A Chill Wind From Heaven
Copyright© 2026 by Sonarflash2026
Chapter 1: Llywelynn
The bitter cold of an unexpected freeze quickly turned a chinook melt into sheets of glaze ice. Llywelynn Joy Argol adjusted the wick of a storm lantern and stepped from the warmth of her log barn. A frigid gust of air out of the north stung her cheeks. Powdery snow was already accumulating, making footing treacherous.
“Blamed contrary weather,” she muttered, stomping numbed feet. “Holy Mother, this ain’t no typical Arizona spring.”
A large full moon shone down on the churning weather front. While she was bedding down stock, ominous, roiling storm clouds had been piling over southwestern peaks, Pacific moisture colliding with the plunging cold of an Arctic front.
Before dawn, a spell of warm Chinook downdrafts had been melting winter snow. Now, sheets of ice stretched from barnyard to cabin. The intense cold had been a shocking surprise, coating everything in glaze ice. A flurry of snowflakes swirled about her. A storm and deep drifts would add to her difficulties. Firewood wasn’t a problem, but down on lower ranges, the sheep and cattle might be in trouble.
Llywelynn was halfway to the cabin when yellow light flared at the corner of sight. Left hand dropping to the butt of a large pistol, the young woman flicked off a hammer thong even as she twisted and dropped to a knee. Her leg hit new ice with a jolt of pain. Her revolver came up, hammer cocked, her head snapping around, looking for any likely assassin.
The summer visit of three bad men was fresh in her mind. After events of the past year, the young woman was always ready for trouble. Though she didn’t know how it happened, her father had perished the previous summer, inexplicably blown up while opening a case of bottled nitroglycerine. Thanks to witching powers, and tendrils of warning from the Goddess,
Gifted with the sight, Llywelynn knew his death hadn’t been an accident. Then, the following week, three hired ruffians came calling. Their leader offered to let her live and escape if she pleasured them. Holstered pistol concealed behind an apron and basket of laundry, Llywelynn drew and gut shot the leader. While horses reared and bucked, she killed the other two men with precise, aimed shots. After rounding up their mounts, stripping saddles and putting them in a corral, she watched, listening dispassionately as their leader begged for water and laudanum while dying slowly in gruesome agony.
Two weeks of autumn passed before another two hired guns arrived to dispossess the girl of her land and gold mine. Now, well removed from her father’s grave marker, there were five mounds of turf beneath winter snow.
When she realized it hadn’t been the flash of a gun, Llywelynn let out a breath, relaxing slightly as a point of light brightened, expanding, becoming incandescent. The flash hadn’t been from the rifle of a Bushwacker.
Low in the sky, a growing ball of fire lit up the northeast. Pines atop the north ridge turned into greenish-black silhouettes. As she watched, the fringes of night took on a lurid glow. Black clouds churned with the colour of blood. Though she strained, Llywelynn heard no thunderclap. Only wind moaned through tall evergreens.
Llywelynn stood, holstering her pistol, taking deep breaths, calming a racing heart. “A meteorite?” she muttered, having to squint. Beyond the ridge, something fiery and terrible was expanding, seemed to be coming at her, a core of white brilliance pulsating, swiftly expanding. Suddenly, there was more. A streak of flame burst into view, arcing high into the northwest like a skyrocket. Still, no sounds reached the watcher.
“Goddess!” Llywelynn barely managed to squeak in fright. The phenomena expanded, looking more terrible with each passing moment.
“A meteorite! Or a comet! Goddess, spare us.”
Not only thinking of herself, Llywelynn feared for the horses and goats, her milk cow, pigs and chickens, a stray barn cat that had adopted her the previous autumn, even taciturn, renegade Apache’s hidden back in mountain gorges.
Not many miles distant, the winter village of Apache friends was refuge to fugitive warriors, their wives and children. When destruction seemed imminent, the fireball abruptly vanished,, dropping beyond the ridge.
A whisper of mystical power swept through Llywelynn, the presence familiar, commanding obedience. The warning jarred paralyzed thoughts. Arms coming up, gloved hands covering her face, Llywelyn dropped to her knees. Beyond conscious volition, she listened to the inner prompting, squeezing her eyes tight shut,
Furnace heat licked exposed portions of her face. Impossibly brilliant, a blaze of light shone right through gloves and flesh. For an instant, Llywelynn could see every bone in hands and fingers, an inconceivable glare painfully stabbing into her head.
“What?” she thought, feeling as though time was suspended. She twisted, tossing herself face-down into a mound of fresh snow. Even then, pulsing heat reached her flesh, penetrating the thick wool lining of a sheepskin coat. She winced, curling into a ball on the icy ground. Splashes of colour and bursting Stars winked inside her head.
