Chapter Text
Chapter One
Scenting something on the wind, a vulture angled in a circle over the peak, nose sniffing furtively for the first smell of rot below, somewhere down there. It saw a young man with hair the color of fading pine needles jogging up the slope. It sniffed, and croaked in satisfaction. Its instinct screamed. How lucky!
The youth was running to his death and didn’t even know it! The God of Prey must favor me today, so thought the vulture. And it angled down toward the young man, and the building he was headed toward, from where the rotten smell grew…
Gusts hurled dry leaves down the mountain and filled the vulture’s vast black wings. It was a hot, dry wind, a warm, merciless oven blast, though Autumn had long since scorched the surrounding slopes orange and red with the change of leaves. But summer had not ended when it should have long passed.
No smoke rose from the chimney of the little cabin. The chicken coup stood silent. Blood stood cold and glassy in the shade. Not even the local ravens noticed. But for the man approaching uphill, nothing moved that the vulture could spy. Perhaps the man in the cabin was already dead?
Indoors, a young man (still very much alive) yawned and stretched in his smallclothes, sleep clinging to him, begging him to have another nap. The rooster had not crowed at dawn. He’d already wasted the morning. Surely it was fine to just go back to bed… the garden would grow just fine without him, what garden there was this year. October had come, but no snow, and there wasn’t anything left to tend but roots, tubers and squash.
His stomach growled. He put a hand to it, idly feeling the rise and fall of his abdominals. Scant food over the year cut deep ravines into his fat, chiseling lean definition. The abs rippled softly with his breath. He felt his cock twitch and shift, an adder in a trapper’s sack. Tucking his thumb into the front, he pulled his smallclothes down, letting the serpent pull itself half out, head flaring and flushing with the rush of blood through the swelling and lengthening shaft.
He barely noticed the ping of loneliness through the desire rising inside. It was a just a touch, but he was all alone, most of the time, with not another young man nearby, or girl, for that matter… it was just him, and his body had never been fitter. A hard year hardened a young man in many good ways. Hoeing the rough soil, chopping firewood during the exceedingly cold early spring. And all that with minimal food? He’d never been fat, nor especially athletic, but now his abs were as visible as they’d ever been. The weather, the heat, it leached at his willpower. What was the use in abstaining?
He knew it wasn’t appropriate, and that it was not really healthy, so they said, but… Kill me and toss my body to rot with the Felled God’s, I just can’t take it anymore. Who cares if it wastes essence?
He looked down at his shaft, following from the spiky bush of his indigo hair up seven inches to its pulsing head. It’d been weeks since he’d done this anyway—I should really go see why the rooster didn’t wake me up.—And gripped it with his hand, long fingers wrapping about himself, gripping like iron, restraining the snake. Choking it.
Now… for a moment, he let himself pretend it wasn’t his own hand, that it was Matt’s strong, firm hand grabbing his, holding it, not even bothering to ask permission, just taking control and... he started pulling up and down, slow but strong. Yeah. “That’s it, k-keep going Ma—”
The door knob turned and it swung open to slam against the wall. His closet neighbor, Matt, strode in. “Ace, are you—”
“AAHT!” Ace yelped, throwing his hands away from his cock. It bobbed wildly in an attempt to escape imprisonment while he scrambled to pack it back into its sack.
Abashment scrambled Matt’s face and his eyes almost crossed. “Gygh. Ah, Ace… I… what in the world are you doing that—at this time of day!? Do it in the morning if you must, sheesh!” Matt scratched at the back of his head. “And here I was worried the whole way up the mountain!”
“S-sorrygotcarriedaway! D-didn’t know you were coming by!” Ace floundered.
He managed to waddle over to his dresser and pull out some clothes, just a pair of trousers. He was so tired of the heat that he’d stopped bothering with a shirt. Matt’s eyes burned a hole through the middle of his bare back. He pulled out a sleeveless top and pulled it over. Fitting it down over his torso, he turned back. “T-there. All dressed. S-sorry.”
Matt shrugged and put his hand down from the back of his head, remembering he was still scratching an itch already gone. “Yeah. So long as you’re okay, buddy.”
“W-why wouldn’t I be ok? Did you say you worried all the way up from the mountain?” Ace peered at him sidelong and started trying to comb some sense into his spiky indigo hair.
“Uhm, yes.”
“Why?”
Matt raised his eyebrows and pointed at the black hearth. It was the only place in the cabin that looked and felt cold, irony bless it.
“Oh. No chimney smoke.” Ace tapped a fist lightly against his head. “Sorry. I just… didn’t see a need. It’s been so hot lately. And Keitaro didn’t wake me up.”
