Through Ice
Parker Jaysen
Hellriders in Love, Book 2
Three Bunny Farm Press
Copyright © 2020 by Parker Jaysen
All rights reserved.
Design: John Van Pelt
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
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Other lesbian romance from Three Bunny Farm Press
Two of Spikes
Station crew remind riders to please retrieve all personal items from bunks, storage, and washroom upon completion of the mission.
Station crew pride themselves on the upkeep of optics, drive parts, shielding charms, etc., but we are not your nanny.
— Hellrider handbook, Appendix G, "Lost & Found"
ACT I
This new partner, Jane, may have done basic training but like any new laker she still believes the ice is motionless, solid. Silent. She thinks it’s cold.
It’s none of these.
Dorie huffs on her hands as she steps out into the station yard. Solar lanterns light her way to the kennel, though the path is so familiar she could find it if it were pitch black.
She doesn’t mind being in the role of mentor. She’s trained up a few lakers in her time.
But what she really loves is the ice.
The dogs scream with excitement as she comes up on their pen, Molly nearly leaping over the panels in her desire to get on the ice.
Dorie thanks fate for the fiftieth time that robots are no good out in the freeze. She can’t even think about what it would be like without this sleigh team. People talk about the hardiness of wolves, but these dogs, augmented for stamina and intelligence, are everything to her. Mechanical beasts serve a purpose, sure, but not here. Give her Molly and her five – or any five, for that matter. The team is an ice rider’s real partner.
She mixes up a final booster of heat mash so they can get out to a strong start. It’s a concentrate of meat and beets and enzymes to keep their blood moving in the worst of the cold. They each get a pan, and she runs her hands over their legs and feet while they gobble. No wounds, no stiffness, everyone looks great.
A dog with a limp out there might as well be a dead dog – and a dead dog might as well be a dead team, a failed mission. So she checks every paw.
Coming out of the kennel, Dorie pauses at the western gate, which stands open in preparation for their departure in an hour or so. The expanse of frozen lake begins at the station’s very doorstep and stretches out for hundreds of kilometers.
The immediate path through the gate, still lit with yellow floods in the predawn, has been chewed down through permafrost to muddy ruts, and for a short way out the silky scars left by sleigh runners are visible, a crisscross tracery of white on white. It’s a busy gate.
But Dorie’s gaze is drawn to the horizon where a shadow that is never fully dark shrouds the lake, to where her own path ahead will stretch over virgin ice.
Out there is where she really remembers her love for the ice. That’s where the ice begins to sing.
She turns back to meet Jane and Athens in the ready room. She knows Jane as a guildmate, but that’s it. How will she be as a pupil, as a partner? Dorie tilts her head from side to side as she crosses the yard, stretching her neck muscles and flexing her shoulders.
The ride itself is more dangerous with a novice along. Training only goes so far. They won’t really know until they’re out there. That’s risky.
Plus, Dorie’s not deaf, not yet by a long shot – and she’s heard things. Someone thinks this ride, this cargo, is more important than usual. The combination – mysterious urgency and a newbie partner – gives her a sour feeling in her stomach.
She grits her jaw. Worry is good for one thing only: knowing how to prepare.
The ready room is as hospitable as a meat locker. Athens, a big woman with a huge heart and a great mane of prematurely gray hair, has helped Jane fit her ice suit and lay out her gear for Dorie’s inspection. Athens is the linchpin of Lake Station, and she’s revered as a den mother despite being not much older than any of them.
Hellriding is a girl’s sport. Everyone who doesn’t die, burns out fast. The sight of little Jane fidgeting in her new suit threatens to make Dorie feel a little old and creaky herself.
Pfft. I’ve got the strength and experience of any ten of these nurslings.
She guesses they’ll need it.
Athens stands back to view her handiwork, and Dorie steps up to Jane to perform inspection – beginning with jewelry (her mage rings are permissible), the fit at the neck and collar, and proceeding under the arms and across the chest. A particularly frank inspection.
Jane grins at her, a cheerful, open grin. “Kinda handsy there, partner?”
Good. She’s relaxed. She’ll be able to listen and learn properly during the weeks together. “All the better to keep you alive,” is all Dorie says.
She really is awfully – small. Athens has had to cinch the waist and stitch in some tucks on the thighs. Dorie decides to try a last-ditch appeal – no sense pushing a bad idea if there’s a reasonable alternative. Even though she knows there’s no alternative, reasonable or otherwise.
“Are we sure she’s fit?” Dorie feels Jane stiffen under her patdown. She shrugs. “No offense, obviously. It’s just we like some meat on our bones crossing the ice. Hate to have you blow away in a squall.”
“I have meat,” Jane says, puffing out her chest.
Athens guffaws. “You two!” And then to Dorie she says, “she’ll be fine.”
Dorie puts on a show of deciding something, though it’s already decided. Jane might not look sturdy, but she’s fiery. That’s a good characteristic for surviving on the ice. Not just for the heat, but for the pace. Metabolic rate, rhythm, whatever you want to call it. You need the movement and light in your bones, because the ice will sing you to a stop – slow you, stop you, forever.
