Nail still struggled to stay afloat as the swell sucked him back down. But he was soon lifted up again in a surge of bubbling water. Val-Draekin’s hand grasped his. Utilizing the momentum of the upswell, the Vallè pulled Nail onto the ledge. Nail lay on the ice, gasping for breath, spent.
When he finally raised his head, he took quick measure of their precarious perch.
Looming before him, the vast river raced by and vanished into another threatening tunnel of ominous dark, churning and riotous with ice. Behind him was a narrow rift in the ice wall, a crevasse, stretching from the surface of the shelf up into the dark, a faint sliver of light cascading from it.
“Could be a way out!” Val Draekin yelled over the thunder of rushing waters. The Vallè crawled away from the river toward the rift, his very effort draggled and slow. The flesh of his feet was scraped bloody and leaving a trail of red, the makeshift splint nearly torn completely off.
Nail looked at his own bare feet and saw that they were similarly abused, flesh scoured raw from ice. He tried to stand, to kneel, to crawl, but the numbness in his own weary limbs wouldn’t allow it. He could only lie there, stiff and shivering, watching as the Vallè slowly pulled himself along the surface of the slender shelf. “We have to try!” Val-Draekin shouted, the noise of the river nearly drowning out his voice.
Who knows where we even are under all this damnable ice? Even the underworld couldn’t possibly be worse than the vile depths of this wicked freezing glacier and its crushing torturous waters. “We have to keep going!” Val-Draekin called back to him.
It took every trace of willpower Nail had, but he finally managed to move. Slowly he crawled, following Val-Draekin into the thin, tapering cleft. It was jagged, but just wide enough for both to squeeze through one at a time, some distant bright light spurring them on. They crawled just a few minutes before the slender chasm widened out and daylight spilled over them from above. The crevasse split into a fork before them; a ten-foot-wide path to their far left was littered with fallen hunks of ice, a much narrower chasm lay straight ahead. An open ceiling was some five hundred feet above, just a sliver of light.
Exhausted, Nail lay on his back under the light, a calm serenity settling over him. He just wanted to fall asleep and die right then and there, the booming sound of the river just a fading memory behind him.
Val-Draekin, lying on his side, pulled forth his leather pouch. “I’ve only enough powder left for a small flame. But it should warm us some.” He tore off a strip of cloth along the bottom of his shirt, sprinkled the white powder onto it, and snapped his fingers. A small flare ignited.
As the bit of cloth burned, they held their hands and feet over the flame. But too soon their lifesaving fire guttered out, and Nail wondered if what little warmth they’d derived from it was enough. “We have to keep moving,” the Vallè said. Stiff and aching and frozen, it was all they could do to stand. Val-Draekin, still hobbled by his injury, tossed his arm over Nail’s shoulder for support.
They continued their journey, picking their way slowly through the narrow crevasse straight ahead, lumbering along, sloshing through intermittent pools of water that dragged at the battered and bloody carnage of their feet.
† † † † †
They carried on this way for several more hours, the meandering chasm widening in some places, narrowing to just a crack in others. Still they would squeeze through. Here and there Nail’s weary gaze would travel up to where the glacier walls pinched the sky, revealing just a hint of blue above. Random droplets of meltwater rained down. The ever-growing distant creaking and sudden cracking of shifting ice constantly gave him pause. Nail swore he could see the walls moving ominously inward at times and the air was growing colder.
Then they came upon a sight that horrified Nail to the core. Near eye level was a curled and ragged human arm reaching out from the ice wall straight into their path, five black-rotted skeletal fingers stretching out in silent agony, the remainder of the carcass a dark silhouette frozen behind the ice.
Val-Draekin limped toward the gruesome obstacle first. When he reached the jutting arm, he ducked under it, examining the carcass hidden within the frosty ice. Nail approached, the ghostly apparition terrifying him. The Vallè leaned into the ice and swiped away a thin layer of frost with the sleeve of his shirt.
Two eyes peered at Val-Draekin from behind the crystal clear ice. Nail took a faltering step back. They were the haunting blue eyes of a woman.
