Dan Frost

Dan Frost, the natural born son of Edward Winterchild lived all his life in Strong Fort, before enlisting in Frontier guard at fourteen. His father and sisters left for Gold land, at the invitation of King Beor Hawthorn.

King Beor was a man immersed in alcohol and women, yet, he had a great presence. He did not have even the shadow of a great warrior his father spoke of, yet, he had the charm of a bear stumbling around all over.

Dan knew why his father left.

His father thought his friend devolved from the time they fought together. King of the mountain kingdom died of a fast fever in the capital of summerland.

Argon Rushing was a kindly old man in very good health before he died. His father suspected foul play, thus, he went to the capital of summerland to investigate it by himself. This also served as a coming of age trial for Raul, Dan knew.

However, Iris Redfin, wife of Edward Winterchild, has never been fond of him. She was never overtly cruel to him, but the small ways she separated his siblings and him, and how she always made sure Raul had the best of everything and he the worst hurt.

Above all, her absolute faith that he could at any time kill his siblings to take their position hurt the most.

He is proud of being a winterchild, and he is even more proud of having the Winterchild honor.

He will never ever harm his siblings, nor take their place.

However, it is also true that he is jealous of his brother's position. Just by staying in Strong Fort, one day, Raul will be king of all winterland. What would he be ?

The answer is he will just be the bastard of Strong fort, the only stain on Edward Winter Child's stellar reputation.

So, Dan thought seriously. How could he make something of him self?

Go to the east ? No, east has many sellsword companies, but most of them work for slavers.

Slavery is prohibidden in thousand kingdoms, and it is all due to Winterchild family.

He could not go east.

Go south to become a knight ?

Hmm.. not a bad idea, but he was the only winter child kid to follow the religion of elder gods. Iris Redfin had all her children follow young gods, along with elder gods. It was one time Dan was happy he was not born to Iris.

No way in hell he is going to change religion to become a knight.

Thus, the only option for him is to go to the frontier guard.

Every guard is equal at the barrier. Moreover, his uncle Brad is working as the first hunter at Frontier guard. He wanted to go on adventures, just like his uncle. He wants to see the mountains made of pure ice, polar bears the size of carriages.

He wanted to fight with Snorcs and earn his name in battle.

Thus inspired, he arrived at the barrier.

Imagination is fat, while the reality is skinny.

First of all, his uncle Brad was missing for at least a week.

The frontier guard refused to send out a search party for his uncle.

So, Dan decided to become a hunter himself, to search for his lost uncle. Alas! That was not to be.

First, the weapons instructor mocked him for his high birth ,and high handed manners. Dan did not understand what's so high about the birth of a bastard. I am the same as everyone else, he insisted, in his own silent, sullen and stubborn manner.

Over the time, as she trained with his colleagues, who consisted of farmers, bakers, stablemen, and just pain beggars, he understood. To them, there is no difference between an heir and a bastard.

After all, the worst room he got is unimaginable wealth none of their families could accrue in ten generations, and the clothes and weapons he was equipped with for his journey! They could feed their families for a generation.

His allowance alone could feed their families for twenty years.

No matter how insists he is a common man, just low of birth and the same as them… Dan realized it is not.

At the same time, he became aware that a man's birth in life rarely determined his station. It was a profound enlightenment. With that, he was able to let go of his resentment towards Iris Redfin, who, at the very worst of herself, only ever sent him to bed without dessert, or made him eat in the lower hall along with guards.

Not that he minded, for guards get served strong alcohol. He teased both his brother Raul, and their ward Trevor Seaborn more than once with that information. Both Trevor and Raul had to sit at the high table. So, under the strict surveillance of Lady Redfin, they could only drink a single glass of watered down ale.

That's about it.

While Dan could down three jugs of strong ale, all for himself. The maids never refused to serve him, the guards always pampered him with more wine. Given Dan used to be prettier than most maids, they were all too willing.

So, he did not have a bad life at Strong fort. Even at the low end, everything he got is the same quality as that of Winterchild children. His lordly friend from Felicity, the land south of kingdom of gold, the most fertile land of summerland, hadn't had a suite to himself, nor as many maids as himself.

While he slowly corrected all his misconceptions about the world in general, and learned to be comfortable with himself, his first obstacle appeared.

He was the best warrior in the batch, yet, he was not sorted into hunters. Instead, he was made assistant of Jordan Icemount, the guard captain. Dan was pissed, and he sulked forever.

While both Jordan, and his friend Sage explained to him time and again that Jordan was grooming him for command, Dan did not really understand, and kept sulking like a child whose favourite toy was stolen. After all, he was only fifteen, too young to understand politics at that time.

That all changed on the day they found the corpse of the guards revived and attacked the guard captain in the middle of the night. Dan was quick on his feet, and very lucky, for he reacted by throwing the lantern in his hand at the zombie guard.

The corpse caught fire as if it's made of kindling, and the guard captain was saved.

Jordan presented him with the family sword of Icemount, made of sorcerer steel, called 'Sharpfang'. The guard captain even had the pommel reworked to represent his winter wolf phantom. It was a reward for saving his life, but Dan felt it had more meaning than just a reward.

That night, he realized there is more to the world than just himself and his petty complaints. Overnight, he has grown up from a boy to a young man. He may have realized he is not the center of the universe, yet, his ideals about honor and mercy remained.

After the incident, the higher brass of Frontier guard convened and collated all their numbers. They realized the number of hunters who disappeared in the past half year is comparable to that of the past ten years combined together.

Finally, a large search party formed and entered the Frontier to do what they call the great ranging. They will not just hunt the animals and look at nearby Snorc villages, but also go to all the distant outposts of the frontier guard to search for any clues about increased disappearances of the guards.

As they searched, a Snorc party attacked them with great numbers. For the first time, Dan experienced battle. As good as he was at fighting, they were defeated. Dan killed the party leader, as per their agreement before, and joined the Snorc party as a member.

While he roamed with snorcs, he met the army of the dead for the first time. It is also the first time he has fought with the Sith, the overpowered minions of ice sorceress, made entirely of ice. There was a wild grace to the way a Sith fought. Every dead body a sith pierced became one more member in the army of the dead.

When the sith made a beeline for himself, and attacked his party, Dan parried the strike of sith's gleaming ice sword with his own magical steel sword.

CLANG !!! !!!!!

The sound couldn't be louder if it tried. It felt no different from any other steel sword clashing with another, yet the ripples it sent across the Snorc community are as big as a meteor crash. The sound reverberated in the resulting silence of the battle field, as the Snorcs watched awash with astonishment at the man who was able to fight a sith.

Dan, if nothing else, is an extremely talented swordsman. While stronger, the Sith wasn't faster, and with a single feint, he was able to slash at the sith's side. The moment the sorcerer sword penetrated it's skin, the sith broke like a glass sculpture struck with a hammer.

The sparkling crystals of snow fell into a pile, with it, all the dead in the army.

Snorcs cheered for an entire night as they celebrated victory. For the first time, they have seen hope. The man who killed a sith, they called him. The sith, who were like gods of battle are just one more soldier in front of the man with Magic steel.

That started the legend of Dan Frost among the Snorcs, and the succeeding days and Dan's deeds only increased their faith in his character.