Prologue – A Message
From The North
The
woman shivered violently. She had never known a cold like this one. The
blizzard buffeted her body from every direction, chilling her down to her very
bones. All she could see was white, pure, unadulterated white. She would not
survive the hour; but she had come to accept her impending death, except for
one matter. She had to tell someone about what she had seen. The message was
nestled in her innermost pocket, the message that had to be delivered. Only she
could tell them what had happened, and they had to be warned. But who can I tell, and how? She
thought. As far as she knew there was nothing living within miles of where she
stood. Her weary legs struggled to hold her weight as she stumbled forward, and
she fell, crumpling into the knee deep drifts of snow, which embraced her
almost tenderly. Her fingers, painted blue by the cold, trembled as she tried
to wipe away the tears from her face, but the tears had frozen solid against
her cheeks. The cold winds beat at her endlessly, each gust like a thousand
tiny needles piercing into her flesh.
With the last of her strength, she
pushed herself back onto her feet. She did not know why. Perhaps a small part
of her still believed that if she pushed on just a mile longer the blizzard
would subside, and she would find a cave, draped with bearskin carpets aside a
crackling log fire. But even that would not save her. She no longer even knew
which way she was going, but she was moving so slowly now it hardly mattered. Confusion
raged through her mind, but the one thing she still knew was that she had to
send her message, no matter what. Shivering more violently than ever, her
breathing grew forced, shallow and slow, juxtaposing with her racing heartbeat.
Her eyes began to droop and she had to fight hard to resist the temptation to
give in, and collapse into the snow once more. If she fell again, she would not
rise. The snows and the cold would take her, and the discovery of her frozen
corpse, if it ever was found, would take decades, perhaps even longer. “Fighting
it is pointless”, she mumbled quietly to herself, the words weak and
incomprehensible. “Nothing can save you know, you might as well get it over
with and die.” But for now, she endured.
She should never have come this far
north. As far as she knew, she was the last one left. Each of her five
companions was dead, one killed by disease, but the other four by the cold. It
was the most dangerous foe she had ever faced; undefeatable, inescapable,
unrelenting, and lethal. The worst part of it was that it was her idea to come
searching this far, for the stone. His stone.
But what they had found instead had been far more terrifying. But the cold
would be the end of her, and all the hopes she had of warning anybody of what
she had seen. They have to know, she
thought. If they did not prepare, every inhabitant of Stormsrock would be in
danger of their lives. Thousands had died fighting against him last time, and
now he had risen once more, he would become more powerful than ever. He had to
be stopped before that happened. But she had failed. They would not know the
danger until it was breathing down their necks.
Then
she saw it; a white bird. Larger than a raven, it turned its intelligent eyes
towards her, beckoning her forward. How the bird had got there, she did not
know. It took her almost a minute to reach into her pocket and pull out the
letter. It was soaked through, but it was still legible. The bird hopped closer
to her, cocking its head to one side, and with two beats of its wings it landed
onto her numb shoulder. Somehow it knew what she wanted. Its beak jabbed
forward, clamping the letter tightly. Slowly, so slowly, she inched her mouth
to its ear, and whispered into it a name, a name that had not been spoken for a
very long time. Part of her told her that the bird was a delusion, a fantasy of
her dying, frozen brain. Another part assured her that the bird would not know
what she wanted it to do; it was just a bird, after all. But it was too much of
a coincidence that it had come to her now, and taken the letter from her hand. It’s the only chance I have. The bird
even seemed to nod slightly in recognition of the name, dipping its head almost
reverently, if only for a split second. Then it took flight, somehow prevailing
against the fierce winds, almost instantly merging into the blizzard, out of
her sight. The sides of the woman’s mouth rose ever so slightly, as she knelt
down into the snow. Perhaps they would be prepared for the oncoming storm.
Perhaps her message would save thousands of lives. Whether or not the bird
would ever reach its destination, she would never know. But it was out of her
hands now.
She
was still smiling as her eyes closed shut for the last time.
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