The Freljord's bitter breeze tussled Ashe's long silver hair behind her as she stared out into its open expanse. It was a relief to have finally found and stopped one of the major threats to her people, but she knew dangers still sat in wait. The trolls were persistent and the concept was frightening to her, yet she had no idea where to begin looking for them. Perhaps Tryndamere would know, but she was not going to count on it.
Her husband wallowed up behind her, dragging his gigantic sword through the snow behind him. He looked fairly silly, waltzing through the snow in a war kilt with his sword cutting a line that followed him. Although he did not know it, that was part of the reason she let him lead the way most of the time: the precut path made walking in snow easier.
"Where do you suggest we start looking for these trolls?" Ashe asked as he approached.
"In my pants," Tryndamere replied.
"Well you aren't wearing pants, so there goes that idea," she stated, taking his comment with a sarcastic seriousness.
"Damn it!" he yelled. "Uh... How about we ask your other sister. What's her name? It starts with a... Liss... And... Er... Uh..."
"Oh! Lissandra! That's a good idea. Maybe she has had to fend off against the trolls too. She may have a lead."
"Yeah, I knew that's what her name was... Anyways, where is she at?" Tryndamere grumbled.
"Her camp is more northwards than these. We can venture that way if you are up for it."
"And the people here?" Tryndamere asked, referring to the tribe and the people who had been attacked by Sejuani.
"It's best we leave quietly. They are doing very well for now and Sejuani is no longer a threat. Announcing a leave would just delay departure." Ashe finished her sentence and opened a hand towards the north. Tryndamere hopped in front of her and led the way idly. Ashe could not help but to smile at him as he marched enthusiastically onward.
The couple trudged northward and saw nothing more than emptiness and an enormous white blanket of snow. People did not bother flocking or venturing in the barren ice lands, seeing as they were very well protected from the frequent snowfall in their own villages.
"Are we there yet?" Tryndamere asked impatiently.
"Goodness Tryndamere, you are like a child," Ashe replied.
"Oh really? Most masculine child I know then," he stated with a smirk.
"Just on the inside."
"Oh I'm hurt," he said sarcastically.
"Good. You should be." She grinned at him and they pursued through the snow until a massive amount of structures could be seen in the distance, all glowing lightly with their runic imbuement. Notably, Lissandra kept her people fairly well isolated inside her city, and they worked together to build a town that stretched well beyond the technological advancements that resided in most other areas in the Freljord. The people spent their time studying the powers of true ice and the magics imbedded within. Some believed that manipulation of this power was what kept Lissandra's city so far ahead of the curve, while others thought Lissandra herself upkept the many strange functionalities of the area through her own source of magic.
"That it?" Tryndamere asked.
"Yeah, it is. Quite the sight isn't it?"
"The hell's it lighting up like that for?"
"It's some sort of runic power. I'm not sure what runes specifically, but those glowing marks are unmistakable," she told him. Tryndamere seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that she was taking a shot at his intelligence with the comment, and began to pick up his pace to make his way to the city.
The entrance was guarded by two men wielding large lances and wearing strange helmets over their faces. Their armor had the markings of Frostguard - Lissandra's faction of the Freljord.
"How do we know that we can trust them?" Tryndamere blurted out while standing just feet from the guards. Ashe rolled her eyes but answered his question regardless.
"She and her people are followers of Avarosa as well."
"Oh," he replied dully. The guards seemed unfazed by their socially ignorant guest, and continued to stand on duty.
"I am Queen Ashe, of the Avarosan tribe. I request an audience with Queen Lissandra. Will you let us through?" Still, the guards remained expressionless. "Hello?" Ashe persisted. When she was met with more silence, she began to become a little frustrated.
"I'll cut 'em down," Tryndamere stated while waddling up to the soldiers with his sword in hand, before Ashe held out her arm to stop him.
"What exactly do you think you will gain by killing the soldiers guarding the entrance to the person we seek to gain alliance and intelligence from?" Ashe scolded.
"Oh… um… I get to cut some people in two… and…" Tryndamere stammered, realizing just how stupid his suggestion had been.
"Here, we will come back at another time. Perhaps she is not seeing any guests. It is still the middle of the night," Ashe mentioned while pointing towards the nighttime stars, clinging clearly to the colorful aurora splashed backdrop of the Freljordian sky.
"Bah, fine," he said while backing away from the guards. Despite being fairly emotionless, they did seem to tense up a bit as Tryndamere had begun his approach.
The Freljordian couple turned away from the guards and walked back the way they had come for a short while. Both were quite irritated, but neither knew just how to amend the situation.
"This is a crock of crap," Tryndamere stated to no one in particular.
