Shadows in the Ice Read online

  Shadows in the Ice

  Book 3 of the Isiir Chronicles

  C. J. LaPolla

  Copyright © 2020 by C. J. LaPolla

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Piere d’Arterie

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To everyone who has said to me “It’s worth it. Keep going.”

  Thank you.

  Preface

  Dear Reader,

  I don’t normally write a preface in my books. But because the first 9 chapters of this novel are an edited and revised version of Eryn’s Tale published in 2017, I want readers that have read that story to understand what occurred.

  The original plan was for me to write 3 smaller novellas and release them in a year. My plan was not to be. I struggled with this story for years. I rewrote every chapter at least three times. The story kept on growing and growing. All of that effort was worth it, because I am extremely proud of the novel you have before you.

  To date, July 2020, this is the longest and most complex book I have ever written. It is the completion of my first trilogy that began in 2013 in Within the Ice. If you haven’t read the first two novels in the story, I would highly suggest you do so to get the full tale.

  Thank you for taking part in this journey with me. Thank you for making Isiir, which haunts my mind daily, a part of your life. I hope that you enjoy the completion of the first three novels of Isiir and I want you to know there are many, many more to come.

  I hope you enjoy Shadows in the Ice.

  C. J. LaPolla

  Also by C. J. LaPolla

  Isiir Chronicles

  Within the Ice

  Out of the Ice

  Shadows in the Ice

  Isiir Short Stories

  Eyes in the Darkness

  Battle Engines

  Battle Engines: Sparks

  Battle Engines: Flames (Coming Soon)

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Afterword

  Next up!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter I

  A white blanket of heavy snow covered Eryn as he cradled the last vestige of his former life in his tired arms. Her blood, which flowed steadily from the body he held tightly against him, had grown cold. The breath, which once filled the lungs of his beloved mother, had ceased.

  Eryn sat with his back against a tree in the freezing cold for hours, hard pellets of snow and ice striking him in his numb face. The cold, dead eyes of his mother stared up at him. He returned her stare.

  The cold had long since turned the tears that slipped from his eyes into ice. He wanted to cry more, he could feel the tears within wanting to flow, but they had dried up. The world around him had grown dark, and not only because of the dimming sun.

  He longed for the brighter days, the days when his family was happy and the world was at peace. A challenging day in his humble town was a day when one of the neighbor’s dogs ate the chicken of another. There would be a fight in the middle of the street, before the constable shoved them both in a cell for the day.

  No matter how far he reached into his memory for those happier times, the terror that everyone he had once known had endured over the past few days always crept its way forward in his mind. He could not escape reliving it all repeatedly as he sat there with the blizzard blustering around him.

  Eryn awoke with a start from his bed, where he lay resting after completing his morning chores. He heard shouting coming from the center of town. Fens was a farming town, mostly living on root vegetables and hearty fruits which grew on the frozen trees around the town. It was not a luxurious life, but it was his, and the town made the best of it.

  His town sat nestled within a glade in a light forest, hiding it from the eyes of the roving war bands and generally keeping it safe. Fens also contained a rather formidable militia that would fight to the death to keep any army from taking any of its citizens. Eryn had often heard tales of raiding parties that would steal men and women and force them into the service of some foreign warlord. He had nightmares of those events and, waking as he did now with shouts rising in the distance, he thought the luck of his town might have finally run out.

  Terror caused his heart to flutter. He could not stop himself from racing down the ladder from his loft room. His house was little more than a wide open space with a loft raised around the entire edge of the structure that provided sleeping quarters. They put small leather dividers into place for his mother, his brother, and himself, to have a paltry amount of privacy, such as the humble home permitted. His feet landed hard on the rushes of their floor and he burst through his door. Beyond, the shouting was far more intense.

  Lilliam, a member of the city’s militia, was holding down Mr. Duncan, an old man in the town. Mr. Duncan’s face was turning blue and veins were bulging from his forehead.

  “Stop it! You’re killing him!” Eryn rushed toward them and kicked Lilliam in the face.

  Lilliam fell backwards, a smear of red on his nose. Eryn immediately began rubbing his leg where his shin had connected with the man’s face. He felt a welt swelling beneath his breeches. Lilliam’s blue eyes met Eryn with a deadly stare. The man he kicked brushed his matted blond hair from his face and rose, an evil grin creasing his features. Lilliam rubbed his hands together, his grin widening as he approached his new target.

  Eryn quivered at the thought of those hands wrapping around his throat. He considered running, but just as he was about to escape, Mr. Duncan rose and rained a crushing blow into the side of Lilliam’s head with a large rock. Lilliam fell to the ground with a pained huff, and Mr. Duncan continued pounding the rock into the man’s head until they heard a sickening crunch. He smiled at Eryn with feral eyes.

