THE KING OF NOTHING

  Chapter XX: Red Snow in the Silent Village

  The storm that had lashed them for a day and a night like a whip of divine ice suddenly abated. It did not fade; it withdrew. Like a gigantic beast, satisfied with its display of power, retreating to its lair among the peaks. The wind ceased its howling, the sky—a uniform gray canvas—tore open for the first time, revealing patches of deep, glacial blue. And in that sudden silence, thunderous in its absence of noise, the path they followed—a simple cleft in the mountain—opened abruptly.

  Not onto a precipice or a ravine, but into a valley.

  It was a hidden place, a secret guarded between the skirts of twin peaks of black granite. It appeared on no Imperial map. What they found were not limestone ruins nor military fortresses. It was something older, stranger, alien.

  A village.

  But not a village like those in the south. Here, architecture did not seek to dominate the landscape, but to merge with it, or perhaps, to challenge its rules. The houses were built of jet-black wood, lacquered with something that made it gleam faintly even in the dim light, resistant to time and rot. Their roofs were not gabled, but curved, like the backs of crouching beasts, steeply slanted so that snow accumulated in thick layers that seemed like funeral shrouds. The windows, small and high-set, had intricate lattice frames, covered not with glass, but with thick, waxed, opaque paper that from within must have tinged the light a sickly honey color.

  At the center of the small settlement, a well of stone polished by a thousand winters, its rim crowned with a hood of ice. And all around, everywhere, in stone urns beside doors, growing between the cracks of uneven cobblestones, even climbing the black window frames, there were flowers.

  They were small, delicate blooms, of an electric blue. A blue so intense, so vibrant and unnatural against the white of the snow and the black of the wood, that it seemed to emit its own faint light. The petals were translucent, like blown blue crystal, and at their center pulsed a glimmer of an even deeper color, almost violet. Frost Lilies. A species that existed only in the legends of the far northern peoples. They were said to bloom where death had made a long winter, feeding on silence.

  "What a strange place," Luka murmured, exhaling a cloud of vapor that instantly condensed. "It doesn't seem… real. It seems asleep. As if everyone had gone for a nap and never returned."

  Elara, hypnotized by the violent contrast of colors, reached out a gloved hand toward a clump growing at the path's edge. Her fingers neared one of the blue petals, which looked as fragile as ice.

  "They're beautiful," she whispered, almost to herself. "Like living jewels."

  "Don't touch them," warned Vael, walking with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, his tone casual but final. "Colors too bright in nature, especially in a place like this, almost always mean one of two things: deadly poison, or something worse. And here, it smells more like 'something worse'."

  Captain Gallen advanced with his black halberd raised, his gaze scrutinizing the silent houses, the curved roofs, the blind windows. His usual joviality had transformed into a veteran's concentration.

  "Syla, take three men and check the eastern perimeter. Torben, you take the west. I want to know if we're alone here or if there are… neighbors. The rest, stay together. I don't like this. It doesn't smell right."

  The village, they soon discovered, was empty. But not looted. Not destroyed.

  It was a perfect, unsettling absence.

  Inside the houses they dared to open—the doors were not locked, only pushed shut—they found tables set. Dark wooden plates with frozen food: bread hard as stone, chunks of dried meat, roots. Cups with the dregs of some forgotten tea, now a brown crust at the bottom. Blankets folded precisely beside cold hearths. Carved wooden toys on the floor. Books with frozen pages.

  There was no blood. No signs of struggle, of hasty flight. No corpses.

  The people, simply, were not there. As if they had evaporated into the cold air one ordinary day, leaving their lives on pause.

  The Warmth of the Damned

  With night approaching and the temperature plummeting, they decided not to risk going further. The largest building, at the far end of the village—a long communal hall with a wooden floor raised on stone pilings—seemed the safest refuge. Its black wood walls were thick, and inside, large wrought-iron braziers, shaped like bowls, promised warmth.

