The Angel of Frost

X.

"Hey, wake up!"

Jonah groaned as he sat up. The words sounded like they were spoken underwater, but then they came back, completely lucid.

"Hey, wake up!" It was one of the archers stationed at the walls. Jonah immediately bolted to his feet. "Come with me," the guard hissed. He ran off towards a tent.

Jonah followed. His feet kept moving until he remembered why he had passed out.

"Dianne!" he called out, though he knew it was futile. "Dianne, where are you?"

"Goddammit!" The guard growled and grabbed the front of Jonah's shirt. "Whoever she is, she's gone. We don't have time to grieve; save that for later!"

He pulled Jonah into the tent, and as both slumped down on the floor, they could already see the shadows of the beasts lingering outside the folds.

In less than a moment, the guard was back on his feet. He grabbed a sword from a chest. "Here is where we shall make our last stand."

Jonah frowned. "So you mean that you pulled me in here to die?"

The guard glared at Jonah. "You wouldn't even be able to take another step outside before one of those things kill you," he said as he crouched into a fighting stance. "Besides, there's no honor in running away."

Jonah tried to follow his example bravely, but his hands trembled as he gripped the handle of the sword. "It's not like I have a choice," he muttered.

Then the folds burst open with a pack of monsters, and the guard leaped at them with a ferocious cry and brought down the sword into one of the monsters with a fierceness that made Jonah doubt if he was even human.

There was a crack, then another, and finally, the skull of the guard's target was shattered into pieces.

"Hell yeah! This is battle!" he yelled, then quickly discarded the sword as its blade was now covered with a layer of frost that significantly lowered its sharpness. "Give me another weapon, for I swear on my life that as surely as the sun shall rise again upon Africa, the name of Swanson shall never be forgot--"

Shhhik.

And for probably the hundredth time today, Jonah saw someone being horribly murdered by one of the creatures.

The new sword that the guard's lifeless hand was holding clanked to the floor. In a split second, Jonah considered making a grab for it to hopefully defend himself, but the sword was too far.

He made his decision. His hand grabbed the frozen sword's hilt. The chill emanating from the sword wrapped around his fingers as he lunged at the beasts.

The blade of the sword cracked the skull of his target, but unlike earlier when the guard had battled, the bone did not shatter. He began to worry that the blade was useless and that his life was about to be snuffed out.

Still, a dogged determination pushed him, and he drove the sword deeper into the skull. It exploded in a flurry of blue light.

He cried out in agony as the sword was engulfed in an arctic glow. Ice crept up his arm, seeping into his veins. His entire body felt like it was being pierced with a cluster of icicles.

He felt a fire growing inside him, a fire that was colder than frost. A fire that was kindled by his fury at what these abominations had done to innocent people.

Jonah never remembered what happened next, except for the horror he felt towards his own power at that moment. He had killed them all, with the fury of a winter blizzard condensed into arcs and slashes of ice. His sword looked different; the entire sword was now made out of ice.