Dorn grunted. "What do you make of the Hermit"s final words?"
"I wish I knew. Nexus or Firefingers might be able to take the measure of such an ancient and wicked being, but I"ll own up to something I rarely admit: I"m out of my depth. I do know we must press on to the Novularonds, no matter how appalling the weather, and no matter who tries to warn us off."
"Right." Dorn flashed one of his exceedingly rare grins. "A few months ago, I kept trying to quit this craziness, but there"s no escape, is there?" His usual scowl rea.s.serted itself like a gate slamming shut. "I think I"ll try again to sleep." He turned and limped toward Kara and their blankets.
14 Marpenoth, the Year of Rogue Dragons As the five trotting kupuk pulled the sled toward the cl.u.s.ter of snow houses, the Novularond Mountains to the north and the plains and ridges of ice on every side began to blur into a blank, pale brightness. Joylin felt a pang of trepidation.
She hadn"t been afraid to sneak away to explore the abandoned village some miles from their own, even if Papa had forbidden it as too dangerous. But she hadn"t been expecting a whiteout to set in, rob her of her sense of direction, and cut her off from home.
She frowned away her misgivings. Whiteouts didn"t last forever, and as long as she stayed put until this one lifted, or until night fell and put an end to it, she wouldn"t have any trouble finding her way back. The only real problem was that it might delay her return long enough for her father to discover her absence. But there was nothing she could do about it, so she might as well concentrate on having fun, especially if she could expect to be punished for it later on.
She whistled the command to halt.
The kupuks were ma.s.sive animals with canine bodies; hairless, leathery hides; tusks resembling those of walruses; and furry, prehensile tails carried coiled atop their hindquarters. Each was bigger and far stronger than an arctic dwarf child. But they were as obedient as they were powerful, and brought the sled with its greased bone runners to a smooth stop.
Joylin hopped off the back of the conveyance and moved down the line, giving each kupuk a word of praise, a rub about the head and ears, and a sc.r.a.p of caribou jerky. She then took her harpoon in hand. She doubted the village was really dangerous. Grownups worried about a lot of silly things. But she knew better than to go anywhere beyond the borders of her own settlement without a weapon.
The team whined and yapped as she moved away. They wanted to accompany her. But she couldn"t take all five lest they get in her way, and didn"t want to play favorites. She told them to hush and stay, and they subsided.
The whiteout was growing worse. The nearest house, a pair of partially buried domes with connecting tunnels, the whole sculpted from pressed snow, was only a few yards away, and all but invisible even so. She groped her way to the low, arched entry and crawled inside.
As she moved from one dwelling to the next, she soon found reason to suspect her adventure wasn"t going to prove as thrilling as she"d hoped. Other young explorers had come before her, carving their marks on the frozen walls, and pilfering all the good souvenirs. Which suggested she wasn"t doing anything particularly daring or special after all.
Oh, well. It was still fun, and at least she was satisfying her curiosity. Maybe- Outside, something clamored, the sound m.u.f.fled and garbled by the thick walls around her. After an instant, the noise stopped as abruptly as it began.
Joylin"s first thought was that it had been the kupuk. But if something had agitated them, they wouldn"t just bark for a moment. They"d keep it up.
Unless something silenced them all just that quickly.
Her heart beating harder, she told herself that couldn"t happen. Though docile and affectionate to their masters, kupuk were ferocious in the face of most any threat. Even the biggest, hungriest bear would avoid them and look for other prey.
Still, she had to check on them and make certain they were all right. Her father said the Inugaakalakurit owed the same loyalty to their kupuk that the animals gave to them.
She took a deep breath, then crawled back out of the house.
At once she felt a surge of disorientation severe enough to make her dizzy. The whiteout was so bad she could see no trace of the kupuk or the sled, and felt a stab of fear that she wouldn"t be able to find them.
Then she noticed the tracks her bare feet had left in the snow drifts atop the perpetual ice. Obviously, she could follow those. She skulked forward.
"Tug!" she called. "Blue! Crooked!" None of the kupuk made a sound in response.
I did the wrong thing, Joylin thought. Something did happen to them, and I should have stayed inside.
But she was out in the open, and the part of her demanding to know what had happened was stronger than the inner voice screaming for her to run and hide. Holding her breath, she crept onward until shapes swam out of the whiteness.
The kupuk lay mangled and motionless in crimson pools of blood. A pair of tirichiks, each as long from its snout to the tip of its tail as a snow house, crouched over the slaughtered team devouring the remains. Tirichiks were like great serpents-or dragons-with sinuous bodies, eight stumpy legs, tiny horns, and fangs that protruded over their lips even when their jaws were closed. A pair of orifices opened midway up their snouts, and from one moment to the next, tentacles slithered forth from the pits to wave and flick about, or else wriggled back inside. The creatures were white as bone except for their pink eyes and the spatters of gore currently decorating their hides.
