Chapter 470: Hauke’s Stars
For Hauke, time seemed to pass incredibly slowly in the aftermath of the battle. Trapped in the frozen cave of his own mind, it seemed like his struggles were utterly futile against Eraric’s sorcery. The ancestor most famed for the constructs he birthed from Eternal Ice hadn’t held back when he retaliated against Hauke for the young lord’s interference in the battle against Ashlynn.
Now, with his hands and feet frozen in place, after what felt like hours of struggling even if it had only been dozens of minutes, the captive Frost Walker finally gave up in his struggles against the ice that held him captive. No matter how much strength he expended, it seemed like the ice only grew thicker in response to his struggles. If he wanted to defeat the ice and free himself from the prison within his own mind, he would have to outthink it rather than overpowering it.
In the world outside, Erkembalt and Aspakos carefully transferred the young Frost Walker to a litter in order to carry him into the castle. While there were times when everything should be left exactly in place before disturbing anything that might have been an important part of a ritual, Hauke’s circumstances amounted to battlefield injuries and the best thing to do would be to take him somewhere out of the cold.
Or at least, that’s what the two sorcerers told themselves as they hurried into the shelter and relative warmth of the icy fortress. Nothing in this frozen world could ever be called ’warm’ but at least with shelter, they could escape the biting mountain winds that sliced through their clothing like countless freezing needles.
"Do you want me to examine him, old friend?" Aspakos said once they’d been guided to a cell in which they could do their work. "I can still do at least that much."
"Can you?" Erkembalt said as he sat a heavy leather case on a nearby table and began pulling out tools, neatly arranging them on the table as he gathered his thoughts about the curse that seemed to have taken hold of the young Frost Walker. "That bloody aura of yours won’t taint the work?"
The artificer paused in his preparations, looking at his dark-feathered friend with eyes that barely concealed the pain he felt behind a layer of professional skepticism. In the days since their reunion, he’d seen how often Aspakos restrained himself from what should have been simple, ordinary actions because of the smothering aura of crimson darkness that had settled over him.
When Aspakos said that his hands could no longer hold the tools of their trade, he’d been understating the limitations he suffered for attempting to use sorcery meant for the founder of their order alone. It wasn’t only the tools of creation that he’d been forbidden from, even common cutlery, forks, and spoons were impossible for his taloned hands to hold.
Weapons, however... nothing prevented the sorcerer with a broken beak from picking up weapons, as if the only power left to him was the power of destruction.