Ferrian's Winter

To forge ahead, to shun the light

The gloom a shield against the bright.

A blue cloak emblazoned with the black wing-and-rose insignia of the Sirinese Empire whirled through the tent like a hurricane, from one side to the other, and back again.

"A wraith, you say?!"

"Yes, my Lord." Rose was calm again, perched on a stool, gazing weirdly upwards at the shadows pooled against the canvas ceiling.

General Pine was furious. "The Redwicks were supposed to be taking measures to ensure that this did not happen!"

"It was not a wraith of darkness," the Angel woman replied mysteriously. "It was a wraith of hope."

"What the Gods is that supposed to mean?"

"Silvertine," she whispered.

Pine stopped his pacing and stared at her. "Silvertine? A silvertine wraith? That is ridiculous!"

Rose slowly turned her strange pink eyes toward him, but said nothing.

Pine spun away and slammed his gauntleted hand on his desk, but his anger cooled quickly as his mind raced ahead to solutions.

He knew better than to question Rose Rex; she was never wrong. The fact that neither she or anyone else had ever mentioned such a thing as silvertine wraiths to him before was baffling and infuriating, but so be it. Why it existed was less important than how to get rid of it.

He rubbed at his creased forehead in consternation. He had effectively imprisoned the esteemed Redwick family inside their own city. Lieutenant Driffin had informed him that Lord Malvern, the youngest son of the Redwick family, had arrived at the gates amid the commotion, and had stood shouting abuse through them to all and sundry for approximately an hour. Apparently, he was less than impressed at Pine's decision to have his own Imperial soldiers seize control of the gatehouse.

He was even more outraged to learn that a wraith had infiltrated his city.

But the General refused to make concessions. He couldn't afford to let anyone out, not even the Redwicks, until he understood the situation better, and had determined who was infected, and with what.

The General closed his eyes, thinking hard.

Silvertine weapons had proved effective for vanquishing trigonic demon-wraiths, hence the reason his entire army was outfitted, at huge expense, with silvertine weapons and armour. But, according to Rose, that wasn't what they were dealing with here.

A silvertine wraith? How would such a thing be defeated? With weapons made of trigon??

The terrible black substance known as trigon could typically be found locked away in a vast reservoir at the bottom of the Angel's Holy Tower, Caer Sync. The same Tower that had, according to recent, horrifying reports – including one from Arkana's Governor herself – inexplicably fallen. These accounts were vague on how, exactly, this impossible event had happened, but it seemed as though Arkana was now inaccessible, and the city of Fleetfleer, and the magnificent Tower that had stood guard over it for millennia, utterly destroyed.

News of this calamity had haunted Pine throughout the four dismally-long weeks of his journey west, overland from Trystania to Bridgetown; he had lost many nights of sleep over it. He had left the Twin Emperors distraught, the whole of Siriaza in mourning and court officials scrambling to figure out how to re-home thousands of incoming displaced Angels.

But Pine couldn't afford the luxury of rumination or despair, or worry over refugees. He had a mission to carry out – he was to take the Imperial Army and eradicate the demon-wraiths from Daroria. The Emperors wouldn't officially accept the territory as their own until this was accomplished. Every last demon-wraith had to be removed; the land had to be made safe.

So Pine had shouldered aside his anxiety, burdening himself with logistics instead.

And now, all of his careful planning had collapsed in a heap, barely two steps inside the city of Bridgetown, as a brand new threat rose up to face him.

He hadn't even made it across the border, yet.

Trigonic weapons, he thought, shaking his head in irony.

Trigonic weapons and armour had been the downfall of General Dreikan and his entire Darorian Army.

But Arkana had not been the source for those…

Queen Minoa had given up control of the Middle Isle some time ago, after the Aegis had fallen and the Dragons escaped, and most of her army turned into wraiths. The Emperors had already taken it, and mining operations had been relocated to a different part of the island, far away from the sinister black well that the Darorian Army had ignorantly uncovered. Excited research had been undertaken over this well, and scholars now agreed that it was likely the site of one of the long-missing Ancient Towers, similar in construction to Caer Sync. Apparently, five of these had originally stood upon five different continents around Arvanor.

The well had since been sealed again, but there were likely still a number of trigonic items left lying about, as the Imperial troops had been strictly warned not to touch anything.

Gods, Pine thought, going cold to his bones. Dare he outfit his own soldiers with trigonic weapons, considering the horrific fate that had befallen Dreikan's troops?

No, he thought, sickened. Only as a last resort…

What then?

Magic?

He rubbed his chin. "What of that sorcerer," he mused aloud, finally, half to himself. He tapped the table with a metallic finger. "The one that was said to bring Winter wherever he goes. He supposedly killed a Dragon-wraith with a magical Sword? Is he a legend, or is he real?"

