Welcome back.
This is the hard reboot of my fic The White Hun, which has been in progress for more than a year now. For those of you who've been following me all this while, if you're wondering why there have been no updates since January, this is the reason.
Now here's where one would say, "let's start at the beginning." But I won't, not this time.
Let's start at the end.
Prologue
Now
"We're almost there—"
The air is a roiling, sticky mess, licking the raw skin with a thousand serrated tongues. Embers fly, stark against the night sky.
And she runs.
"Hold on—please, just—"
Feet pound the grass, driving pins into aching knees. Gaps wink and peep from between the columns of burning, roaring tents—before being consumed by the inferno, denied just as quickly as they appear.
The weight shifts, her shoulder buckles, and her arms come up. The sudden downward force unbalances her; her knee cracks loudly and painfully. Fingertips slip on smooth fabric, clawing on soft skin—she inhales, blowing droplets of sweat from her lips.
The fire is never-ending. And—so too are the screams.
A hum in the background, a constant unceasing tone, rising above the churning torrents of heat and smoke, above the screams.
Then the figure appears as from a dream, and in an instant does not seem human. Some effigy of straw or wood enveloped in brilliant orange, joints stiff and contorted as it lumbers on legs fused at the knees. Long pins protrude from its back, and then it turns, and they aren't pins at all—arrows.
Not human, can't be human—
It opens its mouth—a gaping, charred, looming chasm of a hole—
And it screams, topples into the mouth of a tent, and is gone.
She runs.
A gap, a dark shadow between two towering, flaming columns of what used to be Northuldra homes—she plunges in, feeling the heat tearing at her forearms like meat-hooks—she is out. Her grip almost slips. She breathes. Always to breathe. Or die.
"Hang on. Breathe, breathe, breathe—"
To herself. To her.
Ducking left. Turning right. A tent has collapsed, the fire whimpering as the last scraps of fabric and oiled felt are consumed. She grits her teeth, plunges through—bare feet pound into jagged wood and white-hot coals.
The cool night air hits her like a blow across the face. She stumbles, almost loses her grip—her sides cramp as her shoulder muscles snap into tension, eyes watering she fights the pain, and still she runs—
Voices calling out, in Saami. Desperate, keening, frantic. The night is an all-swallowing black; the light and heat have dazed her eyes. She treads forward, into the pitch, eyes unseeing, ears ringing.
The weight shifts again against her back, slipping forwards. And then cold lips are brushing the nape of her neck, the rubbery tip of a nose prodding her just under her ear.
The hiss of a cold, wintery breath.
She keeps moving, arms wrapped tight, shoulders braced. Counting down the seconds.
The next breath never comes.
The lips are still, unmoving. Only the winter air continues to nip at her skin.
"No—"
No time to stop, to check. No time to do anything, but keep moving.
Please hang on. Please. Please.
Please stay with me.
She hugs it closer, pressing it against her. The heaviness presses against her breasts, pushing the pounding of her heart against her own skin, and it's cold. Cold, but she's always been cold—
Then the air erupts in screams, and her feet break into a run.
She senses them, hears them, feels them, even before her eyes adjust and the sheer mass of humanity reveal themselves. To her left and right, in front and behind. The horde of men, women, children, stained black with soot, some naked, some nearly so—soaked through, as if splashed with wine, except it's not wine—
She hears.
The pounding of hooves.
The twang, ringing like the single stroke across a harp. Bowstrings.
A cry, echoing in the dark, from ten thousand voices.
"Uukhai!"
And suddenly all around her, they are falling. Crumpling, like puppets with their strings cut. Struck down, like straw dolls with pins stuck to them, but not pins, not pins, arrows—
She plunges ahead as the air explodes into a cacophony of terror, her feet chafing, cradling the weight. Fighting the impulse, the desperate urge, to cast it aside—to save herself—
"Please, stay, stay—"
She runs.
"How many?" Her voice doesn't sound right. Too low, too harsh.
"About five hundred horse archers coming in on our right flank, six hundred on our right!" The dispatch rider sounds like he's just run a mile in under ten minutes—or maybe he has. "It's a pincer move, they'll—"
"How many Northuldra?" she repeats, her voice cracking. "How many dead?"
The pause. Like a leap into the dark, that hanging feeling just before you reach the other side, when you don't know if you will.
"Thousands." The general steps forward, the distant fire casting shadows across his stark cheekbones. "And counting. More dying every minute."
The gasp escapes her throat before she can clap her hand over her lips.
"My queen, I understand this is difficult—" his hand alights on her shoulder. "We need to withdraw our battle lines."
