The Dichotomy of Cold Hearts

[Cydnar]

The Dichotomy of Cold Hearts

[Cydnar]

Salvar’s landscape changed with each season’s passing. Earthquakes remoulded the cliffs and plateaus. Snowfall eroded the plains. The howling wind made tracking near impossible. Its citizens only called it home because they knew nothing else, and few that travelled there returned in a hurry. Over two thousand years ago, it had been to these inhospitable borders that the first of the Hummel had fled. Millennia later, they came once more seeking shelter from those who meant them harm.

Cydnar grew to like it, though his brother still saw dead trees and permafrost. The priest put it down to the impetuousness of youth, and the soldier’s prevalence for the faith he had in the old ways – ways his people now had to remember, but move on to pastures new.

“I can see the caravan.”

Atop a rocky outcrop, the duo stood side by side with the wind on their backs and the dark grey clouds swirling overhead. Somewhere, long forgotten, the sun promised warmth Salvar would not accept. In winter’s throng, twilight was day, and night a cold and forbidding nightmare.

“It’s on schedule,” Dalasi replied, when he set his sights on the trail of wagons on the horizon.

Another procession of building suppliers, labourers, and refugees coming to stake their claim on the ruins of Knife’s Edge. There, they would find work, comfort, and a promise of a new life in the reformed Senate. Like the Hummel, the Salvarian people found themselves in desperate times and without a god to pray to. The symmetry gave Cydnar hope. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could use those similarities to bargain for a home of their own.

“We should arrive after nightfall. We can use the wagon’s arrival as cover to meet with our associates in The Wicked Sister.”

Although a carefully calculated plan, neither Dalasi nor Cydnar expected to gain entry to the city without incident. Knife’s Edge was a literal and metaphorical name. Despite recent improvements in its political and social climate, you could find yourself at the end of a blade for simple things: living, talking, and breathing.

“Let’s try not to upset the locals this time,” Dalasi said forlorn. He sourly remembered their past misadventures into the capital.

Cydnar smiled, and then pulled up his hood. They advanced, seemingly reading one another’s thoughts, and approached the cliff’s north face. They bent at the knee, and leapt. Crystalline discs appeared a few feet beneath them, carried by Cydnar’s progeny with geomancy so they descended the steep drop on violet halos of quartz.

“Nazreen!”

Cydnar’s command brought the discs to a sudden stop, and the Hummel stepped off the crystal and sank half a foot into the pristine snowfall. Protected by the proximity to the ground, the silence overwhelmed them. At the cliff’s feet, the wind became a distant memory. Sheering himself up for a long walk, Cydnar produced a sword cane from its place on his right hip and began to trudge ahead.

“You drew your sword first,” Cydnar smiled mischievously.