Ice and Wind - Chapter 6

ICE AND WIND – S1C6

Stay Awake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGKJCUV2VIY (start at 19:00)

He stood in a vast cavern.

The torchlight made the mountain of gold and jewels dance like little candles in front of his eyes. It was a pile of fortune so high it should have been guarded by a dragon…but they were barely myth anymore. Stories to tell children.

Raze stepped forward and CRUNCH…CRUNCH. He looked down to see that his boots crushed diamonds underneath.

Wait.

Diamonds don’t crush…

His single eye shot open.

He had not dreamed in many years, a soldiers’ scourge and training.

He cursed at himself now for it.

Coming to reality and his bearings, he scanned the encampment below his perch. Hidden up in the pines of a fir tree, this post offered a good view of the escarpment that they had settled on for the night.

As it had been for so long, the wind played its music. Always.

The fire burned barely and he could see the outline of his travelling companion, Estan, covered with fresh snow on top of his oil skin and furs beneath.

Raze unhooked his bow and quiver from the pine knot above and made his way down the tree.

Once upon the ground he waited. His breath was shallow through separated teeth. Slowly bending, eyes always searching the night, he brought a fistful of snow to his mouth and held it within. No longer did his breath dance in the dark. He was a ghost.

His ears wolves.

His blood bears.

His eyes owls.

Crunch, Crunch. The darkness rewarded his patience.

There. His eyes immediately focused upon the source.

Just beyond the camp to the south. Forty yards.

He adjusted for wind and forward movement. Tension of the bow and hunger of the arrow were the only sounds as he aimed and nearly silent pulled death taught.

Unwavering focus, slow steps backwards into the swaying trees and night. She wrapped shadows around her babe like comfort.

Painfully still he held, waiting.

Interminable minutes passed.

Out of the corner of his eye the white pile of Estan sleeping did not move.

Only quiet.

Only snow.

Only darkness.

Raze knew that was false.

He peered closer, perhaps there? A distant shadow or mind tricks? He scanned harder, further, demanding more of his sight.

A cough behind him. Ridiculous, a “cough”?

Raze spun.

His arrow gave that proud sound of release as it pierced night into the dense tree line. While it still sang, it’s sister was pulled from the quiver and set sail to join her sibling. This time slightly higher into the trees; it is where he would have run.

Even as the second arrow whistled, Raze heard movement again from his original vantage to the south. He spun back around and sang his Song. Left arm outstretched and fingers dancing intricately in the night. The small campfire exploded in time with his motions.

His song demanded and the fire obliged.

It rose higher and higher at his request and began to spill over the rocks they had piled against its meager birthplace.

She arched and resisted his call but did as asked and unfurled and cried into the night defiantly. She looked at this man calling her forth and exploded in all directions.

She would devour.

Little fingers of red and orange judgement travelled across the ground to him.

They were very eager to eat.

He sang for them.

He asked and she agreed and leaped onto him. Dancing and consumed him because he bade her so well with promises.

The small clearing erupted into light.

Raze stood in the middle of the darkest night and illuminated all; a man on fire.

Most of the dark creatures retreated at the burst of flame. However, one remained and circled. Large and unafraid. A wolf of its pack.

It was black ooze, shifting and changing. Its form moved slow like tar and had several faces of children looking at him, pleading while its maw bent low to the ground. The faces did not cry. They were hollow vestments of lives absorbed, looking at nothing ever again.

A child’s nightmare indeed.

Raze continued his song and moved synchronously with the beast, even circles, even distance.

He blazed with fire, and he gestured for the creature to join him. Without choice, it did. It received his gift.

He sang and the fire danced delighted. Little orange imps and awful red birds exploded from him into the night. They were all hungry, hurried and relentless.

Raze Khosta continued his song as he dripped with beautiful red destruction.

The creatures of his melody were very swift and seemed to play around the black thing; a dance that ended when they all leaped together and consumed it gleefully.

The thing of nightmare screamed momentarily but it was lost in the rising din of a much more demanding titan.

The sound of flames is something difficult to describe and there is a reason for that. Flames do not want to be contained nor do they want to be commanded. They are of the first things and their language is forgotten to us. They keep their names secret and speak them to each other only in the destruction. If you are old and wise one day, you may know the true name of things and can actually hear them call to each other fondly. Otherwise, you simply hear burning.

The camp was ablaze.

Raze and his FireSong were little things at the center of the hurricane of fire. Unleashed, this primordial force wanted all and expressed that by reaching high into the night.

His voice grew more sincere in response, his gestures more intricate.

Then he demanded. She laughed and grew and smiled down at him. Realizing his poor choice his voice and gestures became more pleading, humble, obsequious. He begged in front of One of the Four.

