"I am the voice of a kingdom lost, a people lost. I will give my last breath to restore the Alders to their rightful throne."
She saw the truth in his eyes and it cut into her heart as surely as ever a knife could. "I let down my walls. I let you in--only you--and you've taken the beautiful thing I gave you and cleaved it in two."
Emel balled his outstretched hand into a fist. "You knew from the first who I was and what I stood for. I hid nothing from you."
After getting out of the pool, Galia turned back to him, her nakedness making her seem more vulnerable than she was. "And I accepted that. Why can't you accept who I am? I am my father's daughter. I am a Tyr'anth. My father's allowed me this fancy, this time away, but when he calls I must go. It is the way of things."
Emel followed her out of the pool, took her hands in his. "Come away with me. North, to Imtal. With the great world between him and us, we can be free."
"My defiance would be your death. Don't you see this?"
Emel kissed her hand, her cheek. He brushed back her long blond hair. "Don't you see? Come what may, I don't care."
Galia's tears returned. She wrapped her arms around him, whispered in his ear, "Before you, I am nothing. You bring tears to eyes that have never known them. Damn you for that and damn me for loving so great a fool."
Chapter 3
Clear blue skies and bright morning sunshine belied the harsh realities ahead. Vilmos shivered in the saddle as Warbær loped across the ice-crusted snow, watching as Ærühn, riding Lilbær, disappeared from sight. Soon after he and his fighting bear crested the same rise.
As he rode down into the dark recess, he began to wonder about all that had happened the day before. The encounter with the giants. The battle with the trolls. The keep spun of ice, snow and magic by Windstorm, the giant king.
He stared at Ærühn, wondered if Ærühn knew what it meant to be Watcher of the Ice. Ærühn looked back at him, almost as if the iceman could feel the weight of his stare. Whatever he knew, he wasn't sharing.
Upon entering the darkness, Vilmos' first instinct was to reach for his magic but just as he was about to touch the Abundance the iceman wheeled Lilbær around.
"Not here," Ærühn hissed. "We are close now."
Vilmos tested the saddle and rigging beneath him with the muscles of his legs, preparing for a fight that might soon come. "Wouldn't mage flame make this easier?"
"The exact reason I've never taken you to hunt the depths with me. Ever wonder why fighting bears have black fur and just about everything else on the Ice has white fur?"
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Vilmos asked, his voice tense but no more than a whisper. His thoughts went to his birth mother and father, Delinna and Ansh. The whole point of the journey was to find them and bring them back to Midsetten.
"This is a hunting ground. Before we go through the door and leave the bears behind, we have to be certain the troll troops are gone. A bear can easily take down a troll or two, but doesn't stand a chance against the organized troops we encountered last night."
As Ærühn unsheathed his dual blades, Vilmos guided Warbær to Lilbær's side. "But I can use magic?"
"When it begins," Ærühn said, his eyes probing the dark corners of the recess. "Not a moment before--and only if you must."
Vilmos unsheathed a curved blade, turned Warbær in tight, cautious circles. "I still don't understand why the bears can't come with us through the door."
"Too hot for one." Ærühn started Lilbær moving forward at a slow march into one of the deep turnings. "Fire and bears don't mix well for another--and where we go fire has a life of its own. It lives in the flesh of beasts and men alike."
Vilmos made certain that Warbær stayed abreast of Lilbær. His eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness and it allowed him to see subtle new shades of black within the gloom.
It was to the deepest, darkest depths of the turning that Ærühn went. When they were surrounded by inky blackness, he dismounted.
"Don't be alarmed…" Ærühn whispered, his voice trailing off as he thrust his blades in the ground and started unsaddling Lilbær. "Follow my lead. Learn why fighting bears are black."
Vilmos dismounted. After sheathing his sword, he labored to unsaddle Warbær. As he worked, the words "Don't be alarmed" turned in his thoughts and he asked himself how he could not be alarmed.
"This turning is empty," Vilmos whispered.
Ærühn grunted in agreement. "Precisely, and the only one that is."
Vilmos gulped down a lump in his throat. "The only one that is?"
