Chapter 1 The Frozen Star
The Frozen Star
Iam Resh’Agar, and war is my lifeblood. At the waking of the world, I was forged for battle, filled with madness, bound to the Shields, and taught that my purpose was to bring glory to Krystopolis.
And so I do. Without question, without doubt.
In cycles of fifteen to twenty years, I leave my Crystal City and go to war on the Surface.
Not just war with men. But nature, too. Surviving its brutality.
Standing in the face of its unforgiving whims. Fighting hordes of sentient Creeper Vines in Growth.
Slaughtering varkhounds during Dark. My men—my Kelvasari—stand beside me without fear.
They, too, do not doubt their purpose as my shadows.
We march. We take. We conquer.
One Campaign after another. One battle after the next.
I seek artifacts of power, expand our territory, and carve new allegiances into sacred parchment and stone alike.
If the people will not submit to my god—to the Destroyer—I wade through their blood.
Precise. Efficient. Culling. Purging. Until they scream for mercy or die cursing the Resh as they meet their maker.
I suppress the madness, though it is ever present. An itch, just there, at my nape where the scar of the Vargrún lingers.
So it has been for more centuries than I care to remember.
But this Campaign has been different. No war. No resistance. Nothing but an endless march from place to place. I grow weary, for most of the world has surrendered to my legend, thus marking me as obsolete. If I cannot conquer, what am I? If I cannot enforce, what is my purpose?
The humans in the capital of Maradryn continue to rebuild after my last sacking of their city five decades past, licking their wounds even as rebellion and greed stirs within their walls.
Ungrateful mortal rabble. Though Krystopolis brings them trade and prosperity, still they buck and thrash beneath its righteous yoke.
My brother wants them subjugated. Bound to the Flaeme as all within Krystopolis.
But I do not have the patience for such work.
War is easier. Simpler. If I must break them again, I shall.
As for the Gliders—though they are the most powerful race of mortals on the Surface, they will never stand against the Resh’Agar.
Not while their Matriarch still bears the scar on her face after her Challenge against me.
Not while their shamans tell the story of the Skycleaver and how he broke a thousand wings mid-air.
Amused at the memory, I pat the massive, corded neck of my rune forged steed, Astenos.
He snorts in response, tossing his shimmering black mane and shifting his six muscled legs in restless motion beneath me.
His glowing blue eyes take in the wilted countenance of my second in command and his mortal mount.
Just four legs on that one, and a thirst that hasn’t been sated in hours.
“Your horse can’t take much more of this,” I tell Zarrek.
He looks at me and grimaces, the expression wrinkling the scars slashed across his grizzled face. “You ride like a man possessed,” he says. “I need sleep. My beast needs rest. Not like you and that six-legged demon of yours.”
“We don’t have time for you to sleep,” I remind him, brushing hair from my face as the howling wind spits it into my eyes.
“Even if we did, I wouldn’t. Not in this place.”
I have never met anyone taller than I, yet Zarrek towers over me by a whole head. He’s a battle tower on two legs—covered in runes, scars, burns, and equipped with a face that would make the Destroyer turn tail and run.
Looking at his bald head, I scratch at my beard. How long has it been since I bothered with my appearance? Not that there’s anyone to impress. Women come to my bed when I summon them, parting willing thighs and moaning sweet praises whether I smell of blood or Lustral oils.
Zarrek looks up at the sky. He tracks the sun. The clouds. I look up, to see what caught his gaze. Crimson clouds bloom like blood in river water. The wind moans, bending the century-old pines around us to its whim. My Second wraps his cloak tighter around his shoulders to keep out the frost.
I envy him that cold, for I feel none of it.
None at all.
“It’s the Bleed,” he says. “Drift has been coming for weeks. Dark will come sooner at this rate.”
He’s right. Soon, night will swallow the sun, and morning will not rise for months. Rifts will vomit monsters into the Emerald Moores, and many of my men will die. But I don’t have time for his fear-mongering now. We already lost too much time thanks to his grumbling back in town.
“Keep moving. We’re nearly there.”
We nudge our mounts forward, riding farther up the Spines until the ground tilts too sharp for anything but boots. Astenos could pick his way up the trail, but Zarrek’s mount would slip a shoe. The last thing we need is more delays.
Zarrek chooses a tree and ties his horse’s reins to it. There’s a clean patch of grass. Not too dead, just wilted. Enough to keep the animal alive until we return. But the weather has it spooked. Or perhaps the atmosphere.
