Amazing! An update that only took a week to arrive. :) Hope you all enjoy!
Many thanks to reviewers LunaNigra, where the wind blows, Eregnar, FelipeMarcusThomas, Autumnia, and Eavis. I always love to hear your response to the chapters and appreciate the time that was spent typing it up. :)
Again, a round of applause for Laer Fae, Arquenniel, and Caomhe of Tyrone for being such amazing sounding boards while I tried to straighten this story into submission. If it wasn't for them, this chapter would likely be weeks away.
Enjoy all! Hope it brightens your day!
Chapter 15: Footsoldier
It all happened so quickly.
Brocc supposed the trouble started with the snowfall two nights ago.
Fair weather had accompanied the two Kings' envoy from the cliffs of Cair Paravel until they were only hours from the Ettin border. The new spring was mild and already blossoming with burgeoning greenery and warm winds. Then, suddenly, good fortune and, it seemed, the favor of Aslan left them for the skies grew cloudy and dark. Winds, bitterly cold, tore at them from all sides. Within two days, snow fell heavily down upon them.
The closer they drew to Ettinsmoor, the more rocky and desolate the ground became and the harder the wind and snow battered them. Many of the soldiers retreated to what shelter could be found in the increasingly barren landscape until they were called upon to continue their journey.
Brocc had heard of rumors that the Kings considered turning back but they were quickly proven false when the group doggedly continued on. Scouts reported that the way back was even more perilous than the journey to the courts of Ettin.
Brocc seriously doubted that. He had no fondness for the giants of Ettinsmoor. Or their land. Too much bad luck had hounded them on this journey. Something was amiss. Brocc could feel it in his bones.
His twin brother, the venerable mischief-maker Cian, wholeheartedly agreed with him and was a good deal more vocal about it. A brilliantly strong flask of brandy of a particularly good vintage worked its way through the troops as they marched, each creature sneaking a small taste and then, mournfully, passing it along. The liquor calmed most, the artificial warmth settling comfortably at the base of their throats, but Cian was only made more confident by it.
His quiet grumblings of discontent slowly grew bolder until Brocc was hushing him as loudly as he dared.
Thank Aslan, they stopped only five hours into their march, the troops too worn from wading through the knee-deep snow banks to carry on. Sergeant Albion directed them to the base of a cliff, a slight refuge from the brunt of the wind, though the weary troops needed little encouragement.
They had only just caught their breath when the sergeant returned and called upon ten of the weary guard to help fetch the supplies wagon. Apparently, its wheels had become buried and it had become immobile. They were to free it before it became lost entirely.
A half hour later they returned with the wagon in tow and collapsed with their comrades for another round of brandy. The little badger responsible for cooking did not even attempt to light a fire for cooking and instead passed around hard biscuits.
Ahead Brocc caught a glimpse of the Kings, buried under warm woolen tunics and scarves. The general that had accompanied them as their advisor was nearby, glowering at the weather and keeping the two young rulers close. A flask of something was passed between them and then they bedded down next to their horses.
Brocc burrowed deeper into the snow, a touch of bitter confusion pulling at his thoughts. His mum's voice echoed in his ears, reminding him of their lot in life, and he turned his thought elsewhere. Ignoring the numbness of his paws or the ice solidifying along his whiskers proved to be far more consuming.
Around him, the exhausted escort did little else but pulled their scarves and extremities closer. The wind howled over them, pulling at the ground just past their paws.
Cold, hungry, and miserable, they passed the night.
Dawn came, pale but clear. The wind had calmed and the blue sky above them showed no promise of further snowfall.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the soldiers extracted themselves from their snowflake-fashioned cocoons. Stiff muscles were stretched and rubbed vigorously to regain some semblance of blood flow.
Brocc caught himself wishing for another swig of brandy before he'd even walked two steps. Even more irritated than before, he shoved at his brother, swatting the tip of his ear protruding from the snow.
