image [https://i.imgur.com/yFu9mOD.png]

XVI

A Logistical Catastrophe

Reaching Frostmouth didn’t realise our worst fears, yet I couldn’t call the situation lucky.

Frostmouth was special. Its location at the base of a mountain range and stone quarry made it a hub for quarry workers and masons. But more people had fallen into its embrace. A chaotic sprawl of hastily built shelters stood right outside the fortress. There were hundreds, and the smell of death hung above the entire settlement.

‘Can the Castle support this many refugees?’ Malakai said.

‘Certainly not,’ Jaeger answered, face dark.

‘No,’ Levi agreed. ‘But where else can they go? The mountains? The forests?’

Malakai shook his head. ‘They’ll riot if they’re pushed any further.’

‘We won’t let it get that far,’ I said, urging my destrier on.

A road large enough for three of us to pass side-by-side had been established, but the rest of the surroundings were messy. There were makeshift markets where people traded the last of their belongings for petty cash or breadcrumbs, and where young children offered services like carrying belongings for the boys, or taking care of an injured person for the girls. The latter group also offered another service at times, which I found disgusting to think about.

Our crossing didn’t go unnoticed. Our company, especially the frostguards, caught suspicious and wrathful glances, cheers and warm smiles, shouts of joy and ridicule. A particularly cheeky group of boys threw a rotten fruit at Leah. They yelped and scattered when the food smashed against a transparent barrier and the apprentice shot a missile of wind at their feet.

The scenery changed once we passed a clearing in the shelters. Tents grew more robust and clothes less torn and worn. On the side of homes stood drape-covered wagons, which were in turn covered by half-asleep guards playing cards. A man in luxurious robes yelled at two impoverished children after they presented him some coppers for food.

Merchant families, these.

We left the them behind and reached the castle gates proper. Jaeger had sent a runner ahead, so it was no surprise to see the delegation of guards waiting at the entrance. Two men at the side of the gate waved black banners carrying the insignia of House Vrost. Behind them were arranged about fifteen rows of a dozen soldiers each.

‘Hail the Frost Warden!’

They saluted as one.

I searched for a person wearing more formal clothing and came up empty-handed. We’re off to a good start. A Castellan deciding I wasn’t worth their time was just what I needed.

I approached a young man with glasses at the front. ‘Lead me to the Castellan,’ I said cutthroat.

The young man coughed. ‘You are looking at him, Warden.’

Huh.

‘I expected…’

‘A woman,’ he offered. ‘Middle-aged.’

‘Yes.’

His lips curved ruefully. ‘Until a week ago, that was the case, Warden.’

I raised an eyebrow.

‘Lord Medarda and her steward died during the defence,’ he said.

Behind him, frostguard eyes bored holes into the ground.

My neck turned to the funeral pyres which hadn’t been broken apart yet. The soot and ash at their base had blackened the snow. But worst of all: some were still going.

‘Castle Frostmouth’s army,’ I started.

‘You’re looking at the remainder of it, Warden.’

A whipping, frigid wind struck the floor between us, which may as well have been a canyon.

‘Fack Ruelle,’ Drake mouthed.

That.

image [https://i.imgur.com/z6G5s0x.png]

My fingers pinched my forehead. ‘How many refugees are we dealing with?’

‘We don’t have an exact count, Warden,’ Fernando said. ‘A guess puts us anywhere between two and three thousand.’

Jaeger cursed. ‘It’d be hell to defend the castle against those numbers.’

‘They are starving,’ Levi said. ‘An attack is the least of our troubles.’

The two began bickering between themselves as I descended into thought. An army of more than a hundred orcs had hit Frostmouth, reducing the standing army to below two hundred. We were not pushing back another invasion of that scale.

‘We need reinforcements,’ I cut through Levi and Jaeger.

‘From where, Warden?’ Jaeger said. ‘Every castle is undermanned.’

‘The military is not our immediate concern,’ Levi said. ‘People are dying in the streets.’

‘We cannot operate from a compromised location, Levi,’ I said. Jaeger nodded before I added: ‘But the townsfolk are indeed a priority.’ I turned to Fernando. ‘What’s left in the storage?’

