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Chapter Text

I was following the pack

All swallowed in their coats

With scarves of red tied round their throats

To keep their little heads from falling in the snow

And I turned round and there you go

The cub fell right in front of Malachi.

Well, he said cub. It wasn’t a kitten, like. Old enough to be a Legion soldier, but they were all cubs to a charr as big and old as Malachi. Anyhow this one was smaller and younger and he’d started out of Grothmar howling with excitement and now he fell in the snow in front of Malachi, already dead from cold and exhaustion. Just pitched over stiff and bleeding from the mouth. The red was shocking against the white.

The wind ruffled the dead cub’s fur, almost like breath. His pelt was black and brown. Like Malachi’s son’s. It was gathering snowflakes already. The cub would be buried before long without any help from the other charr. The streak of blood around his muzzle froze solid in a second.

Malachi stood over him, hunched against the wind, his wide-brimmed hat pulled so low over his face that he could see nothing but the cub, whose eyes were open and yellow like his own. Like his son’s.

A heavy paw clapped him on the shoulder.

“Alright there, Malachi?” Bangar’s low rumble came close in his ear. “Can’t have you flagging. You’re my best piece of artillery.”

Malachi looked at him from under the hat brim. The Blood Imperator was hulking, draped in layers of cloth, fur, and skins, his eyes hidden behind bottle green goggles. He looked like a machine, rolling through the snow.

The old charr was nobody’s best piece. He was a broke-down no-name gunslinger from the ass end of Elona and he wasn’t here for the Legions. And definitely not for Bangar.

Malachi stepped over the dead cub and kept trudging forward, keeping pace with the Imperator. “ ‘S damn cold,” he said. “Not used to it.”

“Take this.” Bangar peeled off one of his layers and tossed it over.

The old charr slung it around his own bent shoulders. It was warm and hairy. The wind couldn’t cut it.

“What’s this made of?”

Bangar showed his teeth. “Human skin.”

“It’s dolyak,” Ryland called from behind. He sounded out of breath. ‘‘Imperator, we’ll lose more soldiers if we go on like this. We have to stop.’’

“Pick up the pace, charr!” Bangar roared. ‘‘Jormag’s been sleeping long enough!’’

Malachi shuddered and moved faster, pushing against knee-deep snow that piled higher by the second. It was heavy. The cold ached. The old charr’s joins creaked and strained.

The wind lifted his hat brim for a moment. There wasn’t much to see ahead. Just a big sweep of white, upward and upward, to a sky that was all white too. The rest of Bangar’s troops were a dotted black line snaking up the mountainside. The only color in the world was red, dribbled in the pawprints of soldiers ahead of him. Ryland was right. More would fall soon. And the weather was getting worse.

They trudged forward together. Forward and up towards the white sky. Towards Jormag. Malachi’s paws felt stuffed with sand. “We’re too old for this, Bangar.”

“Are we?” The Imperator rumbled, deep in his throat. “Maybe. It’s a young cub’s world,” he said, “if the young cared to take it. But they have blunted teeth and little claws. So the old must take it for them.”

Malachi tucked his muzzle against his chest, trying to hide his face from the wind and snow, but it kept coming, pulling and cutting through the fur of his face where Bangar’s cape didn’t cover, burning his eyes.

“Don’t you want the world for your cub, Malachi?”

Malachi’s fur prickled. He almost looked back to see if the little brown and black body was still visible, or if it had been covered by snow. Almost.

“Sure,” he said. “I’m here, ain’t I?”

“And I need you here,” said Bangar. There was a heavy roll under his words that could have been a purr or a snarl of challenge. It was hard to hear in the wind. More than anything it sounded like shifting snow. “Need you to help me clip Jormag’s wings.”

‘‘Sure,’’ Malachi grunted. He pulled the warm cape closer to his chin and checked the strap that held his rifle to his back. Still secure.

‘‘Look at me,’’ said Bangar.

Malachi looked.