"Oi…" his brother grumbled, shifting under his snowy blanket.
"Cian, I tink we're to get breakfast." Brocc glanced over at the supplies wagon and, as sure as he was a full grown wolf, the little badger was fetching a few pots and filling them with snow to melt for water.
Cian's right eye flicked open. "Breakfast?"
"Aye."
"Why didn't you bloody say so, ye bloody idiot."
"I did bloody say so."
Cian sniffed and pushed himself from the snow bank. A quick shake of his tail and a long stretch, the same stretch he'd done since he was a pup, shoulders thrown forward and nose reaching for the sky. "I tink my stomach has shrunk to da size of a walnut," he complained.
Brocc's gaze traveled up the cliff's side. A large build-up of snow had been formed along the ridge-line by the vicious wind, casting a deeper shadow across where they had camped. No wonder the chill of the morning had clung to him so. But gratefully his stomach remained unaffected and if the cook was serving breakfast, he was eating it. "Well, I could go for a few kippers."
Cian wrinkled his nose. "Course ye can."
"Not me fault ye've got the constitution of a bird." Brocc threw a sideways glance at a griffon resting his wings a few yards away. "Though it's a good ting fer some…"
The griffon merely gave him a coolly superior look and continued preening his feathers.
"Enjoy your feast, then. I'll be guarding the brandy." Cian sniped and Brocc couldn't help the little rise of jealousy. Of course, his little brother would try to best him.
Stubbornly, Brocc turned and marched off towards the badger, intent on having the finest breakfast a wolf could possibly get in this frozen wasteland. He made it only a few yards and then food was the last thing on his mind.
The ground trembled, bucked, and jerked. Roaring, louder and louder, filled his ears and he had only a glimpse of his brother's widening eyes over his shoulder before the world was instantly white.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Brocc twitched his ears. Was he dead?
Everything was so bright. And cold.
His right paw pushed against something hard.
Breathe in.
He shook his head and suddenly he saw blue.
And then suddenly there were noises. Hollering. shouting.
Why was everything so bright?
Breathe out.
Something pulled at his body and all pressure was gone.
"I've got another one!" The voice was deep and familiar.
A fuzzy face entered his view. "Brocc? You hale?"
"R-right as rain." He stuttered. Not dead, then. If he was, Sergeant Albion certainly wouldn't be there. He'd survived the Witch's wand. Sometimes the troops wondered if anything could kill him.
"Get him some blankets!" The sergeant handed him off.
Panicking, Brocc straightened. "Cian? Have ye found Cian? He was just behind me, near the base of the cliff."
The sergeant paused only a moment. "Make sure he's not caught the stiffs." He spoke to someone behind Brocc.
"Oi!" Brocc tried to protest but he was carried away with little more than weak protest. His muscles were still not cooperating as he thought they should.
"Calm down. It'll all be righted soon." Faces, voices melded together. Fingers and paws brushed at his legs and tail, checking that his bones were in place. A wrinkled dwarf listened to his heartbeat and directed another of his kin to fetch some broth.
It was only when Brocc was halfway through his cup of barely warm vegetable broth that things began to become clear.
An avalanche. There had been an avalanche. Snow drifts taller than trees piled around them, soldiers scrambled about, and officers hollered orders.
Brocc had been deposited in some sort of impromptu infirmary and to his right there was a long row of groaning creatures, some wide-eyed and frozen in shock, others clutching appendages bent in unnatural angles.
Ahead of them and around a newly created hill, soldiers scraped at the snow banks with shovels, plates, buckets or even their bare paws. Occasionally, there was a great cry and another creature would be carried over.
But none of them were his brother.
"Oi, you!" Brocc hollered at a faun scrambling past, a wooden bowl of water in his hands. "I'm better and I'll be leaving."
The faun paused only to collect the half-consumed cup before scampering off, calling over his shoulder, "remember not to overexert yourself, thank you and good day."
