Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [9]
"M-master?"
"Silence!" said Walloch.
Darkness pressed down upon the camp, and even the fires seemed to shrink and cling to their coals. Nothing moved. Everyone sat or stood frozen, as if afraid to move. It was then that Dremas realized he was afraid, though he could not say why. An unreasoning terror had seized him, and he found himself shivering. The riffling of the breeze through the grasses and the crackle of the campfires struck his ears as too loud, and in his mind Dremas urged them to hush. Then he heard it-something moving in the dark. Footfalls, unhurried and deliberate.
He saw them-pale forms walking toward the camp, and something dark behind them, almost like a bit of night blown by the wind.
The pale figures, five of them, walked into the camp with the easy gait of tigers, the subdued light from the fires washing over them. They were men, but their skin was pale as snow, and their hair-every man wore it long and unbound-ranged from frost white to the silver sheen of starlight on ice. Their clothes were an assortment of leather and skins, the edges lined with fur. Every man had a long knife belted at his waist and a quiver full of barbed throwing spears on his back. Four had short swords in leather scabbards, but one carried a double-headed battle axe. Dremas thought he saw runes carved into the haft. The belt the man wore across his chest was made from braided scalps.
"Sossrim!" someone whispered behind Dremas.
"Nai," said Gegin, who was from Damara, where people often traded with the Sossrim. "Those be Aikulen Jain. Frost Folk. Damn us all, we should have gone with the Tuigan."
Behind his back, Dremas made the sign to ward off evil. He'd never been farther north than Nathoud, and even he had heard of the Frost Folk. People said they drank the blood of their captives and sacrificed to the ancient devils of Raumathar, who granted them sorcerous powers. Dremas looked to Walloch. What had the wizard gotten them into?
"Greetings, my friends!" said Walloch, throwing his arms open wide. Walloch's voice was warm, cheerful, but Dremas could hear he was forcing it. "I did not expect you so soon. I would have prepared a feast to welcome you."
The Frost Folk said nothing. The leader glanced at Walloch but did not otherwise acknowledge his words. He and his comrades spread out so that they faced Walloch in a wide semicircle. They did not look at Walloch, nor at any one thing in particular. Rather they glanced throughout the camp, taking in their surroundings very much as if they were guests invited to a strange home. Dremas shuddered as their gaze passed over him, and his bladder suddenly felt very full.
At first Dremas thought a wisp of fog had risen and was billowing into camp, but then he saw another figure passing through the yurts. Dremas could make out no distinct features, for the walker was swathed head to toe in robes the color of cold ash. A cloak of the same hue covered his robes, topped by a hood too deep for the light to penetrate. The cloaked one glanced neither right nor left, but came straight for Walloch.
The man stopped a few paces before Walloch, who bowed before the newcomer. "Greetings, my lord."
"I come to fulfill the covenant," said the cloaked man.
Dremas had to force his hands down, to keep them from covering his ears. There was something altogether wrong with the newcomer's voice. His speech was careful and precise, but it seemed as if there were two voices speaking at once, and one seemed out of tune. Dissonant. Like fingernails scraping over dry stone.
"I was not expecting you so soon," said Walloch. "Tomorrow after sunset, your man said, eh?" Walloch looked to the pale newcomer with the axe. "Tomorrow you said, eh?"
"Where is the boy?" said the cloaked figure.
Dremas could take no more. He fell to his knees and huddled inside his cloak, shivering. He closed his eyes and prayed the dark thing in the cloak would leave.
"Slippery little rat g-got away," said Walloch. "His mother… had one spell saved, I guess. She took out two guards and she, uh, she got away.