Glass Winter | Chapter XXII

Perhaps Palina deserved her affliction, perhaps she deserved to remain right where she was. They might have fled the commune, even with its killers on their tail. But how could they flee from the embodiment of sin that manifested before their eyes, coalescing out of blood and guts?

What started as a thick crimson pool now rose as a mound from the snow, growing lengthy strands of fur drenched in blood, expanding into a torso, from which two powerful arms broke out to slam into the ground. She heard its insides snapping as they corrected their alignment, and a low growl from needled jaws that yawned to breathe the night air. She heard Bair’s voice bringing her back, and felt his hand on her shoulder.

“Palina!! We need to follow the others; we cannot stay here!!”

The beast had hands as well, the kind which ended sharp and hooked. She was stuck watching them scraping the frozen ground, painful to the ear, watching it tower twenty, now twenty-five feet tall on fully formed legs.

The men that knocked over the brazier further down the main track had stopped to watch the creature grow. Palina could not tell if they were in awe or terror. They were just frozen, like her, still gazing up at the beast as it bound over and crushed them with both its hands. She saw its fur drinking up their blood, tightening the muscles along its arms and back, expanding its frame to become even larger.

Despair kept her weighed to the ground, any attempt to break free made her feel like a disgrace. This was where she belonged, and it was where she would have died if Bair did not drag her down the path leading away from the main track, towards the fishing grounds. His grip sank into the sloughing flesh of her wrist, right down to the bone. And she could not even feel pain.

This is my fate.

It pained her even more now that they were finally fleeing the commune and into the storm. They had to rely on scutum to protect them from the winds, but would it be enough?

What if the wind bends around the shield? What if one stone jutting out of the ice is enough to break the scutum’s integrity?

The snow would crumble, and the real snow outside would tear her to pieces.

Bair already doubts how I can survive, and he’s the most reasonable man I know.

She would slow their company down. The killers would catch up to them; the beast would catch up to them. They would all die because of her…

For a brief moment Palina overtook Aurora, and peace washed over, silencing her mind. The girl looked so small, so pure…

How could I forget what she’s done for me?

Palina had forgotten that death was not the only answer. She shook her head and the impressions of the beast with it. Her soul was secure; her soul was safe. She had nothing to fear. Even when they arrived at the wall, and she saw the people hastily cobbling together crown-high scutum of snow, and was reminded of the storm that awaited them on the other side, she was not afraid.

Sevt entrusted me to these people, even when my paleness was coloured with blood. Even he sees something in me.

For as long as she could remember she had abandoned faith, making peace with never feeling its fire burning inside her again. But now her heart glowed warm with an unwavering spirit.

A ferocious roar split their ears, coming from the other side of the commune, and when it faded it was accompanied by human screams, some of which were abruptly silenced. The earth trembled once more, growing more violent with each passing moment. The beast approached.

“Everyone out.” Bair walked over to the wall and started breaking it open with an axe he must have found, “We cannot stay here. Share scutum if you have to, but it cannot see us.”

No. This is not the way.

The opening screeched and grazed Palina’s skin. She would die out there and then she was of no use to anybody. The beast would still arrive, and it still had a chance of seeing them. And this would all have been for nothing.

But the people were moving, sliding their shields along the patches of ground which were frozen, those that were built in haste crumbling after only a few steps. Bair helped where he could, pushing and shouting words of encouragement. Wilbur urged Aurora towards one of the shields and together they pushed it to the exit. Glancing over her shoulder Palina saw the hulking shadow of the beast over the tops of the shelters, drawing nearer.

I cannot let Bair see me, else he will never let me go.

“Palina, help us!” Aurora shouted to her, and she rushed over to their shield.

“I’m sorry, little one. But I’m also grateful, beyond measure.”

“Just help us push for now, Palina. Everything will be alright, we can’t die. I know we can’t.”

You know so little yet. Perhaps it can protect you in the meantime, while you save the rest of us.

