Chương 8: The Northern Tundra

The northern frontier had no name that the Kingdom of Morwyn used respectfully. Soldiers sometimes called it the Devil's Crack. Most cartographers labelled it an uninhabitable wasteland. The barbarians proved the latter wrong, but given their feral nature — cultivated through the harsh landscape and mutated wildlife — it was the sort of exception that proved the rule. What drew the kingdom north was not any land worth farming or ruins worth sacking — it was the ore.

A network of mineral-rich underground formations ran beneath the tundra. Iron, copper, and gold were common enough, but the northern frontier also produced concentrations of Silverite — a rare ore that, when refined, could be used to create enchanted weapons. Even a small handful of Silverite was worth more than a farmer's yearly harvest.

The fact that the barbarian clans had been sitting on top of it for generations without the wit to mine and export it properly was, according to the nobles, grounds for an invasion. What the nobles neglected to consider was that the barbarians weren't just about to roll over and let their homes be taken. Moreover, the northern frontier was labelled uninhabitable for a reason. The wintry winds penetrated standard-issue fur coats as though they were paper.

The tundra itself held deceptive ground — sinkholes, ice-bridged ravines, even pockets of sulphurous thermal gas. And the wildlife… Well, the less said about the wildlife, the better. The barbarian clans had adapted to this hell. Rather than hordes of disorganised, club-wielding brutes, the Morwyn military faced countless tribes of formidable warriors — warriors that the nobles consistently underestimated, and continued to underestimate, at a high cost. But that wasn't Alcyr's concern.

He was but one person with barely any power or reputation to his name. A pawn on a massive chessboard. If he wanted that to change anything, he had to first focus on things that he could affect. A few hours after dusk, twenty soldiers set off from the 3rd Irregulars' camp, intent on escorting the supply convoy through the harsh tundras of the northern frontier. Though the cold was punishingly harsh, the darkness gave them precious cover, and the moon was just bright enough to illuminate the way.

The convoy lieutenant — a 4th Regular logistics officer named Vormas — led the convoy to the 4th Regulars' camp. The group took turns riding the waggons and trudging through the snow. All of them were at least in the Low Journeymen tier, meaning their Natural Resistance levels were high enough to weather the night's frost.

"There used to be a dedicated Regular platoon handling the supply runs," Vormas said, making conversation as the convoy moved.

"But as the invasion dragged on, professional replacements became harder to find. This campaign has been going on for four years, and more die with each season than are recruited. That's why the kingdom's desperate enough to keep raising Irregular companies to make up the difference."

"It's a logical stopgap," Alcyr said.

"Irregulars are far weaker on average, but even militia troops can handle simpler roles like defence or logistics. But that's just a bandage on an open wound. Respectfully, sir, does the Morwyn Kingdom even still have enough of its standing army left to win the campaign anymore?" Vormas blinked. He frowned slightly.

"Careful with your words, Private. I'm a blueblooded Regular, you know? My type doesn't like it when commoners speak out against their betters." Some of the other soldiers who were listening in tensed, but Alcyr remained unaffected.

"I would mind my tongue if you were the type to be easily offended by honest conversation. Are you offended, Lieutenant Vormas?" Vormas glared at Alcyr for a moment. He returned the officer's stare evenly. The lieutenant broke into sincere laughter, shaking his head.

"Huh. Sharp mind, that one," he told one of the other Irregulars from Alcyr's company.

"Aye, sir! One of our best, lieutenant. And our worst!" The other soldier — Roland, Alcyr realised with some irritation — chuckled.

"Too smart and battle-thirsty for his own good, that fanatic. Barely joined us for a year, and he's already drowned his blade in barbarian blood!"

"Ha! A sharp mind and a bold sword arm are a good combination." Vormas turned back to Alcyr.

"Whoever tutored you had quite a good sense of humour, Private." Alcyr thought back to his time with his mentor. He shook his head.

"No. Quite the opposite. Her sense of humour was the worst." Vormas smiled.

"And here I thought you weren't a blueblood yourself. Which noble house are you from? How did someone of your youth and talent end up here?"

"My blood is no more noble than the mud beneath our boots, sir," Alcyr replied idly, repeating what he had said to the drake rider the other day.

"As for my mentor, well… Even 'mudbloods' can have tutors from time to time. Stranger things have happened." Alcyr was only paying half-attention to the conversation. His focus was mainly on their surroundings. There was a strange sense of unease building within him. Everything felt… vaguely familiar. Ever since the day began, there were brief moments where it felt as if he were trapped within an intense, fleeting illusion.

