by Pirateaba
So I draw the biting air into my chest and scream.
“My name is Laken Godart! I claim this village!”
My voice cuts through the other noises, bringing quietus with it. I can tell everyone’s stopped to stare at me in astonishment. But I don’t falter. I don’t wait, either. I keep shouting, so that everyone can hear me.
“Riverfarm is under my protection! All those who live within it are part of my empire!”
What’s this? No one understands. Who’s this blind young man, shouting nonsense? They’re just words. Anyone can speak nonsense. Anyone can claim anything they want.
But who has the courage to shout it to the world? I do. So I shout and tell everyone that I am an Emperor, because it is true. I will make it true.
“I am Laken, Emperor of the Unseen! If anyone would challenge me, fight my champion, my [Paladin]. Durene!”
For a few seconds I think the villagers are too shocked to even respond. Then I hear a shout.
“Are you insane?”
Prost’s voice is angry. I can hear him moving towards me, but my attention isn’t on that. It’s on the snow under my feet. And the faint sense I have—
Below me is ice. Below that is timber. And then stone. A wall. And pressed up against that wall is a child. He barely moves, but he does move. He’s trapped against the wall and the snow is so constricting that he can only breathe and move a tiny bit. I see his chest rising and falling in my head.
“What nonsense are you shouting!?”
A hand grabs me. I hear an angry voice, and then more voices.
“You claim our village? By what right?”
“What are you doing?”
“We need help? Stop shouting and—Durene! Come here!”
The villagers have come to me. Of course they would. Here’s this crazy guy shouting at them as they’re in the middle of their grief and desperation. They want to unload their anger of me. But I’m too busy to care.
“I am an [Emperor].”
They hear me, but who would believe that. They shout at me, and then I hear Durene’s voice.
“Let him go!”
A massive hand moves, and seperates Prost from me with ease. He stumbles back, and I hear shouts.
“Durene! Come here!”
“My children are down there! Come with me!”
“You bastard—give me that shovel!”
Screaming. Fighting. Cries for help. I hear it all and see the boy breathing far below. Is this sight? It’s never been so clear to me. I breathe in and out and the world comes into focus.
This is mine. I claim it. It’s not sharp in my head; it’s not my village entirely. But I will have it.
The villagers are fighting. No one will get any work done. I’m angry at them. I know they’re afraid. So am I! But if they can’t work together everyone loses. Durene is shielding me with her body and shouting at them, but she’s no leader. Not yet.
But I am. I am an [Emperor]. I shout.
“Silence!”
And there is. Complete silence. My voice is thunder, and I feel that same sensation in my bones as I did once before, when I shouted at the group of children tormenting Durene, so long ago.
“I am an Emperor.”
My voice is the one sound in the empty world around me. I can feel people staring at me, but they are mute. I keep talking, my voice growing louder.
“Your families, your friends, are all trapped under the snow. I can find them. You will help me. Find something to dig with. We’ll start here. Give Durene her shovel back.”
No one moves. They’re in shock. I don’t have time for it. My hand raises. My voice grows deeper, and it echoes.
“You and you, find something to dig with. You! The shovel! The rest of you, start digging right here. Move!”
They move. They can’t help it. But they want to move as well; I’ve given them purpose. I’ve given them hope. I look down with my head and sense the small body beneath me. Growing colder. Growing weaker.
So many. So still. I sense tiny bodies and large ones, motionless beneath the snow. Some still move. Others lie at odd angles, in pieces.
There’s no time to grieve. I point and shout.
“Start digging there! And there!”
It’s like a game. An awful game where each second counts and the prize isn’t measured in points, but real lives. But there are ways to be more efficient.
“There are two shovels here. Dig them up!”
They’re nearest to the surface. If we have those, the villagers won’t have to use the branches and broken bits of wood. Durene is already clearing snow with her spade. I’ll have to stop her from hitting the boy when she gets close.
“Over there! She’s right beneath the snow! Dig with your hands and pull her out!”
I run, and people follow me. I shout, and they listen. There’s no little voice in my head. There’s only a screaming idiot, moving too fast to doubt himself. Every step I take in the snow is sure; my blood is electric. I dash over to the spot and people begin to dig.
“Follow me. Find something to dig with!”
Onwards. I let the villagers dig out their friends and run on.
I’m going to save everyone I can. This—
This is my village now. And I will protect it. I am an [Emperor].
I run and run, and forget that I’m blind. I forget everyone else. I reach down, and pull life out of the ground.
—-
He only knew it hurt. He had tried screaming, but there was blackness all around him. Cold. It was so cold, and he knew he was buried. His head was full of pain and he knew he was bleeding. It was cold—
But also hot. The air in the small pocket where he was trapped was getting warmer, and every time he took a breath, his head spun.
He was dying.
He wanted to struggle, but he couldn’t even more. He cried and screamed, but no one had heard him. And now he was going to die.
That’s what he knew. He knew it even as he shouted for salvation. And then he heard the scraping.
Someone was digging! Towards him? He shouted desperately, barely daring to hope. But the sounds—they were coming from below him! They were going the wrong way! He screamed again, telling them to come back.
