The icy wind whipped through Tarn’s hair as the team of burly artic hounds sent them ever forward. One rolling snow dune was much like the next, an endless procession of white that did little to keep the memories at bay. Behind him, Bog took up most of the rear of the sled, the buzzsaw of her snores audible even over the gale and the barking of the sled team. Pressed next to her like two feet trying to share the same ill-fitting shoe, Urthin and Rykin faced in opposite directions, peering out into the plains as if the open space taunted them.

Lash was curled up in a small ball in the front seat of the wooden sled, directly next to Tarn. The small gremlin still trembled from the effects of the mystical teleportation from the capital. Through the thin shift that the mages had left him, Tarn could see a myriad of fresh scars crossing the tiny, shuddering body like a map.

Lash was both sentient and fire-proof, two things the mages had designed their arcane servants not to be. Obviously, they had spent the past two years trying to determine why.

Pulling off his cloak with his free hand, Tarn covered Lash as best he could, hoping to give him a little relief from the cold. He gripped the reins of the sled tightly, wishing he could urge the dogs even faster. Here he was surrounded by the people he had once led through adventures in tombs and ruins, only in the end to lead them astray. Yet still they were with him. He was grateful for their loyalty, but it too was a weight.

The snow-covered plains around them may have been free of settlements, but that did not mean they were devoid of life. Hard-scrabble pines and spruces still poked through the white, forming small pockets of deep green. The occasional oxen herd would graze by, running once the dogs got too close, sending vibrations through the sled like thunder.

It was a prison of snow and ice, but it was also freedom. Tarn had long dreamed of what he would do should he ever escape. All of those dreams had involved freeing his friends, then going after Sinah. Of clearing his ledger of his mistakes, his impulsiveness. Of the moment when he sent them all on a foolish rescue mission into Lurim’s palace.

Now, with the passing of each icy hill, it was hard to escape the feeling it was all happening again.

Yet it wasn’t guilt that ran through his mind. He had wrestled with those demons in prison, and with Rykin’s help, he had brought them down. Tarn’s thoughts were on the Arch Mage himself, the architect of a system that had lasted a thousand years. A system and city a poor kid had run from, and too-young of a man had returned to, trying to make things right.

“Boss?”

The tiny rasp of a voice from beside him pulled Tarn from his thoughts. He turned, looking down at Lash’s grinning face, a broad and beaming display of sharp yellow teeth. Two huge golden eyes looked up at him, while a pair of long, leathery green ears fluttered in the wind.

“Lash!” Tarn smiled as he gently rubbed the gremlin on the back, feeling the raised lines of the mage’s handiwork upon them. “By the Sky, it’s good to see you! Are you alright?”

“Okay now,” Lash said, the sound of his cheerful, high-pitched voice calling Tarn back to better and happier days. “Okay now. Magic men had Lash, for a long time. Long time.”

Magic men, Tarn thought wistfully. The source of all our troubles.

“Where we go?” Lash asked, sitting up, head whipping back and forth. Looking at the whirl of energy visible in his eyes, it was hard to believe he had been asleep only moments before. Snowflakes blew into his face, kicked up by the pounding feet of the dogs. The tiny gremlin blinked repeatedly, large eyes taking in everything around him with a sense of wonder. “Why snow and cold? What fun is next?”

It was hard not to laugh, and Tarn decided not to fight it. Chuckling, he threw his arm around the surprised Lash. All of the others had some questions, some understandable need to adjust to spending a few years apart. But to Lash, it was as if not a day had passed, and they were just back on an adventure.

“I don’t know,” Tarn said, putting his hands back on the reins and giving the dogs a fresh burst of speed. “We’re going to meet with someone, someone who says he can find my sister.”

“Like before,” Lash nodded. He was standing on the wooden seat now, eyeing the construction of the sled. In all likelihood, he’d be disassembling it before they arrived. “Tarn sister. Sinah. Very tall and stuck on the wall. Tried to save her before. Bad times.”

His mind brought him the image of Sinah in the Old Bastard’s chamber, frozen in amber. Her eyes staring at him. The whole team was surrounded by guards, with no hope of escape. Guilty of attacking more than just the ruler of the realm, but a man many considered a god. Surviving victor of the ancient war between the mages, holder of the legendary Scythe-staff.

Yet for a heartbeat, Tarn had held Lurim’s life in his hand.

Why didn’t he kill me?

“Yeah. I am sorry about all that, Lash. I didn’t think any of that through. I just – she wasn’t at the orphanage and I-“

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“Tarn too sad.” Lash laughed. He jumped off the seat and crawled under it, fingers exploring the bolts that connected the dog harness to the floor. His voice muffled under the seat, he continued speaking. “Tarn forgets. He saved Lash. Saved Bog.”

The gremlin looked up, big eyes glowing in the dim light under the sled’s bench. “Lash was there because he choose. Same with Bog. Even Urthin.”

Tarn’s breathing locked in his chest as he watched Lash disappear completely, crawling under the seating and back towards the rear of the sled. It’s just that simple to him.

“Ach, by all the devils!” Rykin’s startled shout came from behind them. The old man lurched forward, practically leaping out of his position and landing himself in the front of the sled with Tarn. Looking over his shoulder, Tarn could see Urthin quickly stretch out to claim the vacated space, though Bog’s sleeping bulk still occupied the majority of the seat. Lash’s ears could be seen wiggling farther back, long curious fingers exploring the supply crates at the rear.

