by T. A. Miles
The knight groaned. “For the love of...” His voice trailed when he glanced away from Tarfan, and caught sight of something that interested him far more than the dwarf’s argument.
IN THE NEAR HILLS Tristus saw something glittering. He leaned forward in the saddle, knowing somehow and almost at once that it was not merely something, but the very thing that had drawn him into this quest. It was Dawnfire!
Tristus took off without even thinking, headed for the hill where the dearly missed spear hung, caught in a tangle of dead wood. Perhaps it had been taken by a winged creature, as Tarfan had suggested, but not the angel. Maybe a demon had tried to claim it and dropped it after the burden of its Heavenly light became too much for it. However, it had come to be here, Tristus knew only that he must have it back and offer it formally to Xu Liang’s cause, with him as its bearer…as God intended.
“Hold on, little one!” he called back to Taya, recalling she was with him when her short arms suddenly clamped about his middle.
“WELL, HERE GOES another horse,” Tarfan grumbled. “He’ll get the poor thing tripped up on a tangle of wood and break its leg, or worse. They’ll be the next creatures of myth at the rate he loses them! And this time he’s got my niece!”
“She would not have it any other way, Tarfan,” Xu Liang said calmly. “And I think I see what he is riding toward with such haste.”
“It’s Dawnfire,” Alere said, riding up to join the mystic and dwarf when they stopped. He didn’t sound pleased, and the reason became apparent in his next words. “The thief is near.”
Xu Liang looked at him, reading nothing in the elf’s gray eyes. He knew better than to question the elf’s awareness of such things, but he wished Alere would provide more details with his announcements.
“Why are we stopped?” D’mitri wanted to know, riding back with Shirisae close behind. Even in haste, his golden eyes still managed to find and isolate Alere with a menacing glare.
The white elf scowled in turn, but said to Xu Liang, “We must assist the knight and leave quickly.” And then he moved to act on his words, leaving Xu Liang to explain things to the Phoenix Elves.
TRISTUS REACHED THE base of the hills and glanced back, unaware until that moment of just how far away they’d been from the caravan. He put the matter aside and contemplated the climb ahead of him. The hill was steeper than it looked from a distance, pocked with dives and obstructions that would make it almost impossible to safely take a horse up. It looked soft as well, like there was mud beneath the snow. Roots and dead branches reached out at odd angles. They would make good hand and footholds, Tristus told himself, dismounting.
He eyed the platinum spear, carelessly mounted in a nest of lifeless wood several feet overhead and then looked at Taya. “Wait here,” he said to the flushed lady dwarf, who nodded cooperatively.
After briefly plotting a course, Tristus started up. He trudged through snow that was almost up to his knees and found it no shallower on the hill. That only made it more difficult to plant his feet, which kept sliding in the disheveled layers of powdery ice. He grabbed hold of a promising looking root and began to pull himself up almost on arm strength alone.
Dawnfire, glorious in the afternoon sun, was almost within his reach when he felt the first tremor. His hold slipped and he dropped back a few feet before he was able to catch himself. He looked down at Taya, seeing now just how high he’d actually climbed.
Thank God the snow is soft, he thought to himself, then proceeded to climb.
He came to the spear once more, and reached out for it, closing his hand around the shaft, just past the blade, which was aimed toward the ground. His heart all but stopped at the feel of the cool platinum through his gloves and at the sight of its warm glow that seemed to intensify with his touch. “You missed me too, did you? Well, no worries, Dawnfire. I’ll never let this happen to you again. I...”
When Tristus pulled the weapon, he found it stuck, the end of the shaft opposite the blade was wound tight in a tangle of frozen vines. He gave Dawnfire another useless tug, then began to consider his dagger, though he was reluctant to release the spear now that he had it again.
“Tristus!” Alere called up to him. “Quickly!”
“Just...coming,” Tristus replied, repositioning himself on his root so that he could reach the vines that ensnared Dawnfire. He drew his dagger and began to cut. The vines gave up their hold slowly. A second tremor almost jarred his dagger from his grasp. He paused a moment, glancing at the distant caravan waiting calmly for his return. He wondered if they were feeling the minor quakes, then decided they were probably harmless, and resumed his cutting.