“We won’t die, you’re right,” once the scutum passed the wall Palina stepped back into the safety of the commune. “Just keep looking forward, as you’ve always done. Don’t look back.”

Without another word Palina pivoted and ran towards the main track. She thought she heard Aurora calling out her foolishness, urging her to return, but Palina turned right instead when she was halfway down the path and navigated around the snow shelters separating her from the beast.

I’m right here, you must have seen me.

It had. Something burst through the igloo behind her and cut her back, knocking her down for a moment before she leapt up and kept running.

I’m here. I’m a live, moving prey. Come on and chase me, the beast that you are.

And like a beast it did, its hands crashing into the ground behind her as she emerged on another winding path which she would have followed if she was not impaled by a talon. Palina should have been in agony, she should have screamed when she was tossed through the air and when she crashed through the wall, rolling out into the dark. Palina heard the beast booming inside the commune, she turned to see it thrashing around and down the length of the wall, away from Aurora and Bair and the other denizens, with the shrieks of other victims it found and destroyed.

At least my people are safe, she thought as the winds tore the flesh off her bones in long bloody trails, at least I succeeded in what I set out to do.

She was leaving her body behind, for it no longer served her.

And I am saved as well.

~~~~~

Sevt tested the line with a firm tug and knew that the sled was ready. He glanced over his shoulder at the snaking passage they had come through, for every crunch and crackle of snow reminded him of the threat that Renoir and his like still posed to them.

Olga and Sevt had separated the rope into different lines, with each husky’s harness knotted tight to a central towline leading from the sled. Medved led at the front, while Belka and Strelka kept the sled aligned behind him, side by side.

If only we hadn’t lost the other one. I have to rely solely on Medved to steer based off my commands.

‘Haw!’ to turn left, ‘Gee!’ to turn right. Quin made it seem so simple, but he had ridden with them for far longer than Sevt, who had yet to execute a command with success.

Olga helped him onto the sled and tied a small supply of provisions for the journey north. Food, tools, additional layers of clothes.

“How are you going to ride against the winds?” She asked him, not meeting his eyes, “If I’m not mistaken, huskies can’t survive the storm, let alone humans.”

I cannot say.

Without them he was a liability. A cripple. Someone the denizens, if desperate enough, could leave behind.

“I need it at least to move. To scout and scavenge as well…”

“But the storm. And why can’t you use your crutch on the ice with a scutum? Somebody could help you.”

“A crutch isn’t fit for the surface of the ice, and we’re trying to get away. I’ll only be slowing us down.”

Olga secured the provisions with a tug, still refusing to look Sevt in the face.

Does she blame me for Panuk’s death?

She had reason to, even if it itself evaded reason. This was the very sled Panuk dedicated his last days to, during hours he might have spent with his wife. He had wandered alone between the two shelters, in a commune with half of whose people denied the possibility of a demonic insurgence, after they had been safe for so long. When Malcolm’s peace and guidance shielded their minds from the darkness without.

A chief whose own mind has failed him. No wonder that we’ve been doomed.

The ceiling on the far side of the room collapsed, and kept collapsing towards Olga and Sevt, obstructing the stairway leading up to the surface and casting them into darkness but stopping right before the sled. The dogs barked and tried to scamper away only to be held back by the restraints, with Medved gnawing at his line. Olga pulled at the rope and scolded him while Sevt shook the staff’s lamp out of its shutters and illuminated what remained of the room.

“We need to head back down the other passage.”

“Renoir is there; we can’t.” Olga hurried over to the massive pile of snow and began to dig towards the exit.

“I told you Gar Darron is handling it…”

The earth rumbled and boomed, throwing Olga off her feet. The sled inched along the floor with every restless movement made by the huskies.

What is happening out there?

It could not be caused by man, and knowing where they truly were had changed Sevt’s understanding of what its evil was capable of. It was a hunch, but one that sunk its nails into the back of his mind and refused to let go, regardless of the efforts he made to dispel the fear or refusing to feed it.

