110. The Eversnow
Chapter 110
The Eversnow
29 th Day of the Blood Moon
The Hearth, Drifaien – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Alleron Helmund lifted his shield, sending an arrow bouncing off the iron boss and skittering into the snow. He dropped his left shoulder, twisted, then hacked his axe into the torso of the man before him, the blade burying between two ribs.
Baird swooped past him, wielding twin bearded axes, a patch over one eye, Audun and Destin with him.
Through the dense snowfall, Alleron could just about see Gudrun and Sigrid leading their warriors through the second gate.
The fortress of The Hearth protected the mouth of Drifaien. It was the province’s most important chokepoint. If they could take it, they would cut off Alleron’s father’s supplies from the rest of the continent – at least by land. They would control all who entered and left Drifaien, and Calen’s reinforcements could enter freely. They had failed in taking Arisfall, but there was more than one way to skin a kat.
The battle was already a bloody one, but his father had long hoarded the vast majority of his might in Arisfall and the surrounding regions, leaving sparse few warriors garrisoning the ancient fortress. Were it not for the Lorian forces that had ventured south following a fierce battle on the Arythn Plain, The Hearth would already belong to the rebellion.
“These Northern bastards have never fought in the snow,” Baird shouted as he ripped his axe from a Lorian face, blood spurting from the trench carved from eyebrow to mouth. “I bet they’ve never even seen their piss freeze.” He looked down at the dead Lorian. “Should have stayed at home, little lion.”
Alleron looked down at the maimed corpse, then about the blood-stained yard. Bodies lay everywhere. Most bore the black lion of Loria on their breasts, though many were his own warriors, his friends, his followers.
A brief pang of guilt probed at his heart, finding an icy wall formed by the memory of Leif’s head rolling in the snow. Rebellions had a cost that could only be paid in blood. But that did not mean a man should shy away from what must be done. If a man didn’t stand for what he believed in, didn’t stand for what was right, then what was the point in standing at all?
Frozen blood would glitter across Drifaien, and Alleron would be the hand that spilled it. His soul would bear the weight because someone’s had to. His father could not be allowed to keep bleeding their people dry. The Lorian parasite needed to be killed. The people of Drifaien deserved a chance at life, and for that Alleron was willing to carry the burden of death.
“We must take the keep swiftly,” Destin said, drawing up beside Alleron, his face splattered with fresh blood. “It will be easy for us to lose far too many lives. I suggest…” Destin trailed off as he spoke, tilting his head sideways. “What in the gods is that?”
A sphere of light floated near the far wall of The Hearth’s main yard, spreading outwards with each passing heartbeat until it looked as though Alleron were staring out through a window framed in white light. But there was no snow on the other side, only rocks and green trees. Four men and two women stepped through, boots crunching in the bloodied snow.
“Tssk, tssk, tssk.” One man stepped forwards, lean and tall. He looked about the yard, ignoring Alleron and the five hundred strong who stood alongside him. “This is not the path at all.”
“Who are you?” Alleron called out.
“I have been called many names,” the man responded, glancing up briefly towards Alleron. “I suggest you order the retreat, little Lord Helmund. Otherwise you will not like what happens next.” He turned to one of the women with a ring of worn red skin around her neck. “Boud, the night is a bit clear, don’t you think? Surely the ‘Eversnow’ should be ever snowing?”
“Indeed,” Boud responded. She raised her arms, and her eyes turned a milky white. In the span of a breath, the snowfall grew heavier as though a blizzard had formed from thin air.
The man turned to another, who stood almost a head and a half taller than Alleron, with wiry muscles and a deep scowl on his face. “Vhorkel, if you please.”
“At once, my lord.” Just as the woman’s had, Vhorkel’s eyes shifted to a pure white.
Baird leaned closer. “I don’t like this.”
The snowfall grew heavier again, to the point that Alleron could barely see these new strangers through the wall of white.
“We all have choices to make, Alleron Helmund. Yours is simple – live or die.” The leader stepped closer. “I’m very sorry. This war is not yours to win.”
Screams sounded outside the walls, horrible shrieks. And then cries came from the ramparts: “Wyrms!”
Even as the shout rang out, a white-tipped hawk swept down through the barrage of snow and plunged its claws into a warrior’s face, shrieking a loud ‘kee-aah’ as it tore strips of flesh free.
The ground shook, and Alleron turned back towards the gates to see blue-scaled bodies wriggling through the snow. Two wyrms burst outwards and ripped towards a clutch of soldiers on the far side of the yard, more following.
“This is above us, Alleron.” Baird gripped Alleron’s shoulder. “There is strange magic here. Old magic. We must fall back and live to fight another day.” By the time Baird had spoken, ten more wyrms had burst from the snow to tear men and women apart.
