The Court of Winter, located between three massive mountain peaks in the Sea of Obsidian Ice, was perpetually shrouded in a blizzard of crystalline snow. A lone figure, astride a massive creature, much bigger than any common horse, rode slowly in silence as he split the snow, his mount walking purposefully towards the Great Frost Gap as the scouts of the Court began appearing from out of the swirling snow. The Gap, the massive eastern gate that guarded the entrance to the city, was shining in the Eridan sun. The colossal gate was between two even taller towers, all of which appeared to be carved out of perpetual ice, so pure that it seemed nearly transparent. Runic symbols were carved vertically up the twin towers, warding the Gap against intrusion from both invaders and destruction from heat. The mounted rider, pulled back on the reins, held solely in his left hand and his creature slowed to a stop. Court Scouts, wrapped in thick furs, each hooded and masked against the blizzard, bore longbows the size of an average man held deftly in hand with an arrow already nocked. The rider confidently shifted his weight, placing the majority of his athletic build onto his left leg and pushed against the stirrup while freeing his right foot from the opposite side. In a smooth, single fluid movement, he swung his booted right foot forward, leaned back to create the necessary space needed, and whipped the foot in behind his steed’s head and over to dismount. The rider, however, failed to account for the black iron spur on his right boot, and the spur’s protrusion caught in reins still held in his left hand. What had been a smooth and elegant decent became an off-balance catastrophe, pitching the rider backwards, still with the left boot trapped within the stirrup and causing a sudden and abrupt meeting between the rider’s face and the powdered snow on the ground.
Beltayne came back to reality, lying prone on the dirt road to Ridgeton and with Telerek snickering and sneering. Beltayne’s horse was standing above him, entirely oblivious to the embarrassment of its rider.
“Got a little too lost in your thoughts didn’t you,” Tel ridiculed, with a haughty smile.
“Perhaps, it would behoove you to focus at least a small amount of your no doubt prodigious attention on the task at hand.”
“You… speak true Telerek. And your barbs, while pointed and sharp, are not wrong. I let my thoughts…” sheepishly began Beltayne.
“I have already lost interest,” interrupted Telerek. “Remount the horse, we’re nearly back.”
The group arrived back in Ridgeton in short order and stabled their erstwhile mounts. Beltayne was more than willing to be rid of the beast, having spent the entire journey attempting to bond with the animal and failing miserably.
“Maybe the horse sensed that you were just not intelligent enough to maintain a decent conversation,” whispered his blade, lying flat in the usual place on his right shoulder.
“That’s preposterous and you know it. I truly believe that a horse is an inferior creature. Perhaps the horse could sense my judgement against the species. I should probably apologize to the creature, but I just…I could feel no connection to it. I was very much hoping to make that steed my knightly mount,” Beltayne sighed dejectedly after he spoke.
While it was true that Beltayne had never spent time in mounted combat, he had certainly thought about the subject enough. In between offering Kel’dhos unsolicited riding advice and listening to the random ramblings of Val’s thoughts on the personalities of different species of tree, Beltayne had been imagining himself as a noble, gallant and of course, mounted knight.
Back in the Sea, during his apprenticeship, he had practiced and trained extensively in mounted combat, which was an oddity in and of itself. The elves in the icy wastelands were rarely inclined to domesticate local creatures for the purpose of riding. Even rarer still to the Court was the notion of mounted combat, for in an environment covered almost exclusively in slippery ice and shifting snows, the concept of entrusting battle-footing to a wild animal was preposterous.
But Beltayne had developed what he believed to be the ideal image of what a knight should be, and that included a chivalric steed. As he mused on the concept of searching Ridgeton for a suitable mount, the others discussed the next steps.
“Highwarden Blacktide will need to be informed of our progress and the… completion… of our investigation,” said Kel’dhos, after having gingerly dismounted his own steed in the stable.
“If even half of what I heard about these Trident Guards is true, he already knows. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t report as early as we can on the morrow, but we should prepare ourselves for the eventuality that he is better informed than we are and Blacktide knows of our progress,” added Telerek.
“I don’t really give two shites whether he knows or not. All I care about is tha’ he keeps to his word and pays me the gold he owes,” grumbled Magnar, who had shimmied down onto a stool that a stable hand had propped next to the pony Magnar had ridden.
“Us, brother. The gold he owes us. But the principle is the same. He needs to be informed, and we need to be paid. The mystery has deepened anyways and it is time to see how much deeper this well goes,” said Magnus, sagely enunciating, and still sitting upon his horse.
