The Winter King (60 page)

“No . . .”

“Punish her for the wound she has dealt you. Punish them all! Make them suffer! Make your enemies cower before you! You are no weakling! You are the Winter King, and you carry inside you the strength of a god! Use it! Unleash your wrath! Wipe your enemies from the face of this earth!”

The words that had started as sharp needles digging into his skin had now become spikes, each one hammering home with brutal accuracy. Anger built inside his heart, pressing outward against the crushing pain of betrayal. He squeezed his eyes shut and flung an arm over his face to stop the wild winter fury raging inside him from breaking free.

“No, damn you! No!”

“She has found the Sword of Roland. She has brought it to her brother, so that they might slay the forces of Wintercraig with its great power!”

If every other claim was a knife driven into his body, that one was the death blow.

Roland’s sword. The sword Khamsin coveted as much as her brother.
The sword that was the source of all his pain.

Khamsin had taken that sword to her brother.

His head lifted. His arm shielding his face dropped to his side.

He had gone completely numb. The hurt over Khamsin’s betrayal was gone, as were the tenderer emotions she roused in him. He couldn’t feel anything except a freezing, ice-powered fury that spread rapidly to every cell of his body. Everything left of his humanity—his consciousness, his emotions, his memories—seemed to shrink, concentrated into a tiny speck of life buried deep inside a vast, impenetrable ocean of ice.

Like an observer trapped inside a body not his own, he felt the form he occupied push off the tree, felt its spine straighten and stand tall. He opened his eyes. The world had taken on a pale blue tint, as if he saw through colored glass. He glanced down at his hands. A coating of clear ice covered his skin. He flexed his fingers, and the ice cracked and fell away, only to re-form an instant later.

He was frozen, inside and out.

Reika stepped out of the shadows of the trees and pushed back the hood of her cloak. Her lips had gone blue, her eyes the color of Wyrn’s sacred, heatless flame, and when she smiled, he heard the faint sound of ice breaking. To her left and right, an army of
garm
emerged from the depths of the snow-covered forest, and behind them, moving with surprising silence in spite of their size, came a company of fearsome, blue-skinned Frost Giants. In unison, Reika,
garm
, and Frost Giant alike bowed down before him.

“Welcome back, my lord Rorjak,” Reika Villani greeted. “Long have we awaited your return.”

C
HAPTER 27

Carnak

“Summer Sun,” Khamsin breathed. Dismay and dread poured through her as she looked out across the battlefield. “Krysti, give me that spyglass.”

The boy handed it over without a word. She put the glass to her eye.

The Ice King’s army covered the entire breadth of the field. Frozen ice thralls—including humans, wolves, and bears—mingled packs of white, all but invisible
garm,
and at least eighty colossal blue monsters that stood close to twenty feet tall.

She’d never seen a Frost Giant and only wished that was still true.

They were fearsome, hideous beasts. Manlike in build, but with bulging hairless blue-white bodies, six-inch claws, and wicked,
garm
like teeth filling their blue maws. In their enormous fists, they clutched great, serrated swords that looked sharp enough to slice a man in two with a single blow. Correction, sharp enough to slice an entire line of men in two.

She scanned the enemy line, then paused as a tall, mounted figure came into view.

Even from the distance, Khamsin recognized her husband—or rather what had once been her husband—and her heart quailed. A terrible change had been wrought over him. All the warm golden hues in his skin had been leeched away, leaving his skin an inhuman silvery blue that made him look as though he’d been carved from a block of pure ice. A crown of jagged icicles ringed his head, and his unbound white hair blew behind him on the wind, snow falling from it in a mist of white. Where he walked, winter fell in his wake. If anything, he looked more beautiful than ever before—like one of his carvings in the Atrium—but also utterly cold, utterly merciless, utterly deadly.

“Oh, Wynter,” Kham breathed in horror. Unable to bear the sight of the dread creature that now inhabited her husband’s body, Khamsin shifted the spyglass. Her fingers clenched tight as a blue-lipped blonde riding at Rorjak’s side came into focus.

“Reika.” There was no doubt in Khamsin’s mind now of who had killed the priestesses at the temple or why she’d found that ice thrall of Elka beside the Ice Heart. And no matter what else happened, one way or another, before this battle was done, Khamsin was going to dispatch what was left of Reika Villani straight to Hel.

“What is ‘reika’?” Dilys Merimydion murmured beside her. The Calbernan had declared that, since she was the one with whom he had negotiated, keeping her alive was the only way to ensure fulfillment of their bargain. He and one hundred of his fiercest warriors had therefore attached themselves to her to ensure her safety.

She spared the Calbernan leader a quick glance before putting the spyglass back to her eye. “A vile creature in need of killing.”

“Ah. Yes, many reika there are.” He leaned on his elbows, the thick ropes of his green-black hair flopping on the snow, and peered through his own spyglass.