‘‘For our cubs,’’ said Bangar. His goggles reflected the glare of light coming off the snow. They looked more like a tank’s headlights than a charr’s eyes.

‘‘For our cubs,’’ said Malachi. ‘‘Hell, just for the fun of it. Let’s tame us a dragon.’’

Bangar laughed from his belly, rough and loud, and slapped Malachi’s shoulder again. ‘‘I like you, Olmakhan.’’

The old charr grasped the rifle strap with both paws and slogged forward up the mountain. For his cub. He would bring Jormag to heel.

Chapter Text

They kept going north. The air was so cold that it buzzed against the old charr’s teeth, filling his mouth with radio static. Malachi hadn’t blinked in hours. The membranes had frozen over his eyes. It didn’t hurt or anything. It just felt strange. He couldn’t blink, and when he looked at his own paws they looked blurry, unfamiliar, and overlaid with white veins. Maybe he’d go blind soon. It wouldn’t matter. There was nothing up here but snow, and wind, and the indistinct shadows of charr.

He’d fallen into step with Varinia, Bangar’s propagandist. She was handsome, with short, shiny fur and hooded eyes that reminded him, kinda sorta, of his wife. Or was Dinah his ex-wife now? His widow? He’d lost track. In any case the resemblance ended when Varinia opened her mouth. She had a loud, braying voice that brushed Malachi’s fur the wrong way. And she only ever used it to sing Bangar’s praises.

She was quiet now. All the charr were quiet. Ryland had kept morale up while he was here. Nice cub. Funny. He joked around with the other youngins, and backtalked Bangar when the soldiers needed a rest and the Imperator just kept whipping them forward. Ryland was gone now. Someplace warmer. To fight the Legions. Some kind of civil war. Not really Malachi’s business, but it sounded rough enough.

Without the kid there to keep Bangar in check, Malachi couldn’t figure how long they’d been marching, without food or sleep or conversation, through a blank white space. Days. Must’ve been days since they walked off the edge of the world.

The static scratched in Malachi’s mouth, down his throat, up into his head and ears. It sounded like scarab legs in the sand. Or charr cubs whispering together, under the blankets, when they should be asleep. He could almost make out words. Distorted. Broken up. And weird. But words.

“Close—Come—Come closer.”

Guess that’s what happens when your brain freezes over. You start hearing shit.

Malachi flexed his claws, changing his grip a little on his rifle, which he was using as a walking stick. The tiny movement made his whole paw ache.

“Damn,” he growled. “It’s cold as shit out here. Think Bangar’ll let us warm up soon?”

Nothing from Varinia. She kept trudging forward, eyes fixed on the snow, her fur frozen so stiff it didn’t even ruffle in the wind.

“Hey. You sleepin’ on your paws or what?”

He wanted to poke her with the butt of his gun, but it seemed like an impossible amount of effort. His whole body was filling up with static, heavy with snow. If he didn’t have the rifle to lean on, he was sure he’d fall down.

“Come closer,” the snowflakes said, as they spun around his ears and hissed into his fur.

They were starting to sound like a lady’s voice. Nice. Kindly. Sleepy and droning. Like Dinah’s voice, not Varinia’s. Like Dinah’s voice when she rolled over to face him in their bed, fur rumpled, face squished against the pillow, so close her whiskers tickled his nose. She talked in her sleep. Grocery lists. Kitten names. Nonsense from her dreams. Once she asked him to come back to the Olmakhan. Come back to her. She said she hated the idea of him out there in the desert killing Sunspears for Joko’s coin, just to spend it in bad company, and if he wanted to stay her husband he’d better find himself a new crowd of friends. She was awake that time. Obviously. But she hadn’t opened her eyes, or raised her voice above a whisper.

Some new crowd he’d wound up with. Maybe it was for the best she thought he was dead.

“You are so close to me now.”

The snow buzzed and stung. A living swarm. Malachi tossed his head. “Losin’ my mind.”

With a whoof of shifting snow, Varinia fell on her face.

“ ‘Sounder?”

