David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

I won't, thought Garric. His hands gently explored his rib cage and right thigh as he convinced himself that he wasn't really a cripple dying in agony. No matter how often they kill me.

But a part at the back of his mind wondered how much longer this could go on without affecting him, no matter how brave he was consciously.

I fought an ape, he thought. It beat me to death against a tree. Was it the same with you?

Carus smiled. "It was an ape, I guess," he said. "But I killed it instead of the other way round."

How? thought Garric, touching the medal he wore on a neck thong. It had been struck for the coronation of King Carus; he wore it at all times. I mean-were we in the same body? Or did you have a weapon?

The ancient king's smile became rueful. "A weapon?" he said. "Not exactly, lad. You see…"

He paused, smiling again in real embarrassment. "You see," Carus went on, "I've been places that you haven't been. I tore the thing's throat out with my teeth. I don't have much recollection of it while it was happening, but… it wasn't the first time it'd happened to me, lad. And the other time it wasn't a beast's throat when my sword had broken."

I see, thought Garric. Well, your highness, I'm glad the Good has folk like you to defend it.

He breathed deeply, then added, Maybe between us we can arrange that other people don't have to learn how to fight monsters without weapons.

Liane awoke to Garric's laughter. She turned to him with a warm smile.

Sharina sat wrapped in the fur of some large animal she didn't recognize, drinking mulled wine and looking down into the waters of the fjord. She didn't want much in her stomach before she dived, but the warmer she started out, the longer she'd be able to continue.

Neal had supplied both the fur and the hot drink. He appeared to be the generally accepted leader while Alfdan recovered from the strain of his art.

The band's driftwood fire crackled with flashing enthusiasm. Rainbow-colored flames spurted whenever heat opened a pocket of sea salt. Franca and especially Scoggin, sitting on opposite sides of her, glanced nervously at the blaze. They'd survived the decade of Her rule by creeping through the shadows. They saw an open fire as a frightening beacon drawing in terrors, known and unknown.

"I suppose they know what they're doing," Sharina said to the men; her men, beside but not part of the wizard's band, the way oil lies on water. "Alfdan's protected them so far."

"Alfdan isn't protecting them now," Scoggin muttered, glancing sourly toward where the wizard lay on a bed of furs. He was beginning to stir: Layson helped him sit upright while another man waited with a mug of soup. It'd be some time before he was ready to use his art again, though.

Some of the men had tied driftwood into a raft using ropes from their stores. It was a clumsy-looking thing and didn't have a real deck, but it'd do as a fishing float… or a diving platform.

"There's nothing on land here to fear," Beard said. "Anyway, they have me and my mistress, don't they?"

"What about the water, axe?" Franca said. "That's where Mistress Sharina has to go, isn't it?"

"There are things in the fjord," the axe said. "But the mistress will have Beard, so the danger will be greater for the other things. If they come to the mistress and Beard, there will beso much blood!"

Sharina wasn't clear on how useful an axe would be under water, but Beard's enthusiasm seemed genuine and he was the expert in killing things. She grinned. Everybody ought to have a talent…

A slab of stone wrapped in fishing net sat in the middle of the raft. It was heavy enough that the man who brought it aboard had waddled with it cradled against his chest. Sharina would ride it down, saving time that would be too short anyway. The raft's crew could draw the stone up by the rope attached to the net's lines in case she had to dive again.

This was going to be very unpleasant, but she'd said that she'd do it. Besides, the bargain would get her the opportunity that she wanted.

Which would be even more unpleasant.

Alfdan rose with Layson's help and stepped carefully to Sharina. Scoggin started to get up but settled back when he realized Sharina didn't intend to do so.

"So, mistress!" the wizard said. "Are you ready to carry out your promise?"

"Yes," said Sharina. She smiled. Beard had been across her knees. She turned the axe upright, its butt on the ground and the pointed steel face glaring at Alfdan. "Of course. What is your plan?"

Until she knew in detail what was expected of her, she had no intention of shrugging off the fur and standing. She'd move when it was time to; until then she'd wait.

"We'll go out to the center of the inlet," Alfdan said, taking what looked like a stream-washed pebble from an ermine purse. Sharina remembered what Neal had said about the Stone Mirror. "I'll guide you. Then you'll swim down to the key where Lady Sodann cast it and bring it back to me."

Except for Neal and another man finishing the raft, the band had gathered quietly around Alfdan and Sharina. They listened openly but in silence; they weren't part of the business nor did they want to be, but they knew their future might depend on what was said.

"If the key's so valuable," Scoggin demanded with deliberate hostility, "then why did this lady throw it away?"

"'This lady' as you call her," Alfdan said with a look of irritation, "tried to dispose of the Key of Reyazel because Baron Hortsmain, her beloved, used it to enter a place from which he could not return. This is scarcely your concern, my man, as I'm the one who'll be using the key. And both Sodann and Hortsmain have been dead these five thousand years!"

Sharina looked at the fjord, then toward the raft. She set down her empty mug. "Is that ready?" she called to Neal.

"Yes, mistress," Neal said, eyeing the slope above them his bow ready. It seemed to Sharina that only a bird could come down on them from the heights.

"Then so am I," said Sharina as she stood, pinching the fur closed at the throat with her left hand. "We've got the light, and I don't suppose things will change for the better if we wait."

Beard gave a ringing laugh. "In ten more years the water'll be barely half this depth," he said. "Of course the ice will have come down from the hills to cover it by then, too."

Rather than reply, Sharina started for the raft. Scoggin and Franca fell in beside her. The youth clutched the section of spear he used for a dagger. "We're coming too!" he said to Alfdan with more vehemence than Sharina'd thought he was capable of.

"All right," said the wizard nonchalantly. "You two can paddle. Neal, I'll want you along also."

The big man nodded glumly. "Colran, lend me your spear," he said, holding out his bow and five arrows to a blond spearman in exchange. "This won't be much use if something comes up from the water."

"Nothing will threaten us," Alfdan said in irritation.

Neal ignored him. With the spear in his hand he said to the circle of his fellows, "Come on, carry this into the water."

The band leaped to the task, grunting and muttering as they gripped the lengths of wood lashed together in a thick mat. Beard tittered disconcertingly. "They're all afraid if there's a delay, Master Wizard will decide some of them should come along as well."

"There's no danger!" Alfdan said.

The axe sniffed. "Is that what you think, wizard?" he said.

"We're allies now," Sharina said quietly, holding the axe so close to her lips that her breath fogged the steel. "Don't bait Alfdan. It's not polite."

"Polite!" Beard said. "Polite to what?"

But he spoke in a tiny voice and subsided after that slight protest.

Sharina took off her rabbitskin sandals and left them on the shore before she stepped into the water. The fjord had an eerie chill, as though she were walking in a basin of frozen knife blades. The raft swayed and rippled as she and the others boarded; water slapped and squirted through the openings between the interlaid logs.