The fire around him became a fury. It grew and more things of flame crawled and flew and devoured. They ran and screeched into the trees seeking other things of the night or anything at all, to burn. Within moments the entire south entry to their encampment was in flames.

An inferno on the ice.

He had never controlled so much, and his song buckled and weakened with his faith.

There was too much, too many. So many notes to move and change. So many symphonies to bring together.

In the center of the fire storm, she smiled wide.

Raze began to burn.

The fire walked over and along him. It appeared a casual pedestrian with little interest but she looked back and kissed him dearly.

She asked for payment.

She ran and jumped along his frame not even recognizing his feeble and mumbled words.

You do not call One of the Four without price.

He sank to his knees, spent.

He was still singing weakly, harshly and burning.

The smell of his own flesh in his nostrils.

The flames around him laughed at his pride and they expanded higher.

The camp was engulfed with fury painted orange and red. He had given them unchecked life.

Gleefully, the flames exploded until they touched the sky.

They said “You dare? “

And when could not answer back, they said, “We are.”

Below the swirling firestorm that now touched the top of the trees and had completely melted all snow in the small camp: Fuel.

He was bent, buckled, burning, dying.

It spun raging. A tempest unleashed and ready to eat. Swirling destruction without master.

Through the crackling intensity words were shouted in command, and the fire recoiled in horror “Co’ havathe! Qui Va! Onst Co’Avath…Co’Avath. Onst Co’Avath!”

The night suddenly awoke. It remembered that it was darkness.

The raging fires bent in anguish. They wanted to run and burn and eat.

However, the words rang through the night. With an evil look at the Crow, she promised her return but acquiesced.

All of the fires snuffed, completely.

All the trees.

All the creatures.

Raze.

Just smoke drifting like yesterday.

Everything went dark and Raze let out a cry as fire ran one more time through his veins. A punishment of attempting too much.

From his knees and pain he turned to look into the night. Where there had been Hellfire just a moment before, Estan stood in the midst of it all.

He could see the smoke crawling off the man who should have been ablaze.

Estan looked darkly at Raze and pulled his Songbird free from her sheath. The blade gleamed pure in the darkness.

He pointed with intensity beyond. They were not done yet.

Raze watched the night grow darker and larger around Estan. It swirled and spun and then jumped onto him; a vestment he wore, and the night accepted his disappearance. He was her child and she parted her skirts when he vanished into the trees.

He only stood a moment longer wondering who this demon was but knew that bad tidings were just over his shoulder.

He didn’t have to turn to see what blackness was awaiting.

He sang softly to his blade, like a new bride and ran his hand along her beautiful length as she unskinned. She smiled coyly and obliged with sensual flames at his touch. They licked him and promised more if he would just ask again.

Just a little more fire.

Turning he shined his fire upon the guests to the feast.

All manner of dark things smiled back at him.

He had never seen them without host before and so many, yet here they stood, crawled and climbed before him.

Filthy darkness. The worst parts of the dark. The parts that grab you, haunt you, consume you.

These eat you.

They turned away from the dripping flame of his sword but not far, they wished for him and his flesh. They hungered and whined, and they desired.

He was too far from the campfire to pull more flame and too weak from trying to control so much destruction earlier.

Dark things stalked just out of the light.

Raze sliced the night. Once. Twice. Backing away he looked around for options.

His spirit was waning. The fire on his blade began to dim and then faded with a final drip that hissed in when it struck the ground.

The dark things were emboldened that his sword no longer blazed and they advanced upon him. He was still a fine swordsman and cleaved the first and second in two as he made his retreat toward the camp. If anything, he could just ignite it all.

Then a whisper, louder than wind came through the night.

It rustled through the trees and over the snow. It touched all things with curious hands, testing the texture of the pines and the ice on the ground. Its touch was judging and searching and still small like a child who wanted to discover.

With many little hands it passed over Raze, shocked but wooden, his blade still in the air.

It tasted his sweat and burnt skin; it flicked his blade aside like an inconvenience. He heard a Whisper whisper in his ear, “Akstaa Kosth.” It sounded disappointed.

Then just like that, gone.

Raze, regained his composure and saw that the dark things about to strike him had also stopped in their tracks.

He turned his sword for the final fight.

The air was unnatural and thick, expectant. Hushed and waiting. Everything had paused.

All the dark things in front of him dropped to the ground. From the trees they plummeted. Once on the ground they began to bubble and boil and melt.

A night full of nightmares before him. Gone.

He heard that cough again and turned to see Estan walking out of the forest.

His face and blade dark.

A sky even darker with crows behind him.