Echoes of War, Ch 12: Let Winter Come (Patreon)

The weight of millions of notifications was a raging ocean scattering Sam’s attention. They’d appeared as soon as he reached Aster Fall, the World Core alerting him to endless problems that had occurred in the 120,000 years since Asenya had gone missing. Apparently his position as High Artificer came with a direct connection. It snapped into place as soon as he arrived and then the core started talking.

Most of the notifications were about Flaws and its damaged state, but he didn’t have the ability to process them all at once. Even reading one was like trying to keep track of a single raindrop in a storm. It was all he could do to target the relic and follow the connection to his parents. He’d planned to teleport in with some nagas and make a nice show of it, but instead he’d fallen on a mountain.

When he heard Altey’s voice and the desperation in it, a bolt of icy danger startled him into awareness. He shoved all the notifications to the side, and then the ones after them that tried to seize his attention.

Killing the enemies she pointed out was automatic. If his sister had that level of fear in her voice, he didn’t need to know what was going on. As the ashes of the dozen fighters drifted away and his parents ran toward him, he scanned the area and got a basic understanding of what was going on.

He hadn’t expected to arrive in the middle of a battle or to find them being attacked. The thought turned his mood grim, but he held it back as he looked down. For them, a grin appeared instead.

“Sorry, I was late,” he said as he shrank down to a more suitable size, around six feet before his horns added another foot, about the same as his father, who looked fierce with his ice element transformation. Sam noted it with some surprise, but it only took him an instant to understand it was connected to the Ice Sylphs. As he changed, he tucked Altey on top of one arm, and let her sit on his shoulder, which was more than broad enough to hold her. He didn’t feel like setting her down yet.

A round of hugs followed as he swept up his parents in both arms and continued to balance Altey on his shoulder, although he had to use some Wind to stabilize it all. It left him laughing as his father patted him on the back and his mother held his hand in hers, the effort turning into a game of pride as he tried to hold everything.

“Welcome back, son,” his father said with a huge grin. The marks of a deadly fight were all across his body, which was slowly transforming from his ice-covered form back to his normal one, but he was completely ignoring it as he focused on Sam.

His mother was crying as her head leaned against his shoulder, making him feel missed and guilty at the same time. He’d left them without meaning to, and he still wasn’t sure if his messages had arrived. He’d sent them into the Void with a wish and a dream. He’d sent more on the way back too, but from the looks of it, none of those had reached them.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so surprised to see him.

“How long has it been?” he asked doubtfully, once his parents recovered a bit. He looked at them and then out, scanning across the area. “And who dares to attack the valley?”

A quick explanation followed, and as his parents spoke, sometimes accompanied by the help of Siwaha and the others who gathered around, his expression turned darker. It looked like he’d been gone for around thirteen months, a little longer than he’d expected, but better than it could have been. The time compression near Aster Fall meant that things slowed down as he got closer.

If it had taken any longer, however, his family might not have survived.

If things had been less serious, he would have talked to everyone for longer, particularly the friends he had only waved at so far, but that would have to wait. This trash army had nearly killed his parents.

“The king has crossed a line,” he growled as he looked toward the entrance of the valley. “He will pay for it, as will his army. Let’s go.”

Killing a few here wasn’t enough to put an end to this. He planned to do it much more directly. A wave of silver light surrounded everyone, including the three dozen nagas he’d brought with him, and he teleported.

They reappeared an instant later at the entrance to the valley. He was in front of the dwarven wall, but he set everyone else on top of it, including the nagas. The field in front of him was a mess of spells being flung in every direction. The king’s army was in mostly ordered ranks of foot soldiers, flying hawks, some war bulls, and mages operating siege engines. Behind him, the defenders were sending a hail of attacks with the help of the Sky Guard in the air, who were dealing with any hawks that headed toward the valley.

