Soldiers of Ice

Nineteen

Martine, Vil, Krote, and Jouka crowded into Vil’s already cramped bathroom. As soon as the wounded Vani were moved carefully aside, Jouka jumped into the bottom of the big wooden tub Vil had set into the floor. Taking a hand axe, the gnome set to work. As he watched the destruction of his craftsmanship, Vil winced each time the axe descended. Outside the room, the gnomes pressed around the door of the chamber and watched curiously. When the axe finally broke through, Jouka lost his balance and nearly dropped it down the gaping hole beneath. The musky smell of damp earth filled the small room. Jouka moved several feet to one side, then began to chop at the other end of the broken board.

“No more hot baths,” Vil moaned. “I’ll miss them.”

More wood splintered, and the gnome passed a three-foot section of board out. The group passed it down the line as if it were something to treasure.

“It took me weeks to build this,” Vil lamented mournfully. A barking cough of a gnoll echoed faintly from outside. It sounded as if it came from near the front of the house. Martine stiffened, her hand reaching instinctively for an arrow from her quiver.

“Do not end our peace, humans,” Krote Word-Maker cautioned as he saw her move.

Several more planks were passed out of the tub before Jouka clambered out “It’s done,” he announced, slipping his axe back into the sheath he wore.

Martine stepped forward and gazed downward. The jagged hole in the bottom of the tub yawned into blackness. “Does everyone understand what to do?”

The group nodded. “All right I’ll go first”

From the way Vil had explained it, the tunnel dropped about four feet and then wormed around toward the rear of the cabin. Vil had described it as a “tight fit,” but Martine figured she’d be able to wriggle through without difficulty. She slid carefully past the jagged edges, and her feet touched bottom. “Candle.”

Vil passed a taper down. Guided by the small flame, she lowered herself to lie on her belly. The dim light did not carry far, blocked by a thick mass of cobwebs across the tunnel. With her sword, she brushed the webbing aside, but it still hung in dusty tendrils from the top of the passage.

The Harper wriggled across the cold ground into the darkness. There was barely space to raise her head up to look ahead. Vil hadn’t been kidding when he said it was cramped. The ceiling rubbed at her back in places. Tiny shapes scurried away frantically as she roused a den of field mice.

It wasn’t long before she began to feel the dark tunnel was endless. Pushing the candle ahead of her, the Harper crept along slowly. At last she saw a faint glow that marked the end of the tunnel. Beyond another curtain of cobwebs, the shaft was lit by opaque light.

“Made it,” the woman called back to the others. Struggling with her sword in the tight space; she carefully jabbed at the icy crust that sealed the opening. It was thicker than she guessed, and by the time the blade had broken through it, Jouka was bumping up against her feet. At last she succeeded in clearing a hole in the ice large enough to wriggle through. Halfway out, she paused, watching for anything suspicious.

By daylight, the woods at the back of the cabin appeared unwatched, but the morning fog concealed everything beyond the first row of trees. Martine waited cautiously for any sign of the enemy. “Hurry up,” the gnome behind her hissed impatiently. Finally, still uncertain it was clear. the black-haired woman scrambled through the gap, sign” for Jouka to hand out her gear, and then sprinted into the nearby woods. Gulping the fresh air and pleased to be in daylight once more, the woman Hopped onto au icy snow-bank and strung Vil’s bow.

One by one, as Martine kept watch with nocked arrow, the others wriggled out and melted into the forest. First came Jouka, followed by a long pause before Krote appeared. The gnoll had to tear at the ice with his claws to widen the hole before he could squirm his broad shoulders through.

Just as Vil was emerging from the hole, gnoll voices rang from the front of the house.

“My brothers come after their dead,” Krote said. “Will they notice we’re gone?” Martine worried And. “How can they know, human?” Krote asked. “Whatever,” Vil added. “Let’s not linger here. Martine, you know where Jazrac’s body is. We’ll need his ring to catch Vreesar in time. You lead.”

Without benefit of skis, the group’s progress through the snow was difficult. The birds were all silent, whether as a reaction to the chaos of battle or their presence, Martine did not know. They slipped through the sepulchral woods, hip-deep in white snow. The low fog, somewhere between ice and mist, swallowed the noise of their exertions, distorting calls and echoes till it was impossible for Martine to gauge the distance of any sound.

