In The Depths Of Winter

by Bradley Mitzelfelt

  “We’re under attack by outsiders and we’re losing. They have weapons that make us, and even the stone, explode.”

  Fanan’s eyes went wide and she looked up at her father before moving to push past Shakrin.

  “Fanan if you come up here I’ll push you into the gorge and let you fall,” the elder dwarf called as he saw her heading that way. “Do what I told you, girl. It’s the only thing left to do. Now go before-”

  He was cut off as a ray of light lanced out, hit him, and he exploded in a macabre shower of blood and organs that rained down the chasm. Fanan cried out, terrified, but Shakrin understood that the creatures had gotten in, and he wasn’t going to let Fanan die, even though he had wanted to die there himself. Instead, he grabbed her and pulled her back down the bridge towards the western entrance, which she had apparently arrived from.

  Fanan resisted mightily, yelling obscenities and curses at whatever had killed her father. It continued even as he finally got her down the tunnel and got the door opened. His hands were bleeding all over now, skin starting to slough off, but he continued to drag her along with him, ignoring the pain through gritted teeth.

  “Fanan, be quiet!” he yelled as he pushed her out into the snow. “Nothing is going to change that your father is dead! They will kill you just as they did him, so shut your mouth!”

  She lay in the snow looking at him, seething. He’d always known she was a hothead, so he should have expected this reaction. Still, she needed to focus, and he stuck his hands in the snow seeking some relief that wouldn’t come. The pain was starting to overcome him now and the edges of his vision began to blur. He fell to his knees.

  “We must go so-” he started to say before he fell face down in the snow, unconscious.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The day after Dearic settled on his stone, he was woken by gentle hands shaking his shoulder. When he looked up he saw Thurmiel looking down at him. It was surprising how much the elf looked like his brother, and yet Dearic had no problem telling the two of them apart. They may well have been identical twins, but he supposed it was their demeanor that was different. Thromiel was calm, collected, and knowledgeable. Thurmiel made him think he was going to get an arrow in the face any time he did something wrong.

  “Wake,” Thurmiel said. “It is time for you to leave.”

  Dearic groaned and sat up. He’d been sleeping in a small cot in Thromiel’s home, the elf’s wife having insisted that he stay with them. It had been nice given he hadn’t slept in a bed since leaving Pabila, but at the same time it was only a brief respite, and felt like a cruel joke given he’d be sleeping on hard ground again shortly. Wish I could stay a bit longer. Would be nice to rest here.

  “Give me a minute,” he insisted. “I need to get dressed and gather my things.”

  “I will be outside.”

  The elf stood away from him, moved to the door, and let himself out into the early morning light. Dearic sighed and looked around the main room of the home. He slid out of bed and went to gather his armor, pulling it on once again. The rest of his things were packed hastily into his bag and tossed over his shoulder. His belt was wrapped around his waist with his rapier attached.

  He opened the door and threw his cloak on over his armor as he stepped out into the cold morning. There was still little snow about, and it wasn’t as cold as he would have expected, but with the armor it felt colder.

  “You couldn’t let me sleep for a few more hours, Thurmiel?” he asked, glancing sideways at the elf.

  “No. You need to leave now. Any later and it may be too late.”

  It seemed that everyone knew his destiny but him. He could only think to attribute this fact to the strong connection to magic that most of these people had. They must have divined his destiny somehow. Why they would focus on him out of everyone in Amarand he didn’t know, but it seemed a common choice among everyone in the outside world. It made him feel funny, and not in a very good way.

  “I’m ready. Lead the way,” he said to the elf.

  Thurmiel started walking through the village in the trees. Dearic followed. As he moved, he watched the other homes, looking to see if anyone would come out of them to see him off. It was so early, however, that he suspected most were still asleep. Well, so be it. He didn’t need any of them to see him off, anyway. Most of them he hadn’t even learned their names, and with what Thromiel had said about all of them dying, well, he figured he would never know most of their names.