No! Had they missed him? The young man shouted desperately, and then realized the sound was getting louder, not softer! It was coming towards his head!
And then he realized something was off. Snow was breaking around his legs. He could move them! He wriggled with mad desperation, not caring if he hurt himself. He had to get out!
“Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”
A voice pulled him out of the madness. The young man froze, and then realized what was happening.
“You’re upside down. Don’t move and we’ll dig you out.”
The world turned over. Suddenly, the pounding in his head made sense. He waited, unable to bear the waiting but waiting nonetheless, and then felt a warm hand on his leg.
“You’re safe. Hold on just for a second longer.”
He didn’t know the voice. He knew everyone in the village, but he didn’t know the voice. But the hand was warm, and the voice was full of so much confidence—
He cried like a child as the warm hands dug the snow away and then came for him. He was still sobbing as more hands righted him and he was pulled out of the snow and back into the world of color and light.
For a little while he couldn’t see. Tears made his vision blurry and he could only gulp in air, the sweetest, purest thing he’d ever felt in his life. He didn’t want to grow up anymore. He didn’t want to become a famous adventurer or leave this small village. He didn’t want to marry his childhood crush.
He just wanted to be alive. And he was. The young man wept and clutched at the cold ground, and then remembered his name.
Gamel.
When he could finally think again, Gamel looked around and saw what had become of his home. Ice and snow had buried Riverfarm, the only place he had ever know
n. His house, his father’s home that he had lived in and hated for being so small, was gone.
And so was the rest of the world. Gamel looked, but he couldn’t see anything familiar. Where was the forest? Where was the river? Where was the road and the other houses?
He saw nothing familiar, save for a few rooftops and broken wood. But then he saw the people.
The villagers of Riverfarm numbered little over a hundred. He knew all of them by name, if not as friends. He recognized over thirty of them now, digging up the snow in teams. But one person stood out among the frantic workers, one person Gamel didn’t recognize.
It was another young man, like Gamel. He had to be the blind man, the one who was staying at Durene’s cottage. The one who liked the half-Troll.
But then the blind man turned and pointed. His eyes were closed, but he seemed to know where things were. He shouted, and Gamel realized that he was the owner of the voice and the warm hands.
And when he heard the voice, Gamel stood up. He ran over to help, even before he quite knew what he was doing. And when he did know, he only ran faster. His friends were buried. His family! His love.
The blind young man had found a woman trying to excavate her house. Her hands were raw and bleeding from digging. But she still turned the snow crimson as she searched for any clue, any hint of her child.
“Miss.”
The young man pulled her away. She resisted, but two other villagers pulled her back. She was sobbing, crying out for her missing child. Gamel looked at the ground, but he could see nothing but packed snow. Where would you even begin searching for a missing kid? He could have been swept away, or buried in a pocket. You could dig for hours and not find him.
But the blind man only hesitated for one second. He seemed to search the ground and then pointed.
“There.”
Gamel stared. But men and women rushed forwards with hoes, shovels, even a board of wood, anything they could dig with. They began to send up flurries of snow where the blind man had pointed, digging with all their strength, totally confident in his prediction.
“Fifteen feet down. He isn’t moving.”
The blind man was supervising the work. He was also speaking to the mother. Gamel stared, and then saw two closed eyelids swing towards him. The not-gaze made him freeze. He couldn’t see him. But—
“You! Find something to dig with! Hurry!”
Gamel was running before he knew what had been said. He came back with a pitchfork someone had found. The twines could lift chunks of ice out. He began digging with the others, widening the hole.
“Stop!”
The voice halted them and everyone froze as one. The young man leapt into the hole. Without looking he seized a spade.
“He’s a foot down. Give me some room!”
Gamel stood back and watched. Carefully, quickly, the young man dug. He paused, and then shoved away more snow. Then he lifted something out of the ground.
“Siccy!”
Gamel recognized Sic, one of the boys who belonged to the mother. She rushed forwards, and then screamed again.
“He’s not breathing.”
The young man—Laken, that was his name—was calm. Or rather, he wasn’t panicking. He shouted at the woman.
“Move back! Get me a clear space above!”
Hands pulled him and the still boy out of the hole. Gamel watched, numb horror in his chest. The boy was dead. But Laken wasn’t done yet.
“Breathe into his mouth. Like this. Steady breaths.”
He was doing something, showing the woman something. Then he put his hands on the boy’s chest and began to pump, as if he was trying to push something back into the child.
“Compressions. Place your hand on his chest like this. Now—”
The woman breathed and Laken pressed on his chest. Gamel watched without hope. Nothing was going to happen. This was no spell or [Healer]’s Skill. It was just air and some weird motion. It couldn’t—
The boy gasped. He chocked and his eyes flew open. The mother fell backwards, but then she shrieked and threw herself at her son. Gamel stared. His eyes stung as the boy breathe again.
“Give him air!”
Laken forced the mother back a bit. Then he stood up and ran to another body being pulled out of the snow. Gamel followed. Laken showed the rescuers what to do.
