Glass Winter | Chapter XXI

If only Tematyr had two harpoons; he would have already launched the second at Sowne. As it was, two denizens lifted the chief off the ground, to his frustration, and Tem’s attackers kept him from approaching. He only had the ice chisel remaining as a weapon, and he used it now to defend himself, but not to kill. That was reserved for Sowne.

All around him the people were fighting back against his oppression. Too long had they suffered his unlawful tyranny. Malcolm may have been a liar, but he had always looked out for them. Even when Tematyr lost his head, as he often did, Malcolm knew how to reel him back in. There was no such quarter with Sowne, who was blinded by power.

Tematyr beat his attackers with the tuuq and looked back at Sevt. Gar Darron had him, escaping with Kyreth and Olga at their side. Somebody tried to prevent this but received a blow from Gar Darron and Kyreth each.

You are a good man, he thought about the scout. Help Sevt flee from this carnage. It will be over soon enough.

Tematyr eyed his harpoon. Jerard was still pinned to the wall, but his weight was making it fracture and crumble, the giant realised with horror. If left long enough the wall would cave, and the winds would tear them to shreds should the fight go on.

He hurried towards his spear, swatting the odd man back with his chisel, and receiving just as many bruises and cuts. How he kept standing when he reached his true weapon, he could not say, but he grabbed it with both hands and wrenched it free, bearing the brunt of the storm that finally broke through. Somebody had been about to stab him but fell back blinded by the shards of snow.

Tematyr was in no better state as he rubbed his eyes. Looking around he focused on Sinner, who had pushed Holland back against an igloo until he had nowhere to run, then knifed him up through the jaw and tongue. As Holland, weak, tried to free himself, Renoir swooped in unseen from the chaos and stab, stab, stabbed his gut, to Sinner’s disbelief. As Tematyr knocked back an assailant of his own he saw the two scouts nod to each other and part, with Renoir leaving the fight altogether.

Or chasing someone. Chasing Sevt.

The giant pulled out his atlatl and locked in the harpoon, determined to pursue him, until he saw a limber Bratislav sprinting towards Sowne with his sword, while his two protectors battled against a backstepping Eron. If armed, the chief would be capable of as much slaughter as three men combined. Gar Darron would have to defend Sevt on his own.

Tematyr hurled the harpoon at Bratislav’s head, knocking him back the last six feet he had run. As Sowne scrambled for the red sword, Tematyr took out his tuuq, pushed aside another charging assailant, and swung the ice chisel down on the chief with a roar. To the giant’s surprise his target rolled out of the way, picked up his sword, and returned an attack, which Tematyr swiftly parried, without fear.

A man his size will not last long.

Sowne had proven to be deadly with his signature weapon back at the old hamlet, but his skill could not match Tematyr’s imposing raw strength. He swung at the chief, who disengaged around the chisel and cut the giant’s cheek. Enraged, he parried the spine of the incoming sword with his forearm and riposted, but the sword parried with a wink of red light and counterattacked. Tematyr barely recovered, losing ground, while Sowne kept closing the distance.

Fine.

He feinted high and brought down a strike sure to shake his opponent’s bones. In the bind that followed Tematyr slid his chisel towards the crossguard and shoved with all of his strength, before striking again. Now Sowne was retreating. Tematyr kept this up, beating the blade aside or backwards, always advancing. They went so far that he could almost reach for his harpoon, stuck in Bratislav’s head.

That one second glance was enough to doom him. Sowne sidestepped and slashed at Tematyr’s cheek, pivoting around him and making for the distant wall of the commune. His left ear ringed, his face was on fire.

“Come back and fight me, you coward.” Tematyr caught up to Sowne in an instant, grabbing his arm and thrusting with the tuuq, which slid along the edge of the sword and grazed his nose.

Just as quickly Sowne pulled the giant’s chisel out of his hands and swept across his belly with his blade, before running again. Tematyr did not feel the pain, retrieving his harpoon instead and tossing it at the chief who, to his shock, slid out of the way.