Like an afterthought, the earth heaved. A thunderclap slammed her. Ears popping, Llywelynn bounced into the air, flipping, feeling wind knocked out as her back struck undulating ground. A second wave of heat swept over the barnyard. For seconds that seemed endless, Llywelynn Argol thought she was going to die.
Mind slipping away, she absently wondered If this was the fiery end of everything predicted by all those church folk who smugly condemned her as a witch. If so, then her understanding was faulty, her beliefs in the Goddess Mother momentarily in question. As though her thoughts were being reproved by an angry deity, she was hammered again, a roar of howling wind catching her up, the gale spinning her across ice and frozen snow like autumn leaves blown in a storm.
Llywelynn came to an abrupt, bruising stop in snow banked against her chicken coop. Her head rang. The earth bucked again, rolling in waves. Even with arms wrapped around her face, Llywelynn’s sight filled with a red glare, starbursts and vivid colours. She felt moments stretch out, pounding her, a harsh, crackling thunder vibrating through her bones. Unable to draw a breath, the young woman wavered at the threshold of unconsciousness.
“Goddess! Mother!” Llywelynn finally gasped, still not certain she was going to live.
For what might have been minutes or seconds, the earth stopped shaking. Llywelynn tried to gather senses, distractedly taking stock. Except for shock and bruises, ringing deafness and being unable to get a deep breath, she was relatively unhurt. Her ears and chest had been hammered. Her insides felt battered, but she was alive and breathing.
Though it was fading, there was still a pulsing heat. Even through a heavy sheepskin coat, winter hat, coveralls and long wool underwear, she could feel a continuing, pulsing energy.
After gulping breaths, Llywelynn cautiously removed her arms, blinked and squinted off to the side. Glaze ice and snow looked brighter than when lit by the sun at noon. The sight was painful to behold. Perhaps twenty or thirty miles distant, well beyond the northeast ridge, a roiling, incandescent fireball was boiling into the heavens. All the stars had vanished. Her barnyard stood out in stark detail, as though lit by a vengeful sun at noon. She averted her eyes, amazed to see that the vault of sky had turned blue. Stars had vanished. Night had become day. Snow was no longer falling, flakes evaporating or boiling away before it reached the ground.
Llywelynn pushed up on elbows, finally managing to catch shallow breaths. She had been tossed across twenty or thirty yards of barnyard. Nearby trees stood out in stark detail. Snow and ice had turned to steaming water. All about her, the broken tips of pines, branches, shingles and pine needles littered the ground. Bright as day, the light of an impossible sun persisted.
An incredible, brilliant fury, the pulsing fireball kept rising, swirling higher and higher, mounting on a pillar of roiling, grey, white, red and orange smoke. Jagged, violet bolts of lightning flashed in the maelstrom. Thunder rent the heavens.
Fluorescent colours that Llywelynn couldn’t name rippled through a spreading mushroom cloud. Tremendous bolts of lightning slashed through the maelstrom. A continuous, rolling, rumbling thunder kept shivering through Llywelynn and her surroundings.
Minute by minute, heat faded. Intense light dimmed, brilliant white shifting to orange and yellow with hues of red and purple. After another minute, night began to reclaim the heavens. Gradually at first, then more swiftly, Stars and moon reappeared.
“Goddess Mother!” Llywelynn murmured, shutting eyes, praying, giving thanks. Her pounding heart quieted, breath coming more easily. Gradually, the ringing in her ears diminished. As senses returned, Llywelynn heard sounds. She rolled onto all fours and shook off wet snow.
Over and over, thunderclaps continued rumbling, echoing, crashing and re-echoing from distant peaks and their canyons. She pushed to her feet, glancing about at the damage.
As the terrible heat and light faded,, Llywelynn saw that much of the fresh snow had been melted or flung off trees. Before the reddish glow completely faded, it was obvious that a large portion of the ridge line had been stripped clear of pines. Only scattered, broken and burning trees remained. Shattered stumps smouldered like candles. Once tall, ancient evergreens had been reduced to splinters. Directly northeast of the ranch, a portion of the ridge had been scoured bald, large fractures showing where previously there had only been red bands of sandstone. Now, edges looking as though the native rock had melted. In spite of that, Llywelynn was relieved that whatever it was, the event hadn’t started a forest fire. All about the ranch, snow kept everything wet. The unforeseen blizzard was already dropping new snow. Barnyard puddles were swiftly glazing over with ice.
“Armageddon? The stars rolling up like a scroll? Judgement?”
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