"The others," Ærühn said waving and pointing. "They're occupied."
Vilmos' thoughts spun. "How occupied?"
The iceman wrapped his arms around Lilbær's giant furry neck. "Soon," he told the bear. To Vilmos, he said, "Not odds I like, but if we can hold this space we may live."
Vilmos' eyes went wide. "Did you know this when you marched into the darkness? Shouldn't we have simply rode out or held the middle ground at the least?"
Ærühn tittered at what he perceived as a little joke. "Our fate was sealed when we rode in, though a good thing troll warrens are such dark places. It helps to even--"
Ærühn stopped abruptly, readied his twin blades. "Remember, the darkness gives the bears an advantage. Don't take that away with your mage flame."
Vilmos moved to a ready stance, gripped his single blade with both hands, so he could put a driving force behind his swings. "Are you sure about this?"
"Use the walls behind you as safeguards. Hit everything that moves, because everything that moves will be foe and not friend."
"But the b--"
"Lilbær and Warbær will be occupied elsewhere. You're ready for this. We've trained for this. You can't use your sight, so use your other senses. Can you smell them? Manure, blood, death. Can you hear them? Shifting feet, heavy breaths. Coarse grains grinding against thick, scaly flesh as they turn stone cudgels in meaty hands."
Vilmos took a deep breath, noted he was no longer shivering from the cold. He stared into the dark void. "What are they waiting for?"
"The bears. They're waiting for the bears to charge, then they'll attack en masse and trust that their numbers are sufficient to overwhelm us."
Vilmos widened his stance. "Are they?"
"They are," Ærühn said plainly. "Die well, my friend. Find glory in battle."
Chapter 4
Light streaming through cracks in the closed shutters roused Adrina to conscious concerns. She awoke in a sweat, perspiration dotting her brow. She stretched through a yawn, and then sat up in bed, gripping her thick fur blanket tightly. The air in the tiny bedroom was so cold she could see her breath as she exhaled.
Coaxing away thoughts from her dream--a dream in which she was standing naked before the dragon king, her body covered in dark marks--she put bare feet into slippers, pulled a thick robe around her and went into the next room.
The hut's main living area was a cavernous room with a large fireplace and open areas for sitting, eating and cooking. She turned her attention to the fireplace first, surprised not to find a bright fire burning.
"Xith?" she called out as she searched the ashes with an iron poker. The scant few embers she found meant that Xith had roused hours ago or that he'd forgotten to stoke the fire before departing. Neither seemed right, for it couldn't have been much past first light.
After carefully arranging dry wood over the embers, Adrina slid back the bolts on the hut's heavy double doors and opened them wide. Though she couldn't see the sun, she knew at once the hour was much later than she thought, closer to midday than midmorning. A water bucket outside the doors was crusted over with last night's snowfall and she had to knock it against the ground a few times to clear the snow.
She hurried off to fill the bucket with water for bathing and drinking from the nearby well. The slippers she wore did little to protect her feet from the cold and her toes felt nearly frozen by the time she returned to the hut.
/> A few minutes sitting beside the fire with her toes pointed toward the flames helped feeling to return fully. As she stared into the hungry orange-red flames, she thought of Great Kingdom, of Imtal, of her father, and she renewed her vow that one day she'd make the Tyr'anths pay for all they had done. They'd murdered her father, sacked Imtal, and made it so she may never be able to return to her beloved kingdom. She told herself they would pay a hundred fold for that and for every transgression since.
Her anger was so wrought and raw it brought fire to her hands. Fire that she could only wonder at as it swept up her arms and down her torso. She jumped up when the chair beneath her burst into flames.
Thinking quickly, she doused the flames with the water from the bucket. She was drowning the last of the flames when the door opened and Xith entered.
She turned around, handed Xith the bucket as if nothing had happened. "Can you fill this so I can wash up?"
Xith stood in the doorway. He was about to say something but Adrina waved him out.
"Hurry," she said. "I was just about to start cooking."
