The Ice King laughed, a sound like grinding glaciers.
“You… are a tiny human… nothing like the Uduru. Unless… they have shrunk.”
The guards laughed at their King’s jest. Vireon coughed.
“My father was Vod, King of Udurum…” he said. “But my mother was a human woman, Shaira of Shar Dni.”
The Ice King raised his frosted brows. “How… can this be?”
“My father was a sorcerer,” said Vireon. “He chose a human woman because he loved her. He has three sons. I am the youngest son… Vireon.”
The blue-skin monarch looked about his chamber, as if gauging the reactions of his subjects, but Vireon could not tell if any communication passed between them. It was all he could do to stay balanced on his unsteady feet.
“My name…” said the King, “is Angrid the Long-Arm. I am King here. Long ago… we and the Uduru… were one people. That is no more… the truth. Once we warred on the humans together… We drove them past the Mountains of the South… into the great wasteland of Serpents.”
“The wasteland is no more,” said Vireon. “My father turned it into a fertile realm, a land of thunder and rain. They call it the Stormlands. There, as in Udurum, the Men and Giants live in peace.”
“Lies,” said the Ice King, his crimson eyes narrowing. He leaned forward in his great chair, cracking his knuckles. “You… are a Southborn… a human… and you invade our hunting grounds.”
“No,” said Vireon, and his coughing cut off his next words.
“Tell me!” growled the Ice King. “Tell me… where are the rest of your human tribe? Where are the invaders? Tell me… or you will suffer!”
“I am alone,” said Vireon. “I am no human! I carry the blood of Uduru in my veins! Only give me food and rest, and I will prove it to you.”
The Ice King waved a hand at his guards. “Tell me… and you will eat. Until then you starve.” The jailers grabbed him by the arms and carried him from the hall. Vireon would have screamed, but his voice broke in his throat. Outside the great doors, they tossed him to the frozen ground again, and he lost consciousness. When he awoke, he hung once more by his wrists over the crevasse.
How long would they keep him here before dragging him to the Ice King again? How long until the King tired of him and sliced him in two with that great axe? Or would he die of hunger first? These thoughts rang through his head as he dangled there, his two guards sitting against the ice walls. Eventually they fell asleep, and he joined them in the bliss of slumber. He woke frequently, his body racked with fresh agonies. Now the cavern lay in total darkness. The moon’s weak glow could not penetrate the depths of the ice here.
Vireon dreamed of his father standing on the sea shore, wrapped in a cloak of black fur, wearing his crown of gold and opals. Vod, standing proudly at his full Uduru height, stared at the rushing waves, listening to the voice of silence. The wind moaned and sighed across the strand. The sky was gray and the sun a leaden ball between roiling thunderheads.
Vod cast off his cloak, his sword and crown, and walked into the surf. Wavelets pounded his knees, and he walked on. Blue lightning flared in the dark sky. The water covered his waist and chest, and still he walked. Thunder shook the world. His crownless head bobbed above the waves, and the sun peeked out for a moment from behind the clouds.
Now Vod was gone, marching beneath the sea toward some mysterious grave.
Vireon woke with a start. A light shape was moving in the darkness. He heard the soft padding of feet and smelled a pleasant scent that had stolen his sanity days ago. Now the sound of a blade being drawn across flesh, quickly and deeply, slicing through cartilage and bone. The same sound repeated. He smelled blood, coppery and strange.
A light flared in the darkness. She stood before him: a radiant Goddess with a white flame dancing in her palm. Her other hand was a fist clenched about the hilt of his long knife. The blade dripped purple gore. The two blue-skins lay with their slit throats gushing cold, dark blood. She stared up at him with night-black eyes.
Vireon laughed as best he could. It sounded more like choking.
The fox-woman dropped his knife and used her feet to slide the blue-skin corpses over the edge of the crevasse one by one. They tumbled soundlessly into the dark pit. She turned back to Vireon and raised a key of red iron in her free hand.
