Soldiers of Ice (38 page)

“Made it,” the woman called back to the others.

Struggling with her sword in the tight space, she car, fully jabbed at the icy crust that sealed the opening. It wl thicker than she guessed, and by the time the blade h, broken through it, Jouka was bumping up against her fee At last she succeeded in clearing a hole in the ice larŁ

enough to wriggle through. Halfway out, she pause

watching for anything suspicious.

By daylight, the woods at the back of the cabin appear unwatched, but the morning fog concealed everythi

beyond the first row of trees. Marline waited cautiously if any sign of the enemy. “Hurry up,” the gnome behind h hissed impatiently. Finally, still uncertain it was clear, tl black-haired woman scrambled through the gap, signah for Jouka to hand out her gear, and then sprinted into I nearby woods. Gulping the fresh air and pleased to be daylight once More, the woman flopped onto an icy sno bank and strung Vil’s bow.

One by one, as Martine kept watch with hocked arrc

the others wriggled out and melted into the forest. Fi came Jouka, followed by a long pause before Krote appean The gnoll had to tear at the ice with his claws to widen I hole before he could squirm his broad shoulders throug Just as Vii was emerging from the hole, gnoll voices r, from the front of the house.

“My brothers come after their dead,” Krote said.

“Will they notice we’re gone?” Martine worried aloud.

“How can they know, human?” Krote asked.

“Whatever,” Vii added. “Let’s not linger here. Marti you know where Jazrac’s body is. We’ll need his ring catch Vreesar in time. You lead.”

Without benefit of skis, the group’s progress through 298

The Harl)ers

snow was difficult. The birds were all silent, whether as a reaction to the chaos of baffle 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 Soldiers of Ice

299

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.

Vii and Jouka examined the battlefield with the curiosity of warriors, quietly impressed by the woman’s handiwork.

Krote moved from body to body, commending each 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.

‘q’he ring was on his left hand, I think. There, under. ˇˇ

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The Harl>ers

that tree trunk.” The Harper pointed deep into the tangle of wood.

Vii 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?”

Vii 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. %Vord-Maker… the ting.”

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 Soldiers of Ice

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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 kn6cked her legs completely out from under her. The next thing she knew, she and the others were sprawled across a hard sheet of ice, nearly blinded by the glaring reflection of sunlight. The morning air felt colder than it had been mere seconds ago.

“Gods!” the Harper swore.

%Vhat happened?”

“Where are—”

‘qhere,” 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 302

The Harers

we find Vreesar. Up there, I think.”

“Where?” Jouka asked.

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

“We’ll 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?”

WordMaker 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 merchant’s 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 a fresh trail concealed beyond a pressure ridge. The tracks, large and

clawed, were unmistakably Vreesar’s, and they were

headed toward the crater’s rim.

‘I’oo 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

Soldiers of !ce

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elemental wasn’t More than a hundred yards away, alto to the lip of the shattered rift. There was no indicatior had seen the group, although there was nothing to prew it from turning and seeing them at any time.

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

“Vil, wait? the Harper shouted. “We should att

together.”

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

“Damn it, Vil,’ the woman huffed as she thrashed a

him, “don’t be so… paladinish!”

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

“You? Vreesar shrilled as the charging warriors bount across the icy field toward their enemy. Although the fie could have meant Vil, Marfine felt the creature’s gaze on her. ‘qoo late, humanz!’

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

“No!” Marfine shouted as she flung her sword in desl ation. The long sword tumbled awkwardly toward the fie “Please, Tymora—” she started to pray.

The goddess of luck must have heard her plea, for

iron hilt of her tumbling blade struck the elemental sol!

across the shoulder, knocking its arm wide. The stc clamped in Vreesar’s fingertips, jarred loose and tumt into the snow.

Before the fiend could recover, Vil sprang upon it, 304

The Harpers

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.