Flameheart soul of the frozen King

The Assassin's Blade

A blade against the throat is only lethal if the hand holding it remains steady.

"Answer me, slave," the girl hissed, her grip tightening on the handle of the dagger. "Why are you holding my father's crest?"

Soren felt the sharp edge of the frozen steel digging into his skin. He did not panic. He relaxed his muscles, letting his weight drop into the mud to make his body feel entirely lifeless.

"I asked you a question!" she snapped, pressing her knee harder into the small of his back.

"If you wanted to cut my throat, you would have done it already," Soren said, keeping his breath slow and even. "You are asking questions because you are terrified."

"I am not afraid of an Iron Clan dog!" she snarled.

"I am no Iron Clan scout," Soren replied calmly. "Look at my clothes. Look at the dead soldiers behind you. Does an Iron Clan scout wear ripped slave rags and bleed in the dirt?"

The pressure on his back flickered for a single fraction of a second. That was all the opening Soren needed.

He drove his elbow backward, targeting the nerve cluster right inside her left knee joint. The blow carried no magical power, but the precise physical angle sent a sharp shock of numbness straight through her leg.

"Ah!" she gasped, her leg giving out instantly.

Soren twisted his body on the frozen mud, sliding out from under her weight. He scrambled back two feet, sweeping his leg across the snow to kick a handful of slush directly toward her eyes.

She tilted her head back, her long silver hair flying through the air as she blocked the flying snow with her leather forearm guard. "Tricky little rat!"

"You move fast, but your stance is too heavy on the forward foot," Soren said, taking a quiet step back to evaluate his enemy.

She stood up gracefully, shifting her weight with lethal balance. She wore dark leather armor trimmed with silver frost fur, and her icy blue eyes burned with pure fury. Twin daggers made of clear, forged ice glinted in her hands.

"I am Kaelen of the Northern Clan," she said, her voice dripping with ice. "I do not take combat lessons from runaway bait boys."

"Kaelen," Soren said, testing the name. "The disgraced princess who fled the Northern Citadel after her father was framed."

Kaelen paused, her icy eyes narrowing to sharp slits. "How do you know that name? Who sent you?"

"The old man under the rubble," Soren answered, gesturing toward the burnt cottage behind them. "Elder Orin called you the girl in the northern pass. He gave me the crest with his dying breath."

"Liar!" Kaelen yelled, stepping forward into a high-speed offensive rush. "Orin would never give our family crest to a common slave! You stole it from his corpse!"

She moved like a winter gale. Her twin ice blades carved shimmering arcs through the dark smoke, aiming straight for Soren's throat and chest.

Soren stepped back, dodging the first strike by a hair's breadth. Cold air whistled past his chin. His weak body screamed in agony with every sudden move, his lungs burning as if filled with hot sand.

"She is twice as fast as this body can handle," Soren thought, his eyes tracking the micro-movements of her shoulders. "I cannot block her steel. I cannot outrun her. I have to break her rhythm."

"Stand still and die!" Kaelen shouted, spinning on her heel to drive her right dagger in a straight thrust toward his heart.

Soren did not try to dodge the blade. Instead, he leaned directly into the attack, shifting his torso just three inches to the left. The frozen blade ripped through the shoulder fabric of his linen tunic, slicing open his skin.

"Got you!" Kaelen smirked.

"No, you did not," Soren said softly.

Before she could pull the blade back, Soren raised his left hand and struck her exposed right wrist with two tight fingers, hitting the key pressure point that disabled muscle control in the forearm.

Kaelen's fingers instantly went limp. Her right ice dagger slipped from her grip, clattering uselessly into the snow below.

"What?" she gasped, her eyes widening in pure shock. "What did you do to my arm?"

"You rely too much on speed and noble martial arts," Soren said, closing the distance between them in an instant. "You leave your joints wide open."

Kaelen growled, shifting her remaining dagger to her left hand and thrusting it straight upward toward his chin. "Get off me!"

Soren dodged his head to the side, feeling the cold edge graze his cheekbone. He reached out with his right hand, wrapping his bloody fingers around her left wrist. Using her own forward momentum against her, he turned his hips and slammed her back hard against the rough blue ice of the nearby wall.

"Drop it," Soren commanded, his face inches from hers.

