Soldiers of Ice

Eighteen

An array of startled large-nosed faces stared up at her. Fiery Jouka, his hand clutching the severed ropes, jumped to his feet.

“Are you mad, woman? You’ve cut this beast free!” the gnome raged, his face florid in the dim light.

“I’ve set him free,” the Harper announced, staring down at the irate gnome. “He’s chosen to help me.”

A gasp of astonishment rose from the little men. Jouka sputtered. “That beast? How can it help?”

Martine laid a restraining hand on the gnoll. “For one thing, he’s going to get me to the glacier. I have a plan.”

“Another of your plans! Will this one work any better than your other ones?” The gnome sneered.

“I don’t know,” Martine snapped. Disgusted, she turned to the others. “I don’t absolutely need your help, but I’m asking anyway. If this works, Vreesar’s dead and you can go home. If it fails—well, then I’m dead, but at least you’re no worse off than you are now.”

Vil pushed his way to his feet. “I’ll go. What’s the plan?” Martine looked down at her audience. “Vreesar’s gone back to the glacier to open the gate. Well ambush it when it gets there.”

Jouka kicked a bucket in disgust. “An excellent plan! And how will you get there—fly? It takes a full day and night of hard skiing to reach the glacier, and this fiend has a full night’s head start on you.”

“Well teleport.”

“What?”

“We’ll teleport there,” she repeated firmly. “Jazrac had a ring. I can’t use it, and you can’t use it,” Martine explained, pointing to Jouka, “but I’m betting that Krote can. He uses magic like Jazrac did, so the ring should work for him.”

“If you give him the ring, hell just run away.”

The woman stepped aside, giving Krote a clear route to the door. “He could leave now if he wanted to.”

The shaman seemed to relish being the subject of their argument. He smiled broadly. “Maybe I not help. Maybe I let little people all die.”

The faces of the gnomes seemed to change color magically at his words. Some grew pale, while others turned red with indignation. “The shaman’s words triggered a wave of discussion among the gnomes. In the heat of argument, the Vani all but forgot the presence of the humans or the gnoll. It was as if they were back in their council chambers at the warren. Only Jouka, indignant and inflexible, remained silent. He stood in his corner, spiked arms carefully folded over his spiked chest.

After some time, Ojakangas, the broad-chested carpenter, finally rose pretentiously and, in his best imitation of Elder Sumalo, pronounced the decision.

“You propose a great risk, Harper,” Ojakangas announced, stroking his trim black beard. The gnome’s voice was high and nasal, and if the situation had not been so serious, Martine would have found it comical.

“But if you are willing to take this risk, we will allow it,” the gnome continued. Martine wasn’t aware the gnomes had any real say in the matter, but she kept her opinions to herself. There are conditions, however.”

The woman set her hands on her hips. This was her plan, and she didn’t care for the idea of the gnomes imposing any conditions. “Like what?”

“The gnolls may still attack. If they do, we think it will be at dawn. We ask you to wait until after the sun has risen before leaving. Your enemy will still be far from the glacier then.”

Martine pondered Ojakangas’s words, wondering if there was any trick. “Agreed,” she finally said.

“Second, one of our people will go with you, to be sure that someone“—Ojakangas looked meaningfully at Krote—“does not betray you.”

“I welcome the aid, but who will it be?” Martine suspected the answer, but she couldn’t refuse the gnomes on this.

“Jouka Tunkelo.”

The Harper winced. Jouka looked up in furious surprise. “Me?„

“That is right, Brother Jouka,” Ojakangas said sternly. “The council has decided.”

The black armored warrior fumed but couldn’t very well challenge the authority of his fellow gnomes. Instead, he snatched his thorny helm and stormed out of the cabin into the frozen compound.

With Jouka’s departure, the gnomes began to chatter excitedly, warily circling their new ally. Krote stood stock still, his rag-wrapped arms folded over his chest, the sardonic smile still on his lips.

Martine pushed through the confusion of gnomes to Vil. “Why did they choose him? He hates the whole plan.” The gnome logic was completely lost on her.

“Martine,” Vil said with a chuckle, almost as amused as Krote by the outcome, “what other choice did they have? Think a minute. It allows Jouka to save face, and it gives you the best warrior they’ve got. Still, the look on Jouka’s face…”

“Wonderful… just wonderful,” Martine snapped, far from happy. “Excuse me, but we have some preparing to do. Come on.” She led the way into the heart of Vil’s cabin.

Inside, the pair picked their way through the carpet of gnomes, gathering supplies: Occasionally babies bawled and whimpered, only to be quickly hushed by their mothers, and here and there widows wept softly in the arms of a comforting relative or friend, but in general the room remained grimly silent. Silence settled over the two humans as they worked, contemplating the task that lay before them. Clearing a little floor space, they assembled their gear. The warrior produced two wicker packs and a mound of blankets from the small planked loft overhead, followed by sausages, hardtack, bundles of sugar, dried fruits, wax, whetstones, and a host of minor but necessary items. Vil fussed over the preparations, paying careful attention to each item selected. Only when he was satisfied did he finally pause to warm himself by the fire. “That should be enough,” he said as he rubbed his chilled hands together. “We don’t want to overload the packs.”

