Withering Frostwood

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Azkanix’s splintered bone cracked above Cerise’s head, an explosive sound at once like thunder and breaking glass, shattering the quiet of the dead, frosty forest.

Cerise ducked and rolled away from the towering bone, wincing as she came to a crouch, the old wound in her knee aching with the sudden movement.

Dusting the snow from her clothes, she glared at the dead Lich God’s sharp skeletal fragment that protruded from the ground.

A fissure split the side as it ruptured from the penetrating, eternal cold.

Rarely did the bones fully break, and even after four years of being surrounded by them, their bursting hadn’t yet harmed her.

But the abrupt, cacophonous sound never ceased to send her heart racing, body reacting before her mind.

She slumped to the forest floor, massaging her knee.

It always hurt these days, the endless winter pressing constant, aching cold into her limbs.

Her perpetually stiff leg was hard like the stone from the Merathel Mountain Range that towered behind the forest in jagged, white and black peaks.

Her instincts were still sharp and quick from too many years in the Undead Wars, where her enemies were cruel and chaotic.

Yet that often meant she turned too fast, and the twisting of her leg was like the grinding of two frozen rocks.

She pressed her fingers into the swelling mass on her skin, easing the fierce ache. When home, she’d sit next to the fire and have Eirwen pull the chill from her body. But for now, there was nothing to do for the pain, and there was still much to accomplish before nightfall.

Cerise leaned on the specialized weapon at her side, a double-headed battle axe with a long dagger between the blades. Her Beloved; crafted to be as tall as she was so she could use it as a walking staff. It had seen her through the Undead Wars and now this new nightmare.

She used it to shove herself to her feet, keeping a wary eye on the newly splintered bone.

A sick, unearthly green light shone from the ground where it embedded into the soil, diffusing into the layers of snow.

The whole forest was pocketed by this blight.

The blackened woods dotted by gleaming bone, the white layers of snow illuminated by necromantic light.

If the bone fractured all the way through and toppled over, the curse within the dead God’s skeleton would spread, seeping from the bone into whatever earth it touched.

The decayed forest couldn’t tolerate further disease.

The infection had already spread deep through the dirt into tree roots, up their trunks and branches, the once lush and vibrant woods now nothing more than gnarled, blackened trees.

Yet every inch the curse spread, the closer it encroached to her safe haven. To Eirwen.

Cerise recalled the layout of the woods in her mind, mentally marking her location.

She’d need to note the newly broken bone on her map once home.

Now it was just one more place to watch.

To see if the bones fell. To gauge how fast and how far the curse spread.

If it fell, she might have to avoid this area completely.

And depending on the direction it collapsed, it might collide with other bone shards, toppling them down, the hex cascading through the woods even quicker.

If the curse traveled faster, more animals would be blighted. Half of those Cerise found were already too starved to eat. Another quarter tainted by the curse, black blood oozing from their mouths, ethereal, eldritch green crust clouding their eyes.

They couldn’t survive much longer if there were no animals to hunt.

Yes, they had chickens, but the number of eggs laid steadily decreased.

And yes, Eirwen cared for some of the forest animals who wandered on their land, looking for live vegetation to eat.

Sometimes the dying animals would lay on their land, as if offering their bodies in thanks for the protection provided.

But those numbers also dwindled, the resources ever diminishing.

Once the eggs and animals were gone, how long could they survive on the pitiful plants Eirwen grew in their garden?

Breathe, Cerise, she imagined Eirwen’s gentle voice say. Your worry does not help.

Well, someone needed to plan and prepare. Eirwen was certain that Zyrdriel’s protective blessing around their home would suffice for keeping them safe from the surrounding death for the rest of their lives. But Cerise was not so certain.

What had the Celestials ever truly done for them, anyway?

Zyrdriel, the Celestial of Winter who sired Eirwen and abandoned both her and her mother, who then discarded her at the doorstep of Vhypael’s Temple, the Celestial of Lost Children, where no child was truly safe.

Zyrdriel, whom Cerise fought for in the Undead Wars against Azkanix and his necrotic armies, who offered no aid when she sustained her knee injury and was forced from his Order.