  They lit fires with the dry wood they found stacked neatly against the wall. The orange flames crackled, fighting the cold seeping through the cracks, filling the vast hall with faint warmth and dancing shadows. The atmosphere, forcibly, relaxed somewhat. The Silver Fang mercenaries, after the tense reconnaissance, removed their helmets and hoods. They were hardened men and women, their faces marked by wind and violence, but in the firelight, sharing skins of strong spirits, they seemed just that: weary people, snatching a stolen moment of peace.

  Irina, sitting on a low bench by one of the braziers, methodically cleaned her Toledo steel sword, passing the oiled cloth over every inch of the silver blade with an almost religious reverence. Luka, the young recruit, sat at a respectful but visible distance, watching her with that mix of admiration and timidity.

  "That sword…" Luka finally said, breaking the silence. "It's very heavy to use without a shield, isn't it? Most swordsmen with blades that long carry at least a buckler."

  Irina looked up at him. Her blue eyes, reflecting the fire, showed no irritation, only a weary patience.

  "A shield is weight, Luka," she said, her voice clear in the hall's silence. "Weight that slows you, makes you predictable. Every gram counts. Speed… speed is life. Or the difference between your blade in the enemy's throat, and theirs in yours. A shield defends you from one blow. Speed defends you from all of them."

  At the other end of the hall, near the main door, Syla sharpened her curved scimitars with a whetstone, the rhythmic shink-shink a counterpoint to the fire's crackle. But her sharp grey eyes were not on her weapons; they were on Elara and Vael.

  The noblewoman, now with her black coat open, sat on the wooden floor, leaning against the wall, beside Vael. They weren't talking. Elara passed pieces of dried meat and frozen cheese to Vael, adjusted the collar of his coat when it unfolded, handed him the water skin without him having to ask. It was a choreography of silent service, of absolute attention.

  "They look like wolves from the same pack," Gallen commented quietly, dropping heavily onto a bench opposite them with a grunt. He had drunk a little, enough to loosen his tongue. "Though one looks like the silent alpha, the one who decides the direction, and the other… well, the other pretends to be nothing but a shadow, but her eyes don't lie. She's alert. Like a she-wolf protecting her cub. Or her leader."

  Vael, chewing a piece of cheese, smiled, a broad, carefree expression.

  "We're just travelers with a bad case of cold, Captain. The cold makes people huddle together. Nothing more."

  Gallen laughed, a hoarse, warm sound.

  "Sure, sure! Travelers with a bad case of cold who kill patriarch bears with a single blow and make packs of Frost Wolves flee with a look." He made a broad gesture with his arm, encompassing his men and women scattered through the hall, some already dozing, others playing dice in the dim light. "These idiots… they're my family. The only one I've had in twenty years. If we manage to cross these mountains, the contract with the Lord of Valgost will pay us enough to spend the entire winter in a warm inn, with beer and… company. That's the only thing that matters."

  Vael looked at the twenty mercenaries remaining. His green, expressionless eyes passed over them one by one, as if memorizing their faces, their wounds, their small, worn-out dreams.

  "They're good people," he finally said, and his tone was strangely soft, almost melancholic. It sounded like an observation, but also, somehow sinisterly, like a farewell.

  The Liturgy of Flesh

  The change did not come with a shout, nor with a crash. It came with a silence.

  An absolute silence, so sudden and dense that several heads lifted, hands went to sword hilts. The wind, which had whispered through the cracks, ceased. The fire's crackle seemed to grow louder, sharper, in contrast.

  A mercenary, Hannes—a stocky, quiet fellow who always volunteered for the most tedious watches—rose from his spot by the fire, yawning.

  "Going to the porch. A minute."

  He crossed the hall, his boots thudding hollowly on the wood. He opened the heavy black wooden door, letting out a blast of icy air that made the flames dance, and stepped out. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

  A minute passed. The silence outside was total.

  Two passed.

  Then, a sound.

  Not a scream. Not a blow.

