(USFB): Twenty-Five: Winds of Winters Past

Luck had graced the foxes more than they could ever know. That much was clear as their Northern neighbors made their way to the half-concealed entry that served as the main furrowfare to Seras. Night had swept in, and the lack of fire inspired confidence that the village was still free and clear of violence. There were those nominal lights, candles and lanterns in homes and that great ray projecting from the temple into the night sky like an arrow jutting from fresh flesh. Yet, that hope of finding Seras otherwise untouched came with a bitter truth. If the foxes had yet to be molested by the Legion, despite likely being scouted by another silent cell no one intervened on, there would be much work at paw.

Following in the path of serendipitous fortune, Jemine stood watch at the entrance, though this time seated silently in the guardhouse. As Razien and Gresh stepped within the limits of the village, the vixen stepped out with a lantern lifted. For all of a second, her muzzle was transfixed with a tight jaw, ready to bark condemnations at late visitors or threats at any vile villain that would come upon them in the dark. Yet, seeing that familiar coppery fur and, more importantly, the lynx beside Razien, she dropped any pretense of irritation and permitted a bow while keeping the lamp aloft. Furtively, she spat as though having mistaken nettles for food, “Salutations, near-kin from so afar. And gratitude, lady of the light, for your coming. What, might I ask, have you come to our humble village so late in the evening? Is there word of blood-cursed in the area?”

“It would be simpler were it only that much, Jemine. We must gather all we can, leave no one behind if at all possible, and flee,” Razien could see the woman’s heart sink in that notion alone, “Those scouts we eliminated were hardly the smallest piece of the coming swarm that presses even now on my people. They will come south, that much is without question. And like so many farmers west of the tower, they will run any who can out, and I care not think what will become of those who can not escape.”

“It is the dead of night! How should we even begin such an operation? Lady Sirian does not even have the ability to shine her radiance on our flight. Can it not be the morning as we take to the wind? Better still, could we not, with the help of the Cubs, defend Seras against this coming attack?”

“Friend,” Greshalin interrupted, “With all I can do, with all the Cubs, those from the west who’ve been put to the road, their own gifted gentleman, and even those who have come from afar to help have yet to do more than delay. Even with all our might, holding this village may be more than we can do. We can route them for a time, perhaps, and we could distract and delay, but we can not afford to hold one village against their might. But together, we could move everyone out of here to safety, outrace their army, and fortify another village, even Roya, to thwart them. I know what it sounds like, but if we don’t unite here, stay united and focused, these foreign killers won’t be broken until they meet the coast and find nothing more to be done.”

“I,” though the word came reflexively from Jemine, she could hardly follow them up so immediately. Without further thought, the fox swiveled on a heel and began down the lane at a jog. Razien could only guess she had many of the village elders to wake, as well as the Soweyn. It would be a struggle to get them to listen to either of the outsiders, even if one could work weaves of cold freely, but the ardent and recalcitrant had to be won over. Night would be well on its way, the moon hanging just out of reach overhead, but Razien was confident that they would see the light if Greshalin could use their holy lady as a means of argument. He leaned to spread his thought to the lynx when her paws suddenly grasped his shoulder, gripping with panic and pain.

A barely restrained cry slipped through her tight jaw as Greshalin twisted and flung her free paw from the earth to the sky. A barrier of chilling blue ice rose as a gate to the village, one they had sorely needed ever since its inhabitation. As she did so, Greshalin caught what Razien only guessed at, a thin dagger deflected by the sheer sheet of frost. She grimaced up at the wolf before indicating her side, the source of a sting she hadn’t the nerve to investigate. And as Razien peered to her flank, he found her apprehension wholly justified.

