Edge of Destiny

IN THE COLD

Eir ran up to Big Snaff and Big Zojja and pounded their metal hides. Whether because of the blows or the aura of her gray powerstones, the two golems jolted, and the otherworldly light left their eyes.

"Where are we?" came Snaff's tinny voice.

"You're in battle with the Dragonspawn," spat Eir. "Wake up!"

Big Zojja shivered. "Point me at him. I'll get him."

They were back, in control. Their eyes no longer glowed with the blue-white aura of the Dragonspawn. Eir turned toward their foe.

The Dragonspawn stood with hands outflung, eyes gushing wrath on Garm.

"No!"

The dire wolf stood enveloped in blue-white energy. Power sluiced past his gaping jaws and coursed over his hackles. It sought entry. It probed for a chink that would let its icy talons reach into his heart, into his mind. But there was no such chink.

Garm had only one alpha, now and forever.

"This is our chance!" Eir shouted to the Bigs. "Let's go!"

Eir stepped out from behind her dire wolf into the full brunt of the boreal blast. More frost etched across her armor, but she strode toward the Dragonspawn and broke into a run.

Garm did, too, alongside her.

Big Snaff and Big Zojja joined the charge.

"Ten more paces," Eir cried, "and the Dragonspawn will be a pile of ice!"

But in five more paces, he was gone. The air folded around his frozen figure and closed on him.

Eir took three more strides before stumping to a halt.

Garm, Big Snaff, and Big Zojja pulled up alongside her.

"Where did he go?"

A sharp crack came from above. The comrades looked up to see an icicle the size of a fir tree break from the ceiling and plunge toward them. It didn't seem to move, only to grow larger.

"Back!" Eir commanded.

The golems leaped back, skidding on the icy floor.

The icicle struck, its tip hurling out hailstones. The shaft rammed downward, disintegrating until it reached its center, which struck the floor like a hammer. The cavern shook.

Big Snaff brushed ice off his steel hide. "Lucky for us, we got out of the way."

"We're not out of the way," replied Eir, looking up at the thousands of similar icicles hanging overhead.

Crack, crack, crack, crack!

"He's trying to drive us out," Eir cried. "Deeper! Run deeper!"

She ran forward, followed by golems that fissured the ice as they went. The four comrades ran headlong into the darkness.

Behind them, icicles fell. Boom! Boom! Boom! They hissed and burst like rockets. Frozen shrapnel rang across the golems' metal skins. Boom! Boom! Boom!

One icicle grazed Eir's elbow, dragging her sideways-away from another icicle that staved the floor before her. She spun past its disintegrating bulk over a field of slippery shards.

"Keep going!"

Garm leaped aside as an ice shaft struck before him, going off like a bomb.

Big Snaff and Big Zojja danced past two more columns while a third toppled before them like a felled tree.

"Jump!" Snaff cried.

The golems grasped hands and leaped as the icicle hit. Big Zojja and Big Snaff sailed side by side over the shattering ice. The two golems fell into a wave of crushed ice that picked up Eir and Garm and dumped them into another chute.

"Down we go!" Eir called.

For a time, there was only metal scraping ice and golems spinning and the wave breaking. Then the floor flattened out again in deep darkness. Eir, Garm, and the golems ground to a halt, and the last skittering shards of ice tumbled to silence.

"Now where are we?" Zojja wondered through her speaking tube.

Snaff replied philosophically, "Somewhere else."

"Somewhere he was trying to keep us from," Eir said as she rose. "This is probably his inner sanctum."

Something moved in the darkness.

The golems turned to see.

Ahead, the black air unfolded, and the Dragonspawn took shape. His figure glowed ice blue, and his soul whirled in a cyclone about him.

"It all comes down to this," Eir said, "the courage of four heroes-"

"And the golemancy of two geniuses," Zojja added.

"Against the Dragonspawn." Eir paused. "Spirit of Wolf, guide my work." So saying, Eir transformed from a towering norn into the aspect of her totem animal. She became a dire wolf like Garm, only standing on hind legs, with eyes like fire and a coat as red as blood.

Side by side, the red wolf and the black wolf charged through the inner sanctum, bearing down on the ice champion. Big Snaff and Big Zojja followed.

"Kal-throk-tok!" the Dragonspawn cried in a voice like thunder. He raised his sword of eternal ice. Dark magic roiled around it. He plunged the sword into the glacier beneath him, cracking through the frozen floor. The crack spread like black lightning, splitting one side of the glacier from the other.

