Chapter 6: The Free Folk's Grudge
The snow was stained red. A small scouting party of Tim's wights had ventured too far from the Frostspire, a minor miscalculation that had turned into a bloody ambush. Vara's war cry was a sharp, furious sound that cut through the silent air, her bow humming with lethal intent as she loosed another arrow. She was a woman possessed, her mind a maelstrom of fear and righteous fury.
The Usurper has come. The one who will make the world his frozen tomb. They told me he would bring a walking army, and here they are. They told me he would twist the ancient magic of the North, and here he is, a beacon of that perversion.
Her internal monologue was a constant, gnawing litany of the prophecy, a story she had heard since she was a child. The Usurper would not be a monster with fangs and claws, but a man who would bend the North to his will, a man who would turn their sacred lands into a monument to his power. And she saw him, a flicker of a figure in the distance, and the wights, the silent, shuffling fulfillment of that prophecy.
"For the North! For the Free Folk!" she roared, her voice a battle cry that was echoed by the handful of men and women who followed her. The crack of arrows, the shout of her people, the sickening crunch of bone as one of her men's axes found its mark on a wight's skull, all of it was a symphony of her conviction. She was not just fighting an army. She was fighting a prophecy.
[SYSTEM: THREAT ALERT: FREE FOLK. THREAT LEVEL: HIGH. OBJECTIVE: DE-ESCALATION.]
The System's voice was a cold, pragmatic whisper in Tim's mind. He had arrived just in time to see the last of his scouts fall. He could have ended this in a heartbeat. A single thought, and the Free Folk would be an army of wights at his command. But he couldn't. He had to win this with trust, not with force.
Suddenly, a sound, a low, haunting whisper, cut through the battle. It wasn't the sound of Tim's voice. It was Ysmeine's. The whispering wight had come with them, a silent, loyal shadow at Tim's side. Now, she had stepped forward, her skeletal hands raised, her voice a fragile, almost mournful song.
The battle ground to a halt. Vara, her bow still drawn, stared at the wight. Ysmeine's voice was a haunting, ethereal whisper, but the words were clear.
"The snow... the mountain... the song of the old wolf."
Vara's eyes widened, her bow arm trembling. "That's... that's my mother's song." She dropped her bow, the sound of it clattering on the ice a jarring note in the sudden silence. "How... how do you know that?"
Ysmeine took a step forward, her skeletal head tilted slightly, as if she were trying to remember something. The whispers continued, now with a hint of a familiar tune. "It was... a song of home... of family..."
The Free Folk, who had been ready for a final, desperate charge, now stood frozen, their faces a mixture of confusion and shock. This wasn't the language of the dead. This was the language of their ancestors.
[SYSTEM: DATA LOG TRANSLATION: YSMEINE'S MEMORIES ARE TIED TO FREE FOLK TRADITIONS. POSSIBILITY OF ALLIANCE: 20%.]
Twenty percent. That's a better start than zero, Tim thought, a glimmer of hope sparking in his chest. Ysmeine's words, her fragile song, had done more than his army could ever hope to do. She had bridged the gap between the living and the dead, a bridge built not on power, but on a shared memory. The cultural depth of their society, their songs, their stories, had just become a powerful weapon in his arsenal.
Vara looked at Tim, a new kind of suspicion in her eyes. It was no longer the suspicion of a monster, but the suspicion of a man who held a terrible, confusing power. "Who are you?" she asked, her voice softer this time.
Tim didn't answer. He didn't have to. The answer was in Ysmeine's song.
The System's interface, cool and stark, appeared in Tim's vision as he and his wights retreated, leaving the Free Folk to their confusion. The new data log was a chilling read.
[SYSTEM: LORE FRAGMENT DISCOVERED. FRAGMENT 2/3: THE FROST-TOUCHED USURPER PROPHECY. ADDING TO CODEX.]
The prophecy was a simple, brutal thing. A man from the South would come, a man who held the power of the Ice, and he would corrupt it, turning it into a weapon to subjugate the living. He would build a kingdom of the dead, and the Free Folk would become his mindless slaves, forced to fight his wars.
They don't see me. They see a monster from a bedtime story. I'm not the hero of their tales. I'm the villain. And I can't fight a story with a sword. I have to fight it with a different story.
He looked back at the retreating figures of the Free Folk. They were a proud, independent people who had lived in the North for centuries. They had their own legends, their own fears, and he had just walked right into the middle of them. He wasn't fighting a military problem. He was fighting a cultural one. A war of beliefs, not of bodies. The whispers of the dead, the song of a long-lost scout, had been a crucial first step. But it was only a first step. The prophecy, a powerful, ancient story, still loomed over them.
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