"No—no! You don't understand!" She throws up her hands, fingers trembling as they frame her face. "This is a slaughter! They don't want to chase off the Northuldra—they're going to wipe them out!"
"We've given the Northuldra precious time, we have." The general's voice is low, but his composure is breaking. "Our crossbows are covering their retreat. The royal guard is screening the flanks and fighting off their assault—but, Your Majesty, we've done everything we can. It's time to pull back."
"We can still save more! They are still evacuating, right now!" Her arm flings out, like a stone from a sling. Her shoulder snaps back. "They need our help. We owe them that!"
"Oh, damn the Northuldra!" The outburst stuns her; she reels, as if struck. The man strides forward, staring at the swirling mass of shadows at the edge of the light. "My men are out there dying! Brave sons of Arendelle—I will not throw them away for these, these—tree climbers!"
"Watch your tone, lieutenant!" the general barks. "You are in the presence of the queen!"
"That's it!" the lieutenant continues, hissing as he whips about. "I'm pulling Eighth Crossbows back!"
"Belay that order, Bergen, or face insubordination!" comes the reply.
"Damn you!" The lieutenant turns back and straightens his shoulders, towering nearly a head over the general. "Look around you, general! Listen to our people dying! Listen to them giving their lives, for, for—for this! We should never have come here!"
"One more word, Bergen!" And suddenly, the sound of steel sliding upon leather. "One more word! Remember the penalty for sedition!"
She gathers her breath, and lets it go.
"Stop!"
Queen Anna, sovereign leader of Arendelle, turns on her heel as the gathering of officers falls silent. The general's sword retreats from the neck of his insubordinate lieutenant, falling lamely by his side.
"I know—" she gathers her breath. "Gentlemen, I know you're mad at me, and you deserve to be. I made this decision. I gave the order to move our troops here. Every soldier who dies in Arendelle's name—their death is on me."
Her eyes turn to the general, then to the lieutenant, then sweeping around the tired, worn faces of battle-hardened veterans. Behind, the screams continue to ring out, as does the clamour of combat. "When this is over, I'll take the blame. I'll answer to their families. I'm queen, right?—that's my responsibility. To them."
She inhales, her eyes never leaving the weary faces hanging on to her every word.
"But you need to trust me." She steps forward, hands clasped to her bosom. "If we do this—if we abandon the Northuldra when they need us most—this wound will never heal. Not in a year, in ten years, not even after we're all dead."
She forces herself to turn her head, and look upon the numberless wave of shadows flowing like water from the wide plain, funnelling into the valley—pushed out, sucked out.
"They are the people of the sun, of this land. We've caused them to suffer for so long; we drove them from their land, plundered their homes. If we turn our backs now, we might as well be killing them ourselves." Anna tears her eyes from the spectacle. "Even if Arendelle survives, even if we survive—we'll lose our souls."
"My queen," the lieutenant speaks now, bowing his head, "I—I get what you're saying. I do. Begging no disrespect—but we are losing. No, I'm saying it!" He glares at the crowd around him, as if challenging them for a response. "We're getting pushed back mile by mile, and we're bleeding all the way! If they crush us here, it doesn't matter how many Northuldra we've just saved—we're all dead anyways!"
"Bergen, you will stay your defeatist tongue right this instant!" the general growls, the sword rising.
"No, stop—" Anna inhales. "He's right. In—in one thing, at least. We're getting pushed back now. We can't stay here for too long. But we can buy time."
She looks out into the distance. "Elsa will be here. I'm sure of it. If there's one thing I'm sure of—"
Her mouth is moving, the words grim but audible—and then the blast of thunder steals away the sound of her own voice as Anna's eyes squeeze shut, her ears ringing. It hurts as much as a physical blow—she forces her eyes open, dimly aware she had nearly fallen over—
Horn blast. Her mind, scrambling to assemble a coherent thought. It was a horn blast—
Arendellians use bugles, not horns.
"The rear!" The general is already moving. To his side, the lieutenant draws his own sword. "Damn it, I thought we had eyes on the enemy!"
"Fifty—sixty enemy horses! At a gallop!" calls out the lieutenant, peering into the dark. Anna follows his gaze. Nothing meets her eyes except a sheer wall of darkness.
"Pikes! Get the pikes up!" cries the general. A brief moment, and a flurry of stomping rumbles around Anna as the Royal Guard take their places. "Protect the queen. Protect the queen!"
