by David Cook
“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?”
Vil 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. “Word-Maker … the ring.”
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 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 knocked 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.
“What happened?”
“Where are—”
“There,” 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 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?”
Word-Maker 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.
“Too 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 elemental wasn’t more than a hundred yards away, almost to the lip of the shattered rift. There was no indication it had seen the group, although there was nothing to prevent it from turning and seeing them at any time.
The man broke into a sprint, leaving the others behind. Martine followed at a dead run, but her shorter legs could not keep up with the long-striding warrior. Jouka lagged even farther behind, struggling in the snow and ice, while the gnoll hung to the rear.
“Vil, wait!” the Harper shouted. “We should attack together.”
The man kept running. “We’ve got to stop it now, before it can break the stone,” he shouted back.
“Damn it, Vil,” the woman huffed as she thrashed after him, “don’t be so … paladinish!”
The elemental evidently heard something, and it turned to steal a look in their direction.
“You!” Vreesar shrilled as the charging warriors bounded across the icy field toward their enemy. Although the fiend could have meant Vil, Martine felt the creature’s gaze fixed on her. “Too late, humanz!”
The Harper was still several long strides behind Vil when the elemental held up Jazrac’s blood-black stone, clutched in the viselike grip of its fingers. There was no time left, no hope of snatching the key from Vreesar’s grasp before it could crush the fragile rock.
“No!” Martine shouted as she flung her sword in desperation. The long sword tumbled awkwardly toward the fiend. “Please, Tymora—” she started to pray.
The goddess of luck must have heard her plea, for the iron hilt of her tumbling blade struck the elemental solidly across the shoulder, knocking its arm wide. The stone, clamped in Vreesar’s fingertips, jarred loose and tumbled into the snow.
Before the fiend could recover, Vil sprang upon it, the 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.
“Let go, Vil!” Martine shouted, helpless to stop the fiend.
“It endz, human,” Vreesar snarled. With a sudden jab, it
shoved the frozen ball down Vil’s breastplate and hurled the man aside. Vil’s torn face barely had a chance to register confused surprise before he was pitched agonizingly against an icy upthrust. A repercussive roar filled the air. Metal shrieked as Vil’s breastplate burst in bloody ruptures, blasted by the ice-splintered explosion it contained. The man heaved with a single twitch, then flopped, his shattered body barely contained by the twisted metal shell.
“Vil!” Martine screamed again. Tears blinded her eyes. She scrambled forward, anguish giving her strength. The swirling snow kicked up by the blast uncovered a glint of metal, and her hand settled on the cool steel of Vil’s sword.
Using the weapon like a cane, Martine heaved unsteadily to her feet. Rage fought with tears as she faced the fiend. Martine wanted to vent her hatred of the creature more than she had ever wanted to strike out at anything in all the world. Stumbling over the snow, the Harper pulled her arm back to thrust. The elemental was distracted by its own wound, a clean split in its hardened shell, so Martine managed to get close enough to hear its heaving gasps and smell the murderer’s freezing aura.
She wanted to see its eyes, to see if there would be fear in them. She hoped the elemental would be afraid, afraid of its own death.
“Vreesar,” she whispered.
The fiend looked up, and their eyes met, its orbs tiny and almost hidden behind an icy fringe. The elemental thrust its hand forward, already crackling with energy, but Martine knew that trick and batted it away with a fast swat. Before the creature could recover, the Harper slammed her sword forward, throwing all her weight behind it. The sword tip skidded and then found a gap where the hip met the torso and sliced inward. The creature reeled back, and Martine, still staring eye to eye, fell forward with it. They hit the ground with a bone-breaking impact that threw the Harper to the side. Vreesar’s magical ice ball slipped from its grasp and rolled down the slope.
Crackle-booom!
The blast’s shock wave stunned Martine, and the ice needles tore at her back, but her prone position saved her from the worst of the blast Vreesar’s knee hit her in the gut, and she flipped away to land painfully in a jagged bed of hard ice.
As both struggled to their feet, Krote’s tawny form flashed past the Harper. Martine thought the gnoll was lunging to attack, but instead the shaman dove at a patch of snow. When he emerged, Word-Maker held Jazrac’s stone in his paw. The gnoll panted clouds of steam as he savored the power in his grasp.
Vreesar froze, torn between the stone and the threat of Martine’s sword. It couldn’t turn on the shaman without exposing itself to the ranger. Its wounds, leaking a clear fluid, were testimony to the effectiveness of its attackers.
Even with both hands wrapped around the hilt, the Harper barely could hold the sword. The ground seemed to tilt and roll as she tried to shake off the reverberations pounding inside her head. Every gulp of breath lanced her with fiery pain.
Greedy eyes coveted the artifact. “Shaman,” Vreesar droned soothingly, “I will make you chieftain—chieftain of all the tribez of the north. My brotherz will be your army. Give me the stone and we will destroy the humanz and the little onez.” The elemental slowly held out its hand, waiting to receive Krote’s gift.
The shaman crouched. His eyes were filled with feral light as he looked from human to monster. His jaw hung open, salivating like a hound hunched over its kill.
“Krote, don’t do it!” Martine managed to croak in desperation.
“Word-Maker, you can be chieftain.”
“Your word—you live by your word,” she reminded him.
“Chieftain of the Burnt Fur,” Vreesar tempted.
The wild light vanished from the shaman’s eyes. “Burnt Fur all dead!” he snarled. “And you killed them. You not get stone!” With a sudden move, the gnoll tossed the cinder to Martine.
