David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"We got the princess with us, Pont," Prester said.

"And a bloody good thing it is, too," his partner agreed. "Thanks, your highness. You saved my ass back there, I shouldn't wonder."

"Your highness!" somebody shouted in a breathy voice. "I'm coming!"

Sharina glanced over her shoulder and saw Gondor, the Blood Eagle who'd gotten her into the corridor to begin with, running across the ice to catch up. He'd lost his spear somewhere.

She felt a momentary pang at having abandoned a man who'd been of significant help. But-the men who'd attached themselves to her after Alfdan's death hoped she'd be their salvation. Gondor in contrast regarded her as a child he had to protect. While the Blood Eagle's concern was no less real than that of the civilians, it wasn't something Sharina needed to worry about while matters were in their present state.

"You needn't worry about civilians either, mistress," the axe said in an excited chant. "Only worry about feeding Beard; the rest will come!"

That was close enough to the truth that Sharina smiled. Beard couldn't save the kingdom by himself, but by putting the axe in the places that best suited it Sharina would be performing the best service to the kingdom that was withinher power.

She and the soldiers joined Garric, who nodded, and Cashel, who smiled. Cashel ran with his quarterstaff crosswise in front of him. So far as Sharina could tell he'd fully recovered from the effort of smashing open Her sanctum, but in a fight Cashel focused on his opponent alone.

Half a dozen others, members of the phalanx who'd lost their pikes, were already with Garric. To allow them to handle their heavy primary weapon, pikemen wore linen corselets instead of metal body armor. Their light shields were supported by a neck strap and they carried long daggers rather than proper swords. Without their pikes they were much more agile than regular infantrymen burdened by full armor.

More troops followed, alone and in small groups as they emerged through the wall of the chamber. Sharina felt a stab of despair. They seemed so very few against the size of this enormous hall.

"Better hold up, your princeship!" Prester called. "We want to take this lot in close order!"

"Take his right, Prester," Pont said. "You keep between us, your highness. We got shields, you see."

This lotwas a pack of wolves the size of heifers, loping across the ice. Their coats would've been white under normal light; here they had an evil violet shimmer. Their eyes glowed yellow-orange and had no pupils.

"Halt, we'll fight them here!" Garric ordered. He took three strides, each shorter than the one before, so he didn't fall. This ice gave good footing, but slowing on a hard surface was always risky. "You men watch my back. I don't have a shield so I'll be out in front where I can do some good."

"Stay behind me, your highness!" Gondor said to Sharina. "I'll try to keep them off you!"

"Keep out of my way," Cashel said, stepping forward as Garric did. He moved to the left so that even if he extended his staff full-length in one hand, the outer ferrule wouldn't touch his friend.

"Mistress, we must be in front!" Beard said. "Mistress, you mustn't keep Beard back from his food!"

"Of course not," Sharina agreed. She glanced at the Blood Eagle and said sharply, "File Closer Gondor, keep anything from getting behind me but stay far enough back that you don't foul my axe. If I kill you by accident I'll regret it; but Beard will not, I assure you."

Gondor looked shocked, but he closed his mouth with his protest unspoken. Sharina stepped past the line of soldiers and placed herself as far to her brother's right as Cashel was to his left. Beard took up a lot of room in a hot fight…

The wolves were on them, a loose vee led by a brute nearer the size of an ox than a heifer. Its mouth was open; slaver dripped through teeth as long as a man's fingers. It bunched its huge body to leap on Garric.

A javelin struck the point of its right shoulder at an angle that took the head through the beast's heart and the blood vessels leading from it. Instead of leaping, the wolf twisted in the air and somersaulted, its jaws splintering the spear shaft in dying fury.

Sharina stepped forward, swinging Beard in a slanting overhead stroke. She used the strength of both arms with her right hand leading on the helve. The axe screamed, "Kill!" but she screamed also. "The Isles!" she thought it was, but she was barely a spectator of her own actions at this moment.

Beard's narrow edge crunched just behind the left orbit of the wolf coming at her,. The beast's thunderous snarl turned into a yelp. The eyes' inner light winked out as the animal skidded past in a flaccid heap, dragging Sharina around as she tugged her axe loose.

She felt rather than saw a second wolf as large as the one she'd killed leap toward her. Gondor was between it and her, his shield raised. The beast knocked him backward and slammed him onto the ice with forepaws each the size of a soup plate.

As the wolf's jaws opened to snap off the pinioned Blood Eagle's head, Sharina brought Beard around to bury his spike where the spine entered the back of the wolf's great head.

The wolf convulsed, arching backward. Sharina jerked her axe free; the beast gave a spastic leap that flung it thirty yards sideways.

There were no more wolves in front of her. Sharina turned. All of them were down. A pikeman sat astride the neck of a beast which still thrashed though its legs had collapsed under it. He clung to its left ear and stabbed its throat repeatedly, apparently unaware that its eyes were empty and its tongue lolled onto the ice.

Cashel got to his feet, pulling out the wool from his wallet. He wiped blood and brains from one butt-cap of his quarterstaff. His face had an expression of perfect calm, as though he were currying an ox after they'd spent the day plowing. He felt Sharina glance at him and gave her a smile.

Garric tried to rub his eyes with the back of his left hand. He'd been drenched with blood; it dripped from him and his sword to the ice. Either Prester or Pont-they were as bloody as Garric, and Sharina couldn't tell them apart-handed him a rag he'd carried in the hollow boss of his shield. A wolf's teeth had reduced the shield itself to splinters, though it was made of thick cross-laminated birch.

Garric stepped around a wolf quivering in its death throes. He'd cut through its throat with what must have been a single stroke. More men had run up during the fight, replacing the casualties-but there'd been many casualties.

Garric wiped the patterned steel of his sword, then slanted the blade again toward the throne. They were within bowshot now.

"Haft and the Isles!" he shouted as he started forward again, stumbling for the first step but getting his feet properly under him by the second.

"Haft and the Isles!" Sharina croaked as she shambled after him.

"Kill them all and drink their blood!" cried Beard; and that was a good war-cry too.

Within bowshot, Garric thought as he jogged toward the throne. He was a good archer-he'd been a good one, anyway, in the days when he minded sheep. Archery required constant practice to keep the muscles toned as well as the skill to know what to do in the first place.

It wasn't really very long since he'd been a boy in Barca's Hamlet though it felt like a lifetime. He could probably put two arrows out of three through the center of the blob seated on the ice throne… if he had a bow.

And if pigs had wings, they could fly. Which wasn't a result anybody wished who knew more about pigs than that they liked the taste of pork.

King Carus laughed with Garric, then said, "Don't worry, lad. It'll be more satisfying to do the job with your sword."

The battle with the wolves was hazy in Garric's mind. His eyes had only seen what his ancient ancestor's instincts told them to focus on: shapes blurred except where Carus saw a chance to strike or a need to dodge. At one point in the fight he'd buried his dagger in a wolf's eye, so deeply that he had to release the hilt as the beast bounded away snapping at the air. Though the steel had destroyed the wolf's brain, its muscles still burned with bloodlust.