"I know. Perhaps we will just have to request an audience with Lissandra and come back in the morning."
"What do we do for now?" Tryndamere asked his wife. As if an answer to his question, they saw a strange blur of shadow creeping along the ground towards them. Ashe held out an arm to keep Tryndamere from progressive forward and doing something stupid. She raised her bow and drew back the string without an arrow nocked in it. A wispy hawk appeared out of thin air and traveled forward as she released the string. It scouted through the darkened winter land and a faint outline of a lion was seen. The soft yellow glow from his eye patch defined the furry scowl spread across his face.
"Get ready," Ashe ordered. Tryndamere grinned and pulled his sword to the front of his body. The massive blade had to be held in two hands to be lifted off of the ground, even for a man with Tryndamere's physique. Within an instant, shadowy figures appeared all around the couple. Their outlines were just barely visible in the night's veil, being illuminated only by the natural lightshow emitting from the sky. A hollow laugh resonated about them and Tryndamere responded instantly. He placed his hand on top of his wife's head and pushed her to a kneeling position before taking his blade in an arc around his body. The incredible length of the sword enabled him to cut through all of the shadowy apparitions with the singular blow. To Tryndamere's surprise, they were all still standing relatively unharmed after the attack. Ashe placed a relaxing hand on Tryndamere's thigh and he held his spot.
One of the shadows formed into a man by growing color and motion. The red and black color scheme signified quite clearly that he was an assassin, and the mask shrouding his face indicated that he intended to perform his task concealed. Ignorant to the obvious facts, Tryndamere spoke up.
"Who the hell are you?" the brute demanded. He was replied to with a subtle laugh.
"I have never been asked such a foolish question by my targets. Most realize that I intend to skip pleasantries. But my name is Zed. Farewell my Freljordian King and Queen." And with those words, Zed swapped locations with another one of his shadow minions and threw a razor sharp shuriken their way. Tryndamere quickly deflected the projectile just to hear one clank to the ground, froze, just behind him; Ashe had hit one out of midair with an arrow just before Tryndamere had stopped a separate one. The man realized just what was going on as Zed continued to hurl the projectiles at his targets and his encompassment of shadows mimicked. Ashe was quick with her fingers and guaranteed their safety as Tryndamere attempted to swing his massive sword fast enough to deflect the razors that Ashe missed or did not have time to attend to.
Realizing that their strategy was not going to win the battle, Tryndamere lunged at the only human among the enemy's ranks. Zed was so startled by the stupidity of the maneuver that Tryndamere managed to land a cut across the assassin's chest before he swapped locations with another one of his shadows. Since her guardian was no longer at her side, Ashe was vulnerable to an assault and Zed took the opportunity to jump at her with an arm blade extended outwards. Ashe turned to run and a short chase pursed in which Ashe was repeatedly cut but the parade of shurikens still being launched.
Tryndamere turned around once he had realized that Zed was no longer where he used to be, and saw his queen rushing towards him. He immediately kicked a clump of snow in their direction and used the brief visual cover to step to the side. Ashe, being so used to the Freljord's buffeting of precipitation, hardly flinched at the action. Zed took a second to turn his head and that was all of the time Tryndamere needed. He swung his sword at the assassin with the intention of cutting him in half. Zed realized what was going on and stepped backwards to avoid the attack, but the motion did him little good. In the stall time created, Ashe had whispered an incantation to her sacred bow and drew back a crystallization of an arrow that flew his way. The impact caused a blinding light to emit outward and within a moment, the man was completely encased in a block of solid ice. However, their victory had not been won yet; the assassin's ally was en route.
The lion-like creature hurled himself at Tryndamere as soon as he had caught up to Zed, and repeatedly threw punch after punch at the man. He did his best to deflect, but quickly realized that his sword was not agile enough to help him defend. He dropped his weapon and resorted to punching his attacker and ignoring the pain from the wounds inflicted by the beast's wrist blades. Ashe shot arrow after arrow into the lion but they did not seem to have any sort of effect on the monstrosity's movements.
The continual assault lasted for a few minutes until the battered and bloody Tryndamere looked more dead than he did alive. Having used so much of her mana flow to summon the human-freezing arrow that she did on Zed, Ashe was unable to use another one on the beast. His white fur was a flurry as he shifted about and punched his target over and over. Tryndamere saw the hopelessness of the situation and decided to use the advantage he had in the two on one attack. The next blow the beast landed, Tryndamere allowed to go all the way through, and his body clumped to the ground in a heap on the snow.
