Ashes of a Black Frost

by Chris Evans

  “Then we need to be going,” she said, standing up straight and stepping away from the railing. “She’s come between us long enough. One monarch’s reign has ended, now it’s time the other’s does, too.”

  “Have I told you how attractive you are when you’re feisty?” Konowa asked, moving to stand as close to her as he could without touching her.

  “No, and I expect that to change,” she said, breathing deeply to take in as much of his scent as possible. She wet her lips. “Bellowing orders like a mad bull might work in the army, but as my elf you’ll need to learn more subtle techniques to get what you want.”

  Konowa looked at her with a hunger she longed to feed. She knew it matched her own.

  He leaned forward and brought his lips to the very edge of her ear. His breath on her skin made her entire body shiver. “Are you saying you want to tame me?”

  “Not . . . not when we’re alone,” she said, her voice husky with desire.

  He started to whisper something else when there was a loud thump and the ship rocked. She stepped back and looked around. “What was that?”

  Konowa had his hand on his chest and his eyes closed. “Nothing good.”

  The water in the harbor began to churn, but the wind hadn’t picked up. “You’re the only weather weaver I know. Can you tell what this is?” he asked. Men were running around the deck of the ship shouting. Iron Elves appeared along the railings with their muskets at the ready. From belowdecks the ship’s gun crews were yelling and hurriedly reloading their cannons.

  “If I could weave I might have an idea, but I’ve exhausted myself. I’m sorry,” she said.

  He moved forward and smiled at her. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. I heard what you did. Everything from when you, my mother, and Rallie took off in her wagon from the party in Nazalla until we met at the fort. You didn’t just survive, you saved a lot of lives.”

  She returned his smile. “I guess I’ve picked up a few things from watching you.”

  The ship rocked again from another unseen blow. “All right, that’s got to stop,” Konowa said, his hand drawing his saber halfway out of its scabbard. “Can anyone see anything?”

  The answer came in two parts. Ice began to form on the water although the temperature above it hadn’t dropped. Moments later, long, black branches shot up from the water on the seaward side of the ship and clawed up the side of HMS Black Spike, tilting the ship to starboard.

  Pandemonium broke out on deck. Soldiers fired their muskets wildly at any branch they could see. Musket balls whizzed and ricocheted but did little damage. “Hold your fire, hold your fire, you daft buggers!” Yimt yelled. A few more muskets fired before order was restored. The ship rocked as more branches snaked up the side and latched on.

  “They’re underneath us,” Visyna said, looking down at her feet. She could accept horrors that came at her in the open, but something about an unseen enemy beneath her was chilling. She stepped away from the railing.

  Konowa turned to look at her. “And you wonder why I hate trees?”

  Rallie and Chayii appeared on deck with Jurwan between them. The elf wizard was still not talking, but his eyes followed events with an obvious interest and it seemed he was close to returning to normal. Visyna hoped so.

  “If you’ve got anymore tricks up your sleeves, now’s the time,” Konowa said to the women. He walked over to his father and peered into his eyes. “We could really use your help father.”

  The ship lurched and mooring lines snapped.

  “They’re trying to pull us away from the dock,” Visyna said, stumbling back toward the railing. She caught herself and looked down into the water. It was black and frothing, like boiling oil. She pushed herself upright and caught movement on the dock.

  “It’s Jir and Tyul!”

  She turned to point, but only Chayii heard her. The elf ran over to stand beside her.

  A thunderous broadside fired from the Ormandy across the way shook the night. Both of them jumped. Wooden buildings near the dock exploded in a shower of splinters. Jir and Tyul went to ground, but were immediately back up and running for the ship. Rakkes cut them off and a melee began. The elf was a blur of slashing precision while the bengar tore through the creatures with savage efficiency.

  But it wouldn’t be enough. There were too many rakkes. More and more joined the horde surrounding the two. The rakkes finally had a chance to bring down two of their tormentors and they weren’t going to let them get away.

  “Don’t shoot!” Chayii yelled, waving in a vain attempt to get the attention of the Prince’s ship.

