Frostfell

by Mark Sehestedt

  “You did it, didn’t you?” she said.

  Even Lendri and Jalan turned to look at Gyaidun. Durja, resting on Gyaidun’s shoulder, squawked as his master looked down on all of them. His gaze raked over each of them, his jaw grinding, then he stared into the fire.

  “You went to Hro’nyewachu,” said Amira. “Didn’t you?”

  Still he said nothing.

  “Rathla?” said Lendri, awe in his voice. “Is this true?”

  Durja squawked again and flapped his wings but did not leave his master’s shoulder.

  “I had no choice,” said Gyaidun.

  “You sought the Mother’s Heart and lived?” said Lendri. “How …?”

  “You are not Vil Adanrath,” said Amira. “The belkagen said—”

  “I am athkaraye,” said Gyaidun. “Human, yes, but the blood of the Vil Adanrath lives in me through Lendri.” He raised his right hand, opened it, and the gash showed plainly across his palm. “And through Hlessa, and through Erun.”

  “But the belkagen said you couldn’t, said you hadn’t studied the arcane or the ways of the gods, said—”

  “The belkagen was one of the wisest I have ever known,” said Gyaidun. “And I sometimes ill-treated him, to my shame. But he did not know everything.”

  “What do you mean?” said Lendri.

  “Hro’nyewachu,” said Gyaidun, “she … she is a being of … need.”

  “So said the belkagen. Yes.”

  “A mother’s need,” said Amira. “That’s what he said. What the belkagen told me. ‘Hro’nyewachu has a mother’s heart.’ He said I had a mother’s need, and that our hearts would beat the same song.”

  Gyaidun looked back at his son, who had reached the omah nin and was presenting him with the fire. The Vil Adanrath chieftain stood tall and proud, almost rigid, but he took the fire.

  “So how did you survive?” Lendri asked Gyaidun.

  “I introduced her to a father’s need.”

  “At the shore,” said Amira, “after you came back, you were covered in blood. Much of it your own.”

  Gyaidun shrugged. His wounds had been tended, but he still bore many new cuts and scrapes. “It was not an easy … conversation. I …”

  “What?”

  Gyaidun stared into the fire a long while before answering. “I was blinded by grief, despair, anger. Kehrareth we would say. I … I think I went there hoping she would kill me. At least grant me a warrior’s death. I went with no sacrifice.”

  Lendri gasped. Amira remembered what the belkagen had told her—“Hro’nyewachu is … akai’ye. There is no good word in your tongue. Ancient. Primal. Tame blood will not sate her. She needs the blood of the wild.”

  “The blood of the wild,” said Amira. “She took your blood instead. As sacrifice.”

  Gyaidun flinched and looked back to his son, who now stood beside the omah nin, the pyre in front of them burning. “No,” said Gyaidun. “Not me.”

  Amira followed his gaze. Erun stood beside his grandfather. The young man was considerably shorter, and emaciated as he was, still his countenance radiated power. He stood beside the omah nin an equal. What was it Gyaidun had said, what had prompted this entire conversation? “Things happen quicker than I thought they would.”

  “Erun,” said Amira. “She wants Erun. Doesn’t she?”

  Gyaidun said nothing, but the look on his face was all the answer that she needed.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” said Amira. “I saw Erun on the island. I think he might give even Hro’nyewachu pause.”

  Lendri looked to his rathla and said, “What did she say, Brother?”

  “ ‘I will require your blood,’ ” said Gyaidun. “Her words. I … I thought she meant me, and I did not care. But now …” He looked back to his son.

  The omah nin had lit his pyre, and Erun was carrying the flame to the next one.

  “Rathla,” said Lendri, “do not dread. I do not think Hro’nyewachu would help you find your son only to take him again. ‘I will require your blood.’ Erun? Perhaps. But consider this. A belkagen—perhaps one of the greatest to have ever served our people—has left the world. His presence will be missed, and Hro’nyewachu … I do not think she will tolerate such an absence for long. Besides, look at him.”

