When he woke up the next morning, Vraga was gone. He asked Katri about it, as she got up fairly early. She told him she’d been sent out to scout, as the storm was breaking.

Frank wondered if she’d been sent out, or if she volunteered.

He got up and managed his morning needs, and set down to carve, but thought better of it. He might need the mana soon enough.

Health = 26/42

Mana = 8

He’d only recovered a bit from the last leg of the trip, but he’d have to manage. There was talk of a forced march, of marching through the night, if needed. The master didn’t want to be caught out in the open again.

Frank didn’t think most would appreciate it. The master merchant got talked down from that, as they waited on news, to marching into dusk, until full night fell. Even twos wouldn’t make it if they marched all night.

But the option was there, and it made him uneasy. Soon the scouts returned, and by then, everyone was packed and in good order. It was still snowing, but no more than usual.

They left.

Not an hour out, the Snow Shades returned.

***

As they watched another Sticks burn, Frank asked: “Do you think they’ll learn?”

“Doubtful.” Deadbeat replied. “You aren’t the first Mageling with a gift for fire to pass by and you won’t be the last. They haven’t yet.”

She was keeping it professional, and Frank followed suit. The scouts were pretty busy, it was an entirely fair reason to not be around. Normally, he’d worry he might have done something, but she was still wearing her skirt. Over the fur pants, obviously.

She caught his glance, and looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then squared her shoulders and shook it off. On the road, the Sticks crackled and burned, soon collapsing on the road.

“Will this slow the bulls down?” Frank asked.

Half the party snorted. “This all used to be forest once.” Eric told him kindly. “The bulls made the roads. They’ll make em again, if needed.”

Frank tilted his head in respect and thanks. He was getting a handle for the group. They treated him as something between cargo to manage and a weapon to unleash. Every time he swung his staff and protected himself, they’d be pleasantly surprised.

It had gotten to the point he thought they might be exaggerating their surprise just to fuck with him.

He was pleased with how well it was working out. A lot of the moves meant for two handed spear fighting worked with a staff, and without the weight a Legion spear carried, he could swing it around well. It wasn’t quite like having the Skill back, but there was Skill, and there was skill. The one with numbers came after the one without.

Yes, it helped and reinforced it, as well as filled in some holes and corrected bad habits, but you had to earn it.

There could be a world of difference between two fighters with the same Abilities and Skills. Progress was weird that way. Sometimes it showed, and sometimes it didn’t. It would be normal to expect the one with better progress to be a better spearman, but that wasn’t so. It could go either way.

In any case, he wasn’t a novice with the staff, and it showed. Frank liked the feeling of having a party to fight with again. Even if they were likely messing with him.

***

It had been the second Sticks of the day. When he got back, Deli was lagging, barely holding on. Someone had tied her hands to the cart to pull her along. Frank tried to master his fury, reminding himself that they didn’t have to do that, either.

Of course, then he found out she did it to herself. Frank had to set up his own camp, and hers. She was out like a light, standing asleep, leaned on the cart. He didn’t like the look of it. He didn’t like it at all.

He put Vraga out of his mind. She could take care of herself.

***

Deli didn’t protest when she woke up in his bedroll. She crawled out, still shaky from yesterday. Today was supposed to be the second long day, of what was looking like a three day march. Frank worried for her. He would have ordered the other pilgrims to look after her, if he thought they’d listen.

“Don’t give an order you know won’t be followed.”

But actions, choices, they had consequences.

***

When he came back from dealing with the first Sticks of the day, Deli was already sweaty and worn down. Frank asked around, tried to see if anyone was open to helping out. Sure, they said. For a price.

He asked the Captain of the guard about it, and was told that while his aid was appreciated, and indeed had some worth if he needed to pull from stores, it was nowhere near enough to slow down the whole caravan for one woman. It might slow them a bit, but they could fight off and go around Sticks, once they were on the march. He could pay for a place for her to ride with the other firekeepers, though.

Deli wouldn’t hear of it.

“I did not set out on this Pilgrimage to become a kept woman.” She panted. “I will live free, or not at all. I’ll not be a firekeeper so long as I draw breath. I promised before the Gods when taking my pilgrimage.” She confessed.

And really, that was that. It was a foolish Oath, but she’d made it. No wonder she would not take charity.

Frank could see it coming. He made preparations. Drew on those supplies he had earned and had them carted to the back, to the pilgrim’s cart. It was obvious to him. He wondered if it was obvious to them too. Deli knew. She tried to reassure him, but every smile she gave was wan.