Dorie crouches to check the fit of Jane’s boots, and has to thwack her ankle to make her stand still.
“You’re impatient. Good.”
She’s kind of adorable, too. That has nothing to do with the ice mission, but it’s nice anyway.
Jane grins at Dorie again. She’s already put the meat jibe behind her. “Do I pass?” It’s clear from her stance and tone that she means something more than does the suit fit.
Dorie flushes.
“You look great,” she replies, with as much of a note of authority as she can muster.
They trudge out to the garage where the sleigh stands ready, and Athens helps Jane stow her gear above the small bunk. Sharing one bunk in the sleigh shaves a measurable chunk off the heating budget. Less weight behind the dogs, too.
At night the dogs are inside the sleigh in their own compartment, just the other side of a mesh partition; they mutter and gripe in their sleep and smell like dogs.
It’s not romantic.
There are trysts of convenience, but ice riding is not conducive to finding a lover, even if you are bundled into a single bunk.
Who’d look for a lover in hell, anyway? Ports are for lovers.
Dorie has brought along very little. The sleigh is stocked with basics – first aid, the human version of heat mash, which is basically sugar and fat, and repair equipment. Her duffle has underthings, personal hygiene items, her fidget widgets – that’s about it.
Which is good, because Jane’s bags take up almost all of the storage. Dorie hides a smile. She’ll learn, if she does more
than one of these runs.
At the first gleam of daylight, the station crew trundles the sleigh out through the gate. Dorie waits for the all-clear as they stow the wheelies, and she feels the sleigh settle onto its runners. Then, at the speaker tube, she makes a piercing whistle between her teeth, two short, one long, and the dogs are off. She watches through the forward port for a moment to make sure no traces got tangled in the early morning gloom.
You have to use every bit of sunlight, even at the beginning, and not just for the solars. You need the warmth, and the dogs need the warmth even more.
Jane watches with obvious delight. “I didn’t realize how happy the dogs would be – and loud!”
Yeah, she’s adorable.
“I’ll shush them soon, but this is just the start. I let them get some shrieking out of their system before the ice demons really venture out. After that – ”
“We run silent,” Jane finishes for Dorie.
She’s eager, energetic, confident.
Hmph.
“Do they all love it this much? The other teams?” She turns toward Dorie, her eyes shining.
Dorie basks for a moment in Jane’s wide-eyed eagerness. She doesn’t seem to care that it’s ungodly early, or that the coffee is execrable, or that the sleigh bounces and sways. Dorie’s known novice lakers who gave new meaning to the term motion sickness – even before any demons, before the singing.
“Out of all of the dog teams at Lake Station? No. For this run, it had to be the best, and that’s Molly.”
For at least the next eight days they’ll be in the blinding zone. The sky an impossibly flat white glare, brilliant ice, all light but no shadow. Nothing growing or grown.
Dorie coaxes Jane away from the viewport. “Even with goggles, it will be best not to look out there for long.” She gestures around their tiny space. “Sorry, but this is all we’re going to see for a while.”
“Oh – I brought chocolate!” exclaims Jane, rummaging for one of her duffels. It’s not clear how she tells one from another. “I heard sugar helps.”
“Save it,” says Dorie, then in case that sounded too brusque, she eases up. “There’ll be hard days. It’ll be good to have,” she says. “Who did you get that from?”
“The chocolate?” Jane halts, hand on the storage compartment handle.
“The idea.”
“Nell. She said you love dark chocolate.”
Dorie makes a faint smile. She does love dark chocolate. Jane stows it away. It’s a hefty brick.
For some reason, Jane’s questions – and they’re incessant – don’t get on Dorie’s nerves at all. The girl is trying to learn, she trusts Dorie as a teacher, and she’s humble and sweet-natured. And Dorie doesn’t know all the answers, which makes it at least interesting.
Then she asks the question everyone always asks, and nobody ever knows the answer to. “What do you think the cargo is?” Jane and Dorie both glance at the safe in the corner.
Sometimes the rider finds out after. When missions fail, the cargo is sometimes unavoidably disclosed. Usually it’s stuff like an antidote for a demonic plague or a crystal that can store a bit of a mage’s power. The prospector guild mines the volcanoes and kimberlite pipes in the far northeast, and hellriders carry the loot – gems, elements, rare earth alloys – well, anywhere they’re told to by their guild, who are in turn instructed by city elders.
Hellriders are in the fight against evil, and they don’t need to know the details. Safer not to.
At the dogs’ first rest stop, Dorie shows Jane how to check each bootie for cracks or punctures. There’s not likely to be anything serious so soon, but you have to check every paw every time.
Molly sniffs at Jane with a curled lip and huffs a puff of steam when Dorie tells her Jane is to be listened to. She’ll obey, but Jane will have to earn her willingness.
Jane has a satin ball in her glove and she offers it solemnly to Molly. “A token of my respect,” she says.
Molly takes the rich treat as if she couldn’t be bothered. She huffs again and swallows it whole, but her ears dip with pleasure.