He can how hear better than me.

His cheek was cold with blood, screaming in pain, but he still pursued the target, past all the littered corpses and towards the wall. Sowne spun around and hurled a dirk at Tematyr, knocking the breath out of his chest.

He looked down, curious, wrapping his fingers around the grip, trying to tear it out and possibly a lung with it. His knee was slashed and his nose was broken by the chief instead. When another blow came Tematyr blocked and countered it in an instant, making the other drop his sword, who returned yet another blow which the giant caught, before head-butting and pushing back with a stature and strength that could not be opposed.

It was going nowhere for Sowne, and his time was up. Until he grabbed Tematyr’s hair and the hilt of the knife in his chest and fell back onto the ground. The weight would soon enough crush the chief beneath him, if the winds did not shred the giant’s head first, exposed to the screeching aperture in the wall.

No, not like this.

Tematyr wanted to fight, but a thousand cuts had drained him, and everywhere pain pierced his body. Digging deep with the handle and pressing against the man’s face with his second hand Sowne angled the head as a shield from the winds, with a foot against the wall between the man’s legs. Tematyr struggled, but found that his limbs barely responded, his eyes welled red, the world faded but he still felt the winds. He still felt them tearing him apart, piece by piece, never to be put back together. He prayed for respite but received only darkness and suffering.

No, no, it can’t be like this. Sowne has to die, and we have to live. Where’s justice?

