Children of the Rune: Winterer

Chapter 4

“The House of Jineman will have a new master this day! Do you hear me? A new master!”

A few loud men were shouting together from afar. Yulken had experienced many vendettas of this sort, over ten of them, throughout the course of his life. He knew how they went, but it nevertheless left a bitterer taste in his mouth than he’d expected to hear his family name spoken in this way.

“Those who abandon their weapons and surrender will not be held accountable! Any of you wish to serve your new master and raise the House of Jineman to new heights, come forward!”

Yulken muttered to himself that anyone who would fall for such persuasions would have left long ago, since the house had been headed downhill for years. He stood up. There was no need to wait for them to finish with their drivel. It was time to shed blood.

Will you men come with me?

He took a step forward and said in a thunderous voice, “Come forward, you who dare trespass on the Longgord Fields! Come to the light, you who dare to clumsily foretell the future of the House of Jineman!”

The front yard, lit by the torches, looked as red as it did at sunset. Yulken stood on the front terrace on the second floor and looked down. The enemies could shoot at him with their crossbows from here, but if he did not show them he was confident, his soldiers would be cowed.

“Yulken Jineman! He’s on the terrace!”

The enemy soldiers raised their torches high, and as Yulken gazed down at them, the light flickering on his face, he thought, What happened to the outer perimeter? Have they all been killed? Was there a gap in their defenses?

The band of torches formed a flickering curve. Even if there was some degree of deception involved, there had to be over five hundred men present.

Yulken shouted, “Light the fire!”

White flames appeared at the feet of the soldiers arrayed at the front of the manor, confronting the line of torchbearers. The flames were intended to show that the place was defended by magic, and they also served to boost the morale and stamina of its soldiers. Tulkh, the steward, was behind it.

“You skulking filth, do you not dare show yourself? Do you think your band of misfits will destroy the House of Jineman, which has stood for centuries?”

There was no response. A loud snakelike hissing filled the air instead. The soldiers, the people inside the manor, and even Yulken all looked up at the sky. The red and purple air rippled, and there were brief flashes of white light. It was Yulken who was the first to recognize what was happening.

“Out! Everybody out of the manor! Unit Two, stand your ground!” he said in a shout that almost sounded like a scream.

Every door flew open, and servants and soldiers began to pour out of them. Yulken himself jumped inside instead of evacuating. There was only one thing on his mind.

At a similar moment, another person had also realized the gravity of the situation. Yevgnen was running down the stairs with his brother in his arms when he encountered his father, who had run in to find him. His face was pale and contorted.

“Yevgnen! Hurry, you—” Then he noticed Boris, and he snatched the boy away.

The two sons seemed stupefied, uncertain of what to think.

Yulken shouted viciously at his eldest son, “Go on alone! Boris stays with me!”

“But Father—”

Yulken burst out angrily, “How do you plan to get out of here carrying a child in your arms? Don’t you understand what it is you’re to protect? Go!”

Yevgnen had no time to protest. His father vanished down the dark corridor with Boris under his arm. The walls of the manor shook once more. He bit his lip in frustration, but there was nothing to be done. He was a son who’d always obeyed his father. He gripped Winterer hanging at his waist and raced down, taking three stairs at a time.

“Blackguard…”

Yulken led the soldiers that were on the second floor and left through the back of the manor. Turning around beyond the wall, he watched as the gigantic head of a monster emerged from above and fell onto the roof.

It was white and snow blew around it, like it had been crafted from the peak of some snowcapped mountain. All he could see was its head, neck, and one foot that was armed with hooked claws. The rest of the body was obscured by the pulsing purple clouds. The chilling turquoise eyes of the creature glistened as it stared at its target. Its snakelike head was partly transparent, probably because its entire body had not been summoned.

Yulken heard the soldiers trembling with fear and murmuring among themselves. There was no doubt of it—this was Crygal, a creature of the Ice Plane that only three mages in Travaches were said to be capable of calling forth. He’d never seen it in person before.

This was probably the work of the archmage Jhongnal, who served Prince-Elector Khan. Who could have known the man would come all the way here? Was this how solid his brother’s political influence was? Or was there something special in this dying house that had captivated them?

The creature opened its maw and tore away the eastern roof. Yulken could clearly hear the rafters falling apart and the pillars crumbling. The manor that had been protected and maintained for so long would soon be a ruin, but that wasn’t even a problem. A broken home could be mended, but Crygal produced a venom from its teeth that would kill everyone inside. A few months would not nearly be enough to purify it, and left in that state, it would become a deserted place that no one could access for years.

