It all began in the cold.

Don’t look at me.

Yes, you I am talking to you. His light brown eyes started to release slow tears.

I have blood on me, damn it… her blood, the blood of the one I cared the most for. His skin was pale, of someone that did not see the light of a warm sun in a long time; deep dark lines ran under his eyes underlying the fatigues that his body had to endure.

I had to… damn it I said, don’t look at me; turn your eyes away, I beg you. His mind was increasingly getting pounded by a deafening sound, a beat like that of loud drums inside his skull.

Neiths, that’s how they called themselves. Their bones more resistant than those of many of the foreign various sentient creatures that inhabit the world and yet the endurance of their bodies was deeply tested now. The surrounding harshness they were enduring drove to strangeness so many already. Every day plenty were falling to the inability to control their thoughts and their actions. The struggle, their struggle with hunger, thirst, exhaustion and the cold that this ill world presented them with, had won over many already.

Some even tried to resolve it by looking for food towards the one sitting next to them, or by simply pointing the scarce metal they still had on them at their own throats.

The world, a vast mass of mountains, rivers, hills and lakes but most precious of them all to the Neiths, of forests that up till a few years back had its days and nights well-ordered and that saw seasons alternate one after the other.

A world that now was not providing sunlight in that region that hosted them for so long anymore and that forced this folk as well as many others to migrate in search of a more temperate place to settle. To migrate or to escape, often the difference between the two words and the meaning they bear was melted into the harsh reality of having to survive.

I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t. And now I don’t know what to do with you. He started to move his head frantically in every direction seemingly without a particular focus. He was a tall one even amongst his folk, almost seven feet high covered by layers of raunchy and filthy heavy rags he dressed himself up with, to survive the Wilderness and the long march.

The Wilderness, is the name himself and those he was travelling with, began to call the unknown place they found themselves into, for a very long time now. Nobody really kept anymore track of the sunrises and sundown’s following one another.

The March, on the other side was how they started to call their quest to be able to ensure the survival of the community. They made a few encounters with other different people and races during the March, but since they entered the Wilderness, they met with no living creature. The Neiths lived in a large village before the seasons started to change the sun started to die. There were a few thousands of them, practicing basic agriculture and farming. The huts they inhabited were built in the barks of the giant trees they called Luths. Using the soil underneath only for the purpose of planting vegetables or keeping the animal stock fed by the pale grass growing abundantly, the places they called homes were connected to one another by aerial bridges and used the huge branches of the trees as paths to walk upon to go from one household or place to the other.

What am I supposed to do now with this, with you, still there, still looking? He slowly stopped moving his head and begun to focus instead on what seemed to rest in his laps, while leaning amongst the uncomfortable roots of a huge tree. His gaze remained lost upon what he was holding in between his arms, trying not to be too tight or not to be too loose in keeping the little creature that he was embracing close to his chest, to protect it from the bitter cold.

When moving slightly to adjust the both of them, his own red painted, pale fingers emerged from under the clothes…

How am I to do now this, without you?

Underneath the layers of fabric covering him and the new born, was laying another body, right there next to them; one of another Neith; but this one had more delicate facial traits and seemed breathless.

She seemed to be at peace.

She stood still.

The garments covering her body were wed around her torso, by a liquid thicker than simple water. He moved now slightly to cover himself better from the cold that slowly took over it seems, the whole world and by taking more of the cloak and putting it on them both, himself and the infant in his arms, he opened a space on the white snow between him and the dead body, stained with dark blood.

Damn it, I said don’t look at me. I really don’t know what else could have I done? She wanted me to, help her. She wanted me to help her die.

The soft darkness surrounding them began to deepen. The last bright spots illuminating the valley, remains of a weak sunlight, shone on a few tall wide trees growing amongst an almost desert of white snow, revealing a vast mass of Neiths all scattered everywhere, trying to protect themselves from another harsh night. Almost like rising from a still ocean, tall mountains which tops pierced the dark grey sky, ran from one side to the other of the blurred horizon providing a natural seat on which this lost folk could rest their backs, broken by the cold and by the fatigue they were enduring. A few hundreds of them, barely moving or breathing.