Though his rational mind knew the situation he was experiencing was real and present, there remained persistent flashes of eerie recollection, as short-lived as they were vivid. He wanted to blame it on paranoia and mental fatigue, but this wasn't the first time something like this had happened before. The last time I felt like this was when I was trapped within the looping days. Thus far, nothing strange had occurred.

The wind was a little strong, and their group was forced to huddle close to the waggons, but aside from that, they were making good time. Lieutenant Vormas was unexpectedly chatty. He talked with all of the five volunteers from the 3rd Irregulars, though he seemed the most interested in Alcyr.

"The more I talk with you, the more curious I become," Vormas admitted.

"The wounds on your palms are quite frightening. I've never seen a young man this dedicated to the sword outside the Regulars before. You'd put most of my peers to shame."

"Even you, sir?"

"Ha! Perhaps even me! What drives you, young Alcyr? I must know. For a mere youth to be this committed to violence, your life must not have been easy. Nor is the ambition you harbour, I suspect."

"On the contrary, I find my ambition to be rather simple," Alcyr replied honestly.

"My dream is clear and unclouded. That makes my every decision straightforward."

"Oh? And what dream is that?" Vormas asked eagerly. Alcyr hesitated. After the passing of a heartbeat, he exhaled. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"A Saint." Vormas blinked.

"What?" Alcyr turned to face the lieutenant, a rare fire in his voice.

"I'm going to be a Saint." Every conversation in the convoy stopped. The men stared at him. A disbelieving silence stretched into the night, broken only by the creak of waggon wheels and the crunch of boots in snow. Alcyr walked on, unbothered and unashamed. Eventually, the lieutenant spoke.

"Alcyr," Vormas said evenly, his jovial tone gone.

"I respect your dedication. But, and I mean no insult when I say this, if that is the reason you pursue the path of the sword, you are better off putting down the blade."

"And probably pick up a beggar bowl in the process," one of the convoy soldiers muttered. He turned to the members of the 3rd Irregulars.

"Your friend's a nutcase! A Saint?! He might as well ask to be the next King of Morwyn! That's at least a more achievable goal than ascending to the Godless Heavens."

"He's a strong nutcase, though," Roland replied with a shrug.

"Mad or not, you'll want him at your side in a fight. Have you ever heard of the Butcher of the Red Rime?"

"What? No, what's that?"

"Oh, do I have a story for you, friend! Come, let me tell you all about how this Sword Fanatic here managed to turn around an entire battle that fateful day…" The casual conversation between the others continued after that. Vormas, however, no longer spoke with Alcyr. It did not trouble him. Alcyr simply focused on surveillance as the convoy continued its trudge through the snow. Hours passed uneventfully. Not even a single monster interrupted their journey. They were now barely an hour from the 4th Regulars' camp.

Dawn was not far, either. The mood in the convoy was significantly improved and optimistic. And yet… Alcyr could not shake off his unease. Something was not right. He looked towards Vormas. The lieutenant was quiet, but appeared relaxed. The Regular was an Elite-tier officer. If even the strongest among them sensed nothing was wrong, then the situation must be fine. However, the uncomfortable feeling that had been building over the last hour did not subside. If anything, it was growing increasingly urgent. Why?

What was wrong? Nothing was amiss; the convoy was healthy, and the snow around them was free of animal tracks or debris. All was calm and quiet… … Why was it so quiet? The lack of hostile wildlife was fortunate, but this deep in the tundra, their absence was strange. There should have been something beyond the wind by now. The bestial howl of a Blightwolf, the avian screeching of some distant Rocfiend, anything. For the northern frontier to be this void of feral ugliness was unnatural.

His mentor's voice came to him unbidden.

"When beasts flee their home, it usually means something worse has come to take their place." Why were his instincts telling him he was about to die?

"Stop." The words tumbled out of Alcyr's lips before he could prevent them. The lieutenant looked down at him from atop the waggon.

"What?"

"Stop the convoy. Something's not right." Vormas tensed. After a second's hesitation, he called out to the others.

"Hold position for a moment." The convoy came to a reluctant halt. The soldiers peered around. The terrain around them was clear. The convoy had stopped in the middle of a long, shallow depression — maybe two hundred paces wide — where the road dipped slightly between two rises before climbing again. The snow on both sides lay in unbroken white, flat and featureless in the pre-dawn grey.

"There's nothing," one of them muttered.

"Why did we stop? We were making good time." The convoy guards looked confused, but the 3rd Irregular soldiers who came with Alcyr already had one hand on their weapons.

