The Ice Captain's camp was never quiet — but this afternoon, it thrummed with electric anticipation.
Energy crackled through the ranks like wildfire, igniting every face with a fierce light. Laughter burst from tired soldiers like long-overdue thunder. Shouted orders cut through the crisp air, mingling with the relentless clatter of boots on stone. Morale hadn't soared this high in weeks — perhaps even months.
The reinforcements had arrived at last. Three hundred warriors strong.
Fresh faces. Shining weapons. The scent of new steel and unspent fury. They marched in like a promise — of strength, of momentum, of something finally turning in their favor. And with them came whispers, quick and eager.
War with Vandera.
Not another patrol. Not border skirmishes in the snow.
War.
The word sliced through the camp's daily rhythm like a drawn blade — swift, cold, undeniable. It was the kind of war that broke nations, tested legends, and soaked battlefields in the blood of both the proud and the nameless.
Captain Drummond stood apart from the surge of activity, his cloak rippling in the wind, his eyes fixed on the horizon as if he could already see the fires to come.
At his side stood three new captains — men of experience, each bearing their own scars, pride, and purpose. Their presence marked a turning point. Reinforcements, yes — but also witnesses. Rivals. Soldiers of rank, now under his command.
Because Captain Drummond was no longer merely the Ice Captain.
He had been named Captain Commander.
There was no ceremony. No banner raised. Just the weight of the title resting on his shoulders like fresh armor — familiar, yet newly burdensome.
And not all agreed with the decision.
Captain Gyas — lean, sharp-eyed, quick with both blade and suspicion — believed the appointment was politics at its finest. Drummond had the right bloodline, the right look, the right connections. Noble strings pulled tight behind palace curtains. Gyas, himself born of lesser lineage, masked his scorn behind courtesy — but his silences spoke volumes.
Captain Farek, on the other hand, wore no mask. A hulking presence with a voice that could rally broken men and ice magic that had frozen warbands mid-charge, he had earned every stripe on his armor. To him, Drummond's promotion wasn't scandalous — it was expected. And maybe, just maybe, deserved. Still, Farek couldn't help but remember the Black Wastes. How he had bled beside Drummond. How close he'd come to death more than once to make that legend possible.
If anyone deserved command, it was the man who had built victories from ruin.
Him.
Rumor had it the Flame Emperor himself once offered Drummond a general's banner — and that Drummond had refused.
He claimed he preferred the front lines.
Some called it humility. Others, stubborn pride.
Captain Licera — ever silent, ever measured — said nothing at all. His face betrayed no opinion. He cared little for titles or rivalries. To him, wars were equations: pieces, positions, outcomes. If Captain Drummond could win battles, he would follow. If not — he would adjust.
Simple.
But simplicity could not erase the growing tension between them.
Three captains. Three minds. One chain of command.
And at the top of that chain now stood a man made of frost and fire. A man they all watched — for different reasons.
Because when they marched toward Vandera, there would be no room for grudges.
Only the unbroken would survive.
"I'm sure you've all been briefed on what comes next," Drummond drawled, his voice smooth and slow like melting ice over steel. He didn't raise it. He didn't need to. It carried, laced with quiet authority and the kind of amusement that made men uncomfortable.
The captains turned to him, eyes sharp, unreadable.
He could read through their silence. Years on the battlefield had taught him that men often spoke louder with clenched jaws than open mouths. And right now, he could feel the heat boiling off Gyas like a forge fire — all bottled rage and noble resentment. But Gyas said nothing.
Not yet.
Drummond's gaze drifted lazily over the table, then back out to the tent flaps, where the wind stirred. He exhaled slowly, a faint fog in the cold air.
"I didn't ask for the title," he continued, tone as casual as a man describing the weather. "But the bastards in velvet cloaks think I wear it well. So here we are."
"We are to drag the witches out of their nests," Captain Farek growled, folding his arms. His thick gauntlets groaned against the steel of his vambraces.
Drummond's lips quirked into something resembling a smile — or maybe just a smirk with frostbite.
"I wouldn't have put it quite so... poetically," he said, dragging the words out like smoke from a pipe. "But yes, that's the order."
Silence settled for a heartbeat — then Farek's voice sliced back in.
"All this… over Belanor Thor'don," he spat, "and that demon boy he's hiding."
"The Fire Skeleton of Tar," Gyas muttered darkly, his eyes narrowed. "The stories are spreading like rot through the Empire. I passed through Tar on my way here — or what's left of it.Tar's not a ruin — it's a warning. It was burned almost out of existence."