Shouldering their gear, they carried the loads outside. Martine was startled to see a faint trace of dawn limning the mountain ridges. The whole night had passed by unnoticed. When was the last time she had slept more than a catnap? Two days ago? Three? She couldn’t even remember.

“We sleep now,” the man advised, noticing her grogginess as she stumbled over the frozen ground. “The gnomes will wake us if anything happens.”

Martine nodded and let him steer her back inside for what she hoped would not be another futile attempt at rest A firm shake roused the Harper from a world of warmth and comfort. Martine tried to tell the landlady to let her sleep by the fire for an hour more, but the shaking was insistent until finally the woman opened her groggy eyes. “No more ale, Jhaele,” she mumbled, trying to focus her eyes.

“Ale?” squeaked a nasal voice.

The Harper shook her head and her vision cleared. Ojakangas leaned over her, his expression unamused by her blathering. “They’re coming, human. You’re needed on the line.”

The Harper lurched to her feet, suddenly clearheaded. Her side throbbed, her cuts and scratches burned, and her skin chafed, raw from days in armor, but the woman hardly felt these pains. Quickly buckling on her sword, she opened the door and stumbled into the glare of early morning, the sun’s reflection blinding off the snow.

Still in a semidazed condition from sleep, she heard Vil shout, “Get down, Martine!” in a tone that demanded immediate attention. An instant after she’d let her knees buckle in response to his order, she heard the whistle of an arrow just overhead. It ended in a solid thunk against the cabin wall, its head driving several inches into the solid pine.

“Be careful, for Torm’s sake! They’ve targeted the doorway!” Vil was crouched in the snow against the fallen hem gnomes to either side of him. Black feathered shafts jutbed from the log barricade, testimony to the events of the dawn.

Fully awake now, the Harper scuttled across the snow to join Vil. “Anything happen?” she asked, dismissing the archery as unimportant. Vil shook his head. “Not yet. I think they’re building up their courage for a charge. Their archers have us pinned down, so my guess is it shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Plan? Fight them.” Vil gestured toward the cabin. “Ojakangas has gathered the wounded who can still fight. They’re our reserves. Everybody else who can fight, about fifteen in all, is out here. Good plan, eh?”

A whooping cry came from the woods. Before the echoes had finished, a lone gnoll charged from between the mist cloaked trees, running madly toward the barricade. The beast sprinted with its wicker shield held high and its sword low, covering the open ground at a startling pace.

“Stay down… wait!” Vil bellowed. A volley of gnoll arrows punctuated his warning.

With a last spring, the gnoll scrambled onto the barricade, trying to hack a gap through the tangled pine branches. “Stop him!” Vil shouted, and a small squad of gnomes hurried to the position. They jabbed their spears up between the trunks, but the gnoll furiously blocked the thrusts aside with his shield, meantime trying to poke his sword back at them through the gaps. The clatter and clang of the skirmish resounded through the clearing.

In the midst of that fight the woods erupted in a chorus of howls. The ravens gathered at the fringe of the woods squawked and took flight all at once.

“Jouka, Oja—here they come!” VII warned.

A ragged line of gnolls, shrieking savagely, burst from the woods and sprinted madly across the gap. Martine guessed there were about twenty of them. The pack headed for a different section of the wall, one unprotected now that their pack mate had drawn off the defenders.

Moving in a crouching run along the line, Martine and Vil reached the new position just as the first of the gnolls scrambled onto the logs. Swords drawn, Martine and Vil madly slashed and thrust at the mass of Burnt Fur warriors. Fresh blood on her blade told the Harper at least one of her blows had been successful, but there was no time to pick targets. The barricade hampered the attackers, but even so, the pair could not hold off the massed assault: Arrows winged into the snow between the humans and: the cabin as the gnoll archers tried to pick off the two defenders.

First one gnoll, then another, leaped over the top of the wall to land inside the compound. They wheeled madly to fend off the few gnome reinforcements rushing to the humans’ aid. Martine caught one in the back with the point her sword, cutting it about where its kidney should be, but even as the dog-man fell, another leaped over the wall to take its place. She watched in amazement as Jouka, a dagger in each hand, sprang from the top of the logs and landed spread-eagled on the chest of another gnoll, hugging the creature in his spiked embrace. The gnoll squealed as the nailed armor shredded through leather and fur to tear the flesh underneath. As the creature flailed, Jouka finished it off with a double thrust of his daggers to its throat.

Jouka untangled himself from the corpse, bits of cloth and fur clinging to his bloodstained spikes just as Martine and Vil were forced to give ground. “Ojakangas—now!” Vil yelled as he hacked the legs out from under a gnoll who attempted to break past.

