David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"Mistress," said Beard. "You should get out of this place. Now."

"I don't-" said Alfdan. His face went pale; then he screamed like a hog when the butcher clamps its nose for slaughter. He grabbed the helmet with both hands and tried unsuccessfully to lift it.

"Alfdan!" Sharina said, seizing the broad rim with her free hand. It burned her; she jerked her fingers away, leaving bits of skin sticking to the metal.

"Mistress, getout," the axe said with an urgency that she'd never heard in his steely voice before. At the moment she was too concerned with the wizard to appreciate Beard's tone. "Get out now. He's already dead!"

Alfdan lowered his hands. His expression was blank. Though his eyes were open, the corneas had become featureless and silvery.

"Help me!" the wizard screamed. He stuck out his tongue but it wasn't a tongue, wasn't flesh: a tendril of shimmering metal waggled toward Sharina.

"Get out, mistress!" Beard shrieked as Sharina swung at the extending tentacle, gripping the helve with both hands. Beard's edge had sheared bone like butter, but it glanced off the tongue without marking it. The shock threw Sharina backward onto the sand, her arms numb to the elbows.

Alfdan-the thing that had been Alfdan-took a tottering step toward her. The metal tongue continued to lengthen, moving with the circular, questing motion of an ivy shoot but immeasurably faster.

Sharina scuttled backward on her feet and left hand. When she'd lengthened the distance between her and the creature enough to risk it, she got up and ran. She didn't look over her shoulder; that would've slowed her down-and besides, she was afraid of what she might see.

Only when Sharina jumped through the portal with a cry of triumph did she look back. The creature was staggering after her. As best as Sharina could tell in silhouette against the red sun, the helmet had closed over Alfdan's face. The tendril continued to elongate; by now it stretched half the remaining distance to the opening.

Sharina slammed the door flat on the wet stone. The echoing crash roused sleeping men with shouts of fear and surprise. She reached for the key winking in the wizardlight, but as her fingers closed on the flange she paused.

"Mistress!" cried Neal, his bow strung and an arrow nocked. "Where's Master Alfdan? I can't find him!"

Instead of withdrawing the Key of Reyazel from the door notch, Sharina pushed it inward. It shouldn't have moved; there was nothing on the other side of the thick panel but a slab of smooth rock. Nevertheless the key slipped downward and vanished.

"Where's Alfdan?" Neal shouted. "Where?"

He was a big man, holding a weapon and utterly distraught. At another time he would have frightened Sharina.

Not now. Neal was merely human.

"I suppose Alfdan's in Hell," she said calmly. "He was so determined to go there that I couldn't stop him."

"But…," said Neal, staggering back as though she'd stabbed him through the body. "But how…?"

"Then we're marooned here," said Burness, hugging his broad-bladed spear to his chest. "We'll never leave. We'll freeze or we'll starve, but we'll never leave!"

Franca began to whimper. He extended the hand that didn't hold his dagger, pointing toward the wall of the cave. A lens of violet light was forming in the ice.

Sharina watched the opening, waggling the axe to make sure that her hands had their strength back. They seemed to be all right, though her left fingertips burned like the fire itself.

"I don't think we'll freeze or starve either one," she said with cold detachment. "We can't go to Her without Alfdan's art, but it seems that She is coming to us."

"Many lives to drink," whispered Beard, shivering in her hands with anticipation.

Ilna settled her tunics neatly as theBird of the Tide brushed to a halt against the stone quay. The watchman in the tower had vanished as soon as he was sure that theBird had entered Terness Harbor alone, not in company with theDefender.

Hutena and Shausga jumped to the quay with ropes while the oarsmen stowed their long sweeps. "I guess they'll be waiting for us, eh, captain?" said Ninon, careful not to look at Chalcus because he was afraid his concern would show.

"You mean because I waved to the watchman, lad?" Chalcus said with a grin. He set a tip of his bow on the deck and bent it with his knee, then slid the thick cord into the upper notch. "Ah, no, we couldn't help him seeing us, could we? What I was doing was giving what few folk are left in the castle, servants most like, time to vacate before our arrival. I don't think they'll want to greet us, especially when they hear their Commander's bound to our mast."

He gave Lusius an appraising glance. "Most of their Commander, that is."

The sailors laughed. "Hey, Kulit would've jumped in and got the Commander's leg back from that seawolf, wouldn't you, Kulit?" Nabarbi said, ruffling his friend's curly hair. "You should've asked him."

Ilna smiled coldly as she stepped onto the quay and looked back at Lusius. He was unconscious; in shock, she supposed, and very likely to die… but he'd die shortly in any case. They'd never promised Lusius his life, only that they wouldn't feed him to the seawolf; and that was more of a concession than he'd granted to his brother, after all.

"Master Bosun?" Chalcus said to Hutena as he hooked a quiver of arrows onto his sash. "I'm leaving the rest of the lads here while Mistress Ilna and I visit the castle, but I'd be grateful if you'd come along with us with the maul. I don't expect to meet anybody there till we get into the cellars, but it may be there's locked doors in the way."

He hefted the powerful bow with a grin. "I may have my hands full, you see."

"I can carry the maul," Ilna said with a frown.

"Your hands, dear heart," Chalcus said with an edge in his voice, "may be a great deal fuller than mine. Not so?"

Ilna nodded, her lips tight with irritation at herself. When she'd left Barca's Hamlet for the wider world, she'd often found men who treated her as though she couldn't do real work because she was a slim girl. That wasn't a mistake anybody'd made in the borough; nor made twice nowadays either, but Ilna was always on edge expecting what to her was an insult.

This was Chalcus. And even if it hadn't been-if some foppish courtier had made the comment-there wasn't time now to feel insulted!

"Sure, I'll go," the bosun said, his voice calm if not precisely eager. He patted the head of his axe to make sure the helve was thrust firmly under his belt, then leaned down into the hold and came up with the maul Ilna'd used to set the mast wedges. The massive head was from the root of a white oak, banded around both faces with iron.

"Captain?" said Ninon. "We'll all go. You know that!"

"I know you would, indeed," Chalcus said with his easy smile, "but this time you'll serve me and our prince better for waiting here by the ship. Who knows how quickly we'll need to put off again, eh, lads?"

"Aye, that's not half the truth," said Kulit. He'd taken another bow from the deckhouse and was stringing it. As he spoke, he looked up the hill toward the castle.

"Dear heart and bosun?" said Chalcus. His left index finger tapped his quiver, the hilt of his dagger, and last his sword. "Shall we be off?"

"Yes," said Ilna, striding up the street and wishing it was dirt rather than cobblestone, even though she'd worn boots. She hated stone…

She smiled. Reminding herself how much she hated stone was a better thing to do than worrying about what they'd find in the dungeons of Lusius' castle; and what might find them there.

"Stone's hard for feet used to a deck," Hutena said, putting words to Ilna's thought. He slanted the maul's shaft over his shoulder, then changed his mind and carried the big tool in both hands. He was on the right side as they walked up the twisting street abreast; Chalcus was on the left and Ilna, smiling broader and letting her fingers knot the pattern they found appropriate, was in the middle.