Soldiers of Ice

One

“A mug of ale, Jhaele,” the small black-haired woman ordered as she strode through the door and plopped herself astraddle the hard bench of the great trestle table in the center of the taproom’s commons. “Aye, Martine,” the landlady echoed. Her long platinum tresses gleamed in the light from the open door.

“No, wait. Best make it tea,” the young woman called from the table. She drew her sheath knife and began to fidget with it, idly poking the tip into the tabletop.

The landlady nodded and sighed. “Tea, then.” Wood tapped metal as she scooped a ladleful of water from the pot that hung over the fire. “Now, what’s troubling you, dear?” the landlady asked kindly, looking back toward the other woman.

“It’s Jhaele, how did you know I’m upset?” Martine blurted.

The hosteler ambled over to set a steaming mug on the table with a solid thump. “For one thing, you haven’t been in here a minute, and already you’ve got that knife of yours out. If you spent as much time hunting as you spend carving at my furniture with that knife, you could be dangerous.” Martine was suddenly conscious of the small blade in her hand and the lines she’d been absentmindedly etching on the unvarnished tabletop.

“Sorry.”

“It’s a tavern table. It’s seen worse.” The older woman dismissed Martine’s worries with a reassuring pat on her shoulder. “So what troubles you?”

“It’s just that Jazrac wants to see me.”

“Harper business, eh?”

Martine almost gave a start until she remembered how everybody in this dale seemed to know everyone else’s business, even secret business such as that concerning the Harpers. “I suppose,” she allowed. “He’s been my sponsor, vouched for me, and I’m still not a full member, you know”

I’m saying more than I should, the woman realized even as she said the words.

“Ah, I didn’t, but that helps to explain things.” Jhaele gave a wry smile that only someone who has heard countless secrets could do. “Don’t you worry. He’s a hearthlover, a stay-at-home. He probably wants you to do some legwork for him while he hovers around Elminster.”

“Maybe,” Martine allowed tentatively as she took up the mug. “But his message said he had important news for me.”

“Hmph. With wizards, everything is important,” the landlady chuckled as she turned to tend the fire. Jazrac was waiting for Martine on the footpath that led to the mill. He looked old, but not so old as to be grandfatherly, nor was she so young by comparison. The wizard met her with a sweeping bow more showy than polite, his seasoned head bent till the sharp tip of his salt-and-pepper goatee brushed against his chest. The rich velveteen cloth of his robes, impractical dress given the rustic surroundings, rustled as he rose to his thin, imperious height.

“Greetings, Master Jazrac,” Martine said with a schoolchild’s nervous courtesy and a small bob of her body, as much of a curtsy as anyone would get from her. In her buckskin trousers and fur half-cape, such niceties were lost anyway. “You have news for me?”

“Indeed, great news. Come, let’s walk,” he offered and said nothing more. The wizard deftly steered her onto the MM Path, clearly relishing the air of teasing mystery he was creating. Martine bit at her lip and followed, since there was no other choice. Jazrac was born to be overly dramatic, she knew. It was one thing she had learned in the several years she’d known him. He could have been a thespian had his magical talent gone undiscovered.

Though she was bursting with curiosity, Martine followed the older man into the faded brown woods. Behind them was Shadowdale, a collection of thatched houses clustered around a muddy crossroads. The curling spire of the Tower of Ashaba rose above the rest and was just visible through the branches of the trees. Jazrac led the way by half a step. Martine cocked her head to look up at him, dark bangs of bobbed hair spilling sideways across her forehead.

“Martine, my dear, I know it seems as if you’ve been doing nothing but playing messenger ever since you joined the Harpers.” The huntress bristled at the condescension in his tone. “Certainly you’ve been kept busy. In fact, some of the others wondered if you might be in need of a rest. Four months trekking in the wilderness is more than enough time with no inns, no baths—barely even a bed, I imagine.”

Rest? I don’t need any rest: What have I done wrong? Martine thought. Her eyes flashed with alarm even as she strove to keep her expression calm.

