The falling snow was as white as the ring of the moon overhead, a bright, distant thing peeking out from above the clouds.
Brannon may not have been assigned to this post for long, but in the few weeks he’d spent getting to know the bleak emptiness of the farthest and northernmost region of the kingdom in the dead of night and winter, he’d never seen it until now.
Nor had anything ever stopped him in his tracks so suddenly, wasting precious seconds better spent rushing back towards the warmth of Roshire. They were supposed to be back by now- the sun had set long ago.
“A beauty, ain’t she?” His partner croaked from behind him, having paused a moment ago to enlighten Brannon about a specific type of tree they’d just passed. “They say it’s a rarer sight than a nobleman in Danethal.”
“I find that hard to believe.” His breath appeared in a mist before him and the cold air had assaulted his skin as he lowered the scarf hiding his lips and nose to speak.
“The gods care little for what men believe.”
Brannon snorted, forcing himself to resume down the path but still keeping his eyes aimed at the sky. Beside him, the wall of ice that had accompanied them during the journey stood still and quiet, the lantern in his hand revealing about ten of the two hundred foot barricade. “Perhaps that is why no one believes in half of them any longer.”
“Yes, I suppose that is true,” Tobas agreed, the faint sound of his footsteps joining Brannon’s. “One of the many misfortunes of men today.”
“I wasn’t aware you were a religious man.”
He was silent for a moment. “No more than any man, really. But in the days of old, they said that there would come a time when the gods would be forgotten, and in their anger, the gods would send plague and endless winter upon the world for the sins of man.”
“Are you worried because you feel guilty for your sins?”
“Don’t you?”
A heavy wind howled as it came and Brannon had to use all his might to keep treading through it.
“I don’t feel guilty for anything,” he answered when it had gone. “Besides, not all the gods are forgotten.”
Tobas chuckled. “I suppose you’re right. But have you ever heard of the omens?”
They passed by a pole holding a torch between the path and the wall, one placed every few intervals for those unlucky enough to be assigned to the night’s watch.
“The omens?”
“Oh, yes. My grandmother used to tell me of them all the time. Do you want to hear one?”
Brannon didn’t particularly dislike Tobas. In fact, he considered the mood he always found himself in around the man to correspond more to the fact that whenever they were together, it was in the dead of night and out in the freezing cold. But his propensity for always filling their walks with ramblings of whatever new subject he had in mind was certainly no help.
Brannon sighed and mentally prayed for this to be over quickly. “Go on, then.”
“There were once a dozen, if not more,” he began. “Spoken from the gods to men, and written in books long gone to the depths of history.”
“Because they were written in Old Lysian?”
“Who knows? Not a single one has been found.”
Brannon refrained from asking how he knows they existed at all as Tobas continued, “Anyhow, one such omen survived time and has been carried through the tongues of those who repeat it: watch for the moon’s great halo, for it will usher in an unforeseen age of chaos and no one sleeping below it will be safe.”
“Sounds conveniently vague.”
“My grandmother said it’s a sign of the Moon Lord’s return, and with him, he will bring an army of beasts. Even now, they lie awake in the dark, waiting.”
Brannon glanced at the short, beady-eyed man over his shoulder, not pausing his stead.
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“Don’t worry,” he added quickly. “I’m a worshipper of Zohar as much as any man, if such chaos is reigned upon us then I have faith he will be our savior.”
He pointed to the torch up ahead. “And we have his gift as our protection.”
“You can’t truly believe in all that?”
Tobas shrugged. “If there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that one may never trust the darkness.”
Not something you want to hear during night watch, Brannon thought.
“Even still, you can get exiled for just saying that omen.”
Tobas met his gaze. “Only if you tell.”
Brannon breathed in another howling gust of wind and looked back at the moon. “I don’t care enough for things like that.”
Regardless, the man shouldn’t have said anything. If he’d been someone else, someone who did consider his visits to the temple a thing of devout worship rather than a fulfillment of expectations, Tobas would have his ass thrown out of the army faster than he could repeat the God’s name.
Unofficially, of course.
He changed the subject as the breeze subsided, passing by another torch. “How far till the base?”
