Джеффри Лорд: Ice Dragon

Gradually the headache faded, the disorientation faded also, and strength and coordination returned to his sprawled limbs. He became conscious of more sensations from the world around him-the chirp of birds, the squeals and skittering feet of small animals in the shrubbery, the swishing and creak of branches moving in the wind. He also became conscious of a chill breeze playing over his bare skin. Reaching upward, he grabbed a conveniently drooping branch and pulled himself to his feet. He had to lean against the rough trunk of the tree for a moment until a fit of dizziness passed, then stepped out from under the tree and looked around him.

He was standing on the slope of either a very high hill or a rather low mountain, near the upper fringes of a forest of pinelike trees that covered its base. Looking up toward the summit, he could see the trees becoming sparser and sparser, giving way finally to bare rock and gray-green shrubs and creepers. Even farther up, at the point where the looming slope met the blue sky, there was the glint of unmelted snow fields.

In the other direction, the forested slopes unrolled themselves downward into a narrow valley before rising sharply on the other side in a bare cliff that formed the base of another hill, rising as high on its side of the valley as Blade's did on its. The valley thus formed ran roughly north and south, as far as Blade could tell from the sun. To the south of the two flanking hills were yet more hills and hummocks, suggesting a whole range spreading east and west, many miles wide and perhaps many hundreds of miles long. Through the valley itself ran a fair-sized river; Blade caught its silver-blue glimmer through the black-green masses of the trees. Then he turned to the north.

Part of the view to the north was cut off by the swell of the hill, but he could see enough to suddenly feel a chill from more than the breeze. To the north was a flat plain, and far away on the remote horizon of that plain was another silver-blue hue glimmering in the sky. Not the friendly' glimmer of a river, but the steel cold glare of endless miles of ice hurling back the sun. He had once seen the same thing from the deck of a ship approaching the Greenland ice cap. Out there on the northern plain, many miles away but glaring so fiercely that it was visible here, a vast glacial mass was marching south. For a moment he almost fancied he could hear the grinding roar of the billions of tons of ice scraping their way forward, stripping the countryside down to sterile bedrock, and the hill beneath his feet seemed to shudder in anticipation of the glaciers hurling themselves at it or perhaps over it.

Then he laughed, and the sensation passed. Glaciers took centuries, if not millennia, to cover the distance that separated him from that sinister ice. By the time the ice began pushing at the hill where he was standing, his great-great-great grandchildren (if any) would be old men and women. Still, glaciers relatively so near meant bitter winters, a short growing season (if any), and therefore better chances of finding human habitation if he made his way south. Even in mid-afternoon the temperature was barely above fifty, suggesting nights far too chilly for the comfort or even safety of a naked man. He would do well to head down into the valley, where he might at least find water and more shelter from the wind. Taking a last look at the blue glare on the horizon, he turned and began his descent.

He moved cautiously down the slope, eyes and ears alert for signs of human activity or dangerous animals, carefully avoiding twigs that might give off telltale crackings and patches of bare earth that would retain conspicuous footprints. He had no reason to believe that either man or large animal was within fifty miles of him; he had certainly seen nothing to indicate either from his original perch high on the hills. It was a matter of professional caution, nothing more.

The coniferous trees of the upper slopes gave way to hardwoods as he descended. He was able to find a broken branch sound enough to make a useful club. As the slope steepened, he found himself using it more and more as a climbing staff, one hand wielding it, the other reaching out for branches and saplings to grasp, or even handholds in the outcroppings of rock. He slipped and fell several times, the last time down an eight-foot drop that ended in a mass of prickly bushes. These broke his fall enough to keep him from breaking anything else, but he arose well scratched.

The wind faded as he descended deeper and deeper into the shelter of the valley. But the light was fading almost as rapidly. By the time he again saw the glimmer of the river through the trees, it was twilight, and he realized that darkness would overtake him on the move if he kept on going. It was time to make as much of a camp as he could.

The forest floor was thick with mulch, and the still waters along the banks of the river heavily grown with weeds and rushes. Pulling up rushes and laying them down as fast as they dried on turned-up mulch, then laying as many branches as he could on the reeds, Blade contrived himself an almost comfortable bed. Lying down, he distributed the rest of the branches over himself in as complete a cover as possible, placed the club within easy reach, and began planning his next day's travels and how to get food. A layer of animal fat smeared over his body would go a long way toward keeping out the cold, and even raw meat would be better than none at all. He was still working out details when the fatigue of many hours' hard traveling caught up with him and he fell asleep.

A shaft of sunlight stabbing squarely through a gap in the trees into his eyes brought him awake the next morning. He was fully alert within seconds, rose, and climbed down to the edge of the river, to drink. It was only after he had drunk his fill that he became aware of the silence lying over the forest like a fog. The wind had almost totally died, so even the faint swish and rustle it had made in the treetops was gone. But the silence was heavier even than that. The sounds of forest life he had noticed the afternoon before were gone, as though all the birds and small animals had suddenly been stricken mute. In this heavy stillness, the solitary gurgle and cluck of the river tumbling over the stones and roots along its banks sounded loud and ominous, rather than cheerful. Blade was at once on edge. It was with an especially firm grip on his club that he moved out, heading south along the riverbank, less alert now for man or beast than for some clue as to what had stricken square miles of the forest into silence during the night.

He estimated he had been on the move for the better part of an hour before he stepped out from behind a tree and found himself staring at a rough trail. To his right it led upward into the gloom of the forest, to his left it made a right-angle bend and ran off parallel to the riverbank, heading south. He ducked back behind the tree and spent a few moments mentally flipping a coin as to which way he should go, then decided that the way along the riverbank looked more promising. He stepped onto the path and continued on his way, all his senses screwed up to a still higher pitch of alertness.

He came upon the bridge suddenly. A sharp bend in the path still farther to the left, a gap in the trees, and visible through it the splintered planks and snapped-off pilings of a wooden bridge, the fast-flowing river curling with little flecks of foam around the debris. Blade turned off the path and crept through the trees to the riverbank.

From close up, the sight of the bridge was even more disquieting. There was no sign of explosion, yet Blade found it hard to believe that anything else could have completely ripped to pieces a bridge fifty feet long and set on foot-thick piles. Some of the piles had been snapped cleanly in two like matchsticks. Others, incredibly, seemed to have been bitten through, the broken ends furrowed and scarred by gouges that undeniably looked like the marks of giant teeth.