The Shield Bearer

Chapter 18

"Do you really mean to seek out the frost elves?" Lawrence asked Rene as he finished the last of his breakfast.

Rene nodded. She wanted to ask him to come with her. But she was hesitant to ask such a thing of him. Her gut told her, that this journey would be dangerous. There was a good chance, that her birth mother would be trying to find and thwart her, even now.

"Then you will need my help." Lawrence put his plate away and walked over to grab his heavy winter cloak. "I have lived in the northlands all of my life. If anybody can help you find them, it will be me." He grabbed his travel bag and slung it across his shoulders. "Besides, I can't have just any burly old barbarian that you might meet, trying to steal you away, before I even have a chance." He flashed her a mischievous smile.

Relief at his offer, brought a big smile to Rene's face. "Don't worry. The only burly old barbarian that has a chance with me, is you." Rene couldn't resist the jab, at his age. He was nearly forty years old, though he didn't look any older than Rene did. She seemed to recall that Adam never seemed to age, either.

He pulled his face into a fierce expression at her jab."If I'm old, then so are you." He strapped a fine quality longsword to his belt. "As I recall, your birthday is before mine." Lastly, he slung his bow and quiver of arrows over his left shoulder. "Is that really all that you are wearing out there?"

His comment on her rather light gear of basic clothing and a furred cloak, made her smile again. "This kept me plenty warm enough on my journey here. I'm sure that you noticed that I wasn't suffering from exposure, when you rescued me. It was exhaustion that got me."

"Yea...that's a hard one to understand. Winter up here, is hard on the hardiest of us. Don't be surprised if you get some very strange looks, if we meet anybody else along the way." He shook his head as he turned and finished snuffing the fires that had been keeping the cave warm.

Rene was about to summon some light for them, but was beaten to the draw by Lawrence. A fist size globe of golden light appeared over his left shoulder, providing as much light as a torch. He was grinning that wicked grin of his. "Did you think that you were the only one, with talent around here?"

There was no suitable response that Rene could come up with, so she just didn't say anything.

Lawrence nodded. "Thought so. Shall we go?" They set out, down the maze of winding passages that lead to the wide open mouth of the cave.

Within hours, Rene was relieved that she hadn't decided to make this journey alone. Lawrence told her, that the frost elves lived on the other side of the mountain range. Which meant that they had some serious climbing to do.

During her training, Rene and the other trainees were required to scale a number of manmade structures, meant to simulate mountainsides. But she quickly learned that the real thing was much harder to manage.

Luckily, Lawrence had a knack for finding the safest foot and hand holds. As long as she followed him, directly, she didn't have to deal with the occasional loose rock, that could have sent her tumbling down the mountain and to her likely death. When the rock face became nearly sheer, Lawrence pulled out rope and tied her to him. She held her own, but he didn't want to risk her slipping.

The storm had passed by the time they had set out, granting them some good weather, by northern standards, to climb in. A light snow was falling, with breaks of cold wind. But Rene's apparent immunity to the cold was proving to be a permanent thing. As she climbed, she wondered if it had anything to do with her being frozen for two decades. Maybe the frost elves could explain it better. Astra did say that they had answers for her. She just didn't know what questions they would answer. She had so many.