Jazrac didn’t notice any reaction, or at least paid no mind. With a muttered, twisted phrase, he made a pantomime sweep of the path ahead, velvet sleeve aswirl. The light breath of wind in the barren treetops suddenly arched and swirled down at his command, blowing the dead foliage into the woods till the leaves caught their sharp corners along the bank of the nearby millstream.

Martine barely glanced at the tattered shapes as they swirled away, unwittingly drumming her fingers on her thigh while waiting for her companion to continue. She was accustomed to Jazrac’s little magical displays. She fearfully guessed his next words—praise for jobs well done, a suggestion that she needed more time or more guidance, then an offer of a mission suitable to her talents. Undoubtedly it would be another package to deliver or a fellow Harper to accompany on a mission, all so she could watch and learn. Only a few more such as these and surely they would advance her. A little more patience and seasoning were all she needed. In all this, Jazrac meant well; the wizard had generously watched over her career up to now. Martine’s thoughts madly raced to review the scenario she was certain would follow.

The wizard interrupted her reverie. “Anyway, I want to tell you how pleased I am—everyone is—with your efforts. You seem to have… well, that Harper stuffing in you. Rare thing, too. So if you want to take a rest for a month or two, you deserve it.” He looked down at her with the best consoling gaze his thin, creased face could manage.

Martine stopped walking and was about to give a not very carefully worded protest when Jazrac continued. “Or,” he said ever so slowly, the corners of his mouth curling up in a tiny smile, “you could take on another mission a solo job, a chance for you to really show your mettle. Are you interested?” Taking a slow breath of the bracing autumn air, Jazrac paused and then added, “It could be the big break you’ve been waiting for a chance to prove you really are a full-fledged Harper.” The wizard waited for some reaction from his protégé.

For a moment, Martine kept silent, surprised by Jazrac’s offer. The stream and skittering leaves sounded a soft background to their walk, underscored by the creaking and scraping of the aged waterwheel driving the grindstone at the mikes nearby.

“I don’t need rest!” the slight ranger blurted, her alto voice rising eagerly. “Tell me about this mission.”

Jazrac smiled with smug satisfaction at his protégé’s response. “Do you have any idea just how thin we Harpers have been spread of late?”

Martine’s reply was a quizzical look.

He caught her hand, and with his sharp, bony fingers gently recited the litany. “Waterdeep, Impiltur, Thay, Chult, gods know where else. It seems as if every distant land has some problem that needs solving. Now something’s happening in the north, up past Damara. There’s been some kind of eruption, and we want you to investigate.”

“Some kind of trouble in Damara?”

“I said an eruption, my dear. North of Damara, on the Great Glacier. A volcano of ice.” Jazrac shivered slightly in the autumn cold and turned back toward the houses and fields of Shadowdale. Martine fell in step alongside him.

“An ice volcano? You’re teasing me.” The idea sounded too incredible to believe, even from a wizard.

“You should know me better than that, Martine,” the wizard chided, head tilted till his goatee seemed to point at her. “This is Harper business: I’m serious.”

Martine flushed.

“As I said, we’re dealing with a volcano of ice. It happens sometimes, my dear a rift in the walls between the worlds. Elminster and I have been tracking this one. It looks like an opening to the para-elemental plane of ice.”

“The what?”

“Sorry. Wizard talk.”

“Oh.”

“Ifs an opening to another—um—plane. You know about the elemental forces earth, air, fire, and water. Perhaps you aren’t aware of it, but there are others, such as the para-, the quasi-, and who knows what other elemental planes, not as strong or important, and ice is one of those.”

Martine listened avidly. She’d heard of the existence of the planes and knew about the four elements, but the rest was new to her. She hurried to stay alongside him, kicking away the leaves that had already blown back over the path.

