The mountain stronghold, which Nicolas had named "The Cradle," took shape with a brutal, functional speed. Under Kaela's driving force and Lyra's meticulous oversight, the palisade walls rose, and the shelters became sturdier against the biting wind that swept down from the peaks.
The ten humans three men, four women, and three children who had been their first rescued captives, became the foundation of a new society. They looked to Nicolas not as a fellow man, but as a sovereign. Fear had been the seed, but it was rapidly growing into something more complex: a desperate, reliant awe. He was their only shelter in a world that had devoured their old lives.
Nicolas felt this shift in the air, in the way they bowed their heads when he passed. The warm power within him drank it in, growing subtly stronger. Authority was its sustenance.
But the wilderness of Saturn did not tolerate new kingdoms easily.
The first sign of trouble came from the skies. Lyra, her elven eyes sharper than any telescope, pointed north. "Smoke. A great column of it. Two days' hard march. Not a controlled fire. A burning."
Kaela sniffed the air, her wolf-senses parsing the distant winds. "Death. Much death. And... fear. A sour, cold scent."
Nicolas made his decision instantly. A show of strength was required, both for his own people and for whatever power had cast this shadow so close to his doorstep. "We go. Lyra, you will scout from the ridges. Kaela, with me. The rest, fortify the gates. Let no one in who is not of us."
They traveled light and fast. Lyra moved ahead like a grey ghost, disappearing into the rocky landscape. Nicolas and Kaela followed the trail of devastation a swath of trampled earth, discarded belongings, and the ominous, circling carrion birds.
What they found was a massacre. It was not a wolf-clan raid. This was systematic.
A small, fortified village, likely of human settlers pushing into the borderlands between countries, had been eradicated. The wooden walls were shattered, not by axes, but by something with tremendous, concentrated force. The bodies were not just slain; they were broken, twisted, as if struck by a giant's club. And they were frozen. A layer of brittle rime coated everything the splintered wood, the scorched earth, the lifeless eyes of the dead.
"Ice," Kaela growled, kneeling to examine a frost-bitten corpse. "But not natural. This is magic. And see here?" She pointed to deep, parallel gouges in a timber post. "Claws. Big ones."
"Ice Country," Nicolas said, the words cold in his mouth. The Cat-folk. He had heard tales of their pride, their arcane mastery over cold, and their ruthless expansionism. "They are cleansing this border."
Lyra appeared silently beside them, her face pale. "Scouts. A patrol of five. Cat-kin. Lightly armed, moving west. They are... playful. Hunting for stragglers."
A cruel smile touched Nicolas's lips. Playful. They thought their work was done. They thought they were the predators here.
"Show me," he commanded.
From a high outcrop, they watched the patrol. The Cat-folk moved with a liquid, arrogant grace. They were humanoid, but with sleek fur in shades of grey and white, long tails twitching with amusement, and sharp, intelligent faces. They wore light leathers adorned with frost-blue gems. One of them kicked at the half-frozen body of a child, laughing at the brittle sound it made.
A cold fury, different from the warm power he carried, settled in Nicolas's heart. This was not just an enemy. This was an offense. This was 'his' border now. These were 'his' potential subjects, wasted.
"Kaela," he said, his voice devoid of all emotion. "The two on the left. Do not kill them quickly. I want their screams."
A feral grin split Kaela's face. "With pleasure, Master."
"Lyra," he continued. "The archer on the right. Silence him."
She nocked an arrow, her expression a mask of elven calm. "He will not make a sound."
Nicolas focused on the leader, a taller Cat-man with a jagged scar across his muzzle, who was lecturing the others. "The one who speaks is mine."
The attack was a symphony of violence. Lyra's arrow took the archer in the throat before he could even sense danger. He fell without a cry. Kaela erupted from behind a rock like a volcano of fur and muscle, her axe cleaving into the first Cat-man's shoulder, her following roar drowning out his shriek of agony as she tore into the second.
The remaining two, including the leader, spun, claws extending from their fingertips, a mist of cold forming around them.
Nicolas walked towards the leader. He did not run. He did not draw his sword.
The Cat-leader hissed, his eyes wide with shock and rage. "Human? You dare? You will be a popsicle for my kits to play with!" He swiped his claws through the air, and a shard of jagged ice, the length of a dagger, shot towards Nicolas's heart.
Nicolas raised his hand.
The warm power within him surged forth, not as a wave, but as a shield. The ice shard struck an invisible barrier of pure will a foot from his chest and shattered into harmless mist.
The Cat-leader's eyes went wide with disbelief.
Nicolas kept walking. He pushed his will forward, a tangible force. He could feel the Cat-man's own magic, a slippery, cold thing. He enveloped it, smothered it with the sheer, oppressive 'heat' of his desire. He could feel the creature's mind, sharp and cruel. He did not try to bond with it. He 'crushed' it.
"Kneel," Nicolas said, the word laced with command.
The Cat-leader gasped, his body shuddering. Against every instinct, his legs buckled, and he dropped to his knees in the mud and frost. His companion, seeing this, turned to flee. A second arrow from Lyra pinned his leg to the ground. Kaela finished her gruesome work and stood over him, her axe ready.
Nicolas stood before the kneeling leader. He placed his hand on the Cat-man's head, between his twitching ears. He delved deeper with his power, past the fear, past the pain.
He sought information. Images flashed: a larger war-party camped in a glacial valley to the north; a haughty queen with eyes like blue diamonds; slaves taken for labor and sport.
He had what he needed.
He looked at Kaela and gave a single, slight nod.
The axe fell.
Silence returned to the broken village, now broken only by the moans of the one surviving Cat-man, his leg pierced, his fate sealed.
Nicolas looked at his hands, then at his two women. Lyra watched him with fierce pride. Kaela panted, her bloodlust satisfied, her loyalty affirmed through action.
This was not just a skirmish. It was a declaration. The first blow in a war he had not sought, but would now relish. The Ice Country had sent a message of death. Nicolas would send back a message of conquest.
"Gather their insignias," he told Lyra. "We return to The Cradle. We have prisoners to interrogate, defenses to harden, and," he said, looking north towards the icy peaks, "a queen to visit."