  “It’s their only hope,” Visyna said, doubting even that could save them. She could only see Jir and Tyul sporadically now as still more rakkes streamed through the smoldering ruins of the buildings and toward the dock.

  The ship rocked again and the brittle, caustic tang of frost fire filled the air. She turned and saw Konowa with his saber drawn, slashing at branches while Rallie drew furiously on a sheaf of papers. Jurwan stood between them, watching, but not helping.

  When she turned back, Chayii was gone. Visyna looked over the railing and saw the elf walking effortlessly down one of the mooring lines to land on the dock and start running toward Tyul and Jir. Rakkes filled the space between and musket fire from the Ormandy lashed the dockside.

  “Chayii, come back!”

  The elf never turned, but kept running. Half a dozen rakkes closed in on her in a converging arc. The ship rose several feet in the air then fell back sending up an icy spray that coated everything. Visyna lost her footing and started to fall as the ship tilted further to port. The deck shook as cannons tore loose from their stations and slid free. Screams and shouts and the groaning and splintering of wood mixed with the howl of rakkes and sharp crack of muskets.

  Making up her mind while still falling, Visyna let her body go limp and slid through a gap in the railing. She grabbed a mooring line and slid down it, burning her hands red in the process. Once on the dock she ran after Chayii, still not knowing what she was going to do. She felt as a hollow as a reed. Her body was running on reserves she’d never tapped before.

  Shouts rang out behind her as men noticed the two women running on the dock. So this is what it’s like for Konowa, she thought, pumping her arms as her legs carried her across the open space. No plan, just absolute exhilaration.

  She reached Chayii as the rakkes closed in to five yards. Reaching down, she picked up a broken piece of barrel stave to use as a weapon. The downside of Konowa’s approach to things became rapidly clear.

  “What are you doing out here?” she shouted at Chayii, moving closer until they were back to back as the rakke’s circled them.

  “I could not leave Tyul or Jir out here alone. They are innocents. They follow where we lead. It is our duty to protect them,” she said.

  Visyna suddenly understood Konowa’s frustration with the elves of the Long Watch. They really did think in the most altruistic terms, even to the point of risking certain death. And she had run out to join her!

  “Chayii, Jir and Tyul are two born killers! We need their help,” she said, swinging her broken stave in front of her knowing it would do little to slow down a charging rakke. She thought about yelling back to the ship, but more branches had shot up from the water to grapple it while other ships were firing their cannons making it impossible to hear in the rising storm of noise.

  “I did not come out here without a plan, child,” Chayii said. Her voice was surprisingly calm.

  “Well then do it!”

  Chayii turned and placed a hand on Visyna’s shoulder. “Tell my son . . . that I would have enjoyed spoiling your grandchildren very much.”

  Before Visyna could reply Chayii turned and raised her hands to the sky. She began chanting in elvish and immediately the world around Visyna changed. Deep, powerful voices from somewhere far away filled the air. She recalled hearing and feeling something like this before, when Tyul had used his oath weapon, but this was diffe
rent. Something else added its power to the heavy thrum, something close.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, aware that the fabric of the natural order around her was beginning to tear.

  The old elf continued to chant, ignoring her. Rakkes howled and bared their fangs, but none dared come closer. It began growing lighter. At first, Visyna couldn’t place the source, but then realized the main mast of the Black Spike was glowing. She blinked and looked again. For just the briefest of moments she could have sworn a massive tree had stood where the mast was.

  “Chayii?”

  “I do what I must, child,” she said, her voice filled with something Visyna thought sounded like joy. “We are the stewards of this world. If, through our sacrifice, we can save it, then it is a small price to pay.”

  Visyna’s objection was blown away in a burst of pure, golden light. She turned, and marveled at what she saw. The mast of the Black Spike, once the very trunk of Jurwan’s ryk faur from which the ship was named, dissolved into a million gleaming specs of energy. They swirled as if caught in a wind only they could feel before coalescing into the shape of a shimmering, translucent Wolf Oak standing proudly on the deck of the ship.