Sticking out from the space just above her hip was the handle of a blade, constructed of not only crude ore but some left to rust. It was clear whoever had hurled it at Greshalin had known how rough the safest point of their weapon was and wrapped it with a thin streamer of cloth. When Razien grasped the bound handle, he found more at play than just protection. The gritty, rough piece of iron slid free as though by design. As the wrappings slumped, it seemed to Razien that it was a blade composed of two parts rather than one solid mass. Holding the rough handle between the two of them, the wolf could speak no better than the lynx.

As Razien began to form apologies and nervous notions about how they would remove the edge from her, Greshalin ploughted on. She slapped a paw to her side, and though the cringe of agony nearly sent her sprawling to her unwounded half, she managed to keep afoot and impress weaves of chill into her muscles. The opening was closed, frozen like a stream in mid-Winter, but how long it would hold was anyone’s guess. By the time Greshalin had made it halfway down the path, knocking at every door as she passed, she had to reapply the technique twice. Before she had made it halfway down the street, Jemine returned and hurried to her.

The two met as Greshalin failed to steady herself against the next house in the line. Jemine lifted her, and as their gazes met, she was instantly redirected to the entrance, its barrier of ice beginning to fail. The wall was only meant to serve as a delay, that much was obvious, but even in the first minutes of its erection, it began to melt away enough to grant access. Razien was in the midst of handling one of the more petite soldiers capable of slipping through a low gap. His armor would have served him well if not for Razien’s accuracy with the spear. And though he drove the point through the man, looking for all the world like a coyote with fur colored in an utterly alien way, he was not the only Legionaire to slip past the block.

Greshalin pulled on Jemine to take back her attention, “There isn’t time now. Sound any and all alarms you have. Between Razi and me, we can hold them off while your people make it out.”

“Where are we to go?” Jemine half-whispered, frantic as now citizens from the first row of houses began to exit into the street.

Biting back a wave of nausea and pain, Gresh spat, “North. Cross the Camora and head north. If you are attacked, fall back to the territories held by the coyotes. Word has spread. Everyone knows what we fight now.”

There was no room to argue. Plainly as the blood spilt before the ice, there was an onslaught falling upon the trench of a village. As they stood, Jemine was too overwhelmed to call order over the panicking citizens. Greshalin tried to collect herself, the biting pain of the twisting shard dragging away any ounce of focus she held. Razien dispatched another soldier and took up the fallen man’s blade. The wave of harsh iron cried for blood, and despite his waryness of the gore, Razien obliged. From afar, foxes could see the red wolf grow all the more crimson in the piercing moonlight as more and more of the Legion tried to slither in where the meekest fighters had. Limbs were coming loose and those brazen enough to force a helmeted head through soon were without any apparatus of thought. The mutilation carried on but for only so long.

Between the steaming curtain that rose from the forming pools of dark fluid and the humidity of the Summer air, the wall of ice shivered, shook, shattered. Like so much glass, only denser for the force put upon it by Greshalin, the barrier exploded in all directions, cascading crystals and daggers upon both sides of the siege. Had any but Razien been in the scrapping distance, they likely would have found themselves as so many of the unexpecting soldiers on the far side, flayed by the ice. For his own part, the wolf had been merely lucky to only find himself flattened to his tail by a copious amount of ice.

Greshalin whirled, feeling the groan from her wound, the twisting of the blade that, like a serpent in water, surged its own course through her veins. There was a lull, a quiet that made for only a moment of peace. The Legion had fallen back, or whatever contingency of their forces that had come so far south. She could only conceive they attempted another route, but there was not any she knew beyond the cliff, which would serve only to vanquish anyone fool enough to descend. It was then Jemine seized the lynx’s arm.

Her resolve was clear now, worry wiped away, “How long can you hold this level?”

“Not long. Winter’s winds can only do so much in this season of heat, and Razi… How long do you need?”

“Only enough to clear out those who can not fight. I’ll call those I can to arms, and we will help cover the escape.”

“How?” Gresh put forth what felt an obvious question, “How could you push past them and expect your people to hold the street? There would be losses, great ones, on both sides.”

