Crimson Spring Ch1

CRIMSON SPRING

BY JEAN LOWE CARLSON

A KINGSMEN CHRONICLES PREQUEL NOVELLA

CHAPTER ONE

Elohl den’Alrahel pressed his fingertips to the muddy ground between drifts of thawing snow. The earth was warm, though barely an inch down it was still hard as the ice that had covered it the week before. New growth pressed up from the slick loam. A musty scent accompanied ferns unfurling from the forest in the Eleski Mountains of Alrou-Mendera. Snails inched their way across last year’s leaf-litter and pine needles, ground into mulch by the unrelenting winter snows.

In less than a week’s time, the Highpasses had greened into spring.

And in less than twelve hours, men were going to die because of it.

A soft footfall entered Elohl’s sensate sphere with a wash of tingling – his wyrric gift coming alive to a fellow soldier’s approach. Elohl glanced up, seeing his Second-Lieutenant Ihbram den’Sennia. Ihbram’s olive skin with russet braids and a neatly trimmed beard spoke of mixed continental parentage, and his clear green eyes tracked to Elohl’s fingertips in the earth. Normally, the half-Elsthemi was jovial, grinning and making light of any battle they would undertake – but he was not smiling today.

No veteran soldier of the High Brigade ever smiled at the onset of spring.

“Fucking balmy out.” Ihbram gave a casual nod as he scuffed one hard-packed leather boot through the mud. He dislodged a snail, and the tiny crustacean stuck to the pine pitch that men of the Brigade wore for ascents. Ihbram scraped the creature off on a fern.

“Warmer than I’d like it.” Rising, Elohl brushed loam from his fingertips. He donned his worn leather gloves and beckoned his trusted friend. Ihbram knew his First-Lieutenant and Lead Hand’s stoic manner, and came with a nod. They walked side-by-side through the muck, which had been hard with the crunch of permafrost just days ago.

Sun glanced through the high pines and cendarie fronds as they traversed the path toward the stout shack that housed the Brigade’s extra climbing gear. Wetness dripped from the trees. Looking up, Elohl could see the cendarie boughs weeping heavily from the melting snow, bending under so much weight. They found the shack of rough-hewn logs unguarded, as most places were in High Camp. Snow shed from its peaked roofline in thick sheets, water dribbling down fifteen-foot icicles that had been hanging from the deep eaves all winter.

Water trickled in Elohl’s collar as he stepped up the broad porch. Normally, his oilcloak would keep off the wet, but he hadn’t donned extra gear today. They were moving out on campaign. In anticipation of a hard climb with a fierce skirmish at the end of it, the two commanders were dressed in the lightest leather armor they could afford, much-scarred from their nine years of service in the King’s Army. Elohl’s silver First-Lieutenant’s pins of a mountain and crossed iceaxes glinted upon the high collar of his jerkin, but they were his only indication of rank.

One couldn’t climb spring ice with a single stone of extra weight. And one shouldn’t be climbing spring ice at all.

Except when the Red Valor flooded over the Highpasses from Valenghia.

Elohl grasped the wooden latch of the door and found the damn thing stuck, swollen with moisture. He slammed the door with his shoulder, then again before it gave. He and Ihbram stepped into the perpetual gloom. Ihbram set his hands to his hips, glancing around the unoccupied space, while Elohl went straight for the extra climbing items his team needed. His hands knew their task, collecting two boxes of thirty-bennel climb-bolts, a new bolt-setting driver, and six lengths of silk rope in a twelve-gauge for extra strength over sharp crags.

“Tough gear,” Ihbram glanced at the supplies. “We climbing obsidian today?”

Returned from a special assignment just this morning, Ihbram hadn’t been at the dawn meeting in Captain Arlus den’Pell’s ready-hall. One of the Brigade’s most accomplished trackers, it was rumored Ihbram could find a hibernating bear from ten leagues, and his uncanny intuition had earned him a reputation of reading minds. He did so now, reaching for extra gear without a word, collecting items they would need for a targeted strike up in one of the most hazardous vales in the Eleski Mountains.

The Devil’s Vale.

A highmountain pass of black volcanic glass sharp as blades and covered with twenty feet of icy snow, the Devil’s Vale had a tendency to shift violently when the thaws came, and required the hardiest gear to summit. Not to mention the wall of waterfalls they had to ice-pick up to gain the valley’s rim. Aptly named, it was a pass that Valenghia had far easier access to when the snows were deep than Alrou-Mendera. And this winter had been particularly heavy with snow, which meant that Valenghia had excellent access to the Vale now that spring had arrived.

And could send a few hundred men straight down into High Camp.

“Time to fight in the Devil-bitch again, huh?” Ihbram chuckled as he slung lengths of silk rope across his body. “Must be spring.”

“Arlus’ scouts on Dovetail Peak shot fire-flares just last night.” Elohl hefted a crate of newly sharpened iceaxes up to his shoulder.

“How many flares?” Ihbram’s hands paused at a leather purse of saltpeter avalanche concussers.

“Two reds.” Elohl hardened his courage, stilling the lance of fear that stabbed his gut.

“Two hundred Red Valor?” Ihbram blinked. “Valenghia’s sending that many of their elite over the Devil’s Vale? Bit more than usual.”

“The Valenghian Vhinesse isn’t playing games this year, it seems.”

“Or she’s got someone new as her High General. Someone with a lot of panache and little patience for bullshit,” Ihbram snorted. “She must’ve sent all the way to Cennetia for a General that ballsy.”

“Perhaps.” Elohl straightened, finished gathering gear. He nodded to the door, and he and Ihbram pushed their way out. Back out in the filtered sunshine beneath the pines, Elohl breathed deep of the thawing air. Still crisp, it held the chill of glaciers.

And the moist, loamy smell of death.

Copyright 2018 Dragonlight Publishing LLC. No portion of this text may be copied or distributed without written permission of the author.

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