  “What are you doin?!” screamed a confused and wide-eyed Eryn. “Why did you kill him, Mr. Duncan?” Eryn questioned. “Why was he trying to kill you?”

  The man did not speak. He only stared back at him with hungry eyes. Slowly, the man closed the distance toward him and raised the rock to strike. Eryn was quick though, and he waited for the strike to descend toward him before side-stepping the blow.

  “What’re you doing? I just saved you!”

  “An’ I thank ye for it!” Mr. Duncan said, yet he unleashed another heavy swing that nicked Eryn’s forehead.

  The blow did not hurt Eryn, though caught him off guard. Other than a few small scraps with the callow boys of the town, he had never been attacked. And no one had ever tried to kill him before. It was all too much. In his hesitation while weighing the situation, Eryn made a critical error, and Mr.
Duncan kicked him in the stomach. It knocked the wind out of him, and he fell backwards to the ground. Eryn fought for the breath to rise and run, but he could not find it. He could only see the wrinkly visage of Mr. Duncan looming over him, with a deeply satisfied grin upon his face and holding the rock high for a deadly, killing blow.

  Just as Eryn squeezed his eyes closed to await the end, he heard Mr. Duncan emit an odd noise. The breath escaped him quickly, and he heard the rock fall to the ground. Eryn opened his eyes in time to see his brother, Josef, wielding a bloodied ax in his hand and Mr. Duncan plummeting to the ground. The old man hit the ground with a hefty thud. Josef reached out to help Eryn up.

  “You all right lil’ bro?” Josef asked as his hands and eyes examined Eryn closely.

  Eryn only nodded, unable to hold back the tears that welled in his eyes.

  “We have to kill them Eryn. We have to kill them all. He would want it.”

  Eryn stared back at him, confused. “Who… who would want that?”

  “God,” Josef said, the distant gleam of a zealot in his eye.

  “God? What does God have to do with Mr. Duncan killing Lilliam and trying to kill me?” Eryn shook off Josef’s hands and backed away from his brother, whose eyes blazed with a crazed glint.

  Josef was eighteen, and had delusions of becoming a great warrior, though he had never acted on it beyond practicing with his crudely made hand ax. Before now he had never killed a man and had only just begun taking part in the militia training. Eryn stood baffled about where this sudden urge to fight had come from.

  “God came to us today, Eryn. He came into our town and willed for one of us to become his champion. I want to be his champion, as did Mr. Duncan and Lilliam.” Josef stared at them with disgust and continued. “They were not champions.”

  Eryn didn’t know what to think. He heard the shouting growing louder. How could the entire town suddenly break out into such madness, in so little time? Just this morning he was out collecting wood for the evening fire and received sweets from Old Lady Olle and Mrs. Jenny. The men jested about how strong he was becoming to carry so much wood. He beamed with pride at their praise, and could feel his muscles flexing beneath his haul. Now, those same men were trying to kill one another. There had to be some truth to what his brother was saying, and if there was, he needed to find out what.

  “Show me, Josef,” Eryn said. “I want to see God.”

  Josef beamed as he looked into the distance. “He is magnificent.”

  Josef took Eryn’s hand and guided him through the lanes between the houses all around them. Fens was a disorganized town, expanding slowly as the people of the north tried to find places to hide from the southland terrors. The homes possessed no semblance of organization. Normally, this was unnoticed by the kids, but today it served them faithfully as they could use those nooks and crannies to sneak their way into the town center.

  Suddenly, as they reached to within only a few feet of their destination, a man leapt from his window onto Josef. He clutched a knife and stabbed Josef on the shoulder before Josef pushed it away. Eryn saw red puckering from the minor wound. Their struggle continued as the man growled and drooled onto Josef’s face as he pushed the knife ever closer toward its deadly mark. The point was only inches away and Eryn knew he had to act now. He searched the ground for something heavy with which to strike the man but could only find a large stick. He snatched the stick up and aimed it precisely at the man’s right eye. Lunging forward, Eryn found his mark. The man lurched upwards, howling, and Josef did not hesitate to regain his ax and slash open the man’s belly. A foul odor emanated from him as his entrails spilled to the ground before them.

  Josef let out a delighted whoop and raised his ax. Eryn only stared on in horror at what he had done. He had saved his brother by assisting in the murder of a man, the town’s baker, Kunar. A man that gave him sweet bread and tarts. The knife he’d tried to slay his brother with was the same knife he used to cut off pieces of dough for his cookies. Eryn remembered it well.

