by Tara West
“He has been gone nearly a year. I could bear the waiting no longer,” she groaned, raking fingers through her pale hair. “I went searching for Ryne. I thought to leave through the hole in the ice ceiling before they repaired it. Then I saw you lying there on a dragon’s tooth.” Her words seemed to be laced with resentment.
Markus’s heart sank. She seemed to hold a grudge because he had come between her one chance to sneak away to search for her brother, for he was sure her father had forbade her to go. Though, in truth, Markus was glad she’d lost the chance to venture out alone. Ice Mountain was no place for a girl.
“Thank you for not leaving me to die.” His voice breaking, Markus turned his gaze to the single, pale stone lying in the middle of the fur-lined floor.
“Did you think you could scale Ice Mountain?” Her tone was laced with disbelief. “Father said you were trying to reach the witch.”
Markus had already given up trying to convince Ura and her father that Madhea was a goddess. Though fear prompted him to push any disparaging thoughts of her out of his mind, he couldn’t help wondering whether Jon could be right. Was Madhea a witch, bent on making his life miserable?
“Aye,” he replied. “I was trying to reach Madhea, to plead with her to break a curse.”
Ura stormed up to him, fists clenched by her sides. “She will not listen, Markus. The witch has no heart. Why do you think my people dwell beneath the surface?”
Markus shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the fear that suddenly consumed him and threatened to strangle all thought and reason - fear of what Ura was about to tell him; fear of discovering that Madhea would never lift the curse.
His throat had gone bone dry and he struggled to speak. “I do not know why.”
Ura scooped up the stone from the furs and cradled it in her grasp. Casting her gaze down, she ran her fingers over the stone’s smooth surface for a long time before glancing back up at Markus.
She spoke slowly, her eyes clouding over as if she was recalling a dream. “Three hundred winters ago, our people lived above the ice, beneath the tall shadow of the mountain’s peak. Every winter we held a festival in Madhea’s honor and she would reward our people by not crushing us with avalanches. One winter our village was inflicted with a terrible pox. Many of our children died. Mothers and fathers were too grieved to honor the witch. Rather than show compassion for their suffering, she sent her dragon, Lydra, who entombed entire families in ice. Had it not been for those few who escaped with warming stones, my kind would have perished.”
Markus swallowed back a knot of fear. Why would Madhea curse a people for refusing to honor her when their children were sick? Surely, there had to be more to the story, but he was too afraid to ask, lest he learn more of Madhea’s dark deeds. Would such a goddess be willing to forgive him and break the hunter’s curse?
Ura placed the stone, which was slightly smaller than Markus’s palm, in his hand and his fingers buzzed beneath its weight. Then the stone did a remarkable thing: its pale hue turned to crimson and the heat from it warmed Markus’s hand, nearly scalding his flesh. He jerked and gasped, tossing the stone into Ura’s outstretched hands as if it was a fiery coal.
A rueful expression showed in the gleam of the girl’s eyes. “My people were forced to come here and carve a way of life beneath the mighty glacier.”
Markus looked at the stone with interest as Ura gently laid it back on the furs, its reddish glow fading until it was but a pale, innocuous ivory.
“Warming stone,” she had called it. Such a thing would come in handy to heat his numb fingers while climbing. He would have to find a way to barter for one before he returned to the surface, although he had no wish to leave his icy refuge at present.
Markus blinked hard against the onslaught of dizziness. The fog in his skull grew thicker. Ura was right and he needed to rest, but he was tired of lying in bed. He briefly wondered what his father would have said at The Mighty Hunter being reduced to a bed-ridden invalid. He blinked harder, trying to cast out his dark musings.
“Your thoughts trouble you again.” It was not so much a question, but a statement that Ura made as she bent down on one knee beside Markus. She peered into his eyes with a concerned expression.
“’Tis nothing, lass.” Markus forced a smile as he tried to look earnestly into the depths of her pale eyes. He quickly averted his gaze, realizing the folly when his heart began to beat wildly. He scolded himself for acting the fool. He had no time for thoughts of love, not when the very real threat of death awaited him outside Ice Kingdom.