“Tristus!” the stark elf below called again.
“Yes, I know! I’m...there!” With one more cut, Dawnfire slipped. Tristus sheathed his dagger and took the spear in his hand again. He pulled. The earth shook violently and both the weapon and Tristus dropped.
Tristus was not having near so much trouble with the concept of falling as he was with the concept of the hill rising away from him.
TRISTUS WOULD NEVER again refer to Fu Ran as a giant, for surely the Fanese warrior—along with everyone else in the company—were mere rodents in size, in comparison to what rose up out of the ice.
On his descent earthward, Tristus held fast to Dawnfire with one hand and somehow managed to catch hold of a protruding branch with the other. He came to an abrupt halt and almost lost his grip as his shoulder pulled exquisitely. He set his teeth together, biting back the pain and panic while he glanced down at the suddenly smaller shapes of his companions directly below. He’d ceased to fall and was now rising with the giant.
Below, Alere clearly instructed Taya to leave, slapping her horse on the rump as she turned it about to speed the process along. Tristus watched her speed toward the others, until the great awkward movements of the enormous individual he’d awakened commanded his attention. He swayed precariously, but refused to let go of Dawnfire. He would plummet to his death before he would risk losing the spear again. There was no time to consider how irrational that was. His one-handed grip didn’t last long, slipping more with each tremendous surge of motion enacted by the rising giant, and finally failing altogether as the colossus stood fully upright and shed its blanket of snow, casting it in hurtling sheets down upon him.
Tristus was torn from his grasp by the unexpected force of the minor avalanche, and fell the rest of the way to the ground.
ALERE DREW BREIGH back, away from the cascade of snow. Glimpses of color let him know when the knight passed, as did the sudden eruption of snow where the man hit, pounded into the otherwise soft blanket by the weight of his armor and of the icefall. Tristus was sufficiently buried and the giant was gradually drawing more alert to its surroundings. Alere gave the matter brief thought, then acted with haste. He’d seen the large men of the Northern Flatlands in Upper Yvaria—standing several feet taller than even Fu Ran—and considered them giants. He never would have guessed that the talked about giants of the Flatlands also included such titans as this in their line of kin. It amazed him that such large creatures could dwell in the realm’s seclusion, and it thrilled him to be chased by one. Leaning low over Breigh’s neck, he gently commanded the mare to soar as she had never done before.
XU LIANG DIDN’T wonder what the white elf was doing when he suddenly fled from the giant. Alere raced across the as yet undisturbed snow, away from Tristus and the others. He was attempting to draw the giant, luring him with his raised sword, leaving a faint trail of its twilight glow in his wake. The colossus, dressed in a patchwork of things collected from the small world it lived in, seemed to consider, though its great black eyes made note of the other minute creatures suddenly in its bed of snow as well.
It was then that Shirisae spurred her black mount toward the giant. She angled toward Alere, raising her spear, showing the frost-rimed giant Firestorm’s radiant glow. D’mitri, held for only a moment by what he witnessed, chased after his sibling. The giant, seeing the lady e
lf’s bright spear, suddenly checked its belt of woven roots and vines—the small trees and other growths they’d come from dangling like charms in some instances—and seemed to realize that the shining item it had recently acquired was missing. It bent to lift something out of the snow—a yellowing ivory club—and stalked after the elves, the ground shuddering in its wake.
Xu Liang wasted no time. With the giant’s interest locked on the elves, he commanded Blue Crane toward the minor mountain of snow that would be Tristus’ tomb if he wasn’t quickly uncovered.
Fu Ran commandeered Taya’s mount as the dwarf maiden arrived, but he had no hope of catching up with Blue Crane. The gray steed brought Xu Liang to his destination in a matter of seconds.
Xu Liang dismounted at once and began digging the knight out. His hands began to ache immediately with the extreme cold and effort, but he did not stop. For the first time that he could recall, he acted with no plan of action. His only thought was to save a companion from one peril, knowing full well that they would only emerge to face another, one possibly worse than slow suffocation beneath several feet of snow. Even as he concentrated on pulling armfuls of snow away from the pile that buried the knight, the giant’s earth-moving footsteps reminded him of its nearness.