  The leaves of Black Spike began to fall, twirling and spinning faster and faster. A glowing white acorn was attached to each leaf.

  “Your time here is over,” Chayii said to the rakkes. “Be one again with the mukta ull.” A gibbering wail rose up from the rakkes. Visyna turned in time to see Chayii’s hands spread open. The next moment a wind blew over her from behind, knocking her to the ground. The leaves and their acorns flashed above her in brilliant streaks of light. Each leaf and acorn struck a rakke with the force of a cannon ball, cutting off the howls of fear.

  The rakkes died where they stood. One moment they were there in all their primal fury, the next, there was a burst of light, and then for the briefest of moments, the ghostly afterimage of a Wolf Oak sapling.

  Before she could get up, the wind reversed direction and blew out to sea. She heard Jir yelp in fear and looked up to see the bengar and Tyul tumbling helplessly in the grip of the wind, borne aloft on still more of the shimmering leaves. It carried them all the way to the Black Spike and dumped them onto the deck, Tyul landing lightly on his feet and Jir on all four paws.

  The ship heaved and rose high on a roiling wave of water. The sarka har clawing at the Black Spike’s hull tore and shattered. The wind howled and the heavy ropes mooring the ship to the dock snapped like thread. The Black Spike began drifting out into the harbor, picking up speed as it moved. The massive image of Jurwan’s Wolf Oak was bent by the wind, acting as a main sail.

  “Konowa!” She reached out her hands, determined to weave the weather and battle the forces taking him away from her again, but already she knew her strength wasn’t up to the task. She watched silently as the ship disappeared into the night and was gone.

  It was several moments before Visyna realized everything had gone quiet. Not a single rakke howled. No shouting, no screaming, no muskets firing. She sat up. Darkness had returned. She rubbed her eyes and turned to Chayii.

  “Oh, Chayii.” The elf lay facedown on the dock. Visyna grabbed her shoulder and gently turned her over. She felt it as soon as she touched her body.

  Chayii was dead.

  She sensed a presence near her and looked up. A misty image of a forest played before her eyes. It was gone so fast she wasn’t sure if it was real or her imagination. She chose to believe its truth; Chayii walking among the trees, singing softly as she tended to the forest.

  She blinked and turned away, staring out to sea. She gently let Chayii’s body down and got up, and walked to the dock’s edge. Splintered wood, torn ropes, and great chunks of sailcloth littered the dockside and floated on the ice on the water, as the only indication that the Black Spike had been moored there. A large, churned path through the ice marked its passage out to sea.

  The sound of running feet made her turn. Several soldiers from the Ormandy approached, their muskets held at the ready as they looked about for rakkes. A sergeant came up to her and touched his hand to his shako. He was bleeding from a cut above his left eye, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “More rakkes on the way, ma’am. His Highness says for you to board the Ormandy.”

  Visyna nodded numbly and allowed herself to be lead toward the ship. She saw two soldiers move to pick up Chayii’s body, then pause and look at her.

  “Please” was all she could manage. The soldiers bent down and with surprising gentleness picked up the elf and began to carry her to the ship.

  Visyna followed them and boarded the Ormandy without another look back. She crossed the deck and stood at the starboard railing looking out to sea. The cold, salty air changed something inside her and she stood taller as she gripped the railing, feeling the rough grain of the wood on her palms.

  “I will find you, Konowa Swift Dragon, I will find you.”

  Damn it, father, snap out of it!” Konowa shouted, turning and stomping away a few paces before spinning on a heel and marching back toward Jurwan. The deck of the Black Spike was a windswept mess, which made Konowa’s pacing all the more challenging. There was no main mast anymore. In its place was a tangle of sail, spars, and rigging and the impossible image of his father’s shimmering ryk faur.

  The ship should have been crawling along, but instead it was driven by a wind that seemed solely focused on the tree that was and wasn’t there. It was pushing them north at a speed no hurricane could ever match. The ship creaked and groaned with the strain. Konowa heard the captain ordering his sailors to bring down all but the smallest of sails, but it made no difference he could see. The Black Spike was being driven by something none of them understood.

