CALM
Nine Years After The Escape
The ship froze to the shore within an hour of reaching it. It was an ice shore, a skirt of ice that surrounded the continent and barred the way into any ports. Joho claimed that cities had been built on the ice and they allowed for the passage of the progetten into the rest of the world, but as Peter fought to picture it, he came up wanting. No progetten he had ever known had built a city. His people on the mountain had always lived in villages. He could not picture in his mind anything else.
They disembarked and went on foot from the ship. The ice had surrounded it completely, locking it in a tilt and making the gathering of their things challenging. They landed on the ice and traveled in the direction they were shown.
Peter felt his heart racing as he neared the land of his people. This was the Tundra. This was his true homeland. The origin of his race. The land where it had all begun. Ragoth was born here. The great legends of his race were supposed to be here. This is where it all began. He felt the weight of the importance of being here settle on his shoulders and drew in deep breaths as he fought with the notion.
They walked through a storm. Peter thought about Aaron and how the weather must be effecting him. Jordai, Gralton, Joho, Belvas, and himself had progetten blood pumping their veins. They were of a race that did not know cold. They could walk this land without worrying at all about the weather or how lethal it was.
But Aaron was human. He was not of this land, and the cold was deadly to him. Peter wondered not for the first time if bringing him wasn’t a mistake, but could not do without him. Aaron was his true might. He was a warrior to end all wars. A man who could not be beat. And Peter needed him for other reasons as well.
In the years since Peter met Aaron, there had been a change in the Redfist. Aaron was the image of hope. Aaron had come from darkness, had beaten it back and climbed out of the pit of horror and wrath. Aaron was Peter’s proof that through devotion and drive any one could change. And any situation was winnable.
They raged through the storm, and within a few hours of walking through snow, they came to an impossible wall of ice. Peter could do nothing but hunker down and wait for the end of the storm. He huddled his men together with the appearance of comradery. They would stand in a circle and talk and laugh and speak on what they would find on the other side of the wall, but the true motive was Aaron. He needed to protect him from the winter as much as possible.
They did talk and they did laugh. They were glad to be off the ship. Aaron had learned, in his time with the pirates, how to steer and run one. He had taught all of them, but they were not of the water. The ocean was too dismal for his people. It brought with it bad memories for Joho and Belvas.
Aaron, with his knowledge, had been forced to assume the role of captain. And had apologized constantly.
Because as captain, the garq Aaron had worked under on the ship The Venture yelled and screamed his commands. He cursed his crew, calling them the worst of names just to get them working. This was just pirate culture, and it all came rushing back to Aaron the moment he touched the helm of the ship that would bring them to the Tundra.
How many times Aaron had called Peter a cur or a dog, none of them could tell. Each time, it was met with Peter’s laughter, and Joho’s and Belvas’s dismay. Gralton thought Aaron whipping these words around carelessly was hilarious. Jordai was always quick to calm Aaron down, to tell Aaron it was okay, and to remind him they needed him in this spot, in this place, at this time, so much. Aaron had cursed them all, cursed all their mothers, when the seas were vicious. And when calm would come again, he would apologize, often weep. That was when Gralton would laugh at Aaron to belittle him, and after a few comments Aaron would rise up again in fire and threaten to have Gralton whipped.
It happened every time. Every time Aaron tried to apologize, Gralton would antagonize him until Aaron the Pirate would threaten to whip Gralton. And Gralton would say, “It didn’t work the first time, it won’t work now.” Aaron, Gralton, Jordai, Peter would all laugh, and the voyage would go on. But the waves were flying past as the ship cut through at impossible speeds. Aaron’s knowledge of the ship was expansive, and so was his knowledge of how to curse a crew down.
He had tried. He had fought against it for so long. Peter knew. Peter watched Aaron yell out commands and then stop short and mumble under his breath. But when he finally turned to Jordai and yelled, “Secure that fucking rope, you dog-loving son of a bitch!” the entire crew stopped, except Jordai, who knew he was being addressed. That was the first time, but there were many more. And after the hilarity of the cursing and the yelling passed, Peter began to grow angry. This was how his man had been talked to. This was how his man had been spoken to. Peter, though he knew Aaron’s time with the pirates was precious to him, Peter hated the captain and crew of The Venture.
Joho and Belvas were happy to be home and Peter enjoyed their mood. After a few moments of talking, Jordai turned and walked out into the storm. Peter watched him go, alarmed, and wondered if he should go with him. But Jordai’s mood had blown up with the storm and Peter decided he would let it play out, just as the blizzard eventually would.
It was hours before the storm died its thrashing death and when it did, Peter stared at the wall before him and fought back his fear.
There was no doubt they could climb it. It towered beyond reason, but they knew it was a feat accomplishable. But the reality of it enraged Peter and he turned his back on his men and stomped to the wall. He pulled his sword and stared.
The ice was clear for a long ways and he could see it, deep and rich, spider webbed by cracks and littered with frost. There was no seeing completely through it. Joho stepped up beside him.
“As far as we can tell, it is a thousand feet tall. It curls on the other side because it was a wave summoned up by the Twisted God to lock us here and stop us from following Ragoth. Our people have been trapped here ever since. We cannot manage it. For decades we tried to build some contraption that might lift us beyond this wall and allow us to flee, but our engineers were stymied by the weather. Nothing could be built, and we have been locked here ever since, with no hope of ending our torment.”
Peter turned to Joho and shut his mouth from the shock. “Did you say engineers?”