There were so many attackers that they filled the road for a mile. Their mobility was limited and they were forced into a narrow column with siege engines at strategic points. There were platforms being constructed along the slopes to give them a better range of attack, but from the rubble on the slopes, they hadn’t gotten very far. The wards this close to the valley had prevented them from digging in.

He let his height expand back to his full 150 feet until he towered five times higher than the wall. His arrival had surprised a few of the combatants, but a flash of silver wasn’t the same as a Titan suddenly appearing in front of you. The spells that were flying across the field came to a sudden halt, fizzling in mid-air as everyone turned to look at him.

In an instant, silence fell across the field, so thick it could be cut with a knife. Insect chirps could be heard over the rustle of the grasses. The whistling wind and the sound of the mountain were suddenly the only things besides the heartbeat of twenty thousand. A chill breeze twined around their exposed skin, bringing with it the frost of the Void and making them shiver uncontrollably.

“World Spirit....”

The word was whispered in hushed and guttural tones throughout the ranks, sometimes with shock and wonder, and other times with terror as the speaker forced it out between frozen lips.

“Horned Hunter of the Moons...Guardian of the Peak.” Sam’s old title in the area rang out on a few lips as well, mostly from those on the wall behind him when they saw the horns curving above his head to touch the sky.

Sam’s experiences in the Void flowed through his mind as he stood at the front of the army. There were twenty thousand soldiers here, ranging from barely Level 80 in the lowest ranks to over 200. Only eleven were over Level 300. Three of them were trying to hide among the ranks, either as spies or secret observers, but they couldn’t escape his senses.

Once, their numbers would have impressed him, but there was no impact as he looked across their ranks, his eyes aflame. These men were nothing in the vastness of the wild. They would have died in the lands where he walked, food for the first Darkscale Hunter that found them. It was only with the protection of Aster Fall that they lived, and yet here they were, destroying her foundations. He wanted to kill all of them, and he only held himself back by force of will.
Power radiated from him, swirling through the mountain air along the face of Sky Guard. Wind and flame twisted around one another, sweeping away the clouds until starlight shone down with piercing clarity.

“Send your commanders forward.” The earth rumbled as he spoke. His words sent a shockwave of essence across the field as he marked out the eleven Third Evolution figures in their ranks, highlighting the ones he meant in no uncertain terms with flares of silver flame.

His muscles were crackling beneath his skin, telling him to crush them all, but he restrained himself. Killing the rank and file was too much. There were no doubt some among them who had enjoyed this war, but he would confine his rage to those who had made the real decisions.

Their commanders and the king.

Once they noticed they’d been discovered, two of the hidden ones froze like rabbits, while one turned to flee. He leapt into the air, relying on a flight artifact that hummed from around his waist. The soldiers nearby were hurled away by the force of his aura as they looked on in shock.

Sam let out a dark snort as he reached out and grabbed the spy in a sphere of silver light, binding him tightly and dragging him back. He could feel the man struggling, but the streamers of Wind infused with astral energy were far stronger than the spy. He was Level 304 and tried to thrash as Sam made him hover off to the side.

“The rest of you come here or I will bring you here,” Sam added as he made the silver markers flare higher. He was unsurprised when all ten of the remaining commanders exploded into action, trying to run away like frightened insects.

Some of them leapt into the air under their own power and others relied on enchantments on their armor or belt, but they all tried to run. He could have grabbed them himself, but instead a dark smile crossed his face.

To those watching, his vertical-pupiled eyes looked like burning cracks of stellar light that had broken through from the Void as he turned to look at the sky, where the moons were on full display. He reached upward as if he were grasping at Silvas, the Moon of the Forests. A wave of astral light reached upward from his hand. The silver streak pierced through the dimension around Aster Fall and touched the Void beyond where citizens of Aster Fall were not allowed to travel.

A moment later, a pulse of brilliant blue flared in response as the Ice Drake appeared in the heavens. Its prow tilted down as it barreled toward the earth, but its shape was nothing like it had been in the past. He’d made some changes in the years traveling home. To start, it was far larger than it had been before. The overall design had also changed.