The region they came from had been far more temperate and sun bathed, rarely presenting them with the need to protect themselves from cold or snow or to face such a scarcity of food and shelter. They also didn’t expect that those trees that for so many years gave them shelter, would now be part of the reason of their misery: the luths had the peculiarity of growing high and wide, strong and robust more than any other tree in the region. They were hard to carve, but not impossible. However, this was also a kind of wood resistant to fire, that would not burn even on the hottest flame. In the region where they found themselves now, the few trees that were growing around were not as tough as the luths but a similar species. Very hard to burn, which became impossible with the presence of constant falling snow which made the making of a fire even something of a harder task.

The only thing to interrupt the forced calm surrounding them was the blowing of a soft frozen wind, and the slow start of the falling of the snow, which again will cover everyone equally, like every other night in the past months, without discriminating and will bring to death those who are too weak to resist its touch.

In the dusk, just two lonely rumours could be heard from somewhere a bit further away from where the whole group of Neiths laid down itself for the evening, coming from near a tall wide tree whose roots half emerged from the white; the sound was that of a cry of a father that just lost his beloved, to the cold, to the hunger and to the winter they had now to survive and that of an infant that just opened her eyes to the world and filled her lungs with fresh air for the first time.

Slowly he abandoned his head to fall upon his shoulder, the weariness pushing down on his eyes, and the silence begun mixing up reality and wishes. The fog surrounded him, and the bitterness in the air slowly began evaporating. He could sense his hand beginning to move forward, feeling his body following it trying to clear something from in front of him.

Or grab it.

Moving slowly towards the end of the mist, images began to clear.

A figure began to appear, waiting, half turned with the head looking towards a luth. She was tall, her head was turned and the long light brown hair was running down till under her shoulders with a steady body wearing a light dark blue dress falling down till her ankles, cut on the sides of both legs. A soft swish was the only thing to be heard. There was no wind however; it seemed like there was no air either surrounding them. The feeling of all this being unreal, began to vanish; he could hear his stomach grumble. It was like by just looking at the figure of Yerean, standing there in front of him, with her head turned looking at the robust tree, the muttering of his belly was getting increasingly louder.

Come back to me. Don’t leave me here like this.

The sound was growing noisier and more disturbing. He could see her head slightly beginning to turn towards him, without causing any change in the surrounding air. He thought that she would reveal her face now, maybe for the last time.

He felt joy.

And then the noises stopped.

Her head stopped moving and from the branches of the tree, or from somewhere up there amongst the undefined foliage, a vibrant blow like one from a remote broken horn, smashed the night. His eyes opened swiftly, his arms shivered, and the sound brought him back to reality.

What the hell was that?

A few others around him seemed to be awaken by the same noise. He looked down on the new-born, while trying to discern between what was real and what was not. The baby girl was still asleep.

What was that?

While his eyes got a bit more accustomed to the low light of the valley, he could now recognise some of those laying a few feet away, being in the same state, looking around themselves as if they heard something that nobody else did, but unable to understand what that was and a bit afraid to say anything about it for not being treated like the next mad ones in the group to be taken care of, or left behind. Just there still half asleep another Neithling, a woman snugged in the covers. He looked towards her and whispered:

‘Leress, sister, wake up.’, she seemed to move but no sign of really hearing her brothers voice. Taking a bit of snow in the hand he freed from under the covers, he threw it hitting her head.

‘Damn cold!’, she spoke, while opening her eyes slowly.

‘Leress, wake up, quickly!’

‘Rhone, what the hell are you doing? Don’t you see that I’m trying to get some rest for tomorrow?’, she replied with a half asleep voice.

‘Wake up now, sister. Didn’t you hear that sound?’

“What…’, but just as she was finishing her sentence, another blow, this time more intense.

Rhone started to gather his energy and to stand, with the baby in his hands and his body half still frozen by the cold, from a missed evening of getting some rest and by the pain caused by the loss of Yerean. He looked down at his sister, then towards where the sound came from. In the meantime, others stood up and Rohne could see them better now when up on his feet himself while the multitude of the group was still and sleeping soundly.

‘What kind of sound was that?’, Leress asked with a soft voice.