Silence filled the tent. Pine glanced over his shoulder at Rose, who was looking directly at him, unblinking, head cocked unnervingly to the side, as though she had just read all of his thoughts, like a book.

He shivered involuntarily.

"I cannot say, my Lord," the Angel murmured.

Pine glanced up at his Lieutenant, stationed by the door flaps. "Driffin?"

The burly man shrugged. "Heard of 'im," he grunted. "He's real enough. Supposed to live in a castle in the Barlakk Mountains. Some folk say he's rebuildin' the School of Magical Studies." He scowled disapprovingly.

Pine considered.

"Send word to the nearest outpost, and all major cities in Daroria. The Winter Sorcerer is needed at Bridgetown, immediately, by urgent request of the Empire." He hesitated. "There will be hefty compensation."

Driffin's scowl remained in place, his thoughts on the use of magic plain to read upon his face. His mouth drooped into his voluminous beard. "Sir. You sure you wanna involve this… upstart sorcerer?"

"Have you a better idea?"

"Yeah," Driffin growled. "I take me mace an' I smash it into this glowy thing's face."

Pine sighed. "And you think silvertine weapons will be effective?"

The Lieutenant shrugged again. "Only one way to find out."

Pine pinched the bridge of his nose. "I admire your enthusiasm, Driffin, but I'd rather not take the risk. I need someone who… knows what they are talking about."

The big man sniffed indignantly, and nodded at Rose. "An' what about her?"

The General leaned against the desk, putting a hand on his hip, regarding the Angel woman. "Rose," he said. "Tell me about silvertine wraiths."

The Angel was staring off in a random direction, as though she had forgotten that anyone else was in the room. Sighing, she closed her eyes, smiling slightly. "Oh," she breathed, placing a hand against her chest. "What a lovely death…"

Pine turned pointedly back to his Lieutenant.

Grumbling, Driffin turned to leave. "Yes, Sir." He hesitated halfway out the flap. "What should I set the reward at?"

General Pine stared back at him, his dark blue eyes intense. "He can name his price."

* * *

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The cobbled highway known as The Line stretched away, still and silent, empty and straight in the strange, moonless night. As evening fell, a thick fog crept stealthily out of the Chasm, enshrouding the bridge-locked city, the mountains beyond, the plains, canyon, forest and stars until everything vanished in a damp, chilly, gauzy haze. Hawk's Light penetrated the murk but was now diffused, lighting up the way ahead with an unsettling glow.

Paradoxically, the light welcomed the soul with a kind of wistful, melancholy warmth, like sunlight viewed through misted glass from within a dark room; a promise of happiness, brightness, freedom, an end to the coldness of an oppressive life.

Ferrian fought to remind himself that the light was not a beacon but a warning; that it signified terrible danger, though every instinct tried to convince him otherwise.

It's Hawk! his own thoughts whispered quietly, insistently. Hawk, within that light! Your friend, remember? How long has it been since you've seen him, spoken to him, heard his laugh? There's so much to talk about, and he's just there, up ahead, waiting to greet you…

He swept the thoughts away. No! It isn't Hawk. Not really. Just a warped version of him, like Carmine, bending the world to his will…

Keeping an iron grip on his apprehension, he kept his gaze fixed upon the road before him, lowered to the smooth, worn stones. His Sword remained firmly sheathed on his back, an unwanted weight; he refused to touch it again unless he had to.

We go into the city, he told himself. We get the Eliminator. We get out.

We stay away from Hawk.

He repeated the words to himself, like a mantra.

Sergeant Flint trudged along beside him, his shadowed face, beneath his hat, as black and stony as Arzath's old keep, his small crossbow loaded and held ready in one hand -- ineffectual though it was -- and a travel lantern borrowed from Lieutenant Tander in the other.

After their conversation, the Freeroamer had simply set off walking towards Bridgetown, eschewing any further discussion, and Ferrian had been forced to run hard to catch up with him. Neither of them had spoken again, neither feeling any need to explain, both just striding together towards the city.

The White Dragon could have taken them easily over the walls, of course, but Ferrian had insisted that she stay well away. Two of their party venturing into the haunted city was bad enough; no one else was to risk their life. The Dragon was to stay behind and watch over the others.

The Dragon had simply stared at her Human son without comment, her huge silver eyes reflecting the grey, waning light, her thoughts on the matter, as they so often were, a mystery to him.

But he knew that she would be there the instant Ferrian found himself in danger.

The shapes of abandoned carts and wagons materialised out of the mist on every side, standing haphazardly about on the road, all of them still laden with goods, and many with animals still tethered to them. Eerily, most of the beasts had fallen quiet, heads turning to stare at the two men as they passed. Ferrian encountered a donkey straining at its reins in desperation – it had been hitched to the railing of a nearby cart.