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  A wet sound. Splat. Like a very ripe watermelon falling from a height onto stone. Brief. Definitive.

  "Hannes?" Syla called from her post near the door. Her usually rough voice sounded strangely loud in the silence.

  No response.

  Syla, scimitars already in hand, approached the door. The other mercenaries rose slowly, the spirits forgotten, drowsiness evaporated. Gallen already had his halberd in hand.

  Syla opened the door, just a crack, enough to stick her head out.

  The wooden porch was empty. The snow beyond, illuminated by the dim light spilling from the hall, was flawless. White. Virgin.

  Except for one stain. A red stain. Bright, fresh, spreading like a macabre flower about three paces from the door. And at the center of that stain, like a gruesome ornament, sat a pair of boots. Hannes's boots. With the feet still inside, cleanly severed at the ankles. The cuts were so clean you could see the whitish bones and retracted tendons.

  "ALAR…!" Syla began to shout, turning back inside.

  She didn't finish the word.

  A howl tore the air. Not a wolf's howl, nor a bear's roar. It was something distorted, high-pitched as metal screeching against glass, but with a guttural depth that vibrated in the bones. It came from everywhere and nowhere.

  From the curved roofs, shadows fell.

  They were giants. Three meters tall when they stood upright. They were covered in dirty, grayish fur, long and matted, waving like living rags as they moved. But their bodies were a nightmare of disproportion: one arm was scrawny, atrophied, hanging uselessly; the other was a monstrous mass of twisted muscle and tendon like cables, ending in a five-fingered claw, each finger the size of a short dagger, which dragged along the ground with a sound of nails on stone. From their deformed heads, covered in bony plates, sprouted twisted and broken horns that grew in all directions, tangling with each other, completely covering what should have been their eyes. They were blind.

  Howlers. Beasts from the depths of the mountains, from caverns where light and reason had never reached.

  One landed right in the middle of a group of three mercenaries near the door. The impact wasn't a blow; it was a pulverization. The bodies, caught under its feet, became a red paste of splintered bones that splattered the black walls. The beast, without stopping, grabbed a fourth man trying to rise, squeezed him between its monstrous arm and torso with a force that made ribs explode with a dry crunch, and hurled him against the opposite wall of the hall. The body hit with a wet sound and crumpled, a limp puppet.

  "FORMATION!" Gallen roared, his voice a thunder of pure fury and desperation.

  But it was too late. There were twelve of those things. And they were inside.

  Chaos was instantaneous and absolute. A mercenary raised his shield, a heavy targe of oak and iron. The Howler facing him didn't strike the shield; it pierced it. Its claws, sharp as saws, penetrated wood and metal like butter, tearing away not just the shield, but the man's arm and part of his shoulder in a single arcing motion of blood and twisted metal. The man fell screaming, life gushing from the stump.

  It was systematic butchery, a slaughterhouse of high efficiency.

  Two beasts pounced on a mercenary trying to protect a wounded comrade. Each grabbed him by a leg. And pulled. The man's body split at the waist with a sound of tearing cloth and disconnecting bones. Intestines, a glistening, steaming rosary, spilled onto the white snow beginning to filter through the open door, painting it a bright, obscene red.

  "To arms! Don't scatter!" Irina shouted, drawing her Toledo steel sword with a fluid motion, her face a mask of cold determination.

  One of the beasts, its grey fur now splattered and stained with fresh red, turned its blind head toward the sound. The twisted horns moved like antennae. It sniffed the air, a wet, repulsive sound. It let out a high-pitched shriek, a sound that made teeth vibrate, and charged straight toward the hall, toward Irina.

  Gallen stepped into its path. He was a wall of steel and fury.

  "Come here, you horned piece of shit!" the Captain bellowed, brandishing his black halberd.

  The Howler swung its gigantic arm, a lateral sweep that would have decapitated a horse. Gallen didn't dodge. He blocked. He crossed his halberd's haft before him. The impact resonated like a giant bell struck by a war hammer. Gallen slid backward, feet dragging across the wooden floor, leaving grooves, but he held. His arms trembled under the force, but did not yield.

