The cold seeped into my core. My nose had been numb for hours, and I couldn’t tell if it was frozen stiff or had fallen off entirely. The seasoned knights spoke of past winter campaigns and how the bite of frost would claim its victims one frozen digit at a time. Who’s to say Lady Frost wouldn’t start her feast with my nose?

Breathing through my mouth was slightly better, though each breath slashed at the back of my throat like a dull blade. With each inhale, it felt as if the inside of my throat was being sanded raw, layer by agonising layer.

Frost was creeping into my shoulder plates, locking me in an awkward, stiff march. Or maybe it wasn’t the armour; maybe my limbs were succumbing to the same icy void that had claimed my toes. The only thing keeping me moving was some half-remembered instinct, a shadow of what walking used to be. My legs no longer obeyed, dragging my body through the snow like a tangled marionette, its strings jerked by unseen, clumsy hands.

This is how it ends, isn’t it? I’m going to die here, frozen solid like a witness of Medusa’s beauty. Death by statue—what a way to go. Some knights used to joke that you could survive a blizzard by freezing solid and hibernating until spring. I wasn’t too keen to test the theory, but it seemed I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were promised greatness.

---

P.S.

This was a small creative writing exercise. Lately, the image of a knight freezing within his armour in the aftermath of a winter campaign had been occupying a significant portion of my mind, so I had to get it written up.

Probably a result of consuming too many "The masculine urge to bleed out here" posts on Instagram - see: https://www.instagram.com/myles_toe/reel/DCw3i1WJMSG/