The snow was as cold as ever—white and pure, yet so unforgiving, so deadly.
Maesinius halted mid-step, lowering himself to one knee as he scooped up a handful of it. With practiced ease, he molded it into a compact sphere, his fingers numb from the frigid touch yet unshaken by the cold.
He weighed it in his palm for a moment before, with a flick of his wrist, he sent it sailing through the icy air. It struck the solid stone of the fortress before him with a dull thud, exploding into a fine powder that scattered in the wind.
North's Bane.
A bastion of stone and steel, standing unbroken against the howling winds and the encroaching tide of savagery beyond. It had been raised generations ago to keep civilization intact, to remind those outside of its walls where the empire's domain ended and the wilderness began.
Maesinius lifted his gaze, eyes trailing up the towering battlements, where torches flickered defiantly in the cold breeze. Even now, after three long years within these walls, he still felt the weight of its presence. He had arrived as a youth of fifteen summers, casting curses upon his father's name for exiling him to this frozen wasteland. But time had changed him—shaped him. He was no longer the same spoiled boy who had set foot here.
At first, he had hated this place. The cold was an enemy that never relented, creeping into his bones, gnawing at his resolve. His fingers and toes had gone numb in those early days, his breath burning in his throat as he struggled against the elements. But time and hardship had tempered his flesh and mind alike, forging him into something stronger.
The northern lords had been wary of him at first, skeptical of an imperial whelp seeking shelter within their halls. Even his title—the son of an emperor—had meant little to them. But the North had a way of stripping a man down to his essence.
Over the years, he had fought alongside them, bled with them, shared their cups of ale beneath fire-lit halls. To the northerners, that was all that truly mattered. He had become one of them, and in that, he had found a brotherhood he had never found with his brothers
North's Bane was more than just a name; it was a promise, a warning. Wedged between two unscalable mountains, it was the only passage through which an army from the great white expanse beyond could pass. And for centuries, it had stood unyielding, its walls turning back those who dared to test them. If one wished to enter the empire from the wastelands, they would have to contend with North's Bane first.
Not that it had never been done—just not by force. The mountains flanking the fortress were cruel and indifferent, their jagged peaks promising only death to those who tried to cross them. Yet, from time to time, small bands of desperate souls would attempt the journey. Starving tribesmen, exiles, outlaws—men who had no place left among their own kin. And when they emerged from the mountains, frostbitten and half-mad, they would descend upon the villages, raiding, pillaging, living off the land like scavengers.
It was an inevitability. That was why every year, the northern lords gathered their men and sent them into the forests to hunt them down—to purge the land of those who did not belong. These were not armies, not warbands, but vermin—desperate men who had nothing to lose. And that made them dangerous in their own way.
Maesinius had taken part in such hunts before. He had seen the desperation in the eyes of those they cut down. They were not warriors, not true threats. They were men who had been discarded, abandoned by the world. And yet, when faced with the edge of a blade, they fought like rabid beasts.
His breath curled in the frigid air as he exhaled, his mind drifting back to those first bitter nights when he had doubted himself. The North had tested him, broken him down, and reforged him. He had arrived as a boy—but now, he was something more. Something harder. Something colder.
And as he stood before the ancient fortress, feeling the bite of the wind against his face, he realized that this place—this frozen wasteland—was no longer his prison.
It was his home.
Instead of outright extermination, the empire had long favored a more calculated strategy when dealing with the northern tribes
. Genocide was never the way of the empire at least for those that knelt to the eagle; conquest was meaningless if there were no people left to rule.
Instead, many of the rugged warriors who once harried the empire's borders found themselves granted safe passage through the iron gates of North's Bane. Their weapons were surrendered, their oaths sworn, and in return, they were given fertile lands to cultivate—transforming from raiders into farmers, from enemies into subjects.
It was not only the northern tribes that were offered such terms. Across the western deserts, where the swiftest riders the world had ever known ruled the sun-scorched steppes, the empire employed a similar approach. Time and time again, imperial envoys were sent on treacherous journeys—by ship and sand—to seek audience with the chieftains of the horse-people. Sometimes, they offered land in exchange for fealty.
Other times, they sought to arm these nomads with better weapons, turning them into a thorn in the side of the empire's greatest rival, the Sultanate of Azania.
For every new tribe swayed to the empire's cause, the sultan was forced to divert more soldiers to quell the relentless raids, bleeding his resources dry.