A trap door in the far corner led to a cellar where Adrina gathered foodstuffs for the day's meal: long orange tubors, thick dark roots, and a large chuck of frozen meat. The tubors and roots went into the hot embers. The hoar hound shank went on the spit over the fire.
As she was wiping her hands on a long cloth in her bedroom, she caught sight of herself in her looking glass--one of the few possessions she'd escaped Imtal with--and what she saw frightened her. The face looking back at her was gaunt and pale. Her long, dark hair was a flyaway mess and there were long lines of dirt on her face. Her green eyes were bloodshot and swollen.
Her eyes lingered a few more heartbeats on her reflection and with each passing moment her alarm deepened. She tried to coax the terror from her eyes, but found she couldn't, for she knew too well what she saw. It was the look of one with the wasting sickness.
"Adrina?" Xith called out. "How are you feeling today? You seemed so exhausted yesterday."
Adrina didn't reply. She heard Xith set the water bucket outside her door and walk away, so she retrieved it and poured some of the cold, clean water into the washbasin beside her bed. She washed herself with a cloth she dipped and rinsed in the bowl. The icy water was surprisingly invigorating and soothing today, especially when she pressed the cloth to her face, for it seemed to suck the hurt from her eyes and the heat from her brow.
She went back to the bedside table and took up the looking glass, holding it up to look at herself again. Her hands trembled. She'd done her best to hide her illness, but now it seemed that was done.
She'd seen too many others die not to know what was ahead. Her days remaining were numbered. The count of the digits on her hands, if she was lucky. Noman had lasted many weeks, but he was a great exception. As an immortal, Xith said he perished only because his magic had been extinguished.
She dressed quickly. A large trunk in front of the bed held her belongings. Riding outfits and clothes that she wore every day. Books that had been in her family for generations. Dresses that she would never get to wear. Leather satchels with what remained of the crown jewels inside. A sword and dagger in their sheaths that were the smaller siblings of Truth Bringer, the fabled 2-handed sword wielded by her brother, Valam. A large square box containing a myriad of things that a lady needed to make herself look more attractive.
Seeing the box gave her an idea and she held up the mirror again to study her face. She put a finger to the dark circles under her eyes, hiding them momentarily. She touched a flat hand to her pale cheeks to see what she'd look like with some color.
Afterward, she lugged the box of potions, lotions and perfumes to the bedside table. While staring into the looking glass, she painted her face, brought color and life back, covered the dark patches beneath her eyes.
Pleased with the result, she smiled, a thin smile from thin lips on a thin face.
"Adrynne, I know you are there," she said, while looking into the mirror. "Tell your master that when I die he gets nothing."
An answer came swiftly and unexpectedly. Coarse laughter followed by a whispered voice in her ears. "When you die, your servitude begins. You've given your soul to the dragon and not your life. Surely, by now you know this. Has not the Watcher told you as much?"
Adrina dropped the looking glass, her hand going to her mouth. The mirror shattered against the hard wood floor. She gasped, sucked at air that suddenly seemed to be gone from the room.
"That can't be. That can't be."
Adrynne ripped her way out of Adrina's flesh while Adrina cried out in pain. "I would not lie about such a thing. If fate does not get you, the marks will. One way or the other, you will be his servant."
The lady elf had always appeared wispy, as much immaterial as material, but suddenly she had substance. She held out her arms.
"The dragon?" Adrina asked, seeing the wealth of marks covering the lady's arms.
"How could it be otherwise? Soon it will be your legacy, as it is mine."
Tears welled up in Adrina's eyes. "I don't wish it. I don't want any of it."
Chapter 5
Lilbær and Warbær charged. The snow trolls countered, flooding out of the warren holes. Ærühn spun around and around as he lashed out, his dual blades turning in his hands with deadly precision. "For Leria. For Midsetten," he cried out as he felled one snow troll after the other.
Vilmos wielded a single curved blade, staying in the deep area he'd been led to. He couldn't see what was happening around him, but somewhere ahead he heard the bears mauling everything in their path. He told himself repeatedly, "I wish I could see in the dark. I wish this was over."