Reaching out to grab his legs, she pulled hard at his ankles, and the chain above snapped through the ice. He fell, almost into the pit, but she had the lower chain wrapped about her forearm and dragged him to safety, all under the light of her blazing palm.
She used the key to unlock the chain and carefully unwound it from his body. His shoulders and wrists ached unbearably, and his stomach growled. She smothered him with her body, transmitting warmth across his chest and limbs. He reveled in the sheer ecstasy of warmth, blessed warmth… for now he understood what cold truly was. The flame in her hand faded, and she rubbed his arms, fingers, wrists, sending heat throughout his body. In the dark, as his senses came back to life and the pain receded to a dull roar in his ears, her lips brushed his and lingered. He wrapped his arms about her gently… more gently than he had ever touched a woman. The surge of his great strength had always made him a careless lover, but he did not have that strength now. They kissed tenderly and urgently, until suddenly she moved away from him.
She helped him to his feet and conjured the white flame back into her palm. He picked up the stained knife and stared into the deep wells of her eyes. How could he thank her with mere words? She pressed into his hand a piece of dried meat, and he ate it voraciously. It did not even begin to quell his hunger, but it aroused his metabolism and sharpened his senses. He could not place the flavor of it, but he did not care. It was delicious.
“What is your name?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
She looked at him curiously, tilting her head. He asked again in the southern dialect of Uurz, again in the tongue of Shar Dni. She blinked at him, wordless, and kissed his neck lightly. She spoke neither Giant nor man language. Perhaps she spoke only the language of foxes. What was she? He grabbed her, more urgently this time, but she slipped out of his grasp, motioning toward the end of the cavern. She wanted to escape now. He nodded. There was no time for romance.
They ran by the light of her palm-flame through glistening halls of chilly gloom. She seemed to know the way as he did not, so he followed her. He was used to that, having chased her for days into the frozen north. They came at last into the great plaza of the blue-skins, where the light of cold azure flames flickered on the ice. She snuffed her flame, and they peered into the plaza, across a landscape of sleeping blue-skins wrapped in furs and blankets.
Looking at him now, she placed two fingers against her lips.
Yes, we must be quiet.
They crept through the sleeping plaza, stepping between the snoring bodies of blue Giants. She was silent as a fox, even in her girl form, but he was less so. At the crunch of every icy pebble he halted, holding his breath. But these Giants slept deeply. They made it to the center of the plaza without waking a single one.
She led him toward a great open corridor at the far side. He trusted her implicitly – that must be the way out of this glacier-fortress. He stalked past a slumbering Giantess, her arm wrapped about a snoozing infant half as large as a full-grown man. Never had he seen an infant Giant, and it struck him as odd. Then he remembered the Uduru could no longer have children. This is why they were dying out. He stopped, glancing about the chamber. Two more blue-skinned babies lay swaddled in furs and masses of pillows. There, a half-grown boy… there a young girl. There were more Ice Clan children than he could count. And this was only one chamber. How many existed in other clans outside the King’s roof?
The fox-woman grabbed his elbow, pulling him toward the corridor. They moved swiftly now, more sure of their invisibility. Crossing the threshold, they ran along a wide passage. She led him through a series of twists and turns, arched tunnels of solid ice, and
came at last to a great wide stair. At its top they emerged into the open freedom of a starry night. Behind soared a sheer wall of emerald and indigo, the cold moon reflected on its lucid surface. There were no guards stationed at this outward gate, or she had already slain them and hidden their bodies.
She grabbed his hand, and they ran. He could only move so fast, but she slowed herself to stay with him. Into a frozen landscape they plunged, knee-deep in crisp snow. Scattered Uygas rose about them, branches dripping with millions of icicles. After a while Vireon looked back and caught his breath. She leaned into him as he enjoyed a full view of the Ice King’s palace, a mountain of crystal and sapphire looming against the stars. Towers, domes, and battlements of living ice. Ultramarine walls bathed in starlight. Its size was not quite that of Vod’s palace, but the nature of its glimmering substance was infinitely more impressive. It was a marvel of audacious, impossible beauty.
