Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern

Chapter 3: Sealed for Siege: Glace

Glace watched Stasia, sleeping peacefully on her ice slab. Her silver hair spread over the ice in waves. The thin sheets revealed every detail of her petite body. Her neck and face glowed with tiny dots of vaerce. Her breath was shallow; she was in the deep sleep of one with a head heavy with drink. When oversleep and sheer restlessness had made it difficult to drift off, she had turned to blissi. Glace was sure the Princess had drunk a lifetime supply in the last six days. She did not seem to take pleasure in it, but Glace wondered if an Icer could grow addicted to the stuff as a Warrior could, if he broke regimental law and drank.

He turned from her and resumed his watch at the window. Glint would be coming soon to relieve him for his own few hours of sleep. Six days had passed since the War Council, and the tide had not turned one way or another. The battle was still confined to the tunnels outside of Iskalon. One quarter of the army of Iskalon was in those tunnels, fighting desperately to save the Kingdom, sending messengers, wounded, and cartloads of bodies back up to the city. Glace had sent Serg Glint, the second in command of Stasia’s Guard, down to the city for news, and what he learned was grim; the army was holding the invasion back, but barely. The wounded came back faster than they could send fresh Warriors out. Triage was being opened in the Council Hall, and the Warriors would be patched up and sent back to fight immediately.

From his vantage, Glace could see the training square, where new recruits were hacking at each other with practice swords in what looked to Glace to be a mockery of true fighting. At least, stuck here with Stasia, he didn’t have to try to whip a bunch of rag-tag conscripts into shape. Training was his least favorite part of being a Warrior, though his superiors had always praised him for his skills. In Market Ave, under the stony gaze of Cataya, recruits deemed “ready” were being handed leather armor. The tanning Guild had been working overtime, but with wounded and casualties pouring up the tunnels, armor was suddenly in surplus. And weapons, too. Glace tried not to think of where those weapons and armor had come from. Death was always a possibility for a Warrior. Glace had lost friends in raids, in scouting missions, and to the wild Outer Tunnels. But he had never seen bodies stacked, as they were at Grimshore, where Icers froze them with heavy stones and sank them. Glace had watched each body slip under the dark waters and wondered what name it had borne, if he would recognize the Warrior’s face, if he had ever crossed swords with him in the training square or marched beside him in a raid. They deserved a hero’s burial, but sending the corpses up to the burial chambers would have created a panic in the people hidden there. If we don’t bury them now, will we ever have the chance? If Iskalon falls, will those corpses stay under the lake for all time? Still, better frozen in the dark than burned.

He looked at Stasia again, and silently thanked the King for sending her to the Palace to wait out the war. Any amount of blissi she drank was better than watching her slender body, encased in ice, slide under the dark water. If she had been on the ground, seeing the bodies of the dead roll into the city by the cartload, Glace did not think he could have stopped her from joining the fighting.

A loud squealing noise of metal grinding against metal brought his attention back to the window. Across the lake, from all three bridge tunnels, Warriors were pouring into the city. The bridges were lifted so they could cross, their ancient gears protesting vocally. At first it seemed that the stream of Warriors was never ending, but when the last man was across and the bridges began to lower again, Glace’s heart went cold. A retreat. A full Brigade, over a quarter of Iskalon’s army of fifty thousand, had marched out six days ago. Glace could not count all the Warriors on all the bridges, but he knew that each bridge could hold about a hundred bodies in a standard-spaced march, so he could estimate the number that had crossed the Fire Bridge and triple it. The figure he came up with was less than a Regiment. Less than a quarter of the forces sent out, less than four thousand Warriors, retreating. How had so many Warriors died in six days?