Ice Burns (38 page)

When she opened the door to the first inn she found, she almost couldn’t grasp the handle to turn the latch. Inside was warm and pungent with a smell of too many unwashed bodies, past and present. Chandra walked up to the bar and held up two fresh rabbits Frostwhite had caught on the outskirts of town.

“Enough for the night and some food and water?” Chandra asked; she kept her head down and her eyes on the bar. She doubted she would receive much welcome if he looked long at her glowing pupils. The round man with more hair poking out the back of his tunic than on his head prodded the rabbits.

"Not frozen. How fresh?" His eyes were narrowed, though Chandra could see he was pleased. She figured that hunters often brought in morning kills that were mostly frozen by the time they reached a buyer.

“They were caught not an hour past,” she told him with a nod.

“S’ enough fer a night, but nae meal,” the barkeep said with a shake of his head.

“Guess I’ll head down the road, then,” Chandra said, picking up the rabbits and heading for the door.

“Hold, missy,” the barkeep said as he squeezed out from behind the bar. “Ye look in need, so I’ll hep ye out and agree.” Chandra knew from the man’s haste that this fresh kill was worth a bit more than he wanted to let on.

"One night's stay, food, and drink," she told him. The man hesitated, and she turned away.

"Deal!" he called quickly, spat on his hand and held it out to her. Chandra shook his hand, but the man jumped when her right palm crossed his. He looked at her nervously for a moment after he had withdrawn his hand.

"I want nae trouble, here. Jus keep yer armor hidden beneath the rags, or we'll have a heap of it come dinner." She gave him a curt nod, and he backed away, holding the rabbits. He pointed at the stairs in the back of the room with his chin.

“First door,” he said, eyeing her as he backed into the room behind the bar.

The room indicated was tiny, and the ceiling slanted. It had one small window at the end of the slant, right above the bed. She walked over and tugged the window open. The bed was barely big enough to hold her and looked like it would be better suited for a child. The right wall was brick and warm, indicating that at least part of it was the chimney. There was a table at the foot of the bed with an unlit lamp and small bowl with an empty pitcher beside it. The distance from open door to bed was about two steps.

"Either my bartering skills need help, or I look like someone who likes to sleep in a closet," she chuckled and shook her head.

Frostwhite fluttered in through the window and landed on the tiny bed. Chandra shut the window behind him to let the room warm up again. Frostwhite set to cleaning his feathers.

"I guess you found enough to eat from the inhabitants of the horseless stable back there?" Chandra said, inclining her chin toward the window at the tiny building behind the inn. Frostwhite made a soft noise and continued cleaning. She chuckled and shook her head.

“I’m going to see if I can get food before the inn has a chance to get too many occupants.”

The main room at the bottom of the stairs was still empty when she entered it. Even the barkeep was conspicuously missing, and frigid air came in through the open front door.

Chandra took the stairs two at a time and went back in the room. Frostwhite was in the same spot she had left him. She moved to the window and opened it back up to look out. There was nothing unusual, actually nothing at all on the street outside.

“I don’t know what is going on, but something is. After our last adventure, I want you to have an available exit while I try to find out what's going on.,” she told her friend, running her left hand down his feathers. "I'm going outside to see if there's anything strange."

Frostwhite made a noise and took two hops before flying out the window. "Or we both will, I guess." Chandra headed into the frigid evening.

35

Outside, the inn was quiet, but the rumble of voices down the street lead the young woman to where the inhabitants had gone. She found a group of people standing around two men, shouting questions.

“...don’t know if he’s the mage involved, but we do know he is a mage and therefore condemned to death,” a voice said inside the circle. Chandra pushed her way forward, edging along the outer ring of the crowd to get a better look.

"We need to kill him now!" one man shouted from somewhere off Chandra's right side. "We need to stop the pestilence and show other mages they cannot treat our Royals this way!"

The crowd grumbled in assent to this idea.

“Now, Johns, you know we must take the mage to the council. I wouldn’t even know how to kill him,” The speaker was a short man with a scar on his left cheek and a weathered face with calm brown eyes. He looked stern but unassuming in the kind of way that made him look non-threatening. Chandra decided he must be local law.

“Cut off his head, Smits,” an old woman yelled. “I doubt he’d get up from that!” The crowd laughed and rumbled again.

“Aggie, I can’t do that,” Smits said with a sigh. “I know we want it to be over...”

His sentence was interrupted when a young man behind Smits reached over and pulled the hood away from the man in chains. Chandra gasped with the rest of the crowd when she saw the young man's face, though her gasp was recognition, not the shock at the sight of a young, gangly man.

Deakon

Deakon blinked rapidly either from sudden light or all of the people.

The rage swelled inside her, fluid and hot as she looked at him. Her hand itched urgently, and she fought to ignore it.

She knew the malice in her wanted to strike back. It showed her that he would burn if she just reached out to him. He deserved what she could give. He had chased her, tied her up, and left her to hands that would or did torture her. Her mind whispered that it would be justice and the only thing standing in her way was a crowd of strangers that meant nothing to her.

Frostwhite's call echoed in the sky above, and some of the crowd looked around to find the sound. She didn't need his voice to call her back, though. Chandra fought what was inside her, though the ground rumbled under the street. The villagers looked around nervously, and some of them looked as though they were ready to jump the Smits and tear Deakon apart.

Deakon looked up and met her fiery eyes until her resolve slipped under the fresh wave of hatred. Despite the differences, he recognized her. The fire felt his fear and lifted her face into a broad smile. A sour scent drifted to the predator in her and echoed from the people in the crowd. Without a thought, words tumbled from Chandra’s mouth no louder than a whispering hiss, and the chains that bound and wrapped Deakon crumbled to ash. The crowd screamed, and Deakon put both hands in the air, palms out.