  “What is wrong with everyone? That was Kunar, Josef. He bakes us cookies and bread. He doesn’t try to kill us,” Eryn whimpered.

  Josef’s eyes continued to hold their distant, glossy gleam as he replied. “God was with us today, he wanted our victory. May he grace us always.”

  Finally, the boys had reached the town center and Eryn saw the man Josef had been referring to as God. A man wearing black robes stood in the town center, staring at the massacre. His cowl hid his face, but what Eryn could see was flesh, just like his own. While large, his hands were no different to Eryn’s. He couldn’t place his finger on what he was expecting to see, but what stood in the center of town was not it.

  “He’s just a man,” Eryn said, looking over at this brother.

  Josef looked at him, confused. “Just a man?” Utter revulsion oozed at his little brother’s words. “How can you see just a man? God is great.”

  Eryn shook his head. “I’ll not fight for him, and neither should you!”

  Josef seemed to grow angry. His eyes squinted at Eryn and the muscles in his cheeks tightened.

  “You must go before him to understand,” Josef commanded.

  Eryn turned his gaze out into the town square where a group of men were busy constructing something, perhaps an altar. They seemed to act normal as they brought the man they called “God” a high-backed chair for him to sit upon. The rest of the town square was littered with dead and dying men, and others still engaged in deadly combat. Some of them fought with their bare hands, but most were battling with whatever weapon they could grasp, be it a shattered chair leg or a wooden pitchfork. Some had swords and spears and were slaughtering those that came at them with inferior weapons.

  Eryn’s eyes once again fell on Kunar, the man who laid dead and stinking in the snow next to them. He did not want to become like him out there in the middle of the town square.

  “I’m not going out there,” Eryn said as he slowly backed away.

  “Yes, you are!” Josef declared and charged him.

  Eryn had always been faster, and Josef stronger. He knew if he were to get caught he would be finished. The scene played out just as if they were playing a game of catch, but in this case it was a game of life or death. Eryn did not fear for his own life, he feared for the life of his brother. If they were to go out in the square, every single man out there would witness an easy kill. Josef was no warrior. He was just a boy with delusions of grandeur.

  Eryn continued racing through the walkways toward their home. Home was always safe. Whenever they played games with one another, making it home was always ‘base’, and the game was over. However, the baker was also always safe. And the town square. Now, after watching the baker die and men slaughtering each other in the square, nowhere would seem safe to Eryn any longer.

  Eventually, the winding houses gave way to the wider street and Eryn ran without thinking into the open air. Immediately, he felt as if he had hit a brick wall. Unfortunately, it was not. Thick hides covered the massive tree trunk-sized legs of the one they called Grok. Eryn appeared as a gnat to the giant man, who slowly turned his bloodied face toward him.

  “Took a bad turn boy,” he said, his voice like stones grinding beneath a mountain.

  Eryn only stared. The man had always frightened him. No one knew where he had come from. Years ago, Grok and his brother, Jaisoun, arrived one day, unannounced. Two giant, heavily armed men trounced into their town and made themselves at home. They caused no trouble and went about their lives as builders in the town. Soon, the town accepted them as citizens. Eryn was very young, but he vividly remembered their arrival. Regardless of the good he had done for the town, the man still terrified him.

  Josef burst forth into the same alley and immediately stopped when he saw Grok standing over his brother. For a second Eryn was happy he’d arrived and hoped that he would now run. His hope was gnashed at Josef’s outburst.

  “For God! For eternity!”

 
Josef charged Grok with his ax held high. Grok turned slightly and cupped his face in one monstrous hand, pushing Josef away. Josef fell to the ground, a confused look on his face.

  For a brief second, Eryn and Josef’s eyes locked. The glaze that had lain over them was gone, and it was his brother again. In that moment his eyes appeared to question what was occurring. However, it was only for a fleeting second, for the very next moment he rose and charged once again. His ax flourished to the right and the left, but each time his enemy dodged with ease. On his fourth attempt to strike Grok, the immense man caught his arm. Josef yelped in pain as the giant squeezed his forearm. Eryn couldn’t be sure, but he believed he heard the bone cracking.

  Grok pried the ax from Josef’s hand with ease and tossed it aside as if it were a mere annoyance. Eryn watched it disappear into a snowdrift, lost forever. Josef struck forward, trying to land a punch into the black-bearded face of his adversary, but it too disappeared within the crushing grip of Grok’s hand. Eryn quickly backpedaled on the snowy earth as he watched his brother pulled forward and then off the ground.

  Eryn looked into his brother’s eyes and saw his terror growing. Josef had fought blindly against an adversary so much stronger than himself. Josef’s eyes bulged as Grok placed his vice-like hands on either side of his temples and squeezed.