“About that, you need to come outside,” Matt said, and suddenly he went to the door and shut it. He almost ran, in fact.
“Matt, what’s wrong?”
“I think your rooster’s dead.”
Ace’s eyes widened as the words sunk in. “No! A frostbiter?!”
“Maybe. Your uncle’s talisman?”
“Right…”
Ace stalked to a black lacquered chest sitting amid a heap of old rags in need of stitching. He warred with his facial muscles not to let weakness show as he pricked his thumb on a protruding nail through the wall. He put it to the balas ruby lock on the chest. It drank his blood, recognized him and opened with a very loud warning drone. He took out the object Matt requested and hurried over, rubbing his ringing ears.
“Matt, it’s not actually a talisman, you know,” Ace said. “Uncle said it was an amulet.”
“Whichever.” Matt pulled on the door, quietly this time, peering around it while it opened. “It works…”
Outside, they stepped with light feet down the gravel path. No rain left it dusty, and a small powdering of it rose from their feet and blew into the hot wind. Matt glanced at a vulture’s shadow wheeling in the sky. They both watched it for a second before continuing on around the side of the house to the chicken coop. It was more a small house, built like a fortress, was Ace’s chicken coop, with six sturdy sides and a low, sloping roof firmly fitted to withstand even the strongest windstorms.
After rounding the corner, Ace slowed his pace, letting Matt continue ahead, or meaning to—Matt noticed immediately and slowed to a halt. Sighing internally, Ace took a breath, pulled mentally at whatever courage he dared hope was in his heart and kept walking. He was very tired of this problem.
What a year! All the heat and drought are one thing, but now its driving abominations down from the no-melts. He glanced at the taller mountains in the distance. They were so high, so momentous, it was said they traveled far enough to scrape all three moons. He didn’t quite believe it, but they were big and always cold, and frigid things dwelled there.
Or, they used to.
Speaking of, Ace shouldered past Matt, going a step further toward the coop, and the ambient temperature went from a dry oven, into bone-cold.
Icy air more bitter than a midwinter morning nipped his nose and ears. Shivering, Ace rubbed his bare arms and glanced furtively at Matt’s long sleeves. Then he looked back to the coop, and walked forward, step by step. With each foot planted, he felt the frozen grass crunch beneath his calloused soles. There was a dank, vaguely putrid smell almost undetectable in the air, and Ace’s nostrils quickly filled with phlegm to block any trace of it.
Gripping his uncle’s amulet, Ace held it up. The thing looked almost like some kind broach or bracelet, a ring of aged copper with a round smooth stone in the center, the color of a pale sky. The stone glowed softly, invisible by daylight, humming in his hand. It offered only a little comfort.
Flecks of frozen dew broke off the coop’s roof in a fresh gust and blew into their faces. They squinted, their eyes drying from the cold until it felt like they’d crack open.
Near the coop, they paused, listening, watching. Matt pointed. Ace followed the finger. Blood, frozen solid, formed a glistening pool. It managed to run down all the way to the edge of the coop’s fencing before freezing over. Sunlight glinted off a spot like a cruel red garnet.
They waited. Nothing stirred. There were flies off about fifteen paces away, buzzing in a frustrated cloud, but not a one dared trespass into the region of cold air.
Letting out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, Ace relaxed his muscles. A tiny prick of satisfaction graced him when he heard Matt doing likewise beside him. At least he wasn’t the only one frightened to be doing this. Again.
“I-I think it’s gone. For sure,” Ace announced. His voice gained confidence the more he spoke. It felt like a spell was breaking from the silence. In fact, it was the amulet clearing the cold out. The temperature already felt warmer on his skin. Otherwise, he’d probably already be suffering frostbite himself.
“Let’s be sure.” Matt went to grab a pole leaning near the side of the house. It had a hook in it. He returned and handed it to Ace.
Taking it in hand, Ace resigned himself. He really should be used to seeing slaughtered animals. But, they were his birds. His hens, and their rooster Keitaro, were his only remaining companions. The Frostbiters, burn them, had taken his old goat back at the start of the month. The scene of the slaughter scarred him, seeing all the slash marks on the sides of her little barn, the places where the moister burst and forced masses of ice crystals all over the ground, like pockets of some kind of deadly fungus. He stopped thinking about it. But then, he was about to relive it…
He unlatched the coop’s egg door and pulled it open.
His fingers tightened around the amulet until it throbbed in his palm. Half hunched down, he crept closer toward the dark coop. no light reached inside. Nothing stirred. A cold, unpleasant scent wafted at him, almost imperceptible. The air for a moment turned bitter icy. He unhooked the door latch and let it fall…