"A King and Queen's head… what lovely trinkets they will be…" the savage growled. He turned towards Ashe who started to back up and fire arrows into the ground before her. The icy path made the beast's progress slow, but he persisted as Ashe pelted him with magic arrow after magic arrow. The true ice seemed to have little to no effect on the dedication of the monster and Ashe wondered what Tryndamere was doing. She knew that he was more than capable of surviving the series of blows that the lion had dealt out, but he looked incapacitated at the moment.
Looking over the assassin's shoulder, she saw a small amount of movement coming from her husband: he had feigned death to get the beast to switch targets. He quickly shuffled to his feet and picked up his massive sword in his right hand. Ashe continued her delay and she saw the bloodlust in the monster's eye as he persisted towards her. Tryndamere waddled along the icy path behind them and got close enough that he could make an attack. Swinging his blade at a diagonal, the beast finally noticed that he had been tricked, and tried to duck under the blade. The crouch saved his life, but the sword's flat end landed directly on top of the target's head. A soft crack was heard and the beast fell limp to the ground instantly. Tryndamere smiled at Ashe.
"Knocked his ass out fast," he said.
"You hit him on the head, not the rear end," she replied sarcastically.
"Look about the same to me…" he grumbled. The response raised a smile from Ashe and she quickly moved to her husband's side. Despite being battle worn, she gave him a tight hug and his blood dripped down her back as they stood embraced. Sinking her head into Tryndamere's arm, she saw the frozen figure of Zed in the background.
"We ought to figure out what that was about," Ashe suggested.
"So what, thaw him out so he tries to kill us again?"
"I feel that he was just delaying for his partner. I doubt he planned to take us both on at once and succeed."
"Bah, do what you want," Tryndamere replied, letting go of his wife and moving towards the frozen assassin. Ashe walked over and whispered a quick incantation that thawed the ice from around the man. He fell to the ground and scrambled to get to his feet. Tryndamere made a quick blow with his sword to shatter the man's weapon's and punched his metallic mask to flip him around. Ashe had no complaints towards the brutality seeing as Tryndamere could be right about the man's dedication to his cause. Rendering him helpless was merely a safe precaution.
"Zed, listen to me," Ashe said in a soothing voice. Expecting hostility, the man looked up at his victors and waited for her to continue. "We need to know who sent you." Her request was answered with silence as the man pondered his options. "We have no intention of killing either of you. I just need to know who it is that wanted us dead."
"Oh, the hell with it," Zed began. "The League. The League sent me. They pay well but half of the targets they assign me to are more than capable of fending me off, even with that ridiculous oaf beside me," he stated while pointing to the lion lying unconscious in the snow. The response was quite troublesome to Tryndamere and Ashe, so they took a second to sink in the information and figure out what question to ask next.
"That's insane! What do they want us dead for?" Tryndamere blurted out.
"They wanted me to keep you from entering that city. Some stupid secret… I don't know. I just take the pay and do my job."
"The Frostguard's city? Why would they…" Ashe did not finish the question, knowing that Zed had already stated he did not know any more information.
"They said that killing you two was secondary, my main focus was to keep Lissandra safe. I just thought I'd knock them both out at the same time…" Zed was clearly quite defeated, not only physically, but emotionally. For being such a dedicated man to his cause and ability, he allowed a fair amount of personality to shine through.
"Thank you," Ashe said while extending a hand towards Zed. Tryndamere would intervene but he knew his wife too well. She had the ability to acquire the trust of anyone she wanted without knowing them for more than a few minutes. Zed paused before taking the hand and getting to his feet.
"Now take your lion and go," Tryndamere stated plainly.
"Rengar," Zed responded.
"What?"
"His name is Rengar. Fool does nothing but lust for blood and trophies of his kills. The thing is so far lost in its own ego and savage means that it cannot even hold regular conversation. It is like traveling with a rock." Ashe bowed her head in acknowledgement and Zed continued over to Rengar's body. He spawned a shadow underneath the beast and the white clump of fur quickly fell into the ground. Zed hopped in behind like it was a swimming hole and the shadow portal closed up behind them. Ashe turned to Tryndamere with a somewhat confused expression.
"Do we try to get into the city?" Ashe asked. Tryndamere pointed at the guard's not a hundred yards away from where they had fought.
"They haven't moved an inch, despite the battle going on at their front doorstep. They have no intention of letting us through, or helping us out. Something is not right. Forget about the trolls for now, we can come back to them. We need to go kick someone's ass inside the Institute of War." Ashe was not totally on board with the idea; but she was not totally against it either.
"Right. Let's go back to the village and find that summoner; perhaps he will teleport us back to the Institute." The couple walked back in the direction of the Avarosan village, yet again, with the hopes of figuring out the purpose behind the League's apparent betrayal.