Fog. Decaying mana.
Everything about this part of the mountain is unnatural.
Reaching up, I touch the bridge of my nose, whisper a command—Kenaz—and blink.
My vision sharpens, details in the distance coming into focus as the rune’s magic flares to life.
I see the tree hollows at the mountain’s peak, the shaved rocks worn from countless Cycles of Ice and Fire.
And there, I find what I am searching for.
A door, hidden in a cluster of stone and minerals, surrounded with roots long choked of life. Mist seeps from the seams, carrying the stench of stagnant water and dead stone. The vines quiver in the wind as though sensing my gaze.
I point. “There’s the entrance. We’re nearly there.”
We continue our ascent, scaling the rocks, packs of gear and weapons in tow.
“This better be worth it,” Zarrek grumbles, though the fever of excitement already blooms in his golden gaze. “Ten years chasing scribbles on parchment. If we don’t find the Destroyer’s gold-plated bedpan, I’m starting a new religion.” He spits and grinds his heel into the dirt, sealing the vow.
“Didn’t think you believed in the Doctrine, Zar.”
“I don’t. But even gods piss, and they’ll plate the pot in gold to call it a chalice.” He gives me a sideways look. “Isn’t that what you’re hoping to find? Something for the glory of the Crystal City?”
“Not this time.”
This time, the glory will be mine alone.
We make it to the doors, carved from stone and obsidian, every inch etched with unfamiliar symbols. At my signal, Zarrek summons mines to sunder them.
And sunder they do.
All too easily.
I don’t like it. I was prepared for a fight. With complex webs. Riddles. Ancient pit traps. Voids-damned heathens guarding trinkets and hedge magic.
But there’s nothing here. No wards to stop intruders. No foreign spells. Just a lock that gives way to Zarrek’s low-tier explosives and a well-placed bag of mage’s sand.
“Strange,” Zarrek says, the scar over his eye tugging with his grimace. He rubs his bald head, spits on the ground, and raises his arm, so each carved rune along his skin activates to sense for mana. “No shield. No web. Nothing.”
I touch the ruined doors, brushing my fingers against the smoking cracks. I should feel the thrill of the chase. A decade spent looking for this place. Yet my heart doesn’t race. As always—whether in battle or at rest—it beats with dispassion. With an apathy born of what I am.
A weapon.
Not a man.
Not even a god.
Only a tool to be used. Worshipped. Feared.
“If there’s treasure in there, why’s this so simple?” Zarrek asks.
I place a hand on his shoulder. “It was waiting. Just like the map.”
“For what?”
I smile, faking the thrill for my Second’s sake, at least.
“Waiting for me.”
Within the cavern, darkness waits. From our packs, we pull a set of Polis lanterns, infuse them with a rune of warmth, and proceed through the narrow hall. Our breaths steam in the air. Once again, Zarrek adjusts his cloak. Once again, I envy him his mortal skin.
Hours pass. No treasure chamber. No sign of glory or a golden bed pan. Stumbling through the temple’s endless mazes of stone halls, deadly traps, and toxic primal mana, I consider turning back.
My heart is steady, but my patience wears thin.
“Not after the fuss you made to get here,” Zarrek says. “You dragged me here, Resh. We’re staying ‘till we find what we came for.”
“How deep does it go?” I check the map at my waist. No indication.
As we progress, unseen spells shatter Zarrek’s runeweaves, one after the other. Like overfilled vessels. The sight gives me pause. If there is a force powerful enough to break through the wards of a master Runetongue, we’re dealing with something unpredictable—perhaps too powerful to trifle with.
Hours turn into days. We wind through the passages at a steady pace, taking turns resting, making maps to chart our progress, marking up the walls with chalk as habit from centuries spent in the Veinroads beneath the earth. The structure seems to have no end.
The walls narrow as we move deeper in, and I find myself thinking of my Kelvasari back in town.
Good thing I’d left them behind. Let them rest in their cushy hamlet in the Emerald Moores, enjoying mulled bread and bloodwine.
Some would die on the journey back to Stonewake.
Perhaps many if I don’t finish this task soon.
As though reading my thoughts, Zarrek complains about the men as we share dried rations in a mold-infested hallway.
“Your Reskala warriors are too loud for sacred stone like this,” I tell him.
“You’re the damn Resh’Agar,” Zarrek deadpans while sharpening his massive battleaxe in the flickering Polis-light. “You want ‘em silent, tell ‘em to shut it.”
“You still think this is just a waste of time.”