The Battle of the Winter Song

"Temo! Take your brother to the basement and hide there!" A handsome man, the kid's father, in his thirties and his wife run into the snowy battlefield as arrow volleys fill the sky and bombard any building or defending forces that dare stand its ground. Temo grabbed his brother, Alexen, and rushed to his family's basement. He held his dear little brother tight as screams of dying soldiers and canon fire rang from the surface.

This was a fight for their survival.

The Glacials were fierce fighters, being blessed by the goddess Glacia with an incredible ability to produce ice from their fingertips and palms to decimate their foes. They lived in harmony with humans in the land of Humania, the birthplace of humans. The Glacials and humans lived together, hunted together, and laughed together. But as time went by, the wretched humans grew to hate their allies. They feared and were jealous of their talent in hunting and killing, and wanted them gone.

Every Glacial to walk the streets were stoned to near death by the overwhelming number of humans gathered. But of course they wouldn't stand there, they fought back. The result of that was an immense amount of tension being set between the two species, to the point where all Glacials were exiled to their home island, Glacia. The humans wanted to be the dominant race, so they sent a warning to the Glacial by invading and killing one-fourth of all the Glacial population there. This was the battle of the Winter Song.

Alexen was one of the many young Glacial to experience such a devastating event. He never experienced any combat or any sort of violence, only the ancient Glacial techniques his parents and grandparents taught him. Yet he witnessed hundreds of bodies of his own blood fall to the ground dead as arrows shredded through Glacial defense, only at the age of ten. Him and his brother fled to the basement, only looking back to see the snow painted red.

"Shh, it's okay. Mom and Dad will surely take care of the bad guys." Temo held Alexen on his lap as he shook in fear, curled up in a sort of fetal position." "You think so?" Temo patted his dear little brother on the head and let out a relieving smile. "Of course!" Of course he was just saying to comfort his brother. On the inside, he too was filled with fear and worries. His conscious kept repeating "What if Mom and Dad never come back?" Temo also felt like crying, but didn't dare show weakness or doubt to his brother.

After a while of fighting between the humans and the glacials, it suddenly became quiet. "Perhaps the fighting stopped?" The two brother thought. In a moments notice, creaking footsteps going down the wooden staircase began to ring closer towards the brother. "Temo! Mom and Dad came back!" Alexen rose up and began to head towards the front of stairs. He assumed it was their parents. Temo grabbed Alexen's tunic collar and pulled him back beside him."

The steps grew louder and more aggressive the closer the person got to the boys. In seconds, the person reached the bottom and was now walking into the basement. "Get behind me." Temo ordered of Alexen. Alexen immediately jumped behind his older brother.

The person revealed himself to the brothers, a tall and muscular human soldier. He boasted his bronze chest plate, his iron helmet, and his long yet sturdy iron broadsword. He slid his sword out of its sheath and reached for his shiny shield and held them in front of the young Glacials. "I'd hate to kill a bunch o' youngin', but y'all are still Glacials, nothin' I can do 'bout it."

As the soldier reached for his weapons, Temo began preparations. His hands began to take on a slight light blue tint as cold air circulated around them. Unlike Alexen, Temo has had a bit of combat experience which is somewhat uncommon for a sixteen year old like him. He's fought a human before although it was someone his age. But this is different battle, he's up against a huge muscle head of an adult human. He was no match for this brute.

The man rushed at Temo with a swing from his sword intended to decapitated him, but Temo dodged to the man's right." He was effectively trying to lure the soldier away from Alexen. He then coated his arm in thick ice to act as armor. "Come at me!" He taunted the soldier. The soldier turned to the right, then went for an uppercut strike with his sword, but Temo's arm stood firm. As soon as the sword made contact with Temo's arm, the ice on it spread to hilt and caused the sword to be stuck on the man's hand. Temo then followed up by delivering a powerful rib-snapping kick to the blade and sent it hurdling towards the wooden floor. The sword went right through the wood, seemingly becoming stuck.

Then Temo touched the blade, causing the ice to freeze the sword to the ground with the soldiers hand still stuck to it. It was virtually impossible for the blade to be dislodged now. The soldier is a sitting duck now that he's stuck with the sword. Knowing this, Temo produced a thick and sharp icicle and shot it right at the man's forehead.

"You know, my son loves to play in the snow and ice," Called out the man. "I'm no stranger to the cold or to the ice." He lifted up his shield with inhuman speed and deflected the icicle, sending it ricocheting around the room and up the stairs. He then lifted his other arm, flexing his muscly biceps, and broke the ice that previously restrained his arm although he was not able to free his sword.