“Anyway, sometimes the barrier between our world and one of these planes weakens until a hole opens, spilling elemental matter into our world,” Jazrac continued, warming to his subject Scholarly research was his meat and cheese, and he could quickly forget that others did not share his enthusiasm. “Geysers and volcanoes could indicate the planes of steam and magma. Yurpide of Impiltur, I think, even theorizes that rainbows and lightning storms have their origins in—”

“I get the idea. What I don’t understand is why this is so important” Martine wanted to get the conversation back to her mission. “It sounds as if you know everything already.”

“Ah, yes. Well, there is a danger, you see.”

Her neck tingled with excitement. “What?”

The path reached the edge of the fields that bordered Shadowdale. A cold wind was rising out of the west, pushing in a bank of flat, gray clouds over Old Skull, the barren granite mount that overlooked the village. The wizard looked up and shook his head, perhaps at the prospect of bad weather coming. “Sometimes things cross over and enter our world. If it’s only one or two of these elemental creatures, it’s not much our concern, but if the rift should expand, it could prove to be a danger. You’re going to go up there and seal it.”

Martine couldn’t resist a joke. “Suppose I brick it up?” Jazrac turned his attention back to her with a vexed scowl. “Very funny. As a matter of fact, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks—preparing the seals. Now that I’ve finished, it’s time for you to put them in place. The frigid north is not one of my favorite places.”

“So that’s my big break, eh?” the woman deduced, adding a flip of her bangs to give just the right touch of sardonic nonchalance.

“If it all goes well,” Jazrac said with pointed emphasis. Martine realized her flippancy was wasted on the humorless wizard and assumed a serious expression. Still, her earlier nervousness was gone, and she felt the need to celebrate somehow. Wrapping an arm around the older man’s waist, she tugged him toward the town before he could resist. “I promise not to fail you. Come on. It looks like snow. You can buy me an ale at the Old Skull and give a toast to my success.”

“For that, I’ll have to buy you a bucketful of ale, my eager young tyro,” Jazrac protested as he allowed himself to be pulled along. The last summer songbirds scolded loudly at the approaching storm as the two hurried across the fields for the warmth of the thatched-roof inn.

Over mugs of spiced ale that warmed away the chill, Jazrac outlined the mission in detail. He spoke softly, for there were a few others in the taproom, and Harper business was none of their concern. From his pocket, he produced five stones, polished and smooth. They glittered like ice with blue fire at their cores. “Opals from the south,” the wizard explained once he noted Martine’s interest. “You’ll have to set them around the rift like this. I assume it will be a crater.” Jazrac spread four of the stones in a circle, deftly tracing the points of a star with his thin fingers, leaving one point empty. “Exactly equal from each other. Don’t worry, the stones will glow when they’re in the proper position.” He nudged the fifth stone into place, and suddenly five points of blue luminescence glittered before Martine’s eyes.

“That’s it?”

The wizard broke the ring before the tabletop glow could attract the attention of Jhaele or the beet faced Dalesman who sat near the fire. “Not quite.” He produced another stone from a separate pouch. “This is the capstone. Touch it to each stone as you put it in place. That activates the seal.”

“Okay,” Martine nodded, taking the stone from his fingers. It looked like a fading ember, dull red and pitted, rather than a powerful magical artifact.

“Be careful. Keep it separate from the others. You don’t want an accident triggering the seal while you’re traveling.”

“Is it dangerous?” The woman looked at the stone with new respect as she prudently set it back on the table.

Jazrac shook his head as he swept the opals into a pouch. “Not very—but an accident would ruin all my work.” The words reminded Martine that Jazrac, at least, considered her journey important.

“Another thing. The red stone is a temporary fix. You have to bring it back so I can cast the finishing spells. Be careful not to bang it around too much. It’s not as solid as it looks. Once the seal is activated, if the stone breaks, the seal breaks. So be careful and bring it back with you. Understood?”

Martine nodded. As she took the pouch of opals, the stones rattled softly in her hand. “Sounds clear enough,” she added to cover a sudden twinge of nerves. Her first important mission… It seemed simple enough, but she couldn’t help but worry whether she was up to it.

