David Cook - Soldiers of Ice

“It can be opened again! It must!” The fiendish creature hissed in frustration. “How?” Its claw tips pressed into her shoulders.

“I don’t know,” Martine gasped, her knees starting to buckle as the pain of unhealed wounds flared beneath the creature’s talons.

With the flick of a clawed finger, Vreesar sliced a ribbon of red across her cheek. “Tell me or I cut more.”

The cut’s burning sting made bitter tears well in her eyes. Were she uninjured, it would have been a small matter, but now the cut added far more than it should have to her ledger of pain. “I was never told.” The ranger could barely gasp the words out.

“Uselezz!” Vreesar flung the shaken woman to the ground like a rag doll. Martine clutched the cold earth, relieved to still be alive, her body weak from the questioning.

Vreesar angrily turned to Krote. The shaman was still crouched at the very forefront of his people, intently watching the interrogation. His eyes took in every detail as his mind calculated the strengths and weaknesses of the tribe’s new chieftain.

“Did she have anything when you found her, shaman?”

“Only that” Krote pointed to Martine’s leather backpack in the dirt “and a sword. It was of no value.”

The hells it was , Martine thought in the midst of her fog of pain. Her sword was made of good magical steel. She had had to fight a pirate lord for it. From where she lay, the Harper waited for the Word-Maker to point out the stone, but he never did. Perhaps he’s forgotten about the rock , she thought hopefully. I can still get it back. Get the stone, escape, and get back to Jazrac that’s all I have to do .

The fiend snatched up her backpack and shook it When nothing fell out, it tore at the leather bag with its claws and teeth, all the while growling with inarticulate rage. Bits of shredded leather rained on the bare ground. Metal buckles jangled as Vreesar hurled them across the lodge.

“There iz no key here. Where are her other thingz?” The barbed fiend strode back toward Krote, claws flexing convulsively. Seeing the icy body with the needlelike teeth advance toward them, the gnolls scrambled backward.

“What about the little ones? Maybe they have it,” a trembling voice deep in the throng barked out. The suggestion was quickly taken up by other gnolls in the lodge. Belief or truth had little to do with their agreement; all that mattered was diverting the fiend.

“Little onez? Explain, shaman.”

“

“The gnomes, great chieftain. They live to the south, beyond our lands.”

“Iz their land warm or cold?”

The question flabbergasted the gnoll. “It’s snowy, the same as here, but their valley does not have the tall ice.”

“Warm, then,” Vreesar calculated, its icy brows tinkling as they knitted. “And they helped the human?”

“Perhaps.” Without better knowledge, the Word-Maker wasn’t going to commit himself one way or the other. Martine didn’t like the sound of these questions and cursed herself for being helpless.

“Are these gnomes powerful?”

Krote shrugged in puzzlement at Vreesar’s question. “I do not know. They are little people and do not raid our land. Some think they are grass-growers and do not know how to hunt.”

“Then they are weak.”

Krote shook his head firmly. “The stories of the Burnt Fur say the little people are strong in magic. If the stories are true, then they are powerful.”

Vreesar cackled, its laugh like shattering icicles. “I am magic. I am powerful. The little snow people are nothing, like mephitz, like Icy-White. If that iz all they have, they will be easy to destroy. We will attack them.” The fiend glared at the gnolls huddled near the fire pit, waiting for any to speak out against the plan. The frigid creature’s gaze was a fierce challenge none of the dog-men dared accept, and their silence signaled their acceptance.

It’s only a boast, Martine hoped as she heard Vreesar’s proclamation. It was bad to have let the fiend escape the rift. The attack on the Vani would be yet another black mark against her in the eyes of the Harpers. If a single one of these creatures could create such chaos, Martine knew she could never allow hordes of Vreesar’s kin to enter into the world. While the fiend ranted its threats and schemes, the Harper slid stealthily across the floor, moving in tiny increments toward Jazrac’s precious stone.

Krote’s ears flared at Vreesar’s declaration, his eyes suddenly darkening. Standing up to his full height until he almost looked the fiend eye-to-eye, the shaman alone rose to the challenge of Vreesar’s words. “Chieftain, we are one tribe. If we fight the people of the snow, many of our warriors will die, even with you to lead us. The little people have strong homes, dug into the dirt like the dens of foxex. The old songs called them fierce like the badger.”

“What iz badger ?” The shaman’s point was lost on the otherworldly creature.

“A demon of the forest,” Krote explained. The badger is small but fears no one, not even bears. The gnomes to the south are said to have badger blood in their veins.”

“No creature fightz more fiercely than Vreesar,” the fiend hissed.

Krote still wasn’t ready to relent. “And if Brokka is killed, who will take his mates and find game for his kits? Or Varka? Or Split-Ear? Attack the little people and many mates will howl for their dead warriors.”

“That iz the way of femalez,” the fiend droned unconcernedly.

Martine froze as the elemental turned to resume its place on the dais. She could only silently pray that it hadn’t noticed that she had crept halfway to the wall, or if it did, that it thought nothing of it.

“Great chieftain, it will take our warriors much time to attack the people of the snow,” Word-Maker hastily pressed as he tried yet another tack to dissuade the fiend from its plan. Martine almost believed the gnoll was trying to distract the fiend’s attention. If that was so, he was succeeding admirably, for the elemental wheeled about, its icy joints clicking as it moved.

Krote stepped forward to face the fiend. Though the gnoll was gaunt and tall, the fiend was even taller and thinner. The bones and antlers that hung from the arches tangled with the hairlike barbs on its head.

“The winter is hard,” Krote insisted. “There is little food in the lodges. Our warriors must hunt to feed our kits, or they will starve. We must wait for the snows to melt.”

Vreesar turned upon the shaman and hissed, “Wait? No… the ice makez the warriorz strong. They will attack now”

“But what about the females?”

“They will fight, too, or starve. Femalez fight! Young onez fight All of them!” the fiend buzzed furiously through clenched, needlelike teeth. “Give the femalez swordz and the young onez knivez. Everybody fightz. All of the Burnt Fur must fight!”

A murmur rippled through the assembled gnolls. Voices raised in both eagerness and fear. Though loath to concede it, Martine was impressed that the shaman stood his ground, refusing to give in to the fiend. They were still distracted, and she inched forward.

“You will kill the tribe,” Krote predicted. He clutched the icon that hung from his neck. “This is not the will—” Krote’s words ended in the snap of his jaw as the elemental swung one lanky arm in a lashing backhand. “The shaman’s head whiplashed to the side as he reeled backward for three steps before his legs half-buckled and he dropped to one knee.

The creature didn’t press its attack but stood watching the gnoll. “I am the chieftain and not an imp of the godz, like you, shaman. Do you challenge me?”

Krote’s lips rolled back to bare his fighting fangs, and the shaman tensed for the attack. Like all the others in the lodge, Martine was certain bloodshed was imminent. Word-Maker’s flattened ears twitched eagerly. A low growl rumbled in his throat as the hackles on his neck rose: