Glacius Frostmaw's Arc

Chapter 12 of 14

Glacius led his brother and sister down from the summit. The blade rode warm on his back, awake at last. But his frost was gone, and the low slopes held new danger. Oskar Drumm walked with them to the tree line, then stopped. "I go no farther," the guardian said. "The peak rests now. Watch the ground below. Your enemy climbs." He pointed once, then turned back toward the stone. Below the trees, riders spread across the snow. Glacius counted them from the ridge. A dozen men on horses, moving to close a ring against the mountain. At their center rode a huge figure with a black beard and blank white eyes. Khar Ironforge. The blind war-leader who had hunted them from the fort. He sat still on his horse, head tilted, listening. "He'll trap us against the rock," Skara said. Her voice was flat and hard. "No frost to stop them now. No way around." Glacius saw one shape between the enemy and open ground. A small hut of packed ice sat below, its frost-tinted panels catching the light. A single door, thick walls. "There," he said. "We hold the door. They can only come one at a time." They ran. Throk reached the hut first and threw his shoulder against the door. The three of them crowded inside the crystal walls. Khar's voice rolled up the slope. "I hear you breathing, orc. Come out. It ends here." Glacius drew the dragon-heart sword. The blade's eyes glowed pale blue. He remembered how it fed on purpose, not on cold. He fixed his mind on one thing: his family alive, down the mountain. The runes brightened in his hands. A rider dismounted and charged the door. Glacius met him in the narrow gap. Steel rang. The man was strong, but only one could fit through at a time. Glacius drove the awakened blade through the guard's armor and shoved him back into the snow. A second came. Glacius killed him too. Khar did not rush. He set his palm flat on the ice wall and listened to the fight inside. "Two dead," he said. "You fight better with the sword than with your magic." He drew his own great axe. "But you can't hold one door forever." Then Skara moved. She slipped through the hut's back panel, out of Khar's hearing, and cut the tether ropes of the tied horses. The animals bolted. The riders scattered to catch them, their ring broken open across the slope. "Now," Glacius said. He burst from the door with the blade high. The remaining men, unhorsed and confused, gave ground. Glacius and his siblings ran through the gap toward open country. Khar stood alone by the hut, axe in hand, turning his blank eyes to follow the fading sound of their feet. He did not chase. "I know your faces," he called after them. "I have the low country now. You'll come down eventually. I'll be waiting where the trees end."