Soldiers of Ice

Four

Scrabbling noises like fingernails grating on rock, teeth crunching bones, ice freezing in my veins I hear scrabbling noises, the woman dreamed. It’s the sound of fresh earth being thrown on my grave, thumping with each showelful. I have to scream. I have to yell and let them know I’m still alive.

But that’s so much effort.

“Dig, dig, dig,” said a little voice in singsong.

It’s not coming from my throat, the woman concluded dreamily. It’s too dry… my throat’s too dry.

“Dig, dig, dig,” said the voice again. It sounded like a peevish child. “Just because he says so. Does he dig? No-o-o. That’s why he brought me along so he could make me dig. He gets to sulk, while I, Icy-White the Clever, I get to dig.

“Ow!” A sharp jab pierced Martine’s numbness.

“Ow?”

The pain brought things into focus. Martine was on her side, pressed beneath a mass of ice and snow. She could vaguely see a tumbled field of ice, perhaps the base of a slide, that stood out in stark shadow from the fading blue glow that lit the night, the last light of Jazrac’s magic. The slide apparently ended in the rift floor, now hard and still. The canyon walls had fallen inward, leaving a broad bowl where the rift’s jagged scar had been. Distant crashing rumbles still echoed across the snow, warning that all was not yet still.

The jab repeated, not as sharp this time but still painful. “Get… me… out of here.” The words were a great struggle. A layer of frost settled on her cheeks cracked as she spoke.

“Ice talks!” squeaked the voice. The scrabbling renewed, faster and closer. Suddenly sharp claws raked the Harper’s cheek and harshly brushed away the snow that coated her. The sting cracked the lethargy the ice was sealing about her. The Harper struggled against the enclosing tomb of ice and heaved upright, the motion accompanied by the grinding sound of cracking snow.

“Awwwk!”

“What the—” The cry escaped Martine unwillingly as she found herself faced by a creature of ice. It couldn’t have stood any taller than her thighs, though it loomed over her now as it stood on a block of ice pinning her legs. Its skin was pearly and smooth with blue-white translucence, yet cut in hard angles and sharp edges like shattered ice. The head was broad and flat, eyes gleaming under razor-edged brows.

The creature hopped back, momentarily as startled as she. “Not ice! No, no, no. This is not ice.”

The Harper tested her legs, trying to shift free. The block that pinned her legs was loose, but at the first tremor, the creature lunged forward, seizing her neck with one clawed hand. Its grip was cold and strong, its fingers clicking bonily against each other as it squeezed her throat. “No, no! You belong to Icy-White now. My prize—mine and mine only,” the creature babbled, its mirror-sharp face fractured with glee. An iciclelike claw waggled through the steam of her exhalations. Abruptly the creature gave a startled squeal and snatched its hand away. “You burn, you steam!” it chirped in wonderment while licking furiously at the finger Martine had just breathed on. “I’ll show you to Vreesar when he comes,” it continued craftily. “Then hell let me stop digging.”

Scampering like a monkey, the creature seized the Harper’s shoulder in its cold claws and dragged her from the icy debris, all the while taking care to avoid the steam of her breath. Its talons dug through her furs and drew blood beneath them, but Martine was too tired to fight back. It was all she could do to feebly kick free of the last bits of crust.

“Now, no fight from you, hot one, or Icy-White kill you and feast on your cold meat,” the creature cackled near her ear before it released her. Its breath was chilling, without a hint of warmth either in spirit or body.

The ranger didn’t answer, nor did the creature care. In springing hops, it leaped from block to block, bounding across the slide, but never far from where the Harper lay. Martine remained still, watching and gathering her strength. I’m too weak to get away yet, Martine calculated after noting the creature’s nimble speed as it crossed the treacherous tangle of the slide. She felt wary but not fearful, since the thing didn’t seem immediately intent upon killing her.

Indeed, for the moment, it seemed to have forgotten her as it scrambled over the slide, poking here, sniffing there, all the time muttering to itself. Eyeing her weird captor, the ranger tried to match the creature to all the fiends she’d ever seen or heard of. With its stunted size and shimmering skin, it looked like a malevolent sprite sculpted from ice. Its form lacked gentle curves, each joint capped by glittering little spurs. Nothing about it matched her experiences nor any of the tales she’d heard. Glacier lore was not her strong suit.

While the strange creature capered in the ghastly light of fading magic, Martine discreetly probed the snow for her gear, a search that turned up her sword and pouch but little more. Jazrac’s cinder was still there, she noted with relief, along with his dagger. She thought of staking it in the snow in hope Jazrac might be at his crystal ball at that very moment, but she couldn’t. Calling for his help now was admitting her own failure and she still had hopes of succeeding. All she needed was a little time to get away.