  Except Jurwan.

  Konowa approached his father again. “Please, father, we need you. Mother . . . mother is dead.” Saying it out loud hurt more than simply knowing it in his heart, but he had to get through to his father.

  “Colonel,” Major Alstonfar said quietly, coming up to stand beside him. “Could we talk over here, please?”

  Konowa glared at his father, who simply looked straight ahead as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. “I liked you better as a squirrel,” Konowa muttered, then turned away and followed Pimmer until they were out of the wind behind a pile of collapsed sail.

  “I understand your frustration and concern over our situation, but telling your father your mother is dead is a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

  Konowa looked at the man and realized he didn’t know. “She’s dead. She gave her life to tap into whatever energy or life force was left in my father’s ryk faur. I’ve never seen it done before, but I’ve heard them talk about it. It’s the ultimate sacrifice for an elf of the Long Watch.” Bitterness swelled within his chest, but he fought against it. Her sacrifice hadn’t been for trees or plants or the bloody natural order. She’d saved flesh and blood. He was desperately proud and devastated at the same time.

  “My mother . . . gave her life for us. Many of the Long Watch have given their lives to save the trees they bonded with. It’s why we’re in this mess now. The Shadow Monarch poured all her misguided compassion into the Silver Wolf Oak and look where it got us.”

  Pimmer looked stunned. “She’s really dead? I am so sorry. I thought . . . I thought you were trying to shock your father into talking.”

  “I am, but not even the death of his wife seems to be enough,” Konowa said, forcing himself not to dwell on what he’d just lost. His mother was gone, and Visyna and Jir were back there and he had no idea if they were alive or dead.

  “Her act was truly courageous. She saved us from certain death,” he said. “I am sure the Ormandy and all her crew are fine.”

  “The Prince,” Konowa said, suddenly remembering. “If he didn’t survive that would mean you—”

  “No,” Pimmer said, cutting Konowa off. “The Prince survived, I am certain. He will take the throne.”

  Konowa wanted
to object, but there seemed little point. Whether Tykkin was dead or alive was no longer in their hands. They were headed to the Hyntaland. The state of the Empire would have to take a backseat to the coming showdown with the Shadow Monarch.

  “Major, gather up all sergeants and corporals and meet me in my cabin in five minutes. Oh, and find Private Vulhber, tell him he’s a corporal now. We have a battle to plan and judging the speed of our travel, we don’t have much time to get it sorted out.”

  “Very good, sir,” he said. “Ah, and Her, ahem, His Majesty’s Scribe?”

  Konowa looked up at the night sky as gray clouds whipped past before looking back at Pimmer. “She’s already RSVP’d,” Konowa said, pointing behind the man to Rallie, who was already walking toward Konowa’s cabin.

  “Indeed,” Pimmer said, turning. He saluted and quickly walked off to assemble the senior staff, such as it was.

  Konowa stepped back out into the wind and let the salty air sting his face. It hurt, and he liked that. It made him angry, and anger gave him power. He felt the fire burning inside him and let the flames build. When he reached Her mountain, a forest was going to burn.

  Konowa looked back at this father. Did he know his wife was dead? He started to walk toward him again and paused as the wind shifted. It took him a moment to realize it hadn’t been the wind, but the direction of the Black Spike itself. The ship was tacking to port, and heading west.

  Konowa walked toward the bridge to speak to Captain Milceal Ervod, but the sailor was already walking toward him.

  “We’ve changed direction,” Konowa said.

  Ervod motioned for Konowa to duck into a passageway. Once inside, Ervod pulled a map from inside his tunic and held it up against the wall. “Near as I can reckon, we’re here, just north of the Timolia Islands,” he said, pointing to a patch of blue ocean.

  Konowa leaned closer. “Are you certain? We only left Tel Martruk a few hours ago.”

  Ervod pulled at the end of his nose in a nervous gesture. “By rights, we should still see the lights of the harbor, but we aren’t traveling by any wind I know.”