Ferrian's Winter

A freezing storm, a clash of blades

Silvered hope and blackened rage.

The silvertine blade impacted with a searing burst of rainbow-tinted light, and a shower of sparks that swirled away into the raging gloom.

Ferrian pulled back.

Hawk stood before him, lowering the sword made of pure light that had appeared in his hand just as Ferrian had struck.

Ferrian was incandescent with fury; fire and frost roiling within him, combined into monstrous power. The Winter howled around him, the snow turned to chips of lethal ice. Raising his left hand, the young sorcerer sent them whirling at his opponent.

The shards hammered against Hawk's armour, but the man did not flinch. He stood tranquil beneath the barrage, as though amid glittering summer rain.

Ferrian screamed.

Nothing else existed but the need to destroy this man, this… Godlike man…! Ferrian was a force of nature, he WAS the WINTER, he was the controller of destinies!

He would suffer no other to be his equal!

I am a God, I am the only God, I have claimed the power that underpins all of creation, and NO ONE will take it from me!!

Hawk gazed back at him, forgiveness swimming in his eyes.

Ferrian screamed again. Pain lanced through his heart, as though he had been struck with the sword of light, though Hawk had not moved. The pain spread slowly through his limbs.

Hawk's eyes held him, bored into him, flooded him with truth and understanding…

Memories assaulted Ferrian then, each one stunning him like a series of physical blows:

… I'm Sergeant Hawk of the Freeroamers… Commander Trice sent me to find you…

… Well then! He gave Ferrian a smile, clapping a hand on the boy's shoulder. There's some hope, eh?

… The dagger came free, flying past Ferrian and narrowly missing Hawk, embedding itself in the gate. Hawk leapt away, almost falling over. Great Goddess! Be careful with that thing…

… The Freeroamer stumbled into the clearing, wobbling on his feet. He tossed Ferrian the Sword of Frost. Cool sword…

… Hawk gaped. What the hell did you learn down there?! Ferrian gave him a smile and shrugged nonchalantly. A few things…

… Unable to bring his sword around in time, Hawk lifted his left arm, trying to protect his face with his gauntlet…

Ferrian reeled backwards. "Hawk!" he gasped.

He swayed, buffeted from all directions by the magic of his Sword, the magic of the Winter, and Hawk's Light, at the mercy of immense, unstoppable powers he could not control…

Hawk did nothing. He continued to stand in peaceful silence, radiant in the storm, with his grand wings and sword made of sunlight.

Then he held out a hand.

Everything's fine… His smiling expression seemed to say. You don't need to fight me…

"I don't… I don't want to fight you… Hawk…"

The light in Ferrian's eyes flickered. His thoughts were scattered, whirling in confusion. He was filled with pain, and it seemed to be coming from himself. Tears were frozen to his face. Grief and relief took turns ripping at his heart…

Hesitantly, he took a step forward.

The terrible power of his Sword surged back into him with a force that made him stagger, his Godlike self furiously determined to seize control. Black mist thrashed around his arm like a frenzied snake. Silver mist streamed off his Sword towards Hawk.

The anger returned, explosively, like fuel poured on a bonfire.

He lifted his head, his eyes blazing once more. "I don't want to fight you," he snarled, "but you need to DIE!!"

His Sword came around in a silver-black blaze, smashing down on Hawk.

Once again, the sword of light came up to meet it, parrying Ferrian's blow effortlessly.

Ferrian was thrown back, but attacked again, and again, slashing vicious blows at Hawk, hurling the Winter at him with all the force he could muster, but all to no effect.

He hammered at the wraith, leaving nothing back, crying out his rage and despair. Light and mist and sparks and ice flew around them both.

And then, finally, Hawk attacked him back.

He lunged at Ferrian, with strikes that were strong and quick and efficient. Hawk was an experienced soldier, and Ferrian was not. Despite his Godlike power, Ferrian found himself instantly outmatched.

Hawk blocked every one of his blows, and returned them, and Ferrian was forced to defend himself.

The Angel-wraith pressed him backwards with a series of expert sweeps. The Winter battered uselessly against his silvertine armour, which shifted and swam into new, exquisite forms as he moved. Hawk was lean and lithe, moving with liquid grace as though the storm gave him energy rather than slowing him down. Ferrian's body, in contrast, was beginning to give out, his limbs rebelling at his torturous commands, his swings becoming clumsy and desperate, his blade barely able to fend off Hawk's attacks…

He staggered from a parry, and almost fell.

Light flashed towards him, and Ferrian was too slow.

The sun-blade ran him through.

His Godlike power collapsed, his silver vision disintegrated. His remaining magic drained away to nothing.

The mists twining from his Sword evaporated.

Slowly, Ferrian sank to his knees.

The Winter fell quiet and a sudden, deep hush descended upon the street. The grey light of dawn began to find its way through the dissipating fog.

Snowflakes continued to fall, softly now, like feathers.