  They did. All of them, even Mingan and Durja.

  “Who does he remind you of?” said Lendri. “His gait. His confidence. ‘My grandfather will take fire from me.’ Such boldness.”

  Arantar, Amira wanted to say. He reminds me of Arantar. But she held her tongue.

  “You think Erun might be a … belkagen?” said Gyaidun.

  Lendri considered this a moment, then said, “I think you should heed the lady’s advice. Do not fear for Erun.”

  “Gyaidun?” said Amira.

  He looked to her.

  “The night you left the encampment, you made it all the way to Akhrasut Neth, and from there all the way to here. So far so fast, that’s … impossible. Even for you.”

  Gyaidun held up his right fist. A ring of some dark red metal—copper perhaps—was on his little finger. Runes, in the same style as those she’d seen on the belkagen and the omahet, were carved along its surface. “Before I left,” he said, “the belkagen gave me this. It performs the same magic that you used on the steppe, able to send me great distances in the blink of an eye.”

  “Will you keep it?” asked Lendri.

  “I have walked all my life,” said Gyaidun. “I see no reason to stop now. Still, I might have need of it again.”

  With the sun gone, all warmth left the air. Cold seemed to radiate from the endless miles of snow, and the northern breeze had the bite of ice. The pyres smoldered, giving off a little heat, but their flames were gone, so that the only light was the thick sliver of moon and the hundreds of stars surrounding it. But with so much snow still on the ground, the land around them reflected the light of moon and stars, so that Amira could see surprisingly well. Still, the Vil Adanrath kept vigil over their dead, and Amira and her companions sat huddled in their cloaks and blankets next to the great pile of ashes.

  Durja huddled inside Gyaidun’s cloak, and Mingan crouched at Lendri’s feet. Erun and Jalan slept in their blankets between the men and Amira. No one had spoken in some time.

  “We wait here till morning?” asked Amira.

  “Yes,” said Lendri. “At sunrise, we help the wind to scatter the ashes. You may sleep if you wish. I will keep the vigil.”

  “I’m not tired,” said Amira, and she was surprised to find it true. After the past several tendays, she ought to have been exhausted, but a growing apprehension filled her and would not let her mind relax.

  “So,” said Gyaidun. “What now?”

  “What?”

  “You have your son. What now?”

  Amira looked down at Jalan, breathing steadily inside his blankets. “Jalan has been through something that no boy his age should ever have to experience. He’s alive, and I have him back. The rest …” Her lips curved in a sad smile. “There will be time for the rest later.”

  Gyaidun said nothing. Listening to the fire smoldering, Amira found the lapse in the conversation unsettling.

  “I … I owe you both a great debt. Without you and the belkagen—and the Vil Adanrath, I suppose—I never would have been able to get my son back. If there is ever anything—”

  “So you’re leaving, then?” said Gyaidun, anger in his voice. “That’s it?”

  “What did you expect?” said Amira. “Jalan deserves a good home, a safe home, a family that cares for him—”

  “And he has this in Cormyr?”

  Stung, Amira turned her gaze fixed to the snowfield. “What are you asking?”

  “Are you—you and Jalan—returning to Cormyr?”

  “If we don’t, they’ll come looking for us. My family might well leave us for dead, but the war wizards … they’ll come.”

  “And you will go with them?”

  She looked back to him. “I won’t figh
t my own people, Gyaidun.”

  He returned her gaze, and in the moonlight she could see a small smile crack his stern features. “You won’t have to, Amira.”

  He motioned with his head to Lendri and Mingan and patted the long knife in the sheath at his belt.

  Amira’s eyebrows rose, and she looked at Lendri. The elf said nothing but gave her a feral grin that did nothing to hide the wolf in his nature. Again he looked on her with those predator’s eyes, the moon and starlight catching therein and shining out, but for the first time Amira did not feel caught in the wolf gaze. She felt part of the pack.

