Frostfell

by Mark Sehestedt

  Amira gripped the dagger and pushed herself to her feet. Agony exploded in her head; she could feel tendrils of pain running down her spine and into her limbs. Darkness threatened to crush her again, but she breathed deep and pushed it back. She knew the spell the slaver was using. The bowman could loose his entire quiver to no effect, but the magic would do little against her steel if she could get close enough.

  “Silo’at!”

  Amira looked up to see the elf diving out of harm’s way again. Walloch’s spells were pushing him away. The tall man had dropped the bow and was holding something long in one hand—with the fire so bright behind him, Amira couldn’t tell if it was sword or club.

  “Let’s try something else, eh?” said Walloch. He wove his free hand in an intricate pattern, then swept his sword at his feet, almost as if he were slicing underbrush. “Sobirith remma!”

  Flame roared to life before the slaver and spread to each side of him as if fed by oil, forming a wall of fire between him and his foes.

  Amira took a step forward, then another. Careful as she was, it felt as if each step hammered a spike into her skull. She clenched her jaw, struggling to breathe through her nose, but still a hoarse cry escaped her throat.

  Walloch turned to her. Backlit as he was by the fire, she could not read his features. Desperate, she lunged, but he caught her bound wrists almost lazily and turned the blade aside. He brought his sword around and planted the point in her stomach.

  “Seems I won’t have time for you after all, beluglit, but know this”—he leaned in close over his sword—“I’m still going to find your son.”

  He thrust. Amira cried out. Through her pain, through the roar of the flames, she heard the blade puncture the muscles over her stomach.

  Then Walloch whispered, “Silo’at.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  North of the Lake of Mists in the lands of the Khassidi

  Worthless sons of whores, the lot of them! I see them again, I’ll take their skins to wipe my arse!”

  Walloch raged through the camp, slapping with the flat of his blade at anything that got in his way. Several kettles on tripods fell before his wrath. Dogs scurried to get out of his way. One goat tied to a tent post was not so lucky and received two slaps and a kick for daring to be tied in front of Walloch as he paced the camp.

  Dremas the Thayan, Walloch’s second-in-command, followed silently at a distance, ready to heed his master’s command but otherwise content to let the wizard rage. He’d been with the wizard long enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.

  “How many?” Walloch turned to look at Dremas, fury still in his eyes.

  “How many, Master?”

  “How many of those worthless Tuigan curs are left?”

  Walloch looked around the camp, and Dremas followed his gaze. The slaves they’d captured on the raid were still tied in the center of camp, watched over by two Nars and one ugly brute that Dremas suspected had more than a little orc blood in him. Leather yurts and a few canvas tents lay scattered among the grass, scrub brush, and few trees, and the handful of horses the Tuigan had left behind were still picketed and under guard. Not a single Tuigan remained in camp, and three of the other men had left with them.

  “Faithless, lying bastards.” Walloch spat and sheathed his sword. Much of the heat had gone from his voice. “Did they take anything?”

  “Only what they brought with them, Master.”

  Walloch shook his head, muttered a final, “Bastards!” then raised his voice to carry throughout the camp. “Good riddance! More gold for us, eh, men?”

  Several cheers answered him.

  “Dremas!”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “Gather the hounds, torches, and …” Walloch looked around again. “How many men do we have left?”

  “In camp, fifteen, Master. The Khassidi were out scouting, but I fear that if the other Tuigan got word to them, we won’t see them again.”

  “Bastards,” Walloch said through clenched teeth, then shrugged. “Can’t be helped, eh? I want three men left to guard the horses and two the prisoners. If they get out of line, kill a few till they’re down to a more respectable number—the prisoners, not the horses. Get those damned hounds and torches ready. The rest of us are going hunting.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Dremas turned to obey, his mouth open to begin issuing orders, when every animal in camp went skittish. The horses began to pull at their hobbles, snort, and strain at the ropes round their necks. The goats bleated and kicked. The hunting hounds in the pens tried to howl, but with their cut vocal cords it came out a long rasp. The curs roaming through the camp sniffed at the air, whined, and ran out of camp as fast as they could, heedless even of campfires in their path.