On either side of Reika and Rorjak, the Valik and Galacia ice thralls sat tall and threatening in the saddle. The frozen Galacia no longer held one of Thorgyll’s mighty spears. Reika had commandeered it.

Dread filled Khamsin’s heart. The ice thralls—man and beast—and Rorjak’s army of Frost Giants and
garm
outnumbered her own forces three to one. Even with Blazing, she wasn’t sure she and her allies could stand against the power of a god made flesh.

Across the field, the armies of Summerlea and Calberna had assembled. To the left, the forces of Summerlea flew the Coruscate green-and-scarlet banners. To the right, beneath the blue-green banners of the Isles, Calberna’s tattooed warriors clutched their gleaming tridents and long, coffin-shaped shields. Fleets of archers were assembled before the infantry, while on the left and right flanks, mounted spearman and crossbowmen waited for the order to charge. Falcon rode at the center of the combined forces, the long curve of his Sunbow in hand. He had replaced his helm with the battle crown of Summerlea.

“That is a large army,” Merimydion observed. “Victory will cost many lives. Many times many. When your husband dies today, if you and I still take breath at battle’s end, then you will come, too, in the summer to the palace by the sea? With your sisters to be courted for marriage, yes?”

“No.” She put her spyglass down. “That will not happen, Sealord, no matter what the outcome of today’s battle. The likelihood that I will survive this is very slim. But if do, whether Wynter survives or not, my place will still be here in Wintercraig, defending my people.”

“Hhnn.” He made a noise somewhere between a grunt, a laugh, and a sigh. “This is a pity, Khamsin of the Storms. You are
myerial-myerinas,
a treasure of treasures. You would mother many great warriors for Calberna.”

On the field below, Falcon saved her from further discussion when he pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, and raised his bow high. The archers along both flanks of the main army followed suit. Khamsin was too far away to hear the command, but all at once, arrows went soaring. The arrow from Falcon’s bow left a trail of blinding light in its wake.

“There’s our signal,” Khamsin said, grateful for the reprieve. Merimydion was exotically handsome, surprisingly charming in his own way, and most definitely all male. Had she loved Wynter any less, she might have been tempted to take him up on his offer of courtship. But for her, there would only ever be one man, and his name was Wynter of the Craig.

As the Sunfire arrow flew across the sky, the Ice King raised his sword and slashed it forward.

The Frost Giants roared. Long, loud, terrible, the roars generated gale-force winds—freezing, roiling clouds of snow and ice that raced across the field, swallowing everything in their path. They caught the arrows in midflight, tossing them away like matchsticks.

In the Summerlea ranks, a wave of heat swelled up in response, melting snow and ice as it billowed out to meet the howling blizzard winds. Khamsin felt energy ripple across her skin as the two waves of opposing magic clashed on the field. Storm clouds erupted, boiling up high and fast. Lightning crackled across their surface. Rorjak released his Gaze, and the building storm turned into a white wall of whirling ice and snow.

Ice shot like arrows from massive storm clouds, but Falcon managed to melt the hailstones with his weathergift before they reached the mortal troops.

The tempest called to her gift, power tingling in her skin. She wanted to reach out and shape the flows of winter ice and summer heat. But to do so now would give away their position. She needed to be much closer to Wynter before she revealed herself. The wind blew in her face, making her hair stream out behind her. So long as Falcon kept the storm in the sky, with the wind blasting in her direction and carrying her scent away from the field, she and Merimydion had a chance to flank the Ice King’s army.

The Frost Giants roared again. Another wall of ice and snow blasted across the field. This time, on the heels of the howling blizzard winds, hidden from Summerlander view,
garm
and ice-thralled bears, wolves, and snow lions raced towards the mortal lines.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Even with Sunfire arrows, Falcon’s not going to last long against that.”

By the time she and her companions circled behind the rear flank of the Ice King’s army, the magic of Summer and Winter were clashing as ferociously in the sky as their armies battled on the field below.

Falcon’s center line had fallen back, attempting to draw the Ice King’s army in so that the cavalry on both flanks could catch them in a pincer and pick off the
garm
with cross fire to give Khamsin time to get as close to Wynter as possible. But as boiling blue clouds of vapor poured over the armies, and the fallen rose again to add their numbers to the Ice King’s, it became increasingly obvious that the pincer strategy was going to fail—and fast.

She was going to have to use the storm to slow them down, but the minute she did, Rorjak would feel her magic and track it back to her. She would lose the element of surprise.

“Slight change of plans,” she told Merimydion. “Tell your men to brace themselves. It’s about to get very ugly for us. And you might want to give me some room.”

The Sealord took one look at her face and fell back, shouting to his men in Calbernan.

She tightened her grip on Roland’s sword.

“Okay, Blazing,” she muttered, “let’s see what you’ve got.” If there was any small chance she could still save Wynter, Kham intended to take it. But if he was lost to her, if Rorjak’s hold over him was too strong to defeat, then it was her duty to stop him in any way she could. Even if that meant unleashing the same cataclysmic power that had ended the life of Roland Soldeus.