Looking up, Sevt saw fractured shadows appearing on the ceiling in quiet crackles.

“Olga, you need to run. Run now, it’s happening again. Come Haw!”

The huskies obediently turned to the left all the way until they were facing the passage. They communicated in anxious yips, straining against the ropes towards the one remaining exit, quickly gaining traction. Just as quickly as the roof resumed its collapse.

“OLGA!! GET ON THE SLED—!!”

A wet, powdery cold showered down on Sevt just before he raced down the hallway and two hands gripped his shoulders. The sled was nearly caught by the cascade once, twice, rumbling behind them as the huskies snaked their way to an escape. A body came around the corner, laying face down on the floor.

The dogs ran over it but the sled tripped and keeled over, knocking its riders into the icy wall, making Sevt hiss with pain. He glimpsed Gar Darron dodging the huskies before the snow engulfed them. Sevt was transported back to his battle with the white bear, all those sleeps ago…. He could not breathe. Trying to would make him drown.

Somebody heaved him out, dragging him into the night air. Wet noses and soft fur brushed past his face as he was set down by the second flight of stairs leading out of Mal’s shelter. He heard Gar Darron digging into the snow with frantic breaths, the distant clashing of steel, screams. Giant, pounding steps.

Olga gasped for air, sputtering snow and vomit as Gar Darron helped her up and guided her towards the staircase as well. She collapsed, barely moving as the scout went back yet again to find their buried sled. The huskies lapped up her puke and nestled their snouts in her arms.

“Olga…,” Sevt’s voice rattled when he spoke.

She turned her head to acknowledge him, then closed her eyes.

“Olga!”

“I’m alive. Just catching my breath.”

Gar Darron grunted as he pulled out the sled and carried it on his back, its lines still attached to the dogs.

“Trouble does follow you, Sevt.”

He chuckled, “And I keep finding a way out.”

A bestial roar shook the bones of the six of them in that stairway who turned to listen. It came from the surface, from the other side of the commune. And this was no bear, nor any beast that Sevt recognised. That terrible hunch from minutes before crept back to slowly sink its claws in his head.

“They’ve come for us.” Sevt thought out loud, just as the memory of a garish grin flashed in his mind’s eye.

“You don’t… mean them, do you?” Olga’s voice broke with every second word.

“They’re the only ones here besides us.” Sevt leaned on his staff and pulled himself up, hearing the sled clatter to the ground as Gar Darron stepped over to help him, “We need to get up there. Whatever time we thought we had is waning. And the people need a light.”

That much he understood about the staff with which he had been dropped. Malcolm and Vel claimed that he had no purpose to serve, that he was always mistaken for either a saviour or a saboteur, and that he had the potential to become one over the other. But the staff proved otherwise, and a welcome hunch began to replace the terrible one. For the flame inside always burned brightest with hope. Could it be speculated that he had received it as a gift when sentenced here? And even if the staff had always been his in another life, what series of circumstances led to his possession of it?

If I really was a soldier, as that spirit had me believe on the ringwoodite sea, is it so far-fetched to assume that I was some sort of commander?

One that guided his men with a light that burned for a brighter tomorrow. One he had been ordained by God, or something else, with, and which he had misused. Dooming him to this Hell.

After struggling up the steps, Sevt crawled along the ground while waiting for the sled to be brought, listening to the reigning chaos echo off the surrounding wall and the shelters. Everywhere someone was dying, fighting, or fleeing. The cries of the damned, as befits those punished to this lightless nadir, contemplating the sins of their past lives.

Three men sprinted down the main track, possibly towards Malcolm’s prayer hill.

They are very intent on whatever their purpose is.

One of them noticed Sevt on the ground and called to his mates.

“Malcolm can wait.”

Would you look at that? I was right.

They did not need to exchange another word but proceeded straight towards him, armed with axes and harpoons.

“You’re still intent on killing a cripple, aren’t you? Well, you’re resilient if nothing else.”