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

‘Enough for two months of rationing.’

‘That’s not a lot,’ Levi said. ‘The sick and injured need more.’

Which may as well be half of the refugees with how thin they looked.

‘The merchants outside,’ I said, ‘how much do they have?’

‘Plenty,’ Fernando said. ‘But most don’t want to share. The ones that do are requesting a ludicrous price for their wares.’

I thought back to the two impoverished children.

‘Blasphemous,’ Levi snarled. ‘They should know better in these times of need.’

‘We will have word with them,’ I said. ‘That they are in possession of sustenance is enough.’

We could always confiscate it, though that would hurt my reputation…then again, I was the undead witch to most. My reputation couldn’t get much worse.

‘Rather you than me, Warden,’ Fernando sighed.

Unlike Jaeger, Fernando had never had any training to prepare him for becoming a Castellan.

And now the situation was five times worse than normal.

‘Don’t cheer too soon,’ I said. ‘I won’t be here forever.’

‘…You won’t, Warden?’

‘Sadly, no.’

Not with our people still missing and the looming threat of the ritual.

‘Should an emergency require my attention, you will need take command once again.’

The young frostguard swallowed.

Jaeger tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Learn what you can while we’re here.’

I turned at the faint shouts coming from the window. Malakai opened the door and let in a guard.

‘Warden!’ The frostguard saluted. ‘The refugees are pressing the merchants. It’s about to turn into a fight.’

I stood and swung my coat overhead.

image [https://i.imgur.com/z6G5s0x.png]

Damien raised his buckler, and the stone bounced to the floor with a thud. He peeked over the edge of his shield.

‘You cannot do this!’ a man yelled. ‘Have some sympathy!’

‘My husband is sick!’ went a woman.

‘You Moretons are devils!’ another man roared. He tried to push past the line of fifty or something guards and was shoved back so hard his butt built a snow angel.

More are gathering, Damien thought. Luckily, they were only a minority of the total number of refugees.

An older gentleman wearing a brown coat besides Damien snorted. He buried his nose inside his shawl of snow fox fur. ‘Cut them…’ the shawl muffled his words.

‘Sorry, Sir?’ Damien said, leaning in to hear better.

The merchant irritatingly pulled on his shawl. ‘Cut them all down if you have to. The rest of the Duchy needs these wares more than they do.’

Damien barely kept himself from shaking his head. He hadn’t expected anything else—

Something’s coming.

Damien frowned at the strange sensation in the back of his head. He glanced at the towering blue walls of the castle, which loomed like they hadn’t ever done before.

‘I don’t think that’s smart, Sir,’ Damien said.

‘Then it’s good I don’t pay you to think but to follow my orders.’ Though Damien was twice the merchant’s height, the man managed to stare him down.

Damien shuffled in place. I hate dealing with wealthy folks.

From his left, more of the merchant company (about twenty in total) approached. A girl and man, the girl’s arm linked through the man’s elbow, advanced ahead of the group.

‘Father, don’t be so hard on him!’ the girl said.

Her short-cropped black hair and chubby cheeks, which were further puffed up by the fur cloak she was wearing, sold her “damsel-in-distress” appearance.

Damien knew better after travelling with her father’s caravan for months.

‘Elsa, Jason,’ the old merchant said, face going soft at the sight of his daughter. ‘You needn’t have come outside for this little scuffle.’

‘The screams are impacting Elsa,’ the blonde stud said. He pulled her tighter, and Elsa practically fell into his embrace.

‘They are calling us devils, Father…’ she whispered.

The patriarch joined the cuddle and glared up from beside his daughter’s head, his look promising what would happen if Damien didn’t act.

Damien turned back to the defensive line. Refugees carrying blunt and sharp tools were pushing their way to the front—

Something’s coming.

Damien craned his neck. No sign of movement from the castle. So, he stepped up and joined his men at the front.

‘Stand down, or we’ll draw!’ he yelled.

That enraged the mass.

‘You dare?!’

‘Devils! All of them, I told you!’

‘Warden, where’s that damned Warden?!’