One way or another, the Ice King would never step foot off this field.

“Helos, Sunfather, whatever gifts this sword can give, grant them to me now.” She thrust the sword skyward and flung open the doors to her magic, calling to the gods and the sun and the skies with every part of her being.

What answered was far beyond anything she’d ever summoned before.

It was as if a column of fire had descended upon her, igniting her world with heat and flame. Strangely, it didn’t burn. Her skin went hot and tight, her hair swirled around her on a sea of heat-spawned winds, but there was no pain. Only a feeling of extreme warmth and the sensation of strength and vitality filling her body near to bursting. The edges of her vision went bright, golden white.

The diamond in the sword’s hilt was shining bright as a star, its light near blinding.

In the sky, she could see the flows of air swirling through the storm, like ribbons of blue and red and electric purple. She reached for them and forced them to her will, swirling the flows of warm air round and round in ever-tightening circles as she fed heat and moisture into the storm.

The Ice King roared and wheeled around, unleashing his Gaze. Two dozen Frost Giants followed suit. But even the coldest depths of winter could not extinguish the heat of the sun. The frost of Rorjak’s Gaze and the blizzard of the Frost Giants’ howls turned to steam, which Khamsin fed back into the storm. Lightning cracked and flashed. One bolt hit a tree near the Ice King’s army, exploding it in a burst of burning wood and vaporized ice.

Two dozen
garm
broke from their attack on Falcon’s forces, spinning around and galloping directly toward Khamsin and the Calbernans.

“Merimydion!” She shouted to get the Sealord’s attention and pointed at the herd of onrushing
garm.

“I see them!
Calbernari!
To arms!” At his shouted command, his men stuffed wax plugs in their ears to protect them from the paralytic effects of the
garm
’s screams and readied their shields and tridents. Behind them others loosened their arrows.

The
garm
crossed the ground in land-eating strides. They fell upon the Calbernans in a shrieking pack, claws and fangs slashing and tearing. To their credit, the fierce warriors of the Islands held rank. Moving with the inhuman swiftness of ocean predators, they leapt and whirled and twisted to evade the
garm
’s slashing claws and attacked with their own brand of savage ferocity. Ice-coated shields bashed. Tridents stabbed and twisted, shredding flesh with their wicked barbs. Several Calbernans leapt over the backs of their brothers to hack and slash at the wounded
garm
with serrated blades. Red and blue blood ran like rivers across the snow.

One of the
garm
made it through the line of defenders and closed in on Khamsin with lethal speed, only to freeze solid and skid to a halt as Krysti stabbed it with Thorgyll’s spear. The boy yanked the spear free and ran to help the Calbernans finish off their lot.

Seeing his
garm
destroyed, the Ice King roared in fury and shouted commands on the howling winds. Twenty Frost Giants sprinted towards the Calbernans. The ground shook with the pounding of their feet as the colossal monsters approached. Massive serrated blades swung like scythes, and despite swift reflexes, more than dozen of Merimydion’s countrymen were unable to evade the blades. Sharp, icy steel cleaved them in two.

Khamsin kept her attention and efforts focused on the storm. She fed it more energy and stirred the rotation of the clouds even faster. Several thick, horizontal, spinning ropes formed in the darkening clouds. The sky turned an eerie shade of dark green. Pressure built in her ears, and the sound of wind grew to a roar. The tops of the trees began whipping about. Branches cracked and ripped free, flying through the air like javelins.

The spinning ropes in the volatile heart of the storm dropped down, thick, deadly funnels of wind and vapor that reached for the ground like the fingers of a god.

She sent several of the funnels into the heart of the army attacking Falcon’s troops and directed another at the Frost Giants running towards her position.
Garm,
thralls, even the massive Frost Giants were no match for her whirling winds. The cyclones swept them up and flung them like pebbles through the air. Khamsin drove the vortexes through the Ice King’s ranks with ruthless abandon, scattering his troops and breaking his lines while simultaneously calling down the lightning. The dark green sky went blinding white as bolt after bolt after bolt of incinerating fire shot down from the heavens, finding Rorjak’s minions with unerring accuracy.

Lightning hit the ground all around Rorjak as Khamsin tried to thin his ranks of defenders. Khamsin aimed a bolt directly at Reika Villani, but the vile woman flung herself out of the way at the last split second, then scrambled to her feet and took off running into the forest.

Across the field, Falcon’s forces began closing in on the remaining thralls and
garm.
Lancers pinned the thralls to the ground, leaving infantry to dispatch them. Archers turned the
garm
into pincushions. Red and blue blood painted the snowy field an awful shade of purple.

Rorjak screamed and swept his arms up. Ice-cold wind from the Craig rushed to his call, barreling through high reaches of the sky with incredible speed. The fierce jets of frozen air slammed into the tops of her storm clouds, shearing them away and robbing her storm of its deadliest power. Starved of energy, her cyclones grew thin and ropy, then disappeared altogether.