  With a grunt of effort, Gallen twisted his weapon, sliding the lateral spike of the halberd and driving it deep into the joint of the beast's monstrous shoulder. The Howler howled in pain—a sound of pure rage—and snapped a blind bite toward Gallen's head. The Captain, instead of retreating, lunged forward. He headbutted it with the front rim of his open-faced helmet, directly into the beast's open muzzle. Teeth were heard breaking. Then, with a brutal sweep of his foot, he took out the animal's forelegs, sending it crashing sideways with a crash that shook the ground. His men, exploiting the opening, pounced with spears and axes, finishing the creature in an orgy of blows.

  To the right, Irina faced another Howler.

  This beast was different, more agile. It didn't charge head-on; it leaped, moving with spine-chilling speed among the beams of the high ceiling, using its claws to hook on. It launched itself at Irina from above, a deformed silhouette casting a deadly shadow.

  Irina rolled forward on the ground, dodging the landing that splintered the floorboards where she had been an instant before. She rose instantly, without losing balance.

  The Howler, recovering quickly, lashed out with a horizontal swipe of its large arm, a slash meant to cut her in half. Irina didn't block; she ducked. She felt the wind of the blow pass over her head, stirring her hair. And in the same ducking motion, with the momentum of her body, she launched an upward thrust. Her Toledo steel, silver and precise, entered through the beast's armpit, the point where the armor of muscle and fur was thinnest. The blade sought and found, piercing lung and, with a final wrist-twist, the heart.

  The blood that gushed was not red. It was black, thick, and smelled of rancid metal and ancient rot. It bathed Irina's arm and shoulder, staining her new black coat with a dark, wet gleam.

  The beast, mortally wounded, attempted one last act of ferocity, its small arm lunging to grab her. Irina twisted the sword within the wound, widening it, and pulled outward with a lateral motion, cutting muscle and tendon. The Howler fell to its knees, a gurgling shriek issuing from its perforated throat. Irina, with a clean, downward slash, severed its head. The horned skull rolled across the floor, leaving a black trail.

  Elara stood at the center of the chaos, near the central fire.

  Two Howlers encircled her, moving with that spine-chilling synchronicity of the blind, guided by scent, by the sound of her quickened breathing, by the heat of her body.

  Elara raised her bastard sword. The Nordic steel gleamed in the firelight. But in her eyes, there was no panic now. There was a fierce concentration, an inner fire that was not the reflection of the flames.

  "Back!" she shouted, not with fear, but with a command.

  She channeled the flow. She remembered the lesson in the snow, the path marked on her skin. She did not invoke; she allowed. She felt the energy—that mix of inherited light and new darkness—boil in her chest, flow down her arm, saturate the sword's hilt.

  The blade did not light up with a golden radiance. It became cloaked in an electric aura. Bluish and black sparks danced along the edge, crackling with a static sound.

  She slashed through the air, not toward a specific beast, but into the space between them.

  An arc of lightning, a whip of violent, erratic energy, shot from the blade. It struck the first beast directly in the center of its chest. The grey fur did not singe; it ignited instantly. The flames, of a sinister electric blue, clung to the beast, spreading voraciously. The smell of burnt hair and seared flesh, mixed with ozone, filled the air. The Howler writhed, shrieking, trying in vain to extinguish the fire consuming its skin and living flesh.

  But the second beast, guided by its companion's shrieks and the scent of Elara's power, exploited the distraction. With a leap quick and silent for its size, it launched itself at Elara's back, its jaws open, revealing rows of uneven, sharp teeth like stalactites.

  Vael appeared from nowhere.

  He did not run across the hall. He did not shout a warning. He slid. Like a shadow coming to life.

  He leaped onto an overturned table, using it as a springboard, and launched himself onto the Howler's back in mid-leap.

