As Frolick retreated farther into the woods, he came upon what looked to be a small prison camp set several hundred yards away from the soldiers. There were close to 40 people chained and under guard, surrounded by thick trees.

Among them was a woman carrying a crying newborn, an elderly gentleman, half a dozen children, and then mostly young to middle-aged adults. They carried shovels and were working on some sort of excavation. Ten of the prisoners were lined up in a row with blindfolds on, facing in Frolick's direction.

"What in the Five?" Frolick whispered to himself. He hadn't ever seen a prison camp before. He imagined there had to be far larger ones throughout the Flintlock Empire. What could they be digging up?

An array of shots rang out from the camp. The ten prisoners keeled over, falling into the pits.

Oh.

Behind the prisoners was a group of ten guards, holding smoking muskets. Execution-style.

"The monsters," Frolick whispered, shaking his head. They weren't digging up anything at all. They were digging their own graves.

Clenching his teeth, Frolick watched the other prisoners gasp in terror. The woman burst out in a shrill scream, and the child cried at the top of its lungs. The soldiers beckoned them to cover the bodies of the executed with dirt.

He couldn't just stand there and watch this happen. No, Frolick decided that he would need to do something. He might not be able to save Hailstone Keep, but this group of prisoners, perhaps he could do something to help them.

But what? If he were Frost, he'd burst in and fight off these guards. Frost would win too. There were only ten Flintlock soldiers, and the prison camp was tucked away behind a thick brush of trees. They might not have enough time to sound the alarm if the attack were executed quickly and stealthily.

Stealth. Frolick did have that going from him. With his camo, he could crawl right up to the prisoners and try to unbind them before the guards noticed.

Hmmmm. He pondered the idea. It wouldn't work, he decided. There just wasn't enough time to free them all.

But he had to try.

Frolick wormed his way through the surrounding trees, careful not to attract any attention. The forest was sufficiently thick so as to grant additional cover to his mud and twig-covered body.

He moved to within a few feet of one of the prisoners, the only one not shoveling dirt. A woman. She was young and lean, with a pretty face and brown hair. She caressed a newborn in her arms.

"Pssst," Frolick said.

Her eyes flitted, and she turned but didn't see Frolick.

"Over here," Frolick whispered, his face covered in dark mud. "Don't look directly at me. I've come to see if I can help."

The woman looked away from Frolick's direction and stared at the guards while rocking her baby. Her hair was braided neatly behind her head, and she wore a bronze bracer with a blue cloth necklace. She whispered under her breath, "Please help us. They came and raided our village. Killed almost everyone. Brought us here for questioning, and now they're killing us too. We need help."

Frolick said, "I'll see what I can do. When I create a distraction, you run with the child."

What in the Five was he doing? Frolick had no idea, but he instinctively felt the need to provide some form of a plan to this woman. Even a bad one. She looked so...well, helpless. He was coming up with this plan on-the-fly. Why? Was it some sort of inner masculine need?

"They're preparing to execute the rest of us," she said in a hushed tear-jerked voice. Her eyes watered. "Killed my brother when he tried to run. If we try, they'll pick us off and send their cavalry after. How many mages did you bring with you?"

Mages? Frolick wondered to himself. "None, it's just me."

Maybe that wasn't quite the right thing to say.

The woman turned, stared him straight in the eye, and gawked in disbelief. "Only you?" Her tone wasn't disrespectful, so much as incredulous. "Are you not a frost mage?"

"Ma'am," Frolick said. "I'll do my— "

Then it hit him. Of course.

Frolick caught a closer glimpse of the woman's bracer. It looked to be made of shining bronze and covered in dazzling, geometric shapes.

The shapes. Abstract patterns of dancing stars decorated the piece of jewelry in orderly contours more fantastic than any designed by the hands of men.

By the Five Beyond! She was a Frostmarked. That was why the Flintlock were executing these villagers. The Flintlock had situated the prison camp away from the larger company in order to distance it from the stream of water running nearby.

Here in this outcropping, there was nary a drop of water to be had—nothing for them to pull on. Sure, there was snow on the ground, but the Frostmarked needed an abundant source of wet, liquid water from which to work.

Frolick realized at that moment what he needed to do. If he could manage to transport some water, these prisoners might just have what they would need to fight back. He hoped anyway.

The woman was staring at him with a questioning look on her face, ignoring the possibility that the guards might spot her.

Frolick was about to utter a reply when he noticed a squad of five armed guards escorting another prisoner into the camp. He instantly recognized the leader—the man with glowing red eyes.

The prisoner was bound in chains and his head covered in a black bag.

The guards pushed him to the ground, knocking him onto his hands and knees. The dire soldier removed the man's head covering. The face was unmistakable.

Frostilicus Shatterblade's bruised and beaten form knelt and bled on the cold, hard ground.

"Once again," Frolick said to himself, shaking his head. "I find myself needing to rescue Frostilicus from certain demise."

"What?" the woman said. "Do you know this man?"

Frolick glanced at her, not having realized that he was talking out loud. "Me? Know him? Well, I suppose you could say that." Then he darted into the trees, disappearing from view.