Valeska’s arms tightened around Kresnic, the wet warmth of his wound seeping into her tunic. The Ozerov child, no older than six cycles, whimpered, his small body rigid against the gnarled hand of Grigor Saren, Patriarch of the Saren clan. The obsidian shard glinted, a promise of unspeakable agony pressed to the boy’s eye. The battlefield had stilled, the last echoes of battle absorbed by the deepening snow. Every breath felt like grit in Valeska’s throat.
“Saren,” Valeska’s voice was a low, steady thrum, utterly devoid of fear, despite the tremor that threatened her limbs. She pushed Kresnic gently onto the snow, ignoring his pained groan. “You want to know where it comes from? The food?”
Grigor Saren’s gaze, as cold and grey as a winter dawn, flicked to her. A sneer stretched his already mutilated cheek. “Speak, old woman, before I make this child regret his lineage.”
Valeska rose slowly, her movements deliberate, every gesture calculated to draw his attention. Her gaze was locked onto his, a challenge in her aged eyes that belied her true youth. Her fingers moved to the hidden pouch beneath her outer cloak, retrieving the heavy iron lockbox. It felt impossibly cold against her palm.
She held it up, not like a weapon, but like a sacred, terrible relic. “This,” she said, her voice now carrying across the quiet field, ringing with absolute conviction, “is what feeds us. But it is also what ends us. It is the heart of imperial siege engines, packed with a substance so volatile, a single drop can level a whole sled train.”
Valeska fixed him with an unblinking stare. “The eastern empire gave it to me. To destroy their enemies. To destroy *you*. One wrong move, Saren, one false step, and this basin becomes a crater. We all go. Your clan. My clan. Every wagon here. Reduced to ash and scattered across the Shattered Steppes.”
The air held still. No one moved. Vojin, blood running down the sleeve of his coat from a torn bicep, watched her in wary silence. Radmila kept her chin lowered, fingers already brushing the hilt tucked under her belt. Grigor Saren’s sneer faltered. He looked at the dull iron box, then at Valeska’s unwavering face. The bluster left his posture, his shoulders dropping a fraction. He was a brute, but not an idiot. Her unyielding stance and steady grip made him second-guess the iron box.
He hesitated, then his massive hand unclenched. The Ozerov child dropped, scrambling away with a sob as Saren stumbled back, his eyes darting between Valeska and the lockbox. “Lies,” he spat, but his voice lacked its former conviction. “A witch’s trick.”
Valeska didn’t respond, merely kept her gaze fixed, holding the lockbox steady. The tension stretched, thin as ice over a deep chasm. The captured Ozerov child was scooped up by a grateful clan member, whisked away from the immediate danger. But the Saren clan warriors remained, their expressions a mix of confusion and suspicion.
Just then, a cry rang out from the northeast. “Reinforcements! The pass! They’re pouring down!”
Valeska glanced toward the ridge. Through the drifting squall, dozens of figures were descending the steep scree overlooking the basin. They were not Saren warriors. Their coats were pale, grey-green wool, the unmistakable cloth of the southern army. Radmila stiffened beside her, pale as salt.
Radmila moved. Before anyone could react, her hand drove into her parka, wrenching free a short, stocky barrel with a flared bronze muzzle. It was a signaling piece. She caught Valeska's gaze for half a second, lips pressed thin and white.
She raised the tube, not toward the descending soldiers, but toward the towering, snow-laden cornices overhanging the high defile. The silence broke only under the shriek of wind.
“Radmila, what are you doing?!” Vojin roared, lunging forward, but he was too late.
***
*CRACK!* The percussion slapped across the rocks, deafening in the hollow. An emerald streak hissed upward, arcing against the dull slate sky until it slammed into the sheer stone face and embedded itself in the packed drift, bursting in green flame.
For a second, nothing stirred. Then a deep shudder pulsed through the granite beneath their boots. A hairline fracture split the high ridge, branching into dark fissures that tore across the ice sheet. The emerald flare still burned, a tiny beacon of destruction against the darkening sky.
A dull boom shook the gorge as the cliff face sheared away, thousands of tons of ice and powder sloughing downward in a white wall that surged toward the pass and the Crimson Caravan below.