“Who are you?” she called to the impish thing. The question was partially a stall and partially curiosity.

“You talk—you talk again!” Sliding and bounding, the ice sprite careened down the slope to land not far from her feet. A stream of dislodged ice and snow clattered down after it.

“Who are you?” she repeated.

“Me? Me?” The thing sprang about in glee, all the while grinning in cold, false modesty. “Hot Breath, you were captured by Icy-White the Clever, Icy-White the Quick—”

“The greatest of the…” It was a thin trick, but Martine was banking on the thing’s simpleminded vanity to finish the phrase.

“Yes, yes. The greatest of Auril’s children, the greatest of the mephits. Clever warrior I am to capture you. Vreesar will be much impressed with me.”

Auril, mephit, Vreesar… Martine seized on the three clues, even as she nodded in false awe. Auril was the Frost Maiden, goddess of cold, and supposedly worshiped by the people of the far north, not that the Harper had ever seen one of these so-called ice priests. Mephits she knew even less about some type of elemental imp or fiend. Still, it was enough to confirm her suspicion. Shifting closer to her sword, she asked anyway.

“This isn’t your home, is it?”

The mephit stopped and looked all about, head snapping to and fro in nervous tics. “Home? Oh, no. Oh, no. This place is too warm. But Vreesar found the path and wanted to explore. Dragged me with him, he did. Made me come.”

Her guess was right; something had passed through the rift. But how many, and how dangerous were they? She needed to know if all her work to seal the rift was too late. “Vreesar?”

“Vreesar’s mean, bosses me around, thinks he can tell Icy-White what to do, but now look who caught Hot Breath. Now Vreesar’s just “The mephit’s gaze strayed upward, looking at something behind Martine, and as it did, the bold words in its throat choked off in a stunted gurgle. “Vreesar is very clever and quiet,” Icy-White concluded in a squeaked whisper.

The mephit had barely spoken before Martine, her fighting senses coming back to her, scooted around to the side so she could see both the mephit and where it gazed, pressing her back against an upturned ice block.

Towering over both of them, a good two feet taller than Martine’s five-foot frame, was an overgrown version of the mephit that had captured her. The beast had the same armor-sheened skin, smoothly flowing over its body to taper off into sharp-edged flares. The icelike carapace rendered the creature insectoid, even though it stood like a man. The look was further enhanced by the fact that its frame was overly thin and elongated, yet that same thinness made menacingly powerful the hard bands of muscle that swelled like cables across its body. It was the effect one might have gotten, Martine imagined, if you pared all the soft parts away from a normal creature, leaving nothing but the hard masses behind.

The creature’s head was triangular, tapering at the chin into a beard of icicles that grew out of its flesh. The barbed ridge of its brow was crusted with more of the same, veiling the deep pits of its eyes. A mouth, small and precise, set below two narrow slots that were its nose, gaped eagerly, revealing a formidable line of spinelike teeth.

“What iz thiz?” the creature buzzed in one rapid breath. It stared at Martine, pivoting its head on a virtually nonexistent neck “What have you found?”

“Vreesar, I captured it,” the mephit boasted with a prattling squeal. The ice-bred imp sprang forward to show off its conquest, staying just out of Martine’s reach. “It breathes smoke and steam, hot enough to burn me, but I captured it.” With those words, the mephit danced about in triumph, waggling its long claws overhead. “I captured the Hot Breath! Me!”

“Simpleton! It iz a human!” The creature’s buzzing snarl rang through the cold air like the scrape of a cutlers grindstone. With a fluid stretch that defied its angular legs, the creature stepped off the slope to place itself before the Harper, twisting its head this way and that as it eyed her. The little one found you?”

Martine nodded slowly, doing her best to meet the creature’s gaze. Her previous confidence was fading fast. It was one thing to be the bold prisoner of a small, silly mephit, but the smooth power and evil of this creature raised the stakes dangerously. You should have tried to contact Jazrac, a small part of her whispered. Martine doubted her strength or speed could ever hope to match this creature’s.

“Did you do thiz, human?” The creature leered straight at her with its frosty face till its icy breath, colder than the glacial winds, burned her skin.

Martine bit the inside of her lip. Silence was her only plan, even though she had no idea how the creature might react. Perhaps it found the answer in her eyes, or perhaps it saw her determination, for the fiend drew back. “Do you see what haz happened, human?” The creature turned its gaze to the tangled floor of the rift, shifting and wavering in the last light of enchantment. The sapphire-colored fire was gone from the sky, although it still seemed to tinge the color of the stars as they washed the glacier in weak light.

