Soldiers of Ice (34 page)

With a quick flip of her other hand, the ranger slashed out with a dagger. She aimed high, just under the dog-man’s muzzle, and was rewarded when warmth soaked her

sleeve and the gnoll’s head lolled stupidly. Twisting, she let the creature fall. With one foot on its chest, she tried to pull her sword free, but the blade was stuck fast for the moment.

Even as Martine dispatched her foe, the others were Soldiers of ice

2

embroiled in battle. Though she held only a knife, Mart unhesitatingly threw herself at the nearest creature, a: brute who had cornered Jazrac. The wizard didn’t stan chance in close combat and had only managed to surv by dodging behind a tree trunk. Preoccupied with Jazr the dog-man was blindsided by Martine’s rush. Wit

pushing stroke, she drew her blade across the beast’s be slicing through layers of fur to the flesh beneath it. T

startled gnoll tipped back its wolfish head and howled astonished pain, leaving itself wide open to attack. Bef(

Martine could strike again, Jazrac lashed out with his &

ger. His grip was awkward, and the wizard left himself w open to a counterstrike, but it didn’t matter. The blade d into the gnoll’s chest, and the creature sank to its kne gasping for life. Martine seized its helm and twisted head back to deliver a quick coup de grace.

Swallowing, Martine stood a moment until her he:

stopped pounding. Breaths of raw air burned her thrc but until the panic of the moment passed, gasping gulps air were all she could manage.

Almost as quickly as it began, the battle was over. By I time the two humans were able to join the gnomes, I Vani’s skirmishes were ended. A quick assessment reveal three wounded, two minor and one serious one. He wa: youth named Yannis, who had been hit in the gut by iv arrows. That was bad enough, but worse still by Martin.

estimation was the fact that at least one gnoll had gott away. Already the baying of the hunters was closing throu the wood.

“We’re not going to make it,” a little bearded warri grunted. “Not with Yannis wounded. You and the other make for the mustikka.” He pointed toward a thicket blueberry bushes off to the left

“And you?”

“I will delay them.”

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The Harpers

“No, not you. Me.” Jazrac stepped forward.

“You, human?” Ojakangas said. He spat into the snow.

“You ran from baffle.”

“I’m not running this time, and I have a better chance than you. My spells can take out More gnolls than your sword can.”

“Ojakangas,” Martine said impulsively, “take Yannis and the others to the cabin. “I’ll stay here. The wizard goes with you.”

“No, Martine—’

“I’m going to get you back alive, Jazrac,” Marline promised as she wiped her blade clean. “We still need you to get help.

Ojakangas, Jazrac… get going.”

Jazrac didn’t move. “No. You go. I’m staying here.”

Martine was about to protest, then hesitated. It was Jazrac’s choice and the noblest thing he had done so far.

For all his faults, the man was still her superior, and she couldn’t deny him this chance to regain his own self-esteem.

The Vani had already completed a makeshift drag for the wounded Yannis.

“Get going,” she ordered.

“Good luck, wizard,” Ojakangas called back as he started off.

“Remember, I need you alive, Jazrac,’ the junior Harper said simply. ‘What was the plan.”

“Plans change. A Harper has to be flexible. Now go.” The gnomes had barely entered the edge of the thicket when the baying started up, close at hand. At the rear of the group, Martine lingered at the edge of the clearing, knowing she should stay with Jazrac. She saw the wizard turn, and for an instant, the ranger thought he was going to change his mind, but instead Jazrac turned toward the sounds of baying in the woods beyond and raised his arms.

Twisted words flew from his lips, and a small flaming Soldiers of Ice

sphere formed between his fingers, then rocketed bet the trees. Jazrac didn’t wait to see it hit but ducked Deep in the woods, the sphere burst into a fiery globe.

woods rattled with the crackling hiss of fire, and the air permeated with the scent of burnt pine needles.

The searing flames roiled outward, catching sev

gnolls in its fiery wash. Fur and cloth, heated to the if point, erupted in fire, and the screaming creatures fl; helplessly about like macabre torches. Then, as sudd as it had appeared, the fire faded, leaving only a r(

melted scorch in the earth.