***

That afternoon while they watched the second Sticks burn, the party joked about it. About those who couldn’t hack it, who fell behind. How they’d only themselves to blame for their own foolishness, and the world didn’t care about wishes and dreams. Only strength and blood.

Frank reminded himself they were trying to help. Make him numb to it, prepare him for what was coming. They came back from dealing with a second Sticks, and Frank knew. From the first look they gave him, he knew.

He left the party without a word. Far behind him, there was a soft curse.

The cart was plodding along, but mostly silent. Deli was nowhere to be found.

Frank threw on his pack, his stones. His carving supplies. All of it. Then he started picking up hers.

Crisk scoffed at him. “Some leader you are, abandoning your party.”

His blood boiled.

He turned to Crisk, keeping a steady hand on his temper. “If I was a leader, you’d obey.”

“Obey what?” he challenged.

“Obey the order I’ve given many times. In word, in Deed.”

That at least shut him up. For a moment. Then he had to open his mouth again: “So you’re Frank the Cripple Carrier? Hell of a Name.”

Frank closed his eyes, and let it go. “Words are wind. So are you. Shades take and keep you.”

Cherna gasped and Crisk nearly turned red. A passing guard intervened. “Each life to each soul. Our choices are our own.” He quoted.

“Bah.” Crisk spat, spitting to the side and walking on, turning his back to Frank.

Frank picked up the last pack, and secured it. As the cart rolled on, he turned in the other direction.

Deadbeat was there.

“I’m not going to let you throw your life away because of a soft heart.” She told him, fists raised.

She didn’t know him at all. But this? This of all things, pissed him off to no end. Not that the cruelty was there, but that otherwise good men and woman stood aside, or encouraged it. Enforced it.

He remembered. It may have been over a century since, but his people still remembered, even as the world died.

“Fräulein, get out of my way.“ Frank spat in her face.

All the disgust and rage with the cruelty of it boiled over. Because that was their whole philosophy. The worthy survive and rise, and the unworthy, the lesser, are left to die. Or killed though trials. They hadn’t even dropped off her supplies with her, just carried on.

All the Cult of Perseverance did was replace race with stats.

She didn’t move.

It wasn’t some child somewhere. It wasn‘t some nameless person over there. It wasn’t an argument and it wasn’t theoretical anymore. It was Deli. Less than an hour ago, she’d been alive. They were just giving up on her. And he didn’t, couldn’t accept that. Understand it, oh yes. Deli had taught him enough to understand. But never accept it. It wasn’t in him.

Evil prospers when good men stand aside. He’d seen it kill one world. It would not take another.

His hand rose of its own to slap her fists away. She blocked and it didn’t matter at all. All the pain, rage and fear came out. Fire burst from his palm and blew her off her feet.

The surprise didn‘t stop him. He hadn’t meant that, not like that, but he was in no mood to apologize. Frank marched off, back down their trail, hoping he wasn’t too late and cursing himself for thinking she might last another day.

He didn’t look back.

***

The Snow Shades started showing up not long after. He didn’t know if that was a good sign, or a very bad one. They were spread out, enough Frank could deal with them as long as they stayed that way and he kept moving. No closer to each other than five, or six marks apart. There was a lot of them, but only in a small belt behind the caravan. Once he broke through, they thinned out.

Still a few, here and there, but nothing like before.

***

“DELI!” Frank shouted again. He was trying to conserve his Stamina. It wasn’t easy, walking with this much weight.

“Lift coming to the rescue again. Who knew going to the gym and practicing with weights would one day be so useful?”

He didn’t shout often. The wind blew, but not harshly.

There was no response.

He worried. Worried the Shades had gotten her already. Worried it was pointless, that he would only get himself killed for nothing. That he would miss her body, buried somewhere in the snow.

He worried a lot. But he marched on. His greatest worry was that he would simply miss her. That she was too tired to call back, or had fallen sleep in the cold. “That’s how the cold gets you. You fall asleep.”

He watched the trail slowly filling in with snow, and almost prayed he’d find her before it ran out.

***

It was the Shades that led him to her. They’d grown thicker on one side of the road, for no reason he could spot. He fought his way into the middle of them, and found nothing there.

“DELI!”

“Frank?” a sleepy voice responded from above.

His eyes snapped up, as he bashed in another Shade, finding her in a tree, no more than three marks up it. He started laughing. In relief, at the strategy, at everything.

“Frank?” She said, a bit stronger. “Am I dreaming?”

“No. No, you are not.” He replied firmly, dropping his packs from his tired back. He squinted up into the tree. “There room for another up there?”

There was a pause. A mortified “Yes.” followed. He broke another Shade with a stab, and started climbing, handing up bag after bag. Deli wouldn’t look at him, at all.