  It wasn’t long before he found that the village was gone, and he felt that sudden rush as everything around him blurred and then re-emerged with trees and the forest floor all around him. Thurmiel stood nearby with his bow drawn, watching something in the forest not far from them. Dearic shook his head to clear the feeling that he’d associated with this fast travel method.

  Thurmiel drew back his bow and loosed an arrow into the wood. Dearic could see nothing, but he heard the guttural cry as the arrow struck home. It wasn’t followed by any other noises.

  “Orc?” he asked.

  “A scout. You should be going. If you push hard you’ll get around their forces and be headed north out of the forest quickly enough,” Thurmiel said as he pointed through the wood. “What you seek lies in that direction. If the Blood Knights don’t kill you, then you stand a chance. You will have to use magic to face them. Your weapons are not sufficient to fight their untiring numbers.”

  “That’s a lovely fact to know.”

  Dearic shook his head. Thurmiel could use a lesson in tact. Now he was more than certain that this was going to be the hardest task he’d ever undertaken, alone, in his life. He’d heard all of the stories about these creatures of course, but he never imagined actually meeting them.

  “Tell your brother I said I’d do my best, and that I still don’t believe him. He’ll understand.”

  Thurmiel said nothing, though nodded his head as he focused on the woods around them. For an elf, and given what he’d learned of them in the very short amount of time he’d been there, Thurmiel was rather stoic. It was almost disconcerting to see an elf that was as focused as he was when all of the others were better focused on whatever feast or other activity was going on that day. Perhaps that was the way it was meant to be.

  Leaves crunched under his feet as he walked. The trees here were thick enough that very little snow made its way through. Most landed on branches higher up, creating a layer that blocked the majority of sunlight from reaching the ground, but which also filtered it enough to light up the forest floor.

  He didn’t look back. He knew Thurmiel would be busy focusing on the forest around them, so there wasn’t really any point. Nobody else was there. This was his task and only his task. Whether he wished for companions or not, he would not receive them. Nobody else would follow him into the slaughter that was surely awaiting him. Even he felt like this was a fool’s errand when he could still be with the elves, learning to use his magic.

  The focusing stone, still unused, hung on a cord that he’d strapped to his wrist for now. He’d tried wearing it around his throat, but found it far too uncomfortable to have something pushing against his throat in such a manner. It had made him want to vomit. Wearing it on his wrist had proved to be an effective solution for the time being.

  The further he walked, the colder it got. The maps for the area north of the Laradain forest were sparse in their details because no one ventured there. That was the land of the Blood Knights. Nobody ventured north of the Breakers in the northern Vale. Not anymore. In ages past there had been settlements up there, mostly for ice fishing and harvesting blubber from animals that lived in the frigid temperatures. The Blood Knights had wiped them all out several hundred years ago.

  North of the Laradain was what was called the Slurry. It was an impossible to map area, and nobody that ventured far into it had ever returned, for the way was said to be treacherous. If the Knights didn’t get you, thin ice would. He had no guide, once he exited the forest, aside from his own
intuition and what his eyes could see.

  As the trees began to thin, so the cover above began to crumble. Soon enough he was slogging through several feet of dense, wet snow that was still undisturbed, not touched by beast or creature of the forest. It was hard to walk, but he continued to trudge along, feeling the sweat increase on his skin beneath the armor and cloak. The coolness of the metal due to the temperature outside was actually a blessing here. At least it kept him somewhat cool.

  He’d only walked for a few hours when he was forced to stop and take a break. With the last of the trees surrounding him, he settled against the trunk of a great oak. It was the largest tree in all of Amarand, and this particular one was the last one on the northern boundary of the Laradain. It bore the scars of its precarious location: gash marks and old blood stains scoured the trunk. None of it was fresh, and Dearic relished in that brief bit of comfort as he sat beneath it. It also sheltered him from the snow as it began to fall again.