“You have trapped me!” the beast shrieked, its voice ringing from the sides of the bowl. A hundred fiends seemed to stand among the distant ruins, echoing back its words. “You have closed my door!”

In a blur, it sprang over Martine, straddling her. Clawed hands pressed against her parka. Its hoary face hung over her, thin lips pulled back in the menace of a smile. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” It was a desperate surge of bravado. She tensed her body for the strike.

“Liez,” it hummed, pressing its claws against her harder. “You and your friendz did it You will tell me how to reopen the path.”

Friends? she wondered.

“No.” It was only her determination not to fail in her mission that gave her defiance voice.

“No?” the beast shrieked. “You defy Vreesar, one of the great elementalz? My brotherz waiting to come will not be halted by your little trickz. I will learn how to reopen the gate.” In its rage, the creature raised up one taloned hand to strike. Martine, ready for her last desperate act, closed a hand around the hilt of her sword. I will not die easily, she told herself fiercely.

“Vreesar, the Hot Breath is my prisoner! Mine!” screeched the mephit from its perch up the slope. “You cannot kill it!” In frustrated rage, the imp pelted the larger creature with fistfuls of ice.

“Cursed mephit!” the fiend roared, batting away the missiles. With its claws finally removed from her ribs, Martine took advantage of the distraction to jerk loose her ice-encased sword. Before she’d gotten the blade free, the shadow-cloaked elemental seized his little tormentor and whirled back on the Harper, swinging the mephit about by its scrawny neck. The dark fiend, lit by the last flashes of blue, trembled and twitched as its vile passions warred within it. The mephit writhed helplessly in the great creature’s strangling grasp.

The monster’s head tipped left, then right. Finally stopping, the gaunt monster looked curiously at the mephit, now nearly limp. Evil light glistened in the ice-bearded eyes, and with a callous gesture, the gelugon hurled the mephit at Martine’s feet.

The little ice imp flopped feebly on the ground, gasping for air, and Martine seized the opportunity to scramble backward, putting more distance between her and her captors.

“Icy White, I forgot your great might to have captured so powerful a human,” Vreesar mocked as it crouched down spiderlike before the mephit, looking beyond it to Martine. “Waz foolish, yez, to think thiz human waz strong enough to close the gap. There must be otherz who did thiz and I will find them. Keep your prize, Mephit. Make it tell you of the otherz.”

“I will do this, Vreesar.” Long claws scissored the air as the creature sidled over to Martine until it could reach out and chuck its taloned tips under her chin. The Hot Blood will talk. It will tell me everything.”

Martine’s boot lashed out, but it was a little too stiff and slow to catch the agile creature, which scooted aside. “See, Vreesar, it fears me already,” it chuckled gleefully. It skipped back close, watching Martine carefully. “It knows I will make it talk.”

“Then do so, pest I hunt!”

With a sinuous leap, the elemental departed into the night as suddenly as it had arrived. The clatter of loosened ice tumbling from upslope echoed its retreat.

Martine tensed as she waited for the last sounds to fade away. The howling wind and distant rumbles from the rift quickly separated them from the world. Human and mephit faced each other at the bottom of the snowy world.

“How will I begin?” the thing across from her chortled, almost forgetful of her presence. “A finger? A nose? A cut here… or there?” With each question, it mapped out its intentions in the snow.

Preparing to spring, Martine drew in a great breath, a breath the mephit mistook for fear. It was time to strike, she knew. Her fingers dug into the snow until they squeezed tightly on her sword hilt once more.

“How—”

The question was cut clean by Martine’s charging scream, bellowed out as if to waken her rigid muscles. Snow burst outward as she jerked the sword free in a wild, slashing arc. Her legs were too stiff, her arms too weak as she lurched to her feet and lunged wildly toward the mephit.

If only she’d been faster, unfrozen and unspent, the ranger knew she could have caught the creature in that transitory moment when it froze in surprise. But her legs sagged under the need to move, her arm pulled the arc of the sword just a little too slow. With the blade still in midswing, the mephit lashed out a clawed hand. Martine heard the tear of leather and skin as the talons swept across the shoulder of her sword arm. Fire and ice mingled as blood rushed from the gashes and over her exposed skin. Pain charged her cries now.

The mephit didn’t wait for the sword to complete its crippled arc but lunged forward to meet her charge. Its barbed arms sliced viciously at her legs and left her sprawled in the snow. Springing onto her back, the imp wrapped its hard arms around her like a wrestler. With one arm, it wrenched her bleeding shoulder, triggering fits of pain, while the other wrapped around her neck and pulled at her hood to expose the soft flesh. She could feel its bitter breath, hear its teeth snap as it struggled to tear her throat.