"You think it was just a rumor?" Licera said quietly, folding his hands behind his back. "From the reports I've read, Tar wasn't merely attacked. It was erased. And if Belanor and the boy are holed up in Vandera... we'll find out what erased it soon enough."
"Oh, they're there," Drummond said, almost lazily, his tone coiling with cold promise. He leaned back just slightly, hands behind his back, eyes half-lidded. "And if the tales are true — if this demon breathes fire and pisses brimstone — I'd love to see how long he lasts once I seal him in a proper ice prison."
The corners of his mouth curled slightly.
"Let's see what burns hotter — his hellfire, or the Wastes that made me."
"I'd love to dance with the Guildmistress," Gyas said with a low, bitter chuckle, his eyes gleaming like a blade half-drawn. "Just once."
Captain Farek snorted, amusement thick in his voice. His face twisted into something between a grimace and a grin — more tusk than teeth. "Virelle?" he asked. "No offense, Gyas, but you really ought to look in a mirror before dreaming out loud."
Licera allowed himself the faintest smile — a ghost of expression that vanished as quickly as it came.
Drummond didn't even blink. He sat motionless, legs crossed at the knee, the pipe balanced between his fingers. A single stream of smoke curled lazily upward, untouched by the wind.
"I'll dance with you right now, Farek," Gyas snapped, the humor gone from his voice. His hand twitched near his belt. "Keep running your mouth and I'll step on your damned neck."
"I think I'll pass," Farek replied, his tone flat, but his eyes suddenly very sharp. "I don't like getting stepped on. And last I heard, folks in Cromos say you've got two left feet — and no rhythm."
Gyas's expression turned lethal. His eyes narrowed to slits, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscle jumped in his cheek. Rage simmered just beneath the surface, sharp and ugly, like a drawn bowstring ready to snap.
"Break it off," snapped Captain Commander Drummond, the lazy drawl gone from his voice like the sun snuffed behind clouds. His tone cracked through the tent like a whip.
A sudden chill swept through the air — quiet, but sharp as a blade across skin. The pipe in Drummond's hand froze over with a delicate lace of frost.
The other captains felt it immediately. That pressure. The hum of something ancient and cold rising from beneath Drummond's calm — the first breath of a coming storm.
They had all seen what he could do when truly angered.
And none of them — not Farek, not Gyas, not even stoic Licera — could match him in that state.
Tension drained from the room like blood from a fresh wound. Gyas stepped back, the fury in his face vanishing into a carefully neutral scowl. Farek exhaled slowly and folded his arms.
"We are not going to have a war before the war," Drummond said, his voice returning to its usual icy calm, but his eyes still burning with quiet warning.
Licera — quiet, unreadable Licera — spoke up, his gaze sweeping from one captain to the next.
"Vandera will not be a soft target," he said simply.
He paused, watching their faces, gauging their silence.
"It's not just Virelle or Belanor we're marching against. Vandera is a guild — a fortress of trained mages, and they've prepared for this day for a long time."
"They'll fight back," Drummond added. "Even if we catch them off guard, they won't die easy. They'll throw everything they have at us."
"We have four hundred men," Gyas said, recovering some edge to his voice. "And what do they have? Barely twenty?"
Drummond looked at him flatly.
"Belanor alone wiped out fifteen of my best," he said, each word heavy with memory. "And I'm convinced he wasn't even using half of what he's capable of."
He looked toward the table, his fingers slowly tightening on the edge.
"The skeleton boy erased a village. Not burned it. Erased it. And we still know nothing about what kind of mage he truly is."
Farek grunted, but it didn't carry confidence. "So what are you saying, Commander? That we might lose?"
Drummond's gaze rose. Cold. Clear. Commanding.
"No," he said. "I'm saying I want every one of you at your sharpest when we march. No arrogance. No excuses. No mistakes."
He let the silence stretch.
"No underestimations. No slacking. Brace yourselves for the worst, captains. This won't be a battle — it'll be a reckoning."
His words settled like snowfall on stone. The tension in the air didn't break — it froze. Each captain absorbed his meaning, their eyes reflecting the weight of the coming march.
Then Drummond stood. Slowly. Deliberately. The pipe, now extinguished and rimmed in frost, clinked as he set it aside.
"I'll be at my best too," he said, voice low but cutting. "Because when the gates of Vandera fall, I'm not stopping with Belanor."
He raised his eyes to meet theirs, and for a brief moment, they saw not just the man — but the storm he carried.
"I'm going to freeze the whole damned mountain."
His face showed no anger. No satisfaction. Only resolve — carved in ice and fire, unflinching as the Wastes that made him.