Once everything was up, and another few Shades were given a thump, he climbed up as well. Then helped her up, until they were a bit further from the ground. No reason to make it easy for the Shades to pile on bodies and snow and climb that way, since they couldn’t normally.

Managing all the bags in the branches was a trial, but he was careful and Deli did know her knots. A few of the branches were thick enough for the both of them, and they could tie more together for bracing and fencing, so they wouldn’t fall off.

He’d only taken one sleeping bag, because frankly, two would have been stupid.

The sun was already setting. No doubt, the caravan was still pushing on. Frank could too. But from how she shook, Deli wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

“Rest up.” he told her, taking her temperature. She was chilled, but he didn’t think it was a fever. Not yet anyway. He truly hoped not.

After a while, she asked: “Why’d you come back? I didn’t ask for it.”

Frank chuckled. “You didn’t have to. It’s my life, my world, my choice. And no one else’s. Not even yours.”

The answering laugh was bone tired and helpless. “Well, I can’t stop you.” She admitted.

“No. No, you cannot. Rest up Deli. We’ve still got long days ahead.”

After a few more minutes of silence, with nothing but the plops of the Shades shifting below, she told him: “I’ll pay you back or die trying, Gods be my witness.”

Frank really would have preferred she hadn’t said that. But he’d been halfway expecting some grand gesture. It wouldn’t be her first.

“You can pay me back by resting. You’ll go longer and weigh me down less if you’re as rested as you’re able. We don’t know how long we have, before something that trees won’t stop shows up. I’ll take first watch.”

She tried to protest, but he hushed her. “Sleep. I’ll wake you for the second.” And he would. He couldn’t go without sleep, and march all day. Not on Body two.

***

Their sleep was uneasy, but uninterrupted.

In the morning they set out, following the same opening in the trees the Caravan had. Here and there, there were broken branches from the passing of the bulls that kept them on the right track. The wind and the shades got worse, but with fresh Stamina, they pushed on. While she had the breath to move, Deli could take care of herself, with her dagger tooth.

But without the bulls, they waded in deep snow, and it slowed them down considerably.

It was still a terrible risk. If not quite as terrible as it seemed. More than ten days had passed since his visit to the Eternal Tree. Since he touched the roof of the world. Got his boon.

Frostfire

You may focus your Health into the Embers within you. Burning your life away and feeding the embers. The sacrifice of Life to the Fires of Creation shall, through your nature and His gift, birth temporary Frostfire. That which burns the ephemeral and the alien: spirits, undead, voidlings and outsiders. As well as Curses.

Blows and regular fire just dispersed the Shades. Frank figured they were fucked twice over: spirits and undead. He kept it hidden, an ace to call on if things got desperate. But if they were cornered, it would be time to find out if Shades could actually burn. Until then, he conserved his Health.

Frank had no idea what would happen to him after he used it. But whatever instincts guided the Skill filled him with dread. He knew somehow he’d need a safe place to rest and recover afterwards. At least for a little while. If he used it, it would need to end the fight.

Frank still hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But realistically? He wasn’t that lucky.

They heard the wail not long before noon.

***

They tried going around, as the Caravan had. But the Shades must have followed it as well, as more Shades were scattered around the path of the Caravan then elsewhere. There were too many of them, especially once the Sticks focused on them, and the Snow Shades sped up.

They’d never make it. Frank managed to clear some space with a burst stone, and they climbed another tree. These ones couldn’t go up one either, but they started hitting it. One made no difference, but enough of them could shake the tree by throwing themselves at it.

Worse, Frank could hear distant groaning of wood and large footsteps, slowly approaching. It was only a matter of time.

Deli was breathing sharply, for once, not due to Stamina but fear. Frank went in the opposite direction. He felt calm. Calmer than he had, since they’d left the shelter of the cave.

“Deli?” He asked.

“Yes Frank?” She was still smiling, still putting on a brave face for him. He almost laughed. Maybe she expected some speech, or to say goodbye. He didn’t plan on dying today.

“Hold on to this, will you?” He handed her his staff. She wouldn’t take it.

“Frank! If you think I’m going to let you sacrifice yourself to lead them away, you’ve not heard a word I taught you!”

“No, Deli. Nothing like that.” He shook his head.

She looked at him, and slowly, her own smile eased up. “What are we doing Frank?”

“I’m going down there to talk to our unwanted followers, just as soon as their manager shows up.”

She blinked at the term.

He chuckled. “Their master Deli. I have a complaint for him.”

“I’m not going to let you take them on alone.” She insisted.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He reassured her. “That’s why you have that.” He nodded at the staff.