Kaelen struggled violently, her breathing heavy and fast. She tried to raise her knee to hit his ribs, but Soren planted his foot firmly on her boots, trapping her legs completely against the wall.

"Release me, commoner!" she shouted, her blue eyes flashing with white-hot anger. "If you lay another hand on me, my clan will hunt you to the ends of the earth!"

"Your clan already wants you dead," Soren said, his voice flat and steady. "And the Iron Clan wants us both executed. We are standing in the middle of a burnt village with blood on our hands, and you are still shouting about noble titles."

Kaelen glared at him, her chest heaving as she tried to pull her wrist free from his grip. "You are just a low-tier tamer slave! How do you know ancient nerve techniques? Where did a boy like you learn to fight like a commander?"

"That is none of your business," Soren replied.

He squeezed her left wrist tighter until her fingers opened, letting the second ice dagger drop into the snow below. With both of her weapons gone, Soren released her arms and stepped back two paces, giving her space to breathe while keeping his body ready for another attack.

Kaelen rubbed her numbed wrist, staring at him with a mix of shock, confusion, and deep mistrust. "You could have killed me just now."

"I have no interest in killing people who are fighting the same enemies I am," Soren said, reaching into his pocket to make sure the Frostfall Crest was secure. "Orin wanted me to find you. He said the crown still burns."

Kaelen froze at those words. The defensive anger in her face slowly faded, replaced by a deep, painful flicker of grief. "He... he really said that?"

"He died ten minutes ago," Soren said. "He spent his last breath keeping this metal piece out of Iron Clan hands. If you want it back, you will have to prove to me that you are not going to waste his sacrifice."

Kaelen looked at the dirt-stained boy standing before her. Her proud shoulders dropped slightly. "I am not your enemy, tamer. The Iron Clan framed my father for treason so they could claim the northern dragon core. I came back here to find the crest because it is the only key that can open the royal vault."

"Then we have a common goal," Soren said. "Because I am going to tear down the Iron Clan word by word, blood by blood."

Kaelen let out a short, cynical laugh. "You talk very big for someone wearing rags and bleeding from three different wounds."

"Size does not matter on a battlefield," Soren said. "Tactics do."

"Is that so?" Kaelen scoffed, stepping forward to retrieve her fallen daggers from the snow drifts. "And what tactic do you have for surviving a full siege army?"

Soren tilted his head. "What are you talking about?"

Before Kaelen could answer, a deep, terrifying sound echoed through the mountains surrounding the valley.

A massive war horn blew its low, metallic note across the icy sky. The sound vibrated through the earth beneath their boots, shaking loose small avalanches of loose snow from the surrounding pine trees.

"That horn," Soren said, his eyes scanning the ridgeline.

"That is the Iron Clan war horn," Kaelen said, her voice instantly dropping into a cold whisper as she raised her daggers back up. "That is not a small patrol signal, tamer. That is the execution horn."

A second horn blew from the west, followed immediately by a third horn from the east.

Soren looked up at the high ridge framing the valley. Out of the thick white blizzard, hundreds of dark silhouettes began appearing along the snow line. Mounted cavalry unit on heavy war horses, foot soldiers holding broad shields, and elite dragon-hunters carrying heavy ballista spears were fanning out in a massive circle, closing off every single exit from the ruined village.

"We were too slow," Kaelen whispered, her face turning pale. "They did not just burn this place. They dragged their elite hunting squad here to lock the perimeter."

"How many soldiers are up there?" Soren asked, his tactical mind calculating the numbers instantly.

"At least two hundred," Kaelen replied, stepping back until her shoulder touched Soren's. "They have surrounded the entire valley rim. No one gets out of this mountain alive."

High up on the central ridge, a tall commander clad in heavy black armor rode his armored horse to the edge of the cliff, looking down into the smoking village. He raised his heavy iron gauntlet into the air.

"Search every house!" the commander's voice boomed across the valley floor through a wind-amplifying magic stone. "Kill anything that moves! Bring me the princess and the runaway tamer!"

Soren looked down at his right hand. The royal mark beneath his bloody bandage throbbed with a sharp, burning heat, as if reacting to the dark magic of the army above.

Kaelen turned her head to look at Soren, her daggers ready. "Well, tactician? What is the plan now?"

Soren tightened his grip on his stolen steel sword, a dangerous smile touching his blood-stained lips. "Now, we make them pay for every step they take into this valley."