Winter Warrior (Song of the Aura, Book Two) (8 page)

   
“It’s… too… close,” Gribly gasped as he forced his aching, tired body into a run. “They’ll… catch us… at this rate… in minutes…”

   
“Maybe… not,” Elia contradicted. “If we can reach… the old Tribe Circle… we… might have a chance…”

   
“Wha…?”

   
“Have… idea…” she gulped past the rushing air as they fled. Gribly grinned wryly as Lauro moved behind them to boost their speed with his wind striding.

   
“Your ideas… are going to save us… or… kill us…”

   
Elia smiled in the dark next to him, and kept on running.

Chapter Five: What Bernarl Saw

   
Nymphs were hard to kill. Zain were even harder. And of all the strongest Zain, the hardest to kill was Captain Bernarl of the
Mirrorwave
.

   
It was a full day and half the next night before he pulled himself out of the churning waves of the Inkwell and onto an iceberg several miles from the wreck of his ship. He had been lucky enough to fall straight to the water when the Ice Demon had first picked up the trireme, and had been swimming underwater ever since. Hauling himself up onto the ice and springing up into a fighting stance, Berne checked for any immediate threats. When none presented themselves, he walked slowly forward up the snowy ground of the Berg, contemplating his near-miraculous escape.

   
What few of the Zain and even less of the outside world knew was that not all of the southern sea-nymph tribe had lost their ability to Change. Berne’s father had been able to shape-shift between an elfin form and a wispy, steam-shrouded body he had called his Ghost Form. None but his closest family had known it, and when his father had married a Treele girl from the northern waters it guaranteed that Berne would be able to Change as well. He could, though his Other Form took more after his mother’s than his father’s… a fact he was grateful for now.

   
“Not so easy to snip the thread on me,” he muttered defiantly as he climbed the ever-steepening snow-hill. It was an expression born of an ancient belief that one of the Aura determined who lived and who died by snipping purple threads.

   
Yes, it was not so easy to kill a Zain.

   
Berne reached the top of the hill and looked out over the cliffs of ice that stretched up into the night sky above him. No one and nothing seemed to be about, so he tramped cautiously down the other side. His uniform scratched painfully at his Other Form’s watery skin, but he hadn’t had time to do anything about it yet. His coat had been swept away long ago; now he tossed off his shirt and began to Change.

   
In seconds his face took on its old shape, his hair resumed its pale color, and his body reshaped itself into its usual form.

   
“Blasted cold,” he shivered, putting his fluttery shirt on again and wishing he still had his coat. His weapons were gone, too. Blast. He needed to find something- anything- fast, or he was going to starve before his sorry self had a chance to freeze to death respectably. With a resigned grunt he set out towards the icy cliffs.

~

   
The stars crawled slowly across the sky, little needles of light in the utter dark of the world’s dome. It took an hour of tedious wading through snow to reach the cliffs, during which Berne wished for a fire and hot beandrink no less than twenty-five times, stopped to listen for imaginary enemies fourteen times, and said “Blast!” fifty-two times. At last he reached his destination, found a fissure leading inward, and followed it. It led him through a labyrinth of natural paths and shallow valleys in the icy land before dumping him over the edge of a depressed clearing that seemed to be hacked out of the cliffs in a mile-wide circle. He grinned.

   
The clearing was filled with swirls and spires of ice, packed so thick that he couldn’t see past them. That wasn’t what made him smile.

   
Berne shuffled sideways twenty yards, until he came to another crack in the ice-cliff. It was nearly the same size as his crack, and leading from it was a string of smallish footprints clearly made by some nymph child or maiden.
I’m not alone!
was his first thought, and his second was to notice that the footprints went into the crowded hollow beyond. Thirdly, his sharp tracking eye picked out the large smudges and occasional drops of blood on the snow. The nymph had been dragging a wounded comrade- a survivor of the ship, perhaps? The nymph’s footsteps crossed over one another multiple times, as if whoever-it-was had trod the same path two or three times.

   
Berne slid down the side of the depression, following the prints into the forest of sculptures. It was darker than ever down among the fantastic shapes, and the captain made sure to go slowly and warily, always ready for a foe to present itself. It was in his nature to be distrustful, even of his own hope.
That’s what comes o’ being a brigand,
he thought. He had more than one secret to boast of.