Then they ran again, until the Ice King’s domain was lost among the frosted peaks. The golden glow of dawn lit up the pristine mountainsides. Vireon and the fox-woman fell into a bank of soft snow. The sun warmed their skins, and they made fierce love beneath the beaming sky. She gave herself to him with an animal urgency; he took her as a parched man takes cool water. A rush of mad sensations staggered him with pleasure, erasing all his agonies. Afterward they slept for a while on a carpet of green grass beneath melted snow.
Before midday she woke him, and they drank fresh snow turned to water in her cupped palms. Hunger still gnawed at him, but he ignored it. There would be game when they reached the lower climes of these mountains.
“What is your name?” he asked her again.
She gave no response.
They ran down the mountainside, toward green woodlands that still held sway below the white snows. Eventually, coming into a warm and verdant valley, he found roots and walnuts to eat. She wandered off and came back with a fresh-killed hare. She ate it raw, but he declined. He would have to teach her the art of cooking meat.
He set up a pile of tinder and motioned for her to call up the white flame. She did, and he guided her hand to the woodpile, setting it alight slowly but steadily. She marveled at this, laughing like a child. She must have never done this with her flame. Then he built a spit and cooked the rest of the hare over it. She sniffed at the smell, and he grabbed her about the slim waist. They made love again, this time on a bed of leaves the color of her golden hair, and when they were done he taught her how to eat cooked game. She looked at him strangely but indulged his request. She enjoyed it no more or less than she had raw. He laughed.
They rested in the valley until the sun sank behind the white-capped mountains. The Ice King’s mountains… realm of the Ice Clans.
“Long ago… we and the Uduru… were one people.”
Did Fangodrim know about these Udvorg? Did any other Uduru know? Did they remember at all their lost cousins in the north?
Vireon thought of the blue-skin babies, the Udvorg children sleeping in their icy home.
He thought of his uncle and all his Giant cousins, aging and resigned to extinction. He thought of the Uduri, barren of womb and empty of hope. Did the Uduru really have to die out?
Could this mean hope for Vod’s people?
My people.
He stroked a hand across his lover’s cheek, pulling her close.
“I have to go back,” he told her. “I have to make peace with the Ice King.”
She blinked at him, pink lips forming a half-smile.
He kissed her again and pondered his impossible task.
9
In the Shadow, in the Sun
The sky was an inverted landscape, rolling hills of gray and black, an upside-down world given form by continental stormclouds. Every now and then a ravine opened in the cloudscape, a fissure of blue sky, or a crevice pouring rays of sunlight onto the green fields. Rain fell in unbroken sheets, at times hard and angry, at others calm and gentle. Thunder moaned from one flat horizon to the other, occasionally clapping terribly, but usually distant and wreathed in echoes. Flares of lightning turned the gloom of a Stormlands day into whitewashed noon for seconds at a time, then disappeared only to spring up in some distant corner of the cloud kingdom. The wind blew meek or fierce, depending on its mood, but always wet, cool, and haunted by creeping fogs.
For days the jagged silhouettes of the Grim Mountains grew taller on the northern horizon. Now their immensity blotted out half the sky, a wall that separated two worlds, the ramparts guarding the Giantlands. The cohort of mounted Uurzians followed the Northern Road alongside the Uduru River, all the way from Vod’s Lake. The farther north they went, the fewer villages they passed. Tonight the company camped in the shadow of the peaks, where no settlements had dared take root. The northern winds blew stronger where the land rose into a swathe of grassy foothills divided by the silvery ribbon of river.
D’zan had grown used to the perpetual damp, the cold winds, and the biting rain. This was the land of storms after all. It was the colossal darkness of the mountains that worried him.