Across the table, Jazrac smiled, his goatee making him look cheerfully fiendish. “Good. Now, I want you to stay in touch with me while you’re up there.”

“How?”

“I’m a wizard, my dear, remember?” the older man chortled, letting a tone of condescension slip back into his voice. He tipped back in his chair. “I’ll use my crystal ball. I can’t hear you or talk to you, but I can see you through it.”

Martine wasn’t sure she liked the idea that Jazrac would be checking up on her. She hastily took a sip of her ale to cover a grimace.

“I’m not spying on you. If you write a letter, IT be able to read it through the ball. Take this. I’ll need an object to focus on, something to track you by.” From deeper still in his pocket, Jazrac produced a small dagger. “I know your fondness for knives. All you have to do is pin your letter up with this dagger. That way I can find it with the crystal ball. I have to know what I’m looking for, after all.”

Still uncertain, Martine took the knife and turned it over in her hands. It was a decorative knife with a carved bone handle and a red garnet set in the hilt, but the blade was short, hardly practical. A typical wizard’s choice, she noted somewhat contemptuously. “If you insist.”

Her sponsor ignored the reluctance in her voice. “That’s it, then. How soon can you be ready?” he asked, elbows on the table, leaning forward till the tip of his goatee brushed his tented fingers.

Martine rolled the knife in her hands, letting the light from the inn’s fire play off the blade. “A day or two, I’d guess. Three at the most. It depends on how long it takes me to get supplies. Astriphie’s fit and ready for travel.” Indeed, her mount was growing restless in the stables.

“Excellent. The less time wasted, the better. Here’s to a safe journey and a successful mission, my dear.” With tankard raised, Jazrac toasted her success.

The next day Martine, suffering from a slight hangover, set to work preparing for her departure. Shadowdale wasn’t a large city, nor even a border town where outfitters thronged, so it took only the better part of the day to gather all that was needed—flour, salt, jerky, dried fruit, flatbread, sugar, lard, arrowheads, oil, extra bowstrings, needles, thread, and more. She especially wanted soap, since she had no desire to do without the luxury a bath might offer, even in some glacial lake. By nightfall, as she stretched her legs before the fire at the Old Skull, the ranger was relieved to be through haggling with the village’s only trader, the irascible Weregund. Her status as a Harper, which it seemed everyone in town knew about, didn’t make much of an impression on him, and every purchase had been a battle. Her supplies were finally complete, though, even the soap, and tomorrow she and Astriphie could hit the trail. As she gingerly sipped at her ale, she toyed with Jazrac’s little knife, playfully refracting the flames of the fire from its blade.

“You’ll be leaving us tomorrow, then?” Jhaele asked, her hair the bloody color of a hunter’s moon in the blazing firelight. Pot in one hand, she offered up a fresh ladle of ale. “Old Weregund told me you were at his place buying supplies.”

Martine nodded, tossing back the dregs of her mug. The innkeeper sloshed another round into Martine’s cup. “This one’s on the house.”

“Well, thank you, Jhaele.” Suddenly flustered by the landlady’s kindness, it was the best Martine could manage. “Call it a traveler’s blessing. May Tymora’s wheel turn in your favor.”

“And may your house know the joy of Lliira’s smile,” Martine replied. She reluctantly raised her mug to Jhaele, unwilling to get into another night of toasting.

“Fair enough. Here’s to the ladies of luck and joy.” She raised her ladle to match Martine’s toast. Draining it in a long draught, she wiped the foam from her chin and looked down with a kindly expression at the younger woman, still stretched in the chair. “I’ll see that the stableboy has Astriphie fed and ready in the morning. You’d better rest up for tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Jhaele.” The landlady was already leaving as Martine spoke. Left again to herself, Martine settled back into the small firelit cocoon that surrounded her chair. The knife blade resumed its flashing in the light, somehow less playful than before.

