Klara watched as the dull grey airship took off from the barren tundra and flew in wide circles as it climbed into the cloudy sky. The airship had dropped them on the far side of the Veter and now had to fly high to clear the vicious wind tearing across the landscape only a mile from their current position. A vicious wind Klara now had to lead the squad through.

  The members of 24th Squad shuffled their packs and adjusted their weapons as Klara scanned the tundra. She needed to work out exactly where Yefimova had dumped them. Far in the distance, Klara could just make out the peaks of the Gromadnyy range through the dust-filled air of the Veter.

  “Which way?” Mikhail asked.

  Klara glanced at him. She still couldn’t comprehend why he’d supported her. “I think I recognise Mount Katavsk,” she said, pointing south-east. “Borovsk is just south of the foothills below Katavsk. If we head directly for the mountain, we’ll eventually come across the coil train tracks that head to Ledavsk. We can follow them back to Borovsk.”

  Mikhail nodded and pulled up his half-mask.

  Klara donned hers as she did one last full circle. To the north, the world grew colder and harsher with every mile covered. Only crazed explorers ever ventured to the Frozen Land. The Veter truly was the only path available. It would be a gruelling journey, a constant fight against dust and ice-laden wind the entire time.

  “All right,” Klara said, “let’s move. We need to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall.” She glanced at the sun, clawing its way through the sky. “We’ve got maybe six hours before dusk. We won’t have to worry about frost in the Veter, but the wind will make life miserable.”

  The squad fell in behind her as she marched across the tundra. For now, they were free of the wind. But Klara watched it ahead of them, a long trail that tore through the tundra from west to east and disappeared over the horizon.

  Before long, the Veter itself came into view. Klara drew a sharp breath. Every description she’d heard of the river paled in comparison to what lay before her. The wind had eaten the tundra down a good twenty-five feet to bedrock here. In essence, the strange wind had formed a twenty-mile wide invisible river that flowed with gale force intensity.

  The “riverbed” looked like a behemoth had dragged a rake across the tundra, leaving hundreds of trenches in the bedrock. No vegetation grew down there; the Veter was completely devoid of life.

  Klara approached the edge and braced herself against the wind. It tugged at her, whipping her coat about her body as if trying to drag her into its flow. It would take two days to cross the Veter. Even though the river was only twenty miles wide, fighting the wind and the uneven surface would slow them significantly.

  Yefimova had left them with a steel-framed heavy canvas windbreaker to shield them at night. Without it, they’d likely freeze to death.

  The crunch of a boot on the dirt announced Yeger, who stopped beside Klara. He carried the canvas for the windbreaker in a tight roll on his back—the steel poles for the frame were spread amongst the squad. “Is this windbreaker going to keep us warm down there?” he asked.

  “It’s what Yefimova gave us so I assume so.”

  He grunted and took a step towards the edge and peered down the sheer slope.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  The drop making her stomach clench, Klara left and found Mikhail at the rear of the squad. She wanted a fire tonight, and if anyone knew which plants burned well out here, it was him.

  “We need a fire tonight,” Klara said softly to Mikhail.

  “Does this mean you’re asking for my help?” he asked, a hint of humour in his voice.

  Klara blew out a sigh. “Yes. I’m asking you for help.”

  “Just making sure. I do happen to have an idea.”

  Klara waited in silence for him to continue.

  “See that vine?” he asked, jerking a thumb towards a thorny bush nearby. “It’s called crawling pronzat. It’s one nasty weed that grows prolifically when it gets hot. Be grateful it’s so cold out here, if it weren’t, this entire plain would be a thick jungle of that stuff. Anyway, pronzat does, ah, burn well. If you plant the root in manure and heat it, you’ll essentially have an endless supply. Of pronzat that is, not manure.”

  “Just how fast does pronzat grow?” Klara asked. “Surely it’d still take days to get any amount of useful material from it.”

  Mikhail coughed and stared past her at the Veter. “Will fill a small room in a minute,” he mumbled.

  “You’re joking.”

  “Ah, no. No I’m not.”

  “Well, all right. Do you think you could get it lit in the Veter? More importantly, make it grow there?”

  “Providing you get a container with manure and some shelter from the wind, sure.”

  She glanced around. “There’s a small herd of slavock over there.” She pointed east. A hundred yards away, a herd of the six-legged creatures with shaggy brown coats, flat faces, and huge, bat-like ears grazed.

  “That should do, though you better not be planning on sending me to collect the muck.”

  Klara grinned at him even though she knew he couldn’t see it behind her half-mask. “Avilov,” she said, voice raised so the others could hear, “take Irmina and go collect some crawling pronzat and slavock muck.”

  “What the depths for?” Irmina asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Avilov can get us firewood with some muck and pronzat,” Klara said. “It means we don’t have to freeze tonight.”

  “Won’t a fire give away our position?” Matvei asked with his familiar whine.

  “Give away our location to what?” Klara asked. “There’s nothing in the Veter.”

  Matvei looked far from convinced. “Yefimova gave us packs to sleep in and a windbreaker. We should avoid fires. We don’t know what’s out here, or what Yefimova has planned for us.”

  “Matvei, this is a survival exercise, not a combat exercise. Fire will greatly increase our chances of survival. Have you ever spent a night on the tundra? Or in the Veter?”

  “I still say we shouldn’t have a fire,” Matvei said. “Why would Yefimova have given us weapons if we weren’t going to need them?”

  “Didn’t you hear Yefimova Defender?” Alarick asked. “She said that she didn’t expect that we’d have to fight, but we should always be prepared.”

  Matvei shot Alarick an evil glare, his beady eyes boring holes into the short, heavyset young man. Matvei really did look like a rat, especially with the half-mask.

  Klara gazed at the Veter. She supposed it was possible that something more sinister waited for them in there. No one really knew if anything lived in the Veter, and there were rumours of huge, dark shapes moving through the wind and dust at night. There were also the Howling Holes, wide sinkholes that disappeared to the depths. What kind of monsters might reside in them?

  “Matvei has a point,” Klara said. “We don’t know what’s down there. The fire will be a last resort if it’s too cold to survive otherwise.”

  She looked around the squad, noting with relief the nods of approval. “All right, get the ropes out, we’ve got a long climb ahead of us,” Klara said as she pulled a pair of goggles out of her pack and slipped them on beneath her hood.

  ?? The Fall Of The Sea ??

  by JollyUmbrella

  On a small boat in the middle of unknown waters, a boy awakens with no memory of who he is or why he is at sea.

  What To Expect:

  - Complex character dynamics

  - Emotional backstories and arcs

  - Thoughtfully crafted world with rich culture and history

  - Powerful characters

  - Slight hints and possible romances

  - Awesome fight scenes

  - Long, plot-driven story with narrative twists

  Upload Schedule:

  Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. UTC-5

  [SPECIAL] November 2025: Daily

  Accolades:

  [Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]