For the north, such agreements had practical benefits. The rugged lands, with their dense forests and hard, unyielding soil, required strong hands to till them. The more tribes that integrated, the more the empire could expand its farmlands, feeding both its people and its war machine. And when war called, these former enemies—once wild, untamed warriors—became some of the empire's fiercest soldiers, their strength turned against those who refused to submit.
Yet, among the stories that trickled down from the frozen wastes, there were whispers of things far stranger than men.
Legends spoke of beings the likes of which no southerner had ever seen—colossal creatures, humanoid in form yet towering four times the height of any man. Their intelligence, it was said, was but half that of a human's, and yet their raw strength was beyond reckoning. No blacksmith had ever managed to forge armor large enough for them, nor a weapon they could wield; for what use did such creatures have for steel when they could rip trees from the ground with their bare hands?
But the giants, as terrifying as they were, were not even the most dreadful of the northern myths. No, that honor belonged to their steeds.
Maesinius had heard the tales since he first set foot in North's Bane—whispers carried on the lips of grizzled warriors and wide-eyed newcomers alike. Enormous beasts, covered in fur as thick as a winter's coat, their massive trunks swinging like battering rams, their cries shaking the heavens like the roar of a god. No man alive had seen such creatures in decades. If the old stories were to be believed, the last of them had perished nearly a century ago.
The thought should have brought relief. And yet, Maesinius found himself wishing otherwise.
He had always wanted to see one.
But for all the northern tribes who bent the knee and accepted the empire's rule, there were those who would never yield—men whose pride ran as deep as the roots of the frozen pines, who would rather perish than bow.
These were not the tribes who accepted gifts of land and steel. These were not the warriors who saw reason. No, these were the wild ones—the ones who lived and died by the old ways, whose very existence defied the empire's reach. Some, it was said, were even cannibals, feasting upon their dead when the cruel winters refused to yield food.
Maesinius had seen their savagery firsthand.
Three times had warbands numbering in the thousands attempted to circumvent the fortress, seeking to pillage and burn the lands beyond its walls. Three times had they been repelled, shattered against the unyielding steel of North's Bane and the warriors who defended it. The northern lords did not rule from gilded thrones. They did not send others to die in their place. They fought at the forefront, clad in the storied armor of their ancestors, their axes rising and falling like the unrelenting tide of war itself.
The tribes had spirit, yes. They had ferocity. But they lacked the one thing that made war truly winnable: resources.
Iron was scarce beyond the mountains, its veins buried deep within the frozen earth. Where the empire's soldiers marched with blades forged by master smiths, the northern raiders fought with scavenged weapons, their blades duller, their armor weaker. A single imperial sword, sharp and unyielding, was worth ten of theirs.
And so, each time they came, they broke.
For as long as North's Bane stood, for as long as the empire's forges continued to turn out steel, the north would remain just that—a land of ice and legend. A land of whispers and ghosts.
And perhaps, Maesinius mused, that was for the best.
He vividly recalled the baptism of blood that marked his rite of passage into manhood—the moment when he faced down one of these northern warriors upon the wall. With a sword in hand and his heart pounding in his chest, he braced himself as the barbarian charged towards him. His first blow glanced harmlessly off the iron-clad foe, and Maesinius responded in kind .
In a flash of steel, he struck back, his blade finding its mark on the savage neck , it was good that they had no armor.
In the aftermath of the battle, as he emerged from the fray, his face streaked with the blood of his foes, the northern lords regarded him with newfound respect.They made him sit, poured him ale, and patted his back.They had never done that to him , and bestowed on the young lord a title earned through steel and sweat, not blood; by the standards of the north, he had proven himself a man.
Despite the myriad tales spun by southerners about the harshness and hostility of the north, one undeniable truth persisted: They were one.
In the north, strength lay not in the acquisition of land or wealth but in the solidarity of the pack. These hardy folk lived in close-knit communities, where survival depended not on the land but on the strength of the ties that bound them together. They were no strangers to hardship, for their lands were barren and unforgiving, yet they knew that in times of need, they could only count on each other . During winter if the barn was empty, people were sent in search of roots or animal to hunt to feed the village, where big communal meals were prepared for everybody
Unlike the southerners, who often sought to expand their domains at the expense of their neighbors, the northern lords harbored no such ambitions.
Land was plentiful but barren , cultivation was a struggle against the elements, and few saw the wisdom in claiming more territory that would remain untamed and uninhabited.
He had become one with the north, and the north had become a part of him. Snow passed through his blood, and his blood passed through the snow , they were one.