Then, the screams of hungry men with nothing to lose crashed through the air. Damien gave the order. The shrill whistle of metal ripping from its sheath disrupted the chaos, and for a moment, there was silence.

Damien’s terse voice filled it: ‘This is your last warning.’

The most fervent of refugees paused in their step...until primal instincts took control.

A big man roared, spittle flying from his mouth, and he raised his makeshift club to bludgeon a hired guard next to Damien.

Damien cringed. The swing was wild and untrained. He could see the guard’s blade pierce the hole in the defence to find the throat before it happened.

The guard lined up the strike—

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

Damien felt the words before he heard them. His heart fell into his chest. He pivoted, blade coming around in a swing that would cleave the head off a man’s shoulder…and it would have. Had his opponent been a man.

Instead the blade smashed into a concrete wall. The resulting tremor shot through the sword into Damien’s forearm, nearly making him let go with a curse. Then, the fear receptors in his head fired when he tried to pull back his weapon but couldn’t. He looked up,

And found the wall was no wall at all. Black gauntlets with digits twice as thick as his own were clasped around the blade. They were as dark as the black-skinned demon they belonged to.

Before Damien’s mind could truly register what he was seeing, his gaze was drawn to a figure at the demon’s side as if by a gravitational force.

‘I recommend you sheathe your weapon, soldier,’ the white-haired woman said.

Her voice was gruff like a harsh winter. Her eyes were cold and striking like a forgotten blizzard that caught up to the season.

Damien knew at once who he was looking at it. And though his mind told his body to rush and do as ordered, his muscles didn’t respond. I cannot move, he thought. He tried to, arms trembling and legs shaking, but God, he just couldn’t.

Not until she looked away and Damien fell on his rear, forcing him to gaze up like a child.

‘My recommendation extends to you all.’

The Frost Warden’s words were a black cold invading the air. It swallowed the chaos—allowing not a single shout or curse to survive one look at the towering woman.

‘Yo—Your Excellency, what a relief!’ The old legs of the Moreton patriarch forced themselves forward.

The warden half-turned.

Though the merchant faltered, his old bones kept moving. ‘We tried everything to prevent it from coming to blows, but they wouldn’t listen.’ His words pricked a hole in the quiet the Warden had carved out.

‘You liar!’ a refugee yelled.

Their shout strengthened others, who also began to find their voice, but the Warden silenced them with a finger.

She regarded the patriarch. ‘Your name?’

‘Indo Moreton. Please, call me Moreton, Your Excellency.’

‘Moreton,’ she said. ‘You were the one that ordered the guards to draw?’

‘You were not here, Your Highness.’ The old man said without pause. ‘These…refugees. They are mad.’

‘It is true!’ That was Jason, one arm around a sobbing Elsa. ‘A moment later and they would’ve assaulted us.’

‘Then you should’ve retreated to the castle,’ the Warden said.

‘And leave behind our wares?!’ Moreton cried. ‘You know the importance of our goods to the Duchy’s survival, Your Excellency. We cannot leave them for these savages.’

The tall woman’s gaze narrowed. ‘That may be. Yet the next time you draw steel on our starving citizens, I’ll leave you to their mercy.'

Moreton sputtered. His gaze flicked between his hired guards the Warden, and then the refugees. ‘But—’

‘Enough.’

Moreton shut up with a jerk, and the Warden turned to the townsfolk, who were trembling from standing still in the cold. ‘I am aware of your predicament. And though it delights to see you’re still ready to fight for your survival, there will be no violence. Not today.’

Soldiers similar to the one at her side, whom Damien hadn’t even noticed infiltrating the field, pulled back with a raised hand from the woman.

‘You have an hour to select three representatives,’ she said. ‘I’ll speak with them and the merchants. We will reach a beneficial verdict by the end of the day. That I promise. Dismissed.’

The dismissal carried such force no one dared disobey it.

Damien released his breath after the two darker than black shadows looming over him vanished. Another took its place immediately.

A middle-aged man with a beard, who carried the Vrost emblem on his shield, offered Damien a hand.

‘Thanks,’ Damien said, taking it.

‘Keep it. The Warden wants to speak with you.’

…fuck me.