Winter (2)
The winter wind that blew across the Floating Island was fierce and heavy. Trees were sometimes ripped up by the roots in the ordinary gales, and animals that refused to hibernate could be torn from the ground and flung away by the force of it.
Even in a wind strong enough to be called a storm, the great tree that Chester and Monia had made their home stood relatively calm. Chester had already endured one storm and had chosen the site carefully with just such weather in mind.
The tall trees surrounding them took the first brunt of the wind and broke its strength; what remained could not shake the massive trunk that served as the pillar of their house, its roots driven deep and firm. The house itself, lashed to the tree, still swayed and creaked, but never so violently that they feared it would tear free.
Monia cooked while listening to the bamboo of the house rub and groan in the wind. Today’s meal was a handful of grain and a scrap of meat—too little to divide properly—so she soaked the grain and simmered it into a thin gruel meant to last them the whole day. Chewing slowly made the scant food feel more filling; with care they could get through another day on it.
She seasoned the pot with a pinch of salt and spoke with Chester as she stirred.
“The house seems fine, but what about the aqueduct?”
“The aqueduct… yeah, that does worry me a little.”
He had never fixed the aqueduct rigidly in place for exactly this reason. It was only positioned and slung from trees with rope, so it might rock in the wind but would not break easily. Bamboo was a tough material. That, however, applied only to the bamboo itself. If the trees it hung from were toppled, the whole system would be ruined, and rebuilding it would be no small task.
“Maybe we should reinforce the trees. Once the wind dies, let’s shore them up.”
“Mm. It’s been a while since we’ve moved around outside. It’ll be hard work.”
“I just hope the snow doesn’t get too deep. Black Wind said that in a bad winter it can pile up to his waist.”
Black Wind’s waist height meant snow to Chester’s chest and Monia’s neck. At that depth they would not be able to move at all.
“I’ve never seen snow pile up like this. The duchy straddles warmer lands, so snow rarely falls, and even in the capital—though it borders the cold north—it never comes down this heavily.”
“True. The academy got a lot of snow, more than my hometown ever did.”
“Was your hometown in the north too?”
“It sat between the west and the north. In summer the western winds kept it mild, but in winter the cold came down from the north and the chill set in fast. When winter came, the kids and I used to play snowball fights.”
“Snowball fights? What’s that?”
“Just packing snow into balls and throwing them at each other… Want to try?”
Monia’s eyes lit up and she nodded eagerly.
“All right. Once the wind dies down, then.”
She answered only with a bright smile and pressed herself into Chester’s arms. They shared the warmth for a little while before she returned to the pot, pulling out a few sticks of firewood to lower the flames.
“It’s ready.”
They ladled the gruel into bowls and ate in quiet companionship. Ant found the hot porridge too much and had to wait until it cooled before he could eat.
“Winter is nearly upon us.”
“How stands the supply to the front? The snowbound regions will need extra attention on the supply lines.”
“Urgent report! Last night the Duke’s forces struck and severed two of our supply routes!”
“Damn it! Again?! Stop cutting them, you bastards! What’s the damage?”
“They say it can be restored quickly. But the stores we meant to shift to the western front were seized…”
“Tch!”
“As for that, the western front has halted under the foul weather. The trenches are flooded to neck height; neither side can do a thing.”
“Ah, warm winds and cold winds colliding—no wonder. But the men will need supplies if they’re to endure this weather. We can’t wait for the roads to reopen. Form a separate supply unit and send it at once.”
“Understood.”
The harsher the weather grew, the harsher the front became. Some used the difficulty of supply to strike when the enemy was short and they themselves were not; others found both sides so starved of provisions that the fighting simply stopped. In the chaos of entire armies, men deserted, defected, or, broken by the weather and the grinding stress of war, took their own lives.
Far to the south, tribes untouched by the war struggled merely to endure the mild cold that drifted down from the north—cold that never let a single snowflake fall—waiting for the day the chill would pass. In the far north, tribes who built their homes of snow and ice endured the opposite torment: a desert of water where not a drop could be found to drink, yet still they forced their hardened bodies through each day.
In ordinary homes children cried and threw tantrums for lack of food; nobles grumbled that the meat was a shade tougher than usual because logistics had worsened; the Duke himself fretted that the kingdom’s fierce resistance left him no leisure for the hunt. And Tiara, feeding the stove with armfuls of wood, thawed her body stiffened by the cold morning, watched the snow fall beyond the window, and sipped her tea.
With Jordy consumed by the war, she savored the rare stretch of solitude, soothing the mind that had frayed from living at his side. The one mercy was that the torturous “education” he had once inflicted had stopped when he arrived. The mental exhaustion of lessons had simply been replaced by the exhaustion of dealing with Jordy himself—yet for that very reason she was content. Nothing was hurting her now.
While Tiara enjoyed her brief peace, the war between the royal army and the Duke’s forces was changing shape under the operations Jordy launched—operations that ignored both human rights and the laws of war. He fed soldiers drugs and sent them on near-suicidal charges; he looted the Duke’s supplies, turned the captured powder into bombs, and used them; he dragged women and the elderly from nearby villages onto the line as living shields to hold the front. By any means necessary he turned certain defeats into victories or forced draws, locking the Duke’s army in stalemate and tormenting them without end.
Discontent naturally rose among the royal troops, yet the sudden improvement in results and the absolute power of the newly crowned tyrant Jordy kept every complaint locked behind clenched teeth. At the same time those same acts froze the nobles and officers who had been edging toward defection; the terror of what would happen if they were caught kept them from crossing over.
The Duke, for his part, was rather enjoying himself. Jordy’s moves were shortsighted and foolish, yet being caught by those reckless gambits—or crushing them—was a pleasure he had never known while the royal army collapsed helplessly before him. Like a novice on a chessboard whose thoughtless moves sometimes force a master to think, devising ways to beat this fool made for fine entertainment.
If it dragged on, the absolute superiority the Duke’s forces had enjoyed might erode, and no one could say how the front would shift. Already restless currents stirred within his own ranks—coastal barons, for instance, secretly carving smuggling routes near the main army to move something no one was meant to see.
“If we are like this, what of the kingdom thrown into chaos by civil war?”
The Duke decided that this winter he would tip the balance with a single decisive stroke.
“Move the revolutionary forces.”
He would call forth the troops still hidden inside the kingdom.
“The target… is the royal palace.”
Snow fell.
Of every winter the kingdom had ever known, the harshest was arriving.
“It looks as though we’ll spend this winter warmly,” Tiara said, knowing nothing, and took another sip of tea.
And at dawn the next day, the capital was engulfed in flames.