The fog provided traitorous comfort, for it came and went unexpectedly, one minute concealing, the next leaving them horribly exposed. “Cyric’s damnation!” Martine swore each time the fog lifted and revealed their position. There was already too much risk of being discovered without the tricks of winter conspiring to make things worse.

As the four neared the conquered warren, progress became slower and slower as mistrust and caution played on their fears. Martine could only pray she was right about Krote; she had no reason to trust him other than an irrational instinct about the gnoll. Some might have called it woman’s intuition, but it wasn’t that. She had long ago learned to dismiss such reactions. No, her faith was grounded on the vague kinship between warriors, the bond between men, women, even brutes who lived according to the dictates of the sword. It was this bond that allowed her to work with the unruly, the mercenary, or the detestable, whose motives and goals she could not conscionably abide anywhere else. It was this fraternity that made her trust Krote. Even though he was a shaman, the gnoll understood the life of the sword.

Would Krote betray her? No more, she felt, than the gnome at her side. Both were fierce in their beliefs, adamant in their pride and honor.

At last Martine guided them to the edge of the ravine. She remembered the stand of massed birch that flourished in a sunlit break between the trees. She remembered it being at her back. Using that to orient herself, the Harper quickly found the wind-drifted tracks of the night before. From there, it was a simple matter to backtrack to the battle site.

In bright daylight, the place looked different. What seemed ominous by dusk was clear and peaceful this morning. Not innocent, though, Martine thought. Few forests were innocent, but their daytime secrets were less sinister than those that lurked in the depths of the night.

Broken trees, frozen bodies, and pink snow was evidence they had found the site. The gnolls had made no effort to collect their dead, although the bodies had evidently been quickly stripped of everything useful. The naked corpses were frozen hard, their skin ice blue beneath the tawny fur. Vil and Jouka examined the battlefield with the curiosity of warriors, quietly impressed by the woman’s’ handiwork Krote moved from body to body, commending cub by name to his fierce god Gorellik.

Seeing signs of the looting, Martine realized her plan would come to naught if the gnolls had stripped Jazrac clean. Not wanting to look, she had to force herself to examine the site. It was with sick relief that she saw a booted foot jutting out from beneath a tangle of branches. A quick cry summoned the others.

The two humans and the gnome dug away the drifted snow. Krote stood back, his arms wrapped around himself for warmth, refusing to assist. “It is not clean,” he insisted adamantly. “I will not touch it.” Martine wondered if his conviction were true or if it was just an excuse.

Gradually the snow was cleared from the corpse. Jazrac’s skin was an awful bloodless white with traces of frozen blue veins under the skin. Martine forced herself to think of the corpse as a thing. Remembering it as Jazrac salted too many wounds in her memory, and she couldn’t afford to break down now.

The ring was on his left hand, I think. “There, under… that tree trunk.” The Harper pointed deep into the tangle of Vil surveyed the deadfall and shook his head. “We’ll never be able to move this. Jouka, can you get in there?” The gnome wormed his way through the branches until he reached the heart of the tangle. After a moment, he swore bitterly. “The ring won’t come off. The finger’s swollen.”

“Cut it off,” Krote suggested without hesitation. He glared at the humans to see if they had any objection. “Should I, woman?” Jouka asked.

Martine flinched at the thought, but she could think of no other solution. “Do it,” she said before stepping away. She didn’t want to see or know anything about this part of the gruesome job.

When Jouka resurfaced, he looked tight-lipped and grim. He held out a plain silver ring toward the ranger. “The blessings of the Great Crafter on you in this age of sorrow,” he consoled stiffly. “I commend you on his release from toil.”

“What?”

Vil intervened. “The Vani live for centuries,” he explained. “In their opinion, death frees the spirit from centuries of drudgery.”

Jouka nodded. “It is just our way to steal some joy from Death and his minions.”

“Thank you, Master Jouka.” Martine held the ring in her fingers. “Word-Maker… the ring.”

The shaman reached with his clawed fingers to accept the magical ring. His eyes were wide and eager, his jaw open wolfishly.

“I do not like this,” Jouka said softly. Even as the gnoll moved forward to claim the prize, Jouka and Vil stepped in close behind him, their swords tensely poised.

