“Olrik! Fun’s over!” If this is his idea of a jest, then I’ve had him all wrong. I tremble from the icy chill, knowing I won’t last long out here.Īgain I bang on the doors, my breath smoking on the air. “Olrik! Was that you?” Or had the wind reversed its current? Hard to tell when it seems to blow from everywhere. Another three steps and the gate slams behind me. Since the keyhole is probably frozen, I use my blade as a doorstop before I step outside. My nose tingles from the wind that blasts into the courtyard. I hustle down the flight of steps into the bailey and push the gate open. Whatever Olrik has in store, it oughta be good. Would anyone care if I left my post for a moment? Commander Sarrus might, but he’s usually sleeping off a binge at this hour. An arrow points through it as if directing me to follow.

It looks like Olrik has drawn a gate this time around, if those blocky angles are any judge. Point is, it helps pass the tedium of frontier life. Sometimes it’s an odd-looking rock, others it’s a playing card. We leave each other these drawings-rebus puzzles Odric calls them-that lead to some sorta prize. A grin cracks the ice on my face when I see the charcoal drawing that the afternoon sentry, Olrik, scrawled on a battlement. One such game awaits me at the end of the rampart. In these straits you take small pleasures wherever possible. A blizzard swirls a frosty veil around the walls tonight, seemingly entombing us all. Further back is a glacier that’s visible on a clear day, but there’s hardly any of those in this godsforsaken place. Nothing to see up here but the tombstone-studded lichyard. Icy claws rake bone-deep despite the fur cloak over my chainshirt.

The frigid air shrivels my face as I patrol the length of the wall. In fact it’s the cold that’s proving most bothersome. One month has come and gone without incident, thank the gods. Me, I say burn the bodies and be done with it, but that’s another religious scruple that goes over my head. We’re to stop necromancers from unearthing the corpses, but I’ve heard enough rumors to know the three of us wouldn’t stand a chance against the occult.

The townsfolk bring their dead to the lichyard within sight of our walls. It’s perched atop a moraine of boulders about half a day upriver from Whiteglade Harbor. All I know is we’re supposed to keep watch from this squalid stone keep. The Commonwealth banishes their ilk here-something about religion, I don’t care. Fitting because the land is crawling with them. The Transarctic is colder than a witch’s busoms. The marshal’s deep tenor remains chiselled in my memory: For a soldier who seeks the warmth of my wife’s bedchamber, what better punishment than the coldest land of them all? To have never killed that streetwalker, never gotten conscripted, and-most importantly-never bedded the wife of High Marshal Luthos. Oh, the things I would do to turn back time.

Banshee song