City of Ice

by Laurence Yep

  A sea otter scrabbled out of the hole. Then a second and a third. However, their short legs floundered in the snow that covered the ice. Still more came in a determined dark, furry wave—far more little warriors than Roland had bullets for. So wheeling around, Badik began to gallop away. There was no way the otters could keep up with a dragon on their stubby legs.

  So Leech would have to fight in the otters’ place. Lifting the ring above his head, legs crouching, muscles tensing for a blow, he sped to intercept them. Badik saw him and snarled, “It’s one of those brats again.”

  “We’ll get rid of one of them at least,” Roland snapped.

  When he saw Roland raise his pistol, Leech jinked back and forth through the air, wondering just how many shots Roland had. The boy had heard of some guns that held as many as eight shots.

  A shot whizzed by his ear. He banked sharply to his left and the next missed him by a wide margin. He executed a roll that now had him charging toward Badik’s flank.

  Roland took aim. He was smiling.

  Leech rocked from side to side like a pendulum, making himself a more difficult target.

  Roland’s bullet zipped past him a little closer than the boy would have liked.

  If only it were snowing, he could use that as cover.

  Fool, make your own snow, the voice said to him.

  The last thing he wanted to do was listen to the voice, but he had no choice. And at least this suggestion from it was practical rather than bloodthirsty.

  He darted downward, skimming just inches above the surface. Faster, he told himself. Faster. He heard the hiss behind him and saw snow spraying upward in his wake.

  He zigged and zagged crazily, keeping one eye out for any rises and raising a white curtain that hung in the air. He could barely see his enemies as silhouettes, and if that was so, they would be having the same trouble. A shot went wide of its mark. So his artificial snowfall was working.

  He tried to be unpredictable when he changed directions, but he always kept narrowing the gap toward the faint outlines of dragon and rider until he was on them and swinging the ring. The Dancer was squeezing his wrist tight with fright now.

  In the last moment, though, Badik swerved to his left, at the same time whipping his tail around.

  It was like being hit by a scale-covered club the size of a tree. The frozen sea whirled around Leech as he spun out of control through the air and into the snow.

  And into the darkness.

  41

  Bayang

  They all gave a jump when they heard the explosion several miles away. Spray and ice rose into the night as fluffy and delicate as a waving feather.

  Bayang started to rise when she remembered she was anchoring the unfolded straw wing. “Roland’s surfaced,” she said excitedly.

  Koko scanned the horizon anxiously. “But where’s Leech?”

  Bayang had been uneasy the moment he had flown off, and her apprehensions had only increased with every second he was gone. It would be just like the overconfident little fool to take on Roland and Badik by himself instead of retreating.

  She thought of Leech, alone and outmatched, facing their enemies without her, and she felt a terrible fear twisting her insides. Why? It wasn’t her fault. She’d tried to warn him, but the little idiot would break his promise to her. And yet her anxiety had made her as taut as a bowstring.

  The sooner they got to him the better. “It’s time to call Naue.”

  Scirye scanned the heavens as she scratched her head. “Did he tell us how?”

  Too late, Bayang realized it too. “No, he didn’t. He rushed off in such a hurry that I forgot to ask.”

  Koko shook his clenched paw at the sky. “You big, worthless airbag! Why didn’t you tell us something important like that?”

  “We could try calling his name.” Tilting her head back, Bayang began shouting to Naue. The others joined in.

  When nothing happened after several minutes, Koko stamped a hind paw. “Aw, we can’t wait for that blowhard. We got to get to Leech on our own.”

  The top of the glacier seemed so very far away to Bayang. “We need some height to launch the wing ourselves.” She tried to unfurl her injured wing, and the agony lanced through her.

  Concerned, Scirye said, “You can’t fly with that bad wing of yours.” She tried to get a grip on the icy surface and could not. “But you and Koko might be able to climb up there with your claws. And maybe I could hold on to your back.”