Beltayne absent mindedly moved towards Magnus and his horse, listening to the conversation developing. He began to move his hands to the mounted dwarf when his knuckles were rapped soundly by a small cudgel held in Magnus’ hand.
“I know that you were not about to lift me off this beast and place me on the ground like a small child, Elf. Certainly not if you like continuing to maintain the use of those hands,” said Magnus, now glaring at Beltayne.
For all the discomfiture of Magnus’ sudden strike, Beltayne appeared to have been struck back into reality, looking at his hands and knitting his eyebrows together in confusion.
“I apologize little magical one. I was acting without thinking, and I beg your pardon. No affront to your stature was intended,” said Beltayne, placing both hands at his sides and accompanying his words with formal bow, whisps of his long azure-white hair falling forward to obscure his downcast eyes.
“Did the elf just apologize for something?! Is he sick? Quick, somebody mark the date. I have rarely, if ever, heard an elf acknowledging that they were wrong,” chuckled Magnar, who had clearly enjoyed Beltayne’s newly discovered humility.
“The falling leaf does not apologize to the tree from whence it came,” said Val, almost to herself, as she fumbled through her pack. “More importantly, where did I put my cloak, I would hate to be without it while in town.”
“Everybody else knows that doesn’t make sense right,” asked Magnus, looking around at the group assembled in the stable. “Also, your damned cloak is on your damn back Val. You’re looking for something that you’re already wearing. Gods above.”
“Just as the sages foretold…” Val muttered to herself and she looked at her own arm and, apparently registered the cloak’s presence, moved to put up the hood. She then grabbed a handful of hay from the stable ground and moved towards the open stall doors.
“Anyway, let us take the night, clean the road off, and enter the Storm Hold tomorrow refreshed,” advised Magnus.
The stable where they had released the horses was next to an inn with a faded sign announcing it as the Jade Demon. Briefly considering to himself the strangeness of the name and vowing to ask one of the staff the tale from whence the inn earned that name, Beltayne walked through the doors with the others and was given a large brass key to an upstairs room.
The party, having gone their separate ways for the night, agreed to meet again in the morning’s light before approaching the home of the Trident Guard. Inside the modest room, Beltayne removed his various leather straps and undid numerous brass buckles, eventually getting out of his leather and plate combination armor. Arranging the armor on the room’s sole bed, he then placed his sword on the pillow provided.
Beltayne himself sat cross-legged on the rough wooden floor and removed his spurs, then boots. He rolled the bottoms of the breeches, turning them all the way up to just-below his knees. Bel resumed his cross-legged position and slipped into a sleep trance.
Immediately after committing his conscious mind to the trance, Beltayne felt a familiar cold wind blowing about his face and stinging his cheeks. He opened his eyes, and in front of him sat a small polar fox with shockingly white fur and pale lavender eyes.
The fox cocked its head to the side, pointing its pointed nose slightly downward. The fox seemingly glared into, and through, Beltayne’s own eyes until he heard a voice in his head, like the voice of a young woman, high pitched and flippant.
“Sir Beltayne, are you prepared?” the fox asked, the voice spoken aloud but without the mouth of the animal having moved. Beltayne knew, in his spirit, that the voice belonged to the creature, the words accompanied by the chilly breeze he had felt before.
“Ready for what little creature?” responded Beltayne, tilting his head to match the cant of the fox’s.
“The fight, you silly elf. You demanded a fight. Are you ready?”
“Fox, I have trained to fight with all my being, for all my life. I am ready to fight.”
“I ask not if you are ready to duel, anybody with cold steel can swing it at a foe. I’m asking if you are ready for what comes after the fall.”
“Your meaning escapes me then. Who are you, to know so much about what has happened, and what will happen? I have never met a talking fox.”
“I am but one aspect of the Queen of Falling Snow of course. I am the aspect that you need at this moment. I suggest that you humble yourself quickly. If not, you may have it done for you, at abrupt and painful cost.”
At this last piece, Beltayne heard a chittering sound, a mix between yelps and yips that he realized must be the sound of the fox laughing. He had never heard a fox laugh before, but he had also never heard one speak, let alone directly into his mind, and the feeling was jarring.
Realizing that the animal also had disclosed that it was a piece of his goddess, a characteristic of her personality made physical, he uncrossed his legs and dropped his forehead to the floor.
“Great Lady, or, Lady…Fox, speak plainly, I beg you. I am your servant, but I do not understand,” he said from the ground.
He heard the chitter-laughter once more, “Think about what comes before you fall. And then what comes after. Oh, and don’t worry about a steed. We’ll take care of that.”