The men begged to begin the climb, but in his rage Peter would not allow it. He looked at the mighty structure, furious with the idea that someone would cage his people. Seething with the idea that someone or something would try to stop him from winning back his homeland. When the moons came to claim the ice, Peter looked around him and growled. He pulled his sword and the white blade of Calm shone like fire in the light of the moons.
Peter swung and hit the wall. Every sound, every word spoken by his men, quieted. Peter growled and brought his blade against the wall again.
He heard Joho speaking.
“He’s mad if he thinks his single blade, no matter how great, can chop through this wall. It has been tried by dozens—hundreds—of powerful men. There is no chopping through the Twisted God’s wall.”
“Do me a happy,” Aaron said. “Sit your muscled ass down with grace. Calm your doubt-riddled mind and let’s try to, Joho Blade Tongue, let’s try to just embrace the idea that four great men went seeking a Redfist, and now you have one. Why don’t we sit here? Jordai, Barric, do you wanna just sit here, and see what a Redfist really is? Because Jordai, Gralton, and I know what a Redfist is. Maybe, Blade Tongue, and maybe you, too, Belvas Steelheart, need to learn. You think a gladiator escape is the limit of a Redfist? Then why did you leave your homes?”
“Son, we understand. I’m sure Joho is sorry,” Belvas said.
“I’m not sorry. I’m hopeful,” Joho said.
“Well,” Barric said, “if you had been branded by him, you would be certain.”
“We’re all set back here, Redfist,” Jordai said. “Go ahead and do it again.”
Peter shut them all out. He brought his focus back to his people beyond this wall, scared and trapped with forces beyond their control, yearning to be with their kings and unable to join them. He looked down at his blade. On the other side of this wall hunched a people panicking. Shining white in his hand was Calm, and Peter brought it down again on the wall.
“No!” he stated. “You will not.” The sound of his voice ran before him to crash against the wall and roll back and echo behind him. After a breath, he struck the wall again.
“I command you, open. You will no longer stand between us. You will no longer hold us away from one another. The kings have come back. And we will not be denied!” With the final word, a flame danced from the end of the blade and rioted in every direction against the wall as Peter struck the ice. Belvas Steelheart gasped but Peter was barely aware.
“I command you, open,” Peter said. “You will open for me!” he screamed. He threw back his head and roared, gripping his sword now with both hands, lifting it high into the air. The white blade of Calm glittered wildly as if it had devoured the light of the moons. A crack rattled up the wall and groaned in anger and protest. Peter’s will spat in the face of an ageless sorcery, as he commanded the wall to open. “In the name of Ragoth Redfist, you will open.” His sword descended, slamming hard against the ice. He could feel it swelling within him as it once had before, the power of his people. The power of the might, the will, the love, and the hope that his line brought with every swing of his weapon. He summoned them all. Every hero he had been born of. Every drop of blood that reached through his blood line.
“By the name of the Bloodblades and their steel, you will open.” Again his blade fell in wrath and finality. He saw Kraven’s face again and the will and hope it inspired. He saw the man leading his people, saw him raging in the face of corruption. Peter gripped tight to that rage and that hope.
“In the name of the Alpha Wolf of Gregor Fendis, you will open,” and Peter saw the face of his mother. He felt the power of Oa. He felt the blood of his mother’s line filling him in a surge. He felt them all, every powerful man and woman of the Fendis people, and the sword slammed once again.
“By the wrath of Hostle, the first warrior queen of the Furies, you will open.” To call upon her was to summon up wrath itself. He had fought her, he had beaten her, but nothing about her smacked of weakness. She had been a fire too intense to deny, a power unquenchable that knew no rival and could not be cowed.
The wall cracked and shook. The sound of the complaining wall rioted across the world. It filled every crevasse of the night, rattling its way into every heart, crunching its way past every fear. If the wall failed now, it would rain huge chunks of ice upon them; every one of them would be crushed. Peter heard the curl of the wave snapping and dropping on the other side of the wall. Could feel it giving way to his will, and he slammed his sword against the barrier between their worlds of the mountain and the tundra once again.
“By the rage of the Blood of Grethel Beastscowl, the first Howler, you will open.” He felt the power of the unstoppable Howlers in his arm and he smote the wall again.
“In the name of the undefeatable guardian families, I command you back.” They had all sacrificed their lives and their future so his people could escape. The four families fed him, they gave him might and lent him their devastation. He felt the challenging nature of the Blade Tongue. He felt the pure love of the Steelheart. He felt the deadly reach of the Ember Eye and the impervious might of the Ironspine shoot through him, and he swung the blade with both hands as tears came to his eyes. “You will not hold us apart any longer. Our will, my will, is to find my people again, and you will bend to my design.
“You will not stop me from reclaiming my homeland. Not something as paltry as you. In the name of the Fist of the Mountain, you will open!” With two hands Peter Redfist brought Calm down in one final blow.
The wall shattered.
It exploded out and away as if in effort to flee in the face of Peter Redfist. And when the will of the Redfist had been realized, a gaping hole a mile wide and a thousand feet up had been sundered in the great cage that had held his people for so long. He turned to his men to find Joho, Belvas, Barric, Gralton, Aaron on their knees. Blade Tongue and Steelheart lay with their faces in the snow.
But Peter’s eye could not be drawn from Jordai Stonefist standing beside them, fists curled, scowling.
Dreveren
by Jesse Teller
Available on Amazon – Continue Reading
Jesse Teller 
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