Although she’d only been staying at the inn for a few weeks, Martine hadn’t expected the farewells to sting so much. After all, besides Jhaele and Jazrac, there were few people she really knew here. She’d been pointedly avoiding most of the Dalesmen with a Harper’s natural instinct for secrecy. Now, slightly tipsy and pleasantly tired, she felt a poignant stab of regret at the prospect of leaving the sleepy little hamlet. The flowing river, the winter-stripped trees, even the cracked, barren slopes of Old Skull seemed somehow homey and comforting. I could live here as well as anywhere else, the Harper thought idly, but she knew she wasn’t ready to settle anywhere just yet. I’ll be back, she told herself before draining her mug and trundling off to bed.

The dawn came with Martine feeling ill-rested and anxious. Journeys always do this to me, she noted irritably as she climbed out of bed. She could never sleep soundly the night before a trip, always waking up at hours only marked by their darkness, always jittery with the hopes and the tensions of wanderlust.

Astriphie’s shrill cry from the stable yard got the ranger’s sluggish blood moving. It was time to shake off the numbness of town and return to the wilds where she really belonged.

After a quick splash of chill water that passed for a rinse and a struggle with her traveling clothes, Martine clomped down the worn wooden stairs and into the yard. The pale morning sun washed over the cobblestones, the light having yet to reach the full richness of the day.

Martine was greeted by a harsh birdlike shrill that turned to a whinnying squawk. “Astriphie, keep still!” she shouted as her mount reared back, tossing its head so that it threatened to swing the goggle-eyed stableboy clinging to its halter clean over the yard fence. Astriphie was no ordinary steed, but a hippogriff, with the forequarters an enormous bird and the hindquarters a sturdy horse, the juncture between the two marked by a pair of golden-feathered wings. The beast clicked the bill of its eaglelike head, threatening playfully to snap the stableboy’s arm like a dry splinter. The lad trembled, almost dropping the rope in abject terror, not being able to distinguish the hippogriff’s playfulness from hunger.

The Harper hurriedly took the reins, and the boy scrambled to safety behind a stable door. “Astriphie, stop!” Martine commanded, punctuating her words with a quick falconer’s whistle as the hippogriff reared up again. A sharp tug brought the creature back down, its front talons scrabbling on the stone while its rear hooves beat out an irritated tattoo. It craned its feathered head around to fix one blinking eye on Martine and then clacked in disapproval until she reached up and stroked the feathers of its massive wings soothingly. The long equine tail flicked against its haunches as if to point out where to scratch next.

“Good girl, Astriphie,” the Harper said softly as she automatically ran her hands over the saddle straps, checking their fittings, making sure her packs and saddlebags were secure. High above the forests was no place to discover a loose girth. Golden-pinioned wings beat the air in a gentle whoomph that swirled a maelstrom of dust and straw. The saddle slipped as the mighty trapezius muscles of the flying beast rippled under the leather seat, but the straps held tight. Satisfied, Martine tossed a coin to the boy. By now he had recovered enough to venture out from behind the door. Martine led Astriphie out into the road and lightly swung into the saddle. The stableboy ran to the fence to watch as the pair trotted, then galloped down the road, until at last, with a muscular heave of its great wings, the hippogriff lifted from the earth and sailed away over the top of the brown-leafed forest.

All day they flew east, soaring over the forest, the coast of the Moonsea barely in sight to the north. With only the briefest of stops for rest, they pressed on the next day and those that followed, until on the fourth day, they passed the vulture-haunted spires of Hillsfar, then three more to carry them past the streets of Mulmaster tumbling down the mountain slopes, and farther east to where boats could cross the Moonsea to the rocky shores of Vaasa. Here Martine nosed Astriphie northward and piloted the hippogriff over the stormy waters of the Moonsea until they sighted the northern coast, where they rested in a village of fishermen too poor to be suspicious of such a strange traveling pair.

