Tales of the Frozen City

by JOSEPH A. MCCULLOUGH

  ‘Yes, Gee.’ Jasper agreed. ‘But it’s always dark underground.’

  ‘I’m just sayin’,’ Gee muttered as he hitched his pack a little and unslung his crossbow, placing it gently down on a handy rock. Gee started sorting through the special bolts Jasper had made for him. Each one was closely examined, nodded at and then put back in the quiver in a different order. Finally satisfied, Gee picked up the crossbow and cocked it effortlessly before settling a carefully selected bolt on the wire.

  Jasper paced while his companion prepared himself. He knew better than to interrupt Gee’s little ritual, though it might be possible to speed it along. ‘Well, we can’t wait for morning. Our ‘new friends’ will have caught up by then. So, time to get to work,’ Jasper declared. A mix of ice chunks and strangely pale gravel crunched softly under his boots as he struggled up the gulley side towards the tunnel mouth.

  ‘Huh? Oh, right. We’re goin’ in,’ Gee said. He slapped his dented helm hard down on his head, activating the glowing gemstone strapped to the front, and stomped after Jasper. There were animal bones – they looked like animal bones anyway – among the tumbled rocks close to the tunnel entrance. Gee kicked them aside even though they weren’t in the way, elbowed Jasper out of his path, and stepped into blackness.

  ‘Come on then, let’s see what you got!’ Gee declared to whatever might be lurking in the dark, gazing about him at the jagged tunnel walls and the path ahead. Then the stomping began anew. Gee didn’t look where he put his feet; he just marched forward, daring the world to trip him up.

  It did.

  Jasper rolled his eyes as his large and, kindest to call him ‘unimaginatively courageous’, companion stumbled forward and fell face-first into a small cavern. There were a couple of inches of icewater on the floor, and apparently it tasted funny. At least, that was what Jasper could make out amid the apocalypse of swearing coming from Gee.

  Jasper held his own lamp high, making a good scan around and most importantly remembering to look up. No threats, good. He picked up the crossbow and passed it back to Gee. It had not discharged, which was a very good thing considering which of the special bolts was on the string. ‘Looks like there’s only one path forward,’ Jasper observed. ‘Over that way.’

  Stepping gingerly around the pool that Gee had discovered, Jasper advanced nervously across the cavern towards a tunnel that led deeper into the hillside. His left hand held the lamp high; his right smoothed his padded but not nearly warm enough jerkin, fiddled with his belt, clenched and unclenched, patted his equipment pouches... like it was searching for something.

  Jasper swallowed hard, tasting as well as smelling something strange about the air. With an effort he stilled his hand. He carried no sword because enchanters need no sword, or so his old master had endlessly told him. A weapon would provide a convenient course of action and thus constrain his creativity. An enchanter who had to think would learn and grow; one who turned himself into an augmented swordsman was no better than the guards he hired for himself.

  Creativity was the enchanter’s finest weapon, said Master Wizard Kurreill on a regular basis. It was a fine philosophy for a man who lived in a tower surrounded by high walls and spent his days lecturing apprentices on the fundamental parameters of creation, Jasper conceded, but right now he desperately wanted the comfort of something sharp and heavy to make the fear go away.

  Gee splashed after his companion, his litany of obscene muttering counterpointed by Jasper’s ragged and nervous breathing. Gee took the lead as they entered the second tunnel, marching headlong into the bowels of the hillside with a curse on his lips and nothing whatsoever in his head. He had apparently forgotten his face-first dunking and was oblivious to the icewater dripping from his mailshirt. For an instant Jasper envied Gee his simple world-view, which was blissfully uncomplicated by... anything, really.

  The tunnel ran slightly upwards for a while, then emerged into a second cavern. This one was larger than the first, with cracks in the ceiling and jumbled piles of rock scattered on the damp floor. Gee swung slightly right, keeping his back to the cavern wall and his crossbow facing inward as he strode around the edge of the cavern.

  Jasper crept nervously across the slippery rock floor, angling left. His gaze flicked up, watching for something that might emerge from the cracks in the ceiling. Ahead, the pale cavern floor was shiny in patches and beyond that there was nothing but blackness. Jasper stuffed his right fist in his mouth and inched forward to the edge of the pit. Taking a shuddering breath he glanced down.