  He clung to the beast's tangled horns with one hand, and with the other, gripping his short spear, he stabbed. It wasn't a wild blow. It was surgery. Thwack. The tip sank into the nape, exactly where spine met skull. Thwack. Again, in the same spot, deeper. Thwack. A third, finally severing the spinal cord.

  The beast, its central nervous system destroyed, died in mid-air, losing all coordination. Its inert body slid across the wooden floor, skidding to a halt at Elara's feet like a macabre sled.

  Vael dismounted the corpse with a light jump. He brushed a spot of black blood from his sleeve.

  "Watch your rear," he said, his voice calm, as if he'd just pointed out she'd dropped a glove. "These things have an excellent nose for distraction."

  The battle, however, was far from over. The mercenaries, brave and experienced, were being decimated. Syla fought like a fury, her two scimitars a silver whirlwind that cut fingers, severed ears, opened deep gashes in giant limbs. But she was cornered against a wall, three beasts closing in. Luka, his face drenched in tears and snot, protected a wounded comrade lying at his feet, his dented and splintered shield receiving blow after blow, each impact pushing him back a little further.

  "They're too many!" Gallen shouted, splitting another Howler's skull with a downward blow of his halberd that sent bone fragments and brain flying. But he was breathing heavily, sweat freezing on his forehead. "We can't hold here! Get out to the yard! We need room to move, damn it!"

  The group, what remained of it—a dozen wounded and bloodied mercenaries, plus Irina, Elara, Vael, and Gallen—began a slow, bloody retreat toward the main door, toward the snow-covered yard. They left behind the hall turned abattoir, a landscape of shattered bodies, splintered furniture, and the monstrous corpses of several Howlers. The yard's snow, once white and flawless, soon stained red and black under their feet.

  The electric blue flowers, the Frost Lilies, were now splattered, stained, drowned in blood. The contrast was obscenely beautiful.

  And then, just when they thought they had gained a respite, a space to regroup in the open cold, a new sound emerged.

  It came not from the roofs, nor from the shadows. It came from the largest house, the one that stood on a small hill at the far end of the village, dominating everything. A more elaborate structure, with a wide porch and a multi-layered roof.

  It was not a howl. It was not a roar.

  It was the sound of metal dragging over stone. Slow. Deliberate. Inexorable.

  Riiiiiing… A long, grating drag.Riiiiiing… Another. Closer.

  A solitary figure emerged from the darkness of that house's porch. It walked toward them.

  It was a woman.

  Of a supernatural and icy beauty, so striking that for a moment the very air seemed to hold its breath. Tall and slender, she wore a ceremonial dress of snowy white, so pure it seemed made of the very snow surrounding her. The fabric was heavy, of thick silk, with intricate silver-thread embroidery depicting patterns of frost and bare branches on the collar, the wide sleeves, and the long hem that brushed the snow. Her skin was of a translucent pallor, like fine porcelain under the moon, without a single blush of life. Her hair, long to her waist, was an absolute platinum white, seeming to emit its own light, floating softly around her face as if submerged in still waters.

  But it was her eyes that froze the blood. They were completely red. A deep, intense red, like liquid rubies set into that perfect face. They did not reflect light; they absorbed it.

  In her hands, long and pale, she dragged a weapon. A scythe. Enormous. The haft was of smooth black metal, as tall as she was. The blade, curved and wide as a winter night's half-moon, was of dark, rusted steel, with nicks and veins of a brown that could only be old blood, very old. It was a harvesting tool, but what it promised to harvest was not wheat.

  The woman, the Lady of the Snow, slowly raised her head. Her red eyes, without lashes, without blinking, fixed directly on the battered group gasping in the yard, surrounded by their dead and the monsters that still prowled.

  She opened her mouth. Her lips, thin and pale, did not move like a human's. But a whisper emerged from them. A whisper that, nevertheless, resonated throughout the silent valley, amplified by an unnatural force, clearer and more piercing than the iciest wind.

  "Thieves…"