After a few days of dining on fish while Astriphie took a well-deserved rest, the pair resumed their northerly course, following the trails up passes winding through the mountains that isolated the north. They flew over the northern stretches of Vaasa, where people thought all strangers were Damaran spies, and beyond to the plains of Damara, where villagers spoke in whispers of her supposedly Vaasan looks. Mindful of these animosities and suspicions, Martine kept her questions few and short when she stopped in villages, passing herself off as a merchant’s agent looking for new markets for her employer.

By this subterfuge, Martine passed through Damara and found herself at last flying over the snowbound ridge of an isolated valley, the last before the walls of the Great Glacier itself. Samek, it was called, home to a village of gnomes, or so the garrulous frontiersman farther south had claimed. “Be the last outpost afore the wilds,” he swore. “Mebbe they can guide you to the glacier, though ’tain’t a harder-headed batch than them little folk. ’Tain’t got no trade, an’ they put up with no truck at all from outsiders, big folks especially.”

The tracker’s gloomy prediction came to mind as the Harper steered Astriphie into a gentle dive that would carry them over the valley’s heart. At its widest, Samek was no more than a few miles across, pointed like a narrow slot north and south. The sides of the valley were ringed in by mountains already deeply cloaked in snow, the treeless peaks mottled with frozen white. Tall pines dressed in the dull greens of winter lined their slopes, the dour monotony broken on the higher reaches by cracked outcroppings of collapsed rock. Natural cathedrals to the gods was how Martine thought of these spectacular mountain peaks.

They swooped lower over the valley, and Martine turned her attention away from the peaks to scan the forests and meadows below, watching for the village. Since the valley was inhabited by gnomes, she didn’t expect to see houses, barns, or the patchwork patterns of fields. The little folk didn’t build their towns as humans did, she knew from experience. They liked to hide their dwellings in the bases of trees, in hillsides, or among the reeds along the river. Still, she hoped to spot a trace of smoke or a winding trail she could follow.

In her first two passes over the valley, Martine noticed the meandering track of several game trails, mountain streams reduced to waterfalls of ice, and the grass-tufted snowfields of frozen bogs, but no sign of a village. It was on the third pass, as Astriphie banked into a turn that tilted the saddle to a dizzying angle, that Martine caught sight of a wisp of smoke rising through the thick-growing trees. With a quick series of whistles and a hard pull on the reins, the ranger swung the hippogriff in a broad loop that came to bear straight toward the smoke. Black-green branches flashed beneath her feet as she urged Astriphie lower until her mount’s hooves scraped off the branches of the uppermost pines. Martine strained in her saddle to peer over the hippogriff’s side while its wings rose and fell in massive beats. Bearing straight on, they closed on the column of smoke that was their guide.

Flying almost too fast, the pair shot over a small clearing and straight through the rising plume of smoke. Martine instantly noted it had the tang of woodsmoke. Whipping around in her saddle, she caught a glimpse of a cabin and a man on the ground, staring up, with an axe in his hand. Not pausing to consider the consequences, she yanked back on the reins and shouted, “Down, Astriphie! Land.”

The hippogriff plunged toward the nearest clearing, a smooth meadow along the banks of a stream. The beast hit the snow with a running bounce that jarred the ranger in her saddle and engulfed them in a blizzard of white powder. Martine wasted no time unbuckling herself and dropping to the ground, cat footed and ready, her sword already in her hand. “Stay, Astriphie,” she commanded, leaving the hippogriff unhobbled just in case something dangerous happened by. The mighty steed flexed its wings contentedly and seemed to chirp back in understanding.

Once she was into the woods, the snow was far deeper than Martine had expected, and it was with considerable difficulty that she floundered through the heavy drifts. By the time the Harper reached the clearing she had spotted from the air, she was panting and sweat soaked. She didn’t try to scout out her goal, but stepped through the screen of underbrush boldly and stood in full view of the axeman. At first glance, she guessed the cabin’s owner was at home in the woods like herself, a man who chose to live out in the wilds, and so she placed her faith in the usual frontier hospitality.