“She could’ve been down here hundreds of years, for all we know,” the Vallè said. “Encased in ice like this, she’d be well preserved.”
Nail did not want to linger. He scooted under the reaching arm, shuddering as the dead bony fingers lightly brushed the top of his head.
They left the corpse behind, eventually finding themselves once more enclosed within an ever-widening tunnel that stretched off into darkness. The ceiling was a hellish, upside-down landscape of rippling waves of water-carved ice, rocks and trees embedded in the its surface, trunks and branches jutting down in a weird mockery of a forest. Shattered cobbles of ice and stone littered their path. And the going became rough as the light receded behind them.
Soon the ceiling of the cave hung so low they had to hunch forward and crouch just to continue. Before long they were both crawling. Light was scarce, and Nail found he was mostly feeling his way along blindly. Then it grew totally dark and he wondered if they should just turn back. But there was nowhere else to go, so onward he crawled, following Val-Draekin.
Rocks and twigs, jagged and sharp, dug into him from underneath, and glacial ice pressed down on him from above. He was soon lodged between cobbled floor and frozen ceiling, unmoving, his face mashed to the rock, his chest heaving against the uneven floor. His back was pressed flat against the glacier above.
Stuck. He knew it was the end. He could hear the thinner Vallè up ahead in the blackness, still crawling, pushing his way forward, squirming along. But Nail did not call out for help. He just let the fellow go, refusing to be a hindrance to another’s escape.
Val-Draekin continued on, unaware that Nail was no longer behind him. The sounds of the Vallè’s crawling slowly faded into the dark distance, and Nail wondered how long it would take for him to die down here, wedged underneath the weight of the entire Five Isles, it seemed. Would he starve first? Would the glacier shift and crush him? Would his dingy little crawl space fill with water? Or would he freeze solid into the ice like the skeleton they had found? However he died, he just wanted it all to be over.
“I see light ahead,” Val-Draekin’s voice called out from the blackness.
Nail could scarcely hear him. He remained silent, knowing that no matter how much light rained down from above, his own torturous journey was at an end.
“Nail!” the Vallè shouted. “Are you there? Nail!”
“I can’t move.” The words hissed from between Nail’s cracked, dry lips. “I’m dying.” His voice seemed but a sibilant whisper, even to himself.
“Nail!” Val-Draekin shouted again. “The light! Sunlight! I see brush and trees beyond the ice!”
Could it be real? Nail’s heart pounded. Or am I already dead and dreaming?
“Nail!” the Vallè shouted. “Are you there?”
Nail sucked in a deep breath and wiggled forward, inching his way along, maybe two feet, before he gave up again. He heard Val-Draekin shout again. “I’m coming back for you!”
“No!” Nail tried to yell back, his entire chest compressed between rock and ice, knowing the Vallè could not possibly hear him.
“I’m coming back, Nail!”
I can’t put him in more danger. Nail sucked in a deep breath and shouted, “I’ll make it! I am coming! Stay where you are! Don’t come back for me!”
The Vallè called out. “I am going to head toward the light. You’ll see it soon, Nail! I promise! Do not give up! I will meet you outside!”
Patience, his master had taught him, patience in everythin
g. And now was the time for it. Shawcroft had once said, Hard work and precision in all things builds strength, character, and pride. Your mother wanted me to instill those things in you more than any other. She never took things such as hard work for granted, nor should you.
Hard work and patience. They were the beliefs of his mother.
Then I’ll escape this glacier for her.
Nail breathed in deep, inched his way forward. And again. And again.
After about ten minutes of sucking in his breath and inching forward, he was through the toughest part and the going was easier. He saw the light Val-Draekin had promised. He crawled for it, almost frantically.
Things grew brighter all around him. He could see the details of each pebble underneath his fingers. He could see the details in the dirty sculpted blue ice above.
But most importantly of all, he could see the sunlight gleaming off the bushes and aspens in the sliver of brightness ahead. He scrambled forward, legs and arms churning madly now. And suddenly Val-Draekin was pulling him out from under a five-hundred-foot-tall slab of ice and into free air.
