David Cook - Soldiers of Ice

What had Jazrac done to make those five stones , she wondered as the world crackled with the solidifying roar.

As the pulses grew longer, a grinding bass note sundered the calm, and lightning-lit air tingled with the ozone scent of disaster. Fresh tremors, stronger than those Martine had grown accustomed to, quavered through the ice, letting loose a rolling wave of ice-rending shrieks. It was as if in that moment all the ghosts and all the lost souls ever devoured by the frozen waste howled out their torment. The cacophony was accompanied by deep thunder that shook the woman down to her toes. From the rim, fractures fingered across the snow like streaks of lightning, zigzagging little puffs of powder tracing their manic paths.

“Damn you, Jazrac!” Martine howled, no longer amused. With a crack, the rim suddenly broke off and slid into the canyon, throwing up a wall of snow as the air rushed forward to fill the gap caused by the collapse. The fingering fissures raced closer toward Martine, and the ranger didn’t wait to see what danger she was in but struggled to her feet and ran.

Behind her, the snapping, ripping cracks fanned out rapidly, lunging closer, as if trying to catch her heels in their frozen jaws. Once, twice, Martine faltered as the fierce pain in her ribs, almost forgotten since the morning, spasmed and locked her muscles and nerves in pain. Her throat no longer burned because it was too parched to breathe, too parched to spit. Fear drove her forward toward the safety of the glacier’s edge, where her only plan was to plummet blindly into the dark void beyond.

With no more than a third of the distance crossed, the nipping fissures caught her. The fractures shot between her legs and raced ahead of her, reaching for the glacier wall. The hard ice field became a mosaic that abruptly began to shatter, each fragment tilting, reacting to the glacier’s mad rush to reclaim what the rift had stolen. The tremors that Martine vainly fled punched the ground out from under the Harper, throwing up shards around her. “No, by Tymora, not again!” Martine wailed as the ground slipped backward beneath her feet. Like a sailor washed overboard, she helplessly slid into the seething ice sea and rode down into its rough darkness: “Not twice in one day! It isn’t fair!”

And then there was the cold and the darkness.

Scrabbling noises like fingernails grating on rock, teeth crunching bones, ice freezing in my veins I hear scrabbling noises , the woman dreamed. It’s the sound of fresh earth being thrown on my grave, thumping with each showelful. I have to scream. I have to yell and let them know I’m still alive .

But that’s so much effort.

“Dig, dig, dig,” said a little voice in singsong.

It’s not coming from my throat , the woman concluded dreamily. It’s too dry… my throat’s too dry .

“Dig, dig, dig,” said the voice again. It sounded like a peevish child. “Just because he says so. Does he dig? No-o-o. That’s why he brought me along so he could make me dig. He gets to sulk, while I, Icy-White the Clever, I get to dig.

“Ow!” A sharp jab pierced Martine’s numbness.

“Ow?”

The pain brought things into focus. Martine was on her side, pressed beneath a mass of ice and snow. She could vaguely see a tumbled field of ice, perhaps the base of a slide, that stood out in stark shadow from the fading blue glow that lit the night, the last light of Jazrac’s magic. The slide apparently ended in the rift floor, now hard and still. The canyon walls had fallen inward, leaving a broad bowl where the rift’s jagged scar had been. Distant crashing rumbles still echoed across the snow, warning that all was not yet still.

The jab repeated, not as sharp this time but still painful. “Get… me… out of here.” The words were a great struggle. A layer of frost settled on her cheeks cracked as she spoke.

“Ice talks!” squeaked the voice. The scrabbling renewed, faster and closer. Suddenly sharp claws raked the Harper’s cheek and harshly brushed away the snow that coated her. The sting cracked the lethargy the ice was sealing about her. The Harper struggled against the enclosing tomb of ice and heaved upright, the motion accompanied by the grinding sound of cracking snow.

“Awwwk!”

“What the—” The cry escaped Martine unwillingly as she found herself faced by a creature of ice. It couldn’t have stood any taller than her thighs, though it loomed over her now as it stood on a block of ice pinning her legs. Its skin was pearly and smooth with blue-white translucence, yet cut in hard angles and sharp edges like shattered ice. The head was broad and flat, eyes gleaming under razor-edged brows.

The creature hopped back, momentarily as startled as she. “Not ice! No, no, no. This is not ice.”

The Harper tested her legs, trying to shift free. The block that pinned her legs was loose, but at the first tremor, the creature lunged forward, seizing her neck with one clawed hand. Its grip was cold and strong, its fingers clicking bonily against each other as it squeezed her throat. “No, no! You belong to Icy-White now. My prize—mine and mine only,” the creature babbled, its mirror-sharp face fractured with glee. An iciclelike claw waggled through the steam of her exhalations. Abruptly the creature gave a startled squeal and snatched its hand away. “You burn, you steam!” it chirped in wonderment while licking furiously at the finger Martine had just breathed on. “I’ll show you to Vreesar when he comes,” it continued craftily. “Then hell let me stop digging.”

Scampering like a monkey, the creature seized the Harper’s shoulder in its cold claws and dragged her from the icy debris, all the while taking care to avoid the steam of her breath. Its talons dug through her furs and drew blood beneath them, but Martine was too tired to fight back. It was all she could do to feebly kick free of the last bits of crust.

“Now, no fight from you, hot one, or Icy-White kill you and feast on your cold meat,” the creature cackled near her ear before it released her. Its breath was chilling, without a hint of warmth either in spirit or body.

The ranger didn’t answer, nor did the creature care. In springing hops, it leaped from block to block, bounding across the slide, but never far from where the Harper lay. Martine remained still, watching and gathering her strength. I’m too weak to get away yet , Martine calculated after noting the creature’s nimble speed as it crossed the treacherous tangle of the slide. She felt wary but not fearful, since the thing didn’t seem immediately intent upon killing her.

Indeed, for the moment, it seemed to have forgotten her as it scrambled over the slide, poking here, sniffing there, all the time muttering to itself. Eyeing her weird captor, the ranger tried to match the creature to all the fiends she’d ever seen or heard of. With its stunted size and shimmering skin, it looked like a malevolent sprite sculpted from ice. Its form lacked gentle curves, each joint capped by glittering little spurs. Nothing about it matched her experiences nor any of the tales she’d heard. Glacier lore was not her strong suit.

While the strange creature capered in the ghastly light of fading magic, Martine discreetly probed the snow for her gear, a search that turned up her sword and pouch but little more. Jazrac’s cinder was still there, she noted with relief, along with his dagger. She thought of staking it in the snow in hope Jazrac might be at his crystal ball at that very moment, but she couldn’t. Calling for his help now was admitting her own failure and she still had hopes of succeeding. All she needed was a little time to get away.

“Who are you?” she called to the impish thing. The question was partially a stall and partially curiosity.