  This cold might kill me before I ever find the Blood Knights. If not that, then trudging through the snow will leave me tired and defenseless. He pulled the cloak tighter around himself as he sat on a somewhat less snow covered bit of ground. Now that he wasn’t moving, the cold was beginning to set in. He realized this was probably not a good idea and stood again.

  Instead of setting off immediately, he grabbed a bunch of fallen branches and stuffed as many as he could into his pack. He couldn’t fit nearly as many as he would have liked, but some was better than none. It was enough to make at least one fire. He hoped.

  As he walked onward, the last tree fell away behind him. Now he was in the Slurry, though it seemed like nothing more than what he’d left, just without all of the trees. Everywhere he looked there was snow. Except that to his left he could hear the sounds of moving water. If he fell in, he would perish. That much he could be certain of. He moved more to his right, aiming more for the Frost Mountains where there was sure to be more solid ground for him to stand on.

  It wasn’t long before he could no longer see the forest behind him. The wind picked up, and with it came blasts of frigid snow. He shivered and pulled the cloak tighter. Somewhere in the gloom ahead of him he thought he saw a shape moving towards him, which caused him to stop and move his hand to settle upon his rapier. Could they have come already?

  He didn’t know what drew closer to him, but he knew that out here it was likely only a Blood Knight, or some other creature of evil. There was no sound beyond the wind. No clink of armor, no trudge of snow. Nothing reached his ears save for the howling. Still he knew that something was approaching and that he was already more tired than he should be if he was going to be facing danger in the confines of the snow and ice.

  The shape turned into multiple shapes and he knew he’d found what he was looking for. They were far closer to the forest than he had expected them to be, and that was a danger to the elves. Their magic might stop the likes of humans and orcs, but he didn’t know if it could handle Blood Knights as well. Having never faced them, he didn’t even know if he could handle them himself.

  Though he drew his rapier, he suspected it would be very little help to him. Instead, he focused on settling the stone within his hand. I sure hope that this thing works or else I’m going to die here, he thought to himself. This whole ordeal was more than a little frightening for him. However, he maintained his readiness and waited as they drew closer. It dawned on him that he didn’t know how they saw, but it seemed they didn’t touch the ground so they may not need to see so much as feel what was around them.

  Gripping the stone tightly, he pictured a web of thin wires spreading across the area in front of him. Thin so that it couldn’t be seen, but sharp enough also to rend flesh and kill whatever tried to get through it. It sprang into being in front of him and he noticed, with some satisfaction, that the stone hummed with power and was now the crystalline stone he had envisioned it being.

  As the Knights moved forward they encountered the wires. He expected it to slice them apart or stop them. Instead it appeared to do nothing as they moved right through it. He grimaced and stepped backwards a few steps. Though he knew that these creatures were not normal, he had expected the wires to do something to them.

  With the wires doing nothing he was left with few options off the top of his head, and they were getting closer. He pictured jagged spears of ice rising up from beneath them and the stone glowed in his hand. Spikes of ice shot up within the first few rows, skewering the Knights and sending their armor to clatter against the ground around them. He smiled and felt more confident, but it didn’t last. More were coming beyond these, moving right around the ice spikes and now aiming for him.

  This was not going to end well, he could already tell. And he wasn’t even sure how to collect the essence of a Blood Knight anyway. He should have asked more questions before he left, or, at least, more meaningful questions than his questioning of his destiny.

  Even as they drew close enough for him to see the detail in their armor he couldn’t hear any sound from them. It was disconcerting and terrifying. He pictured a great gust of wind pushing them back and it came to fruition. Next a sheet of ice rising to create a wall between him and then. A temporary defense as he heard them chipping away at it as soon as it was erected.

  Some would eventually go around it. He started trudging towards the edge of the wall closest to the mountains, sword ready and eyes never wavering as he watched the ice and listened to the sounds of it being broken down. He never stopped, though. If he stopped he would end up getting caught where he didn’t want to be. The edge came into sight and he could see Knights moving around it and coming towards him.