Joylin swallowed and backed away. Told herself the whiteout would hide her, too. A few steps, and there wouldn"t be any chance of the tirichiks noticing her.
A bit of snow crunched under her heel. Terror jolted her, and she froze. But the tirichiks didn"t look up from their kill.
She tiptoed two more steps, and already the creatures, huge though they were, were nearly lost to sight. Almost safe, she told herself, you"re almost safe.
Then one tirichik"s tentacles lashed madly about before extending in her direction. She recalled Papa telling her the members were some sort of sensory organs. They gave tirichiks a way of detecting prey which, on the glacier with its whiteouts, glare, and mirages, was often more reliable than sight.
The tirichik scrambled over the kupuk bodies and at her. Its companion surged after it. Joylin"s father also said the creatures would kill and eat most anything, but preferred the flesh of dwarves and men.
She whirled, fled, and the tirichiks pursued, not hissing or snarling, silent as ghosts, though their charge sent tremors through the ice. She knew they could run faster than she could. Her only hope was that she had enough of a lead to reach the nearest snow house before they caught up to her.
For a second, she imagined she"d somehow lost track of where it was, even though she could still make out the footprints that ought to lead her there. Then its humped form appeared.
She dived through the entry and scrambled deeper into the dwelling. Just as she glanced back, a tirichik stuck its head in after her. Despite the close quarters, its long, sinuous neck shot its jaws at her with terrible speed. The spiked bony ridge on its spine sc.r.a.ped bits of compacted, hard-frozen snow from the ceiling.
The tirichik"s fangs caught hold of her ankle and jerked her backward. Screaming, she jabbed her harpoon into its snout, and surely more startled than seriously hurt, it released her. She scuttled onward, leaving a trail of blood. Her foot throbbed.
The tirichik struck again, but fell short. It pulled its head and neck out of the house, and for a second, she hoped she was safe. Then the whole dwelling started to thump and shake as the creatures tore at it with the claws on their round, flat feet. Clumps of snow fell on top of her as it began to come apart.
She realized she was shaking and crying, and when she tried to stop, she couldn"t. Still, somehow she found the grit to take a firmer grip on the harpoon. If she could manage it, she meant to get in one more stab before the end.
Then, beyond the walls, strange voices shouted, and the tirichiks stopped trying to hammer down the house. Apparently they had something else to occupy their attention.
At first, Will merely heard something b.u.mping and thudding about. Thanks to this strange white light that masked instead of revealed, he had to skulk several paces farther before he spotted what was making the commotion. A pair of big white creatures-part wyrm and part centipede, as far as appearances went-were demolishing a snow house, no doubt to get at who-or whatever was inside.
How, he wondered, had Raryn detected the beasts? He suspected that under these conditions, even Kara, with her keen draconic senses, might have pa.s.sed on by without noticing.
Well, however the dwarf had known, Will was glad he had. With its relentless cold, ice that proved slippery, brittle, sharp, or treacherous in a dozen other unforeseen ways, and countless additional hazards, the Great Glacier had turned out to be every bit as dangerous and unpleasant as its reputation indicated. Worse, it had made him feel inept, for he knew he might not have lasted a day in this alien, unforgiving landscape without Raryn to shepherd him along.
But he"d been an expert hunter for some years, and a chance to demonstrate his own worth seemed likely to buck him up. He just hoped he could still jump, roll, and fight swaddled in his thick, layered fur and woolen garments, snow goggles, and heavy hobnailed boots.
"Now," said Dorn, loosing an arrow.
Raryn did the same. Pavel discharged a quarrel from his crossbow, and Will spun a skiprock from his sling. Despite the bewildering light, all the missiles found their marks.
Taegan and Jivex soared upward, positioning themselves to strike at the centipede-wyrms from above. Kara sang a spell, and with a boom of thunder, a bright forked blaze of lightning impaled both creatures. The reptiles convulsed.
But they appeared to possess something of a true wyrm"s ability to withstand punishment, for neither went down. Rather, they charged, scuttling forward as noiselessly as the Hermit"s pet wraiths.
They were fast, too. Will just had time to tuck his warsling away and s.n.a.t.c.h out his hornblade, then one of the beasts reared over him.
The crested tapering head with its thrashing tentacles plunged down. He sprang forward, evading the strike, and somersaulted. He"d been right, it was harder to play the acrobat dressed as he was, but he still managed to fetch up underneath the creature.
