LAST SNOW

PROLOGUE

"Regard your soldiers as your children,
and they will follow you into the deepest valleys;
look on them as your own beloved sons,
and they will stand by you even unto death."

Short introductory chapter, all others will be 4000+ words in length.

The cold winds bit into their skin, the treacherous snow dragging their feet and making each step that much more unbearable. They struggled, their hearts battered just as much as their bodies, but they persisted. They persisted for the herald, who struggled beside them, and yet still promised salvation. The journeyed through the unknown, coping with the loss of their homes and their families because they believed with all their being that this stranger could lead them to safety. It was this devotion that had captivated him.

Cole moved quickly among the injured, sick and dying, doing what he could to ease their unending misery. To the people, he was simply a memory of a memory, but the mages watched him wearily, cautious of his nature and true intent. The more powerful, the more disdain they held towards him, and he found little comfort in the collective mass of people, irritable and tired from a long journey to a destination unknown. And yet, the herald was different.

They had no time to speak, the closest he'd come to contacting her were looks across an endless expanse of faces, but he didn't miss a word. He heard her gentle tone, scolding those who wished him ill, those who called him 'thing', 'monster', 'demon', and an unbearable amount of other degrading names. She defended him so strongly, and yet she knew nothing about him, a trust that was deemed naïve and foolish among all but her closest circle of friends.

The spirit suspected them both to be true, and yet he was being drawn towards her to hear answers, but he'd yet to find the questions. He wondered idly if all her followers felt the same, or if he was simply entranced by a soul he could not easily read. He had come to help a cause he believed in, and now he found himself lending a devotion to the herald that she seemed to command. Her presence was the strongest among them and whether the people knew it or not, they certainly seemed to be reacting in kind.

The nights were especially harsh, and the snow claimed many of the weak and dying. Cole did not feel the cold as strongly as they did, but the gasping thoughts left in their wake had embedded themselves in his mind. He wandered among the tents, slipping in to comfort those in their final moments before moving on. He could do little for many, but some were saved, extra blankets or a spot closer to the dwindling fires. If he hadn't heard them, they would have died, and it gave him no small amount of relief to know his presence had prevented their final moments being ones surrounded by ice and misery.

As the storm grew more treacherous the people moved into their shelters, the fires abandoned as they struggled to remain more than flickering ambers. Cole had done we he could, those who would die tonight had already passed, or would pass soon, and those that would live would do so thanks to the talented healers and his brief intervention. He still wandered, passing tents and stopping, just to make sure all was okay, before he moved on to the next, and the next. He could hear all their voices, not just the sick, but they all needed guidance, and they all looked to the herald.

He found that many of their saddened cries begged her for their help. Until a voice broke through the rest, and something in the distance caught his eye. A small red blip in the landscape.

He made his way over carefully, the wind slowing his approach and the snow gripping his shoes. The voices faded away behind him, but there was another voice, a voice that was not really a voice, ahead. It was loud and desperate, like a whisper that echoed, and he could see a great many things he knew not to be real, and yet they were. Finally, he stood before it. The heralds tent, and within, the herald.

He stood there for some time, the veil here seemed distorted and unusually thin, but it was not disjointed as fluctuations in the veil typically were. No, the veil here was in harmony with something, it flowed like silk, it whispered emotions of contentment and trust, the likes of which the spirit had never known, and all the while he heard something, like a voice in the distance, but it spoke no words, it spoke pictures. Glimpses, gone as quickly as they came, the voice was talking, sharing, but it wasn't. Cole was captivated.

He saw blades of grass, a caterpillar. A bright sun hiding behind clouds. A bowl of herbs sitting on the earth, surrounded by white flowers. Hands wrapped around a baby bird and an arm outstretched for its landing many months later. He saw blood, a river of red, and he saw reflected in it the face of the herald, weary and sad. Twisting, distorting. Bad. Lost.

Screaming, terror, a beating heart surrounded by desperation. Fear, so much fear. Armies of Templars, red, red, red. So much red. Blood and bone, faces in the ashes, fire. Blinding, painful. Lost, alone, no one. Can't hear.

Cole stumbled backwards, falling into the snow as the visions of war and destruction seemed to shudder around him, latching onto his consciousness. The herald shuddered beyond the red fabric, a whimper that seemed to draw the sympathies of creatures of the fade. They whispered pictures of warmth, flowers, halah, but it did nothing to stop her frantic breaths.

Cole understood now. Understood how the world seemed to wrap around her. Just a woman, facing something beyond her, and yet the only hope, the only salvation this world had left. She was dreaming of the end.

Her end.

There was no comfort for such a vision, the best they could do was support her, and prepare her.

Cole stood, he was unwelcome here, this was not his place, and with a final glimpse of the fluttering red fabric he returned to tend to the wounded.

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