Anna steadies herself, her lips dry as she feels for the hilt of the sword at her hip. The scattered torchlight merges with the constant glow of the sea of burning tents behind her, flashing and glittering off the tips of the steel halberds and long pikes. She feels rather than sees the soldiers forming up around her, the warmth from their bodies, the scent of sweat and dirt.
"We'll skewer those horse archers!" a soldier grunts, both hands braced over a halberd. "They're idiots to try a charge!"
"Pike lines! I want pike lines four ranks deep!" the general's tone is commanding, but strained. "Get Eighth and Twelfth Crossbows up to support us, now!"
Now she can see. Shifting amorphous shadows in the distance, swallowed up in long shadows cast by the fiery sea on the opposite end of the battle. And then, suddenly, stopping abruptly in the middle of her field of vision.
They've stopped, she thinks, and her brain pounds against the inside of her skull as she wonders why they could have stopped, until she realises the shadows are not stationary because the riders are still, they're stationary because they are coming right at us—!
"They're insane," the lieutenant hisses, and Anna realises how close he is to her. The sword is braced in a defensive guard. "Insane. These shepherds will be cut to pieces before they ever—"
"Oh." His face, held in a grimace, suddenly slacks as his jaw drops.
"They aren't horse archers," he whispers, almost to himself, "they are heavy cav—"
The world ends.
The earth flies up to meet her face—like the fist of a giant, cracking mercilessly against her cheek and ear, pebbles burying themselves in her skin. Her breath is gone, wrung from her chest; she forces her lungs to expand, to take in precious air—smoke and blood fill her nostrils, and Anna fights to stand.
Something presses her down. She wriggles her shoulders, freeing her arms, and is instinctively pushing the heavy, limp weight off her body when her eyes open.
A vice grip seizes her heart. She cannot move. Only stare, into the lieutenant's glassy eyes, still somehow lucid, still moving. Pink stuff, lots of pink stuff coming down his shirt, his face, his nose, from that horrible messy gap on the top of his head, but no, there is no top of his head, the pink stuff is his—
"Up, up!" A hand seizes her wrist, and suddenly she finds herself upright, the lieutenant's body rolling to the side. "Your Majesty, you must retreat!"
Anna blinks, her lips moving soundlessly. The light is fickle, the shadows long—but she sees enough. Mangled, dying horses on their sides amidst shattered pikes and broken halberds, fallen Arendellian soldiers lying among figures clad in lamellar armour with tall, tapered helmets.
And suddenly she is pulled back, and nearly falls to the ground again.
The steppe warrior's body swallows up her vision; towering over her, every scale of lamellar mail capturing the deathly light of a thousand fires. He is bleeding, his mailed chest soaked in scarlet, two crossbow bolts buried in his abdomen. And he charges.
A flash, and the warrior crumples to his knees. The sabre clatters to the ground as the tall tribesman presses a scarred hand to the spouting crimson fountain at his throat.
The general's sword is bloodied.
Something pulls her eyes, holding her head in place, locking her in to the hateful, burning gaze of that strange foreign warrior. His cheeks are already pale, his lips dusky, and yet he stares on even as gallon upon gallon of his blood empties into Arendellian soil.
A sputter, a hiss, and words drop from his wet lips.
"Tengri—biz—menen—"
He falls.
"Your Majesty."
Anna gapes, her knees about to buckle under her.
"Your Majesty! Queen Anna!"
She turns, startled, eyes quivering in their sockets. Only now she realises the captain is gripping her by the shoulders.
"My queen, you must escape, now. We will buy time for your retreat—I will task Jorgen and his division to provide an escort, but you must leave!"
"No—" she finds her voice. "No! I won't leave you all behind—and Elsa! She's still—she hasn't—"
"My queen, listen!" Another shake, as the general's eyes widen, pleading. "This wasn't just a random suicide attack! They know you are here! This was heavy cavalry—they will send more, and hit again!" He glances backwards, into the distance. "They will sacrifice a hundred, a thousand, two thousand of their own—it doesn't matter, so long as they kill the queen! They are here for you!"
"For me—" Her voice is barely a gasp.
"If you fall here, then everything—the Northuldra, the Royal Guard, Arendelle itself—it all falls with you! You are the heart of Arendelle! My queen, you need to survive!" he pleads.
Something is tugging at her attention. Some input struggling to get through. It's only after the general falls silent that she hears it.
"Anna! Anna!"
She turns.
"Anna! Here! Anna!"
Someone is climbing up the ridge. Someone is coming closer.
A figure, bearing something draped across her shoulder—
And then Anna is running too. Running forwards, the world fading away. Narrowing into nothing except the sight in front of her, everything that could possibly matter, condensed into the here and now—
"Elsa!"