The bite of the winter wind cut straight through Yongyee's thin cloth coat as he stood shivering on the vast, frozen Nuazas River.
Behind him, sprawling across the valley floor, thousands of Magoli soldier tents sat stationed at the base of Mount Mophia, their sharp peaks facing the distant stone walls of Ngabo—the prisoners' stolen home. His own captive soldiers huddled together for warmth on the ice, their hands free to work, but their ankles bound by heavy iron shackle chains that clinked frozenly with every shuddering step. Along the riverbank, looming watchtowers built by their occupiers cast long, dark shadows across the snow. Packed with Magoli archers, their notched arrows stood ready to strike down any man who gave even the slightest hint of escape.
The gray dawn crawled across the sky, casting a pale, cold light over the sheet of ice at Yongyee's feet. With numb, calloused hands, he gripped his long pine staff—its tip capped with heavy, hand-forged iron—and raised it high against the biting mist of his own breath.
He brought the heavy iron down.
A dull thud echoed across the river, splintering the brittle surface. A sharp crack split the morning silence like a thunderclap, and a pool of ink-black, freezing water bubbled up through the wound. Down below, small silver fish began to swirl toward the sudden light—a desperate lifeline for starving prisoners trapped between the freezing depths and the bows of their conquerors.
As Yongyee and his men continued fracturing the frozen surface, the loud, snapping echoes of the cracking ice caused the fleeing civilians on the opposite bank to emerge from their temporary huts. They scrambled out into the cold to investigate, gripped by the terrifying fear that the river had finally frozen solid enough for the Magoli army to march across and hunt them down.
Squinting through the gray mist, Yongyee felt a sudden, violent jolt of recognition strike his chest.
The desperate, hollow-eyed faces emerging from those ramshackle shelters belonged to the very same civilians who had fled Ngabo during the brutal summer siege. His eyes frantically swept across the distant crowd, completely ignoring the biting cold as he searched for two specific faces—his missing daughter and young son, who had vanished into the chaos of the retreat.
He remembered the horror of that season so vividly: the thick black smoke rising over the burning walls, the screams of panicking crowds, and the agonizing moment he was ripped away from them as families broke through the gates to escape the invading horde.
Now, separated only by a treacherous sheet of river ice, those same survivors stared back across the winter wasteland. They were entirely unaware that the man shattering the ice was their own fallen defender—desperately scanning their ragged ranks for his children while forced to harvest fish for his captors.
On the far bank, the huddled refugees began to whisper among themselves, their anxious mutterings floating softly through the frigid air. For a long while, they stood in the snow, watching the long line of several hundred men laboring on the river, their eyes fixed on the heavy iron-capped staffs rising and falling against the white expanse.
As the sharp cracks echoed and pools of dark water bubbled up, the truth slowly dawned on the crowd: the men standing on the frozen river were not an advancing war party. They were ice fishing.
Among the ramshackle huts, hungry fathers and sons exchanged glances, their hollow eyes filling with the exact same desperate thought. They looked at the frozen middle of the river, then turned their gaze toward the high timber watchtowers, where Magoli archers stood silently against the gray sky, bows in hand.
A quiet whisper passed from lip to lip among the starving families: If we walk out toward the middle of the river to fish beside them... will the Magoli arrows rain down on us?
"Hey," one man whispered, motioning with his hand to gather a small group of refugees into a tight circle behind the huts. "I suggest we send someone out onto the river to see if the Magoli archers will shoot."
"That's suicide," another man hissed back, shaking his head. "Who in their right mind is going to volunteer for that?"
"Besides," a middle-aged father interjected softly, his eyes darting toward the river. "Those prisoners are already hacking away at the frozen surface. Who knows if the ice is even thick enough to support more weight? If anyone falls into that black water, it's an instant death sentence."
A cold, sly grin spread across the face of the first man as he looked around at the desperate fathers surrounding him.
"Who said anything about volunteering ourselves?" he murmured, a wicked smile creeping across his features. "We send the orphaned children across first."
The men around him froze, staring at him in stunned silence.
"Children are light," the man continued smoothly, his eyes gleaming with ruthless logic. "And children without parents... well, if the ice breaks or an arrow flies, who is going to miss them? Unless..."
"Unless what?" one father demanded, his voice tight.
"Unless you'd rather volunteer your own children," the wicked man replied, his smile widening as the silence fell dead and heavy over the circle.
