The blizzard hid everything from view. The flurries of snow and the powerful winds made sure that any creature caught outside would either turn into icicles or seek shelter. Yet, silhouettes crossed the ridges of the Frozen Tundra, unheeding of the cold or the wind.

Surt, Chief of the Iron Skin Tribe, led a cadre of five thousand blooded warriors as they tramped down the falling snow. He was bare-chested with a mantle of bright red fur covering his shoulders, the only splash of colour amongst the Tribesmen. Other than the red patterns crisscrossing their grey-skinned chests, of course. He wore sturdy hide boots and tanned leather pants, a wide belt with an assortment of weapons. He held a poleaxe with the shaft resting against his shoulder.

His men were carrying similar weapons, all proudly displaying their chests. The snow and wind barely affected them, though Surt often swept snow off his hair. They had left T’Pyun in the middle of the night, and the blizzard had struck midway into their sojourn.

“Just in time,” he rumbled.

The invader’s camps, watchtowers, and forts would be blinded. In normal times, attacking in with the blizzard, where the weather aided their assault, would have been viewed as cowardice by his people.

The strong need nothing but their mighty thews to defeat their foes!

But the Progenitor told them a trick.

“You will not fight them during the blizzard.” The Seeker’s beautiful face held a savage grin and Surt had to fight his urges. She was not human, she was a Progenitor, whose power was such that a single snap of her finger would finish his tribe. “You will go past their line, and,” she continued, “you will cut them off from each other.”

The blizzard came as she predicted and it looked to last a few days more: enough that they could reach their goal. And by the time the weather cleared, there would be blood in the air.

Thaer and the other unblooded followed behind, headed straight to the camps. And as they would attack as soon as they could. For Surt’s group, they would separate into warbands past the line, accomplish their goals, then wheel back and hit the camps from the rear.

‘They will be crushed,’ Surt thought gleefully. A great blooding that will see thousands of his men grow stronger.

The winds howled and the snow smashed against them as they marched. The lay of the land was something his people knew by heart. They kept to the valleys, the ravines, pushing through drifts that were taller than they were, but no matter, the power that flowed in their veins, kept them safe and warm.

At some point, hours after Surt determined that they had gone past the line, he gave the signal to his warchiefs and the horde broke into fifty bands of a hundred each. Surt was left with his honour guard.

They continued south for a few more hours, and just as the day ended, he found what they were looking for. A spire ten paces high rose in front of them and with a grin, he gestured to his men. They rushed the spire, each man brandishing a war axe, admittedly not the best tool to use, and started bashing the base of the spire.

Clank, clank, clank!

Surt watched with arms folded across his chest. At first, the material the invaders used to construct the pillar resisted the Iron Skin’s axe heads. Sparks flew from every hit, leaving nothing but a whitened mark. But continuous strikes, using hardened stone axe heads empowered by a blooded warriors’ Geist, wore it away. An hour after they started, with each man striking a dozen times before being replaced by the next, the pillar fell with a muffled thump.

Surt walked up to the tip of the pillar, finding a glowing cylinder etched with strange patterns. He pulled it off, held it in his hand and crushed it.

In the entire history of the Iron Skin Tribe, this was the first time they’ve brought down one of these things, Surt mused. Honestly, he didn’t care if the invaders called for reinforcements as that would mean more bodies to reap but he did as the Progenitor commanded.

“Next one.”

They moved further south and it took them more than a couple of hours before they found the next spire. Another couple of hours and they had it down. By this time, the blizzard had started to wane and the night was halfway done. They hunkered down to rest, sheltered from the remaining storm by a copse of evergreen trees.

Surt sat cross-legged in the snowdrift, closed his eyes and regulated his breathing. Inside his core, his Geist spun around, roaring and snorting steam. Red eyes and a giant horn, the Anima of the Bicorn he had slain in his youth had grown far stronger than it would have in life.

His skin turned red and steam rose when the snow touched it. By the time morning came, everything around him had dried and what he sat on was heat-baked mud.

When he woke, he breathed a long plume of steam, grinned and roared, “Rouse and fight!”

“Rouse and fight!” His warriors roared.

Cut down the spires and prevent the invaders from calling for help. That had been what the Progenitor said.

“You’ll have more time to move and slaughter,” she said with a grin, “but remember, if you find a girl that looks just like me, you must bring her to me.”

The column of blooded warriors ran back north. An invader camp was merely a couple of leagues from where they were, an easy thirty minutes’ run. But as soon as they crossed the rise that let them overlook the camp, Surt raised a hand to hold his people.

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A circle of sharpened wooden poles, a palisade, protected the camp. Woodsmoke rose from the cabins and tents, and Surt’s sharp eyes saw movement on the watch platforms that rose several paces above the wall. He could see several of the invaders walking on the perimeter. He could see the trench just beyond the fence and there were short, sharpened stakes at the bottom.

“Useless.” Surt snorted. Soft pointy wood cannot even penetrate their skin.

He didn’t stop because the camp was alert. No, he saw a column of the unblooded in the distance, marching towards the camp, and he saw the defenders raise in alarm. He could see some pointing his way too.

Those outside rushed into the open gate.

Dong, dong, dong, dong!

The alarm bell sounded, and more warriors poured out of the cabins and tents, bearing weak-looking arms. Surt absently stroked his left bicep, where a scar pulled at his skin. It was a burn mark from the enemy’s cowardly weapons, earned back when he had but three blood marks. At twenty now, not even those big fire-belching cannons would burn his skin.

Still, this was really the unblooded’s raid, so he merely waited and had his honour guard do the same. The boys spread out into a battle line. A wordless roar came from their throats and the boys charged.