Beltayne looked up abruptly from the floor, shocked at the change of subject, but the fox had vanished. He sat for a long while, recrossing his legs and attempting to regain his spirit’s center. He reflected on the challenge he had demanded from Blacktide, for the first time considering that the demand may have been in poor judgement.
At the conclusion of his sleep-trance, he stood and removed his undershirt, grabbed his sword from the bed’s pillow, and began slowly running through the sword forms of an initiate of the Winter Knights.
Eventually, Beltayne’s forms were interrupted by a hard double-thud on the door of his room. He placed the blade back onto the pillow and crossed the floor to answer the knock, still lost in thought and consideration of the fox’s words.
Opening the door, he saw the short and stocky form of Magnar holding a fistful of bacon in one hand and with the other hand still outstretched towards Bel’s door.
“You look like trash Elf, d’ya sleep a wink? No matter, put your clothes on. It’s time to get paid,” said the dwarf, then taking a bite from the various strips of bacon firmly held in his meaty hand.
After redressing in his armor, he slowly made his way down the inn’s stairs and met the rest of the group at the long table in the inn’s primary area. Magnar had apparently located more bacon and was now making use of both fists to hold his breakfasts, grease dripping down both as he tore at the food with reckless abandon.
The sleep, and food, had rejuvenated the group. Kel’dhos was looking especially calm, despite his disfigured ears. Magnus was wearing his most exquisite magical pajamas, but was still without the hat that Beltayne reminded himself he needed to get for the little dwarf. Telerek was still greasy-looking, but his black cloak and leathers were now cleaned while his cousin Val was wearing the same cloak for the previous day. At least she had removed most of the twigs and leaves from her hair, so that had to count for something.
The group made their way out of the Jade Demon and wound around the streets of Ridgeton towards the fortress on the hill.
Not surprisingly, and in keeping with Magnus’ prediction, Blacktide was waiting for them at the gate. The stout and somewhat rotund Blacktide had both hands folded across his chest and stared at the group as they approached. It was a somewhat awkward encounter, as Blacktide stood unmoving while the party crossed the long expanse of the fortress drawbridge, showing no emotion or reaction to their presence.
Finally, with a raise of his upper lip, causing his moustache to fluff, Blacktide squinted at them like he was trying to decide to invite them inside, or raise the drawbridge with them on it. The lines of his aged face crinkled for a long while, then he exhaled dramatically and finally spoke.
“Well, you’re back. And you’re all alive. I am most intrigued to hear how that transpired. Come inside. I’ll call for the treasurer.
They were ushered back into same meeting hall in which they had first met Blacktide. Kel’dhos and Magnus proceeded to outlay what had transpired at the mine, while Magnar would occasionally relate a specific method he had dispatched a goblin. Beltayne kept mostly quiet throughout the report, choosing instead to listen to their mostly organized retelling.
The brief given, and the money paid out in pouches distributed by one of Blacktide’s aides, Blacktide himself placed both palms on the big table in front of him and slowly pushed himself to a standing position.
“Interesting. Most… interesting. While I’m thankful that you’ve solved that specific slavery situation, it would appear that the larger issue of the slave trade in the area is far from resolved. But, more importantly, I believe we have business to attend.”
Blacktide pointed a meaty finger at Beltayne and the two made eye-contact, letting a pause of silence settle between them.
“Are you ready elf? I owe you a thrashing, at your own request,” Blacktide said with a smile slowly appearing across his face, reddening with obvious excitement. “I have had the courtyard prepared, shall we?”
Not waiting for a reply, the Highwarden turned about and walked to wall, where a massive two-handed great sword hung on a mount, supported by two shield style brackets anchored into the wall. Blacktide hefted the sword with one hand, propped in on his shoulder, and strode out the door.
Beltayne followed the man down a short stone hallway that opened up into an inner courtyard. The courtyard was populated with approximately a hundred different peoples, most of which were dressed in finery and clearly not members of the Trident Guard.
“I hope you do not mind, but your group is so… strange… and the opportunity to duel an elf from the Ice Dark Sea was too good an opportunity. We shall have witness today,” Blacktide said booming out loud.
“It does not matter to me, Lord Warden. Defeat you in front of many or defeat you in front of none, the result is the same.”
“Ha! We shall see! Ready yourself! We duel to incapacitation, but should death come, we will greet it loudly,” said Blacktide.
Beltayne began unbuckling his plate and leather chest armor and placing it upon the ground gently. He then removed the black cloth tunic, exposing runic symbols tattooed on his back and upper arms.