“There’s some kind of infernal creature back there!” Rykin shouted, pointing with his stump, while his good hand held onto the front of the sled. “Vicious it looked, teeth like daggers!”

“That’s just Lash!” Tarn laughed. The air in his lungs was frigid, but it was good to feel humor within himself again. “I guess you’ve never seen a gremlin before?”

“A gremlin?” Rykin gasped. “I heard tell of such creatures. In fact, my mum used to call me one. ‘All fingers and tools’ she used to say, and I would…”

Rykin’s voice died off. His eyes grew wide, his jaw opening as he stared directly ahead.

Turning, Tarn saw a large group of shadows in their path, a mixture of grays and reds visible through the blowing snow. Instinctively, he pulled the reins to the left, guiding the startled dogs away.

The unmoving shapes revealed themselves to be the bodies of huge oxen, dozens of them scattering across the plains, snow and blood piling upon their heavy dark fur. Entrails and viscera stained across the stark white in a brutal display. Tarn felt his stomach clench as he gripped the reins tighter. These beasts had been torn apart by some savage force.

“No predator did this,” Bog said, squinting at the scene with interest. “There’s plenty of usable meat left here.”

Now seated atop her shoulder, Lash gazed wide-eyed and unblinking at each corpse as the sled slowly made its way through the scene, eyes like saucers.

“These oxen have no predators,” Urthin said. Even his customary flat tone was undercut with something resembling worry. “My order comes here to hunt in the winter. I accompanied my mother on several expeditions. There is no beast in the Cairn Plains that could do this to one ox, let alone a herd.”

“And what kind of tracks are those?” Rykin asked, pointing behind them as the nervous dogs picked up speed, anxious to put the carnage behind them. “By the Sky, I’ve never seen the like.”

Something had carved deep, furrowed gouges in the snow, digging down into the earth underneath. Along with the deep blood-filled claw marks, there were also a long series of lines that resembled cart paths. Most disturbing was their uniformity. In stark contrast to the violence they had caused, whatever beast had done this had moved with efficiency and precision.

Tarn considered halting the dogs to investigate further, despite the pull of Sinah’s fate. There were settlements within a day of here, indigenous people who traded with mountain provinces like Urthin’s. If something capable of this level of carnage were to reach those unprotected people, the results could be horrific.

His hands gripped the reins, then froze. Fresh humidity came on the wind, a blast of heat that pushed through the arctic cold like a knife. The hounds continued their forward charge, racing up the latest in the endless series of snow-covered hills, and Tarn felt compelled to allow them. Something was in the air, a sense of foreboding he trusted above all others.

The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up, gooseflesh rising across his skin. He had felt this way before, and when he was smart, he listened to the unease in his stomach. Such as the night he had run away from the orphanage, or the night he had seen Bog chained up in a prisoner of war camp. Other times, like during his foolhardy attack on the Arch Mage himself, he had not.

Now that twisting in the pit of his insides was back, and as the sled crested the top of the hill, he saw why.

Hammered into the vast Cairn Plains as if a god itself had plunged it there, a massive sword gleamed in the sunlight. Tarn gazed awestruck up at the impossibility, the weapon hundreds of feet high and hammered into the ground halfway to the hilt. Most of the snow had been blown aside by the force of the impact, a ridged crater half a mile wide running on every side.

You’ll know it when you see it, Jental had said. She hadn’t been lying.

The dogs continued their forward progress, the sled passing into the long shadow created by the sword, as Tarn continued to gape. The weapon felt too big to exist, and his mind struggled to grasp the reality of what he was seeing. Giant, dark runes as big as horses were carved down the length of the blade, characters of a script Tarn had never seen, yet felt familiar all the same.

“Fang’s Father,” Bog whispered from behind him, one massive hand coming to grip Tarn’s shoulder. “It is beautiful.”

The sled had completed its descent down the other side of the hill, and now was level with the great weapon. There was a shimmering curtain of energy in the air at the edge of the crater, a faint spectrum like the prism of colors during a rainstorm. The field covered the sword like a dome, giving off faint pulses of heat that were detectible even at a distance.

Deep inside the pouch tied to his belt, Tarn could feel the heat of the strange gems he had been given by Erto back at the prison, pulsing in time with the mystic curtain.

As the sled pushed through the snow that blew across the flat plans, Tarn now made out a lone figure, directly at the edge of the colored field. He was a large man, as broad as he was tall, with a deep black beard covering his face like padding. He was dressed in fine robes, but they fit tightly against him as if he were wearing armor underneath.

“High Warden Gorford?” Rykin whispered, his voice incredulous. Some part of Tarn’s mind heard the old guard’s words and processed them. Gorford was responsible for all dozen of the Arch Mage’s known prisons, as well as the many secret ones like Baltoro.

Yet Tarn barely paid attention to the man, or even the stunning impossible weapon piercing the ground a half-mile behind him. All he saw was the small wooden cot, and the unmoving corpse lying upon it, covered in a sheet, while his heart suddenly compressed like a vice.

Come for your sister, the note had said. Sinah!

Tarn’s thoughts went red as he leaped from the sled, tearing towards the High Warden in a full run.