The gathered fathers shook their heads in muted discomfort, but before anyone could object, a group of about thirty young children wandered toward the riverbank, drawn by the crowd. A cold, predatory smile spread across the first man's face.
"Our volunteers just walked right up to us," he murmured.
Without a word, the desperate men moved in unison, closing ranks to surround the thirty orphans in a tight, suffocating ring. Realizing they were trapped, the children shrank back, their small faces pale with terror as soft weeping broke out among them.
Hearing the muffled cries, a few women poked their heads out from their ramshackle huts. But the moment they saw the men circling the parentless children, they quickly averted their eyes, shaking their heads in silent shame as they retreated back inside, shutting their doors against the cruelty they were too weak to stop.
"Mong!"
A sharp, panicked voice echoed from down the snow-covered path. "Mong! Are you in there?!"
A teenage girl came sprinting through the slush, her torn clothes flapping in the icy wind. One of the younger fathers turned and recognized her immediately—it was Nou, Captain Yongyee's eldest daughter. Glancing down into the frightened circle, the man realized that the small, sobbing boy huddled in the center was Mong, Yongyee's youngest son.
A sudden pang of guilt struck the young father. Remembering who their captain was, he quietly took a step back, opening a small gap for Nou to burst through—but another man shoved her violently back.
"Let go of my brother!" Nou screamed, her voice cracking with fury and fear.
"Hey—that's Captain Yongyee's boy," the young father protested softly, taking another step away from the crowd.
"So what?!" the ringleader snapped, a twisted grin on his weathered face. "Captain or not, we're all starving! Titles don't mean a damn thing when your stomach is empty!"
"What are you doing to my brother?!" Nou shrieked, throwing herself forward. She began wildly pounding her fists against the back of the nearest man, trying to claw her way to Mong.
Losing his patience, the man spun around and slammed his heavy palm straight across her face. The blow knocked Nou flat onto the frozen dirt, her lip splitting open and painting the snow red. Seeing her hit, the younger children dissolved into hysterical screams.
"Stay down, bitch!" the man snarled, hovering over her with dark, glinting eyes. "Unless you want to serve the whole group of us tonight!"
The ringleader stepped over Nou, grabbing one of the smaller orphans by the collar and shoving the terrified boy toward the ice.
"Start walking across that river!" he threatened, pointing a thick finger at the distant, shackled men breaking the ice. "Do you see those men over there? They're waiting for you. The Magoli general claims she loves children—if you cross over, maybe they'll feed you. But if you refuse to move..." He leaned down, his face twisting into a terrifying mask as he glared at the weeping orphans. "...we haven't had real meat in weeks. If you don't cross, we might as well eat you instead!"
The eldest orphan boy took a slow, trembling step onto the frozen river, his eyes fixed on the distant figures standing in the gray mist. From where he stood, he couldn't see their faces—only looming, dark silhouettes against the ice. He hesitated, instinctively glancing back over his shoulder, but the memory of what starving men did to captured animals paralyzed him with a terror far worse than the frozen river. Shuddering, he forced his tiny, frostbitten feet forward. One by one, the other twenty-nine children began shuffling behind him, driven by the same horrific fear of being torn apart.
On the riverbank, Nou slowly pushed herself off the cold dirt. Wiping her chin, she spat a mouthful of blood into the pristine white snow and stood tall.
Her dark eyes locked onto the men one by one, her glare coming to rest squarely on the ringleader.
"You better pray my father died on the battlefield," she hissed, her voice sharp enough to slice through the winter wind. "Because even if I have to lose everything—even if I am humiliated by the Magoli soldiers—I promise you that every single one of you will end up as food for the fish."
Before the man could grab her, Nou turned on her heel and sprinted out onto the ice, rushing to catch up with the frightened children.
Seeing her run, a handful of older orphans who had younger brothers and sisters among the group quickly scrambled after them. Dressed in nothing but ragged, burlap sacks that offered zero protection against the biting winter, they chased their siblings out onto the vast, frozen river, marching toward the looming shadows and the ominous, echoing snap of cracking ice.
A sudden gust of winter wind howled down the river valley, kicking up a blinding curtain of fresh, powdery snow. The swirling white mist veiled everything in its path—obscuring the vision of the Magoli archers high in their towers, the shackled prisoners breaking ice, the terrified children on the river, and the cruel men standing silently on the bank.