Even as the wizard was preparing to cast another s

Martine caught a glimpse of silvery white moven

through the trees off to the left. Madly she abandone˘

gnomes and charged across the snow, trying to a

between Jazrac and the icy white form she knew

Vreesar.

“Jazrac! Look out!”

Martine barely had time to see the elemental rais

hands before a blue-white sparkle flashed from its fin straight for her. The Harper dodged to the right wit’

thinking, and the air cracked loudly as a beam of bitter crackled across the gap between them. Intense cold cot like galvanizing fire along her limbs and lanced at her j till her body curled and spasmed. A violent shock waw a deafening thunderclap followed immediately, the air tered by the precipitous drop in temperature. The H; crashed into the snow, her body paralyzed, her ears scr ing from the reverberations of the blast.

Wheeling away from the icy streak the bolt had ca

across the snowfield, the elemental turned on Jazrac.

wizard snarled something unintelligible to Martine’s ing ears, and another series of fiery sparks flew fror hand straight toward the fiend. The buzz of the creat laughter filled the forest as the dazzling sparks if’

Soldiers

of Ice

269

268 The

before they reached

their target.

“Your magic iz uselez against me, human,”

the elemental

buzzed evilly.

It was as if the words were a signal, for out of

the woods advanced a line of gnolls. Their clothes were ragged furs. Some wore conical caps with dangling earflaps; a fortunate few had helms. Jaws agape and panting steamy air, they closed in for

the kill.

Martine heaved to her feet and drew her sword.

She still felt weak and unsettled from the icy bolt she’d barely avoided. She knew she couldn’t afford to be struck by another one of those, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Jazrac needed her help.

She stumbled toward

him unsteadily.

Two gnolls closed on her, hoping to trap

the Harper between them. Her attackers quickly discovered they had miscalculated. Even with her nerves still

twitching, Martine easily evaded their unschooled blows, although she couldn’t prevent them from flanking her on two sides.

Even then she managed to hold them off,

alternating lightning-quick thrusts from one side to the other. A swift lunge sliced the arm of one, sending him reeling back. That break in tempo gave her a chance to cast a look back toward Jazrac. The stalking line of gnolls had begun to charge, leaping through snowy drifts with yipping cries. Vreesar held back, apparently preferring to let the gnolls do its fighting.

The dog-men knew their prey and sought to close the distance so their swords would have the advantage over the

mage’s

spells.

“Jazrac, look out!” Martine

screeched.

The wizard looked up and then jabbed a finger of

warning off toward her left. Concerned about Jazrac, she’d ignored her own predicament. The unwounded gnoll was crashing through the knee-deep snow, axe swung back to the side like a bare-knuckle fighter about to throw a two-fisted roundhouse. The Harper dropped to one knee as the axehead whistled over her head, ruffling her hair. With a quick flip, she turned her sword and rammed it

backhand into the gnoll’s gut. The blade drove in with virtually no resistance till it hit

bone.

The gnoll shrieked and continued its charge,

blind momentum carrying it forward. Martine leaned

backward to avoid the blundering beast, fiercely clinging to the sword hilt as the creature tumbled forward. She wrenched the blade sideways and twisted until the dog-man had spun almost completely around. Rolling back into the snow, she then planted one foot up against the gnoll’s midsection, just below her blade, and kicked outward. The gutted gnoll tumbled backward, axe flailing, and her blade slid free, hot blood steaming in the frigid winter air. Her attacker writhed in the snow, yowling

mindlessly.

Martine’s other attacker, clutching its bloodied

arm, broke and fled as she rose to her feet, chosing not to face her

again.

Somehow Jazrac seemed to be holding his own, but

the gnolls were pressing him hard on three sides. Suddenly the wizard put his hands to his mouth and uttered a tremendous roar, inconceivably loud. All along a spreading line, ice in the trees shattered and fell through the branches.

Two of the dog-men, injured by the magical blast, clutched at their bloodied ears and flopped helplessly to the ground, while another staggered

back, dazed.

Neither Martine nor the wizard waited to

assess the results. As she plowed forward to dispatch the gnoll Jazrac had staggered, the wizard abruptly took flight just in time to avoid Vreesar’s

slashing claws.