"Alcyr? Talk to us," one of them said tensely.

"Something's wrong," Alcyr repeated, heart pounding. His instincts were acting up with great urgency. He eyed the slope around them, trying to divine the danger. The snow on the near rise felt strange. He couldn't have said precisely how, at first — it took him another few seconds of staring to find it, his eyes inexplicably drawn to a random patch of ground that felt too familiar to ignore. The surface was too even.

Wind-driven snow settled in patterns — piling against irregularities and pooling in the lee of rocks and hollows. It didn't lie flat like that. And there, that mould of snow… A glint of moonlight reflected off it; something metal was poking from the surface.

"I think there's an ambush ahead," he said tensely.

"Ambush?" one of the convoy guards scoffed. He stamped his boots against the snow as he walked brazenly ahead of the convoy, peering in the direction where Alcyr stared.

"Looks fine to me. Nothing there except for that snow pile, and… Wait, what's that—" A sharp hiss split the air. The guard's head was gone. It tore free in a spray of dark blood, spinning once before disappearing into the snow, an arrow protruding from its forehead. His body stood for a fraction longer before collapsing, twitching slightly. The other soldiers froze like puppets. Alcyr and Vormas didn't hesitate.

"AMBUSH!" Alcyr shouted.

"MOVE!"

"Shields!" Vormas ordered.

"Raise your shields now! Get behind the waggons—" Another hiss. Alcyr saw Roland raise his shield in time, only for it not to matter as the arrow went clean through and tore his head clean off his neck. A Journeyman veteran. One of the stronger soldiers in the 3rd Irregular company. Dead in a heartbeat. Elite. Alcyr noted distantly, even as he watched his ally fall. That arrow was fired by at least an Elite-Tier opponent.

Looking at Roland's headless corpse, Alcyr was once again struck with the illusion of muddied memory, that inexplicable sensation that he had somehow seen this scene before. There was no time to think further. The slopes around them erupted. Fur-cloaked barbarians, camouflaged under snow, burst from the open fields. Under clear moonlight, they sprinted hard towards the convoy, axes in hand as they hollered with frenzied bloodlust. Alcyr had his sword out before the first of them reached the waggons.

"Form up—" someone shouted. Another arrow arrived before the order could be finished. It came from the far rise, higher up, where a lone, giant figure wielding a massive warbow stood outlined briefly against the grey sky. The soldier who'd been shouting simply ceased to have a head as the projectile blasted through his skull and smashed into the waggon behind him, shattering wood and iron fittings. The horses shrieked and neighed in panic, pulling fruitlessly on their restraints.

"Damn it! Scatter!" one of the guards screamed.

"Don't!" Alcyr snarled.

"That's what they want!" His warning came too late. The barbarians were among them before anyone could regroup. The coppery stench of blood and the wet thud of axes cleaving flesh were everywhere as a chaotic slaughter seized the patrol. Isolated soldiers were immediately taken out one by one by the monsters who had risen like ghosts from the drifts. Alcyr had no time to worry about his allies. The nearest foe came at him with a diagonal axe swing.

He evaded in time to avoid a lethal blow, but the weapon still caught him across the left shoulder. Despite being only a glancing hit, the sheer force of it was enough to drop him to one knee in the snow. This strength… High Journeyman, at least! This was no ordinary force ambushing them. These fur-cloaked marauders put even the drug-enhanced berserkers employed in the Battle of the Red Rime to shame. What were such powerful opponents doing here, this far from the front?

Forcing himself to move, Alcyr drove his sword into the gap beneath the man's arm. It wasn't elegant, but it wounded the barbarian enough for Alcyr to duck beneath the next wild axe swing. He released his sword and followed up with a quick dagger slash to the northman's throat. [Dagger Discipline has improved to 22] The brute went down, choking on blood. Alcyr sheathed his dagger and twisted his sword before pulling it out from the corpse. The cold stole feeling from the fingers.

His breath came out in white clouds. Around him, the convoy had completely fragmented into hopeless pockets. Soldiers worked best in a formation, while barbarians excelled at one-on-one combat. An ambush like this was the worst possible scenario. Someone was screaming for them to regroup and form a line, but it was pointless. The convoy was doomed. Alcyr's mind reached the obvious conclusion. This might be the end. He breathed out. Don't give up. Fight.

If he died, there was still a chance his temporal immortality would activate and give him another chance. And if it didn't, well… He would at least make sure he had a few more barbarian corpses to accompany him to Hell's feasting table.