Ærühn worked his way onward. He wanted to advance as far as possible without hindering the bears. The sheer number of trolls was alarming, but he pushed trepidation aside and reached out with the steel teeth in his hands.
A startling shriek brought Vilmos out of his muddle. He smelled death in the air and the coppery taste of blood was in his mouth. He didn't know why until he saw the cudgel coming at him again from out of the darkness. He bobbed, avoiding the second blow. As he struck back, he heard the dragon's voice in his ears, "You are now Watcher of the Ice and you've ended a century storm. There's something to be said about that."
Ærühn spun and parried, his blades dancing in his hands. Trolls were coming at him from three sides now and it took concerted effort to hold them at bay. As he swung one blade left and then turned right, he struck first one troll and then another. Going down on one knee, he thrust out with both blades, catching a troll in the throat and nearly severing its head from its body.
"I am Watcher of the Ice," Vilmos told himself, drawing from the Abundance and pouring the strength he found into his limbs. He charged forward. He watched, his eyes wide as a cudgel swept past his face a finger's breadth away. He turned about, countered furiously, his blade finding fur, flesh and bone and sinking so deep he was pulled down with the felled troll. Standing, he pushed down with the heel of a boot to retrieve his weapon.
Ærühn urged Lilbær and Warbær on with a loud call. "To battle, to battle. Attack, attack. Rift and Reaver, give us strength and victory."
Blood trickled down the side of Vilmos' face from where he'd been struck. Joining Ærühn near the entrance to the deep turning, he lashed out wildly shouting, "For Leria. For Midsetten."
Ærühn grimaced as he fought, his blades moving so swiftly they were a ceaseless blur. "Calling out my sister's name in battle are you now? You must be more smitten than you know--and I thought I told you to guard the rear."
Vilmos grinned sheepishly, not that Ærühn could see such in the dark that surrounded them. He parried left, thrust right. His blade struck true. A snow troll fell. He lunged over it and attacked before the next monster coming at him could. He heard every movement of the bears now. The swipes of their massive paws. The rending of flesh with their powerful jaws.
Ærühn countered a pair of cudg
els, one from ahead and one from the right. He turned, struck out. "There are too many," he shouted. "Make your way to the entrance. Return to Midsetten."
Vilmos started to reply, but was cut short by a cudgel smashing into his chest. The blow took the breath from his lungs and knocked him backward several spans. A second blow knocked the sword out of his hands. Suddenly a troll was kneeling on his chest, snarling in his face, and he was on his back. Frantically, he reached out and groped the darkness for his blade but couldn't find it.
Ærühn heard Vilmos go down. A rage filled him and he attacked madly at everything around him. "Vilmos? Vilmos?" he called out. "Answer me."
Panicked, Vilmos reached for the Abundance, blue-white lightning arced from his hands, striking the troll and throwing it off his chest as if it was a rag doll. He jumped up, his eyes glowing as lightning struck and felled trolls all around him. He walked forward, lightning striking and felling trolls as he went.
Ærühn cringed as Vilmos unleashed the magic he'd warned against, knowing it could bring every dark creature of the Ice for a thousand chains in every direction. He swung his blades, a rage still inside him as he cleaved flesh from bones.
Vilmos and Ærühn continued on, pushing their way across the main chamber of the warren. Lilbær and Warbær began to flank the trolls, moving the trolls into a narrowing box as part of a pincer attack.
All at once, the trolls started turning back, racing into the deep places of their warren. Vilmos charged after them.
Ærühn shouted a warning, "Vilmos, no! It's a ruse!" Not wasting a moment, Ærühn commanded Lilbær to "break," even as he leapt onto the fighting bear's bare back.
Vilmos gave the "break" command to Warbær, attempted a running mount. He landed off center and clung to Warbær's bare back in that lopsided position as the bears charged out of the warren.
Bright daylight reflecting off white snow temporarily blinded bears and men. The bears charged onward, instinct carrying them away. Behind him, Ærühn heard snow trolls clawing their way out of the warren. Even though he was certain Lilbær heard this as well, he urged the bear to race faster and faster.
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