“Several points of consideration Beltayne. You know that keeping your armor on my actually improve your odds of not being incapacitated, right?” asked Kel’dhos as the part-elf walked towards Bel.
“No doubt you would be correct little eared one. But frequently, duels of honour in the histories of the snow elves were completed naked, nothing between blood, flesh and ice. But I assumed that the collected audience would have some preconceived notion about a fight in the nude,” responded Beltayne, matter of factly.
“Okay, well, that actually seems like you rationally considered the consequence of your choices which… I’m surprised? Moving along to the second point, I thought you said you could not read?!”
“You have the right of it. I am not skilled yet in the art of reading, as you are,” answered Bel, starting to slowly stretch each arm in its turn, bringing the arm across his body and holding the shoulder on each stretched arm.
“But why then do you have these language symbols preserved upon your skin?”
“You mean the runes? Oh, those have just always been there. I don’t remember when I got them. I know what they mean but not what they say, if that makes sense? They are wards of protection and commitments to the Lady of Falling Snow.
Leaving his chest armor and shirt neatly placed along the wall, Beltayne gripped his saber and approached the center of the courtyeard, where Blacktide was leaning on his greatsword speaking to one of the fancily dressed guests.
Seeing Beltayne approach, Blacktide ended the conversation and also approached the middle of the courtyard.
Blacktide finally used both hands, though only one seemed necessary, and held the great sword aloft just behind his own head, ready to bring it down and crush the elf.
Beltayne dropped his left hand, causing the sword itself to be held lower than normal, and angling the tip of the blade towards the right shoulder.
Bel attempted a faint-step to his left, but just as we was executing the full step right, he felt as though he had struck a stone wall. He face crashed into the flat of Blacktide's massive blade and Beltayne lost all forward momentum in an instant. He was forced backwards, stutter-stepping backwards. Beltayne just managed to bring his blade vertical to block a second strike from Blacktide.
Because Bel had been off balance though, he had not been holding the hilt firmly, and the force of the blades clashing pushed Beltayne’s own flat into his own face, coming in abrupt contact with his elven and aquiline nose. An uncomfortably loud crunch was followed by a river of blood flowing freely from Beltayne’s nose.
Recognizing that the duel was quickly outclassing him, Beltayne stood and spat. Grasping his sword hilt in his right hand, he attempted an obvious and heavy strike from over his shoulder, meant to come crashing down towards the Highwarden’s neck. Blacktide’s great sword was quickly in a blocking position, but just as quickly, Beltayne released his grip on the hilt and rolled his over the top, moving the grasp the sword in a back-hand fashion with the blade against Bel’s right forearm.
Having to slow the momentum of sword, Beltayne moved to bring alter the trajectory and bring his sword down on Blacktide’s forward left leg. Blacktide’s reflexes were astounding and he began shifting that leg back.
All the same, Beltayne’s blade managed to carve a glancing shot to the Highwarden’s leg. Unfortunately though, this meant that Beltayne had sacrificed the position of his blade as a defensive tool, and Blacktide brought his own blade’s flat edge once again against the side of the elf’s face.
The blow landed resoundingly and snapped the elf’s face back the other way. He just barely thought he caught a glimpse of a white fox amongst the throng of witnesses to Beltayne’s thorough thrashing. Then his eyes rolled back and Beltayne was unconscious before he hit the pavement.
Beltayne was awoken some indeterminate time later, lying on a table in the corner of the courtyard. He was being poked in his now extremely tender face by a little human girl, maybe nine or ten years old.
“Hey. Mister pointy ears, are you the wizard Magnus?! I have a letter for the wizard Magnus!” she squeaked.
Bel slowly rotated his swollen face toward her and squinted, trying to focus more on her voice and less on the ringing sensation occurring inside his own skull.
“Uh, no. Unfortunately I am not he. You can find him over there,” Bell said as he raised his right arm to lazily point towards Magnus standing with Magnar across the courtyard, both talking to a crowd of people that had been present for the fight.
“He’s the one in the pajamas. Should be wearing a pointy hat, but he’s not. It’s a whole thing…” Bel trailed off, realizing that the little messenger had already started to walk away towards the dwarves.
Just as well, I do not know how much longer I could be of service. Clearly, I need to reexamine my self-awareness and reassess my own capabilities.
Just as he closed his eyes, he heard the chittering laugh of a disembodied fox, echoing off the high stone walls of the courtyard. Then he slipped thankfully back into humiliating unconsciousness.
End of Chapter