Everyone in the Keep woke up in high spirits, snow had fallen heavily overnight and it was now nearly two feet deep. The chilling cold made everyone wrap up warm even inside but no one seemed to mind, it was the first snow of the winter and everyone knew what that meant, the Winter Festival.
Finus shivered as he slid out of his deep, thick bed covers and ran to the window. After confirming to himself that snow had indeed fallen he dressed in his warmest tunic, a thick woolly jumper and his new fur lined boots then ran through the snow, even though it was nearly waist-deep to him, eager to get to the eating cavern to see the Keepleader announce the start of the Winter Festival. The room was packed, nearly everyone in the Keep was there chattering with excitement and anticipation.
Keep Leader Dee walked in and the room went silent, she stepped up to high table and started to speak, "As you may have noticed today we see the first snow of winter, the festival begins today!" With those few simple words a cheer erupted from the crowd, "So once the food for the feast has been prepared the Snow War will begin. To decide teams you will pick a piece of paper from a bowl and if it has a blue dot on it you are on my team, but if you are unfortunate enough to get a brown dot you will be on Commander Josl's team." Everyone laughed, the tradition of Snow War on the first day of the Festival was age old but everyone agreed that it just wouldn't be the same without the friendly but competitive banter between the Keepleader and her Commander.
Finus grabbed a bite to eat and a warm drink then pushed his way to the bowl to pick his team, he opened the piece of paper and found no dot at all he was about to go back to get another when a brown dot slowly appeared.
"Yes!" He muttered under his breath. Josl's team had won the last three Snow Wars.
He was about to go and find out what teams his brother and sister, Shaynel and Kieli, and his friends were on when he heard someone calling his name.
"Fin?" Josl was calling when someone pointed him to Finus. He walked over to him and handed him an envelope, "It's from Roan," he said. Finus' face dropped as he remembered his best friend who had left just about two months ago, he had never been in a Snow War without him.
"Whose team are you on?" Commander Josl asked, trying to brighten his mood.
"Yours!" He grinned as he stuffed the letter into his pocket.
"Good, since I'm the Leader of the team how would you like to be my Commander?"
Finus brightened up considerably at this suggestion. "Would I?"
"Good, well we'd better go help in the kitchens, the sooner we finish that the sooner we can get on with the War." On the morning of the Snow War everybody helped prepare the feast so that it was done quicker and all, barring Headwoman Raila and one helper who supervised the cooking of the food, could participate in the mass snowball fight.
The Snow War is a large-scale snowball fight involving two teams fighting to steal the other team's flag and return it to their own team leader. Each player can be hit three times before they are out except the team leader who is out as soon as he or she is hit. Once a player is "dead" they must leave the battlefield immediately or a spell cast over the game will causes the them to "freeze" until they are escorted off, it is however very rare that a player breaks the rules. The game ends when either the team leader waves the other team's flag over their own base or when they are hit by a snowball and "killed" therefore becoming unable to wave the flag.
"The walls are complete and we have an adequate amount of pre-made snowballs." Finus reported.
"Good job Commander Finus." Josl said, with the slightest emphasis on the word 'Commander'.
Finus grinned, "Thanks," he said but he was starting to think that Josl was keeping him busy to stop him thinking about his best friend; it wasn't working.
"Okay Fin I have a new plan," Josl said, "we don't want this War to be over too quickly, that wouldn't be fun," Finus nodded, "so we're going to play this out a bit. We both know who's going to win, we are, so here's what we'll do: I'll lead an attack at their walls but when we get nearly within range of them they're bound to attack fiercely so we'll retreat quickly out of the way and, here's the clever bit, we'll break off two small groups of perhaps seven each and send one group, you can lead them, conspicuously around the left side of their fort, they will spend most of their troops guarding the front and send a few to watch your group, meanwhile I'll lead the second group the other way around through the trees then when your group pretends to make their move my group will go in through the back and steal the flag then I'll run back to the base, wave the flag and we will have won.
Finus just stood there shocked, "Your gonna get the flag yourself? That's crazy, you'll get hit and we'll lose!"
"You have no faith in me!" Josl laughed, "It's the gesture that counts, if my team wins again what'll be the surprise? Nothing! But if I win for the team it will surprise everyone!"
Suddenly the consequences of what Josl proposed dawned on Finus, "You'll be a legend! Even if we lose you'll be a legend!" He said.
Everything was going well and the Blue camp guards were becoming lax in their observations when Finus' group made their way quickly into the shadows to divert the attention of the guards while Josl's group ran into the forest.
"Did it work? Are they watching us and not Josl?" Finus asked.
"I think so, they've only got five guards on the wall at the moment." His brother Shaynel said as he passed the far-seeing glasses to Fin.
Looking through them Finus said, "Okay lets get a move on then."
Running in the shadow of the Keep walls made them almost invisible to the guards, only seen if concentrated intensely on, which was exactly what they intended.
As they rounded the fort walls they became more and more visible and Finus knew that they had to act now, aside from the fact that they were becoming easier targets to the Blue snipers the rest of the Brown team were starting another attack and that was when they were supposed to go but he was nervous.
He took a deep breath and, after reaching down to roll a few snowballs, looked up, "We strike now." He said.
Amid the chaos of the Blue team preparing for another Brown team attack just one guard was left to watch the small party of attackers making their way around the northern side of the fort.
"They've stopped!" She shouted suddenly, "They're going to attack now!"
On these words all the Blue team members that could be spared from the front walls ran to defend the north wall.
"There's about six or seven of them, it's hard to tell exactly." She said.
"Easy pickings!" Kalvin, a Wing Second, remarked confidently.
"Should be, but I'm getting the distinct impression that they're not after the flag..." The guard said.
"What else would they be after?"
Finus let out a shout as he ran to the walls, he hoped that Josl had seen the signal he sent up, it was designed not to be noticed by anyone not looking for it, the projection was of a hawk that flew to the west then swooped down and flew to the south, towards Josl and his team. Suddenly snowballs came down on them from the walls.
"Remember," Fin yelled, "we don't need to get into the fort we just need to avoid being hit long enough to let Josl get in and then out again."
With just two guards Josl made his way into the fort from the back, the flag was right in front of him with three guards by it, the rest of the team were at the front and side walls and nobody at all was looking to the back wall. Nine snowballs flew towards the guards and each two were "dead" before they could shout to their teammates but the third let out a yell before making his way off the field. Heads turned and a few people started running towards them.
Josl decided to make his move, he sprinted to the flag and climbed over the wall but just as he was running back to his base a dark coloured dragon swooped in and landed between the two bases.
"What do you think you're doing rider?" Josl asked, flag still in hand.
The short rider slid off his dragon's back and took of his helmet, "Not much of a reception!" He said.
"Roan!" He said a he hugged him and ruffled his hair.
Roan looked a little embarrassed at his welcome but was unable to say anything about it before Finus ran up to him, "Roan! Wow and this is Cohomenoth?"
"Fin! It's been too long man! Hey Coh meet Fin"
"I've heard a lot about you
." The dragon said.
