs…

  A stillness overtook al’Dor, broken only by the redoubling of his clinging to the High Priest’s right hand.

  Then he nodded.

  Raz looked to Brahnt.

  “Are you ready?” he asked him quietly. For a long few seconds the old man didn’t say anything, his eyes on al’Dor. When he finally rolled his head over the tree to look at Raz, he blinked rapidly, as though trying to chase away the fear that was threatening to overcome him.

  “I am,” he said after a moment, in as strong a voice as he could manage.

  Taking the sword in his left hand, Raz grasped the man’s shoulder with his right.

  “You will be missed, my friend,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Brahnt swallowed and nodded. “Tell Syrah… when you see her. Tell her I will always… always be there.”

  “I will,” Raz promised, bringing the blade so that the point hovered, unwavering, over the man’s heart.

  One last time, Talo turned his head to meet al’Dor’s gaze, his hand tightening in the Priest’s.

  “I love you,” he said. “Remember me.”

  Then the blade slipped forward, sliding between broken ribs, and Talo Brahnt, High Priest of Cyurgi’ Di, died with a single, quiet exhalation of relief as pain and fear left him forever.

  XIX

  “Even in death, some souls leave an intangible mark on the world. It is impossible not to feel them there, feel their presence just beyond the veil that separates the living from those already risen into the arms of the Lifegiver. Though I pray the loved ones I’ve lost have long since returned to the world in Laor’s infinite circle of rebirth, I cannot help but feel that some part of each of them remains yet with me, suspended between this old life I was a part of and the new one they must now enjoy. It is painful to feel that presence and the constant reminder it bears to mind, and yet it is simultaneously wondrously consoling to know that they are—even in some small way—still there to watch over and guide me…”

  —PRIVATE JOURNAL OF ERET TA’HIR

  SYRAH AWOKE with a start, shivering violently as her body tried and failed to ward off the winter night. At first the overwhelming fear returned, the crushing terror that consumed her every time she heard booted feet crunching against the icy leaves outside. She lay beneath her thin blanket once more, coughing and shaking against the hard ground through the furs beneath her, numbing the pain of her healing finger and bloody ear.

  The cold was going to kill her.

  Syrah knew it, had known it for many nights now. The winter was too cruel, beating what little magical warmth she was able to cast about herself with her hands chained behind her back. At first it had been a frightening prospect, a horrifying realization that had kept her up for many days without sleep, chasing away every form of fatigue. Eventually, though, she’d started praying for the nights to grow colder, for the freeze to come and deliver her from her torment, and Syrah had found herself sleeping with ease.

  Dreams, after all, were the only escape left to her…

  The irons that bound her wrists and ankles clinked in the dark as Syrah maneuvered herself up with difficulty, listening with dreadful trepidation for whatever it was that had awoken her. It wouldn’t have been the first time Kareth Grahst’s men descended on her in the late hours of the night, drunk and violent in their lust. She’d always heard them coming, when she hadn’t been able to sleep, but the last time it had happened had been after she’d rediscovered the momentary peace of slumber, and they had only left her in the earliest hours of the morning, sobbing into the furs.

  Now though, no sound came. Syrah’s left eye blinked against the glow of the ever-burning fires lingering teasingly around the edges of the tent flaps, her blinded right crudely wrapped in a bandage that had long since grown dark and dirty. Men’s voices could be heard, but they were far off in the direction of the camp.

  What was it, then, that had woken her?

  For a long moment, Syrah couldn’t puzzle it out. There seemed to be no reason for her sudden stirring. No cause for it. Nothing moved about the tent, man or wind or tree or animal, and nothing hinted of coming trouble.

  After a minute or two, though, Syrah’s fear subsided, and the fading of that feeling allowed her to become steadily aware of a pain, deep and aching, that had rooted itself like some wicked flower in her heart.

  Something had happened.

  Syrah didn’t know what. There was no hint, no sign. Nothing was granted to her but a chasm of emptiness that ripped through her chest, opening her up and swallowing her whole from the inside out.

  Somewhere, somehow, something had happened…

  Slowly, Syrah let herself down again, easing back onto the furs. For a time she lay there, bathing in the painful wash of the mysterious agony.

  Then she began to sob softly, and it was hours before she finally cried herself to sleep again.

  XX

  “It is a fascinating thing, to compare the great religions and gods of our world. While the concept of omnipotence is a
ludicrous ideal in dire need of further examination by the masses, one should never pass up the opportunity to study the theologies of the land and draw one’s own conclusions regarding potential differences and relations. On the one hand, for example, the Laorin believe whole-heartedly that only the foulest of souls do not return to the world after death. On the other, the Southern followers of the Twins seek out their ancestors in the night sky, believing them ever-present in the heavens. Is it not incredible how two people, divided by such drastic beliefs, manage somehow to coexist?”

  —A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF MODERN THEOLOGY, JEK BOR’HT

  RAZ WATCHED the ritual in sad, silent wonderment.

  He stood on the frozen surface of the lake, not a foot or two beyond the short embankment of the little island. The steel of Ahna’s blades, slung over one shoulder, glimmered in the somber light of the morning Sun, faint behind the thick rolling storm clouds that had drawn over the world as midnight came and went. The snows had started just as dawn broke, flickering down from the heavens to cling against the thick furs Raz still had drawn over his leathers and armor.

  It caught, too, in the overhanging branches that shielded the unmoving form of Talo Brahnt, his eyes closed and his face peaceful, still propped against the trunk of the old tree that was his last and final companion in death.

  al’Dor stood above Raz, just outside the boughs, sharing a last, lingering moment with his lover as he gazed through the dance of the spiny leaves. He had been there, hovering beyond the shelter of the branches, for a long time now, offering silent prayers to his Lifegiver.

  Raz didn’t rush him.

  At last, after what must have been a quarter hour, and just as Raz was starting to feel the cold finally get to him through his furs, the Priest moved. Raz watched, amazed, as the man slowly raised his right hand, his left arm now strapped to his chest by a crude sling. Over several seconds, a white light spilled outward to outline the fingers of his upturned hand. It didn’t burn beneath flame, as much of the magic Raz had thus far seen entailed. Rather, the light shimmered skyward, like some beacon calling home the souls of the departed.