  Time was the problem. They never seemed to have enough. “Climbing would take too long.” Even as they discussed what to do, Leech might be dying. Wincing, Bayang forced her bad wing to open. “I think I can stand the pain long enough to carry you and the wing up there.”

  Kles coughed. “You’ll pardon me for saying this, but I beg to differ. At the moment, you look dreadful, and you haven’t even tried to use your wings yet.”

  “I can’t sit around while Leech could be in trouble.” Bayang crouched, hooking her claws into the straw surface. “Hop on.”

  Fear for his friend had overcome his usual fear of danger, so Koko was the first to scramble up on the dragon’s back. Scirye followed while Kles rose into the air, circling a little to the side.

  Bayang brought her wings down and tried not to gasp at the stabbing pain. With every beat after that, the ache spread from her wing through her shoulder. The top of the glacier seemed an impossibly long way off, but she told herself not to think like that. Instead, she concentrated on the next wing stroke, the next breath.

  A worried Kles fluttered near her head. “Go back while you can.”

  The foot of the glacier looked just as far away as the top, and Bayang was not sure she could break her descent once she started. “I think it’s already too late for that,” the dragon puffed.

  “Of course you can reach it,” Scirye urged, and then scolded her griffin. “Don’t distract her, Kles.”

  Yes, this is my penance for all the harm I’ve done Leech, Bayang told herself. Faces flashed through her memory of his other lives, young faces, frightened faces. And they merged into Leech’s face as he was now in this life. Scared not of her but of Roland and Badik. Alone. A novice at flying and fighting with a ring he barely knew how to use. Battling with more courage than sense or skill. They would make short work of him unless she could stop them.

  She had to go on. It didn’t matter that they were of two different species. And so what if he insulted her? Or if he eventually despised her one day. She had to protect him. It would not make up for everything in the past, but it would be a start. She would save his silly little hide no matter what the cost.

  Clenching her teeth, Bayang drove herself upward yard by yard until her eyes were level with the glacier’s top. By now, her back and chest were hurting as well.

  Another yard. She had already asked too much of her tortured wing. She couldn’t keep from giving a little groan.

  Through the red cloud of agony that filled her mind, she heard Scirye say, “Leech needs us.”

  She thought of Badik looming over a helpless Leech, and she forced herself up another yard, her body on fire.

  Suddenly there was no shining crystal wall in front of her, only open air. She had reached the top. Through the haze, she dropped the straw wing onto the snow-covered ice. As much as she wanted to collapse, she had to move farther on or she might crush the wing. Somehow she managed ten more yards before she skidded along the glacier, piling up the snow in front of her and exposing a wide strip of ice behind her.

  42

  Scirye

  Scirye slid off Bayang’s back. With her wings still spread, the dragon lay like a sinking sailing ship. If it were not for the heaving of the dragon’s sides, Scirye would have thought her friend was dead.

  Scirye knelt and brushed the stray snowflakes from Bayang’s head. She had never seen any creature as beautiful as the dragon. Even now, the dark green scales, moistened by some melting flakes, gleamed like jewels.

  Scirye ha
d felt how Bayang’s sides had heaved with the effort, seen the labored strokes of her wings, and guessed at the cost in pain. Leech meant so much to the dragon. Whatever had happened between them in the past was…well…in the past.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” Scirye asked.

  The dragon just moaned, her warm breath steaming the air as it left her nostrils. Scirye was so worried that she became reckless.

  I don’t care what it costs me, Scirye silently said to Nanaia. Please help my friend. She’s suffering so much.

  Scirye remembered how Roxanna had pleaded with her to help Upach, because every word had been etched into Scirye’s heart. The Kushan girl understood Roxanna’s despair when nothing had happened.

  Scirye had been unable to aid Upach then. She was unable to aid Bayang now.

  “We need Bayang. What’s the point of saving us from the hag,” the frustrated girl demanded, “if you’re going to let us fail now? Don’t you care? Why play these games?”