Xu Liang’s hair spilled over his shoulders as he worked, stacking like an unrolled bolt of black silk upon the starkly contrasting ground. Snow melted and refroze around his arms, making the sleeves of his robes stiff and uncomfortable against his skin. The discomfort evolved to pain, but he plunged his arms deeper in his search, grasping handfuls of ice, continuing in breathless agony as his body protested this sudden, unshielded effort.
Pearl Moon did not guide him in this action, nor did any other magic. It was purely, foolishly physical. He might have thought of his Empress and of Sheng Fan, if he’d thought at all, but instinct required no thought, and it scarcely occurred to him that he could die for this one instant of reckless abandon.
He persisted. His hands, burning with the cold, continued to dig and to search until at last his numbing fingers came against something solid. The metal he’d come to stung and only slipped away from him when he tried grasping it firmly with his frozen hands and pulling. He traced what could only be the shaft of the spear Dawnfire to the hand that still clutched it. He found the knight’s arm, and pulled with one hand, digging away snow with the other.
Tristus wasn’t helping. He must have been unconscious. Xu Liang didn’t have the strength for this. He wouldn’t be able to save the knight, no matter how much he wanted to.
Fu Ran arrived, rushing in to pull away more snow. “Do you have him?”
“Yes,” Xu Liang gasped.
“Don’t let go,” Fu Ran instructed. “I’ll dig him out. Just hold on!”
Xu Liang relaxed, but did not let go of Tristus. He almost cried out when the knight’s ice-crusted glove suddenly clamped about his wrist. Then he held tighter and tried pulling again. “He’s still alive! Fu Ran, hurry!”
Fu Ran dug down, thrusting his arms suddenly into the snow, where he found a grip on the knight and, with a great effort, hauled him out of the packed slush.
TRISTUS GASPED FOR air as he tasted it, choking on flecks of ice that drew into his throat. He shook his head and brushed snow away from his face. Sunlight blinded him as it glared off the snow caught in his eyelashes. His chest and back ached, but he would live. He thought for a moment that he still clutched Dawnfire, but realized his error quickly and hastened to release the individual’s arm he was holding onto instead of the weapon. Blinking the melting ice out of his eyes, he was astonished to see just whose arm he’d been clutching in place of the spear.
Tristus didn’t know whether to thank the mystic or apologize to him when his vision finally cleared enough for him to see that Xu Liang had exhausted himself with the effort. Exhausted...or was he hurt? He didn’t look well at all, but there was no time for debating the matter. The giant was coming back.
Tristus plunged his hands into the snow and fished Dawnfire out, then went to assist the mystic, who was huddled beneath Fu Ran’s supporting and sheltering arm, putting a maximum effort into regulating his breathing. With a few more seconds he might have seen success, but a few seconds were all they had before the colossus would be on them.
“We have to leave,” Tristus urged.
Fu Ran looked over his shoulder at the coming force of nature and agreed with a taut nod of his head. “I’ll carry him to Blue Crane. You ride with him. You’re lighter.”
“In my armor? I’m not so sure.”
Fu Ran helped the mystic to his feet. “You’ve got a better idea? Besides you can’t ride and carry a dwarf under each arm.”
“What about the guardsmen?”
“They’re quick on their feet. We’ll tell them to scatter. The giant can’t chase all of us. Let’s go!”
“Where are the elves?” Tristus wondered aloud, trying not to stare directly at the towering wild man that charged ponderously in their direction while Fu Ran carefully, but quickly, assisted Xu Liang up into Blue Crane’s saddle.
“Worry about us!” Fu Ran barked, half shoving Tristus up after he’d safely situated the mystic, who was pliable in his state of utmost concentration. His lips were moving, else Tristus would have believed him unconscious.
“Go!” Fu Ran shouted, hurrying to the other horse, getting it moving before he leapt up onto its back. “I’ll scoop up the dwarves! You shout at the guards!”