“Listen to Baird,” the man called out through the snowfall. “Your path does not end here, but it can.”
Alleron stared back at the figures that were now little more than dark silhouettes through the blizzard. “Fuck…” About him, more and more wyrms emerged as though drawn by something. “We were so damn close.” He gripped the hilt of his axe. “Fall back!”
He looked to Baird and gave a sharp nod, the man echoing his cry.
“Fall back!”
Kaygan stood with his hands behind his back, staring out at the city of Arisfall before him. It had always amused him how much knowledge had been lost across the centuries. In Terroncia, the Cealtaí had built structures of polished stone so grand and beautiful it had quite often taken his breath away.
These people – these Drifaienin – had come from that place, his old homeland, their ancestry stretching back for thousands of mortal years. And yet now they built structures with stuck-together grey blocks, with rooves of thatch and battered shingles. There was no eloquence to it, no art. And everything was smaller, much smaller.
That was the way of things with mortals. When they warred, they killed so many of each other that ideas, moments of genius, knowledge passed down from generation to generation, were often lost.
As he stared out at the light snow dusting the rooves, he found himself mildly sorrowful at having to take Calen Bryer’s life. The Cealtaí and the Tuatha alike needed souls like him, souls with wills strong enough to break the bonds of the paths. But unfortunately, young Bryer’s will had proven too strong and the path he had been straying from was one that could not be altered. Regardless of the respect Kaygan had for the mortal, no one life could be placed above the path. The options were now limited, the margin for error thin as a hair. There were few paths without Calen Bryer that ended in anything but destruction.
He let out a long sigh and flicked his tongue against a sharp fang.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and Lothal Helmund stepped out onto the parapet beside Kaygan.
“Your son’s attempt on The Hearth has been dealt with,” Kaygan said without looking at Lothal. The man was a necessary evil. His heart was dark but extremely pliable, and Kaygan needed pliable hearts. “Can I assume you will clean up your own mess from here?”
“Whom do you think you’re speaking to? I’m not some child you can?—”
“Oh, but you are a child,” Kaygan said, cutting Lothal off and allowing his pupils to shift to black slits. “And I can order you about, and yes, Alleron is still alive, and no, I will not kill him for you. He is your son, clean his blood off your hands if you want it shed.”
Kaygan didn’t need to look to know Lothal glared at him – he’d already seen it.
“We have a deal, Lothal. I keep you in power. You do as I say. Has that changed? Please let me know if it has, and I can act accordingly.”
“No,” the man growled, the smell of whiskey on his breath.
“Well, our business is concluded then. I just wanted you to come out here and understand your position so that you would not do the stupid things I know you are planning.”
“I wouldn’t… I…”
“Calm yourself,” Kaygan whispered, shaking his head. “You have my trust. For now. Leave me. I wanted you to understand your situation. You do.”
Lothal Helmund may have been a drunk, but he was no fool. There were only a few paths on which he would ever cross Kaygan, and Kaygan had steered wide of each of those. So long as all remained untouched, the path would survive.
The man grunted and left, allowing both Boud and Una to step from the shadows.
They remained quiet for a moment until Boud finally plucked up the courage to ask the question Kaygan already knew she would ask.
“What of Tamzin?”
“She made her choice.”
“Did she? Did you ask her?”
Kaygan raised an eyebrow at that.
“Surely you must hear the words from her mouth. Are the paths always so set?”
“You question my steering of the paths, Boud?”
“You know I don’t. But she has earned the respect of making her own choice.”
“She did, Boud. The further we walked, the fewer the paths became where she would walk with us… until there were none.”
“But she knows of this place. What if she tells of it?”
“We will do what we must, Boud. This is my word.”
Boud inclined her head reluctantly, giving a short grunt and ending the conversation.
Kaygan preferred to always allow his Tuatha to walk their paths unimpeded. He could have steered Tamzin where he wanted her, told her of the future she needed to know, as he had done to others so many times. But futures and prophecy were powerful things. A prophecy could fulfil itself simply by existing. Telling a man he had five days to live more often than not put a recklessness in his heart that would lead to a death that might otherwise not have existed.
A desired future could be manifested simply by the speaking of it. His Tuatha deserved free will. Kaygan had known from the moment that Tamzin had found Ella what the woman’s choice would be. And he was happy for her to make it. Had he told her of Calen Bryer’s impending demise, he would have taken her agency from her. That was not the soul he was.
“We are almost there,” Kaygan said, staring out at the city. “For over a thousand years, I have steered these paths towards this point. The way forward is a haze. There are too many hands, too many forces meddling. I can feel them even now. But we will find our path. If all has gone well, both Fenryr and Vethnir have drawn their last breaths, the dragons are all but extinct, and the Cealtaí and elves march towards a mutual destruction. We will stand from the ashes, my children, and a new dawn will rise for our people.”