He raised his eyebrows for a moment and then moved off as quickly as he could before the faun changed his mind. His legs were still shaky and the world dipped and swayed slightly at times but he made it to the snow banks without incident.
The cliff side was entirely different than he remembered. If he hadn't spent the night, unhappily dreaming under the icy precipice, he would have said they had camped elsewhere entirely.
After several moments of intense study he found a few things he recognized. The overhang under where Cian had slept was missing entirely and a choppy white blanket covered the ground in more feet of snow than Brocc could guess.
Snow that was burying his brother.
Horror seized his heart and he tumbled up the slippery hill, paws digging and scraping as fast as he could manage, joining the ranks of other furiously working animals.
Brocc's mind went blank, all his willpower and energy spent moving snow away, eyes straining for that glimpse of ash-colored fur.
He had to be here. He was just here…
Nothing.
He turned a little to the right and continued burrowing, muscles beginning to ache and burn.
Still nothing.
He paused, throwing up his gaze and glancing about. Maybe he'd read the landscape wrong.
About him, others were breathing heavily with exertion, faces red and damp with sweat, tongues lolling about as they worked. Two rows down Brocc saw something that for a moment cleared his head of thoughts of Cian.
The two young Kings were working away with the rest of the envoy.
The dark-haired one, King Edmund, had two scarves wrapped about his hands and was using them together to haul out great scoops of snow and ice. High King Peter, the yellow-haired one, was using a shovel to hack apart the larger pieces for his brother to move away.
Their shoulders were tense and eyes determined. Occasionally they coughed roughly, stopping only once to retrieve the flask Brocc had seen the night before and taking a bitter sip. They spoke as they worked. Or rather bickered.
Brocc wouldn't have cared a twit about their topic of conversation but he thought Cian might be further down the line so he shifted closer and restarted digging, the Kings' words easily drifting over the cold air to his weary ears.
King Edmund sounded exhausted and thoroughly displeased with his sibling. "I'm not…puffing. That's your great gasps for air…that you're hearing."
The High King didn't seem to be a much different state. "Just shut it…would you?"
"Excellent…riposte, Pete. Really, inspiring." King Edmund stopped for a brief moment to readjust the scarves about his fingers. "What an orator you've become."
"And you've…become a stubborn old mule," High King Peter's voice changed pitch for an instant as he lifted a particularly large chuck of ice away, "now keep digging."
"You keep digging."
The High King let out a short, harsh laugh. "Now who's the orator?"
And so it continued.
Brocc's frenzied scrapes at the immovable snow drift gradually slowed as his chest burned to keep oxygen in his veins. All too soon not even the Kings' acidic bickering could keep his mind off the pain in his paws and the growing dread in his heart.
How long could Cian survive under all that snow? What if he wasn't…what was he to tell their mum?
Brocc gritted his teeth and pushed harder.
It couldn't have been more than an hour later, though Brocc really couldn't be sure as each moment thrummed horribly in his head and seemed an age, when the general approached the Kings.
They conversed quietly for a moment and all three looked as though they'd bitten into particularly bad apple. A sickening feeling slid through Brocc's consciousness and he stopped to watch.
High King Peter leaned heavily on his shovel. "And what was the count?"
"Three, your majesties."
"Can you be sure?" King Edmund's eyes were darker than he'd ever seen them.
The general nodded.
"What are the odds that they're still…" King Edmund trailed off, a side glance thrown to the soldiers working about them.
"Slim…my lords, very slim. It's been almost two hours already."
"How much longer can we afford to stay?" King Peter pressed.
"The griffons report a wind is picking back up."
And it was true, Brocc now felt the breeze pulling at the fur on his back.
"The wind and the weight of the snowfall are likely what triggered the first. If there was a second snowfall or another bout of strong wind we could suffer another…" the general spoke quietly and Brocc could scarcely make out the words now. "This ground is already rife with instability…too steep for the snow to settle. We'd lose more than three."
The Kings' stared long and hard at each other and then the snow bank.