The carved figurehead of the blue and white ship was massive, fronting a vessel that was nearly a thousand feet long. The ship’s body was long and sinuous now, truly mimicking an ice drake. Its sails flared outward to the sides like frozen wings as it descended in a web of crystalline power, trailing ice in its wake.

And right now, the deck was lined with hundreds of nagas in orderly ranks, staring eagerly ahead. This was their first look at their lord’s world and they didn’t want to miss an instant of it, especially if there was a fight. Below, Sam’s smile widened as he saw them come, but there was a cutting grimness in it.

“Sleset!” He called over to the commander who was standing on the wall behind him. He pointed up at the descending ship as he gave his orders. “Prepare the Silver Army!”

“Yes, my lord!” The naga’s hiss of delight accompanied the words. Finding a battle as soon as they arrived suited him perfectly. “We shall kill all those who dare to challenge the sanctity of your nest!”

Sleset leapt into the air with a speed that put the ten escaping commanders to shame. Air roared away from him with crackling force as he headed up to meet the ship. The three dozen nagas on the wall followed, hissing loudly with eagerness as they flew up to join their fellows. They hadn’t had a chance to stretch their muscles yet and the sight of the escaping prey stirred their blood. The lightning bolt marks on their cheeks and silver scales gleamed like flames.

Sam sent a quick illusion to the nagas that showed allies and enemies, directly copying them from what he could sense around the valley. The images filled the air, giving the Silver Army a quick briefing.

“Bring them back,” Sam ordered as he pointed after the ten commanders, who had managed to put a few miles between themselves and the valley. “Alive, but you don’t need to be gentle.”

“Yes, my lord!” Sleset replied. He settled on the command deck of the Ice Drake, just behind the figurehead, as he turned to his fellows and gave a series of quick, hissing orders.

At his command, the Ice Drake’s massive form lifted upward again, accompanied by four hundred nagas on the deck. Their speed was so great that it seemed like the ship was casually gliding through the sky before it was ahead of the commanders. The tide of nagas flew outward from it and created a broad net across the area as they closed in on the commanders.

Distant explosions crackled across the sky, but the battle was short and brutal. As the defenders on the wall looked on in disbelief, the ten commanders were each seized by a naga and dragged back in front of Sam. The nagas assigned to hold them slammed them into the ground to pay their respects, paying no attention to whether their knees bent that way. Their 24-foot-tall forms made the commanders look like toys.

The Ice Drake returned as well, hovering in the sky like an enormous dragon as it took up a threatening position above the kingdom’s army. The Silver Army spread out from it as they released their auras, most of them flying. The force crushed down on the army and made them tremble as they realized just how outclassed they were.

This was why Sam had released the army instead of capturing the commanders himself. He wanted his enemies to know fear, and not just from him but from the hundreds of Silver Nagas he had brought along. The more their fame spread, the better it would be for crushing opposition. This was as good a time as any to introduce them to the world.

“Lord of Silver Stars,” Sleset hissed with pleasure as he pointed at the captured commanders beside him. Bruises and charred expanses of skin covered their bodies, but for now they were still alive. It would take more than that to kill Third Evolution opponents. “Your enemies are delivered.”

“Good work,” Sam acknowledged as he looked down at them. His arms were folded across his chest. Then he turned to his parents and Siwaha on the wall. “What do you want to do with them?”

He would have just killed them and dealt with whatever happened, but it was better to let his parents make the call. They were the ones who had been oppressed and knew the situation here. It would also let them unleash some anger after this siege.

Jeric and Aemilia shared a look and then they turned toward Siwaha, passing the judgment on to her. With her age and wisdom, it was a good choice. Sam turned to her as well, giving her time to think as she tapped her staff on the stones and looked at the commanders.

“It’s been so many years,” she said quietly as she stepped off the wall and walked down a set of crystalline steps that formed in the air. She was still pale from her exertions to protect everyone, but it was better than before as she stopped beside Sam, who let his height shrink down to match her, settling at about six feet again. She touched his shoulder in thanks and then looked at the commanders as she shook her head.