Flashes of multi-colour lights came from the walls, where shooters on wooden platforms aimed their fire shooters and discharged them.

As Surt watched, the invaders focused their fire on the leading unblooded, reducing him to a charred mess. They moved fire to the next, and the next, until a dozen corpses were left behind, but they had closed the gap. With a thunderous slam, they jumped into the trench, ignoring the stakes that barely pierced their boots and turned to face back. The following warriors leapt, and the lead men caught their feet and boosted them over the wall.

Not all were successful, of course. Some got caught on the sharpened stakes, while others fell short. But enough made it over the walls for the slaughter to begin.

______

Twack! Twack! Twack! Thonk!

The axe head bit deep into the tree’s bark and at that moment, Yuriko’s foot slipped when she shifted her footing.

“Whoa!”

Her arms windmilled as she struggled to regain her balance, with the shifting snowdrift making things a bit more uncertain. Finally, her hand darted to the trunk she was chopping and hung on.

“Yuri!” Gwendith yelped from a few paces away.

“I’m fine.” Yuriko heaved a sigh and stomped down on the snow. “Just a little mishap.”

“Aye.” Gwendith shook her head and continued chopping down her tree.

The one in front of Yuriko looked roughly the size needed to add to the palisade and she was halfway through it. Rubbing her hands, she widened her stance, making sure that her footing was as firm as possible before she swung the axe again. The axe bit into the wood, though it sent a reverberation back into her body. Gritting her teeth, she kept at it, until halfway through, she moved to the side and let the tree’s weight bring it down.

“Timber!”

Boom!

The tree was bereft of leaves so it was relatively easy for Yuriko to chop off the branches. Afterwards, she stared down at the trunk. It was four paces long and relatively straight since she chopped off the crown. No doubt weighed many MiJin.

“Oh well,” she muttered. This was what Boost was for.

She focused on her Animus and moved it into the proper pattern. Once it took hold, she grabbed onto the trunk by the middle and flipped it over on her shoulder. The whole thing was more than twice her height, and actually felt lighter than it should, though that’s probably due to Boost.

“What in the Abyss!” Gwendith and Ella-Mai yelped.

“Huh, later. I have to bring this to camp,” Yuriko muttered. She’d left the axe on the ground, so with a flip of her foot, she caught the axe with her left hand then marched back to the camp.

She felt not a few people staring her way but she was much more conscious of how much her Animus reserves were being drained by keeping Boost up. By the time she was at the palisade, about a twentieth of her reserves were gone.

You have to learn to judge by the lumen. Tsk.

‘How?’ she thought back to Damien.

Practice, I suppose. Urk, I’ll prep some exercises.

‘Sure, I guess.’ Yuriko shrugged and dropped the log next to Centurion Finley.

“Good job,” he said in a choked voice. “You can go inside and prepare your tent and gear. Dismissed.”

Yuriko saluted fist to heart, but she turned back and returned to Gwendith and Ella-Mai. The two girls were clearing branches off their log when she arrived. “Need help?”

“Yes, thank you.” Ella-Mai gasped.

Yuriko nodded and started chopping off the branches. When she finished, she looked at the other two.

“Can you help me carry? Boost drains too much Animus.”

“Oh, of course,” Gwendith said.

Yuriko carried one end while the other two had the other side. While it was a bit more awkward, Yuriko and the other two managed to bring the trunk to camp. They returned for the last trunk, then gathered up the branches for firewood.

It was dark by the time they finished their chores, and having been fed by the mess hall with a sloppy stew of ration bars and an assortment of spices and meat chunks, the three of them set up their tents next to each other.

“I really want a bath,” Yuriko muttered.

“I think there’s a bath house in the centre of the camp,” Ella-Mai informed her.

The three of them were seated around a campfire in front of their tents. The rest of the Century were setting up camp in groups of ten. Since they were the only shadows, they had some space all their own. Centurion Finley hadn’t told them which squad they were to shadow, so they were pretty much left to their own devices.

“Wanna go?” Gwendith asked.

“Sure.” Yuriko replied.

They headed to the centre of the camp. There were a few longhouses and cabins being constructed, but they were easily able to find the bathhouse, which had smoke rising out of the chimney. The bathing area was much like what they had in the women’s barracks back in Fort Aegermonth.

Inside the women’s showers, there were only a couple of other bathers while the men’s area was practically swamped. Careful runescript kept the area warm and gathered the runoff water liquid at least until it was dumped into a canal that eventually led out of the camp.

After their quick bath, Yuriko completed her evening ablutions before retiring into her tent. The tent was barely big enough to keep her body covered and insulated from the snow, and in truth, she couldn’t even sit up inside. As she settled down to sleep, she heard the stomping of boots.

“Cadets Sharine, Davar, and Wol, you will be attached to the 10th Squad, led by Decanus Belgarde.”

Yuriko crawled out of the tent and looked up at Centurion Finley, who was carefully keeping his stare away from them.

“Yes, sir,” Yuriko answered. She heard muffled replies from the other two.

It was enough for the Centurion. He nodded briskly and said, “Patrol starts at dawn. Make sure you’re ready by then.” He left before Yuriko could reply. Shrugging to herself, Yuriko crawled back in her tent, closed the opening and settled down to sleep.

Except Damien pulled her into the dreamscape to teach her a set of exercises to quantify her Animus. Yuriko groaned but put up with it. It wasn’t until she was about to fall asleep that she realized that her Ancestor managed to activate her Facet’s dreamscape without even a by your leave. Resolving to berate him about it in the morning, she quickly fell asleep, and dreamt of grey and white kitties kneading her belly.