Ashes of a Black Frost

He turned to face his fate.

The dawning realization that he was looking at the very real possibility of being killed by a bunch of walking trees brought a snarl of a smile to his lips. His whole life he’d loathed the forest with a passion that bordered and sometimes crossed the line of sanity. It never occurred to him until now that the forest might just feel the same way about him.

He was charging at the trees before his battle cry pierced the air.

“Timber, you bloody pieces of lumber! Timber!”

SIX

A pack of fifteen rakkes clustered around the mangled remains of one of their brethren. Despite the blowing wind, the tang of fresh blood hung in the air above the corpse. Normally, the rakkes would have welcomed the chance at fresh meat even when it was the body of one of their own, but not this time. Green insects crawled over and through the rakke’s flesh even as the falling snow buried the body from sight. A primal fear of the green death kept the rakkes at bay.

Four gray blurs drifted through the snow, coming to a silent stop a few yards behind the rakkes. The pulsing, rhythmic blue light of the Star tree slowed momentarily like an ocean wave retreating down a beach as four dark elves appeared from out of the gloom.

Even amidst the cobalt-tinged darkness and swirling snow it was clear that nothing about these elves was natural. The points of their left ear tips absorbed what light there was, making them blacker even than the surrounding night. Every joint and limb appeared angular, sheared, and incomplete as if sheets of stone as thin as parchment had been wrapped around bundles of metal stakes. For clothing, they wore only ore-saturated leaves secured with steel-colored vines, revealing far more than they covered. If the elves felt the bite of the cold, they gave no indication.

Each elf held a long bow the color of rusted iron in its hands. Drawstrings thrummed as they were drawn to their full pull, the limbs of the bows arching back to create grotesque smiles with tongues of thin, black arrows. At this distance, the arrows would pass through the back of a rakke’s skull and continue on through with enough force to embed themselves in another victim.

Bony fingers flexed and creaked as they curled tighter around the vine-wrapped grips of the bows. Wet, black eyes stared at the assembled rakkes calculating distance and trajectory. With no eyelids, the orbs shone like polished granite, and with as much warmth. The elves would not miss. They waited only for the command.

Her Emissary materialized behind the elves. Or rather it attempted to. Parts of it were simply missing, lost forever when that damnable Iron Elf soldier had summoned a vortex of magic and blown it to pieces. It knew pain now as it had never before, and the experience was transcendent. Twice in the life of the creature formerly known as Viceroy Faltinald Gwyn it had served powerful rulers-always in the pursuit of more power-and each time it had suffered greatly. Now, as every shredded fiber of its flesh and soul screamed in agony, it called on the power so horribly earned to rebuild itself one more time. It focused its energies on a dark, fathomless core-the black acorn planted into its heart by the Shadow Monarch.

It was rewarded with nothing. The acorn had shattered when the soldier had attacked-all that remained of the Shadow Monarch’s gift were cracked and broken shards. Her Emissary’s form mirrored that of the acorn, as did its mind. In its insanity it was finally free, but still the Shadow Monarch’s will filled its thoughts, commanding it to destroy the rakkes.

“Kill them. They grow too wild and will destroy everything in their path. My lost children must be allowed to return to me alive,” said the voice in what remained of Her Emissary’s head. It understood. The pact She made with the soldier that turned him into an emissary of the dead meant Her power over the fallen was diminished. She needed the Iron Elves brought to Her alive.

A crease of a smile cracked across its frost-burned face. If Her dark elves looked like mannequins created in an iron foundry, then Her Emissary was the wretched slag that remained. Redoubling its efforts, it coalesced enough of itself from the ether to create a form roughly human in shape. It drew what little power remained from Her gift, but found a new and more plentiful supply in something far stronger-rage. This was an endless well of power it could call its own.

It stumbled forward, growing stronger with each step. At that moment the wind shifted and the rakkes noticed the terrible being behind them. The elves pulled back on the bowstrings a little more, waiting only for Her Emissary to relay Her command.

It never came. Instead, as Her Emissary found a rasping, hissing voice barely capable of speech, it only needed to utter one word.

“Die!” A ragged scythe of ice formed in the air in front of Her Emissary. It reached out and grabbed it, swinging it in a wicked arc faster than the eye could follow. For a moment nothing happened, then as one the four elves crumpled to the ground, their heads falling away from their bodies. Fingers no longer restrained by life released the bowstrings and the arrows flew true, still aimed at the rakkes. The creature knew it had the strength to stop the arrows in midflight, but it did not. Six of the rakkes fell. Those remaining stood rooted to the ground.

“Build your strength,” the creature commanded. “Soon you hunt for fresher game.”

The rakkes roared their pleasure and fell on the bodies, both rakke and elf. The remnants of the acorn in the creature’s chest flared with frost fire, but it extinguished them with its madness.

The Shadow Monarch no longer pulled its strings.

High above on the canyon wall and undetected by those below, something stirred. A pair of eyes studied the scene on the desert floor through the falling snow. The figure remained deep in shadow as it watched the rakkes tear into the bodies of the dark elves first and then their own kindred. The rakke it had slaughtered earlier was untouched. Stupid, rudimentary creatures that they were, they knew enough to avoid that.

And here, off to the side and cloaked in shifting darkness, a violently misshapen thing directed the rakkes.

Interesting.

Killing one rakke had been satisfying. Killing this pack and its new leader would be. . enjoyable.

From deep within a black throat, a green glow came to life. Stalking this prey would be more difficult than the first kill, but not impossible. The green insects began to multiply, responding to subtle signals that a new quarry was at hand. But just as quickly, the signals then weakened. The rakkes were moving off, carrying what meat they could as they began to track west.

The watching shadow had no choice but to move into the open to begin tracking the rakkes, who no doubt had picked up the trail of the Iron Elves.

A group of six rakkes detached themselves from the rocks along the ridgeline where they had been hiding and spread out in a rough U-shaped pack. Claw tips extended and fangs began to glisten with drool as they set out after the shadowy figure.

The hunter was now the hunted.

“Major, get the hell out of the way!”

Konowa was so intent on his last charge that the shouted warning went unheeded. He was still several feet from the nearest sarka har when it blew apart in a red-orange explosion. Thousands of black scales cartwheeled through the air followed by flaming splinters. Konowa’s shako was blown off his head and he skidded to a halt, his arms thrown across his face. Only the flaring of the frost fire into a frigid wall in front of him saved him from being cut to ribbons.

“That’s new,” he gasped, equally impressed by the exploding tree and the frost fire’s reaction to it.

A familiar ringing in his ears told him musket fire had sounded a moment before the tree was destroyed. The remaining trees seemed oblivious to the fate of their brethren and continued to close in on Konowa.