  “What—?” said Dremas, then stopped.

  The air had gone bitter cold. Not the crisp chill of autumn in the Wastes. A frigid, bone-breaking cold seized the air, as if the very dead of winter had come to the steppe, quick as the stopping of a heart.

  “Oh, no,” said Walloch, and his breath came out in a cloud that hung in the air a moment before it froze and fell to the ground.

  “M-master?”

  “Silence!” said Walloch.

  Darkness pressed down upon the camp, and even the fires seemed to shrink and cling to their coals. Nothing moved. Everyone sat or stood frozen, as if afraid to move. It was then that Dremas realized he was afraid, though he could not say why. An unreasoning terror had seized him, and he found himself shivering. The riffling of the breeze through the grasses and the crackle of the campfires struck his ears as too loud, and in his mind Dremas urged them to hush. Then he heard it—something moving in the dark. Footfalls, unhurried and deliberate.

  He saw them—pale forms walking toward the camp, and something dark behind them, almost like a bit of night blown by the wind.

  The pale figures, five of them, walked into the camp with the easy gait of tigers, the subdued light from the fires washing over them. They were men, but their skin was pale as snow, and their hair—every man wore it long and unbound—ranged from frost white to the silver sheen of starlight on ice. Their clothes were an assortment of leather and skins, the edges lined with fur. Every man had a long knife belted at his waist and a quiver full of barbed throwing spears on his back. Four had short swords in leather scabbards, but one carried a double-headed battle axe. Dremas thought he saw runes carved into the haft. The belt the man wore across his chest was made from braided scalps.

  “Sossrim!” someone whispered behind Dremas.

  “Nai,” said Gegin, who was from Damara, where people often traded with the Sossrim. “Those be Aikulen Jain. Frost Folk. Damn us all, we should have gone with the Tuigan.”

  Behind his back, Dremas made the sign to ward off evil. He’d never been farther north than Nathoud, and even he had heard of the Frost Folk. People said they drank the blood of their captives and sacrificed to the ancient devils of Raumathar, who granted them sorcerous powers. Dremas looked to Walloch. What had the wizard gotten them into?

  “Greetings, my friends!” said Walloch, throwing his arms open wide. Walloch’s voice was warm, cheerful, but Dremas could hear he was forcing it. “I did not expect you so soon. I would have prepared a feast to welcome you.”

  The Frost Folk said nothing. The leader glanced at Walloch but did not otherwise acknowledge his words. He and his comrades spread out so that they faced Walloch in a wide semicircle. They did not look at Walloch, nor at any one thing in particular. Rather they glanced throughout the camp, taking in their surroundings very much as if they were guests invited to a strange home. Dremas shuddered as their gaze passed over him, and his bladder suddenly felt very full.

  At first Dremas thought a wisp of fog had risen and was billowing into camp, but then he saw another figure passing through the yurts. Dremas could make out no distinct features, for the walker was swathed head to toe in robes the color of cold ash. A cloak of the same hue covered his robes, topped by a hood too
deep for the light to penetrate. The cloaked one glanced neither right nor left, but came straight for Walloch.

  The man stopped a few paces before Walloch, who bowed before the newcomer. “Greetings, my lord.”

  “I come to fulfill the covenant,” said the cloaked man.

  Dremas had to force his hands down, to keep them from covering his ears. There was something altogether wrong with the newcomer’s voice. His speech was careful and precise, but it seemed as if there were two voices speaking at once, and one seemed out of tune. Dissonant. Like fingernails scraping over dry stone.

  “I was not expecting you so soon,” said Walloch. “Tomorrow after sunset, your man said, eh?” Walloch looked to the pale newcomer with the axe. “Tomorrow you said, eh?”

  “Where is the boy?” said the cloaked figure.

  Dremas could take no more. He fell to his knees and huddled inside his cloak, shivering. He closed his eyes and prayed the dark thing in the cloak would leave.