All the way from Uurz, ten days at the front of these four hundred warriors, the Stone’s greatsword hung heavily between his shoulders. It was the physical embodiment of his challenge. Dairon had given it to him after Olthacus’ funeral, thinking he actually wanted it. D’zan would rather have seen the blade interred with the Stone’s body; he had never seen Olthacus without it. It seemed a part of him. What’s more, it was too large and heavy for D’zan to wield. All his training had been with Yaskathan longblades, lighter and quicker weapons of bronze half as tall as himself. The Stone’s two-handed broadsword nearly matched D’zan’s height. Its iron blade was twice as wide as a longblade at the hilt, though it tapered gradually toward its point. D’zan could lift it using both hands, but swinging it effectively was another matter, one in which he displayed little grace. To fight with the greatsword required an entirely different technique, and more raw power than he could muster.
So he carried it on his back in the way the Stone had done, but it was only a symbol of his legacy. Another, slimmer blade hung at his waist, one he could use with some basic skill if pressed. The jade dagger that had killed Olthacus he kept shoved into his boot, its blade scoured clean of poison. It was a constant reminder that he could never be truly at ease, never take for granted his safety no matter where he lay his head. It reminded him also of Khyrei, a nation of enemies. He thought of pacts, infernal and political, that must have sealed the Empress of Khyrei to the service of Elhathym the Usurper. Another twist in the long road he must follow back to the rule of his own people. Another evil to burn from the world, when the time came. Or another source of death that might be winging its way toward him even now.
Prince Tyro led the cohort. He professed friendship and dedication to D’zan and his cause. Prince Lyrilan had become D’zan’s shadow, riding next to him through the rain, pitching a pavilion next to his own at every dusk, and peppering him with endless questions. Questions about D’zan’s upbringing and his life in the royal courts of Yaskatha. Questions about his father and the conquests he made before and after D’zan’s birth. Questions about his mother, whose face he could not remember. These and more questions, to the point of triviality. Lyrilan took mental notes during the days of riding, and each night scribbled his musings into a leather-bound tome carried in a waterproof bladder. He was wholly dedicated to chronicling the life of D’zan, and at times his attention was wearisome. But it kept D’zan from dwelling on the futility of his own task, or from brooding too deeply on his losses. He found that he enjoyed Lyrilan’s company, if not his queries.
Tyro rode always at the head of the cohort, next to the standard-bearer with the gold-and-green banner. D’zan spoke with him only at the evening meal, where they drank wine – Tyro in great quantities. He told second-hand tales of the Old Desert and the Ancient North. Every night was the same: Lyrilan’s pavilion on one side of D’zan’s and Tyro’s on the other. Tyro displayed a protectiveness
for him, and D’zan saw him as a smaller, if no less martial, version of the Stone.
“Now that is a fine weapon,” Tyro told him on the first day of their journey. “Takes a powerful arm to swing that blade.”
D’zan sat glumly in his saddle, soft rain pelting his hood as Tyro and Lyrilan rode on either side. “More power than I have,” he admitted.
“Is that so?” said Tyro. “You have skill with smaller blades?”
“Some,” said D’zan. “Olthacus trained me… I have three years.”
Tyro chuckled. “Three years! You should be a master of the longblade by now.”
Lyrilan jumped to his defense. “Not everyone is as single-minded as you, Brother.”
Tyro glanced at the scholar, not quite sure if he had just been insulted. He turned back to D’zan as his horse tramped through a mud hole. Behind them the cohort wound across the green-gray plain in four parallel columns of a hundred riders each. In their midst rolled a trio of canopied wagons carrying servants and supplies.
“Lyrilan has never cared for weapons,” said Tyro. “Such is the privilege of a high-born lad – nobody forces you to fight and bleed. He chooses books over blades… as if they could fortify the walls of our kingdom.”
“They do,” said Lyrilan.
Tyro ignored the comment. “D’zan, I can teach you how to use that greatsword. It will be the icon of your birthright. Troops will rally around it during battle. The merest glimpse or mention of it will invoke your quest and inspire men to die for you. If you learn to carry it proudly. If it only hangs upon your back, I am afraid it will do you no good at all.”
“You’d school me as Olthacus did?” D’zan asked.
“Tonight, when we pavilion,” said Tyro, “we’ll begin. First we’ll build strength in your arms using rods of bronze instead of blades. After a few weeks of swinging metal, the Stone’s blade will feel as light as a rose in your grasp.”
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