Behind him, Tobas had paused to study the woods again. He’d been at Frostwood Base longer than Brannon had, although he, too, was new to the job in the grand scheme of things. It was probably the most undesired assignment, one given mostly to the rookies, which he supposed they both were.
It’s not as though Lysia was in heavy need of soldiers, but one would assume the kingdom would be hesitant to send it’s newest recruits to such an isolated, difficult job. One with one of the highest rates of disappearances- attributed to men who wandered off the trail, never to be seen again.
The others said it was both a hazing and a test: if you can’t withstand a simple walk in the cold at night, you weren’t fit to be a soldier.
Luckily, Tobas knew the area better than him, and had on more than one occasion explained how the smallest variations in the sizes of trees and piles of snow around them indicated their location.
The former were tallest at the edges of the wall until they disappeared to give way to the seas, either of which no man had ever dared to cross more than a few miles of.
What lied beyond was anyone’s guess.
But Brannon had no interest in what lied beyond the kingdom, it was the sweetness of the fruit within that called to him.
Someday, he thought to the moon. Someday I’ll be long gone from this icy hellhole and comfortably laying by the fire in a manor of my own, if not a whole damn county.
Once he became a knight, that is. Then he’d spend the rest of his days in easy luxury.
But that was years from now.
He shook himself out of his thoughts. “Trees not telling you much today?”
No answer.
“Tobas?”
He turned around, but it was only endless darkness that met his gaze.
“Tobas!” Brannon called, panic rising in his chest. “This isn’t funny!”
He flinched as a creak of a branch echoed from the forest beside him.
A squirrel, or was it Tobas? Despite his strangeness, Brannon hadn’t pegged the man for some kind of sick jokester.
He was about to take a step towards the noise when Tobas’s earlier words rang in his head.
Even now, they lie awake in the dark, waiting.
“Superstitious nonsense,” he murmured, leaving the trodded footpath anyway.
He descended the hill that led down into the forest, clutching his lantern tight in his hand.
The closer he got to the spot where it seemed the noise had originated from, the more distant the light of the torch became.
But still no sign of Tobas.
Brannon paused to listen for the creak of another branch while he studied the endless canopy of trees around him, spotting no sign of a squirrel nor any other animal.
Sweat was beginning to form on his brow when he spotted a dim silhouette from deeper inside the forest.
“Tobas! Is that you?”
The figure disappeared within the trees.
He looked back at the torch. They had to be very close to the base, probably no more than twenty to thirty minutes of a walk away. He could just continue towards it and come back to search for Tobas with the rest of the men…
But by then, it could be too late. Tobas could just become yet another soldier lost to the night’s watch, his name forgotten within a few weeks time.
“I swear to Zohar, if this is some kind of game,” he murmured beneath his breath, taking one last glance at the fire before descending further into the woods.
His entire body shook as his legs melted deeper within the snow, so much so that he had to use all of his strength to walk through it. As for the cold, he merely gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the numbness seeping into every corner of his shoes, his coat, and his pants.
Just a little more and I can beat the little shit for his joke.
Just a little more and we’ll be back at the base, back to never-ending warmth.
Just a little more and I’ll be a knight, far, far away from this hell-
The smell of blood interrupted his thoughts.
All the fear Brannon had been pushing down rose into his throat as he hurried through the snow. “Tobas?!”
As he rounded a tree the figure had been next to, the man’s still, bleeding body on the ground answered for him.
“Tobas!” Brannon gasped, kneeling beside him. Blood was flowing down his entire coat. Too much blood.
He went to take Tobas’s pulse but was met with even more blood pooling at his neck. Luckily, he opened his eyes and widened them as he took in the sight of Brannon.
Brannon sighed with relief as Tobas groaned, “W-what are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you that! What the hell happened to you?”
More blood spurted from his neck as he coughed. “It’s…they’re here.”
Brannon stilled. “Who’s here?”
Tobas’s eyelids fluttered shut and Brannon shook him awake, trying to block whatever wound was in his neck.
“Who’s here, Tobas?!”
The man’s gaze focused in on something behind Brannon as he let out one last croak and the light in his eyes disappeared.
When Brannon looked over his shoulder, all he saw was a pair of red, glowing orbs before all light vanished from his world in turn.