Instead, he pulled out a long dagger that was sheathed in his shield began to laugh hysterically. "Your ice is weak compared to all the other Glacials I've fought." Temo looked at him with fear as the soldier menacingly cracks his neck and is advancing closer to him. He needed to remove the shield from such a solid warrior.

Then he suddenly had an idea, but it was risky. The soldier suddenly became more defensive, leaving Temo to play on the offensive. He formed two long and sharp icicles and held one on each hand, and charged at the man. The soldier took a battle stance as if he were fighting a capable adult. He parried the man's dagger and used the other icicle to pry the shield out of the human's beafy forearms. He kicked the man's arm that was holding the dagger, which caused the arm jerk back resulting in a little more time for him to counterattack before the dagger comes back to strike him.

He utilized both icicles and managed to flip around the shield and knock it into the air. As fast as lightning, Temo commanded a stream of ice to catch the shield and freeze it in place. The shield was now stuck on a pedestal of ice in the middle of a wooden basement.

"My shield!" The man cried as he rushed to retrieve it, dagger ready to slash.

Temo stood behind the ice pedestal with the shield on top, and broke into a small smirk. He kicked the shield with all his might and it launched at the soldier like a bullet. The shield flew right into the soldier's gut, knocking the wind out of him. The human knelt before the young glacial, almost certain of his defeat. Temo didn't show any mercy. He charged up yet another icicle and fired it at the human's forehead yet again. This time it hit.

Blood streamed down his head, but the soldier didn't fall. Instead, he began laughing. "Hahaha! I thought I'd die from your ice. Guess I was right. It was too weak. Couldn't even kill me with one blow." The soldier then swiped at Temo 's right eye with his dagger and he fell to the ground, squealing in pain. Blood squirted out from his gash and his right eye was no longer useable as it had been chopped in half. His scream was ugly and painful as he rolled around in searing and unimaginable pain

The man then began to approach Alexen, who was held up against a corner.

"I'll let your brother suffer while I kill you." He whispered softly into Alexen's small and fragile eardrums. Alexen stood there, his legs were like spaghetti and his throat tightened. He didn't want to die, no one did. "You've got to kill him!" Yelled Temo as he attempted to suppress the pain.

The man approached the young glacial, giving him a deathly stare as he licked the blood of his brother off his sword. "I'm going to enjoy this." Alexen, shaken by the fear of death, began to charge up an ice attack. The room suddenly grew cold as the shivering air swelled around his arms. He produced an icicle and tried to aim it at the man, but couldn't.

His arms felt like weights and his legs were as weak as twigs, he could hardly stand. Alexen couldn't fire the icicle, he couldn't dare to take another person's life, after all he was only ten years old. He stood there frozen in his place, troubled by his dying brother in his field of view.

"If…If my brother's ice can't kill him…what chance do I have?" Alexen just stood there in defeat, waiting to get struck down.

The brute of a human walked parallel to him and swung his long and deadly sword at the boy. But the soldier suddenly stopped in his tracks, and an icicle emerged right through his chest, piercing his heart. The man's body hit the floor as his eyes became more bland from being drained of all of his blood. Another glacial, around his late twenties, was standing on the stairs, hand aimed at the soldier.

"Thank god I found you two," he sighed in relief. His voice was deep yet comforting to the boys. Alexen ran up and tackled him into a tight hug. "Thank you Uncle Nion." He patted the boy on the back, then rushed to Temo who was barely conscious. "You did your best kid." Nion picked up Temo and held him on his back, Alexen following closely behind.

The group of glacials walked up the wooden and chipped up stairs and out of the house. Alexen looked around to see the bodies of his fellow comrades and enemy soldiers face first in the snow. He tugged on Nion's robes. "Is the battle over?" He turned to look at the endless amount of bodies laying on the ground. "Yeah, we managed to drive them away, but not without taking an insane amount of casualties."

Nion then traveled to the nearest medic office and dropped off Temo to be treated. Him and Alexen walked around the land, witnessing the aftermath of this bloody battle. Then it hit Alexen. Where are his parents? His head began to hurt and he held back tears from flowing out of his eyes.

"I don't know if that really happened to them." He kept on repeating to himself. Then him and Nion turned the corner to find a large open field with scores of dead humans filling it.

At the very end were two glacial corpses. Alexen dropped to his knees, crying his eyes out.

"No! No! No! Please! Don't be dead!" He began stroking his dead parents' frozen hair with white ends. They laid dead among hundreds of dead human soldiers. Alexen laid by their bodies, pouring his soul out to them. Although Nion seemed calm, he whispered something under his breath.

"If only those damn Beastial reinforcements came."