The man was standing near a stump where he had been chopping wood. There was a neatly piled stack of waiting logs on one side of him and a jumbled heap on the other. Behind him stood a small cabin built of solid pine logs. A rickety stone chimney clung to one side of the house, and a little shed that looked like a combination storehouse and entrance jutted off the front. The substantial walls were broken by one small window, heavily shuttered. The yard around the cabin was cluttered with snow mounded piles of cordwood and what she could only guess were the half-finished projects of every frontiersman.

Despite the chill, the man wore no coat or gloves, and his tasseled woolen cap was pushed far back on his head. His hair was dun gray and short, cut carelessly so that it cropped out over his ears. Dark stains of sweat marked the heavy smock he wore.

As Martine stepped out of the woods, he hefted his axe in one hand, and she noted he held it the way a warrior would, rather than a lumberjack. He was a big man and older than Martine. She guessed his age at forty or perhaps fifty, her father’s age, at least judging by his graying brown hair and the slightly stiff way he moved. His nose was crooked, as if it had once been broken, and a thick stubble grew on his chin, the look of a man who had few guests. His expression showed no surprise or emotion beyond the wariness that filled his eyes.

“Greetings,” he said with the same hospitable caution she had shown. The stranger’s voice was deep, and when he spoke, haggard lines flexed across his face as if his weatherbeaten cheeks were unaccustomed to shaping words. “I am Vilheim, son of Balt.” He stopped, offering no more information about himself, although his sharp accent was like those she had heard along the Chessentian coast in the south.

“My respects to you, sir,” Martine offered deferentially, taking care not to move any closer. “I have traveled a long way to see the gnomes of this valley. Do you know of them?”

The man swung his axe with a casual stroke and sank it into the stump. The sharp chunk of the blow echoed dully through the snowy woods. He spread his hands slightly, as if to show that he was unarmed, though Martine noted he never stepped out of arm’s reach of the axe. Again there was a long silence that neither seemed eager to fill.

“Gnomes, eh?” he finally intoned. “You came here to talk to gnomes. That was you flying overhead, right, Miss…?”

“Martine. Of Sembia.” She shifted from side to side to keep her feet from freezing inside her boots. “I’m hoping the gnomes will guide me onto the Great Glacier.”

The man’s weatherbeaten face almost broke into a grin at the relish of some private joke, and then his stoic face regained its composure. “Forgive me, I have forgotten my manners,” the woodsman quickly said, his voice apologetic. “I fear you have come a long way for naught, Martine of Sembia. The Vani are not friendly to strangers.”

“The Vani?”

“The gnomes of Samek.” He spoke in strained tones as he stiffly picked up his coat, a heavy parka of fur and leather, from the ground and brushed away the snow that clung to it.

Martine persisted, stepping forward to press her claim. “I still would like to try. Can you guide me to them?”

He stopped and suddenly scrutinized Martine, looking at her and beyond her into the gray woods, as if searching for any others who may have accompanied her. His gaze was startlingly sharp and intense, far more than she expected from an ordinary frontiersman, and it made Martine wonder if she had done the right thing by showing herself so abruptly. This simple woodsman wasn’t what she had expected, and that made her nervous.

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you?” She felt her hand inch unconsciously toward the sword that dangled from her hip.

Vilheim flicked his eyes between the sky and Martine until he finally seemed to compromise and gazed at the trees behind her. He rubbed at the thick stubble of his cheek tentatively. “Alone? Yes… I’m alone.” Martine thought she detected a trace of sorrow in his voice.

The man met her gaze evenly. A shiver made her legs tremble, and she was suddenly aware just how cold it was as the dry breeze swirled up motes of ice between them.

“You’ll freeze out here tonight,” the woodsman said abruptly, a smile finally breaking across his face. “I can offer you a hot meal and a place to sleep. You are welcome to stay, although you may find me a disappointing cook. Your search for the Vani might best be done tomorrow when there is more of the day.”

