Wings Of Honor: Heart of Ice

Chapter 19: Through The Ice And Snow

"You're leaving now?" Moon asked, dismayed.
"I mean, are you sure that's a good idea?" Grace inquired. Half to Winter, half to me.
"I have to get him back to the Ice Kingdom," Winter said, glancing over towards Hailstorm. His brother sitting at the base of the greenhouse tower, with his wings folded close around him and his face hidden. "I feel like he won't be safe until he's with our tribe again. And then he'll remember he's really an IceWing ... I hope."
"But Kinkajou ..." Moon started, then trailed off.
"There's nothing I can do for her," Winter pointed out. "Right? We're just waiting until she wakes up?"
Moon looked down at her claws, leaving the "if she wakes up" unsaid.
"None of you can come with us to the Ice Kingdom anyway," Winter said. "You should go back to Jade Mountain."
"No way," Qibli said, and Moon glanced up at him in surprise. "We have to find the lost city of night. Remember the thunder and ice? Earth shaking, ground being scorched, all of that? I don't know about you, but I'm in favor of that prophecy not coming true. Now that we've found Hailstorm, I say it's time to get on top of the whole saving-the-world thing."
"That's what I was going to do!" Moon cried. Grace trained her head to reinforce her. "I've been having these awful nightmares every night — I mean, worse than ever. I've got to figure out the prophecy ... but I wasn't sure if anyone would want to come with me."
"Um, me," Qibli said, waving a wing at himself as though that was glaringly obvious. "Sign me up."
Grace shot a meaningful glance at me. But I hung my head down. Grasping another handful of 7.92 short and loading my MKB magazines, shell by shell.
Moon turned hopeful eyes toward Winter. "Maybe after you take Hailstorm home?" she asked. "Then you could come back and we could all look for the lost city of night together."
I looked up at WInter. He hesitated, conflicted between two equally weighted decisions. Either help his brother, or the person he's falling for.
"I ... I can't," he said.
We both saw Moon's soul crumble. Grace wrapped her even tighter. My hands began to shake.
"I can't," he said again. All at once he was aware of Hailstorm standing aft of him, listening. Hailstorm's blue eyes, watching Winter's evrey move. "Listen, get this into your head. I'm an IceWing." He hated that it came out sounding almost like a question. He wasn't like Hailstorm; he knew who he was.
He's trying to rollmodel. I thought uncociously.
"I'm an IceWing," he said again, more firmly. "That means I belong in the Ice Kingdom with my own tribe. I should never have gone to Jade Mountain. This prophecy, if it's even real, has nothing to do with me, and I should have nothing to do with you."
That struck all three of us.
"But," Moon said, "I thought —" She reached toward him, her dark eyes filled with puzzle and hurt. She was like a jigsaw puzzle, that someone had ripped apart, scattering some pieces, leaving others bent and irreplaceable.
"What, that we were friends?" Winter spat, shoving her talons away. "We can't be friends. You're my sworn enemy, NightWing. I never asked for you to follow me around."
I clenched my hand into a fist.
"Hey," Qibli said. Sounding genuinely angry. "Don't talk to her like that. She helped you find your brother and she risked her life to do it. What is wrong with you?"
"It's all right," Moon said, brushing Qibli's wing with her own. Stepping out from Grace's wings a little. Her eyes flickered to Hailstorm, close behind Winter. "He's striking first, that's all. Winter, I believe that you're one of the best, bravest, truest dragons in Pyrrhia. I'll never be your enemy, no matter what you say. But go ahead and leave, if that's what you want."
Grace whimpered.
Winter turned his head away a moment, struggling with something. My own chest seemed to constrict. I couldn't breathe freely. I held what breath I could muster.
"We'll wait for you," Qibli said. "Right here, in case you change your mind and realize that stopping a big world-destroying prophecy is what you were hatched to do."
"Don't bother," Winter said, a cold snarl as intimidating as he'd once been able to make it.
"One week," Moon said, glancing at Qibli for confirmation. "We can wait one week, and then we're leaving."
"Then you're idiots! I don't care!" Winter practically shouted. "Three moons! Leave me alone!" He turned to Hailstorm. "Let's go."
"No." I said, strongly enough to stop Winter in his tracks. I beared down at him with eyes filled with rage and fire. "You're not going anywhere I'm not."
Winter frowned, then scoffed, all in the same breath. "You're a scavenger. You can't survive."
I walked up to him, prodding him with my bayonet. "Then I'll die in the Ice Kingdom." I started climbing onto his back. "Throw me off, and you'll be dead before I hit the ground." I hissed in his ear, training my Springfield onto him.
I felt Grace take a shaky breath. They all did.
I was done with Winter's shit. I was done with the attitude he game me, he gave Grace. For once, he had to tango with me, alone.
"Fine." He grit his teeth.
As he spread his wings and leaped into the sky, Qibli called as we departed, "Don't be a stranger."
And I barely made out Moon saying, "We'll miss you."
Hailstorm soared into the lead, his wings glittering silver-and-white with reflections of rose from the setting sun ahead of them. He grinned over his shoulder at his little brother — the first happy expression Winter had seen from him all day.
I grit my teeth, shoving it further down than I have yet to go. It was cold. Evreything felt cold. What warmness and softness and weakness Grace infected me with; now, the familiar ice began to flow into me again.
The tears were blown away by the wind. The cold bared no noticeable discomfort anymore. My mind became clear, no more distractions. I opened my eyes fully, and with a far stare. My rifle came back to ready position, as I had trained myself to do for so long now.
My other self was dead. He was evicted once before, but now he was dead. I was sure of it. No more will I need to worry about them. I worried about the enemy, the ones on the other end of my sights. The future was gone. The past was gone. The only thing that filled me, was an icy coldness... and the warmth of a raging fire.