  She took a deep breath and looked back out on the endless miles of rolling steppe, now covered in snow. For the first time since she’d come to this land, she took in its beauty. It was a hard land, Lendri had said, and it bred hard children. But right now Amira was almost awestruck by its splendor.

  “I used to hate the Wastes, you know,” she said.

  Gyaidun chuckled. “I can’t imagine why.”

  A Guide to the Words and Phrases of the Vil Adanrath

  akai’ye: “ancient,” “primal,” or “primeval.”

  Akhrasut Neth: “the Mother’s Bed,” a hill sacred to the Vil Adanrath.

  alet: a command, meaning “come here.”

  amrulugek: “council” or “meeting.”

  aniq: A command, meaning “ready” or “be ready.”

  athkaraye: “friend of the elves.”

  belkagen: “good seer,” the name given to the holy men of the Vil Adanrath.

  besthunit nenle: a proverb, meaning “hurry up slowly;” in other words: be quick, but not so quick that you do it badly.

  chu set: “hold calm;” a more general translation would be “control yourself,” “be still,” or “calm down.”

  crithta: “sunbeam”

  crith kesh het: “sun-shield to me.”

  dilit: a command, meaning “be quiet.”

  gaudutu: “burning legs;” the Vil Adanrath name for an extremely venomous centipede common to some parts of the Endless Wastes.

  Hinakaweh: A clan of the Vil Adanrath.

  hrayek: “cut off,” but most often used to mean “exile” or “outcast.”

  Hro’nyewachu: “Heart of the Piercing,” the name of one of the most sacred sites of the Vil Adanrath.

  Iket Sotha: “fort of winter,” the Vil Adanrath name for Winterkeep.

  ikwe: a command, meaning “get back” or “get away.”

  Inisach tin Nekutha Hro’nyewachwe: “Seeker and survivor of the Heart of the Piercing.”

  kaharenharik ket: Literally “fires of heaven fall.”

  kanishta: A type of root, the juices of which help the body and stay warm and provide energy.

  Karakhnir: “sharpens the bite.”

  kaweh rut, kyed: “speak out, now.”

  kehrareth: “intense grief” or “despair;” “fey.”

  kweshta: “a special one,” but in the sense of one who does not quite fit in, but in a good way; a looser translation might be “dear” or “unique.”

  na kwast wahir athu kyene wekht unarihe: a proverb, meaning “better a cold truth than a warm lie.”

  newetik: “without heart”; an insult that means “without honor.”

  omah: “leader” or “chief.”

  omah nin: “highest chief.”

  rathla: “blood-bound,” but most often used to mean “blood brothers.”

  Siksin Neneweth: “Ice Skins,” the Vil Adanrath name for the Frost Folk.

  sumezh: “stray dog;” it is commonly used as an insult.

  te?: “well?” or “huh?”

  uskeche: “fire” or “flame,” but more commonly used as the Vil Adanrath word for “spirit” or “ghost.”

  u werekh kye wu: “great winds be born.”

  uwethla: “skin-bound,” the Vil Adanrath name for the holy symbols etched onto the skin of omahet and belkagenet.

  vil: wolf.

  viliniketu: “wolves of the ice fields,” the Vil Adanrath name for winter wolves.

  wutheh: a command, meaning “find” or “seek.”

  Yastehanye: “Honored Exile.”

  Mark Sehestedt (no relation to Laurence Tureaud) was born in Portales, New Mexico. He grew up on a steady diet of MARVEL® comic books, STAR TREK® reruns, STAR WARS®, science fiction, horror, and Mel Brooks movies. His first attempt at a book was How Not to Get Captured by Monsters on Halloween Night, which he wrote at age four while watching SCOOBY-DOO®. It still hasn’t found a publisher.

  He now lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, six children, a dog, a bird, a gecko, and various unnamed spiders. Frostfell is his first novel. Film rights are still available.

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