It doesn't hurt, Ferrian thought in wonder, looking up into Hawk's eyes. There was only a warm, blissful carelessness that smoothed away all feeling. A sense that all was right again…

For the first time in Ferrian's life, he truly felt at peace. There was no need to fight any more – not against Hawk, or wraiths; not against himself, nor the Winter. He gazed at Hawk with gratitude.

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His friend smiled back at him with calm reassurance. There was a twinkle of familiar mischief in his brown eyes, as though they were only play-fighting, as though the blade of light impaling him was make-believe…

Ferrian's hand still held his own Sword, limply now, in the snow. His fingers began to slide from the handle, loosening their grip…

Death was not a place of darkness… but infinite light…

A high, keening sound filled the air, strangely metallic, like a blade being drawn down a harpstring. The Sword beneath his numbed fingers trembled.

Hawk blinked, slowly. Taking his eyes away from Ferrian, he looked down at it.

The sound increased to a shriek. The Sword shuddered like a thing alive.

A final burst of light flashed down the blade. Then it sprang off the snow like a leaping fish, twisting in the air…

There was a metallic chink, and something black lashed out, like a claw…

It struck Hawk's breastplate with a wailing, blinding clash, but ricocheted off.

Hawk staggered slightly. His sword of light vanished, and his glorious wings faded into mist and wafted away. His armour ceased to decorate itself and its light dimmed until there was nothing but cold, hard, silver metal.

A perplexed look came over his features.

The warmth that had bathed Ferrian rapidly seeped from his body. The peace and light and truth that had been promised him retreated, fleeing from his reaching grasp.

No…!

Something else rushed forth to replace it.

A dark, insidious coldness, like the depths of a dank well…

His head felt too heavy, and overwhelming pain was beginning to rip through him now, so much pain that he could no longer breathe.

With shadows creeping around the edges of his vision, he looked down.

There should have been a fatal wound where Hawk had stabbed him. His clothing should have been covered in blood.

There was nothing there.

Of… course not, he realised dimly. Hawk… is my friend. He… wouldn't hurt me…

But there was something else. The source of the pain…

A black shard was embedded in his left shoulder. A bloody stain was spreading there, through his silver-embroidered jacket.

The pain became so great that it turned into numbness, a freezing cold emptiness that burrowed down through his skin and muscles, and upwards into his brain, leaving him paralysed.

Ferrian had no will left to resist it. And no magic could defend against this.

He was no God.

He wasn't even a fool.

He was nothing.

The trigon seized hold of Ferrian's mind and dragged him down with it into a terrible abyss, and he couldn't even scream.

Flint was on his feet and running, even before Ferrian fell.

Throwing his crossbow away, he sprinted towards the young man, heedless of Hawk still standing, mute, gazing down at him.

"Ah, Gods! No!" Flint cried, sliding to his knees at Ferrian's side.

He took the young sorcerer's face in his hands, but his silver eyes were lifeless, like polished metal.

Something broke within Flint.

He stared down at the dagger in disbelieving horror. "Not again!" he gasped, and a scream of anguish burst from his lungs. "NOT… AGAIN!!"

Lady Araynia, the thought sliced through his panic, like a crystalline shard. Get him to her. NOW.

Gastan had wandered over and was standing a few yards away, staring at the scene in dumb shock.

"GET HIS SWORD!" Flint screamed at him.

Not waiting to see if the thief obeyed him, and completely ignoring Hawk, who was standing, equally motionless, behind him, Flint scooped Ferrian up in his arms and started running.

Or tried to. The deep blanket of snow impeded his progress. He stumbled on buried objects – some of them bodies, he was sure. In his peripheral vision, doors and shutters cracked open, pale faces peering warily out into the lightening street.

He barely noticed them.

Blood soaked into his Freeroamer uniform and leaked down Ferrian's arm, running off his fingers. It dripped onto the snow, leaving a trail behind them.

Flint struggled onwards, his heart hammering frantically in his head, so loud that he could hear nothing but the hot rush of his own blood.

Get him to the Lady. Get him to the Lady…

But doubts were beginning to twist his strength away.

She's not Lord Requar. She's never attempted to cure trigon. She doesn't even have the Sword of Healing with her!

Flint shook with growing panic. He pushed through the snow with increased fury…

Memories rose unbidden, as though to taunt him; memories that he had tried hard to forget.

Lord Requar lay on the polished white marble floor, this very same dagger lodged in his chest. Arzath attempted to pull it out, and Flint helped him…

Blood everywhere. Arzath screamed. The dagger came free. Black tentacles whipped about, piercing the sorcerer's hands, infecting him as well…

Flint collapsed to his knees in the snow, shattered. Ferrian tumbled from his grip.

Requar writhed and screamed on the bed, a mass of trigonic tentacles bursting from his chest. Arzath shrieked at Flint to shoot him with the Justifier…

His body heaved with sobs, tears flooding down his face.

