David Cook - Soldiers of Ice

Vil shouted something, but most of it was lost: “—so close!”

Martine shook her head furiously at what she guessed he had said. “Closer. The less time on the ground, the better.” She hoarsely shouted her explanation, although it was unlikely Vil could hear any better than she. With a firm command, she pushed the hippogriff, its normally keen eyes now flashing with fire, closer and closer. “We’ll move in quick and”

The concussive boom of the roaring flux devoured the rest of her words. Astriphie’s wingbeats faltered, momentarily pitching the group into an unplanned dive. Behind her, Vil’s weight shifted, threatening to overbalance the hippogriff. Dropping the reins from one hand, Martine thrust her arm back and levered the slipping woodsman back into his seat. The effort burned her throat in frozen gasps and triggered a fit of wracking coughs. The fire of ice scorched her lungs, left her mouth filled with pasty spit.

The shuddering gasps left her unable to steer, and by the time Martine recovered, it was too late. Astriphie, uncontrolled, had panicked and plunged iceward while attempting to wheel away from the fissure, the source of the beast’s terror. Just as the hippogriff slipped into a steep-banked turn, the geyser spewed forth another shuddering blast.

The great pinioned wings were spread almost full against the outrushing force of the wind, catching it like the swollen sails of a yacht leaping before the ocean breeze. Frantically sensing the danger, Martine pitched her slight body hard into the rushing wind the way a sailor on that same yacht would lean himself as a counterbalance against the tipping hull. Understanding the need for her move, Vil leaned with her. For a perilous moment they held the balance, the arc of a perfect parabola suspended between the shattered white ground and the roiling sky. We can make it, Martine exulted.

And then it was over. Astriphie’s voice, a whinnying screech of pain, sundered all hope. The hoarse cry barely drowned out the sickening popping noise as the hippogriff’s uppermost wing crumpled, flexing back over Martine and Vil to angle in directions it was never meant to point. The imaginary parabola collapsed as the rushing wind seemed to roll the crippled hippogriff completely over.

Suspended time was replaced by a whirling blur of snow and sky as the hippogriff tumbled from the heavens. The beast frantically beat at the air with its remaining wing, the other flopping uselessly with each roll, feathers raking the Harper’s face as she struggled to guide her frenzied mount down. Behind her, Vil could do no more than cling to whatever purchase he could gain, more than once finding himself suspended helplessly by the single safety rope around his waist.

Loosing the now useless reins, Martine lunged to the side, flattening against the hippogriff’s unsocketed wing as the fall righted the creature. The agonized screech from the pain she caused echoed in the woman’s ears, but the great wing responded and struggled to spread itself full once more. It was barely enough time, for the ground, all icy barbs and jagged ridges, was speeding up toward them. There was no hope of slowing their furious glide, indeed barely any chance of remaining righted. As the glacial landing field swelled closer, Martine knew it meant the death of her brave steed and almost surely its riders.

“Cut free!” she screamed, one thick gloved hand fumbling for her knife. “Cut yourself free and jump!” With the jagged ice splinters that lay below, it wasn’t much of a chance, but it was their only one.

Martine heard a sharp twang ing sound behind her, and the plummeting hippogriff lurched as its load suddenly shifted. The Harper thought she heard a human howl, and then it was lost in the sweeping gale.

The ranger’s mittened hand closed on the handle of something she could only hope was her knife, and with a blind slash, she hacked at the saddle’s restraining belts. Half her body, suddenly freed of its bonds, swung upward as if it had lost all weight. Instantly she lost her position, and the hippogriff’s wing folded, slamming against her with a force that almost knocked the blade from her grasp. Beating back the feathers with one hand, Martine slashed furiously at the last strap. As she was still sawing at the leather, she tumbled away from the doomed mount, and at the same instant, the last strap gave way. She flew off the rump of the hippogriff, her feet flying over her heels just as Astriphie’s wings cracked into an upthrust sheet of ice. The roar that filled the glacier was superseded by the squealing, popping, pulpy grind as the hippogriff gouged a bloody track across the dirty white snow.

Martine saw none of this, however, for in the instant Astriphie hit, she was twisting futilely in midair in an attempt to land on her feet. Then all at once the white was upon her tearing, ripping, and beating as she smashed through the frozen crust and sank into the needlelike snow beneath it.

Martine’s next recollection was of darkness a blessed darkness that numbed the raging fire coming from somewhere inside her body. She floated back in the light cocoon where she had been hurled and tried to pinpoint the source of the pain that dreamily eluded her understanding. Even so, the fire became steadily stronger, and with it came awareness. The pain settled over her the way autumn leaves accumulated on the ground, slowly spreading throughout her body but primarily in the legs, a frightening combination of raw, shredded nerves and cold, soothing numbness. The here and now struggled through the agonizing haze, bringing a view of a queer, phantasmagoric world, exaggerated and tilted. Shades of white, lathered red, and pink resolved themselves into angles of ivory all splattered with blood and gore.

Not ivory , Martine corrected herself. Ice … I’m half buried in ice tinged with blood . The crimson stains captured her attention, a clarion call to warn her of the danger of her condition the steady glaciation of her limbs if she didn’t get moving, and soon. Floundering in the broken snow, Martine twisted about to view her own body, make sure it was intact, only to have the constant fire give way to stabbing pain. The darkness swirled back, threatening to overwhelm the dim light of her world. Martine held it at bay by focusing on her self, on her mission.

Using the strange clarity that torment brought, Martine drove herself further, seeking to learn what had happened to her body. From the way her side hurt, one or more ribs were probably cracked. She had felt that pain once before, and the woman knew she could survive that. Elsewhere were more cuts than she could guess. Blood trickled down the ice crystals on her brow and clouded the vision in one eye. Reaching up to wipe the warm smear away, the Harper discovered that her arm throbbed fiercely. She remembered with absolute clarity hitting the snow with her shoulder.

After that pain, Martine gingerly put the rest of her body through a mental inventory. Although every move caused pain like fire to play along her bones, nothing seemed to be broken, other than perhaps her ribs. Ice-clotted, black-red scratches scored her once sturdy winter gear, but overall the woman was pleased she had no great gashes or dangerous wounds, at least so far as she could tell. Frantically she remembered Jazrac’s stones as if they, too, were part of her body. A quick pat assured her that these had also survived unbroken.

Satisfied that she was bloodied but in working order, Martine stiffly floundered out of the trench her body had dug. She had to find Astriphie and Vilheim. To her relief, she found that at the glacier’s surface, the howling wind had eased considerably, although the thundering booms from the fissure still shook the crystalline ground. It seemed that for every four steps she took, the ground would suddenly heave and tremble in response to the rift’s violent shifting.