  “Slippery little rat g-got away,” said Walloch. “His mother … had one spell saved, I guess. She took out two guards and she, uh, she got away. With the boy.”

  “You let the woman live? I told you not to underestimate her.”

  “Y-you said any other captives were mine to keep.” Walloch gestured to the group of men and women tied not far away. “I took her staff. H-her spellbook too, eh? Took ’em both. Put guards on her. But she hid one last bit of magic away and hit when I was out of camp. We went after them. I led them personally, Lord. I caught ’em soon enough, but my Tuigan betrayed me and left—never again will I hire spineless Tuigan bastards!—then two interlopers attacked and let the boy get away. I killed the woman, though—killed that bukhla good! But don’t you worry, Lord! You and your men stay here as our guests, eh? I was just about to lead men out with the hounds to find the boy. He can’t have gone far.”

  “The boy,” said the cloaked figure, “you left him in the woods?”

  Dremas clenched his eyes shut as tight as he could. Blood roared in his ears.

  “Last I saw him he was less than two leagues from here. Whelp was running south. T-toward the lake. You’ll have him by morning, my lord. I promise!”

  “Yes. I will.”

  “Wh-what are you—?”

  “Uthrekh rakhshan thra!”

  Dremas opened his eyes. The world went white.

  Arzhan Island, the Lake of Mists

  in the lands of the Khassidi

  She opened her eyes to a ghost of fire. Her right eye would open no more than a slit, but she could see well enough with the other. A figure, not a ghost after all, but an old man painted orange by the light of the flames, leaned over her. His long hair hung in front of his face, obscuring his features. She could hear him chanting in a strange tongue that seemed all hisses and swallows, and he swayed slightly as if in rhythm with the breath of the nearby flames.

  “My … son,” she said, her voice no more than a hoarse whisper. Even that slight breath felt like sand in her throat.

  If the old man heard her, he gave no sign.

  “My! Son!” she said, and cried out from the pain.

  Another figure leaned over her, but his features were hidden in shadow. Beyond him she could see only a hint of branches obscured in fog.

  “Rest now,” the new figure said in a deep voice. One she thought she’d heard before. “Lendri and Mingan search for your son. Rest now. Let the belkagen work.”

  What’s a Lendri? she wondered.

  She fought to keep her eyes open, but they refused her. As sleep seized her again, drawing her back into darkness, she heard the cawing of a raven.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The woods north of the Lake of Mists in the lands of the Khassidi

  Jalan huddled in the hollow of a rotted-out log and tried to still his breathing. The pounding of his heart was so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing else. Full night had fallen. Jalan had always possessed extraordinary eyesight even in the dark. He’d heard it whispered among Amira’s family that he had elf blood … or worse. But down this close to the lake, the mists were thick off the water, and he was as blind as a newborn pup. Inside the log, he could smell nothing but the sweet resin scent of wet bark and rot. His ears were his best hope at hearing Amira coming for him or—

  He swallowed a sob. He dare not think about that. He’d heard the slaver shouting for him, but he ran and ran and ran till he couldn’t hear him anymore. He’d crossed another rise, then fell into a creek and down it, hoping the water would hide his scent from Walloch’s hounds. He’d thought he heard a distant shout, a scream of surprise—terror almost—chopped off, then silence.

  And so Jalan ran again until he came to the lake. Shrouded by the mists that gave the lake its name, he ran headlong into it, only stopping when he was splashing up to his knees.

  As his heart slowed and his breath steadied, his teeth began to chatter. Autumn had not yet left the land, but out here in the Wastes, nights came cold early in the season and winter often fell fast. He doubted that it would get cold enough to kill him, but without a fire. …

  Jalan held his breath and listened. The breeze set the branches rattling like thousands of cold bones, and the faint rippling of the lake kept time, but there was something else. A quick snuffling that came and went. Jalan clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from rattling. There it was again. At first he thought it was hushed laughter, and his panicked mind conjured images of something cold and hungry creeping down from the trees, madness in its eyes, but then he recognized it for what it was. Sniffing. Something was sniffing through the trees and headed right for him.