“What about you?” She asked.

“I’m going to introduce them to a new kind of fire. One gifted to me by the Gods.”

She gave him a shrewd look. “What aren’t you telling me Frank?” He heard the other part clearly too. “Why haven’t you done it before?”

He looked away, brushing his fingernails against his chest. “Oh it took a while to settle in. Might sting me too, just a little.”

He was downplaying it and they both knew it.

“Stay behind you and pick up the pieces?”

“Please and thank you.”

She laughed, and it was a wild, free thing.

“Keep it. Drop it when you use the fire, I’ll be there.”

Frank waited until he could see the tree. It wasn’t lit up, the way it had been when the Sticks recalled all the Snow Shades, nor moving as fast. More of a slow, but inevitable lumber towards them.

Frank took off his gloves, just to help him focus, channel.

***

Deli watched him descend, and followed close behind, leaving the bags in the tree. They could come back for them.

He threw a stone down, and its burst cleared the ground around the trunk. Once he landed, Frank shouted:

“Now then, you’ve all been chasing us for so long, you must be frustrated.” He started swinging into the crowd, but couldn’t make much progress.

Deli landed behind him, and cleaved two that were going for his back, moving much quicker than him. That was the great unfairness of her life. To be faster than most anyone else. But only for a little while. And she healed slow. Only two points of Health a day. Slow to train, slow to recover.

Deli One Fight, the other kids called her, mocking her lot in life.

No more. No more. She just had to last a few months.

Frank dropped his staff. She was close enough to catch it. When tongues of flame erupted from his burned side, she flinched. Not from the heat, for they didn’t even burn his robes. No, they burned right through them, see through and ghostly, like some dead she’d heard tale of.

They burned cold, a terrible cold, like the one that had started sinking into her bones and pulling her into the dark, draining her Health, when Frank found her.

He screamed, a terrible noise filled with agony as every Shade in view shied away.

“WHAT IS IT NOW YOU TIRELESS DICKS!? DID YOU WANT ME? WELL, THERE’S ENOUGH OF ME TO GO AROUND!

Screaming like a mad man, arms spread wide, he ran right into them. He threw himself into the packed lines of Snow Shades like a living torch.

“HUGS FOR EVERYONE!”

They lit up worse than dry kindling on a hot summer day. The fire jumped, in flashes and arcs, from Shade to Shade. In its light, Deli saw them, truly. The snow and wind they wore as cloaks about them, falling away as the flame caught them. Beneath they were legless things, hovering souls of bones and rotted flesh she could see through, silently screaming.

Screaming, because dropping their cloaks didn’t save them. If anything, they burned even faster. The whole line scattered, panicking, but it saved none of them. Each maddened Shade on fire crashed into others spreading the flames until the whole forest was burning. Only, the snow and trees would not catch. Instead, silently screaming Shades rolled around in the snow, helpless before the cold, pale fire.

For it was cold, pale blue to white. It spoke of endings and ignored the snow.

Deli shook her head. “No fire speaks, not without a mage to speak through it. Get such fanciful ideas out of your head girl!”

She looked back at Frank and the Sticks to find them evenly matched. The Sticks kept losing branches, but it had plenty. And each near miss only prolonged Frank’s pain. Deli was off in a flash. She took the staff on her way past and as the next blow came down she slid in front of Frank, feeling the flames reaching out, almost burning her back.

She blocked with everything she had, and while it threw her to her knees, the Sticks was deflected.

Frank didn’t hesitate, sprinting for the tree trunk. He threw himself at it, and hugged it.

The fire didn’t take the tree. It was too fast. In a single blink of the eye, shining cracks spread from Frank all along every branch, filled with inner light. The whole tree shattered into splinters in an unearthly wail with a burst of blinding light.

When her sight came back a few moments later, Frank was laying still among the splinters.

He was still on fire. Deli hurried to his side and threw snow on him, but the fire ignored it as it had clothes. It burned right through it, as if it wasn’t there! What was she supposed to do? It didn’t burn anything but the dead and the living!

Deli jolted, and threw herself on top of him, trying to smother the flame. The cold was biting and terrible, but did die quickly once covered.

It left her with terrible pain in her hands, and all along her chest and belly. She’d have burns there, no doubt.

Fearing what she would see, Deli checked her Health.

Health = 4/41

“Not good, Frank. Not good at all.” At least she should avoid any scarring, if her Health hadn’t fully broken.

He didn’t respond.

Quickly, she turned him on his back and listened for breath. She found it. Second, she pressed a nail into his skin. It didn’t draw blood.

He still had Health. She breathed out in relief.

“Frank?” Deli asked, concerned.