Arzath clutched his brother's body to him in the middle of a wide, burned circle. The Sword of Healing was streaked with blood – it shouldn't have been like that, it was all wrong – Ferrian lay on the ground beside it. Alive, healed, somehow saved…

Arzath's wail was inhuman, like nothing Flint had ever heard, as though the man was being torn apart from the inside out…

Flint wanted nothing to do with these nightmarish recollections, had tried desperately over the years to bury them – and keep them buried. But now… now it was happening all over again. The same sequence of events. And once again, Flint was forced to be part of it, to be an unwilling player in its endless game of sadistic horror…

He shuddered with nausea. The city before him swam in his vision, bleak and pale, little more than snow-covered shapes. The hill where the Lady waited was too far. He couldn't make it. He felt so weak he couldn't stand. Perhaps it was too late, anyway. Perhaps it didn't even matter…

There was another keening sound, this one haunting and long and drawn-out, echoing off the city buildings and canyon walls, a cross between a musical instrument and a bird. A massive white shape burst through the cloud-cover, glittering and rippling with icy spikes and feathers and butterfly-like grace.

The White Dragon landed on the street in a shower of snow.

Flint raised his tear-streaked face to look at her, devastated. "Dragon…" he shook his head, his words strangled off by another sob.

The Dragon lifted a pearlescent paw and reached towards Flint.

The Freeroamer backed away hurriedly, for a fleeting moment hoping that she would kill him…

But the great claws closed gently, tenderly over Ferrian, careful to avoid touching the trigonic dagger. Her mournful silver eyes bore down on him.

"He may yet be saved," the Dragon spoke, in her slow, melodic voice. "Climb upon my back."

Flint shook his head again, in despair. "C-can't. Still gotta find the Eliminator. Otherwise… all of this was for nothin."

The Dragon continued to stare at him for a long, profound moment. Then she gathered her Human son against her chest, turned away and launched herself into the air. Her huge wings carried her over the city in a couple of powerful beats, and in seconds she had disappeared back into the ragged clouds and was gone.

Gastan stared down at the extraordinary Sword in his hands. He had been loath to pick it up, but the magic seemed to be spent. No mist curled from the blade, though it shone with its own inherent silvertine gleam. The metal was clean and sharp, looking as though it could cut a man's soul into ribbons.

He had never seen such a blade before, but he had heard plenty of legends and tavern tales that described such a thing. It was one of the Swords of the Gods – a weapon that the sorcerers of old had carried with them as symbols of status and as objects of power. There was a museum in Sunsee that held fragments of such Swords – melted, twisted relics from the destroyed School of Magical Studies. But since the Age of Sorcerers had passed, very few people had laid eyes upon an intact one.

The Sword of the Gods, he thought, shivering. An apt name…

It was an unusual, exquisite thing, with its finely-wrought black and white snakes. It was expertly crafted, with a pleasing heft to it that was lighter than it seemed for such a long blade. This one contained no gemstones, but instead a curious indentation in the hilt.

A space that had, for some unfathomable reason, held something black and deadly that had sprung out and treacherously stabbed its wielder.

Fear and disgust almost caused him to drop it again, but the beauty and rarity of the Sword stopped him.

Gastan couldn't help thinking how much such an object would be worth, to the right buyer…

He licked dry, frozen lips. Then he realised that someone was staring at him.

It was the silver-clad man. No light emanated from him now, and Gastan felt no odd compulsions towards him, other than a lingering terror.

He stumbled quickly away.

But something made him hesitate.

The man's lips were moving. He looked as though he was struggling to say something.

Gastan lingered, morbidly curious.

"I…" the man whispered, with great effort. "I… kn… knnnnoooow… hiiiimmm…" He was frowning at the Sword that Gastan clutched protectively. Then, slowly, he lifted his own gauntleted hands and gazed down at them. Light flickered and faded in his eyes like embers failing to ignite. "Who… a… a… aaammm… I?"

Gastan swallowed. "Ah…" he said, looking around himself as though someone else could answer. People were beginning to venture out of the buildings now, tentatively. Most of them were looking his way.

He remembered something that Sergeant Flint had said. "I… I think your name might be Hawk?" He gave the man a nervous smile. "A fine name. Yes, a fine, noble name. Hawk. Pleased to meet you!" Lifting his hat, he gave a swift bow. "Good day!"

Then he whirled and fled.

He had just made it to the Golden Gates when he noticed someone trudging towards him, back along the blood-speckled path he had already carved through the snow.

A stocky man in a black and blue uniform, his face lowered beneath a large hat.

A man with a lit cigarette wedged in the side of his mouth, trailing smoke.

With a gasp, Gastan stopped and spun so quickly that he slipped on the crushed ice and fell on his face. The Sword dropped from his grip into a snowdrift.

Frantically, he scrabbled to his feet and dug in the snow for the Sword, but two heavy boots crunched to his side and halted.

A fist curled into his shirt and dragged him to his feet.

"You and me," Flint growled, "are gonna find the Eliminator." He yanked the thief so close that their hats were touching. Red-rimmed hazel eyes burned into Gastan's. "Or die tryin'!"