“Now you die!” Vreesar shrieked. With a halting step, it lunged toward the woman. Martine dropped her guard as she reached out to catch the stone. Suddenly a hand pushed her aside, and Jouka’s small black-spiked figure sprang between her and Vreesar. Sunlight blazed in a hundred sparks off the steel points on Jouka’s outspread arms. Before the charging elemental could evade him, the gnome seized the monster’s legs in his porcupine embrace, triggering a series of cracks as the spikes drove through the fiend’s shell. Vreesar kicked its leg frantically, trying to throw the little warrior off, but the gnome clung like a burr, all the time banging his spiked face mask against the elemental’s thigh. Cold white ichor streamed down the featureless curves of the gnome’s helm.
Forgotten by Vreesar, Krote rose up behind the elemental. Almost as tall as the monster, the gaunt gnoll seized the fiend’s shoulders and twisted its body backward. The air rang with the beast’s alarmed shriek. Its long arms flailed as it tried to reach the tormentor at its back. Claws raked Krote’s arms, slicing his wrapping until it dangled in bloody strips, and the gnoll’s face writhed with pain, but still he clung to the creature.
“Now, human!” the Word-Maker roared. Releasing one hand, he grabbed Vreesar’s jagged brow, ignoring the needlelike points, and stretched its head back. “Kill it!”
Though the world still spun, Martine staggered forward and raised her sword with both arms till it pointed down like a spike. Vreesar’s little eyes widened in fear. “Nooo!” the shrill voice pleaded.
Martine slammed her sword point first into the fiend’s exposed throat.
When the monster finally stopped thrashing, Martine left Krote, left Jouka, left her sword, and stumbled to where Vil lay. She knelt beside the man, knowing already all hope was lost. He sagged against the canted ice, eye half closed and dull, his head turned so that she could not see his shredded face. Blood trickled from his mouth and became lost in the black and gray of his beard. More soaked through the rents in his armor, the steel bloated out by the blast. When she raised his arms to fold them over his chest, his limbs flopped with the impossible limpness that only death brings.
There was no breath, no last words of farewell, no chance for one last speech as in the tales of the bards. There was only his body, still warm, but lost forever.
“Good-bye, Vil,” she murmured, saying what he could not hear.
Behind her, Krote stood silent, ignoring the streams of blood that trickled from his arms while Jouka undid the dark-spiked mask that hid his face. Krote turned to face him, and in another place and time, the two might have traded blows, but now Jouka only kept a wary distance, perhaps finally deciding that this one gnoll deserved to live.
“It’s over, Mistress Martine. The battle’s done. Your plan worked.” Jouka paused and mustered up what little compassion he could. “He did not fail, Mistress Martine. He did not die in vain.”
The words slowly returned her to the world, and she gently closed the man’s one remaining eye. With a weary effort, filled with pain, she rose to her feet. “Praise be to Torm, Jouka,” the woman intoned, looking at the stone in her hand. “Praise be to Torm.”
Epilogue
The woman walked across the spring meadow, boots sinking in the icy mud. Her black hair was a little longer now, and she moved a little stiffly, too, although her wounds were fully healed. She would always be a little stiff as an aftereffect of Vreesar’s icy blast; such things were part of her life now.
On her back the woman carried a stout wicker pack. It was heavy with gear—armor, weapons, blankets, and food—that she would need to cross the southern mountains. Vil’s sword swung at her side, along with a pouch full of magical oddments recovered from Jazrac’s hoard. So many things were new to her, gifts from the gnomes, that it almost seemed as if she were carrying a new life away from the valley of Samek. She wished it were so, for that would mean release from old pains and sorrows.
Eventually she joined the man and beast who waited at the center of the meadow. The man was young, handsome enough in a rugged way and brimming with self-assurance. The beast was a hippogriff, a fine steed filled with fire and strength.
“
Are you sure you won’t reconsider?” the young man asked solicitously.
“And ride with you?” She looked from the golden-plumed hippogriff to the sky. It was amazing how his mount had the look and lines of Astriphie. “Thank you, but no. I’m sure the Harpers can do without me for a few more weeks.”
“So they told me when I asked,” the young man allowed. “Silverhand wondered if you were planning to pass through Mulmaster on your way back. There are rumors the High Blade is growing more powerful than seems right. He didn’t say you had to, though.”
Martine smiled ruefully. “More reports. Well, they said I need more seasoning.”
“Actually, I’m supposed to make the report. He said you should ‘assess and act as you see fit.’ ” The young man looked past her toward the grassy mound of the warren. “You spent all winter there?”
“Most of it. There’s a cabin in the woods.” The old pains returned.
Martine looked back to see if any of the gnomes had come to see her off—not that she expected them to. Jouka and Ojakangas were busy rebuilding now that warm weather had come, and Sumalo was feeling his age. She’d said good-bye to them already anyway.
The youth was a fresh young Harper, a messenger for those higher up, sent north to find her and Jazrac. It took the Harpers some time, but eventually someone had gotten concerned enough to send someone to look for them. News of Jazrac’s loss was met with sorrow, but no one blamed her. Instead, they read her reports and asked her to stay a little longer to ensure the peace and help rebuild. At first Martine thought it was a punishment, but as the weeks went by she wondered if they hadn’t meant it as a reward. With spring, though, she was rested and eager to move on.
Martine watched as the messenger mounted and strapped his harness in. “Farewell,” he said. “Remember Mulmaster.”
“May the gods—especially Torm—go with you. As for Mulmaster, tell Silverhand I won’t be saving the world anymore.”
“What does that mean? Are you going or not?”
“Just tell him. I think he’ll understand.”