Ashes of a Black Frost

check. If Visyna didn’t do something soon things would spin out of control.

“It would help if you told us where we are going,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded calm.

Kritton and Hrem continued to glare at each other.

Scolly coughed and doubled over gasping. Teeter kept him from falling and helped him stand up again. When he did they all saw blood trickling from his mouth.

“You pathetic bastard,” Teeter said, letting go of Scolly and taking a step forward. He pointed a finger at the elf. “You don’t know where you’re going, do you? All you know is you fouled it all up and now you’re taking these elves with you.”

Kritton broke his stare with Hrem and turned on Teeter. The elf’s jaw was clenched. “Shut your mouth.”

Teeter took another step. “You’re a coward and a liar, Kritton. All you’re doing is running. That’s all you’ve ever done. There’s a noose waiting for you now so you’re running and you’re taking these elves with you to the gibbet. Yes, that’s right,” Teeter said, turning to look at the elves. “Desertion, murder, and looting are all hanging offenses, or do you think they’ll pardon your crimes for some long-lost baubles and beads?”

No, no, no, Visyna thought, please don’t provoke him.

“Our honor will be restored!” Kritton shouted, his voice trembling. “Everything we’ve done has been necessary. We’ve destroyed Her forces wherever we found them. The rakkes. . the rakkes paid for the humiliation we’ve endured.”

The elf soldiers looked uncomfortable at Kritton’s mention of the rakkes, though Visyna couldn’t understand why. The tension in the tunnel was growing. Hrem turned his head slightly and looked at her. She felt trapped. She had to try to weave some magic now.

Teeter refused to back down, continuing to shout insult after insult at the increasingly agitated elf. Visyna took in a slow breath and held it. With her hands down by her side, she sought out the life energy around her. She found the elves easily.

Avoiding Kritton’s aura, she began to weave, careful to keep her movements as small as possible. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her neck grew warm as she focused. The wrongness of what she was doing filled her with dread.

She had just begun to tease apart the strands when the oath magic flared and caused her to lose focus. Teeter’s clenched fists were wreathed in black frost. He was still yelling at Kritton and didn’t appear to notice.

“Teeter, let it go!” Hrem said, recognizing this new danger. Zwitty gasped.

The elves shuffled back a couple of steps before Kritton barked at them to stay where they were. His eyes narrowed. “Do you see? This is the curse Swift Dragon brought down on the regiment, and if he has his way, it will be your fate, too.”

Teeter was no longer yelling, but his anger remained. “Get out of here and take your kind with you,” he said, his voice low and menacing.

“You don’t frighten me,” Kritton said, “or do you forget that I’m just as cursed as you?”

The frost fire blossomed into ice-black flame and began crawling up Teeter’s arms. His jacket shimmered and the buttons gleamed as the fire took hold. The ground beneath his feet sparkled as if he stood on broken glass.

“Put it out, Teeter-you know what happened to Zwitty,” Hrem said.

“I had it under control just fine,” Zwitty said.

“I’m not doing anything. Not until they leave,” Teeter said. His face was cast in a flickering light of sharp shadows as the black frost fire reached his shoulders and covered his chest. He wavered where he stood.

Visyna stifled a cry as she sought out his energy in the web around her. The oath magic was spiraling out of control.

“Hrem, do something,” she said.

He held out his hands and shrugged. “I can’t do what Renwar did. None of us can.”

She looked over at Chayii, but she shook her head.

Teeter took a step toward Kritton. “Run. . now.” He was completely wreathed in black flame. The temperature of the air plummeted and the tunnel filled with white mist from their breath. The fire grew in intensity, feeding off Teeter as it did. Kritton backed up several steps.

“This would have been your fate!” he shouted, turning to look at the elves. “This is what I am trying to save you from. This is why everything we did was necessary!”

“Put out the fire now!” Hrem shouted.

Teeter turned to look at him, then at the others. Even through the flame Visyna could see he was trying to smile. “I plan to.”

He spun, and opening his arms wide, lunged at Kritton.

Smoke and flame filled the tunnel as several muskets fired at once. Visyna screamed and covered her ears too late as the blast assaulted her senses. Hot, acrid smoke and burning embers slapped her face. She reeled backward and would have fallen if not for slamming into the tunnel wall.

There was yelling, screaming. Inkermon crashed to the floor with two elves on top of him. Scolly dove on top of them, his fists a blur as he pummeled the back of an elf’s head. More elves charged past her knocking her off her feet in the process. She slid down the wall scraping her back and landing sharply on her tailbone bringing tears to her eyes.

“You bastards! You bastards!” Hrem shouted, tearing into the elves and scattering bodies everywhere. His fists swung like massive sledgehammers, dropping elves into crumpled heaps. Black frost sparkled on several of their uniforms, but did not burst into flame. Visyna struggled to her feet determined to help, but a body fell on her legs pinning her in place. Frost fire crackled and sparkled on her legs and she screamed, pushing the body off. It was Zwitty. Blood trickled from a long gash above his right eye.

This time she did get to her feet, but the fight was over. Elves had them penned in from both sides, their muskets ready to shoot them all down. She rubbed her eyes, blinking and shaking her head as her vision slowly readjusted.

Teeter’s body lay sprawled on the tunnel floor, the frost fire consuming it rapidly. In a matter of seconds it was gone. The air started to warm, and her breath no longer misted in front of her face. More tears filled her eyes as Teeter’s shade materialized briefly and then faded, leaving only a cold, empty space.

“We go, now!” Kritton shouted, his eyes wide with fear and anger. He kicked at elves to get them moving, motioning them to haul the human soldiers to their feet. Visyna willed herself to move. Scolly and Inkermon helped Zwitty up as she fell into step with Hrem.

“There was nothing you could do,” Hrem said. His knuckles were bloody and the left sleeve of his uniform was ripped from shoulder to cuff.

She knew it was true that there was nothing she could have done, but hearing him say it made her feel guilty all the same. She began to trace a tiny pattern in the air with her hands, seeking out the threads of the elves around them. Hrem looked over and tilted his head in question.

“No more of us die,” she whispered.

He nodded, and they kept walking.

NINETEEN

A cold shock rippled through Private Alwyn Renwar as he led the regiment toward Suhundam’s Hill. His vision fogged and the ground beneath him spun. He drove his wooden leg down hard for support, breaking through the ore-stained snow crust.

More Iron Elves had been killed. The ranks of the dead shuddered, the feeling moving through Alwyn like an ice flow. No one alive should ever experience this. It was cold, and loss, and hopelessness, and it eroded away a little more of his humanity.

He started to seek out who they were, then stopped. He no longer wanted to know. Soon enough, the shades of the dead soldiers would appear, their cries adding to the chorus of agony and fear that marked the existence of