“Tunnels, we have tunnels that will get us beyond the village. But we need an opening to gather. Can you give us that?”

Dumbfounded, Greshalin nodded. She let Jemine part from her then and turned her attention once more on the opening in the path. Razien had pulled himself up but wasn’t fully erect yet. He looked distracted, as though he couldn’t keep his mind from studying his left side, which had taken the brunt of the impact. Gresh began down the lane, but the point of the knife left her clinging to the facades of every house along the strip. Before she could call out to the wolf, she saw that any injury he had would be superficial against the next turn of fate.

The shining carapaces of the foreign soldiers came again into light against the rays of moonshine. Where the remains of the ice barrier shown dully against the illumination, their battle-hardened shells were like the stars themselves. Their every movement was a clockwork of efficiency and deadly accuracy. Arrows sailed into the village from just over the row of homes Greshalin had used for support. Behind her, those rushing through the streets found their families cut in two or down even further. And as the bolts fell, Gresh knew little could be done. Worse still, the footmen were headed directly for Razien, who fought to get his left arm working, struggled to rise to his feet, and began to battle to keep his wits against pain and, moreso, the coming sweep of soldiers. But if it were all to fear, the edges of hungry iron and the fury of foreign adversaries, the wolf’s concerns would have been simple.

Bubbling like the stream beneath a fall, the river of blood, standing atop the soil like algae rather than sinking, started to form cohesive shapes. Razien let his arm flop, limp and possibly broken, as he sought the wide stroking blade he had procured and, in not finding that, one of his remaining spears. They too were buried under parts of the wall still diminishing beneath the heat of mid-Summer. The soldiers continued as though the blood were nothing to fear, and surely, with their every implement of war, no blood-cursed thing would be able to replace itself before being cut down entirely. However, Razien felt he might know their boldness then. They were not an army alone. They were bolstered by the wretched old sire of devils. In the service of the old blood, this Legion was bringing the whole world beneath them. Had he a single blade, a hammer, even a staff, Razien would have plunged through the blood into the arms of the oncoming enemies. But his fate would not be so simple.

A whirling mist of frost tickled his fur and clouded the path. As it struck the blood, the force behind it shivered against the chill. It would not be enough to stop the progression of Goredrinker’s assembly of a beast, but it forced his paw. The many shapes became one, albeit one that would stand at full height twice that of a man. Greshalin seized Razien’s shoulder and almost felt her jaw come loose had the wolf not realized in time who sought him. Painfully, both surging with hurts, she pulled him back as finally a thin herd, though still at least a score, of city defenders rose behind them, Jemine at their lead.

They stumbled into the newly formed line of defense and were supported a second before being consumed by it, pressed into the rear of the ranks. Greshalin fell to her tail while Razien kept his feet and watched as the invaders pushed to the wave dividing them. He expected what had been before in too many encounters with the Goredrinker and his ilk. Without losing much mass, he could outfit them with armor of hardened black blood that would do little more than splinter at contact with a blade and fill wounds should the wearer be opened. The demon could forge their tools into crimson-dipped edges that would enter into their foes and destroy them like so much poison from the inside. Even having just one of the many manifestations of the old blood in their ranks would be enough to turn the tide against all the east held for spears. But none of these things came to pass.

As they met the figure, its avian features becoming clear through the blood, the tiger at the head of the charge flung a dagger into it. The point found purchase in nothing but earth after passing through the fluid form. However lacking the attack might have been, it was clear the Goredrinker did not find it so victimless of an action. The vicious-looking cardinal became less blood and more flesh by the moment and, as the tiger readied to swipe with his broad blade, a talon of crimson spread across his features, followed by a flurry of more organic edges than there were iron.