"We could trigger another at any moment." The general took a breath, "I strongly suggest an immediate retreat to safer grounds, especially for your majesties."
Brocc felt his chest go rigid and his eyes froze on the Kings faces.
They seemed just as immobile as he. Indecision skittered through their eyes.
Too long, the pause was too long. They would leave and Cian would be left alone to die. Brocc's joints grew weak and he was stumbling down the bank before he could manage another thought. "Majesties…"
The trio's attention snapped to him and, were he a lesser wolf, he would have backed away. But the last glimpse of his brother flashed through his mind and the words tumbled free without any provocation. "The missing soldiers….it's me brother…he's still lost…just a touch more time."
Their faces remained impassive.
Aching weariness, bone-numbing cold, raw desperation, a last hope spoke, "Please. He's me twin."
Finally there was a fissure in the marble façade of the Kings' faces. Another silent conference communicated through a simple look and it was the High King that answered. "Alright. We'll keep looking."
A great gasp of air left Brocc in a whoosh of relief. "Thank ye, your majesties."
"Don't…don't thank us." High King Peter looked pained but Brocc had no more time to ponder what he could mean as the monarch returned to digging, twice as vigorously as before.
King Edmund was right at his side, shoving the snow away as quickly as his brother. It was as if something between them had begun to clear as their motions complimented the others and their work became that much more effective.
The hours grew longer and still they dug. Great boulders of snow were cleared away, still more hiding the survivors away. Twice the workers were called away as the snow trembled and Brocc thought they had triggered another avalanche but when the snow stayed mostly intact, Brocc scrambled back to his position and began scrabbling away with paws.
The two Kings were only just behind him, much to the general's consternation.
Despair was at last beginning to pull at his shoulders. His head was sagging, whiskers catching on the snowflakes as he pushed out one scoop at a time.
One last survivor had been found some time ago but Cian remained lost. The sun was dipping and the general feared another storm. Only moments were left before the troops would need to use what strength they had left and re-pitch the shreds of their camp at a safer location.
At first, Brocc didn't hear the cries, didn't see the swarming of soldiers around a large boulder, newly uncovered.
It wasn't until a survivor was sprawling out in the fresh, icy air that Brocc realized something had changed and then he was barreling forwards, colliding with bodies and slipping on snow.
"Cian!"
"Brocc?" his brother's voice was weak, frighteningly so, but it was there.
Two dwarves from the infirmary were sliding him from a shallow hole behind the boulder. His left hind leg was twisted sharply as it never should have been.
But he was breathing.
He was speaking and he was breathing.
"Ye stupid…" Brocc's lungs ceased drawing in air for a moment, "stupid pup, I thought I'd seen the last of ye."
"And let ye have the brandy?" Cian's eyes were barely open and glazed with pain.
Brocc near collapsed with weak laughter.
A crude stretcher was brought and his brother was gently lifted on. Brocc followed, utterly grateful and drained. He would have never looked back at the piles of snow but for the stray thought that the monarchs weren't such a bad lot after all. A small sliver of curiosity pricked him and he threw a quick look towards them.
The two Kings were watching their envoy move to safety, strange expressions on their features.
High King Peter scratched awkwardly at his ear and then thrust a hand out towards his brother, palm open.
King Edmund didn't hesitate before taking the proffered hand and shaking it once firmly.
Nothing was said. They merely turned to follow their subjects.
A beat later King Edmund stepped quickly to the side and gave his brother a quick shove, sending him stumbling a few feet over the snow.
There was a lightning fast counter-shove and King Edmund was sent in the opposing direction. Smirking in a satisfied way, they both threw their hands deep in their pockets and trudged on.
A/N: For those interested, the fictional avalanche was caused by heavy snow downfall, strong winds creating an overhang, and the sharp gradient of the cliff side. In other words, in a spring snow storm, don't camp beneath an overhang because the weight of the snow itself will cause an avalanche.