The centipede-wyrm"s legs were short and bowed so that the s.p.a.ce was cramped even for a halfling. He had room enough, though, to drive his sword into the reptile"s pallid flesh.
The creature pivoted from side to side, trying to trample him. He rolled clear and back onto his feet. Jaws gaping, it struck at him.
He skipped backward, and should have been out of range. But as it whipped forward, the reptile"s neck stretched. Perceiving the danger at the last possible instant, Will frantically twisted aside. Stained with the gore of something it had killed previously, the beast"s fangs clashed shut just a finger length from his flesh.
Its neck lifted and retracted a bit slowly, though, as if elongation had disjointed or unhinged something that would have to be hitched back into place. Will seized the opportunity to land three more deep cuts. His comrades attacked just as aggressively. Jivex swooped down and clawed at the creature"s eyes, then dived away from a stabbing tentacle, which, the halfling observed, had a needle-like claw at the end. Gripping his sword in both hands, Dorn hacked at one flank, and Raryn whirled his ice-axe at the other. Kara"s battle song soared through the air. Presumably she, Pavel, and Taegan were coping with the other beast.
The centipede-wyrm Will fought eventually froze, shuddered, flopped over onto its side, and lay still and quiet. Even death failed to wring a cry from its throat. Panting, he cast about and saw that the second beast was down, too.
"Is everyone all right?" Pavel asked, his steel buckler dented and a conjured mace of red-gold light floating in the air before him.
They all reported that they were.
"Then let"s find out who the tirichiks were after," Raryn said. He strode to the collapsed snow house and heaved curved chunks of its frozen substance aside, digging for the person or persons beneath. "You can come out now. Everything"s all right."
A figure considerably smaller even than Will crawled from the rubble. He realized she must be a little girl of Raryn"s race. She had the same squat build, white hair, brilliant blue eyes, and ruddy skin, and her light clothing and lack of shoes displayed the same disregard for the chill.
b.l.o.o.d.y-tipped harpoon in hand-she plainly had courage, if tiny as she was, she"d nonetheless managed to wound one of the tirichiks-she gawked at all her rescuers, but particularly at Taegan, Jivex, Dorn, and himself. He inferred that she"d seen humans before, but never an avariel, faerie dragon, half-golem, or halfling.
"Everything"s all right," Raryn repeated. "We"re all your friends." His eyes opened wide. "By the moon and stars! I believe you resemble somebody I know. May I take a better look?" He gently took hold of her chin, tilted her broad, flat-nosed little face upward, and studied it. "What"s your name, young maiden?"
"Joylin Snowstealer."
Raryn smiled at his companions. "It appears I have a niece." Then Joylin dragged herself entirely clear of the shattered snow house, thus exposing her torn ankle, and his grin twisted into a frown. "Pavel! The child needs you."
Wurik Snowstealer had endured some hard times, particularly in recent months, but the past few hours had been especially difficult to bear. Once he determined that his daughter had been absent for the better part of the day, he"d naturally wanted to set forth immediately to look for her. By that time, however, the whiteout had set in. Even the Inugaakalakurit feared to travel under such conditions, nor would they have had any hope of finding Joylin if they did. All he could do was wait, until the blinding brightness gave way to night, and the crescent moon climbed into the sky to shed its glow on the ice.
He glanced around at the other members of the search party, and his heart sank. So few, to comb the ice in all directions for miles around! But it was not the time to brood over past misfortunes, or wonder if a wiser chief would have found a way to avert them.
"Let"s go," he said, and they all whistled, clucked, or called to their teams. The kupuk sprang forward. The sleds lurched into motion and rapidly diverged.
Wurik headed for the forsaken settlement. Joylin had been curious about the place ever since first hearing about it, and he reproached himself for not taking her there himself. If he had, this might not be happening. But he"d been busy hunting, and had needed to be, if everyone was to eat.
Though eager to reach his destination, he dared not travel too fast, lest he rush right by sign indicating Joylin"s whereabouts, or even the child herself, pinned beneath her overturned sled, fallen into a creva.s.se, or trapped in some other predicament. He held the kupuk to a deliberate pace even though his nerves fairly shrilled with the urge to make them run.
Then he spotted motion up ahead. Something-several somethings-tiny and indistinct with distance, sped in his direction. Three of the dots were on the ground, and were likely sleds. But two others were flying.
The prudent response would be to change course. But it would delay his reaching the abandoned village, and he"d done nothing to provoke the creatures so rapidly approaching. That ought to mean they wouldn"t harm him, though in other circ.u.mstances, he certainly wouldn"t have counted on it.