  The hole was so deep it hurt. Jasper’s fear was a physical pain that shivered through his body. His right hand hurt the worst; he realised he was biting his fingers and removed his fist from between his teeth.

  ‘Hey, you found a hole!’ Gee declared, stomping up to the far side of the pit. For all Jasper was not fond of his companion – any more than a man might develop a friendship with the sack of unstable explosive cocktail ingredients he was carrying – he was mortally afraid in that moment that Gee would fall in. Not because of any concern for Gee’s welfare; more in case he woke something down there.

  ‘Gee, don’t,’ Jasper whispered urgently.

  ‘I’m not gonna spit in the pit,’ Gee replied sounding almost hurt.

  ‘Okay, but don’t... ’

  Gee pulled out one of the snappers he liked to carry around. His snappers were nothing more than a twist of oiled paper containing a little explosive cocktail. Harmless really.

  ‘No really, Gee... don’t... ’ Jasper said again, choking on his own terror.

  Gee dropped the snapper in the pit and started counting. He got bored and stopped long before a faint pop echoed up the shaft. ‘See? Nothing. Big hole though,’ Gee declared. ‘Is this the place?’

  Jasper fumbled out the old map they’d filched and crept across to the cavern wall. He pushed the map against the rock face with his right hand and held up his lamp with the left. Twisting to look over his shoulder at it, he tried to match the outline of the hole with the one on the map. If this was the right cavern there should be another tunnel on the far side of the pit. The light was too dim to tell, and all Jasper wanted at that moment was to go no closer to the edge.

  ‘Could be,’ Jasper replied. ‘I’m not... ’ he trailed off, voice shaking.

  ‘Jasper,’ Gee said in a curiously gentle tone. ‘It’s okay to be scared.’

  ‘Huh? Well, thanks but... ’ That was very strange indeed; Gee was being supportive. Jasper frowned at the map, his gaze drawn again to the strange markings beside the cavern mouth.

  ‘No, I mean it’s okay to be scared right now,’ Gee replied.

  Jasper turned, puzzled by this strange shift in attitude. Then he saw it. Yes, it was indeed okay to be scared of the thing that was crawling out of the pit. Shapeless, pale and shiny like the rock, it slopped over the lip and oozed towards him. Its glistening maw was surrounded by feelers that tasted the air. Tasted Jasper. He shrieked and leaped backwards, crashing against the cavern wall.

  Gee’s crossbow thudded, hammering its bolt deep into pulsating flesh. There, it detonated, the noise muffled by pale otherworldly tissues yet still deafening in the cavern. A secondary echo sounded from the pit, muted and muffled by distance or by something soft and horrible in its path. Gee yanked back the wire and dropped another bolt in, showering Jasper’s expensive boots with gobbets of slimy flesh as his second explosive missile pounded home.

  Jasper’s hand dropped to where his sword hilt would have been if his master had not been so damned adamant that enchanters did not need one. The gesture was instinctive, seen so many times when a swordsman encountered a threat. Automatic...

  ‘Thoughtless!’ Jasper declared loudly in a tone strangely reminiscent of Master Wizard Kurreill. Then the terror was gone. It was replaced with cold, clinical rage like the well-oiled workings of a construct. Lethal and precise; amoral and uncaring. He needed no weapon; he was a creator of weapons.

  ‘So get creative!’ Jasper
told himself in his master’s tones. He paced across the cavern, his work hammer all but leaping into his hand. A word and a rune traced with the fingertips, and the glowing hammer was a lethal projectile. It smashed into the pale flesh of his target and erupted in a shower of blue-hot fragments. Sizzling alien flesh showered Gee, who gave Jasper a disapproving look.

  Jasper sucked his teeth. If Gee thought something was dumb, then it really was a spectacularly bad idea. While Jasper hesitated the creature lashed at him with its tail. He skipped back to avoid it, and with horror he realised he had dodged to the very edge of the pit. He lunged away, rushing towards the reassuring solidity of the cavern wall. He smashed into it, dropping his lamp. For a moment Jasper clung to the stone wall, trying to dig his fingers into it. His eyes were squeezed tight shut and his breath came in ragged, wet-stone-flavoured gasps.