Nail rolled over and breathed deep, staring straight up at the towering cliff of blue rising above. And then he wanted away from the glacier desperately. Wanted away from it more than he’d ever wanted away from anything in his life.
He levered himself to his feet and stumbled toward the nearby aspen grove drunkenly, his mind a complete muddle, bloody feet almost too numb to move. He stumbled forward, tripping, clinging to one of the trees in front of him, hearing the Vallè’s relieved laughter behind him. “We made it, Nail! We made it!”
Both feet wailing in pain, Nail hugged the tree before him. The wind-blasted aspen lifted spindly branches toward an intensely dark blue heaven. The sun was behind the mountains and the sky was turning to night.
And that damnable savage glacier still loomed behind him, its towering presence more threatening and ominous than the cliffs above Stanclyffe, more terrifying than a Bloodwood on a black stallion. He wanted to turn and shout a lifetime’s worth of frustration and anger at that icy, suffocating cliff.
When Nail’s heart finally settled enough for him to gather his bearings, he craned his neck around, still clutching the tree close, and let his eyes roam the harsh surroundings. They had emerged from under the glacier along a rocky, boulder-strewn slope sprinkled with scrub brush and aspen trees, the black waters of the vast loch no more than fifty paces down the hill.
Val-Draekin was hobbling toward him. “Perhaps not the most direct route possible, but at least we are on the eastern shore.” The Vallè’s eyes roved the landscape too. “No telling if the others are even alive.” He plopped on the ground at Nail’s feet, placed his head in his hands. “I would have died had you not held on to me, Nail. Over the falls and in that horrid river, I would have died. You saved me many times. I owe you a great debt.”
But Nail scarcely heard the Vallè’s words. He found he could not let go of the tree. It was his lifeline, his sustenance to the real world, a world no longer buried under harsh ice and savage water. Roguemoore is gone! And he had no armor or weapons. Just a thin, ragged shirt and pants. He was so hungry he thought he might fall over from the weakness of his rumbling stomach. What do we do now? At least Val-Draekin still had some protection with his light leather armor. Not that it did Nail any good.
A loud crack shattered the very air, followed by a resounding boom that shook the aspen, then reverberated around him, shaking every tree limb above. Nail watched in awe as a column of ice as wide as twenty Gallows Haven chapels sheared from the glacier and plummeted into the lake several miles away. The loch waters swallowed the colossal hunk of ice whole, then spat it back out in shattered chunks, waves the size of small mountains rolling across the lake toward him.
“We’re not safe yet.” Val-Draekin lurched to his feet and hobbled up the slope away from the loch, hopping on one bloody foot, crimson smears marking his path.
Nail let go the tree and started after his friend, his own bleeding feet tender on the sharp rocks. Once he reached Val-Draekin, he scooped the Vallè into his arms and carried him up the hill, ignoring the searing pain of every step he took.
* * *
The natural way of man is to see competition within every other man. This hostility is how war is to be waged and how love is to be won, how success is to be defined.
—THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
TALA BRONACHELL
11TH DAY OF THE ANGEL MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
AMADON, GUL KANA
Isn’t Squireck just divine?” Lawri La Graven sighed. The index finger of her right hand was entwined in her hair just above her right ear, twirling a strand of the long blond tresses, left arm cradled in her lap. Tala could see why her cousin was so enamored with the Prince of Saint Only—never before had Dayknight armor looked so regal on any one man. Under the many torches of Sunbird Hall, the black-lacquered plate armor hung on Squireck Van Hester’s tall form in glittering shades of midnight. He was a daunting presence. Every powerful move with the long black sword brought gasps from the crowd.
So suddenly he has become their hero. Just one priesthood blessing from the grand vicar was enough to turn the most hated man in Amadon into the most revered.
Squireck held everyone’s attention as he twirled his heavy Dayknight blade in one hand. Three sword-and-shield wielding Silver Guards—Ser Tolz Trento, Ser Alain Gratzer, and Ser Boppard Stockach—were standing before him, eagerly awaiting the coming duel with the most famous fighter in Amadon. Tala recognized the three guardsmen as Glade Chaparral’s lackeys. They were the ones who had helped Glade frame Lindholf for the murder of Sterling Prentiss and implicate him in the assassination attempt on Jovan. She hope Squireck humiliated all three in the practice duel.