  Scirye listened to the whisper of snow as a breeze blew the light coating away from the glacier’s top. She pulled back her glove long enough to look at her palm, but the mark wasn’t glowing. There was no sign of acknowledgment.

  Scirye was sure some philosopher could come up with reasons why Nanaia came at the oddest times and yet was absent when Scirye really needed her. However, Scirye was like Prince Tarkhun. Deep thoughts were for other people. What she cared about was deeds. And she was now feeling very exasperated with the goddess.

  Timidly, the girl stroked a scaled cheek, wondering how dragon nurses comforted their patients.

  Kles poked his head out of the coat. “I don’t think she can feel that through her armored hide. That gesture is more for you than for her.”

  “I have to let her know we care,” Scirye said, and tried a harder slap, hoping that it might be the dragon equivalent of a love pat.

  An eyelid fluttered open. “Don’t,” the dragon warned in measured tones, “ever do that again if you want to keep your fingers.”

  Scirye snatched back the offending hand and hid it behind her back. So much for trying to take care of the crusty old dragon. Bayang’s attitude seemed to be recovering faster than her injured body. “Right, sorry. Can I do anything to make you comfortable?”

  “Yes, stop babbling,” Bayang murmured. “I’m trying to master the pain. In the meantime, make yourself useful and anchor down that wing somehow before it blows away.”

  Scirye noticed how the dragon’s jaw worked and the tension lines furrowed her scaled forehead. Bayang was now performing as heroic a mental feat as the physical one she had just performed.

  By then, Koko had scrambled off the dragon to join Scirye. “We ought to be getting after my buddy.” He was practically hopping from one paw to the other with anxiety.

  Scirye pulled Koko away. “Didn’t you see her fighting to get us up here? She understands that, but look at her face. She’s in agony and needs to control it first. She wants to rescue Leech as much as you do.”

  Koko scratched his jowl. “Yeah, I guess I really knew that. But I’m anxious about my buddy.”

  Scirye motioned between herself and Bayang. “He’s our friend too.” She noticed a breeze lift one side of the wing. “We can’t help him if the wing drifts away. Help me find some rocks.”

  It wasn’t as easy a task as it sounded, for though the glacier had picked up stones of all sizes, they were wedged tightly into the ice. When the friends located one and began to chip it out of the ice with the axes, they had no idea if it would be too big to move or possibly damage the weaving of the wing. It was simpler to act as their own weights and sit on the wing themselves.

  Scirye had left Kles to keep an eye on the dragon while she worked, and the griffin had perched on Bayang’s paw as the most convenient sentry post. When she heaved herself up abruptly, he fell off, skidding through the snow.

  “Hey!” he said.

  “Do I look like a piece of furniture?” Bayang huffed.

  “You must be feeling better if you’re back to being an old grump,” Koko said.

  The lines of pain had not left Bayang’s face, though. “You’re still hurting,” the girl said, worried that the dragon would drive herself until she was nearly dead.

  “I’ll have plenty of time to rest after we catch Roland. And anyway, dragons heal a lot faster than humans.” Bayang cautiously furled her wings tight against her back. “At least, Badik is as bad off as I am, so the fight will still be equal.”

  Together, the three of them turned the wing around so that it was pointed forward like an arrowhead. “You and I will push, Koko,” she said to the badger. “That means we’ll have to time our leaps for the moment when momentum is carrying the wing off the glacier.” Then, at the dragon’s direction, Scirye got on, with the girl at the steering loops.

  “Just try to keep the nose up,” Badik said. The air began to shimmer around the dragon as she shrank.

  The girl nodded and tightened her grip on the straw loops woven into the wing. Kles hovered overhead anxiously, though it was unclear how he could keep her aloft if something went wrong.

  The straw wing itself weighed nothing at all, but its size made it awkward to shove. Digging their paws into the snow coating the glacier, Bayang and Koko began to push. The wing began to move forward, slowly at first and then faster, and suddenly its point was tipping over the lip of the glacier.

