David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

Franca wasn't any better clothed than she was, but he'd apparently become acclimated to the cold. Though he said it was late spring, the wind skirling through the walls of the dry-stone sheep byre seemed as bitter as anything Sharina had felt at the turn of the year at home.

"She makes it this way," said the axe. "Her power lights the whole world, but She drains away all warmth to do it."

He giggled; the sound was like hearing slates rub. The hairs on the back of Sharina's neck stood up.

"One day the ice will have everything," the axe said, "and even the sky will be cold. But until then Beard will drink, won't he, mistress? You'll feed Beard, and Beard will make sure that you eat too, just like today. Until the very end."

Sharina laid another dead limb on the fire. She was afraid to go to sleep, even though she was bone tired. They were burning pieces of trees which the cold had shattered. Though the wood blazed up easily, the fuel had sunk to a pile of ash after what seemed only moments instead of forming a bed of glowing coals; freezing seemed to have robbed it of all its virtue.

They'd found food on the way: a store of hickory nuts dug from the trunk of a hollow tree, and the small animals which Beard had sensed cowering in holes. The axe could see through hard soil; with its help Sharina and Franca had blocked exits, then used rusty spearbutts from the Hunters' hoard to dig out victims.

The war axe was a clumsy tool for dispatching a rabbit, let alone a vole, but blood was the price Beard charged for his aid. Sharina couldn't object: without the fresh rabbit skins covering her feet, they'd have frozen before now.

"How much farther do we have to go, Sharina?" Franca asked diffidently. He was older than she was, but he gave her the feeling of being the same child he was when She arrived.

Sometimes Sharina thought her companion was stupid-a halfwit, even-but then he'd surprise her with his observations. Franca had identified the nut store and shinned up to the high entrance like a squirrel himself. Like the world he lived in, Franca had been blighted by Her coming; but there was good left in both of them.

"I've only made this trip once," Sharina said. She smiled; she was very weary, but memory of those spring days with friends warmed her in this cold, friendless place. "That was in the other direction, and anyway, what was true in my world may not be in yours."

Though it certainly seemed to be. Except for Her.

"But I think we should be very close by now, if thingsare the same," she said. "I thought of going on tonight, but I decided it was better to arrive by daylight to see…"

To see what? Sharina was afraid of what she might find, but there was no better, noother, place from which to start her search for friends in this world. She expected to get bad news when she reached what had been her home, but she preferred to know the worst rather than have an unformed fear looming over her as a bleak, black weight for the rest of her life.

"We never left Penninvale," Franca said. "Till we had to. We shouldn't have left then."

He seemed to have spoken without emotion, but tears began to dribble down his cheeks again. Sharina cleared her throat; she wasn't sure whether to respond or not. At last she said, "I'm hoping that we'll find people in Barca's Hamlet. People I knew in my world."

And what if one of them were Sharina os-Reise? What would that be like? Or Cashel; would hebe Cashel in this world?

"There's nobody left," Franca said, blubbering openly now. "Nobody in all the world except us and the monsters. Mother, we should have stayed!"

"There's a sound…," Sharina said. It's just the wind, she thought; but if she'd really thought that she wouldn't have spoken.

"Oh, mother, mother-"

"Be silent!" Sharina said, rising to her feet with Beard balanced in front of her body. The walls of the byre were better shelter than she'd realized until she took the buffeting unprotected. The sound could be wind after all, or "It's a man and he's trapped!" said the axe. "Oh, he needs help, mistress! He'll surely die if we don't help him!"

"Which way?" said Sharina, squinting against the east wind. She couldn't judge the direction of the cries, let alone the distance. It they'd been blown down on the wind, the fellow might be a mile or more distant.

"The way we've been going!" Beard said. "Not far, mistress, and he needs us badly!"

"Come along, Franca!" Sharina called. She might need an extra pair of hands, especially if the fellow they were going to rescue had been injured in a fall. She thought of herself in the ruined palace; if the walls had collapsed while she was still inside, she might have died in a worse way even than the Hunters had intended for her.

"Don't leave me!" Franca wailed as he staggered to his feet.

Sharina didn't wait for him. Wizardlight pulsing across the heavens gave better illumination than a full moon, so she had no trouble following the path through the woods. It hadn't been used recently, but the encroaching undergrowth didn't keep Sharina from running.

She came out of the trees onto a slope that was still clear. She saw the mill, roofless now, and the inn where she'd grown up; the walls had fallen in and brambles grew from piles of fire-blackened bricks.

Sharina'd found Barca's Hamlet. It was what she'd expected, but she'd prayed in her heart to the Lady that this time she'd be wrong.

The cries were coming from the ruined mill. A male voice cursed and begged the Shepherd's aid, the sort of foolish mixture that desperation dragged from the throats of ordinary people. He didn't sound as though he really expected help to come.

"He's in that stone building!" Beard said. "But be ready, mistress, for you'll need me to-"

The mill pond stored water from high tides and released it to drive the wheel at a measured pace. It was the oldest building in Barca's Hamlet, built in the Old Kingdom of stones so hard and well-fitted that they'd withstood well over a thousand years of weather. During all that time it had continued to serve the surrounding borough at a handsome profit for generations of millers.

The side door, a hundred feet from Sharina, was double height and wide enough for a wagonload of grain to be driven into the milling chamber. The bear that came through that doorway wouldn't have fit anything sized merely for humans. Franca's scream diminished as he turned and ran.

"Blood for Beard to drink!" the axe cried. "Blood for Beard!"

At the Sheep Fairs there was often a peddler from Shengy with a cinnamon-colored bear. When it stood upright to shuffle in a slow dance, it was as tall as a man.

The rangy animal now padding out of the mill was that tall at the shoulder; it must have weighed more than a large ox. It saw Sharina, whuff ed, and launched itself at her with no more hesitation than a stooping hawk.

"Blood for-" the axe called.

There wasn't time to think. Five feet short of its victim, the bear lifted its right forepaw for a crushing blow. Sharina stepped within the bear's reach and brought the axe down in an overhand blow. The blade crunched through bone, burying itself to the helve in the bear's broad, flat forehead.

The bear reared onto its hind legs, lifting Sharina until her hands slipped from the shaft and she cartwheeled sideways. Will it dance now? she thought hysterically. She was screaming with laughter when she slammed onto the hard ground. Her shoulder went numb, and the world around her had a fuzzy haze as though gray mold grew on everything.

The bear voided its bowels in a gush of liquescent feces. The stench was choking. It toppled slowly forward, then hit like a building collapsing. The ground shook. Except for the initial grunt when the bear saw what it thought was prey, it hadn't made a sound.

The man was still calling from the mill; he didn't realize he was free now.