Sevt saw how inflamed the remark made them. He felt for the knife at his side and was glad to know it was still there.

“One more word from you. Come on, you cunt.” The man wielding the harpoon, albeit without an atlatl, hurled it at him.

Sevt rolled out of the way, “You certainly are learning a lot from Sowne.”

Gar Darron emerged from the shelter and stabbed one of the men with a dirk, while another hacked at Sevt with an axe but received a knife in the outer thigh after the cripple rolled out of the way once more. The scout moved on to the now armless harpoon wielder while Sevt toppled his opponent with a stab to the ankle. The man fell onto his back, cursing.

Never a fight a man when he’s down. But now you’re down as well.

Sevt clambered over his attacker, who tried to hold back the knife before it eventually went into his heart. Twice. A third time. Sevt’s fingers dripped red as he pushed off the dying man and rested on the snow. He could hear the shuffle of the huskies’ feet, now up on the surface with him.

Something exploded up ahead, causing Sevt to jolt off the ground and see the source of the roar and the colossal footfalls. And of his cloak.

The same grey, spiked fur that made up his mantle grew from the limbs and torso of the beast that towered above him. The very fur that could shut out the world and protect its wearer from the winds now draped from that hideous creature, standing on two stunted legs supporting a vast torso and huge lengthy arms, taloned not unlike a bird of prey with five sickled claws. Its eyes burned white, like the Smiling Bastard’s, and it had sighted Sevt.

But Gar Darron did not even seem to notice.

“Hey,” Sevt tried to stand up with his staff but slipped on the frozen ground, “don’t just stand there. Help Olga up, she’s still downstairs. Help me get to the sled.”

“There’s blood on my hands.” Gar Darron looked down at them.

“Hey, mine too.” Sevt held his up, “They attacked us. But you’ve got to help me. Can’t you see what I’m seeing?”

Some of the people standing in the beast’s proximity, petrified, hardly moved out of the way when it struck them down with hands the size of two sleds. The rest continued to slaughter each other, oblivious to what towered above them.

“I see it.” Gar Darron balled his hands into fists, “Fuck, I see it.”

There’s no time to wait.

Sevt crawled towards his sled, towards its barking huskies. Whilst the commune had been a bloodbath just moments before, much of it now stood still. Awaiting its death.

It cannot end this way; with our blades resting at our sides.

It made no difference to the beast. It thundered towards him on all-fours, hunting with those eyes, eyes that mocked a soul. Behind it, denizens continued to fight and slay each other, spilling blood, blood that soaked into the snow, skimming after the beast and into its hands and feet whenever they touched the ground. Their faces seemed so similar to the creature’s in those fleeting moments, before the heavens split asunder and bathed the commune in golden light.

The beast stopped in its tracks, roaring, shrinking in anguish. The fighters up ahead covered their eyes, blinded by the radiance. And Sevt felt all of his fear and pain and grief dissolve in an instant, to be replaced with a peace he could not understand. Love fluttered in his heart, and seemed to overwhelm Olga with tears as she sobbed behind him. Fires he had survived with could not match the warmth that now melted away his cold. And he heard music.

He looked up to the source of the light, breaking through surging dark clouds in a single, powerful beam. A silhouette levitated from behind a row of shelters, its arms outstretched and receiving. It came from where the three men had been running towards. It was Malcolm. Malcolm was ascending to the heavens.

You did it. You achieved enlightenment. How did you do it?

While the beast continued to grovel in pain, every man and woman watched Malcolm rise higher, ever accompanied by the swelling, majestic orchestra of instruments not of this world. The light seemed to absorb the man once he reached high enough, too blinding for even Sevt to look at, and it faded quickly after. The cold returned, but without the bite he had known for so long.

Sevt turned back to the recovering beast, rising from the ground.

We have been given another chance. Let us not squander it.

If nobody was willing to slay the monster that terrorised them the burden fell on the denizen with the clearest, greenest mind. And Sevt would fulfil Malcolm’s prophecy, perhaps the only way a cripple in his situation could. If the beast could not be slain with a weapon, the very world would slay it. He would lead it to the perforated ice at the fishing grounds, with the very lantern that its cousin, the Smiling Bastard, hunted for.