Ferrian stopped walking. For a moment he hesitated, hand wavering near the hilt of his Sword, then, clenching his jaw, quickly drew the blade and sliced with a single motion through the animal's restraint.

The donkey leapt forward at once, almost knocking Ferrian over, and charged away, braying, up the road, in the direction of the light.

"Wait… no!" Ferrian cried in sudden dismay.

Apparently, animals were affected by the wraith as well.

He cursed.

Flint forged on ahead, his cloak swirling the mist in his wake, neither pausing or slowing his pace, ignoring both Ferrian and the galloping animal. The light was becoming gradually more intense the closer they came to the city. Thoughts of Hawk whispered tantalisingly at the edge of Ferrian's consciousness. He took a deep breath, using his magical training to remain focussed, to ignore them. He remembered his mantra.

We're here for the Eliminator, not Hawk.

He hurried after Flint, who had almost disappeared into the fog.

Catching up to the Freeroamer, he reached out and gripped the man's arm. "Flint, wait a moment."

To his relief, Flint stopped, and for the first time, stared at him.

"There's no need to go through the gates," Ferrian explained, shaking his head. "Unless you want to… climb over a pile of bodies." He swallowed. Then he pointed with his Sword to Flint's left, to the north, where the bulk of a huge dark tower was just visible, rising through the fog. "My Sword can cut through stone just as easily as steel. I think we should go in that way. We should avoid the main street if we can."

Flint said nothing, but after a moment gave a brief, single nod.

They headed in that direction without delay, hurrying off The Line and onto the broken rock of the plateau. The ground here was made of smooth, pitted rocky slabs littered with crushed stone amid sharp-edged boulders sticking up like shards at all angles. There was little vegetation save for clumps of prickly bushes and ground-hugging weeds.

They made quick passage. When they reached the shadow of the wall, coldness flooded over them, as though a smothering blanket had suddenly dropped away.

Ferrian gulped a breath of the damp air in relief. As cloying as it was, the cool, misty darkness felt like a fresh breeze. He noticed Flint react the same way.

They spent a few seconds recovering from the effects of the wraith-light, then proceeded onwards.

They reached the watchtower a minute or two later. It was constructed of massive blocks of reddish-coloured stone which looked grey in the darkness. The base was rounded and slanted upwards into a vertical, smooth-walled tower around sixty feet high, protruding from the curtain wall. Its girth was pocked with black arrow-slits.

Ferrian and Flint stared warily upwards at the tower, and the wall, but could see no guards. No flicker of torch or lantern could be seen upon the parapets or within the tower.

Nothing moved, save the glowing mist rolling over the battlements.

Ferrian used a Mind Sweep, a quick wave of his magic to be sure no archers were spying on them from within the tower.

He saw no sign of life, save a few tiny glowing specks of mice, and a huddle of brooding pigeons far up in the eaves.

He kept the use of his magic as localised as possible, not wishing to alert Hawk to their presence, and also not wanting to accidentally catch a glimpse of the wraith through his mind-sight, which could be dangerous.

Ferrian wasn't exactly sure where Hawk was, but from the direction of the light, he seemed to be somewhere in the centre of the city, perhaps on the Bridge itself. If he and Flint kept to the back streets, and stayed in the shadows as much as possible, and avoided going onto the Bridge…

And when they reached the silvertine smith?

Ferrian swallowed, shaking his head. He didn't want to think that far ahead. Not yet.

This is madness, he thought, not for the first time.

He took another deep breath. "Flint," he said, because he had to try, one last time. "It's not too late to change your mind. If you could just wait until I've dealt with Hawk, then finding your crossbow would be a whole lot easier…"

His voice trailed off. Flint's expression was a match for his name.

Ferrian sighed. Lifting his Sword, he plunged it into the stone.

Creating an entrance through the tower took more time and effort than Ferrian had anticipated. His blade sliced through the stone with ease and did not blunt, but the wall at the base of the tower was at least twelve feet thick and there was a lot of material to move. He cut away at it while Flint moved broken chunks of stone aside.

By the time he finally broke through into the pitch-black chamber beyond, he was tired, sweating and covered in stone dust. He slumped against the inner wall, panting and rubbing at his aching shoulder. Flint pushed his way through the passage, dislodging more stone, his lantern sending shadows fleeing everywhere.

Ferrian could have summoned an icelight, but he preferred to conserve what energy he had left, and he wasn't sure how Hawk would react to the use of magic.

Flint stumbled into the chamber and lifted the lantern to reveal the room they were in.

