Two eyes gleamed with glacial cold from behind the veil of the blizzard. Its uncontrollable fury made the earth tremble with its bestial roar, while lightning fell from the sky in blinding flashes in response to its wrath.
The winds howled, spreading the cold among the many mercenaries who chattered their teeth against one another in growing terror and threatening frost. Crystals of ice slowly formed over their skin like the scales of a reptile, threatening not only to reap their lives, but to turn them into monuments of its contempt.
"We're all going to turn into ice statues… what a shitty end." The captain said between breaths, trying to restrain his own uncontrollable tremors.
He knew this was the inevitable end.
Even so, he swallowed hard and, with a heavy sigh, stepped forward. "Well… if this is the end… at least we have to show our burning spirit. One last time."
The captain took the lead once again.
"Men!" In front of them all, he shouted, making every pair of fearful eyes fix on him with a spark of desperate hope. But what came next only shattered that fragile hope. "I won't lie! We're all going to die! This is our end!"
It was like a bucket of cold water thrown over them. Instantly, their expressions turned darker than ever, knowing they stood before the shadowed valley of death with nothing they could do about it.
Even so, suddenly the captain clenched his teeth and shouted even louder than the thunder threatening to destroy the earth and them along with it.
"Even so!"
Their gazes rose as their hearts beat a little stronger.
"That damn bear, that damn calamity! It makes a mockery of us! It judges us as a bunch of weak and miserable fools, a band of unlucky idiots who had the misfortune of crossing its path! That stupid animal doesn't know what it's talking about!" He shouted, facing the storm.
"This is a calamity, a disaster capable of wiping out entire civilizations! But how many of these have we killed before? How many of these abominations have we beheaded?! If anyone is a poor, unfortunate soul who crossed the wrong path, it's this one." He struck his chest hard several times. "My name is Skar! I am a damn warrior! My father did not raise a coward! And if today the gods have decided that I must die, then at least I will march to death with a smile on my face and my sword in hand!"
He pointed his sword at the Bear. "Let my blood serve as an example!"
Suddenly, the men cursed under their breath and clenched their fists tightly, then struck their chests with pride. The crowd of warriors roared so loudly that it rivaled the beast's own cries as it merely watched.
"Give it hell!" Skar shouted, charging forward as the crowd followed him.
The bear grew rapidly as they approached, its paws seeming ever larger and more powerful, like pillars connecting and supporting heaven and earth.
Even so, they were not afraid.
But in the end, it did not even use them.
With a roar, a snowstorm swept through the soldiers, who in moments turned into statues of ice and snow. A small minority survived in tatters, with half or more of their bodies frozen.
They fell to the ground.
"Fuck…" Skar cursed, looking at the sky as he struggled to rise, the beast's radiant eyes staring at him with an indifferent expression. "Fuck it all!" He looked at himself, his body almost entirely taken by ice crystals. A heavy sleep overtook his mind, calling him to rest forever.
They had lost.
They had lost before even raising their swords to attack a single time.
They had lost without being able to offer any resistance.
It was a massacre.
"I knew it was impossible…" he murmured, with the cold wind of death howling around him. "I knew my time had come…" he said, lowering his gaze.
But then he raised it again. "But even so… why, why today of all days?" He clenched his teeth so hard that they began to bleed. "Today of all days, I who have always been so relaxed, so lazy and inert… why the hell do I feel this burning urge to defy the impossible? To stand up, to win! To prove I'm still capable of fighting!"
He clenched his teeth, rising alone against the calamity.
A strange glow appeared in the depths of his irises as his sword rose one last time.
"My name is Skar!" He screamed to the heavens as the roars grew louder. "And I will fight to the end! Your bad luck was crossing my path, you wretched creature!"
***
Ryan looked back as he caught his breath, a cacophony of sounds reaching his ears.
Screams, a hundred miserable screams.
For a moment, Ryan wondered if he had underestimated the power of his own cards. He had believed he had unleashed a tank against an army, but now it seemed like he had sent a nuclear bomb instead.
He swallowed hard before facing his companions, their eyes fixed on him with a mix of surprise and admiration he had never seen before. Ryan felt a strange chill run through his entire body.
"Incredible…" the apothecary said first, breaking the silence. "You treated a Glacinata, a calamity of nature, a harbinger of disaster... almost like a pet." She brought a hand to her forehead in disbelief. "You used a calamity of nature as a tool. You used that!"
Ryan listened in silence, unsure how to respond.
"I've seen people kill those things," she said, holding back a laugh. "But this? Never!" She could not hold back any longer and burst into laughter. "If someone told me they made a Glacinata destroy their enemies for them, I'd call them a liar. I'd never believe it… and yet I'm seeing it with my own eyes… damn, maybe I'm hallucinating."
Ryan scratched the back of his neck awkwardly as the slave stepped forward.
"You were really impressive back there," he said. "I don't know anyone who would have the courage to do something like that, and much less do I think anyone else would succeed… I think everything only worked because it was you." He smiled broadly. "You always make the absurd and the impossible work."
Ryan kept watching in silence, that feeling too strange for him to understand. He took a deep breath before reaching for the notebook he had used to draw the map of the tunnel network.
"I only did what was necessary. Anything less and we would have died," he said, unsure if that was the right thing to say, but without time to choose his words, he simply hoped it would not be misunderstood. His companions, however, were not shaken.
He soon focused on the map in front of him. "I mapped a few exits of the tunnel system. Some lead deeper into the Death Zone and some lead out." He said, tracing a route close to where they had come from. "That said, we have to go." He closed the notebook, ready to leave…
However.
As soon as his eyes fell on his companions, he felt uneasy.
"Something wrong?" the apothecary asked.
Ryan looked them up and down.
The slave was covered in scratches from minor skirmishes in the caves, his eyes heavy with dark circles as his body swayed slightly, on the verge of falling asleep after an entire night awake.
The apothecary was also in a miserable state. Deep cuts covered her entire body. Though they were mostly hidden by the many healing leaves and herbs, the blood and sweat clinging to her clothes were impossible to hide.
The hair and faces of both were covered in filthy dirt.
Ryan sighed.
"We need to rest before continuing…" He then traced a new route. "Let's return to the clearing… tomorrow we leave."
That was the end of the fourth day.