The gnoll plucked the ring from Martine’s fingers, his face twisting. Was it wonder? Triumph? Martine looked up into his face but could not tell. He was a gnoll. Who knew what emotions filled his mind?

With deliberate movements, Krote slipped the ring over his clawed finger. The silver circlet slid over his bony knuckle and settled into place. The shaman let out a rasping breath and closed his eyes as if in bliss.

“Can you use it, Krote? Can you use it?” the Harper asked eagerly. Everything depended on his answer.

Behind the gnoll, like the slave who warned the king of his own mortality, Jouka softly added his own words: “Remember, dog-man. My sword is faster than—”

Whaaaam!

All at once every ounce of air in Martine’s lungs felt as if it had been sucked out of her. The shock knocked her legs completely out from under her. The next thing she knew she and the others were sprawled across a hard abas of ice, nearly blinded by the glaring reflection of sunlight morning air felt colder than it had been mere seconds ago “Gods!” the Harper swore.

“What happened?”

“Where are—”

“There,” Krote rasped, pointing his long arm toward a ridge of upheaved ice, the edge of a great frozen crater in the center of a frozen plain.

“The glacier,” Martine mouthed in an awed whisper. “We’re here.” Slowly she stood up, like a sailor home from the sea adjusting his legs to shore. The others rose, their expressions awed. Krote stared at the ring on his finger. Vil kept his eyes on the ridge and adjusted his gear, while little Jouka felt himself over, as if checking to see that all his parts had survived in one piece.

“I bring you here as I said I would,” the shaman said. “Now what?” Vil queried.

Martine shaded her eyes and scanned the ridge. “Now we find Vreesar. Up there, I think.”

“Where?” Jouka asked.

Vid studied the waste. “That’s a lot of territory, Martine.”

“Well just have to look,” Martine said helplessly. She started trudging in the crater’s direction.

Krote growled. “I do not waste time searching. Woman, where are my charms?”

“What are you talking about?”

Word-Maker snapped his teeth in irritation. “My signs of Gorellik… where are they?”

“I have them, dog-man,” Jouka answered unexpectedly. “Give them to me.”

“Do it, Jouka,” Martine ordered.

The gnome grudgingly handed over a leather pouch. Taking out the iron fetish of his god, the shaman held it in his hands while he mumbled a prayer. When he had finished, the gnoll held the charm out and carefully turned around in a circle. Halfway through, he stopped and pointed farther up the crater wall. “There—not far. Gorellik has given me a sign.”

Martine guessed the shaman had used a spell to find things. She’d seen priests use them before, though only for simple searches such as finding a peasant’s lost axe or a merchants stolen purse. It had worked then, and she didn’t doubt its effectiveness now. “Let’s go.” Shouldering a pack, the Harper began scrambling over the uneven ice as fast as she could manage.

After only fifty yards, the group came to afresh trail concealed beyond a pressure ridge. The tracks, large and clawed, were unmistakably Vreesar’s, and they were headed toward the crater’s rim.

“Too late!” Jouka cried.

Martine seized the little warrior and pushed him forward. “Not yet the tracks are fresh. If we hurry—”

“Up there!” Vil shouted, scanning the slope. The elemental wasn’t more than a hundred yards away, almost to the lip of the shattered rift. There was no indication it had seen the group, although there was nothing to prevent it from turning and seeing them at any time.

The man broke into a sprint, leaving the others behind. Martine followed at a dead run, but her shorter legs could not keep up with the long-striding warrior. Jouka lagged even farther behind, struggling in the snow and ice, while the gnoll hung to the rear.

“Vil, wait!” the Harper shouted. “We should attack together.”

The man kept running. “We’ve got to stop it now, before it can break the stone,” he shouted back.

“Damn it, Vil,” the woman huffed as she thrashed after him, “don’t be so… paladinish!”

The elemental evidently heard something, and it turned to steal a look in their direction.

“You!” Vreesar shrilled as the charging warriors bounded across the icy field toward their enemy Although the fiend could have meant Vil, Martine felt the creatures gaze fixed on her. “Too late, humanz!”