Her ears didn’t twitch. Malachi kicked her. Nothing. Snow began to settle on her fine, tawny fur and her too-thin armor.

“Burn me,” Malachi snarled. He tossed his rifle aside and dropped to his knees in the deep snow. His joints popped. It hurt to move. He grabbed Varinia’s shoulders and flipped her over, turning her face to the white sky. Her eyes were open, dilated as a cub’s on catnip. Not moving. She was breathing, though. Her breath felt hot against his paw.

“Hey, Ruinbringer!” Malachi called out, to the biggest shadow in the pack. “Bangar! Stormsounder’s down!”

This was dangerous. The last time somebody other than Ryland tried to stop the marching, Bangar brought his fist down on the dumb charr’s head so hard they dropped dead on the spot. But Malachi didn’t really give a damn anymore. He was old. He was freezing to death. He wasn’t even getting paid. At least Joko had paid.

“Ruinbringer!” Malachi roared. “Hey! Imperator Cheapskate! I know you can hear me, you fuckin’ cub! Stop the march! We need a medic!”

The charr shapes kept moving into the snow, farther away. Stragglers—the small charr like Varinia, the old charr like Malachi—lurched around the two of them without looking down. They were being left behind. Just like that cub that keeled over during the first big storm. Months ago, it felt like.

“Will one of you kittens hold the fuck up? What am I, talkin’ to myself? HEY!”

Bangar’s legion vanished into snow.

Varinia made a deep, wet clicking sound in her throat. Her paw moved slightly, brushing at Malachi’s like she wanted him to let go.

“Hold on,” said Malachi. He didn’t even like her but he was using his cub voice, from back when he used to talk to his son.

“Let go,” said the mountains.

“She’s mine,” said the sky.

“You next,” said the snowflakes, catching in his fur, one by one by one.

Varinia groaned. She opened her mouth, slightly, then wider, then stretched out huge and dark like a yawn.

Something was wrong with her teeth. They rattled in her gums. They were—growing. Long and crooked as Malachi’s. Long as Bangar’s. Long as tusks. Her jaw strained to make room for them. Then it popped out of joint with a sound like ice breaking. She moaned again, like an animal. 

Malachi reared back. He scrambled for his rifle, thrashing in the deep snow.

Varinia heaved herself onto four paws. He could hear the sharp cracks of shifting bones and spreading ice inside her. She swayed up to her hind legs. Her pelt, a million little icicles, clinked together like coins. The white light beamed around her. She looked bigger than a hydra. Bright as a human god.

Malachi’s claws grasped his rifle. Already loaded, heavy with powder. He swung it around. Pulled back the hammer. Fired. He hit her in the gut. The bullet crunched though her but she didn’t even flinch. He scooted backward, frantically, away from her, and fished in his coat for a ball and cartridge. His paw shook as he tore the paper wrapper with his teeth, pushed the striker forward, poured the powder—Varinia advancing—

He shot her in the head this time. She shook it off like a raindrop.

“I like you, Olmakhan,” said Jormag, through Varinia’s mouth, in Bangar’s voice. Its smile came in spasms.

Malachi found his footing and lurched out of the snow. He ran blind. Towards Bangar and the other charr, maybe, but how would he know? It was all white. Everywhere white. No way, even, to tell that he was moving except that he had to move. His breaths came hard and halting, the air so cold it hit the back of his throat like a hammer and seemed not to go down into his lungs.

And then it was warm.

The snowflakes turned to gold. Malachi was running over sand, hot and grainy. The sky was afire in blue. He smelled raptor shit and geraniums. Istan. Burn him, it was the Isle of Istan.

He slowed to a jog, then a slow prance. Nothing was chasing him.

He must’ve keeled over in the snow. He must be dying. He’d heard somewhere that charr felt warm just before they froze to death. Maybe they saw deserts, too.

“There,” Jormag said. “No need to rush. Take a rest here where it’s warm.”

Yeah. That would feel good. He’d been running for so…