Chapter 12 - Blood on the Frozen Pass
The snow turned crimson within minutes.
Duke Roger’s men outnumbered Leo's vanguard three to one, using the high ground and narrow gorge to trap the royal scouts. Giant boulders were rolled down the slopes, crushing supply wagons and separating Leo from half of his guards.
"Form a defensive ring!" Lyra roared, her twin daggers flashing as she deflected an axe strike and gutted a northern berserker. "Protect the King!"
Leo didn't hide behind his men. He leaped from his warhorse, drawing Sunfall in a single, sweeping arc. The legendary blade flared with intense heat, its golden radiance melting the falling snow around him into a cloud of thick white steam.
Two heavy-armored northern knights charged Leo simultaneously, their massive warhammers swinging in brutal arcs. Leo ducked under the first swing, the wind of the heavy iron whistling past his helmet. He drove the pommel of Sunfall into the knight's chest plate, shattering the iron ribbing, then spun swiftly to parry the second hammer blow.
The heat radiating from Sunfall was so fierce that the enemy's steel weapons began to glow orange upon contact. With a decisive horizontal slash, Leo sliced through the handle of the second knight's warhammer and swept his legs out from under him.
"Roger!" Leo yelled, his voice echoing off the frozen cliff walls. "Face me yourself! Or will you hide behind your men like Aldric did?"
Above on the ridge, Duke Roger’s smile vanished. He drew a massive, two-handed broadsword coated in a dark, shimmering oil—poison from the Eastern Wastes.
"You speak bold words for a bastard raised on alley scraps!" Roger spat, sliding down the icy slope with terrifying speed.
Roger swung his heavy poison-coated blade with murderous force, aiming directly at Leo's head. Leo caught the strike on Sunfall’s crossguard, but the sheer weight of the massive Duke drove Leo down onto one knee, his boots sinking deep into the bloody slush.
"Your father was a fool, and your mother was weak!" Roger sneered, pressing his weight down, trying to force the poisonous steel toward Leo's cheek. "The North belongs to those strong enough to take it!"
Leo locked eyes with the traitorous Duke. The sword-shaped scar on his shoulder burned with sudden, scorching heat under his armor.
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"I am not my father," Leo growled.
Channelling his inner strength, Leo unleashed a pulse of radiant energy from Sunfall. A blinding burst of light exploded from the collision of their blades, throwing Duke Roger twenty feet backward into a snowbank.
