David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

He nodded to where the guide disappeared into a tunnel.

Nearby stood another soldier who'd have been his near double even if they hadn't both been drenched in blood. He'd lifted his helmet to scratch the bald spot in the middle of his scalp. "Why wouldn't we stick together, Prester?" he asked as he settled the helmet back in place. "There's no loothere worth having; and anyway, I never minded sharing with somebody who'd watch my back."

"Right, let's get on," Garric said, nodding to the soldiers shuffling toward the exit. They were already some distance away, though they weren't moving fast. "And Pont? You and Prester aren't going to lack for drinking money for the rest of your lives, if that's what you're thinking about."

"To tell the truth, your princeship…," said the man who must be Prester. "There were times today I thought I had enough coin for the rest of my life in my purse already… and all of that was a lead groat!"

Chalcus was the first to laugh, but they all joined in as they started forward. The laughter and companionship were better than sunlight in this place; though Ilna'd be glad to reach sunlight also.

Where the centipede's body narrowed the tunnel to one person at a time, Sharina followed Cashel and Gondor was immediately behind her. Garric and his entourage-Attaper and the two veterans-brought up the rear.

The first time Sharina'd passed the centipede, she'd scraped herself on the bristles sprouting from a leg joint. The break in the skin had begun to fester. She moved carefully now instead of scrambling over the chitinous obstacles with the haste her instincts urged. She really wanted to be out of this place!

Though the huge corpse still twitched, men passed it without the bunching and hesitation Sharina had seen when they were going the other way. Maybe that was because the vivid light that guided the troops hid rather than illuminated the legs pressing against the dark ceiling; and maybe it was just that they were leaving. These were brave men or they'd never have come this way at all, but leaving didn't require that they struggle against their hope of survival at every step.

"We didn't drink Her blood," murmured the axe in a faint, musical tone, "but we drank deep, blood and brains and souls. What will happen now to poor Beard, though?"

What would happen to any of them? Sharina thought with a stab of longing for her placid existence as a girl. Now she lived in a world where she might get up in the middle of the night because of a funny light and find herself dragged into a place ruled by a wizard for Her own evil purposes…

"It's the same world, mistress," the axe said. "You just understand what you didn't understand when you were younger. Perhaps you'd rather be ignorant?"

Sharina smiled wryly. "No," she said. "I'd rather know the truth. I just wish the truth was different, sometimes."

"And because you do know the truth, mistress, and act on what you know…," said the axe. "The truth becomes a little different, a little better, for other people. And Beard drinks his fill for a time, a brief time."

Sharina was holding the axe in her right hand. With the fingers of her left she stroked the helve, then the steel head. Beard chuckled as if from deep in his throat. The sound trembled through Sharina's fingertips, reminding her of a cat purring; a very large cat.

She laughed and reached forward to touch Cashel's shoulder. Together they entered the rotunda where she'd first rejoined her friends and the army.

There were still many people here, but nothing like the crowd there'd been when Sharina arrived. The exit corridor was broad enough to let the soldiers march in squad ranks, and there wasn't a monster's corpse along the route to narrow it. Even so the rotunda's human contents didn't drain quickly. Sharina hadn't believed how long it took a large body of troops to march off in column until she'd seen the process twice: the second time to convince her that something hadn't gone horribly wrong on the first occasion.

"Garric!" Liane called and came running as soon as she saw him past Cashel's broad shoulders. Sharina smiled as she stepped out of Liane's way.

"Mistress!" Franca and Scoggin cried together. They and the rest of the ragged band rushed forward with an enthusiasm that caused Cashel to set his staff crosswise between them and Sharina.

That was reflex on Cashel's part-he knew as well as Sharina did that they intended no harm. But it was also true that frightened men carrying weapons could trip in their haste. An edge didn't care whether it cut by chance or by design.

Beard laughed. "Some of us care, mistress," he said.

Master Ortron and several other officers had descended on Garric, who talked to them with one arm around Liane. She held her waxed tablet out at an angle to the light so that she could read the notes she'd been making.

Attaper stepped over to the Blood Eagles, by now a full company under a captain. While the regular troops filed out of the rotunda, the highest-ranking Blood Eagle present had held the bodyguards in ordered ranks until Garric and their commander reappeared. That didn't delay the general departure and it salved their honor.

Many men worried about honor, which meant they were often silly. But Sharina'd met men who didn't worry about honor at all, and they were far worse than silly.

"Mistress, what shall we do?" Neal asked. He'd found a spear to take the place of the hammer he'd dropped when Tanus slashed him. The remainder of Alfdan's band-eight of them now-looked at Neal with sidelong glances at Sharina; only Scoggin and Franca were willing to face her directly.

"My brother Garric-" Sharina said. "Prince Garric, that is, he's said he'll make sure you're taken care of."

"Will he?" said Beard unexpectedly. "And what about the men in your world who were the same as these till She came? Will the prince kill them so that your friends can have their families and livelihoods back?"

Sharina frowned with real anger. "Of course not, but they'll havesome life!" she said.

"And all the rest in their world?" the axe demanded. "The scattered ones and twos and the families still surviving? She's gone, but Her creatures still roam the Isles, you know."

"I'm not going to leave them in the ice!" Sharina snapped. The ragged men glanced from her to the axe, listening with mingled fear and horror. "They wouldn't stand a chance up on the surface, and these tunnels are no place to live even if they weren't going to collapse soon!"

Indeed, the ice seemed to moan louder with each passing moment. Shortly it'd be time for Garric and his companions to fall in at the end of the column exiting the rotunda. Sharina knew her brother wouldn't leave before his troops were clear, any more than he or Cashel would've abandoned their flocks when danger threatened.

"Ah, but the tunnels go to other places in this world, mistress," said the axe. "If these men went now to a valley in this world's Ornifal, they might be able to save what's left of a village barricaded against a pack of Her wolves. There's fourteen men, but some are old; and there's thirty women, and there's children besides."

Cashel stood as silent as a crag. He'd turned his staff vertical and planted one end on the floor beside Sharina now that he was sure the men weren't going to trample her.

"But I don't…," Sharina said.

I don't know where any of these tunnels lead, except the one that goes back to the edge of the frozen sea and the one down which light leads me home.

I don't want to stay in this ravaged world myself!

"But I know, mistress," the axe said. "And I want to stay; with these men, if you're leaving."

"Beard, you want to stay here?" Sharina said, shocked by the unexpectedness of it. She wouldn't-Princess Sharina wouldn't-need the axe, but she'd assumed after what they'd gone through…