Ashes of a Black Frost

reached their apogee and began to fall straight toward them.

A sudden wind gust tore along the path blowing most of the arrows astray. The few that fell either hit the stony ground or bounced off the sarka har bark the soldiers wore as armor. Konowa looked to Visyna. She swayed where she stood, but she was weaving. Rallie had her quill poised above a sheaf of papers.

“Visyna!”

“We can hold them off,” she said, bravely smiling at him.

Konowa would have returned it, but the clicking sound of hundreds of pins on rock made him blanch. Dozens of korwirds were scrambling through the rakkes and charging at the Iron Elves. Konowa shivered at the look of the things. They clattered over the rock like armored snakes on hundreds of pointy twigs. Each was easily five feet long and possessed a pair of clacking pincers at its head. He’d never seen one before, but Yimt had gone into great detail about them so that there was no mistaking the nasty-looking things crawling toward them.

“Fire!”

Musket shot spewed out of barrels and raced across fifty yards to tear into rakke and korwird alike, blasting them apart in a mess of blood and chitinous plating. More arrows launched skyward and Visyna called up another wind, though not as strong as the last one. A soldier screamed and went down, his hands pressed over his hip where a black arrow had lodged, blood spurting between his fingers.

The scratch of Rallie’s quill across paper set a hum on the air, and more black arrows went wide of the mark. Konowa cursed. They were pinned down to the spot. They could hold off Her creatures, but there was no way to move forward. Dusk was already tinting the sky, elongating shadows on the ground.

“Colonel,” Major Alstonfar said, jogging up to crouch beside Konowa. He was sweating and breathing heavy, but he sounded calm and in control. “The men are doing a superlative job, but at this rate of fire they’ll expend their ammunition in the next half hour. I’ve ordered them to wait until they have a clear shot, but that will only buy us a little more time.”

Konowa reached out and patted the man on the shoulder, taking his hand back quickly as frost fire began to burn on Pimmer’s uniform. To his credit, Pimmer simply brushed the fire out with his hand. A rumbling roar came from somewhere up the mountain. Whatever it was, it was coming this way. “Tell the men to fix bayonets.”

“What is it?” Pimmer asked.

“No idea, but it won’t be pleasant,” Konowa answered, sprinting away to check on Rallie and Visyna. The women had taken up station behind a large boulder and were continuing to aid the regiment. Visyna was leaning against the rock, her hands trembling as she weaved. Rallie was crouched down by her side, a large sheaf of paper resting on a thigh as her quill flew across the page. “Do you know what’s coming?”

Both women shook their heads, too busy to speak as they concentrated on their magic. The hairs on Konowa’s arms stood up and a trickle of cold sweat raced down his spine. He turned and ran back toward the line, growing all the more frustrated that he had no good plan about what to do next. Were this any other battle, he’d order a tactical withdrawal to a more defensible location, but that wasn’t an option, not here, not when he was so close.

The rumbling grew louder. Konowa unsheathed his saber, the frost fire sparkling along the blade at once.

“Steady now,” Yimt ordered, moving behind the line and offering encouragement to the troops. His drukar was clenched in his right fist, and like Konowa’s saber, sparked with black frost.

A long, guttural scream was answered by a dozen more, and a pack of misshapen dyre wolves bounded from among the sarka har and raced toward the Iron Elves. Each wolf was easily the size of Jir, but where the bengar was sleek muscle, fluid movement, and controlled violence, these creatures were starvation thin and ran with a stilted, drunklike gait. A sickly yellow foam drooled from their muzzles filled with serrated teeth and black pus oozed from their milky white eyes.

Before the order to fire could be given, Tyul sprang up from the rocks and moved in front of the firing line and began loosing arrows at the wolves. Four went down in a matter of seconds, but not even the elf’s lightning-fast reflexes could take them all before they reached the line.

“Tyul! Get the hell out of there!” Konowa shouted, running forward.

Tyul never turned, but continued to fire arrow after arrow as the wolves bore down on him. When the creatures were only a few yards away the twang of many bowstrings reached Konowa’s ears. Arrows whistled past his head, between the Iron Elves, and struck the wolves in mid-jump. The bodies fell and slid along the ground and stopped just inches from where Tyul stood.

Konowa turned. Elves of the Long Watch emerged from the shadows, their bows still active as they engaged Her elves and the rakkes and korwirds. Jurwan walked among them, still as serene as if he were out for a walk on a warm, summer day.

“Father?” Konowa shouted.

“The elves of the Long Watch may not listen to the advice of another elf,” Jurwan said, “but when their own Wolf Oaks saw the rightness of aiding you, they felt compelled to help.”

More rakkes appeared among the trees, their gibbering calls growing in intensity. Konowa knew he had to act now.

“Tell them thanks!” he shouted, and turn and ran back to the line. “Major, fix bayonets and on my order, wheel right and clear that line of trees. The elves will cover you. Once you’ve secured that find cover and keep them busy.”

Pimmer nodded. “And you, Colonel?”

“Just see that it’s done.”

Pimmer saluted and passed along the order to Yimt.

A volley of Long Watch arrows cleared the woods for twenty yards. The Iron Elves stood up and charged, their bayonets ablaze with frost fire. Any rakke or korwird in their path was stabbed to death. The few remaining dark elves stepped forward to plug the gap, but those not killed by the Long Watch fell to the blade of Tyul. The elf slid between tree and elf, slashing and stabbing with an economy of movement and absolute precision. Konowa could have watched him all day, but already a new pack of dyre wolves was racing through the sarka har and more rakkes were massing.

Konowa ran past the soldiers. He spied Yimt and slowed. “I’ll be back,” Konowa shouted over his shoulder, running up the path. He looked down at his saber as he ran. Stygian black frost crackled along the length of the blade.

A black blur preceded him up the path and took a rakke by the throat, shaking the beast so hard the head ripped off. Jir dropped the body and launched himself at the next beast, swiping his claws at its thighs and quickly pouncing on its chest when the creature screamed and fell. A moment later there was a snap and the screaming stopped.

Konowa leaped over Jir and kept running. It was his turn now.

He wasn’t sure how many rakkes and dark elves and other creatures crossed his path. He slashed and stabbed as he ran, ignoring the arrows that flew past his head and the claws that tried to rip his face. The frost fire arced out from him like lightning, striking creatures five and ten yards away from him. Soon, he had no need to swing his saber at all. As the sun dipped below the mountain and darkness settled in, he followed the path by the light of his own black flame.

He was well into the thorny thicket of Her forest at the very peak of the mountain before he realized it. He’d expected a ferocious response, but the sarka har here could only flail in mad desperation. He pushed his way through, destroying the blood trees with sturdy swipes of his saber. Instead of feeling emboldened, he grew increasingly cautious. It was a trick, it had to be. The Shadow Monarch was too powerful. Her forest and Her creatures couldn’t be dying, because if they were dying. . Rallie might be right.

He paused, breathing in the cold air. He watched his breath mist in front of him. It doesn’t matter! You came here to end this. End this!

Konowa stood up straight and gripped the pommel of his saber so hard that black flame shot twenty feet in the air from the end of it. He slashed through the last ring of trees and emerged on the rocky summit where the Shadow Monarch knelt by Her Silver Wolf Oak.

The power here was caustic. The acorn against his chest flared, driving needles of cold deep into his heart. He coughed, breathing in the mix of cold, toxic magic permeating the surrounding rocks. The ground beneath his