The blood-cursed thing, not quite avian, not quite a mortal, moved with the grace of any water glider and struck with the force of a headbutt from a stonehead. The foxes surged backward, Jemine taking Greshalin up as she half-fell with her reinforcements. For their part, the Legion could do little to reverse the flow of their progress in such a sudden shock, but in a moment, all that stood before the Goredrinker’s avatar and the rest were those skewered and the wolf.

Razien held his left arm, finally feeling some sensation return, only to note the odd tingling that came from a slit in his forearm. It had gone unnoticed with so much else to contend with, but the trickle of red was enough to alert him of what he almost neglected. His eyes shot up to the figure, its still forming orbs in their dull bloody sockets seeking, the beak rising to the wind to smell, the tongue shivering about as though already tasting the fluid. His fingers sought and fumbled in the absence of a satchel of sacred salt. Just paces back up the street, he saw it, torn open, the contents but a mound on the earth. It was imperative he reach it, even if it might mean the vanquished status that befell those remaining Westerners.

The blood bird whirled again as more blades came against it, and though they were armored, protected from so many strikes, theirs was not a water-tight seal. With ease, the blood poured into the armor, and just as simply, the trickle of crimson leapt into the shapes of urchins deep in the sea. Gore streaked from the suits as buckets with a crack in their base. It was as they fell to the Goredrinker Razien bolted for the salt. His attempt did not go unnoticed.

As though by instinct, the bird swiveled again and, with eyes now formed and looking for all the world like rotting fruit stuffed into the skull, it fixed on him. The salt stood paces closer to Razien, but the bird, even only afoot, made up the advantage the wolf had. They would meet it at the exact moment, a collision of flesh with possessed blood, and if Razien was lucky, it would meet him with a blade formed of itself. The alternative, the open wound pulsing, presented the opportunity for the demon to wheedle his way in. It couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t allow it; he need only cauterize the slash on the dense granules, but the talons of his foe’s feet came only a stride away while he, at full speed, still was twice that away. It would be for not; he would meet death before any hope of salvation, but he would meet death before being controlled.

Side-stepping his path, ready to be a distraction instead of another knife against death, Razien barely slipped the path of an arcing wind. It was not her best effort, but the kiss of full Winter pressed against the still dripping blood form, freezing its gainly tall legs and sending it sprawling as the talons shattered with crystals of ice launching behind it. The realization of what had happened and his change of course came after Razien switched again to throw himself forward. Landing with his arm outstretched, there was only a faint moment, an impression of wetness, before the burn of salt in the wound roused him back to reality, to the truth of how close he had just come to the Lifeless Grounds and how near still, its wing coming back again this time jagged as a rose stem, he was to the Goredrinker’s avatar.

Razien rolled backward and allowed the blood to slap the mound of salt, to burn away with a shriek like forged iron in ice water. It would not be enough to destroy the ghoul, but a distraction to permit the wolf’s flight back to where he expected to find the city defenders. What awaited him was two, the lynx and Jemine, who seemed for all the world removed from the violence that was soon to commence again on the high level of Seras. What started as a dash back became a languid jaunt and, finally, a trot, as Razien noted the state of things.

Greshalin lay on her back, supported by Jemine, who could have been a statue for all her motions. As Razien came near, he found the lynx still drew breath, but it looked labored at best, shallower and shallower by the second in truth. He gave only a moment to note the bird of blood reconstituting itself, the wing reforming and behind it the gout of Legion soldiers stepping in with furtive movements, hoping to catch their new enemy off guard. They would be their own problem in a moment. Razien knelt by Greshalin and looked into the icy blue pools, overflowing now with the burden of her wound.

Jemine’s expression said it all, but the lynx forced remarks from drying lips, “Raz, Razi, are you alright? None of that vile blood?”

“Not a drop, Gresh. What can I do? Do you need me to carry you?” the fox’s dower look said it was ill-advised, “You’re still light as you ever were. You won’t be much of a burden.”

“Go on and brag, but you know at least once I could lift you when you were still scrawny like your old man… No, no, I think I’ll be fine. I’m going to make another barrier, and I’ll join you two at the tunnels. I just want to make sure you’re all safe and no one follows.”