He prayed that he would receive an answer in the next life, for his ears could hear no more.

~~~~~

Death was upon them, despite Sevt’s best efforts. He felt pathetic, being dragged along by his hulking protector while the people perished around him. Kyreth called him ‘Gar Darron’, he heard, after they knocked back a crazed man that tried to end Sevt’s life with a toothpick for an ice chisel.

This ragged scout, who had wielded Sevt’s staff for so long, led the four of them away from the fray, with Olga struggling to return to Panuk despite the danger. They had barely pulled her away from his body when the chaos began. And now the ground was painted red, and for what? Had their desperation stooped so low that they would slaughter each other out of fear?

Most of the commune had not a clue yet what was happening, some would be asleep. Those who had not seen Sevt slip away would soon come after him. He did not want to think how many more innocents could die trying to protect him.

“Stop.”

They were making their way down the main track, though to where no one could say. Gar Darron just wanted to get him out of there.

“Why are you helping me?”

And don’t say that it’s because I’m an ‘honest man’.

“We can’t afford to die,” Gar Darron said. “The souls of the men back there are no longer theirs. They will be bound to this place, and more than likely return as revenants to wreak havoc on the survivors.”

Olga was squeezing Sevt’s arm out of fear; he had to reassure her by holding her hand, lest there be nothing left of his own.

“That’s not the only reason, is it?”

“No.” Gar Darron glanced at Kyreth, “I believe your story. The three of you… the two of you could not lie. Many would have seen through it.”

“Some think they have,” Sevt looked over his shoulder and saw an ashen woman running towards them, her white hair coloured with blood. He readied his dirk.

“Palina,” Gar Darron approached her, “however did you manage to get away?”

Because she wanted to.

This pale ghost of a human, cursed with sloughflesh, with far too little time remaining and no hope of reaching the glass castle escaped the fight anyway, because she wanted to live. Gar Darron wanted to live, and so he placed his trust in a stranger shunned by most of the commune, just because of Sevt’s promise of a clear mind, and the mad meditations of a former chief.

“We can’t remain here,” said Sevt, “not with what’s happened. And the winds are not as deadly as we’ve been made to believe.”

Palina trembled at the mention of the storm, which Sevt then inquired about.

“The scouts that went ventured north, Gar Darron, what did they use to survive?”

“Scutum, compacted hard snow. They moved along the ice of the lake’s shoreline.”

“Then that it is what we must do, as unlikely as our odds are. All of us.”

He could see their expressions fall, and wondered if the flame dropped lower in the staff’s lamp.

“What you’re suggesting is an impossible task,” Kyreth said. “I assume that you haven’t been outside the commune since you arrived.”

“That I haven’t.”

“Then you don’t remember what elements we face.”

“Or how to construct dozens of scutum for everyone fleeing.” Added Gar Darron.

Live, damn it. Live and leave these musings on death behind. They’re coming for all of you.

“If every person makes one for themselves, we can make it out.”

He looked at Olga and Palina, how similar the both of them were now. How not so long ago Olga encouraged him to comfort what had been, in essence, a mourning family. The commune was populated by broken people. They could only survive if they banded together.

“I need each of you to spread the word. Run through every lane, round up every man, woman, and child, and send them to the northern side of the commune. To the fishing grounds. Tell them to only bring what they need, quickly. Inform the men that they may need to fight. But most importantly, that we cannot stay here.”

“Tell them to make for the wall by the grounds, not the ice itself.” Said Gar Darron. “We cannot afford confusion when people are panicked.”

A natural leader himself, this one.

“Go now. Don’t fight anyone, flee if you have to.”

“They’ll fight me if they can.” Kyreth claimed, before she was off.

“Palina, you’re Aurora’s guardian. I too have been tasked with watching over her, by Quin before he passed. I intend to uphold my promise.”

Palina collected herself, understanding where she was to go first, and doing just that. Sevt felt briefly appalled with himself, sending two women out to what might be their doom, but he was a cripple and Gar Darron was one man. He only prayed that the other denizens could protect his messengers if the need arose.

The scout, however, refused to leave Sevt’s side.

Thick-headed dolt.

And Olga clung tighter than ever to his arm. Sevt had no choice but to proceed with the both of them to Malcolm’s shelter, to the sled whose day finally dawned.

A sled that I thought was complete. I’ve yet to attach it to the dogs.

Gar Darron, at least, informed everybody they encountered along the way, who rushed off to spread the word themselves. And they had every reason to believe him, with the noise of the battle echoing all throughout the commune.

I cannot die. Not when there’s so much at stake and promises to keep.

Not when he knew what the fate of everybody who died now was. In this frozen nadir of Hell.

The main path led to Velour’s station, where he had first met the sentry, who immediately stood up in quiet consternation at what must have been Sevt’s bloodied furs.

“Is somebody hurt? Is there a fight going on?”

“Right now. Gar Darron, go get Oleg from the other entrance. Olga and I will be safe with Vel in the meantime.”

Though Sevt failed to mention the man’s unconfident skill with a spear before the scout departed them. While they waited he told Velour all that had transpired, and what was to come. Vel watched Olga with concern while listening to the account.

“But this is madness,” he said, “you don’t seriously expect every denizen to construct a snow shield by themselves? And do you really believe the bloodshed won’t stop with Panuk’s death? Given the proper circumstances angry men will cull what remains of us before marauding our possessions. How did the fight look like when you left?”

“It wasn’t abating, if that’s what you mean. Either way, none of us can stay here with these killers. Nor with the two mushers on the loose, or what remains of them.”

Olga was shivering at Sevt’s side. Gar Darron soon returned with Oleg, and Sevt gave both of the guards the same instructions as Kyreth and Palina.

“There’s no time to waste, gentlemen. Run and spread the word to the residents on this side.”

Oleg agreed, Velour nodded despite his worried look, one which focused on something in the distance behind them.

A brooding youth with a blue splosh for a birthmark on his temple was running towards them, armed with a hammer and some metal spike.

“Renoir!” Gar Darron called out to him, just as Oleg and Vel met his approach with lowered spears, “Be careful not to hurt him. Ask him—”

Renoir hurled the spike at Oleg, lodging it in his neck, knocked aside his spear with the hammer then swatted Vel’s away with a free hand. Before Vel could lunge again Renoir finished Oleg off with a blow to the face, then slipped another spike from his sleeve and stabbed Vel where he stood, the guard’s eyes bulging in shock.

Sevt’s voice left him, as the cripple he was could only stand and watch.

“The both of you, go,” said Gar Darron. “He’s one of my scouts. Let me deal with him.”

Vel may not have been a fighter like yourself, Sevt would have said, but why should you throw your life away for me with someone like this?

But Olga was already pulling Sevt back, and he had to follow or risk tumbling down the stairs. He managed to see Gar Darron unsheathing a petty dirk before the snow blocked his view. As Olga and Sevt limped down the snaking passageway, the world became quiet and warm. He envied the oblivious respite the huskies had, though it was nearing its end.

“Run ahead and start tying the dogs to the sled,” he told Olga. “I can make it the rest of the way on my own.”

“That Renoir might be coming.”

And you’re going to defend me from him?

She would have been angry or just not herself following Panuk’s death. Sevt would not allow her to fulfil a potential death wish.

“Gar Darron’s a big man,” he reassured her, “he can handle someone like Renoir.”

That seemed to be enough for her, so she ran ahead. They had nearly reached the main hall by then, and as Olga unravelled the rope Sevt and Quin had obtained as far back as the old hamlet, the huskies began to yap and bark.

It’s as if they know.

In truth, it was the dried blood on his furs that got their attention, which Medved sniffed with curiosity while Sevt struggled to manoeuvre around him. Olga was harnessing the rope around a restless Belka, and failing. Every second they wasted…

“Hand me the other end,” Sevt said. “This will take a while, and we don’t have that.”

He drew a dirk from his pocket and cut the rope.