Sevt mushed the dogs and dashed between the beast’s legs, hearing it swipe at the ground just after they passed, while slashing with his dirk, now lathered in thick, stringy black blood.

Follow the light.

He raised the burning staff higher and for a moment the fire raged inside, and he heard the earth shudder as the beast pursued him.

Snow shelters and people passed in an instant, the huskies barely pulling away from a collision before another obstacle rushed to meet them. They had been cooped up at Malcolm’s for too long, at Quin’s and on the boat before that. Now they were fearless and alive, and they obeyed every one of his commands.

I’ve done better than I’d hoped in earning their trust.

A scream preceded a sickening crush behind him. He heard the chalky explosion of a demolished igloo, and saw one of its blocks fly ahead and lodge itself in another shelter. And he realised that he did not know where the fishing grounds even were.

Keep it together.

They were somewhere on the northern side, that’s where the lake was located. Sevt and his company had not encountered a body of water after emerging from the caves, he knew that. Sevt yelled “Gee!” and the sled made a sharp right off the main track while the beast tried to slow itself down with skidding claws, turning after him. Here the houses grew closer together, but even the huskies had the sense to manoeuvre through them with ease. They needed to reach the wall.

One corner later and it was rushing towards them. With another command they made a sharp right turn just late enough for one of the sled’s runners to clip the wall. The dogs were unphased, still dragging their musher, while one of the beast’s taloned hands broke through the commune’s defences where moments before Sevt had been.

Where am I?

Had he gone right when he should have gone left?

Don’t let there be people ahead.

“Move back!! Move back!!”

If Sevt was approaching a crowd of refugees he had ordered to gather at the fishing grounds he could at least give them time. The huskies were already helping in their own way, barking as they always did.

He saw a wide opening in the wall, and scutum both inside and out the commune, some vacant and others not. He recognised the people, Bair and Aurora amongst them.

“Get back all of you!!”

And they did, though not because of Sevt, gazing up in terror at what was chasing him instead. It just needed to follow the sled a little further…

Ice scraped beneath him, the sled rattled, Strelka’s leg fell through a half-frozen hole but she continued regardless. The second runner got caught in another hole and flung the sled forward. Sevt glimpsed the reins tugging the dogs to a halt before he landed on his stomach. They were whining and yelping, something huge still pursued him, the ice crackled and snapped. And broke, with a loud splash, far behind Sevt. The shelf was tipping, Sevt was sliding backwards. He unsheathed his dirk and tried to stab it into the ice but he was slipping too quickly, with the sled and the animated dogs, towards burning white eyes and razor teeth. It gaping jaws did not open to reveal a fleshy gorge or a slippery mouth, only darkness.

Is this what it was like? He thought, still trying hold on with the knife, is this what it was like to be sentenced to Hell?

Sevt could not remember why he was here, what sin he could have possibly committed to be doomed to the eternal cold, where the enemy himself was said to be frozen in a silent, icy cell of his own making. Perhaps he had deserved to die, and yet now he was going to die again to this embodiment of all that was dark with the soul, and what came after was anyone’s guess. Would he become like Cara and Soren, or were they only possessed? Was there a darker fate that awaited those who perished in Hell?

At least he would die knowing that he had done one thing right, though he would drown with that beast. But it was true that he had done two things right, for Aurora was safe, and Sevt had kept his promise to Quin, the one man who had not left him behind.

One of the huskies’ growling was muffled, and when Sevt glanced over his shoulder he saw Medved biting through his line again, and finally breaking free.

“No, boy. Down. Get down!”

Medved bounded toward Sevt, leaping off his shoulders and down to the beast who, while struggling to claw back up onto the ice shelf, still tried to swipe at the husky, barely reaching, before its burning white eyes were mauled. In its agony the beast, already slipping, let go of the ice and sunk beneath the black waters with the dog, splashing and breaking chunks off the edge. And the sled came to rest, the shelf tilting back and forth and finally growing still.

