Daggers of Ice

Chapter 17

The Far North.

1010.

The Tenth Year of the Golden Age.

Edmund.

He had expected savages.
That was what the songs and reports had said – that the northmen were half-wild, crude mountain dwellers who bowed to wolves and fought over scraps of frozen land. The roughness was there, yes, but it was a kind born of necessity, not chaos. They were craftsmen and hunters, bound to the land by the same iron thread that held the mountains together.

The snow had begun to fall again, soft and soundless; a fine, glittering veil that turned the jagged ridges of the north into something almost peaceful. The air was thin, the cold so sharp it stung his lungs with every breath. Their horses moved in single file along the narrow pass, hooves crunching softly through the frost.

Ahead of him, Arianna rode the black gryphon, its wings folded tightly to its sides, the beast's silvered feathers glinting faintly in the grey light. The rest of the northern escort trailed behind, their eyes ever on the horizon.

They were almost back to the Keep.

Edmund could see the faint shimmer of it – the black stone glistening through the snowstorm like obsidian frozen mid-melt, its towers crowned with frost.

Then came the first whisper.

Not wind.

Something sharper.

He turned his head just in time to see the arrow – a flicker of black slicing through the snowfall. It struck him square in the shoulder, the impact slamming him back against the saddle. The pain was immediate, blinding – a burst of fire under the skin.

He shouted, or thought he did, but his voice was drowned by the gryphon's scream as it reared – a sound that tore through the wind like thunder..

"Ambush!" Raenor's voice was a growl behind him.

Then chaos.

More arrows, dozens, hissing through the storm like angry bees. Horses shrieked and reared. The wolves lunged toward the tree line, snapping at shadows. One of the northmen fell from his mount, his body thudding heavily into the snow before vanishing beneath it.

"Where are they?" someone shouted. "I can't see–!"

An arrow silenced him mid-word.

Edmund's fingers fumbled at the shaft jutting from his shoulder – black wood, barbed, crude – the kind of weapon forged for agony. He tried to tear it free, but his arm wouldn't obey. His vision was a haze of white and red.

Another arrow tore through the air. Arianna twisted in her saddle – too late. It sliced across her cheek, drawing a sharp line of blood.

She hissed through her teeth, her hand rising.

The air around her changed.

Then the world erupted. A wall of jagged frost burst upward in front of them, a shimmering barrier of blue-white light that caught the next volley of arrows and shattered them mid-flight.

The impact sent a shockwave through the ground. Edmund's horse reared, and his good hand barely caught the reins before the animal bolted.

"Stay down!" Arianna shouted, though the wind tore at her words. Her eyes burned like twin emeralds in the storm light, her hair whipped wild around her face.

Raenor's wolves darted between the trees, flashes of dark fur vanishing into the snow. The forest echoed with snarls, screams, the twang of bowstrings – then silence, broken only by the frantic pounding of Edmund's pulse.