“Right!” Tristus answered, reaching around the slight form slumped in front of him for the reins. Xu Liang was not all that much shorter than Tristus—he looked taller than many the way he usually carried himself—but in his current state he seemed like a child. After days of admiring him nearly to the point of worship, Tristus suddenly felt protective. It was different than his previous ideas of shielding this graceful and important foreigner, whose quest he’d been swept into. It wasn’t inspired by awe and not so much by Xu Liang’s weakness at the moment as it was suddenly realizing that the mystic happened to be human. Tristus dearly hoped that wouldn’t be his last revelation.
Blue Crane darted across the snow almost without command. Tristus held the reins in one fist while his other hand clutched Dawnfire, the spear and his arm braced in front of Xu Liang, holding the mystic upright. When the bodyguards saw that their master was relatively safe, they took heed of the colossus and scattered. There was not much place to hide along the open terrain, but a creature of such enormity as this must surely tire at some point. The elves must have sapped some of its energy, if not its will to pursue. What could be more frustrating than to chase such madly determined creatures as elves across the snow while one’s body was still stiff from a long slumber? It must have been a long slumber. The snow cover was smooth before the companions tromped across it. The giant could have gone to sleep there, not long after plucking up the spear in the mountains, and been there for days—and thank God that was the only thing it plucked up that night. Perhaps the darkness he’d grown so weary of was to thank for his being alive now...about to be killed.
This was purely nightmare. If he’d had any idea...
Tristus amended the thought before it finished forming. Giant or no, he’d have gone after Dawnfire. He only wished he hadn’t lost the spear in the first place.
The ice giant was surprisingly relentless. Now that it’d seen the weapon it had originally stolen, it was freshly determined to have it back.
Fu Ran had scooped up the dwarves, as he said he would, though they were not one under each arm. Tarfan was under one arm, kicking fiercely while Taya sat on the horse’s rump, facing backwards, clinging to the animal for her life. The former guard veered out of the giant’s path, and Tristus thought to do the same. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to lead the colossus to Fu Ran and the dwarves—or the bodyguards, for that matter, who had less of a chance at escaping while on foot. Yet if he stayed on a straight course, Blue Crane would be overtaken by the giant’s immensely long strides
.
Tristus acted on impulse. Trusting Blue Crane implicitly, he slowed the horse enough to guide him fully around. Swallowing his heart as it climbed his throat, he charged the giant.
The colossus slowed, bracing the great flesh and bone pillars that were its legs as if to bend forward and catch the horse coming at it. Tristus cursed himself a fool. Then he uttered a quick prayer, watching the giant heft its weapon high over its head. Slow-witted, the colossus watched them almost clear beneath the steeple of its legs before it swung down with its massive club that looked to be the bone of a large creature. It was even slower turning around than it was thinking, and that gave Blue Crane a long lead away from it.
The giant rumbled, making the snow tremble and the air shudder. And then it decided to run. It had only a brief spurt of speed to its massive size, but it was enough, and it was all Blue Crane could do to keep from breaking his fragile neck when the giant’s great weapon suddenly dropped to the ground in front of the animal. Tristus drew the steed back, too quickly and, as the steed was already rearing back to avoid the collision, both he and Xu Liang spilled out of the saddle.
Tristus landed on his back, buoying up to discover Xu Liang already rising to his knees on the other side of Blue Crane. Eerily calm, the mystic drew his sword—as if that would help against an opponent this size—and before Tristus could do anything, the giant dealt them the crushing blow.
Only they weren’t crushed. A luminous dome of energy had formed over the three of them—Xu Liang, Tristus, and Blue Crane—generated from the mystic’s sword.
The giant seemed utterly astonished to have its weapon blocked. Utterly astonished, and wholly enraged. Scowling, it lifted the bone club back up and dropped it again.
Tristus covered his ears as the dome rang, rippling with power while it defied the immense weight and strength of the giant’s attack. The colossus growled and tried again. When nothing came of the attack, it bent over to poke the dome with its finger, receiving a burn or a shock, or something unpleasant that inspired it to withdraw at once. And then it was angry all over again. It stepped back, then put its foot—booted in vegetation and packed earth—onto the dome and leaned all of its tremendous weight into the effort to crush the source of its aggravation.