That was not something Yulken could live with. Vlado might have needed a strategy to draw his brother out, but the place also held childhood memories for him as well. How could he destroy their home without a second thought?

Yulken ground his teeth. “Should I ever forgive that man, I am not a Jineman,” he spat.

Boris heard him and looked up. There was a strange chill in the boy’s heart, even after he’d witnessed the mammoth head of Crygal chewing up the roof. His mother’s room was on the second floor. His brother sometimes said he missed her, but Boris didn’t even remember her.

Whenever they went into her room, which had been kept exactly as it had been while she was alive, his brother would say it smelled of her. But Boris had smelled nothing. To him, his mother was just someone in a portrait wearing a blue dress, and the room only smelled of the dried reeds and wildflowers that the maids put in it.

His brother would be saddened if he saw this. Boris was even more nervous after being separated from him. Why had their father done that? He had said running away with a child wasn’t possible. Boris told himself he shouldn’t have let himself become a burden to his brother in the first place. His father valued the son who would continue the family line, and inherit the treasures of the house, more than Boris, the younger son who couldn’t be of much help. A child could not protect the family name even if he survived a vendetta.

Boris’ anxiety was directed at his brother, not himself. All day long, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was about to happen to Yevgnen.

Yulken ignored Boris and commanded Tulkh, the steward and mage. “Check on the first and second perimeter units. See how many of them remain.”

Tulkh silently swung his long sleeve in the air, creating a magical image. The fields surrounding the manor were lit with tangled white and red flames. A few remaining soldiers were fighting to the death, and anyone could tell that the odds were not in their favor. There weren’t enough men left for a proper battle.

Yulken went silent for a moment, then said, “We will attack both entrances of the manor. Split the remaining soldiers into two groups. They will sneak through the long grass and wait for my command.”

Boris was shocked. “Father, but that monster—”

Yulken cut him off, saying coldly, “Half of that thing’s body is still in another plane. It cannot touch the living in this world.”

Yulken whispered a few words to Tulkh that Boris could not hear, and the man nodded, providing a few words in response. The mage gave a magical whistle, a prearranged signal that gathered the soldiers in the darkness.

It took no longer than a moment. Yulken led Boris into the grass, where he crouched with the soldiers that would attack the eastern entrance. Tulkh led the other group on the opposite side, and he would be sending another magical signal.

“Boris, follow me slowly, stay back...” His father hesitated. Then he continued, “When the fighting starts, turn around and run into the fields. You are to run away. Do you understand?”

Boris’ eyes widened. Then he composed himself. He would obviously be no asset in a fight, but he didn’t think he could escape through the fields that were occupied by the enemy. Did his father mean to say that he was not to be an inconvenience to his brother and quietly run to his death?

“In which direction?” he asked.

“Emera Lake.”

“But it’s…” Boris could not maintain his calm this time. That was where the red-eyed ghosts were!

His father seemed to realize what he was thinking. “There are no ghosts. Don’t believe everything the old servants tell you. How can you do that and call yourself a man of the House of Jineman? The rumors will ensure nobody looks for you there. Hide near the lake, and I will come and get you after this is over. That’s right. Wait where there is a clump of three trees with black bark at the base of their trunks. You hear me?”

Boris had no time to respond since Tulkh had magically whispered in Yulken’s ear. It sounded like the faint ticking of a clock.

Yulken raised his arm. “Go!” he said as he shot to his feet and began to run, not sparing another glance for his son.

“Father!”

Was this the last Boris would see of him? The darkness swallowed up his father’s silhouette, and the soldiers fought under the watchful eyes of the otherworldly creature. White and red flames collided and flared.

Vlado Jineman wielded a black saber named Haghrun that the prince-elector had given him, and he killed the enemy fighters charging at him. Trusty soldiers had his back, and the only direction he needed to worry about was forward. His saber pierced a shoulder, then quickly tore the forehead of another man before stabbing the neck. He swung it again, and a hand went flying. Vlado had known before leaving the manor that he was not his brother’s match with the sword, but he no longer believed he had no chance at all.

He tried to locate his brother from afar, not wanting to come across him suddenly. He would bide his time, then ambush when he had the opportunity. He felt no guilt. It was his brother who had conspired against him, pinned charges on him, and chased him out. Though the retribution was coming rather late, he thought he deserved it. His brother was older than him.

Let’s see how well you can fight now!

“Yulken Jineman! It’s Yulken Jineman!”

He had ordered his soldiers to give a shout when they saw his brother. The murmurs from the east side of the manor reached his ears, and Vlado gave a wrinkled smile. It would not be long before his black saber Haghrun would be replaced by the bright silver Winterer.