We charted into the sunset, squinting through the sting of blindness.
The Ice Kingdom was waiting for us.
And I was ready to raise hell.

It wasn't until further into the flight that I decided to take inventory of what I brought. Only my day pack, and mixed pouch webbing I sewed together from a bunch of other equipment. But sadly, the majority of that was ammunition.
Inside my pack though, I found a set of K rations, not the enchanted boxes. Those were left with Grace damn it. The radio was stuffed in there, at least for now. My entrenching tool was still in its pouch. I carried a couple, small, cardboard ammo boxes of Springfield and MKB ammo, courtesy of McManis during the Siege of Jade Mountain.
But as I dug further to reach the bottom of my pack, I felt something oddly cylindrical. It wasn't a tin, those too big to be that. It felt, almost woody. Like paper. I pulled it out.
It was fucking Darkstalker's scroll. Travers must've stuffed it into my pack after the siege.
Suddenly, two IceWings appeared out of the snow.
"Get the scroll!" One yelled. Another slammed into Winter, knocking me and him out of the sky. The band snug Winter's horns, slinging itself securely around his neck. We went tumbling into the soft powder. Winter got up quickly to face the attackers, Halestorm dipped away somewhere.
I could hear the scuffle, clashes of teeth, tails, and claws. I made out three shapes in the growing snowstorm. I drew my pistol, firing once into the sky, making them freeze and stare at me. One of them flinched. I fired twice over the two heads that were not Winter. They were both frozen in shock.
"Stand down! Or you're both dead!"
Only the howling of snow, wind, and ice. Then a shout.
"Better to die than be defeated."
I saw the scroll holder slip off of Winter neck.
"No!"
I holstered my pistol, slinging over my MKB. I tracked them instinctively, firing at their guesstimated shapes, helped by the brown tan of the scroll holder. I fired in a panic, six rounds, but their shapes were quickly fading out of effective range.
"Shit"
The two IceWings had disappeared.
"I'll go after them!" Winter yelled, flying after them. My shaken mind was already calculating it out as the three dragons started to fade out into the storm.
They've got a head start. Winter's faster, but he won't make it in time to intercept. I felt the heavy weights of my rifles on my back. Unless.
I unslung my Springfield, bringing it to bear. I racked the bolt, chambering a black tipped round, utterly overkill for a job like this. None-the-less, I brought the scope to eye level, bringing the crosshair onto the shape of the dragon with the scroll holder in his claws. I closed my eyes, emptying my mind.
My only focus: range: one-twenty yards and counting, wind, how I was running out of time. My breaths became longer, and shallower, until they were almost imperceptible. I held my breath, my heartbeat slowed in my ears, drowning out the howling wind. I led my target by half a inch, up by a quarter. My finger came to rest on the trigger. I closed my eyes one last time, breathing out.
A shot.
I felt the rifle kick back into me, but my shoulder was good. I followed the contrail to the target, and saw two fountains of a dark blue mist, amidst the pure white of the snowstorm around us. He seemed to arch mid wingbeat, becoming still in the sky. His momentum carried him forward, but his wings retracted some. With a faint trail, he dove down. Like a fighter with a deceased pilot leaning on the stick. The other Icewing did a double take, then flew serpentine away.
Winter left him, instead going for the body. Halestorm flew to meet up with him.
I finally took a breath, racking the bolt of my Springfield. The sharp cling of brass ejecting, only to burn its own grave into the snow and ice.
I had just killed my first dragon. There was no other choice.
I slung my rifle, running up to Winter and Halestorm. They were busy looking over my prey. A tunnel right through his chest. His heart. A clean hole. A clean shot. Dark blue surrounded the tunnel through this Icewing, a color I have only seen once... one other time... on Winter. He looked over at me and growled.
"There was no other way." I sighed. "He was going to get away. I couldn't let that happen."
I didn't have to read his mind to see the fury and rage he had at me. I only collected the slinged bag off him, then walked back up to the dead dragon. I knelt down and layed my hand on him.
"Go now, into peace. War no more. I bless you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Using snow to bless him. The closest I could get to liquid water anywhere around here. I sighed, standing up. "We go." Is all I told Winter. I climbed onto him, not so much as a protest. He spread his wings, and we faded back into the blizzard.