Zyrdriel, and all the other Celestials, who shredded Azkanix as he and his necromancers nearly conquered the world, but then disappeared back into their divine plane, leaving the mortals to survive in a cursed world, trapped in infinite winter.

No, if there was one thing Cerise had learned in her life, it was that you could trust no one. Not even the Gods.

The sky was a mottled lavender by the time Cerise returned to their isolated cabin.

Only in her dreams could she recall what the natural sky looked like—crystalline blue on clear days, clouds ranging from white to gray depending on the weather.

When Azkanix ripped into their plane, the Lich God darkened the skies into a rippling mass of black and sickly purple, breathing rot and decay into the air.

With the hex he spun in an ancient, undead language on his being, any blood that remained in his unholy body diffused into the atmosphere, casting it in a permanent, bruised purple.

It blocked the sun, and now one was only able to trace the time of day by the shade of the sky, the lightest hues of day near pale lavender, twilight or stormy skies close to deep violet.

Dense clouds hung low in the sky, thick with building snow.

The hiding sun illuminated the edges in periwinkle, the centers dark as the wine her caregivers in Vhypael’s Temple consumed into oblivion.

Cerise clicked her teeth with disgust. As she looked at the roiling purple clouds beyond the thick, twisted branches of the black canopy, a tiny snowflake drifted onto her nose. She needed to get the measly remnants of decent firewood inside their home before the snow ruined it.

Much of her time was spent hacking away at the thickest trees, hoping to find pieces of usable firewood in their cores.

In the early days of the curse, she discovered the blight slowly devoured trees from the outside in, the bark perishing before the interior.

Useable wood became sparser and sparser, chopped trees never regrowing, and no new growth possible with the curse’s spread.

Yet she persisted, for even kindling was better than nothing.

Without fire, Eirwen and she would freeze.

Or starve. And despite Zyrdriel’s shield, the elements still weathered the dark oak fencing around their home.

Eirwen said it wasn’t necessary to maintain the barrier, but Cerise would not risk it.

Would not risk waking up one day to find their whole garden demolished from a ravaging pack of ravenous creatures.

Would not risk the bane leaping from the outside to their precious, few vegetables. No, it was better to have the fencing catch the curse, first.

Shifting the weight of the wood-filled bag on her back and leaning into Beloved to relieve the grinding pressure in her left knee, Cerise crunched through the ice-covered snowpack to her home. A shudder of relief rippled through her once the cabin was in sight, knowing that rest awaited her.

As she did every morning and night, Cerise stalked the perimeter fence, erected at the border where Zyrdriel’s blessing ended and the dying woods began.

She tapped the butt of her weapon against the wood, testing for instability, then checked the posts for signs of infection.

No black seeped into the wooden striations.

All remained stiff. Typical in the fall and winter, when the deepest cold weighted the earth.

It was usually in late spring and summer when the fence posts tilted, the snow-packed forest melting to thin layers of frost.

Yet, one never knew when the worst would happen.

She hadn’t seen it when the fleshy skeleton with sunken, jellied eyes leapt at her from behind and clawed her face, leaving the scar that ran from her cheek through her eyebrow and onto her scalp, creating a new hairline, now shaved clean on one side.

She hadn’t anticipated the necromancers using their own armies as explosives, the undead charging at her Order, erupting at first contact, massacring most of her group and pinning her under a pile of dead and undead bodies, shattering her kneecap.

And no one had foreseen the day when a great groaning would sunder the mortal plane, Azkanix cleaving up to conquer the heavens, only to be evaporated by the Celestial’s molten magic, leaving behind a broken, frozen world.

Thus, she would not rest. Would not yield to complacency.

Not when one moment of forgetfulness could end both her life and Eirwen’s.

After everything they’d been through, they deserved to live a peaceful life away from the cruelties of the people of Tyrnoraen, the apathy of Zyrdriel and his Order.

Just as Cerise ensured that the horrid children and ignorant clerics at Vhypael’s Temple left her and Eirwen alone, she’d ensure their quiet survival now.

There may not be levity, love, or laughter, but they would live. Which was more than many could say these days.