David Cook - Soldiers of Ice

“Still not enough,” he muttered as he turned away from the bloody task.

“How so?” breathed Martine from where she crouched close to the ground, as if the ice held warmth.

“We cannot both live on the food we have. Not up here, at least. One of us could, but there isn’t enough for two. One of us must go back for supplies.”

The Harper cast a shivering glance at the meat weighted stakes. “And?”

The woodsman was already loading one of the salvaged saddlebags with supplies. “Since you will not leave, I must. I’ll take a little food and hunt for whatever else I need on the way.”

The glacier rocked under their feet as the geyser shot up another of its massive plumes. Martine looked to the sky, knowing that soon they would be showered with a flurry of ice crystals too large to be snow, yet too small to be hail. She pulled one of the stiff blankets closer about her shoulders and began chipping at the frozen ground with her dagger.

Now it was Martine’s turn to be suspicious as she looked up at the woodsman. “And why should I trust you to come back?”

Vilheim snorted, amused by something Martine did not understand. The Harper couldn’t judge his reaction at all. His mouth was drawn tight, and his eyes were lost in the distance. At last he spoke in an almost perfect monotone, unconsciously beating mittened fist to mittened palm. He had all the air of a man giving testimony at an inquest.

“I am… was… a paladin of Torm.”

Martine blinked, so stupefied by the admission that it overcame her thoughts even of the cold, then waited for Vilheim to continue. He waited, perhaps expecting more of a reaction, and the two stared at each while the wind whistled across the icy plain.

“You were a paladin of Torm?” Martine finally echoed, thrusting her dagger deep into the ice.

His reply was fierce, filled with passion that she should doubt his word. “Yes… Torm the True, Torm the Brave, Torm the Binder of Oaths… We… they… hold his faith in trust”

Martine quickly thought back to everything she knew about paladins, which was mostly hearsay and opinion. The few she had met were stiff-necked, self-righteous, and unlikable swordsmen who were supposed to be austerely virtuous, lightened only by the glory of their god.

“A paladin? All that business about honor, truth, goodness, purging wickedness?”

Vil broke into a genuine smile, amused by the description. “Something like that. We were taught to keep our word. But it does not matter anymore. I am no longer a paladin.”

The words stirred sudden concern in Martine. What had prompted Vilheim’s fall from grace? She caught her breath as she waited for some sinister revelation to follow, her gaze flicking from the bloody knife Vilheim held to Astriphie’s ice-whitened remains. “So I’m supposed to trust you because you aren’t a paladin anymore?” she breathed, the words forming ice crystals in the air.

“I woke up one day and my god was gone. I did not sin, if that is what you are thinking.” The man carefully cleaned his knife and slipped it back in its sheath, defensively aware of her unwavering gaze. “It was during the Time of Troubles. One morning I woke up and Torm was no longer there. Before that day, I could always sense Torm’s purpose in everything. That day the feeling was gone. Torm had disappeared, as a good many of the gods did.”

Martine only remembered the Time of Troubles somewhat vaguely. She had been young and had not yet taken up the adventuring life. For her, the gods and their turmoils had seemed distant compared to Giles, the prefect’s son, who lived just down the lane.

“Torm came back, though. You could still be a paladin.” Vil spoke softly but resonantly, his voice carrying force across the frozen gap. “Life is never simple. When Torm left me, I was suddenly on my own for the first time in my life, and I liked it. You could not know the freedom I felt.”

And now you want me to trust you? Martine thought. Perhaps it was a raised eyebrow or a quirk in her face that prompted Vil to speak. “I give you my word I will return. I am still an honest man, Martine of Sembia. A lifetime of training does not evaporate into thin air overnight.” The man rose with firm resolution, shouldering the saddlebag to go. “Besides, there is no choice. You will not leave, and two cannot stay. I will find you here in four days. Take care, and good fortune in your mission, Harper.”

Martine knew she could protest. She could stand out on this glacier arguing until they both froze, but their time spent trading secrets had already chilled her to the bone, and she knew the ex-paladin was right. There was no choice. “Travel safely,” she offered. “In four days, you’ll find me here.”

The words practically vanished in the wind, and the former paladin bent forward as he turned into the gale to begin his journey. The Harper didn’t waste any time watching him leave, but instead busied herself gathering up the supplies, the bulk of which he’d left behind. As she worked, the ice heaved again, this time hurling her to the ground with its violence. Three more tremors, each almost as fierce, struck before Martine started toward the edge of the rift.

The hike was no more than a mile, and the woman made good time with the snowshoes that had survived the crash, a miracle for which Martine thanked Tymora, the mistress of luck. The snow was deeper and softer here, much of it fresh powder from the seething fountain that created its own massive cloud overhead. Through the cloud, light from the the noontime sun was deflected into a million sparkling motes of swirling silver frost. She found that looking at it directly burned her eyes, but at least it distracted her from the ground glare that might otherwise blind her.

As she drew near the fissure, the tremors and the roaring swelled like some fulsome giant struggling to break its frozen chains. The rift had pushed the glacier’s crust upward and outward to form a ridgelike cone. Not knowing how close she needed to be for the seals to work, the Harper elected to climb to the rim, in order to be certain of success. Besides, coming this far, she had to satisfy her curiosity. No doubt , she rationalized, Jazrac would appreciate an eyewitness description of the rupture .

The base of the slope was a jagged mass of icy scree. Closer now, Martine watched how with each surge, great ice blocks hove over the crack’s broken edge, some to fall back inside while others tumbled down the slope. Bounding and crashing, these arctic boulders smashed into others below with sharp cracks that sometimes triggered other shifts and slides in the unstable mass. Wary of the risks, the Harper took extra caution as she picked her way through the frozen scree, mindful that an avalanche could cascade down upon her at any moment. The whistle of the numbing wind was drowned out by the grinding crashes that emanated from beyond the rim and repeated themselves all down the slope.

Finally above the scree, the woman continued her climb, using the dagger to help now, for here the ground was nothing but smooth, windswept ice. Slowly she chopped footholds in the angled slope, all the time watching for danger ahead. The work raised a sweat while her fingers went numb even through her leather gloves and thick mittens. Wedged into grips of ice, her toes felt almost as chilly. Her side throbbed, and her shoulder protested with every twist, until she doubted the wisdom of the whole mission. I can’t give up, she fiercely charged herself. Not this close to my destination.

The jagged surface of the top finally came into view, and Martine dragged herself up on it with gasping relief. Every inch of her burned, inside and outside. Her throat was scorched with bitter cold, her muscles ached as if aflame, and her fingers curled with the peculiar fire that near-frostbite brings. Then the roar and tremble struck again, heightened by the crash of ice nearby, all of which urged the spent woman to her feet.