Martine writhed and thrashed, desperately trying to reach the sword that had skittered once more beyond reach. like a wild mare, she bucked and rolled, slamming the little imp on her back against the jagged ice.

“Let go, damn it!” she raged, but the imp clung with stubborn determination. Each rolling smash brought the Harper more numbing pain, at best preventing the little monster from biting home. But it seemed each lunge brought her sword no closer.

I’m not unarmed, she suddenly realized. Twisting, she gazed directly into the imp’s face. Its tiny jaws snapped, crystal teeth shining fiercely. Gulping for air, the Harper blew as warmly as she could into the mephit’s ice-ridged eyes.

“Burns!” squealed the imp. Its death lock grip loosened as it clutched at its scalded face, and in a flash, Martine clenched James knife.

“Burn, Hot Blood! You burn!” the creature squealed in her ear.

Martine wrenched her bloodied arm free and reached up to seize the creature’s forehead. The stretch of muscles triggered fires of pain that she forced herself to ignore. Somewhere she’d lost a mitten, and now the mephit’s icy ridges tore at her hand. With a panting effort, she bucked once more, twisting the imp’s head back as she did. Blindly she jabbed the dagger over her shoulder. It hit something solid, held, and then dug in farther. The mephit shrieked in her ear, proof enough she’d hit home. With all the strength she could muster, Martine shoved the blade outward, feeling it slide in jerky pops as it cut through something. All at once the blade broke free, and her arm shot out like a punch-drunk fighter’s.

The shriek still rang in her ears, almost blocking out the choking gurgle that replaced it. Clear blood, colder than ice water, washed down her shoulder as the arms of the imp broke loose in wild flails. Martine flung the creature off her and spun around to deliver the coup de grace. The killing stroke was unnecessary, for the mephit already lay on the ground, its head lolling as the body heaved in reflexive jerks. Her thrust had caught it just below what looked like its ear and sliced down the length of its neck, releasing a flood of silver-white blood.

Martine didn’t wait for the creature to die. Already she felt unsteady on her feet, and her wounds were icing up with blood-soaked frost. Concentrating dully, she gutted her pouch, first taking care to pocket Jazrac’s keystone, then plastered the leather over her shredded shoulder. A quick inspection gave her no relief, for her wounds were both bloody and deep. She recovered her mitten and gingerly slipped it over her scraped hand.

“I can’t wait here. Vreesar might be back.” Talking kept her focused. She looked up into the darkness at the jumble of the slide. Somewhere up there was the glacier wall and the valley beyond. Gathering her sword and her few recovered possessions, the woman began to climb.

Two steps up, one back; two steps up, one back… So it seemed through the long ascent Boulders tauntingly gave beneath her feet, triggering slides that threatened to drag her back down to the bottom of the slide. Ice made her footing treacherous. Wind froze her hands into claws. She stabbed into the ice with her sword like an ice axe, chipping footholds with the point, driving the blade in as deep as possible. The blue light of magic was gone, leaving only the feeble starlight to suggest the way. More than once she almost plunged into darkened hollows, thinking they were solid ground.

How long it took her to reach the top or how she reached it, Martine could not say. After a point there was no memory of the climb’s details, only the need to climb and keep moving. The exhausted ranger wasn’t even aware she’d cleared the worst of it until she found herself staggering across the cracked ice plain of the surface. Up here, with all the stars of the night to guide her, Martine could just see the subtle change where the frozen wall sagged to the valley floor, a descending road to safety. She made for it.

At least I can die in the forest, she thought morbidly.

At the edge of the great ramp, Martine heard voices. Dumbly, she froze where she stood, unable to think of cover or safety. She concentrated on the voices. They were guttural and sharp, not like Vreesar’s hissing buzz. There were several of them, too a group, though she couldn’t tell how many. Numbly she moved slowly closer to the source.

Then she saw them, no more than twenty feet below her. There were six, perhaps seven gnolls, working their way up the slope, well armed and thickly furred. They were still too far away to understand their words, but Martine could only presume the night’s events had drawn them here. Vreesar wasn’t with them, and she doubted they even knew of him.

Perhaps it was blind exhaustion that gave her the idea, or perhaps it was the need to survive. Although the Harper knew she could hide and let them pass by, instead she stepped boldly into the path or as boldly as her wavering muscles could support her and raised her arms above her head in the universal sign of surrender.