Martine accepted Vilheim Baltson’s sudden hospitality at face value. She sensed a basic decency in the man. It wasn’t just intuition, but also trust in the simple ways of the frontier. Visitors were too few to be abused or driven away. Martine seized the opportunity, thankful for the offer of warmth and comfort. “Much kindness, Master Vilheim. As soon as I’ve tended to my hippogriff, I’ll gladly accept what I’m sure will be considerable improvement on another meal of boiled jerky and biscuit.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” Vilheim warned as he pulled the axe free from the log to take it back inside. “Bring your animal up and come inside when you’re ready. I’ll straighten up the place a little.”

Martine trudged back through the snow to fetch Astriphie. The hippogriff was crouched in bloodstained snow, tearing at the carcass of a deer, forcing the ranger to wait until the meal was done. Finally she was able to remount the hippogriff safely and fly to the cabin. After making a quick bed of pine boughs for Astriphie, she knocked at the cabin door.

“Come in,” Vilheim called from the other side.

With one hand close to her sword, just in case, she opened the door and was instantly assaulted by an outrush of steamy warmth. Compared to the cold dryness outside, the cabin was like the tropics, and after days of camping in snow, it was a blessing.

“Come in quickly and close the door, or there’ll be more wood to cut,” her host chided from the fire. He was already ladling bubbling stew into two thick, wooden bowls. “Sit at the table. Please.”

Martine didn’t require more urging and pulled up one of the two rickety chairs she saw. The whole cabin was a single, sparsely furnished room—one wobbly table, two chairs, a bed heaped with comforters, and a chest. A well-polished, dented breastplate hung from a rack by the door, along with a battered war helm, several spears, and Vilheim’s coat. The crudely tanned bear rug on the smooth wood floor in front of the fireplace was testimony to her host’s prowess with bow and sword. These two weapons hung over the log mantel, both unpretentious but well made. Aside from these martial touches, the rest of the cabin’s furnishings were purely functional—pots and pans, lamps, dishes, and the like. Overhead, the scarred wood rafters were carelessly decorated with leather bags hung from pegs and, in one case, a bent-handled dagger driven into the wood. Above the rafters, cobwebs glowed in the flickering light. There was one other door, which Martine had little trouble guessing led to an attached privy.

She had barely settled in before her host quickly set the table with bowls of hot stew, great brown rounds of bread, and a pot of fresh cheese. The aroma of grease, fried onions, and salted venison belied the threat of bad cooking. After Vilheim pulled up the other chair and mumbled a grace, Martine set to eating with a vengeance. She ate greedily while Vilheim observed silently.

After both had pushed their bowls away and Martine profusely thanked her host, the talk gradually turned to news of the outside world. They talked about trivialities—who ruled where, and what new wonders had arisen. He was particularly interested in how the land’s faiths fared, and although she wasn’t very religious, she told him what she knew. As the conversation continued, Martine came to call him “Vil,” and he in turn managed to drop the formal “of Sembia” from her name.

Yet throughout their conversation, Vil revealed but little of himself. He was from Chessentia, as she had guessed, and had been living in the valley for about three years. He had settled here for privacy, he explained, and it was as good a reason as many she had heard.

She offered little more about herself. No mention was made of her role in the Harpers or of her current mission. It wasn’t wise to carelessly advertise one’s allegiance. Her host seemed satisfied to let her keep her secrets.

At last the Harper broached the subject of the gnomes.

“I know them,” Vilheim allowed. “I’ve been their neighbor for three years now—but a short time, in their estimation. They’re good enough neighbors, but in their own way.” Vil paused and sucked on his lip as he tried to think of the right words. “They prefer their privacy.”

“Do you think I could meet with them?” Martine tried not to sound too eager. Unconsciously her fingers started playing with her table knife, spinning it back and forth. “Or could you guide me to the Great Glacier?”

Vil leaned back, considering the young woman’s question. “Better you try the Vani first. I usually stay away from glacier country. Tomorrow I will take you to see them, and you can ask for yourself.”