  Jalan scrunched down into the log, wincing at the noise he made. The sniffing stopped. The near darkness just outside his hollowed hiding place moved. Jalan fought the urge to cover his face. He stared, willing his eyes to drink in the meager light. Something was there. Although Jalan could make out no features, he could feel it—something large that kept low to the ground—watching him. It moved again, startling Jalan, but then it was gone. Jalan heard it padding back into the darkness.

  He took a cautious breath, confident that he had escaped certain doom, when a voice said, “Boy?”

  Quiet as he could, Jalan fumbled about, searching for some sort of weapon—a rock, a stick, anything—but his fingers found only moss and the wet ashy feel of old rot.

  “Boy, I know you are in the log,” said the voice.

  It was not Walloch, nor any of the other slavers. Jalan had never heard this voice before. A man’s voice, though light of timbre. Jalan could easily imagine the speaker singing. The accent was careful, precise, and Jalan suspected that Common was not his native tongue.

  “You need not fear me,” the voice said. “My brother and I saved your mother, but she is hurt. My brother has taken her to a friend. Come. I will take you to her.”

  Jalan saw movement again, only this time the lighter shade of darkness was not low to the ground like the first shape, but standing like a man.

  “Will you not come out? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m cold,” said Jalan.

  “Then come out, and we shall find a fire.”

  “How do I know you aren’t lying?”

  “If I wanted to harm you, I could have done so by now.”

  Jalan did not move. “I … saw something. Before you came.”

  “Where?”

  “Right where you’re standing,” said Jalan. “Only lower to the ground.”

  “You have an elf’s sight to see so well in the dark,” said the man. Jalan could hear the smile in his voice.

  “What did I see?”

  “You saw it. Not I. Will you come out, or shall you ask me questions till morning? Either you stand, or I shall sit.”

  Jalan stood.

  Holding Jalan by the hand, the newcomer led them up the slope away from the water. They topped a low bluff. The wind was stronger up here, a biting breeze out of the north that pushed back the mists, and in the moonlight that fell betw
een the trees Jalan got his first look at his rescuer. He was not a man at all but an elf, only slightly taller than Jalan but built of a leaner strength. Sinuous tattoos covered his body, but the skin between them shone almost white in the moonlight, and his hair was the silver of starlight on clear water. Despite the cold, he wore only a wraparound loincloth and shoes made of some animal hide.

  “How did you know I was out here?” asked Jalan.

  “We ran across some slavers with hounds. And we heard their master shouting for a boy.”

  “My name is Jalan.”

  “I am called Lendri.”

  “I didn’t know there were elves in the Wastes.”

  Lendri said nothing. He led Jalan east, skirting the lake. Their trail occasionally dipped back into banks of fog in the shallow valleys and back out again on higher ridges. In the woods, Jalan heard small animals in the brush, and twice he heard the screech of an owl.

  “How much farther?” Jalan asked after they’d walked for a league or more by Jalan’s guess.

  “We must pass four more coves, though I doubt we’ll see them in the fog. Past the fourth, a stream enters the lake. At the mouth of the stream is a great rock jutting out of the lake. An island. Your mother is there.”

  “She isn’t my mother.”

  Lendri frowned at that but said no more.

  They descended an easy slope and re-entered the mists. Halfway through, Lendri stopped.

  “What—?” asked Jalan.

  “Shh!” Lendri released Jalan’s hand and crouched, listening, his ear canted into the breeze.

  Jalan was about to ask what the elf had heard when he noticed the change in temperature. It was a cold night, and he had been quite chilled sitting wet inside the log. The brisk walk had warmed him, but the air had suddenly gone frigid. The mists in which they stood hardened and fell to the ground in a shower of crystals, leaving Lendri and Jalan standing in the wooded valley, Jalan’s dark form against the pale shape of the elf, surrounded by shafts of moonlight and the stark shadows of the trees. Jalan’s breath emerged in small clouds that hung before him an instant before they, too, solidified and fell to his feet.