The cabin door banged open, and a stream of little men poured out, screaming shrilly. Their charge hit the startled gnolls in the flank. Seeing the makings of a trap, Martine shifted to the far side, hacking her way past the opposition until she stood alongside Jouka and several other gnomes who had joined him.

Now the attackers were pressed on both sides. In addition, the cabin wall blocked the gnolls in front of them, while the barricade would severely hamper any retreat. The twang of a bowstring behind her told Martine that the Vani were returning fire on the gnoll archers, forcing them to concentrate on the bowmen.

With a wild cry, Jouka charged forward once more, and the gnolls instinctively retreated from the porcupine-like warrior. They backed into their pack mates trying to hold back Ojakangas’s crew on the other side. The resulting confusion was all that was needed. Believing they were being abandoned by their brothers, the front ranks started to clamber over the barricade and make for the trees.

The Harper was determined to keep the gnolls in full retreat and not to let them reorganize. “Rush them!” she ordered even as she charged forward. Screeching her best banshee yell, the woman whirled her sword in broad arcs, heedless of her own danger.

At the sight of a wild woman and a spiked midget fearlessly rushing them, the dog-men in the front rank broke and clawed at those behind them in a frantic bid to get away. The spark of panic fanned into a flame, and the retreat turned into a rout. The Vani fell upon the backs of the fleeing enemy as they tried to get over the barricade.

As the last of the Burnt Fur warriors finally broke free and fled for the woods, Martine and Vil moved quickly to restore order. Several Vani had to be restrained from scaling the logs and setting off in pursuit. A quick count of the bodies showed two gnomes dead, plus several with minor wounds. Not bad, Martine thought, noting the bodies of twelve dead gnolls. It was anyone’s guess how many of the dog-men had been injured, but the number was significant.

“That should hold them for a while,” Vid murmured as he and Martine sprawled against the logs to rest. The man’s relief was obvious.

“Can you be sure?” the woman asked.

“It would stop me. They’ll fall back out of bow range and then dig in, but I don’t think they’ll try another direct assault”

With the fierce skirmish ended, a gnomish woman was cautiously making the rounds with bowls of hot porridge. The Harper had almost forgotten what hot food—tasty food—was like. Pulling off her mittens, she greedily scooped the warm gruel into her mouth with her fingers She could feel her energy returning.

As the defenders sat in the snow eating, an echo of gnoll voices reached them. Nervous, the Vani gut down their bowls and scurried to battle positions, awaiting another attack.

Nothing happened, however. In vain, they watched the tree line for the gnolls to rush into view. Even the sporadic rain of arrows stopped.

“little people!” a voice barked suddenly from somewhere beyond the barricade. “You fight well today. You make worthy enemies.

“Listen, tittle people. Our chieftain is gone, and we do not want to kill any more of you. We leave now in peace. Do not try to follow us. We will know if you do. No more war between us, little people. Agreed?” The words faded, laving only the silence of the trees creaking in the wind.

The Vani clung to their barricade in stunned disbelief. Then Ojakangas cut short any debate by standing up and shouting, “Go back to your valley, dog-men, and we will make peace!”

“We go. It is cold here, and your little tunnels are too small for us. We leave a guard to make sure you keep peace. Do not leave cabin, or we kill you all.”

“It’s a trick,” Jouka said grimly.

“No trick, little one,” said Krote. The gnoll stood in the cabin doorway where he had listened to the exchange. The shaman looked at the bodies of the Burnt Fur, still sprawled over the barricade where they had been cut down. “You have killed many warriors,” the gnoll said with a touch of sadness. “There will be many females without mates.” The Word-Maker went from body to body, turning each so he could see it. “Blind-Eye. Rakk. Broken-Tooth. Fat Belly.” Krote recited the roll of the dead. “That was Varka who spoke,” he said finally. “He must be new Word-Maker. If he says peace, there will be peace.”

Martine took a chance and stood up. No arrows flew. “That still leaves Vreesar. How are we going to get out of here without breaking this peace?”

“I don’t know about you, Martine, but I figured we’d use the back door,” Vil commented casually as he stood. “Back door?”

The former paladin flashed a smile. “Only a fool makes a stand without a means to escape. I built another way out.”

“Where is it?” she asked quickly.

“Under my bath. All we have to do is knock a hole in the bottom of my tub and crawl out the tunnel. It comes out at the edge of the woods.” Vil grinned impishly.

The Harper impulsively stood on tiptoe and kissed the warrior firmly on the lips. Vil was too startled to do anything. His face colored under his graying beard. Martine quickly pulled away.

She looked at her companions’ faces, surprised, amused, weary. “Jouka, Krote, Vil… are you ready to go?”

Vil hefted an axe and purposefully strode into the cabin, looking taller and even more gaunt than usual.