  He thrust his hand forward and pictured a ballista bolt flying through the air at the line of Knights. He watched as it came true, destroying a line of knights. He repeated the maneuver again and again, but it was doing very little to stem the tide of Knights that poured around the wall towards him.

  As the snow let up, he began to feel desperation coursing through his veins. He was too tired to run away from them. At the same time, he wasn’t feeling as though he could defeat them all either. His entire body had begun to feel the biting cold mixed with sweat as he trudged hard. He could see more clearly now, and what he saw was basically floating armor with a non-corporeal form holding it together. Now he understood why the wires hadn’t worked.

  The ballista bolts kept flying as he did whatever he could to destroy the Knights. Behind him he heard the wall give way. Now they were coming from two directions and he was having to turn back and forth between them, trying to keep them all down. It wasn’t working and they were getting closer and closer to him.

  But suddenly, he heard a voice on the wind, “Aquitas de Avadana.”

  The authority it carried was astounding, and he was certain that it was female. It carried over all noises, but the Knights ignored it, pressing towards him. And then the rumbling came, and he saw a wall of snow crashing down around them. He dove back away, trying to not get covered. A wall of ice sprang up around him when he pictured it, and it staved off the flow of snow, which sought to bury the Knights within its confines, and succeeded in doing so.

  When it was over, he opened his eyes to see that he was safe, but surrounded by even deeper snow than before. As he stood, he willed the ice wall to melt and create steps to the top of the new snow pack. Upon it he soon stood, and peered out around him. Nowhere did he see a single moving Knight, but he did see their armor pieces mixed among chunks of snow, weapons protruding precariously. And as he looked around, he spotted a figure not far away. It was dressed in gray, and barely discernible against the snow. As soon as it noticed he’d seen it, it turned and began to move away.

  “Wait!” he yelled, not even caring if anything else heard him.

  The being didn’t stop and he started trudging after it, pushing himself as fast as he possibly could in an effort to catch the gray-clothed being that he assumed had saved him. It was an uphill battle that he faced
. The snow was now deep, but only for a short distance. Beyond that he could see the treacherous Slurry again. But as he watched the figure move across it, he stopped and measured the path for himself. If this person could traverse it, then he could follow in their footsteps.

  As the figure got further and further away from him, he began to move again, traversing the difficult terrain at as close to a run as he possibly could. That was difficult to do in deep snow, and it took him some time to reach the edge of it. When he finally reached the Slurry once again, he slowed and stepped onto it carefully, following the same path that he’d seen the other being traverse only moments before.

  The path was hard to follow. Though he’d watched from a distance, he’d been unable to see the fine changes in terrain that made up the Slurry. It proved unhelpful to have watched the figure at all. He had to pave his own way across the hard surface, carefully navigating the slush on top, and avoiding the false footing areas that would lead to him falling in and drowning. He could swim but he knew the perils of the ice cold water that flowed beneath him. He did not wish to take his chances, especially weighed down as he was.

  In the distance he could barely make out the figure disappearing into an ice crag that rose from the surface of the Slurry. He pressed onward knowing that he needed to catch this being, to find out who they were, and how they’d known such a powerful spell. It could just be an elf that had left the forest, but he didn’t think so.

  After a precariously long amount of time picking his way across the slippery ice, narrowly avoiding falling in, he made it to the same crag that the figure had disappeared into. He couldn’t see around the bend and that put him on edge. While his right hand went for his blade, holding the hilt of the weapon, his left grasped the stone. He was beginning to use his Magic more than he was his other skills, but he didn’t really notice it.

  He stepped forward, around the bend, but only saw more of the crag in front of him. Pressing forward, down the chasm, he had the strange feeling that he was being watched from somewhere. He watched everything, but saw nothing as he moved forward. It wasn’t until he was halfway through that he was suddenly assaulted by the gray clothed being.