Frozen Summer

Chapter 10

Still on his knees mourning the passing of his son, he thought about how he must have felt in his last moments. Seeing his father in a rage fuelled state, getting his fingers ripped off and his arm broken as he was pleading for his life. He couldn't believe what he just did. He didn't hear the footsteps behind him, small and smooth hands landed on his shoulders as if the person was trying to comfort him. When he looked behind his shoulder he recognised that one eastern woman that he saved earlier, he felt relieved that at least she survived his rampage. She kneeled in front of him and took his head into her hands, he was hypnotised by her eyes.

" Was this one someone important to you ? " She said looking at Salim's corpse.

" My one and only son ..."

" I once had a daughter too, she died a few years ago when the war started. Do you want to know how she died ? ". Ramos stayed silent so she kept going. " One day, men from the kingdom of fardug raided our village and accused every woman of being witches if they ever refused to have sex with them. And even if they refused, they were raped and then burned alive. They did this to her in front of my eyes, I had to stay here silently while these men that I didn't know decided to be cruel in the name of a war that neither me nor my daughter were taking a part in. Do you think this was fair ? Did we ever do something to those men ? .

She stood up and started walking towards the corpse of Salim, she kneeled down to close his eyes and then spat on him. Ramos' eyes widened as his rage picked up, he got up and tried grabbing the woman but he got stopped in his movement. She looked at him and pointed her finger down, he fell to his knees, he couldn't control his own body. She walked closer to him and raised his head, she was smiling.

I swore on that day that I would make those people suffer as much as I did. Did you know that every woman has a potential to become a witch but they have to have an awakening of some sort. Some women live their whole lives with the potential but never awaken. When these men were done with my daughter and threw her head at my feet, I had my awakening. I felt the most powerful I ever did and killed all of them. I then joined the army because you people decide to involve innocents into a war they don't belong to. What you see now before you is the result of you, your son and every man here deciding to involve yourselves in this war while you could have lived a peaceful life. And for what ? "

Ramos then felt his body rising above the ground, he was levitating. The witch eyes were full of rage, nothing like the compassionate face she had a few minutes ago.

" The queen had a perfect plan, to infiltrate a few of our kind among villages in case of a raid, act defenseless and then counter attack. Soldiers are so predictable, you charge head first into battle without questioning why or who you are fighting for nor do you ask the reasons. I'm still impressed, I thought I would have needed to use another berserker spell but you only was sufficient, impressive that you didn't even notice me making it on your chest back then. "

He then remembered, as she was trying to charm him earlier, she was making symbols on his chest but he didnt notice at the time that she was using blood to trace a rune on his armor, right after it she vanished to let him rampage.

" Just kill me already, i'm tired of hearing you talking ."

" I won't kill you soldier, I need you to live, you will live with your mistake of having killed the men that trusted you with their lives and you will report to your generals this information. I have no more use for you, now go. "

With a swift movement of her hand she sent him flying a fews meters away, laying face down, rage started boiling inside him. He wanted to kill this witch more than anything. He was barely able to move but he had to avenge his fallen men and his son. He got back on his feet and started charging at the witch, not fazed by it; she simply held her hand out and made a gesture to make him fly away. But he didnt move, he was still charging at her, she started running away in fear and disbelief that her spell wasn't working. He caught her by her hair and threw her on the ground, he started pressing her throat with all the strength he had left. The last sight she ever saw was this beast of a man strangling her while crying, and in her final moment she noticed the rune on his chest had faded because of the water he landed in thus breaking the berserker spell and all control she had over him. Such an easy and simple mistake was an indicator of her overconfidence.