“Has the king forgotten his history? To bring war to my valley, to incite the anger of Winter? The lands have been free for so long. Does he truly wish our grasp to come again, to hold all within our hands and seal your futures in ice?”

“The king owns all the lands within the kingdom,” the commander named Ilias snarled. His attitude was like a fanatic’s as he tried to break free from the naga’s grasp and failed. After that, he tried to reach for something at his belt, perhaps a weapon, but the naga holding him twisted his arm with a sharp crack that made him howl in pain. “Your valley belongs to him whether you know it or not!”

Sam shook his head at that as he studied the man’s aura, rubbing at his chin. The level of fanaticism didn’t seem natural, or perhaps the man was just insane. There was evidence of some slight tampering in his spirit, but it was something he’d have to study in depth another time. He didn’t care right now.

“Millennia ago, our people brought an endless sleep to all new growth,” Siwaha continued, her tone grave as she studied the commanders. “Then, under the command of our Mother, we returned and went to sleep ourselves, promising that we would leave the lands to grow on their own, only tending to our ancient valley home. This...is the treaty your king wishes to break?”

She saw the unrepentant expression on the commander’s face, as well as the angry looks on the others, all of them laden with arrogance even in defeat. She shook her head, her eyes growing colder.

“I see,” she said softly as she turned to look at Winter’s Peak in the distance. “Perhaps it is time for us to wake from our ancient sleep. We are not what we were, but we could rise again. Perhaps this time it would be different.”

A dust of crystalline white snow blew around her as she spoke, settling on her shoulders and hair, and it made Sam realize that he’d never seen her turn into the Winter guise, even under duress. He had to wonder why and what she would look like if she did.

“The lands of your kingdom are a fraction of what we held in our grasp,” Siwaha told the commanders. “Our legions covered the sky and the earth, binding all in snow. Where an Ice Sylph passed, Winter followed.” She paused, considering the issue as she looked at the staff in her hand. Runes gleamed along its length, rising up like frozen ice from beneath the surface before disappearing, only to return again at another spot. It was clearly not a normal walking staff. He’d never seen her without it.

“Things have reached a point where a decision must be made,” she said at last. Her words became formal, as if passing a verdict, but there was a touch of hesitancy in it. “Our valley was threatened, but not invaded, if only because the wall held. The treaty is open to interpretation. Our judgment was never good in the past, so...” She turned to Sam, looking at him with a warm smile.

“What do you think, Lord of Silver Stars? Should Winter rise again?” The smile made her ageless features seem young again, as if time were rolling back to the dawn of the last age.

That wasn’t all. The flow of Ice mana in the area was gathering toward her, concentrating around her staff. It felt expectant, as if it were just waiting for his word to truly begin to flow.

“Aster Fall needs defenders,” Sam replied with the first thing on his mind. His voice was quieter as he spoke, but the army and those on the wall could still hear him. “These are not doing the job or the kingdom would be strong, fair, and peaceful. If they will not fulfill their duty, another must, one who is more mindful of the land and our true enemies.” He waved his hand outward, indicating the mountains around them. When he continued, his voice was powerful.

“There are 39 Flaws present within a hundred miles of here. Which of them did this army try to close?”

He didn’t need an answer, since he could already tell that the army hadn’t gone near any of them. The most they’d done was to set up a network of crude detection points around the valley. It was a worrying number, but most of the Flaws hadn’t fully formed yet. He could sense their presence digging into Aster Fall’s aura.

“In all my life, I have never met a people as generous and warmhearted as the Ice Sylphs,” he continued, “One and all of you opened your doors to those in need, adopted them, and defended them from harm. For untold years, you have fostered guests in this valley and protected them with no demand for recognition or tribute, only asking that they help to tend the land. Perhaps in the past, your people were too harsh, but I do not believe you are any longer.” He looked out across the wall where the Ice Sylphs and the sturdy dwarven defenders were gathered for the single purpose of protecting their homes, and then he announced his verdict.