Eir and Garm leaped to one side and Big Snaff and Big Zojja to the other.

Still, the crack raced along, up the far wall of the ice cave and onto the ceiling. The split grew wider, and above, light poured through the glacier.

A mile of ice had ruptured, and the crevice gushed sunlight.

Eir and Garm struggled to stay upright as the ice cave shook, and Big Snaff and Big Zojja scrabbled to keep from falling into the chasm.

"Kal-throk-tok! Borea-kal-lu-ki Joor-maag."

Suddenly, something else was in that ice cavern. A presence. It was as old as the world, as uncaring of mortal creatures. It was colder than a blizzard: not just the power to freeze but the will to, to see living things shiver to stillness and crack open. This was the power behind the Dragonspawn. He wielded only a portion of it-the portion that could pour through eye sockets and skeletal fingertips. Now, Eir, Garm, and the Bigs were in the presence of the power itself.

We are in its inner sanctum, and it is going to get rid of us, Eir thought. She shouted, "Get away from the crevice!"

Big Snaff and Big Zojja clawed their way toward the wall of the chamber.

Out of the fissure behind them, a blast of cold and snow erupted. It was like an inverted avalanche. Hunks of slush smashed into the golems and coated them and froze them. The storm hauled them off the floor.

"Get out! Jump!" Eir shouted.

The hatches of the golems opened, and first Snaff and then Zojja tumbled out. They crashed to the icy floor of the cave as their golems were hauled up on the erupting storm. The golems jolted up the chasm, occasionally smashing against the ice cliffs. Moments later, the golems flew past the surface of the glacier and were flung through the air on a storm of hail.

"We have to escape," Eir told Garm as she clambered toward the entrance to the hollow. Already it was filling in. If they stayed even minutes, they would be buried in the glacier's heart. "Climb out!"

On the other side of the rent, Snaff and Zojja also scrambled toward the chute that had brought them down. They would have to find handholds, some way out.

Even as Eir climbed, arms stiffening beneath the onslaught of snow, she knew what this was: failure. She had not been corrupted by the Dragonspawn, but she had not slain it, either. And if she knew the Dragonspawn, her people would pay for her hubris.

The ice cave had probably saved their lives. When at last the companions had crawled from it, they found a world buried in snow. It was more than ten feet deep and still falling. The sky was black overhead, disgorging the fury of the Dragonspawn. Snow, hail, sleet, and ice pummeled the ground and piled atop glaciers. Boreal winds whipped the white stuff into gigantic drifts and tormented pillars. Winter lightning mantled the mountaintops.

Anything that had once lived on the steppes was now battered to death or buried alive.

And this storm would be pummeling Hoelbrak as well.

A week later, when Eir, Garm, Snaff, and Zojja straggled into Hoelbrak, they found a city buried in snow. Many roofs had collapsed, and most lanes were impassable. And in the main lane, opened by the work of hundreds of hands and shovels, stood an imposing figure.

The snow-mantled man strode toward Eir and her friends. Light washed across him, showing an old, battle-scarred face wreathed in silver hair. The norn's blue eyes, though, shone with the fire of a young man.

"Knut Whitebear!" Eir gasped, dropping to her knee.

"Rise, daughter of snow."

Eir did, a chill running down her back. No one had called her daughter since her own father had died. It was as if he stood before her once again, disappointed.

Knut Whitebear brushed snow from his pelts. His eyes were grave and kindly. "You are so strong, so determined," he said, lifting his hand to straighten the tangled hair that fell to her shoulder, "it is hard to remember that you are just a child."

"I am not a child!" Eir replied.

"Oh? You march a pair of windup toys through my town. You tell everyone that they will kill the Dragonspawn, only to bring upon us a millennial storm that buries us alive?"

"We almost did it," Eir said. "We were so close. We were in the inner sanctum."

Knut's face stiffened. "This storm was worse than the icebrood. It has killed more-"

"What are you telling me?" Eir asked.

"The doors of my lodge are closed to you," he said simply.

"What?"

"You and your wolf and your companions."

Tears rolled down her face. "How long?"

"Until you can return with real warriors, not clockwork toys."

"We got further-"

"You failed," Knut said plainly, "and we have paid the price."

"But I will succeed. I will stop him! I'll bring better warriors."

Knut did not answer, but only turned to leave.

Snaff looked down at his feet. "Where are we supposed to find warriors?"

"We'll go where they gather," Eir said with a bleak smile. "We'll go to Lion's Arch."