His impending doom made him think again of Ura’s attempt to climb to the surface. She could’ve been killed, if not by the climb then by Madhea’s wrath.
“What would you have done once you reached the surface?” Markus asked.
Ura shrugged as she sat down on the pale rug in front of him, crossing her slender legs at the ankles. “I hadn’t thought that far.” One corner of her mouth hitched up in a sideways grin. “Ryne is the only Ice Dweller who has ever ventured to the top in my lifetime.”
Markus was in awe. Ura had never basked in the warmth of the sun or felt the cool breeze through her hair. She had never smelled the summer rain or reaped the fall harvest. It seemed to Markus that one could not live a full life without experiencing such joys.
At that moment he wished very much for a chance to take Ura to the surface, so he could watch her experience the wonders of his world. He imagined her standing in the meadow by his family hut, planting her bare feet in the soil and plucking flowers while the sunlight gleamed off the sheen of her pale hair.
She would be a beauty, Markus thought to himself.
His racing ideas stirred something within him, inspiring both sadness and joy. Before he could stop to think, he blurted out his secret desire. “If I survive this blasted curse, I should like to take you to the top.”
“You would?” she breathed, her eyes widening with something akin to amazement.
“Aye,” he answered, as he fought the urge to reach out and stroke her smooth cheek.
She rose up on her knees, determination set in the rigid line of her jaw. “I should like very much to go. I would see this melting glacier for myself.”
Markus hoped the glacier was not melting as he wouldn’t want Jon and Ura to lose their home. He feared for her safety if Ice Kingdom were to surface, as such a spectacle would not go unheeded by Madhea.
“Is that why Ryne went to the top? Because he fears the glacier is melting?”
Ura sighed, sinking back on her haunches. “Though many don’t believe it, there is evidence that the glacier is melting. Ryne went to the top to find the source.”
“And now you fear for him?”
She nodded, dropping her gaze to her hands folded in her lap. “He has been gone too long. I fear Madhea may have found him. Odu has told us the witch’s grudge only intensifies with time.”
Markus arched a brow. A familiar chord had been struck somewhere in the recesses of his memory, and he wondered if he had heard that name before. “Who is Odu?”
“He is the ice prophet. You will meet him when you are well enough. Father believes he can help you, Markus.”
“What do I believe, child?” echoed Jon’s voice in the opposing doorway.
“Father!” Ura jumped up and raced to Jon’s side, planting an affectionate kiss on his cheek.
Jon wrapped one arm around Ura, returning a kiss on her forehead.
Markus cast his gaze down, feeling awkward as he witnessed their tender moment. How strange these Ice People were, he thought, wondering if all the fathers were as affectionate with their children.
“You are home sooner than I expected and your fishing fared well, I see.”
Jon flashed a nearly luminescent smile as he held up a stringer of creatures that resembled fish wearing plates of armor. “I must skin these soon,” he said.
Green slime dripped off the long, grey bodies. Jagged, silver, razor-like fins jutted out
down the length of their crooked spines. Though he swayed in his seat, Markus couldn’t tear his gaze from the lifeless, bulging eyes. Even fouler than the creatures’ appearance was their smell. He shielded his nose from the pungent odor, fearing they had spoiled.
Before Markus could think to stop himself, he blurted out, “Those beasts are meant to be eaten?”
Jon chuckled as his gaze settled on Markus. “I have only stopped to check in on you both. I see Markus is strong enough to leave his chamber.”
Ura pointed an accusatory finger at Markus. “I told him to stay abed.”
Jon arched a silvery brow. “Defying your nursemaid already?”
Markus closed his eyes for a brief moment, trying to steady his head and regain his balance on the stool. He had no idea if the sudden wave of dizziness had anything to do with his fall or the thought of that coward, Bane, grabbing Ura. When he slowly opened his eyes again, his gaze traveled first to the girl and then to her father.