  Gee had reloaded while the creature was distracted, sending a third bolt plunging into its side. It ripped right through, skipping from the cavern floor to strike the wall close to Jasper’s head. He heard a fizzing sound and gulped at the thought of what might just have happened. Terror of the acid running down the cavern wall outweighed fear of the creature behind him; Jasper turned once more to face his enemy.

  This was where he was supposed to get creative, according to Master Kurreill. Jasper glanced around. A rock from the cavern floor and another grenade spell? No! Another expensive tool hurled as a grenade? No! Unimaginative! And besides it hadn’t worked the first time. Then what? Jasper stared desperately at the cavern floor, seeking inspiration in pale stone.

  ‘JASPER!’ Gee yelled as he threw down his crossbow and lashed out with an iron-reinforced boot, impacting with a squelch as he drew his short sword and dagger. He plunged at his enemy, slashing and stabbing at tentacles and damp flesh.

  ‘DO!’ Gee’s sword arm became entangled, tentacles dragging him towards the thing’s waiting mouth, but that was what he had wanted. His primitive combat instincts told him there must be a brain behind that mouth, something to hurt; something to kill. Gee lunged forward with a yell, plunging his dagger deep into demonic flesh.

  ‘SOMETHING!’ Gee finished. The creature thrashed, threatening to rip the knife from Gee’s hands. He yelled and clung to it, wrenching the blade around in the wound. Gee pulled back, using the deeply embedded knife as an anchor to wrench his sword arm free, and delivered a pommel stroke. The dagger came out and went back in. Again. Again. Then the short sword, and then the knife again.

  Jasper threw himself down on his hands and knees and began grabbing up all the pebbles he could find. It took just a few seconds to trace the words on the cavern floor. Then the spell. It came in quick gasps, but it came. Jasper grabbed his lamp and slapped it down among the pebbles atop his rune. Then he lurched to his feet and scrambled across the cavern in Gee’s direction. ‘Drive it to the light, Gee!’ he yelled.

  Gee tried, lunging forward with renewed determination... or desperation... but definitely with a great deal of violence. The thrashing body flung him back against the rock of the cavern wall. His sword skittered away in a shower of sparks and his helmet came off. The glowing gem crunched against rock and went dim, then died completely. Gee scrambled to his feet and charged straight back in. With a bellow of murderous triumph he hurled himself at his opponent, his entire body weight behind a plunging dagger strike to the creature’s head.

  The blade jammed in flesh and Gee followed it with a driving blow of his armoured knee. His right hand went to his quiver, seeking a particular bolt. He rammed it into the awful thing’s head and snatched his fingers away as it detonated. Chunks of foul-smelling flesh spattered both Jasper and Gee, revealing strange organs pulsing beneath. Still the creature thrashed and lashed at him with its feelers, shaking its head and flinging Gee away once more. He fell heavily, and the slimy bulk slithered towards him.

  Jasper’s lamp began to go dim. There were seconds of light remaining, and once it was gone they were doomed. Jasper knew what to do in those seconds. Years of tinkering with constructs and endless lectures on how everything in creation worked finally came together. The thing’s brain was not close to its mouth, but it had to have one. It clearly was not at the front end of its body – Gee had done a pretty good job of dissecting that part of the creature and found nothing vital.

  So...

  ‘Get up, Gee!’ Jasper shouted. He stepped towards Gee and the monster. One pace, and the light went out. A second, made on icy rock in pitch blackness. Ahead, grunts and strange, gurglings told of a death-struggle that Gee could not possibly win. A handful of Gee’s snappers went off, throwing dim light on the pale bulk before him. Jasper slapped Gee hard on the back and yelled the last syllable of his strength spell loud enough to hurt his ears as well as his throat.

  With a bellow of defiance, Gee punched the horrible thing with a right uppercut that flung its head up and back. It skittered sideways, taking its body over Jasper’s rune and the enchanted pebbles he had placed atop it.

  The rune detonated, igniting the pebbles and then Jasper’s lamp too. The blast ripped heavily protected tissue aside as white-hot pebbles ripped through the brain within. The creature flopped down as if its strings had been cut.