~~~~~

“You’re a traitor.” Renoir hit the length of the piton with his hammer so that it sung, “Stand aside and give him up.”

If it means saving our lives and others’ from Sowne, how can I not choose Sevt over him?

“Is your solution to our problems like the chief’s?” Asked Gar Darron, “Kill or be killed?”

“I’m not negotiating with you.” Renoir took a step forwards.

“You know that you are not marked and that Sowne will not listen. Who are you to become like him just to survive, Renoir?”

The piton launched into Gar Darron’s flank before Renoir even reached him, but the scout still managed to stop his attacker’s hammer from landing as it quivered inches above his face. Gar Darron tried to twist it away but was blinded by spit, his torso searing as he was stabbed again.

You villain…

Gar Darron knifed Renoir in the arm and tried to push him away, only to be pushed back and having the world tumble around him, the hard frozen floor of the underground passage rising to meet their landing. Gar Darron saw an incoming piton and parried it with his dirk, leaping up to hit the arm wielding it against the wall while placing his own knife just beneath the youth’s throat.

Sevt and Olga were somewhere down this passage. Gar Darron had to keep this killer back long enough for them to escape out the other side of the shelter, without becoming a killer himself.

“Enough with—”

Renoir butted his head against Gar Darron’s, causing him to see stars. He knew that the both of them were stumbling in the few seconds of non-violence that followed, before the hammer came around to his jaw with a clack. Gar Darron’s hands feebly slipped against a wall as he tried to catch himself from falling. When he saw Renoir rushing past him Gar Darron caught the man by his waist and threw him against the floor, stabbing him once under the shoulder. Renoir barely cried out.

Instead, he whacked Gar Darron again with the hammer, but the pain had done its job and the lead scout wrenched it free from the other’s loosening grasp. Renoir kicked him off and crawled backwards to a wall, catching quick, short breaths as he tried to stand up.

“That’s enough.” The lead scout breathed in rasps as he moved to the centre of the passageway, between Renoir and the rooms at its end.

Gar Darron’s mouth tasted like iron, and blood soaked through the furs on his side.

Renoir was shaking his head.

“This is all that it is, old man,” He winced as he held his shoulder. “It’s only about survival. That’s the truth. And those stupid enough not to believe it wind up dead.”

Don’t make me do it.

Blood trickled from the top of Renoir’s forehead and past his blue birthmark, past those once quiet eyes which were now thinking and plotting. If he really had been quiet, and not just a criminal ready to snap when the conditions aligned.