Tala found it hard to wrap her head around the fact that Lindholf had been found naked with the barmaid, Delia, in a back room of the Filthy Horse Saloon. Both the barmaid and Lindholf were currently being held in Purgatory. Glade bragged that he had helped the guards chain the busty barmaid to a four-point rack this time, completely unable to move. Glade also bragged that the guards had done the same to Lindholf. Tala blamed herself for their fate. The Bloodwood’s game has ruined so many lives! But she’d heard nary a whisper or peep from her Bloodwood tormentor since their meeting in the lost Chamber of Queens more than a moon ago. Still, she had been feeding Lawri Le Graven the tiny green balls under the pretext that it was medicine. But who knew what the balls really were? Lawri was no longer sick. But she was still favoring her injured arm. An arm that was likely more infected, from the ginger way she held it. Lawri sat across the table from Tala, draped in a long yellow dress with saffron sleeves that stretched clear to her wrists. Tala knew her cousin wore long sleeves to cover her scar. The green balls that Tala had told Lawri were medicine were doing nothing for the infection.
Tala’s gaze roamed Sunbird Hall. Dame Nels Doughty—the castle’s new head kitchen matron now that Dame Vilamina was gone—had done the place up proper. Again, it was her fault Vilamina was dead, unfairly implicated in the assassination attempt on Jovan, and all because Tala had asked her to hire the Filthy Horse Saloon barmaid, Delia, onto the kitchen’s staff the night of the Mourning Moon Feast. It was all such a tangled web, and Tala could never forgive herself for all the damage she had wrought in so many lives. All due to the Bloodwood’s game . . .
Her eyes traveled up toward the ceiling, and she wondered whether the Bloodwood was up there watching her. Torch smoke filled the lofty heights above, hanging from the rafters, thick and heavy. At the far eastern end, the twin balcony doors were thrown wide, letting in a small measure of fresh air down onto the crowded room below. The place was packed. Everyone wore their finest tonight, Tala included. She had on her favorite black dress and jeweled leather doublet. Though, truth be known, she’d rather be in Silver Guard armor like Jondralyn. Her older sister was sitting two ta
bles away with Ansel in her lap, bouncing him on twin armored knees. Most in the king’s court had muttered their displeasure when Jondralyn had enter the hall in full armor. But what could they do? Jovan had knighted her. But those were the ways of courtly folk, always muttering behind the backs of others.
And the court had grown these last few days as lords and barons from the breadth of Gul Kana had been flooding the city, heeding the Silver Throne’s call to muster arms against the invading armies of the White Prince, thousands and thousands of knights following them. Knights from Savon, Crucible, Ridleigh, Reinhold, along with fighters from cities and villages even farther out in the countryside, more and more arriving every day. The streets of Amadon were teeming with banners of heraldry and the colored livery of armored horses. And all those nobles important to the crown were crowded into Sunbird Hall tonight. Ser Tomas Vorkink, the king’s steward, had helped Dame Nels Doughty put together a vast and grand celebration full of pomp and majesty; the centerpiece, Squireck Van Hester and the dueling demonstration in the center of the hall.
Ever since his pardon, the Prince of Saint Only had become the toast of Amadon Castle and most popular figure at court. They were all eagerly awaiting the first day of the Fire Moon and Squireck’s arena match with Gault Aulbrek. They were all desirous to see their new hero slay the Sør Sevier knight. All of them wanted to watch him spar at all times and against anyone in preparation. The court loved watching him fight. Even Jovan was warming to him. Grand Vicar Denarius and the quorum of five, too. Earlier tonight at the king’s behest, the vicar had knighted Squireck, and then Jovan had bestowed upon the Prince of Saint Only the rank of Dayknight, giving him the black armor and sword of his new station.
That Squireck was now a free man again was a good thing. And Tala was happy for him, but she felt something amiss with all the adulation. Especially when the adulation came from Lawri, who seemed to stare at the Prince of Saint Only at times with unabashed want in her eyes. “He’s so divine,” she murmured again.
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