“That’s insanity,” the wolf spat, “How are you going to make a barrier and still have strength to get out of here alone?”

“I don’t like it either, but between that thing and them, what other choice is there?” Jemine answered over the lynx.

For all her effort, Razien might not have even heard the fox’s appeal as he scooped Greshalin up just under her arms. She squirmed against the contact, but as she did, the knife wormed ever closer to her organs. Each step she had taken had brought the edge further and further inside by a finger’s width each time. Now Razien’s steps felt to be pulling the blade deeper at the length of the same digit. There was no fighting free of his attempt to save her, nothing she could say or do, but the Goredrinker and the Legion still pressed in from the mouth of the street.

It was going to be an exertions she otherwise would not risk. Draining too much of herself into any use of the Winter winds could force her to expire more quickly, but there was little option. The blood fiend was going to pursue, if not for Razien than for the scent dripping from Greshalin’s side. There may have been other options, but as it stood, there was nothing she could do about it. With Jemine guiding Razien, who could barely force his own weary limbs to keep moving, Greshalin knew she was the only one who could do anything about what followed.

Linking her paws and forming a diamond between them with her fingers, she drew in that deep, chilling breath from the long Winters of her youth. For a moment, she was there again. She was not a priestess or an icon of the Northern clans but a simple cub. Uncle was in the water, the current pulling him away, the ice slashing wherever he was unfortunate enough to bump into it, and she could do little but cry after the man. But like a Summer rain coming from a cloudless, sunny sky, the breath of the fading season caressed and ruffled her fur. As though it had been a function simply forgotten, she put her paws to the breeze and, over the length of the river to come, cast the chill that would turn liquid solid. The act left her sprawled on the ice-crystaled dirt of the path, unconscious, bleeding slightly, but alive just as LaRoux was then. This was not those long last days of youth.

As the northern breeze whisked in, it was not the glassy thin film of ice her first barrier had been but that which sealed closed a small pond in the dead of the season. Opaque and nearly pure white, the wall could have contended with the gates of Roya for its strength, and though it tried, the Goredrinker could do as much as so many spears against that fortification as this. That simple confirmation was enough. Greshalin allowed her mind to calm. The knowledge the foxes would get away that Razien would come out of that night with his life was enough, but she wouldn’t let the shape of her paws falter.

She did not evoke malice in the act, only an innate urge to protect, conceal their retreat, and detain those gutless villains who had mercilessly stomped across so many borders only to stamp their master’s name on all there was to own. Greshalin felt a tug like someone helping to pull free, drenched and tight stockings from her waist down. And just like the removal of such a ruined article, the relief that washed over her refreshed the mind and brought ease to her body. She wouldn’t drop the diamond through which Winter’s winds pushed but knew it was falling, aiming lower, and the breezes no longer arctic in nature. Blinking her heavy lids open once, she saw what was happening, what was becoming of her, and though the realization should have terrified her, she felt numb, peacefully numb, that if it should all go away, this was not a poor manner for it.

At the entrance to the temple, Razien let go of the hollow form that was growing lighter every passing second. Disbelief had washed over him and Jemine, with the Soweyn only appearing less shocked for his station. Yet, it was beyond anything any one of them could have thought to see. Greshalin was gone, but a path leading from the top street to the temple had been left in her wake. It was not a smear of blood or another pathetic end-of-life substance but one of hope and rejuvenation. Like some foolish gardener, a winding row of soon-to-blossom, unfurling, fading, and dead fauna stood, some proud and tall as great sunflowers and others low as the toadstools. There was no body for the gravegrounds, no blood for those from the Lifeless Grounds to satiate themselves on, and no corpse to befoul as vicious enemies would. There was only memory, and how those memories burnt the wolf as they made a hasty escape into the tunnels within the altar of the temple.