"Hey," he called out to Alexen softly. "Your parents were true heroes. Look at all this." He pointed to overwhelming amount of dead soldiers. "Those two alone killed hundreds of soldiers to protect us, to protect you. If it wasn't for them, we would have surely lost. But it's okay, I'll take care of you guys from now on. It's the wish your parents brought to me."

Alexen wiped his tears then hugged Nion with an even tighter hold. "Tell me stories about my parents later." He said softly and as innocent as baby bird in it's nest.

The two then headed to the glacial barrack, as Nion had to report there and Alexen was as curious as ever and wanted to come along. Inside the barracks, the military was in disarray and panic began to ensue.

"We went through nearly seventy percent of our manpower, there's no way we can fight off another invasion of that size," one man relayed to the general who was sitting at his desk.

"What should we do?" The general sat in his chair, listening to his officers, then nodded his head.

"The best option is trying to make a non aggression pact with them." The whole room was in awe.

"What?!"

"Let me explain," he said. "The motive, at least from what I understand, is that they attacked us out of fear of our unique abilities and that we'll attack them first and take over as the supreme species. If we pledge we'd do not such thing and even suggest to have a non aggression pact where we'll stay out of their business and them staying out of ours, we should be able to keep the peace at least temporarily."

And so it was agreed upon. In just a couple days, the general sent messengers to relay their solution to the king of Humania, King Maine. He so ever nicknames his glorious nation the "Mainland" as homage to his own name.

The messengers arrived to the land of Humania, yet they were not let into the nation. Instead they handed the solution and proposition to the royal guards protecting the border, and they in turn handed it to the king who sat and his golden crested thrown with the name "Maine" engraved at the top of the throne. He stroked his jet black beard, the same color of his heart, as he read the letter.

The king nodded his head in acceptance. "This will have to do, for now." He sent his response back to the glacials.

"Sir, if I may ask, why did you except such an offer?" asked a young royal maid.

"Well, my son was in the battle of The Wintersong. I'm just glad he came back alive, 'cause if he fell to Glacial soldiers, there's no way I would've accepted an offer like this." He then got up out of his throne and swept off any dust on his red cloak with a green accent. His hands were huge, yet soft from lack of hard work. "Someone get me some black tea!" He demanded.

The human messenger sent to Glacia to relay the king's decision rode out on horseback, being escorted by two knights who both carried razor sharp broadswords at their sides. His brown cloak frolicked in the wind as him and the knights rode swiftly through the land and out the border. As soon as they passed through the border over to Glacia, the temperature of the land suddenly dropped drastically. It was freezing cold. Upon arrival at the border, five Glacials stopped them.

"What business do you have here?" All the Glacials began to create icicles, just in case. The messenger back off and his heart began to beat as fast as an eagle in flight. Both knights gripped their sword sheaths.

"Uhm, we… we're here to relay a reply our king gave to the message you Glacials sent us." He said tightly gripping his cloak, his hands shaking. Perhaps out of fear or the cold?

"Oh, we've been expecting a reply, come in." The Glacial guards let the humans go, but two of them continued to follow them from behind all the way to the capital city of Glacia which is named Eiraco. Unlike Humania, Glacia is a military run government, meaning that the majority of citizens are raised to become soldiers or fighters and the general is the leading figure of the country, comparable to that of a king. Eiraco was the location of the infamous "Battle of the Wintersong" and is also where the big military and government officials are located.

The messenger and his knights arrived at the capital and were met by an elite Glacial soldier.

"Get off your horses," he called to the group. They all hopped off and followed him to the barracks. On the way there, Glacials repairing the damages from the recent battle began to stare at them menacingly as well as the soldiers roaming the streets.

The Glacial and the humans trotted through the snow as they got closer to the barracks. The elite Glacial skillfully strolled through the snow with ease, wherelse the messenger and his knights struggled to do so.

After a couple of minutes of walking down the capital city, they finally reached the barracks, but the elite soldier stopped them.

"Sorry, I can't let you in, so please hand me the reply." The messenger pulled out a large piece of paper from his coat and handed it to him. The Glacial grabbed the paper aggressively then walked inside, leaving the three humans outside under surveillance from guards.

The elite raised the paper in the air and waved it all around. "We got a response!" he yelled, and cheering was soon to follow. Many Glacials in their wooden chairs shouted and whistled, while other tossed their hat in joy.

"Let me see that paper, son" The general snatched the paper from his hands then began to read it a lightning speed. "Boys, they agreed with our suggestion. No more war!" Everybody shouted in the air yet again.

"For now."

Immediately afterwards, a loud banging could be heard on the walls and loud screaming rang out through the barracks from the outside.