"I don't want to escape," he told Smits who stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before cursing loudly and grasping one of Deakon's hands.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Deakon said, lowering his arms and looking at Smits with fear, making the old lawman frown and tug at Deakon’s arm.

"Good, then. Let's head off to the council," Smits said, watching Deakon as though he were a sleeping snake that might wake. Chandra hissed again, and the two men looked at her. The ground rumbled and shook. Frostwhite called out to, but she only saw Deakon.

"I didn't know," Deakon dropped to his knees, facing her. "I wanted you dead, but I would never have done those things to you. I would never have hurt you if I had known what had happened the day father died." He pleaded on his knees, palms out and something inside of Chandra slithered and felt pleasure to see him that way.

The rumbling got louder, and the ground continued to shake.

“The woman showed me what he had done. I didn’t know...” Deakon wept while Smits stood staring at them both as though unsure who to arrest.

"He wanted me dead," Chandra hissed, her voice growling out of her. Dark words fought to overcome the spoken ones, but she struggled to explain. "You helped him. He wanted to take my power, and you did whatever he asked, including trying to kill me."

She hissed at him, and the stocking on her right hand smoked and smoldered.

“I know,” he whispered. “The woman showed me what he did. What he planned to do. I didn’t know...” Deakon continued to beg. "He told me you wanted me dead and would use your power to do it once it came. He said you were just waiting and that he would need me to help stop you. When you killed the only family I had, I wanted you to hurt."

She wanted to ask Deakon what woman he meant. Who had shown him, but her time in control slipped. Chandra fought against her magic as something inside her hissed and writhed with a rage that seemed to belong to someone else. It threw back her head and shrieked, dark words forcing themselves out of her and drawing the taste of blood across her tongue. The words shot into the sky like bats, flying away with haste in all directions as people in the streets screamed and ran.

When the words left her, Chandra fell to her knees. The darkness in her had no strength in her for the moment because of whatever it had released in her. Her hands were bare, the make-shift gloves burned away.

She lifted her eyes to the cowering form of Deakon and pitied him. A part of her still wanted vengeance, but the images of all who had died, and the sight of herself through Frostwhite's eyes stayed her. whoever She pushed the darkness aside. She stood up with the intent of walking away and letting the lawman deal with Deakon when a rumble in the ground lifted the street in a wave and unbalanced her.

The evening streets moved, but not from underneath this time. The wet blackness of the icy cobbles crackled with life and scurried toward the screams of the populace. A million eyes came from the darkness, and scuttling feet carried teeth toward pray. The night creatures had come to play.

Chandra's mouth opened as she saw the world erupt with black, opaque forms that slithered, crawled or squirmed forward in an agitated mass. Frostwhite connected to her, and Chandra saw that the sliding black river was shining black beetles the size of cats, venomous snakes, scorpions, and widow-maker spiders with their spattering of blood-red near the clicking maws. Within the mass was a larger danger. Giant bodies rolled within the black tide in a serpentine pattern through the sliding bodies. It was harder to identify until several pink tongues came out of their mouths, snake-like.

“Death monitors,” Chandra whispered.

The blood drained from her extremities as terror froze her in place and made her body hum in anticipation. They were giant black-skinned lizards rarely seen. The few, when spotted, were found in graveyards drawn there by the smell of dead flesh.

She heard Frostwhite call to her, but couldn't move. Her heart burned in her throat, acidic and foul with the lingering taste of rage mixing with the bile of terror. The enraged part of her consciousness hissed and called at the sight in a way that added a new layer of terror to her skin. Her legs twitched, though she didn't know in which direction they wanted her to run. Her spine was locked in place, and her feet would not listen.

The wave came toward her like smoke on a gale wind, but it did not touch her. When the creatures reached within a foot of where Chandra stood, the wave parted and moved around her as though she were a lone mountain in the center of the city square. Her apprehension dropped though she had infinitesimal reign on her fear. It seemed she was the lone exception.

As Chandra turned to watch the black mass, she heard a yelp and saw a dog quickly covered and dissolved by the black river of creatures. People of the city ran in terror, though not all of them could move at a speed that would do them any good. Chandra saw a man fall and disappear, bones and all.

Frostwhite shrieked above and came down to Chandra who yelled and put her black palm in the air to deny him. She didn’t know what was stopping the creatures from coming after her, but she felt little hope they would pay her friend the same courtesy. Chandra turned back to the mayhem and saw a child standing in the street, crying.

The child did not run though she grasped at the adults who ran past her, blind in their terror. Her mouth was open in a wail and tears streaked her dusty cheeks.

For a moment, Chandra could only look on in horror at the little girl, her mind screaming at the girl to run. Then she saw a white blur descend and kill the closest creature: a widow-maker spider. She watched as the spider lost limbs and her feathered friend broke its body. She took one step toward him. The rage in her mind twisted and came forth. Chandra let it loose to find new purchase in a way that she could use.

Fire and ice coursed up and down her arms as she continued to walk, crushing creatures in her wake. Frostwhite killed a few monsters near the child, and then Chandra ran. She heard squeals and crunching as she moved on top of the black tide. Her hands glowed, and she threw her arms in front of her as she moved as if pushing against a wall as she went. The light expanded in front of her, and more of the creatures screamed and died.

She saw that Frostwhite was doing his best to kill anything in reach of the child, and the girl had finally begun to move away from the flow of creatures but not quickly enough. A death monitor swerved away from the claws and beak of Frostwhite to intercept. A long pink tongue lashed out and caught the girl across her calf, cutting her in a whip-like motion. The girl screamed and fell to the ground as the lizard hissed and dove on top of her.