It appeared to be a disused storage room, crowded with old crates, mouldy sacks, furniture, broken cartwheels and some rusted weapons, all covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. A set of stone stairs spiralled upwards into darkness. On the far wall, a heavy, ironbound wooden door stood closed.

Flint moved over to it at once, winding and shoving his way through the junk, but the door proved to be locked, and rusted in place. With a grunt of irritation, he stood aside, waiting for his Sword-wielding companion to provide the way out.

Ferrian pushed himself away from the wall, but did not proceed to the door. Instead, he lowered himself onto a pile of decaying sacks.

Flint gave another growl of impatience. "You gonna get us outta here, or what?"

Ferrian leaned his Sword carefully against a rotting cartwheel, then sat forward with his arms resting on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. He did not look at Flint. "Not until you tell me what's wrong," he replied quietly.

Flint glared at him. "The hell are you talkin' about? I came here to get the Eliminator back, and that's what I'm doin'! Didn't ask no-one to come with me!"

Ferrian stared down at his hands unhappily. "But this is about more than just the Eliminator, isn't it?"

Flint scowled back at him.

Ferrian took a deep breath and let it out again, slowly. "I know that you blame yourself for Lord Requar's death," he said frankly.

Silence dropped between them, like a brick.

After a long, strained moment, Flint came forward a few steps. Ferrian looked up to see that the Freeroamer's face was pale in the dim lantern-light, looking first stunned, then furious, his hazel eyes flashing with reflected firelight. "And what would you know about it?!" He was almost shouting, now.

Ferrian was taken aback by the outburst, but nevertheless met the other man's angry glare. His own silver gaze was bleak. "Because I know what it feels like!" he retorted. "You think his death was your fault," he continued, "because you wrote his name on a crossbow bolt and gave it to him. Because you undid Arzath's spell. Because you made Requar remember what he had done to himself!"

He shook his head. "But he didn't kill himself because of you, Flint. He killed himself because of me!" He took a breath, closing his eyes against a sudden prickling of tears. "He sacrificed his life to save mine, because I was dead and he believed that my life was worth more than his. And he would have done that regardless of what you did – whether you told him the truth or not, whether you showed him the bolt or not; it wouldn't have mattered. There was nothing you could have said or done to change anything."

Flint continued to glare at him, but the fire gradually waned. Then all of a sudden he seemed to sag into himself, deflated. Turning, he slumped against the wall beside the door.

He still held his crossbow in one hand, the lantern in the other, both now held loosely at his sides, as though he no longer possessed the will even to lift them.

"Maybe I didn't wanna come back," he admitted from beneath his hat, and half-shrugged a shoulder. "A peaceful death don't seem like the worst way to go."

Ferrian swallowed against the ache in his throat, and blinked at the tears that still quivered at the corners of his eyes. He looked at Flint in sympathy.

Flint set the lantern down on a crate, and rubbed at his face with his hand, perhaps to hide his own emotion. He sniffed a few times, and brushed at his nose. "Damned unkillable bastard," he muttered. Ferrian caught a glimmer of wetness on his cheek, before he swiped it away. "An' now he's gone and trapped himself inside his own Sword? Hah!" Flint snorted a macabre laugh.

Wiping away his own tears, Ferrian snuffed a laugh of his own, at the absurdity of it, at the joy that some part of Lord Requar was still, improbably alive, at the relief that the tension between himself and Flint had finally abated.

Taking a breath, he started to reply to the Freeroamer, then stopped. Instead, he got to his feet and retrieved his Sword. For a moment he stood staring down its long, wicked length, at the twin snakes curled, paralysed, around the blade, at the loathsome black slash embedded in the hilt.

"No," he said simply.

Flint looked across at him, perplexed.

Hand tightening around the handle, Ferrian made his way around the clutter until he reached the door.

"Requar…" he hesitated. "My father thinks he is imprisoned inside the Sword of Healing. He thinks he's dead. Everyone does." Ferrian stared at the solid ironbound wood before him. Taking up his Sword in both hands, he swung it at the door – once, twice, the blade flashing in the lantern-light – and the pieces slid free and clattered loudly to the ground. Cool, misty air seeped into the musty confines of the storage room, and the eerie glowing sky was once again revealed.

"But I'm a sorcerer, now," Ferrian went on. "Just as much as Requar is. And he no longer gets to decide who lives and who dies."

He kicked at a piece of the door left clinging to the frame, unintentionally putting a little too much force into the blow, sending the fragment flying out into the open space beyond, skittering on the cobblestones, leaving a trail of glittering frost in its wake. Taking a deep breath, Ferrian stepped over the wreckage, out into the haunted, light-streaked darkness of the city.

Under his breath, he murmured: "I do."