The Harper was still several long strides behind Vil when the elemental held up Jazrac’s blood-black stone, clutched in the viselike grip of its fingers. There was no time left, no hope of snatching the key from Vreesar’s grasp before it could crush the fragile rock.

“No!” Martine shouted as she flung her sword in desperation. The long sword tumbled awkwardly toward the fiend. “Please, Tymora—” she started to pray.

The goddess of luck must have heard her plea, for the iron hilt of her tumbling blade struck the elemental solidly across the shoulder, knocking its arm wide. The stone, clamped in Vreesar’s fingertips, jarred loose and tumbled into the snow.

Before the fiend could recover, Vil sprang upon it, the man’s sword cutting a brilliant arc of sunlight as he slashed. Steel rang as the warrior struck the elemental’s hard carapace. Vreesar shrieked as the sword pierced the ice creature’s shell with a noise like the popping of a lobster being shelled.

“Vil! Look out!” the woman screamed.

The warning came too late. Vil was drawing back his sword for another swing when the elemental slashed its glittering claws across the man’s head. Martine heard the sound of tearing flesh, and Vil’s head snapped back. His muscles rubbery, the former paladin staggered a few steps before collapsing to the ice, the long sword dropping from his grasp and skittering across the ice. Blood streamed from a long gash in his helm and the shredded flesh of his cheek. The slash had laid his jaw open to teeth and bone, so that when he tried to scream, the cries only made gurgling noises with no mouth to shape them. Nonetheless the warrior lunged for the elemental, desperately hugging the freezing creature in his grasp.

Martine groped for Vil’s sword, the only weapon close at hand. As she searched futilely, afraid to take her eyes off the fiend, the creature shaped its tiny mouth in a mockery of a smile. Sparkling fire formed into a ball between Vreesar’s fingertips even as Vil tried in vain to pull the creature down.

“Let go, Vil!” Martine shouted, helpless to stop the fiend. “It endz, human,” Vreesar snarled. With a sudden jab, it shoved the frozen ball down Vil’s breastplate and hurled the man aside. Vil’s torn face barely had a chance to register confused surprise before he was pitched agonizingly against an icy upthrust. A repercussive roar filled the air. Metal shrieked as Vil’s breastplate burst in bloody ruptures, blasted by the ice-splintered explosion it contained. The man heaved with a single twitch, then flopped, his shattered body barely contained by the twisted metal shell.

“Vil!” Martine screamed again. Tears blinded her eyes. She scrambled forward, anguish giving her strength. The swirling snow kicked up by the blast uncovered a glint of metal, and her hand settled on the cool steel of Vil’s sword.

Using the weapon like a cane, Martine heaved unsteadily to her feet. Rage fought with tears as she faced the fiend. Martine wanted to vent her hatred of the creature more than she had ever wanted to strike out at anything in all the world. Stumbling over the snow, the Harper pulled her arm back to thrust. The elemental was distracted by its own wound, a clean split in its hardened shell, so Martine managed to get close enough to hear its heaving gasps and smell the murderer’s freezing aura.

She wanted to see its eyes, to see if there would be fear in them. She hoped the elemental would be afraid, afraid of its own death.

“Vreesar,” she whispered.

The fiend looked up, and their eyes met, its orbs tiny and almost hidden behind an icy fringe. The elemental thrust its hand forward, already crackling with energy, but Martine knew that trick and batted it away with a fast swat. Before the creature could recover, the Harper slammed her sword forward, throwing all her weight behind it. The sword tip skidded and then found a gap where the hip met the torso and sliced inward. The creature reeled back, and Martine, still staring eye to eye, fell forward with it. They hit the ground with a bone-breaking impact that threw the Harper to the side. Vreesar’s magical ice ball slipped from its grasp and rolled down the slope.

Crackle-booom!

The blast’s shock wave stunned Martine, and the ice needles tore at her back, but her prone position saved her from the worst of the blast. Vreesar’s knee hit her in the gut, and she flipped away to land painfully in a jagged bed of hard ice.

As both struggled to their feet, Krote’s tawny form flashed past the Harper. Martine thought the gnoll was lunging to attack, but instead the shaman dove at a patch of snow. When he emerged, Word-Maker held Jazrac’s stone in his paw. The gnoll panted clouds of steam as he savored the power in his grasp.