It continued to crackle softly. Thin bits floated in the fishing holes, freezing together in the minutes that passed until a fine pale sheet surrounded Sevt. That and the commune denizens, peeking out from the walls on either side and gathering on the far side of the grounds. Strelka and Belka sulked in quiet whines, lying defeated next to Sevt.

More people came but remained at the end of the ice shelf; so many, but not as many as before. Their faces expressed a sombre calm, far removed from their former panic.

Are there still people fighting where I can’t see them, or did the light do more than just blind them?

He saw Bair pushing through the crowd, carefully testing the ice with his weight, and walking towards him. Gar Darron followed, unseen by Sevt until now, and helped Bair lift the cripple onto his foot and staff.

“Help me with the sled. Don’t leave the dogs out here.”

But they were already following him, dragging the sled behind them. As the three men crept towards the shoreline the people parted, watching Sevt in silence and awe.

Don’t get too attached.

He did not consider himself a hero, at least he did not want to. He still wore the cloak of the beast on his shoulders, and that meant something he did not wish to be true. And perhaps it was not. Perhaps, in the forgotten days that he was dropped into Hell he slew a similar creature and took its hide. Or perhaps, he was clothed in the very crimes that condemned him to this place.

“Stop.”

The people had broken through the wall in an effort to flee the carnage, as Sevt had instructed them to, building scutum, as makeshift as they were, to slide across the ice while fully protected from the storm. Sevt freed his arms from Gar Darron’s and Bair’s, and, leaning on his staff, limped over to the opening, past the crumbled debris caused by the beast. He reached the edge of the commune and kept going, out into the wilderness. The winds were light on his skin, sudden wisps that faded in the instant they formed. Accompanied by nary a flake of snow, save for the occasional lost speck. The ground shifted in wet sludge, though much of it was freezing over.

“It was the light,” he heard a woman say, “Mal’s light has blessed us. It melted the storm away.”

Dissolving the very shards of snow that could once cut us to pieces.

People murmured, anxious and excited, growing louder. Bair and Gar Darron approached Sevt.

“What are we to do now?” Asked the scout.

Am I really an authority on this? Just for slaying the beast?

“Where is Sowne?” Sevt turned to face them, “I’m sure all of us can agree that we can’t have someone like him in charge any longer.”

“I saw him last on the far side of the commune!” Somebody cried out. Others joined in.

“He was on the main track, last I saw…”

“No they’re right, he’s still licking his wounds on the far side…”

“Or ordering his lackeys to hunt the rest of us down…”

“Sevt,” Gar Darron turned to him, “I can take Bair and three others willing enough, and go find him.”

“No. Enough blood has been spilled. Everyone, move out of the commune, follow the shoreline. Should Sowne wish to follow us he’ll have to come through this opening, where he can be apprehended with ease.”

He did not know what to expect when he gave the order, but the people were moving, keeping each other close and not looking back.

I suppose it does not matter who I am to them. The storm’s over, and they’ve been wanting to leave for eons.

“I can stay behind,” said a broad-shouldered youth with close-set eyes, “I’ll guard the exit with Bair and Gar Darron, lest the chief decide to follow us.”

“So will I,” said an older, gruffer man, “though I suggest we return to the streets. I don’t believe that everybody alive has made it out, and Sowne’s thugs are hunting down what’s left of us. Mark my words.”

“Do you harbour a death wish?” Bair told him, “You can’t go back, none of us can, as much as we want to. We have as much a chance of dying now as we did before. We don’t even know how many killers are still about.”

“The girl,” the thought ambushed Sevt, “Bair, where is Aurora? Is she safe?”

The mason was at a loss, and Sevt felt a pit open in his stomach.

Quin…. Forgive me. Gods, how could you forgive me?

“I’m right here.”

It was Aurora, emerging from the crowd, and a boy who looked to be protecting her with a drawn snow saw.

“It’s alright, Wilbur, you can put the weapon down,” she said, “we have a new leader. One that doesn’t plan on turning the masses against each other.”