To Martine’s relief, the wizard shot upward.

With Jazrac out of danger, she could concentrate on her own battles. She was alone now, facing Vreesar and half a dozen of the enemy. One was dying, one had fled, and two

were

crippled,

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The Harpers

Soldiers of Ice .

at least for the time being. That left the one staggering from the effects of the magical sound blast and another somewhere off to her left. The fiend was the greatest threat, but he seemed More obsessed with Jazrac than her.

Hovering in midair, the wizard’s hands flew as he worked another spell. This time flaming darts appeared in his hands, and he hurled these at the elemental. Unlike his earlier effort, these did not fade but struck the fiend solidly.

The icy creature shrilled in pain as the fire burned into it, and the unfinished magic it had been forming crackled uselessly in the air.

Martine was like the cold reaper collecting its due. A quick slash at the hamstrings of the staggering foe removed him from the fight. Moving past one of those the wizard had bloodied, Martine delivered a swift kick to its jaw, rocking its head with a satisfying snap, even as she faced off against the remaining uninjured foe. “Jazrac!” she bellowed, her hearing finally starting to return to normal.

“How are you doing?”

“Holding my own!” The wizard twirled in midair, his arm raised to cast a spell even as Vreesar finished forming another of its potent ice spheres.

“Jazrac, look out?

The icy sphere shot toward its target with a whoosh and struck the hovering wizard full in the chest. Without an anchor to hold him, Jazrac hurtled backward, encased in a blue, crackling aura, trailing frostlike sparks until he slammed into a thick pine with a sickening thud. Even as he ricocheted limply from the trunk, another sphere rocketed forth, grazing the wizard and throwing him into a

tumble before tearing away half of the thick tree trunk.

Wood and ice splinters showered into the snow, stinging Marfine as they hit.

The wizard crashed to earth with an inert flop, gouging the icy ground in a smear of black ash and red blood.

“Jazrac?’

Heedless of the gnolls, heedless of falling shards, he less of Vreesar, even heedless of the teetering pine ti wavering dangerously on its half-shattered trunk, Mart crashed through the drifts to the fallen wizard’s side. q Harper lay in a broken tangle, his back twisted in a way I was totally unnatural. His clothes were white and fro coated, his finery brittle. The air smelled of blood death. Martine didn’t bother checking further. She kn there was no point.

“Son of a bitch!” she screamed in the direction of the c mental. He/’ view of the fiend was blocked by the trees, I that had probably saved her up to this point. Marti quickly scanned the distance to where she thought she s Vreesar, trying to guess the best route to close on the me ster.

Crack! Crack/Crack! All thoughts of attack were c

short by a rapid series of splintering sounds overhead the cold-blasted pine sheared loose. The shattered tru swung outward, ripping away other branches as it fe Another tree cracked and groaned as its shallow roots ga way, unable to support the weight of the fallen giant. T

forest rang with the echoes of splintering wood. A mass dark green and snowy white descended into the gap betwe, the two adversaries, driving Martine back from Jazrac corpse. The two trees crashed to earth in flumes of pi needles and snow. The grit of broken bark stung her eyes “Woman!” Vreesar’s voice buzzed over the fading roi ‘q’hank you for the stone! I leave you now to get my brot erzY’ From far off, she heard Vreesar’s buzzing laughter the elemental faded into the night. “Tell the little onez I w be back!”

Everything’s gone wrong, Martine

thought miserably. Jazrac’s dead, Vreesar

has the key, and I can’t do anything about

it. I should never have come. I’m not cut

out to be a Harper, and now I’ve killed

them all. The gnomes, Jazrac, Vii, me—we’re

all either dead or as good as dead.

Martine sat in the snow next to her mentor’s corpse in silent despair. The pain in her side, the arctic chill, the days without sleep—all added to her feeling of utter hopelessness.

All she had to do was sit here among the drifts and slowly let herself sink into death. It would be so easy.

It was the yipping calls of the gnolls that roused her. She and Jazrac had beaten back one wave of them, but already another was forming. Soon they would sweep through, following the trail of the refugees.