“I could not lie there while that dog was clawing her,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
The mirth in Jon’s eyes suddenly turned to stone and he looked sideways at his daughter. “Of whom does he speak, Ura?”
“Bane,” she growled.
“Again?” Jon threw up his hands. “I must speak with his father.”
A shrill burst of laughter escaped her lips. “We both know it will do no good.”
Markus could feel the tension in Jon’s shoulders roll off in waves. The air in the cramped room seemed to stagnate even more as the older man stared intently at the stone in the center of the room.
Finally, Jon’s gaze snapped back to Markus, which made him look as if he had just awakened from a trance. “Since you can walk, perhaps you can accompany me while I skin these serpents. You’ve skinned a fish before, yes?”
“Aye,” Markus agreed, “I have skinned many an animal.”
Ura came to Markus’s side, pointing at him as if he was an errant child. “He has only one good arm and his walk is not steady.”
Jon leveled his daughter with an unwavering stare. “Then you may be his other arm and his crutch. He cannot recover if he does naught but lie abed all day. We’ve only a short distance to go to the cavern.”
Ura stood motionless for a moment, her gaze locked with Jon’s.
“Come, daughter.” The firm tone in Jon’s voice left no room for disagreement.
“Yes, Father,” Ura mumbled.
She rushed into her brother’s bedchamber and returned with two pale, furry boots with several small spikes protruding from the bottoms. She held them out to Markus. “Here, put these on.”
He looked at the soles, which resembled hollowed-out hares, and scowled. He would not be paraded around Ice Kingdom with rabbits for feet! “I have my own boots.”
“These are Ryne’s old ice soles,” said Ura, thrusting one into his hand, her stern gaze mimicking that of her father’s just moments ago. “You’ll need them.” She bent on one knee and shoved the other rabbit sole onto Markus’s foot.
With a resonating groan, he fought to stable his weight on the stool. “They are tight,” he grumbled.
“Better than no soles at all. I don’t want you falling on top of me out there.” Ura covered her mouth, just after her lips had turned up in the slightest of smiles.
Markus was certain Ura was trying to conceal her amusement. He could only imagine his father sneering that he, The Mighty Hunter, had been reduced to wearing fluffy feet, but the humiliation was far from over as she proceeded to dress him. Ura helped him to squeeze his good hand into a tight glove and then she draped a large fur over his shoulders, swaddling his broken arm as if it were a newborn babe.
Ura helped him walk through the doorway as Jon held the dark, smooth covering to one side. Markus had to turn sideways and stoop down, and still barely managed to squeeze through.
The moment they stepped outside the dwelling, Markus was in awe of the winding path of ice on which he stood. It snaked past rows of doors and windows, and then down the side of the expansive cavern, where it dipped into obscurity, lost within the opening of a dark, narrow tunnel.
Markus drew in a sharp breath as he took in the view beneath the path which he realized was just an icy road hugging the side of a cliff.
Jagged prisms of shimmering, translucent ice, about five times the height and width of mighty lyme trees, towered above a crystalline frozen pool that was larger than any lake he’d ever seen. Small specks, which he guessed to be people, moved across the smooth surface, propelling themselves forward on narrow boards attached to their feet. These were not ants upon a pile of pine needles; these were people—hundreds or even thousands of them in a place larger than any village.
Many ice dwellers traversing the path stopped to stare at Markus and murmur amongst themselves. From the cursory glances he stole in their direction, the Ice People were small and lithe, like Ura, with pale eyes and an icy sheen to their hair. Few were tall like Jon and none were as wide as Markus.
He turned his attention back to the task at hand and filled his lungs with frigid air, so cold that it stung his eyes and made his icy bedchamber feel scorching in comparison.
It was when he took his first step that the folly began. Markus lost his footing and slid on the slippery surface before catching himself on a nearby wall, which was no easy task with only one good arm. He cringed as the Ice People passing by chuckled at his expense. He did not like being the source of their amusement.