  Jasper activated the emergency light source he had built into his belt buckle and tried to catch his breath. Gee naturally felt the need to stomp his opponent into paste even though it was obviously dead. While his companion was venting his rage, Jasper rummaged his backup lamp out of his pack. He lit it and made a survey of the cavern, remembering to check the ceiling as well as the pit for additional threats, then waited for his companion to finish cussing out the lifeless corpse. All the while he smiled in amused tolerance, like the parent of a wayward but oddly lovable child.

  ‘You done?’ Jasper asked at length.

  ‘It’s done,’ Gee replied, which was perhaps more to the point. After a moment he added, ‘You blew up your hammer.’

  Jasper nodded. ‘That was not the best plan I’ve ever come up with.’

  ‘You should get yourself a sword.’

  Jasper considered it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No, I don’t need one. It’d stifle my creativity.’

  ‘You mean you’d find a way to blow it up.’

  Jasper eyed the wreckage on the cavern floor. Fragments of lamp, enchanted crossbow bolt and a very expensive hammer lay scattered from the entrance to the pit. After a moment he conceded the point.

  ‘Yes, I probably would.’

  Martin J. Dougherty is a freelance author specialising in military and historical subjects. His works include A Dark History of the Vikings, Fight to Win and Cut & Thrust: European Swords and Swordsmanship. He has also worked on game lines including Traveller, Call of Cthulhu and Armageddon 2089 and has published several SF and Fantasy novels.

  Martin is Chief Assessor to the British Federation for Historical Swordplay, teaching smallsword and military sabre at events such as SWASH and Smallsword Symposium. He is active on the tournament circuit and has won medals for military sabre, smallsword and rapier.

  Television work includes shows like Triggers: Weapons that Changed the World and Ultimate Soldier Challenge. Martin’s role includes both sides of the camera, acting as a technical consultant and an on-camera weapons expert.

  Martin lives in north-east England and is excessively fond of malt Scotch whisky. This may explain a recent incident involving an outdoor sword fight in the dark with everyone involved wearing top hats, though the official version is: ‘research’.

  BEST SERVED COLD

  Karen McCullough

  ‘With all due respect, ma’am, my company isn’t going any further.’ The captain’s voice cracked and his lips trembled as he faced her. He stood stiffly, as though he expected her to call down lightning to fry him for his boldness.

  Yglenia stared out over the ruins ahead, where Frostgrave loomed even grimmer in the late summer dawn than its reputation had predicted. Steep spikes of rock towered over ridges of stones. Rows of wi
ndowless, roofless buildings lined streets littered with remains of walls and chimneys. Snow mounded in corners and icicles dripped off edges. A low greenish fog wafted in ribbons across that bleak landscape.

  ‘I paid you a hundred gold crowns to come with me to Frostgrave.’ Yglenia kept her tone even and resisted the urge to loose a fireball. Anger rumbled in her gut, trying to break free – an unexpected rage she struggled to control.

  ‘To Frostgrave,’ the captain said. ‘Not into it. And we’re here.’ The hand that rested on his sword shook. She gave him points for guts. He knew the risk he took in defying a wizard of her power. The crow on her shoulder screeched. She tightened her grip on her staff, fighting the mad fury racing through her.

  Ignoring the crow, she gave the captain a hard look, then glanced at the small band of warriors behind him, two men and two women. All had the stance and build of seasoned soldiers, but their mutinous expressions failed to hide their fear.

  Birasel – heavens blast her treacherous black soul – had once said a single willing sword at your side was worth more than a dozen slaves.

  Yglenia turned to face the small band, and more than one set of knees wobbled. ‘I’ll compel none of you, but there’s an additional ten crowns each for any who will accompany me.’ Expressions turned from mutinous to considering. ‘And a tenth share of any treasure we find. I feel sure we’ll find something to make it worth your effort.’

  To avoid undermining their captain, she added, to him, ‘Double share for you if you’ll stay with me.’

  The soldiers looked at each other and muttered until finally one nodded. The rest followed suit. Even the captain conceded.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  ‘You know where to find this wizard you’re seeking?’ the captain asked her as they walked towards the city.