Vreesar froze, torn between the stone and the threat of Martine’s sword. It couldn’t turn on the shaman without exposing itself to the ranger. Its wounds, leaking a clear fluid, were testimony to the effectiveness of its attackers.

Even with both hands wrapped around the hilt, the Harper barely could hold the sword. The ground seemed to tilt and roll as she tried to shake off the reverberations pounding inside her head. Every gulp of breath lanced her with fiery pain.

Greedy eyes coveted the artifact. “Shaman,” Vreesar droned soothingly, “I will make you chieftain-chieftain of all the tribez of the north. My brotherz will be your army. Give me the stone and we will destroy the humanz and the little onez.” The elemental slowly held out its hand, waiting to receive Krote’s gift.

The shaman crouched. His eyes were filled with feral light as he looked from human to monster: His jaw hung open, salivating like a hound hunched over its kill.

“Krote, don’t do it!” Martine managed to croak in desperation.

“Word-Maker, you can be chieftain.”

“Your word you live by your word,” she reminded him “Chieftain of the Burnt Fur,” Vreesar tempted.

The wild light vanished from the shaman’s eyes. “Burnt Fur all dead!” he snarled. “And you killed them. You not get stone!” With a sudden move, the gnoll tossed the cinder to Martine.

“Now you die!” Vreesar shrieked. With a halting step, it lunged toward the woman. Martine dropped her guard as she reached out to catch the stone. Suddenly a hand pushed her aside; and Jouka’s small black-spiked figure sprang between her and Vreesar. Sunlight blazed in a hundred sparks off the steel points on Jouka’s outspread arms. Before the charging elemental could evade him, the gnome seized the monster’s legs in his porcupine embrace, triggering a series of cracks as the spikes drove through the fiend’s shell. Vreesar kicked its leg frantically, trying to throw the little warrior off, but the gnome clung like a burr, all the time banging his spiked face mask against the elemental’s thigh. Cold white ichor streamed down the featureless curves of the gnome’s helm.

Forgotten by Vreesar, Krote rose up behind the elemental. Almost as tall as the monster, the gaunt gnoll seized the fiend’s shoulders and twisted its body backward. The air rang with the beast’s alarmed shriek. Its long arms flailed as it tried to reach the tormentor at its back. Claws raked Krote’s arms, slicing his wrapping until it dangled in bloody strips, and the gnoll’s face writhed with pain, but still he clung to the creature.

“Now, human!” the Word-Maker roared. Releasing one hand, he grabbed Vreesar’s jagged brow, ignoring the needlelike points, and stretched its head back. “Kill it!”

Though the world still spun, Martine staggered forward and raised her sword with both arms till it pointed down like a spike. Vreesar’s little eyes widened in fear. “Nooo!” the shrill voice pleaded.

Martine slammed her sword point first into the fiend’s exposed throat.

When the monster finally stopped thrashing, Martine left Krote, left Jouka, left her sword, and stumbled to where Vil lay. She knelt beside the man, knowing already all hope was lost. He sagged against the canted ice, eye half closed and dull, his head turned so that she could not see his shredded face. Blood trickled from his mouth and became lost in the black and gray of his beard. More soaked through the rents in his armor, the steel bloated out by the blast. When she raised his arms to fold them over his chest, his limbs flopped with the impossible limpness that only death brings.

There was no breath, no last words of farewell, no chance for one last speech as in the tales of the bards. There was only his body, still warm, but lost forever.

“Good-bye, Vil,” she murmured, saying what he could not hear.

Behind her, Krote stood silent, ignoring the streams of blood that trickled from his arms while Jouka undid the dark-spiked mask that hid his face. Krote turned to face him, and in another place and time, the two might have traded blows, but now Jouka only kept a wary distance, perhaps finally deciding that this one gnoll deserved to live.

“It’s over, Mistress Martine. The battle’s done. Your plan worked.” Jouka paused and mustered up what little compassion he could. “He did not fail, Mistress Martine. He did not die in vain.”

The words slowly returned her to the world, and she gently closed the man’s one remaining eye. With a weary effort, filled with pain, she rose to her feet: “Praise be to Torm, Jouka,” the woman intoned, looking at the stone in her hand. “Praise be to Torm.”