Rise of the Death Eaters [3]

Chapter 72: A Change in the Air

The last rays of sun were falling past the peaks of the mountain side as Theo Fountaine found himself staring after the last dregs of light like a life line.

The sunlight was the only acknowledgement of warmth experienced on the Ural Mountains. The mountain tops bordered the lands of Russia and emptied out into the blizzarding artic sea. The windchill slammed against rock and tree with such a force that it knocked one's internal warmth right out of a person if they weren't careful.

Even with it being late September, Theo had never felt such coldness in his life. Every inhale of air felt like ice daggers stabbing his lungs, his steps were odd, as if he was measuring out the body weight he instilled on each foot in order to reduce the chance of sliding back onto the ice floor.

The endless Incendio spells kept him and his compatriots warm throughout the long hours of their watch but even so, blackened fingers were becoming a normality amongst the intruders of these lands.

The shifts spent watching were the most bone-tiring of it all. Hours he and others spent walking the line of cave sights, looking down upon a colony unlike anything Theo had ever imagined.

Giants.

And not like how they were described to him in textbooks. No, these were nasty creatures the color of the mountain rocks and snow. A grey that let them melt right into the mountain side and come at their victims when one least expected it.

Their thick skin made them immune to the wind chill, their pitted bloodshot eyes showcased how rarely they slept and the stench....

Theo had retched enough times in the earlier weeks of his arrival that the others in his party labeled him weak.

"Does little boy have a weak stomach?"

"Where's your mother, little boy? Not here to warm you up when you turn blue?"

"A stiff breeze could knock that one straight off a cliff---- or a giant if he weren't all skin and bones."

The comments weren't much in the long run of Theo's trip. He knew the death eaters detested him. A kid in their eyes amongst veterans of an earlier war.

"We may have joined at your age, boy, but that doesn't give you any sense of respect here. What puny blood like you could dare think he could serve the dark lord?"

"The same puny blood that works the same shift as you," was all Theo had to say to get the life knocked out of him for the first time.

Theo had been in enough situations like this throughout his life to know better about speaking back to those with authority. However, there was something so enticing about those first few moments after the line drops and the other stands motionless as their thick brain slowly catches up.

Then the punishment will come for him with a vengeance. But during those beatings, Theo's method of keeping his mind from wavering off into cries was to fixate on that first moment. Where he felt like he was the smartest in the room.