“I would love to see the day that Winter rises again and I would be honored to call you my allies.”

The thunderous hisses of four hundred Silver Nagas roared through the air as they heard their lord speak, and their eyes began to shine as their attention turned expectantly to Siwaha and the Ice Sylphs on the wall.

Siwaha stood still as she heard his words. Then she let out a slow breath as her eyes began to shine. “So be it,” she said quietly, so softly that only Sam and the snow gathered around should have been able to hear her, but the words carried to every edge of the field, and perhaps even across the entire valley. “We have slept, but been woken, and so we will rise again. May this time be different than the last.”

The staff in her hand shone as she raised it into the air. Mana began to gather like a vast river, drawing new streams from the peaks of the mountains. The valley trembled, shaking as something in its foundations stirred.

Humming arcs of blue-white mana leapt upward, fusing into the runes across the valley walls and flooding through the vast ice fortress that covered the valley. The mountains began to shake as an ancient key entered a lock that had been nearly forgotten to time.

The key turned.

Crackling bands of Ice mana leapt upward from the dozen closest mountain peaks, one to the next in a series, as pillars of icy light shot into the heavens. Each of them held a critical position in an ageless enchantment. As they came to life, runes and arches began to form, spreading across the area as mountain connected to mountain. Before long, a glowing blue-white rune burned in the air. It was easily a thousand feet tall. It was a powerful rune for Winter, its edges curling like frost-touched leaves, but at the center, there was a brilliant green heart of Spring, like the promise that one day the frost would fade and that even in winter roots continue to grow deeper.

Siwaha’s appearance began to change with the rune’s appearance, but it wasn’t the same transformation as the other sylphs. Once, Sam had seen Grandmother Winter, that ancient World Spirit of the snows, when she’d come to their aid to save the relic from invasion. Her form had been bent and one eye was red with blood as she radiated a terrible death by ice and cold. She was destruction and judgment. He’d sometimes wondered if that ancient spirit was connected to Siwaha, but her transformation was nothing like that.

Siwaha’s hair lengthened until it flowed across the ground and fused with the snow and ice, her locks changing into freezing streams where the two met. Her eyes became even brighter, gleaming with unrestrained Ice mana, and her features grew younger again, until she looked like she was barely twenty with a rose tint on her cheeks. Crystal droplets of ice threaded through her hair, weaving an ornate network of runes. Her dress turned to a deep cerulean blue and her cloak to a pure snow white, both of them crackling with mana.

She looked like the daughter of Winter.

She radiated a strange power that felt like Ice made divine, something descended from the heavens to grace the world. Wrapped in that pure power, the heart of Spring beat with an eternal youthfulness.

He had no doubt that the power came from outside of Aster Fall, but it was something that he’d never met. It made him think of the Ice Sylphs’ mother goddess, the one who created them, and it tickled his ancient memories from the Titans with a sense of comfortable familiarity, but he couldn’t place who it was. It wasn’t as old as the Titans, but there was a connection.

His attention was fixed on Siwaha as she raised her staff higher. The Ice mana gathered all around her was so dense it was turning to freezing droplets in the air, covering her in a crystalline ocean of power that flowed along her hair and clothes, pouring out into the land below.

“LET WINTER COME!”

Siwaha’s shout tore out across the mountains as a freezing wind cut across the sky, twisting downward with a flurry of snow as it met the massive flow of Ice mana rising from below. The ancient rune for Winter surged with power as it drew inward, condensing to a tiny snowflake that perhaps only Sam’s eyes could make out. It hung in the air just above Winter’s Peak, a single point of power descended from the heavens.

Then it fell.

When it touched the tip of the mountain, a wave of power exploded outwards, roaring across the land as a new sense of spring and living Ice covered the Western Reaches and then continued to expand, heading outward to awaken the slumbering memories of the past.