《Frost Mage》Chapter 13: Prison Camp
Advertisement
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.
Advertisement
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?"
Advertisement
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.
Advertisement
Mother of Learning
Zorian is a teenage mage of humble birth and slightly above-average skill, attending his third year of education at Cyoria’s magical academy.He is a driven and irritable young man, consumed by a desire to ensure his own future and free himself of the influence of his family, whom he resents for favoring his brothers over him. Consequently, he has no time for pointless distractions or paying attention to other people’s problems.As it happens, time is something he is about to get plenty of. On the eve of the Cyoria’s annual summer festival, he is killed and brought back to the beginning of the month, just before he was about to take a train to Cyoria.Suddenly trapped in a time loop with no clear end or exit, Zorian will have to look both within and without to unravel the mystery before him. And he does have to unravel it, for the time loop hadn’t been made for his sake and dangers lurk everywhere…Repetition is the mother of learning, but Zorian will have to first make sure he survives to try again — in a world of magic, even a time traveler isn’t safe from those who wish him ill.
8 435Awakened Soul, Book One: The Deep Hollows
Dying is supposed to be the last thing you do. For Raymond Baines, it was only the begining. Barely escaping the afterlife with his soul mostly intact and now reincarnated as a very unimpressive monster, he'll have to work hard to survive the nightmarish underground labyrinth he now finds himself in. Along the way he'll have to grow and evolve himself while avoiding the true terrors that lurk in the deep darkness of the world, embarking on a journey that will lead him to places untouched by mortals in millennia to discover the terrifying secret behind his new home. But maybe some secrets were meant to stay buried...
8 191The Adventure of Holy Beast Bai Xiaoli
Bai Xiaoli, a holy fox with nine tails, is suffers from siege of three powerful holy beasts and gets serious injury. Through the space crack, he falls on the Earth. Here, Bai Xiaoli loses his power and wants to eat meat every day, but he has to study from the beginning since he is an illiterate. Cang Yan is a soul beast summoner with great talent. After failing to summon a soul beast, he is abandoned by his family. Four years later, the two people meet in the college. Cang Yan feels the world is too crazy, so he summons a person out instead of a soul beast? Welcome to read the whole The Adventure of Holy Beast Bai Xiaoli on Flying Lines.
8 177Ur Online
Wulfric Blackwell was his name, or at least the one he'd use this time. He really had no idea what his real name was. All of his memories had disappeared after an eternity in the Void, but the disembodied voice that called herself Eve said that's what he called himself in his last life on Ur before a technical error that sent him into that place where time and space meant nothing. If he wanted to remember who he was, then he'd have to play the game. Hopefully he didn't die again too soon. [LitRPG] + [Isekai]
8 198unchained melody (flowers from 1970 sequel) // dreamnotfound
dream is getting used to the afterlife, but after unintentionally seeing into the world of the living and witnessing a plot to hurt george davidson, he runs to a phony medium for help into relaying the warning and protecting his former lover from harm.{inspired by ghost}
8 189The Mafia's Heirs
Dr. River Johnson didn't know the consequences of sleeping with the Capo of the Sicilian Mafia. She didn't even remember his name or face. But then two red lines and two bundles of joy later, she knew her life would never be the same again. Especially when the capo shows up at her doorstep, with a gun trained to her head.
8 136