Jane grins at Dorie behind her face mask.
Nell has given her plenty of suggestions, I see.
That’s a small conflict in Dorie’s mind, but nothing to worry about. She and Nell were partners for several years – close partners – when they were perfecting the long ice leg of the Lake run. The run she and Jane are on now. They’d parted ways, friendly and fine.
Now Nell has been giving Jane tips about Dorie, and the dogs, things they’d like. That’s interesting.
Molly herds her pack into a tangle in the sleigh’s kennel space, where they’ll conserve their heat while resting. “Good girl, Molls,” says Dorie before slamming the hatch shut.
The dogs end their nap early, which is fine with Dorie. Once they’re underway again, Jane settles on the narrow bench that is the only other seating in the sleigh besides the bunk.
“It’s beautiful out there,” she says.
“Why ice?” asks Dorie.
Jane is beginning to intrigue her. Before this run, she’d thought of her as funny and brash – a younger rider who’d done a few fire and marsh runs with various partners. Her shielding power, similar to dampening, is a decent utility power to have as a second on any team.
“I need to know if you’re just poking around for variety’s sake – or if you care about the ice itself. Though there’s nothing wrong with testing yourself.”
“Why ice?” Jane repeats the question and leans back against the bench. She’s just small enough that she looks comfortable there, even in her suit. Her bobbed cut sways slightly as the sleigh heaves and sinks on this, the fastest, straightest part of the run.
“Fire is interesting,” she says after a moment. “It’s never the same twice. The demons test you every second.”
“I saw Vick and Allie come in from the leg before ours,” says Dorie grimly. “They looked… tested.”
Jane looks at something far away.
“And the swamp?”
Jane smiles. “The swamp is a carnival.”
Something bumps the top of the sleigh, and Dorie keeps her eye on Jane, who glances up, alert. But not panicked.
She’s solid so far.
“Ice vultures from station scavenge this far,” says Dorie. “They don’t get much from us. Maybe some dogshit, a rodent that took a wrong turn into the freeze.” She half-rises from the bunk to glance out a viewport, and nods. “Just vultures.”
She settles back onto the edge of the bunk. “Demons and carnivals sound exciting enough. So you just wanted to try the cold?”
Jane returns Dorie’s gaze with very clear light hazel eyes. She has straight features and a fine chin. She looks uncommonly feminine in spite of, or perhaps because of, her blond boyish cut.
“I wanted to get to know you.”
Good lord.
Dorie busies herself with checking gauges and tries to think. Trysting!
A partner who is only here for a tryst, that’s no good. Jane has seemed so attentive. Is it just – a crush? A case of puppy love? Dorie needs a partner paying attention to more than that. She needs to care. It’s life or death.
But the cargo.
Dorie stares at the safe. There isn’t time. Lucy and Jess, waiting for them now at Marsh Station, will need every minute.
“You’re thinking how fast you can get back to station and find a backup,” Jane says. She watches Dorie, not at all coy, not flirtatious. She sits up straight. “I’m not a weak link, Dorie. I can be a true partner out here. My shield is very good.”
Dorie is suddenly torn. Having rejected the thought of Jane’s admiration so forcefully, it returns redoubled, in spite of her misgivings. This little chickadee is pretty damned cute, she thinks. Maybe I’m the weak link.
“I won’t lie to you,” says Jane. It sounds like she’s going to follow up with something, but she doesn’t.
“Well, regardless,” says Dorie, “yo
u’re right. The timeline doesn’t allow for us to turn around. Let’s get started on the essentials.”
Jane does not seem one speck abashed.
There’s ice, which is deadly and beautiful, and the most fascinating thing Dorie has ever known.
And then there’s demon ice.
Demon ice is deadly and deeply ugly.
Jane pores over the notes as Dorie passes them to her. “Ice song. I’ve always wanted to hear ice song.”
“We’ll hear it, soon enough.”
Jane smiles, brilliantly.
Jesus, this girl is full of fire.
But she seems to take it all seriously. She stops Dorie for clarification at several points in the admittedly dull procedures, and by the time supper and stop comes around, she has the dog mash ratios memorized and starts their pans herself, while Dorie checks the harnesses and runners and sets ice anchors.
Jane notices an abrasion on one of the dog booties.
“Pretty minor,” says Dorie. “Keep track of it. We can repair it in station.”
“Good eye,” she adds.
Dark comes on the lake like a switch has been thrown. Dorie fixes the dog barrier and the pack settles under Molly’s sharp eye, and then both women pee and climb under the covers.
If you can’t bunk up with someone you barely know, you can’t be a hellrider. Dorie just accepts that as a universally known truth. This is not a problem that Jane has. She scooches in towards the wall and props the reflective sheet up enough for Dorie to climb in, as if they’ve known each other forever.
“This is nice,” is all she says before Dorie hears her breathing shift into a deeper pattern. She’s asleep.
Dorie generally sleeps deeply when it’s cold. Her theory is that the body needs to conserve energy, but maybe that’s her answer to everything. She’s always, always thinking of energy needs.
Through Ice Page 1