His eyes rolled, unseeing before focusing on her for but a moment. Then he was off again, lost to the world around him. He started singing in some foreign tongue, his eyes fogged over.

“Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,

Dass ich so traurig bin;

Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,

Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.”

“Frank?”

“Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt,

Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein;

Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt

Im Abendsonnenschein.”

Deli pulled him out of the remains of the tree, and tried to make him comfortable. She swept the clearing, expecting to find more Snow Shades stumbling their way, but it was empty. Not one bit moved, anywhere. Even the trees and the birds were silent. Only the wind and the falling snow stopped a silence from pressing down on her.

“Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet

Dort oben wunderbar,

Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,

Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.”

Deli went back for the bags. Brought them to him.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme

Und singt ein Lied dabei;

Das hat eine wundersame,

Gewaltige Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe

Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;

Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,

Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh.

His voice rose as she tried to make him warm. He was terribly cold, but not shivering. That was bad.

“Ich glaube, die Welllen verschlingen

Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;

Und das hat mit ihrem Singen

Die Lorelei getan.”

His singing rose to a shout for the last line. He was almost looking at her again, though as close she could tell, he didn’t see her.

Again, softer, he repeated the final line.

“Die Lorelei getan.”

He wouldn’t respond, not to touch, or snow, or words. Deli was leery of trying some of the harsher measures. That he had Health didn’t mean he had a lot of it.

She did her best to pile on branches and snow, make a shelter. She didn’t know if he would recover, or how long it would take.

Deli searched the packs, one by one. They had food for days, and water all around them. They’d live, if the Shades didn’t come back.

That worried her most of all. That and the cold. She slipped into the bag next to him.

After a while, she noticed something else was off. This place, there was something about it. Something no place north had, in the winter. It took her a while to grasp it.

It was the birds. The hares and critters of the woods. They all came here, slowly. One by one, until even Deli could notice them as they shuffled around for space. Risking each other, risking other predators.

Deli nearly went for her dagger when several Kits showed up. But moments after growling at the frozen prey all around them, they moved into the space the ghostly fires had covered. Behind them came their young.

Deli didn’t know what to do. Even the Kits didn’t attack, settling down among some roots, digging a lair. She watched, and slowly, fear turned to wonder, as she understood what it was.

She was outside. But she felt like she was behind one of the works of the Ancestors. Safe.

The animals knew, they were proof of it. The sun moved somewhere up there, beyond the clouds.

She waited for at least two bells, while Frank slept in fits, not truly awake even when his eyes were open.

Until one time, they opened for real.

“Frank! Are you alright?”

He groaned. “Uggghh. Could be better.”

Deli slapped him on the shoulder, feeling some of her worries ease. “What in the hells was that?”

“What! Hey! Stop hitting me woman, I’m injured!”

“I’ll give you injured!” She growled at him. Really, doing a thing like that.

He blinked, looking around from his bed. “Deli? Are those animals real?”

“Yes.” She told him, unable to stop from smiling. “You made the Shades go away.”

“Huh. Guess I did.” His head tilted, as if he was offering her respect, but it didn’t match his expression. He looked confused, if anything.

“Didn’t think it would make me a Disney Princess.”

Deli had no idea what he was talking about. But how he chuckled did ease her fears further and warm her heart.

She had no wish to serve anyone, but if she must, at least she’d found a worthy party leader. She swore then, Gods or no Gods, she’d be with him as long as he would have her. Her life was his life, to do with as he pleased. So long as it wasn’t turning her into a firekeeper. She’d stab him first.

A massive crow sounded, as it had when she’d informed her parents that she would be taking the Pilgrimage.

In its wake, the World spoke, answering her Oath:

Oathsworn (Hero’s Companion)

You have sworn your life and your service to the Hero, Frank Ebner. Child of the Eversnow, Ir-karlak looks kindly on your devotion. May you aid the Blessed Hero well, in word and Deed.

Doubled Stamina and Health Recovery

Deli fell back on her heels. As Frank laughed, she found herself at a loss of words. A sharp question came to her, at the tip of her tongue, before her Oath tugged in warning.

He did not want to talk of it.

“Obviously, or he would have brought it up Deli.”

Her speaking of it would be a disservice.

Deli swallowed, and put on a relieved smile. But within, she was panicking, just a tad. She’d meant to swear herself to a brave Mageling, not a Hero! She wasn’t ready to be in one of the Epics! Deli didn’t have even one five! Nor hair as brilliant as spun ice, or skin as fair as fresh snow!

How could she measure up? She’d be a disappointment to every Bard!

Worse, what if she couldn’t keep up? What if she failed him? Her name would be reviled in song!