The piton shot towards Gar Darron before he had a chance to react, but only past his leg and into the ground behind him. Renoir grimaced when he had thrown it, and now charged at his opponent, socking Gar Darron’s wounds and shouldering past him. The lead scout smashed against the wall, enduring the pain as he tossed the confiscated hammer at the escaping foe. It lodged in the back of his head with a crunch and slammed him face down on the floor. Dead.

Silence returned. Gar Darron’s hand came away red from his wounds, his legs buckled and he sat down. There he remained, head back and eyes closed, trying to catch his ragged breath, feeling like a great weight rested on one side of his chest.

Eventually he got up and shambled over to Renoir’s body, tearing off pieces of fur and lashing them around his own torso to halt the bleeding. The ground surrounding the dead scout’s head was surprisingly dry, pink rather than red. Getting a closer look revealed how the snow was drinking up his blood, soaking deep into the earth.

~~~~~

I need to buy myself some more time.

“Can’t you see what you’re doing to Wilbur?” Aurora enquired.

The boy hardly responded, but Little Malcolm was more frustrated than ever.

“You’re going to make this difficult for me, is that it?”

Aurora could not tell if he was speaking to her or to his partner in crime.

“The boy has never had to kill anyone before,” Little Mal shrugged. “You going to do it? Or you going to stand there and gawp?”

Wilbur’s eyes darted between him and the girl, but he said nothing.

“It’s alright to be afraid,” Aurora said. “Just don’t stay afraid. It’s what killed Quin in the end.”

“She’s right, Wil. Don’t be afraid.” Little Malcolm picked up the other’s snow saw and shoved it in his accomplice’s hand, wrapping each finger around its handle, “Take control. You need to refuse to rot.”

“I want to take control,” Wilbur pulled his arm away. “That’s all I want.”

“Good. Now do this thing with me. One less demon means one step closer to Heaven.”

Aurora was afraid that things might go this way, but she had needed to try. Wilbur looked at Little Malcolm with wrath, and at a loss, then he looked at Aurora with the same anger. Like he had done twice before.

“Come on, Wil, quit stalling,” said Little Mal. “If the execution is to be done you need to learn from it.”

There were people yelling outside. Some kind of commotion.

“Idar, what’s going on out there?”

“It’s hard to say, Mal,” his muffled voice replied, “There’s fighting or…”

A darkness swept over Aurora’s mind, and she knew that she wasn’t alone when that same spirit reflected in the faces of Little Malcolm and Wilbur. And in Idar’s silence.

“What? What is it?” Little Mal demanded.

All they heard was the two sentries warning someone to “stay back”, before they were silenced with a slash. The other boys jumped at the sound and readied their saws, just as the top of the igloo’s entrance crumbled and swept away. Aurora lost sight of Little Malcolm in the flurry of snow, but she heard him roaring and charging at the threat, and how his voice was cut short.

As the snow cleared, she saw a spike poking through Little Malcolm’s back, and when it was removed and his lifeless body fell to the floor Cara stood in the demolished entrance, her eyes white and aglow.

No. Not you. It can’t be you…

“I’m not.” Cara was pale, with peeling, cracked skin and tangled hair, “I merely serve him.”

The Smiling One had come for Aurora. He had been searching for her since…

“And he’s still searching for you.” Cara stepped forward, “A soul like yours is prized down here. Don’t think we’re going to let it escape.”

The demon’s limbs snapped and stretched, its replaced hands shifted from black spikes into sharp sickles, its lips pulled back into a grin.

Once Aurora was dead she would become like them. Her soul doomed to Hell until the final judgement. Tormented by evil and living as evil, never at peace, always in pain and in fear and cold. Her heart could not bear it.

As those sickles rushed towards Aurora, a snow saw came down and caught both elongating arms in its teeth. The demon struggled to free itself, Wilbur just cut, sawing angrily and forcefully until the halves of both limbs dropped onto the ground. The monster flailed around, shrieking, until Wilbur, charging, hacked it right in the neck and made the world quiet again.

Cara’s body collapsed. Her eyes dark and gouged.

Aurora still breathed. Her hands still worked. She broke down, weeping, like never before. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s over now,” Wilbur said. “Don’t cry.”