“Five minutes. If they don’t wake up by then—”
It didn’t work. Gamel stared at the cold body of the girl he’d always thought was too ugly to dance with and felt a hole open up in his chest. Laken moved on. The next body they brought up was cold as well, and Laken didn’t even bother with it. The next was also dead. The next was alive and the woman clung to Laken even as he shouted.
The dead couldn’t be brought back so easily. But the breathing and compressions—helped. It gave people hope and they tried it until Laken told them it was too late. It was a last-ditch effort he said; they were already dead. It was too late.
But it worked. Once, twice. Out of the many casualties, Gamel saw two cough up ice and snow and breathe again. A child, practically blue and still bleeding, opened her mouth and wailed after her breath had stopped. A young man inhaled, and nearly choked again as his family threw their arms around him.
And many who came out of the ground were still alive. They had clung to life, trapped in tiny places, hoping, begging silently for rescue. And it came, with precise accuracy and no shortage of willing hands. Gamel dug to save people trapped like him. He threw away the pitchfork and grabbed a proper shovel when one was found. He dug and pulled out his best friend, the [Blacksmith].
His father.
Gamel stared down at the empty gaze and snow-covered beard. Snow hadn’t filled his lungs like the others. But his neck had snapped as he had tumbled. It was twisted the wrong way.
The young man reached down with trembling hands. He had to fix it. He tried to turn his father’s head back the right way. Gently at first, and then with more strength. It was no good. He felt something shifting beneath his hands and stumbled away to vomit.
When he was choking and wiping at his mouth, someone touched his shoulder. Gamel spun, and looked into closed eyelids.
Laken only held his shoulder. He had never met Gamel’s father. He didn’t know the man. But he looked in Gamel’s eyes with his sightless ones and said only one thing:
“There are more people to save.”
So Gamel left his father on the ground. He dug and dug until his hands blistered and bled and pulled up more bodies. A little girl who’d always gotten on his nerves. Dead. A husband who everyone knew beat his wife. Alive. He was sobbing like Gamel had been and he dug with his bare hands to pull his living spouse out of the ground with their dead baby in her hands.
There was no sense to it. No justice. There was only places where the cold hand of fate had taken lives, and miracles where that boundary had not been crossed.
Yet with every second they spent under the snow, the villagers would have died. And there were so many. If the others had been digging with no idea where they were, how many would have died?
But Laken pointed and the villagers were found. Within the hour, everyone had been found, and for a miracle, the living outnumbered the dead. Those who were alive were injured yes, some badly. They were all close to or frostbitten in places, and many were exhausted from digging. They were homeless. Hungry.
But they were alive. And though Gamel’s hands bled, he held the girl who he’d dreamed of marrying as she cried and the [Midwife] bandaged her bleeding leg.
They were alive. Gamel had to keep wiping away tears, and his nose was stuffed. He didn’t care.
They were alive. After the last body had come up, the villagers just sat on the snow, crying, tending to injuries, hugging each other. Being alive.
Somehow, there was even food. The half-Tr—Durene had brought food with her at the blind man’s orders. And there was cloth to bandage wounds, even! As more and more hands were free, Laken directed them to dig u
p stores of food, buried in store rooms and cellars.
Gamel hadn’t seen Durene before now. He’d been too busy digging. But he saw her tossing a massive amount of snow as she continued to dig, tirelessly.
Part of him was afraid of her. Part of him could still remember the Troll and the way the adults had been so frightened of her. Part of him remembered throwing things at the Troll-girl when he saw her. He saw her dig up food to hand around and the countless people she had saved by herself, and part of him felt ashamed.
Laken didn’t just know where the bodies were. He found root cellars, and knew which ones were the most well-stocked. He had them dug up, and immediately had the food passed around to the starving people.
The food was meant to last a family the entire winter, but no one said a word, even if it was their stocks being opened and shared. Or rather, who would even think about something like that right now?
They were alive. That was all that mattered.
Gamel tore at some frozen bread someone had warmed up and saw there was a fire going. Someone was making a soup out of vegetables, but Gamel could have eaten the loaf with only snow and dirt as seasoning. He shared the frozen piece with the girl sitting next to him and stood up.
Laken was standing in the center of the village, still ordering people about. He wasn’t shouting—his voice was hoarse and raw and the—Durene was standing next to him anxiously. Gamel hesitated, and then brought Laken a bowl of soup when it was done.
“Thank you.”
The blind man took the bowl and thanked Gamel. But that was all wrong. Gamel’s throat closed up. He had to say it.
“Thank you.”
That was all he could say. What he had to say. Other villagers heard Gamel and came over. They said different things, used different words. Some hugged Laken. Other found more food, kissed him, just cried. They all meant the same thing.
Thank you.
—-
I pulled up dead people. I pulled up living people. I can barely move my arms to lift the spoon. But I eat because I have to. I have to keep going. There’s tragedy around me, but if I stop to stare at it I’ve made a mistake. My heart’s too busy beating to stop and weep. That’s how it should be.