He kept his team aimed straight at them, and as they grew nearer, saw something marvelous. They weren"t the creatures he"d imagined them to be, but rather as strange a company as he"d ever encountered. Not all strange, though. In the lead sled, a conveyance drawn, like the others, by huskies rather than kupuk, rode Joylin, and behind her, guiding the dogs, stood his long-lost younger brother Raryn.
They all brought their sleds to a halt. Joylin clambered out and hobbled on a bandaged ankle toward her father. He ran to meet her, and they flung their arms around each other.
"Are you all right?" Wurik asked.
"Yes. Except my foot hurts." She hesitated. "Tirichiks killed Tug and the rest of the kupuk. I"m sorry, Papa."
"Tirichiks!"
"Yes," Raryn said, "but at least this young hunter avenged her team. That"s tirichik blood on the point of her lance. How are you, brother?"
"Well, now that I know this wayward child is safe, and crazy Raryn, whom I never thought to see again, stands before me." Wurik hugged Joylin for another moment, then released her to embrace Raryn.
""Crazy?"" Raryn said. "Just because I wanted to see the world beyond the glacier? Would it change your mind to learn I"ve come home with enchanted weapons and a purse heavy with gold?"
"No," Wurik said, "because in all your years of roaming, did you ever spend a night with a female of your own kind?"
A lanky human armed with a mace and dented buckler laughed. "I like your brother, Raryn. He knows what"s truly important."
The remark reminded Wurik of the strangers" presence and snapped him out of his euphoria at finding Joylin safe. This situation was far more complicated than that. Indeed, in most respects, it was little short of a nightmare.
The first thing to do was make sure his smile and hearty manner didn"t waver. "Introduce me to your friends, Raryn, and then we"ll go home and feast."
A fellow both shorter and slighter than a dwarf, with curling black locks framing his face, grinned. "The Hearth-keeper"s blessing on you. We"re sick to death of our own cooking."
"Do you eat bugs?" asked a silvery reptile with b.u.t.terfly wings and a flicking tail. Wurik wondered if it could possibly be some sort of miniature dragon. Probably not, or it would be running mad or a servant like the rest of its kind.
In another minute, everyone was underway. Wurik periodically blew a signal on his bugle, an instrument carved from a rothe horn. Those who heard would know Joylin had been found, and relay the message to others.
What Wurik really wanted to do was talk to his daughter, but it wasn"t possible racing along on a sled. If they spoke loud enough to hear one another, Raryn and the strangers might overhear as well, and so it would have to wait.
At last they reached the village, at which point Wurik realized that too was a potential problem. Raryn was too observant not to notice there were fewer cook fires than formerly, and that some of the snow houses were vacant.
Sure enough, he took one look around and asked, "What"s happened to the tribe?"
"Dragon attack," Wurik said. It was even true as far as it went, but it had only been the start of their troubles. "The wyrms surprised a big hunting party. We lost quite a few of our folk."
Raryn sighed and nodded. "It"s happening everywhere."
The villagers came creeping forth. From their hesitancy and guarded expressions, Wurik realized they were feeling the same awkward tangle of emotions he was. Relief, of course, that Joylin was all right. Amazement at the strange appearances of Taegan, Jivex, Dorn, and Will. But underlying those emotions, stifling the excitement they might otherwise have sparked, fear and uncertainty.
But they needed to manufacture some enthusiasm. "Look!" Wurik shouted. "Joylin"s all right, and my brother has returned, along with new friends. Come welcome them!"
To his relief, the other dwarves followed his lead and tramped forward, calling greetings and extending their hands. Perhaps some a.s.sumed from his demeanor that somehow, all really was well. The others realized they needed to pretend.
Wurik waited until a chattering cl.u.s.ter of old acquaintances surrounded Raryn. Then he said, "I"ll leave you to catch up with these others. My disobedient daughter and I need to talk."
"Don"t be too hard on her," his brother said. "It"s too bad about the kupuk-from the looks of this place, you can ill afford to lose them-but Joylin did nothing we didn"t do when we were small."
"I"ll keep that in mind." Wurik picked up the lame child in his arms and carried her to the snow house where they"d dwelled alone since a fever ushered his dear wife down into the ice decades before her time.
As he set her down on a sealskin rug, Joylin said, "I am sorry, Papa, truly. I loved Blue and Tug."
He had, too, but he waved the memory of the poor slain animals away. "That doesn"t matter now. I need to know what you told Raryn and his companions."
"What do you mean?"
He felt such a surge of impatience that, much as he adored her, for an instant he might almost have slapped her. "Did you say anything to them-anything at all-about the Ice Queen and those who serve her?"