She was not crying. She was rejoicing.

She was being hugged.

“I’m sorry, Aurora. I’m so, so sorry for everything. Forgive me if you can. But I won’t think less of you if you don’t. Not anymore.”

“I’m alive, Wilbur,” she looked at Cara’s shell. “You’re forgiven.”

There was no blood beneath the corpse. In fact, there was no blood anywhere, not inside the blasted igloo nor on the track running past. As if the ground had absorbed it all in the last half a minute.

“We need to run,” he said, looking around and listening to the distant commotion they had heard before. “This shouldn’t have happened, and something is terribly wrong.”

“There were fights a few times already.”

“Right. Denizens fighting each other. And not the active threat,” Wilbur pointed to Cara. “We need to run. To Bair, or whoever. An adult that can protect us.”

Palina.

Aurora had nearly forgotten about her, she who had been running straight towards danger. But the moment Aurora considered finding and helping her, the demon’s words echoed in her mind, and she saw its burning white eyes and terrible grin.

My soul is coveted down here. What does that mean?

It was a mystery to her, but did part of it mean that she could not save Palina? What truly awaited Aurora were she to die as well, or if she chose to live and escape this hell?

People were waking up and coming out of their shelters, dazed and confused at the sounds of chaos they were hearing, horrified at the body on the path. Palina ran through them, speaking hurriedly to each person.

“Take what you can carry. We need to leave. There’s a slaughter. Arm yourselves with what you have and meet at the wall to the left of the fishing grounds. Quickly.”

Palina noticed Aurora and ran up to embrace her.

“God, you’re alright…”

Her voice trailed off at the sight of Wilbur, and Cara’s husk behind him.

“He’s a friend, don’t worry,” Aurora said, just as Wilbur attached the snow saw to his belt and raised his hands.

“We have to leave.” Palina put the girl down, “It’s not safe here anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. Follow me.”

Some of the denizens, still lost, pursued the three of them out onto the main wide track of the commune, with their possessions in hand; tools, drinking horns, plates, children’s toys.

They’re carrying too much.

If what Palina claimed was actually true. And soon enough they knew it, as armed men and women, drenched in blood, who were already raiding and killing further down the main track, turned their attention to Palina’s company and made for them. One man threw his spear at an old woman’s leg, but no one stopped to help.

“Somebody save her!” Aurora cried, “Don’t leave her like this!”

They stood at the other end of the track, ushering the denizens following them in from the open and behind a row of shelters. Everyone except the old woman. Palina hesitated between going back out or remaining where she was.

The man who threw the spear was coming to retrieve it, while others knocked over a brazier far behind him, its burning oil alighting the track in red and orange. Then Bair slew the man with the spear, before proceeding to help the old woman.

“Your mason friend,” Wilbur whispered, “he just came out of nowhere.”

A couple of younger denizens rushed over to help the limping woman as Bair reunited with Palina and Aurora.

“Are you two alright?”

Palina had tears in her eyes and was struggling to catch her breath, before collapsing into Bair’s embrace as he stroked her hair and comforted her with soft words.

“We need to let tell the others to flee,” Palina cried, “there’s nothing left for us here.”

Bair’s visage darkened as he held the woman at arm’s length, “Are you hearing yourself? How?”

“Sevt and Gar Darron talked about cobbling together a scutum for every—”

“No, Palina, how are you going to survive out there?”

The question that silenced the four of them, until the ground beneath began to rumble. A tremor at first, but soon powerful enough to knock them all off their feet. Most of the denizens they were with were far down a side path already, but Aurora could hear their anguished cries as they, like her, tried to understand what was happening.

There was something snaking beneath the snow, from nearly all directions. They became red as they came to the surface, accumulating in the centre of the main track as a cesspool of gore and blood, which slowly started to rise and assume form. All the while, the untarnished surrounding ice continued to crackle, and the ground quaked like never before.

Of all the horror we’ve seen, what could we possibly be facing now?