  The frozen ocean looked very close and very hard and Scirye swallowed.

  “Jump,” Bayang told Koko, and the two hopped onto the wing as it glided downward.

  The sudden addition of weight at the rear made the straw wing buck, and Scirye could hear Koko yelp and scratch at the straw, trying to find a hold. And then she was too busy to think about anything but hauling back on the loops with all her strength, because the nose was heading downward.

  Bayang, though, let herself slither forward over the wing, letting gravity carry her to the girl’s side. Hind paws dug into the straw to stop Bayang’s slide while her forepaws gripped the steering loops as well.

  The ocean was perilously close when the nose of the wing finally went up and they were gliding along. Scirye slid back to her usual spot, all too glad to surrender the controls to the dragon.

  “Are we dead yet?” Koko asked. He was splayed across the straw with all his claws dug in, and his eyes were shut tight.

  Scirye couldn’t help feeling exhilarated that their plan had worked. “Where’s your sense of fun?”

  “Back there with my stomach,” Koko grumbled. He sat up and then, still on his haunches, slid onto the opposite side to balance the wing.

  “Kles,” Scirye called to the griffin, “scout ahead of us.”

  With a nod, her friend folded in his wings partway and swooped downward at first to pick up speed. His forelegs were tucked against his chest, hind legs stretched out straight behind him and tight against his tail to make as streamlined a silhouette as possible.

  Her heart caught as it always did whenever she saw her griffin in action. In full dive, he was the epitome of grace and speed.

  A yard above the ocean, he slid his wings out so that his flight path became a curve with him shooting forward. A confident stroke of his wings sent him rocketing on, a small dot against the white expanse.

  43

  Leech

  Leech spat snow from his mouth, but when he tried to breathe he took in more flakes of it. He tried to wipe the snow away, but his arms were pinned to his sides by cold white stuff. He was buried alive.

  He fought down the panic. Lying still, he shifted his eyes from side to side. There was a little space around his head, but the slightest movement caused snow to drop on him.

  When he had fallen after Badik’s blow, the disks must have driven Leech deep into the snow. And as the snowflakes in the air settled, they had lightly covered the tunnel he was in now. That was probably the only reason why he was alive. Roland and Badik hadn’t wanted to delay long enough to search for L
eech’s location.

  He could still feel the disks vibrating against the soles of his feet, so he tried to wriggle backward, and though he didn’t move more than an inch, he heard the disks’ pitch shift lower as they bit into the snow. Little bit by little bit, they started to pull him along the tunnel. Now he knew what it was like for a cork wedged into a bottle.

  Suddenly there was no resistance to the disks. They yanked him into the open, past a couple dozen otters who had been trying to dig him out.

  He sped upside down over the frozen ocean. Since he had often been head over heels during his practice sessions, he wasn’t completely uncomfortable.

  Aching all over, he moved his arms experimentally and was relieved to see that they weren’t broken. Putting his hands flat against the snow, he shoved himself cautiously upward so that he was squatting. With just as much care, he pulled his legs against his chest and then swung his feet downward so that he was right side up, adjusting for the way his feet bounced up and down during the activity.

  Roland and Badik were gone, but they would have left tracks. It was one thing to fight a dragon when you had another dragon at your side and quite another to take one on by yourself. Even injured, Badik had looked very big and very deadly. Besides, Roland had a gun and Leech had…nothing.

  He realized he had lost his weapon ring. He didn’t feel whole without it. He sped back to the otters. “I’ve lost a large iron ring.” He held his hands apart to indicate the size. “Could you look into the tunnel?” He pointed at the spot where he’d been embedded in the snow.

  Obligingly, one of the otters disappeared down the hole, but he returned a moment later to shake his head.

  “I was afraid of that,” Leech said, biting his lip. He wasn’t proficient enough to miss the ring as a weapon, but it had been with him since he’d been left at the orphanage. With the flight disks, it was the only link he had back to his past.