‘I don’t know sister…’, he stopped. Looking up, he started to see in the darkness of the skies above them, a huge white rounded object, similar to the belly of a round tree, cutting through the clouds towards the ground, when… another blow, this time even more intense because closer, happened.

‘Trees falling from the sky! What in hell is this?’, now something like a few hundred feet away from him, his sister and the tail of the group of Neiths wandering in the Wilderness, stood a massive white column that seemed to be covered in a thick level of some kind of fur. Everyone now began to awake, starting to gather their energy and standing up, who faster who slower, depending on how tired they were.

’What is that brother?”, she half screamed towards him.

‘Is that a…’, Rohne murmured, eyes wide, looking at the strange object that just collapsed from the low grey sky.

Some screams started to come from where the majority of the group was concentrated. Rohne approached quickly his sister, handing her the baby born.

‘Take her, Leress. I need to go there and see what is going on.’ The screams began to multiply.

‘Screw that.’, she replied almost angered.

’Don’t be stupid. I just want to check what’s going on. You stay here and I will be back as soon as possible.

And if something bad is going on, we better know it, so to know how far we must run.’

‘And what if something’s going to happen to you?’, she asked while grabbing the little creature from his arms.

’You are a mother of three already and the strongest Neithess I know. Thrader, she is very strong as well. I am not leaving my daughter with weak strangers.’, he then covered himself the best he could with the cloak he had on his shoulders, and headed towards where the screams seemed to increase. She looked around her, searching for Thrader, her partner and she saw her figure in the dark a few feet away trying to wake up their three youngsters.

Leresse’s long pale red hair was tied up slightly on a side showing her pointy ears; she was slightly smaller than her brother, and even if slimmer than probably she was used to be, her face remained stern and robust. Turning her head to see where he was, she couldn’t see him anymore. But when turning her gaze towards Thrader, she saw a grey figure approaching her in the darkness, from behind. A shiny light sparkled followed by a deaf sound.

‘Thrader!’, Leress screamed half losing her voice. She started to run towards her with the new born still in her arms. She looked over to her own three children standing there around the Neithess laying on the ground, half covered by the cloak she was wearing and the grey creature with a long glamming blade in the night, watching them all.

‘Threod, Remor…’ but she got interrupted while calling her children by the loud screaming of the creature in a violent foreign language. This creature dressed a vest, and what seemed a light metal armour that almost made its silhouette get confused with the surrounding environment; it was a bit taller than she was, wearing the helmet on what it seemed to be the head, covered by a brown hood. It kept screaming towards her, indicating with the other hand towards her children.

‘No, no, don’t… please.’, Leress screamed again towards the creature. This indicated to the centre of the group of Neiths, where the screams seemed to get now less loud and more sporadic. Then it screamed again briefly.

‘Yes, yes, no problem… boys, come to me, now.’. They quickly rounded up around her, and then all together started to walk towards where the other Neiths were being rounded up by other creatures. Leress hoped she would see her brother, Rohne there.

‘Remor, is Thrader dead?’, she asked her son. He lifted his eyes towards her, full of terror, and she understood.

She was gone.

‘Who are these people, mother?’, the other kid asked her softly.

‘I have no idea, son.’ They reached a large group of Neiths, surrounded by all sides by the grey armoured creatures, that now stood more than a hundred, in the middle of the freezing cold snow, while the sun began to raise.

A few of these approached the large group to talk to them, maybe to find out if anyone could understand them.

A Neith, one called Challar, approached them and seemed to have a vague idea of what they were saying, being able to translate. They confabulated for a bit, then Challar turned towards the large group of Neiths:

‘Listen, listen.’, he screamed, while everyone started to slowly turn towards him.

‘Who the hell are these people? And what do they want from us Challar?’, one from the multitude screamed.

Leress eyes were caught by some of the grey figures pointing to the large group taking notice of the one who spoke.

‘Listen now.’, Challar screamed again,’ these are soldiers of the Kingdom of Areton. That there, is their leader, Maergh. He told me that he is here to take care of us, and that they decided to bring us into their city.’

‘Where is this city? We haven’t seen a living being in who knows how many winters?’, another voice screamed from the crowd.

‘That’s because the cities of their kingdom are not build on soil. But on the backs of giants.’, Challar said pointing his finger towards the sky.