To make matters worse, the fog in his head had been replaced by a steady, painful throbbing. Clenching his jaw, he stood while Ura anchored him by holding his arm. Jon came up behind him, and after peeling Markus’s fingers from the wall, he grabbed his shoulder.
“Plant both feet firmly on the ice, son,” Jon spoke into his ear. “The spikes will keep you from falling.”
Markus did as he was told, forcing his foot down so hard that the ice beneath his foot made a terrible, high-pitched cracking sound, as if the ground was protesting against his weight.
“Mind how hard you step, Markus,” Ura warned.
Paying her no heed, he did the same with the other foot and then smiled when his feet did not slip from beneath him. Markus tried to take another step, but faltered; his feet stuck in the ice. He growled as he tried to ignore the Ice People who were grumbling as they gathered around him.
Frustration fueled his ire as he struggled in vain to lift his feet from their icy grasp. Beside him, Ura broke into a fit of laughter and called him a “slog,” which Markus assumed to be some sort of mindless ice animal. His ire rose.
“Mind how hard you step, Markus,” said Jon, repeating his daughter’s admonition in a mocking tone. He knelt behind Markus and, using a small pick, he split the ice trapping his feet.
Once freed, Markus grasped Ura’s arm as his feet struggled for purchase. He thrust one foot down, though not as hard as before, and then another, and another. Before he knew it, he was walking on the ice without her support. A wide grin spread across his face.
The sound of clapping drew Markus’s attention back toward the gathering crowd of ice dwellers lining the walkway. Sometime during his humiliating struggle, their numbers had doubled, and now they were applauding him as if he was a toddler taking his first steps.
Whether they were mocking or praising him, it made no difference. He had been brought low this day; The Mighty Hunter reduced to a babe. So confused was he by his tumultuous emotions, that Markus did not know whether to laugh or punch something. He clenched his fists and fought against the urge to strike one of their pale, mocking faces. Then, he shuddered at the realization that if he lost this battle with his temper, he would be no different from his father.
Chapter Ten
“Does he mean to eat those things, Ura?”
She was sitting so close to him that he could feel her cool breath upon his skin. Markus tried to shift his focus, but the girl beside him was somehow turning his brains to mush.
�
��We shall all eat them tonight, Markus,” she replied.
Markus warily eyed the fish that Jon had laid out on the bloodstained stone table before him, though it was difficult to make out their forms in the dim light.
He had been brought through a dark tunnel to an even darker chamber, lit only by the soft glow of the few candles that had been set on the long filleting table, which could accommodate ten fishermen either side.
Markus and Ura sat on a bench carved out of an icy wall, watching as Jon skinned the fish. Jon had denied Markus’s offer to help, saying he’d had enough lessons for one day. Markus was offended, for he could skin any animal in his sleep, and a cross-eyed fish would be no different.
“I’ve never seen such strange creatures,” he said, making no attempt to hide the derision in his voice.
“You’ve never dwelt beneath the ice,” Ura answered.
The vibrant, warm glow from the candlelight caught the reflection of Jon’s skinning knife, sending a burst of light right into Markus’s eyes. He turned his gaze from the fish. It was then he noticed that many of the other fishermen were not filleting their serpents. They were too busy gawking at him.
“Everyone is looking at me,” he whispered.
“You are strange to them,” Ura said in a far too indifferent tone. “Too big and too dark.”
“Thanks, Ura,” Markus growled.
She laughed and the cool rush of her breath struck him like a slap to the face. “Now you know how those poor, lazy-eyed serpents feel when you poke fun at them.”
Jon walked up to them and told Markus to rise. He then shoved a foul-smelling, wooden bucket into his grasp. “Come with me to dispose of the entrails.”
Markus looked into the pail and nearly vomited at the bloody entrails, which were dripping with green ooze.
Jon held the candle as they walked toward the edge of the gloomy cavern. He pointed toward a dark, watery pit carved in the ice floor. “I’m going over there,” he told Markus, taking the bucket from him and handing him the candle instead. Then Jon leveled him with a stern look. “Stay here.”