Chasing Winter

PRELUDE

Winter. Suddenly and viciously it came, relentlessly and maliciously it stayed. Life froze and breath choked as snow fell and frost grew. Ice and snow covered all, blizzards and cold became all and L'Imeria suffered in frigid silence. 

Whiteness.

Ice crystals danced in the wind as it howled across the countryside. Snow blanketed the ground below, thick and suffocating as the grass and crops died beneath it. All colour was erased by white; rich greens full of life disappearing as if extinguished like a flame. This was once a farm, here, now without fields full of wheat or corrals full of rowglars the only trace of its existence was a barn that stood out in the bleakness of the snow.

Bleakness.

Another area stood out, an odd sort of landmark consisting of a flat roof that sat at knee height above the snow where a large building had been caught and covered in the blizzard. Along the eaves hung a sign: 'The Halfway House', a resting place for travelers that sat to break up long journeys between settlements. This particular House lay between two towns, one right on the Western border of the kingdom, Foraton, and the other to the east of the Western realm, Lyngenhill. Any traveler heading to the Western border would be disappointed, for the town sat in a worse state than the farm on its outskirts or the Halfway house some leagues away. Where the Western border once stood proud and welcoming, there was now only the emptiness of the snow.

Emptiness.

In the town of Lyngenhill, the ice and snow had also taken over, but hadn't yet won the fight. Snow had been moved off the paths, such that it only sat a few feet high against the houses. Fires burned in the houses as smoke filtered out the chimneys, dark against the white snow that kept falling, and had been falling for months. Condensation and frost melded on the windows, one inside, one outside, separated by a thin sheet of glass. The people who lived here adapted to live amongst the snow, and the town remained a bustling centre of activity. Gatherings were frequent as supplies were delivered to the local town hall, and the tavern stayed open until the early hours as the folk drank and told stories until the sun began to rise again.

Months passed and still the winter lingered, ice spreading and snow drifts deepening. More and more people fell ill to the cold, livestock that fed the townsfolk died out - rowglars and steitens not used to surviving the freezing temperatures, and soon the town felt the full effect of the bitter ice. Now struggling to survive, battling the cold and suffering great losses, the townsfolk began to withdraw, and silence lingered through the streets. One hundred people sat in the quietness of the snow.

Quietness.

On the western edge of town, out in the emptiness of snow where no buildings sat to witness, the snow began to stir. The powdery top layer trembled in anticipation as the ground rumbled. In a series of small explosions the snow burst up, and white legs clawed their way out of the ground. Slender yet angular legs, as if chiselled from ice ended in sharp points that dug into the snow, as bodies followed from below. Each beast had a hunched back covered by a speckled black shell, and six legs to support it like that of a hermit crab which wandered the coastal southern border. Eyes blazing red against the white, they moved in short irregular motions using legs almost the height of a man.These creatures, formed only from the ice and snow leapt forwards, advancing towards the town that sat quiet and unknowing only a hundred paces away. Never had a place seemed so vulnerable, as the town that slept on the retreating border of L'Imeria.