   
He saw hints of a clearing in the spires ahead minutes before he actually reached it. The footprints and signs of a dragged body led him to the edge of a shallow, snow-filled bowl. The prints led across it, and after circumventing the bowl’s edge to keep from being spotted by anyone who might lie in wait, Berne followed them farther.

   
In the same roundabout fashion he was eventually able to follow the prints across to the cliffs on the other side, where the shapes ended and the ground sloped upwards. He climbed the hill cautiously, swearing under his breath at the cold wind that suddenly beat on his shoulders after the relative shelter of the ice-forest. At the top it leveled out before sloping down again a bit lower. Up and down, up and down he traveled until rounding one of the larger mounds. The footprints led around it and across a flat, snow-dusted area, stopping at a large crack in the cliff… a crack covered by one of the silky hides usually employed in Treele tribe-tents.

   
The nymph
. Berne was about to rush across the exposed space and into the cave when a flurry of flapping noises from the night sky above him warned of something’s approach. Ducking back around the edge of the mound, he hoped the shadows would be enough to hide him from whatever was coming. It sounded big.

   
With a whooshing and screaming, a large dark shape landed clumsily on the ice between the snowy mounds and the cliffs. It looked vaguely horse-like, but it glinted like it was armored or made of metal, and it had tattered black wings. Skittering to a stop in front of the crack, it crouched low to let its rider off.

   
The moon was shrouded and the stars gave off little light, but Berne had no doubt he was seeing the Pit Strider the prince of Vastion had told him about. A black cloak hung about the upright frame of the man, whose proud bearing and stalking stride gave him away as a kind of person Berne knew well: a person used to killing, and ordering others to kill for him.

   
A spark flared in the blackness. A loud
pop
repeated itself three times, and a smell of sulfur and smoke reached Berne’s nostrils from across the span. He fought the urge to cough, but when he saw what had made the smell, he almost yelled outright. A bat made of flames had crawled its way out of the smoke billowing from the Pit Strider’s hand. It flapped its ghostly wings and launched itself screaming through the hide door.

   
The Pit Strider leaped to the side of the door as a terrific explosion rocked the cave and melted the ice with its force. Hot water sprayed almost as far as the smoke blew, causing Berne to cringe behind his cover. What was the madman doing- trying to attract every demon in the bay? Unless…

   
Unless he doesn’t fear them. Unless they’re on his side.

   
The Pit Strider waited until the explosion had subsided before entering the steaming, misty mess that had once been a cave. Berne’s instincts told him to run while there was still a chance, but he steeled himself and stayed put. He
had
to know what the danger was; had to know what wrathful evil his tribe had inadvertently attracted.

   
The steam from the hole the Strider had blasted in the cliff curled out in misty tendrils towards the snow mounds and up the face of the cliff, shielding the nymph’s enemies from sight.
No use going into that
, his sense told him.
That killer’ll be on you before you can blink an eye. Better to wait.

   
So he turned and loped stealthily away from the scene, hoping the occupants of the cave hadn’t been inside when the Pit Strider reached it. It was obvious the searcher had seen the wreck of the
Mirrorwave
and come to the same conclusion as Berne: there were survivors somewhere among the icebergs. For now, the nymph captain realized he had to find food and shelter of some kind for the night. In the morning he would begin the impossible task of tracking a flying horse and its rider.

   
“Not so fast, my resilient friend…” A voice came out of nowhere. Berne spun around, fists raised. The darkness around him grew instantly more ominous and threatening.

   
“Show yourself…” he whispered.

   
“Fine,” someone said… right behind him.

   
Berne wheeled around to find a pillar of smoke rushing up from a crack in the ice that hadn’t been there before. Without waiting to see what it held, the valiant nymph-captain rushed forward, swinging his fists.

   
A shadowy form separated from the smoke and lurched to meet him. A white blade flashed in the moonlight as they slammed together.

   
Berne felt the Pit Strider’s sword plunge through his stomach and out his back. He felt the blood seep onto his shirt at both ends and knew he had seconds to make his mark before the pain and shock paralyzed him.

   
Before his enemy could pull away, Berne locked him in a deadly wrestler’s embrace, snapping the smaller man’s ribs and crushing the air from his lungs. One hand kept the Strider’s sword-arm pinioned while the other gripped at his hood and hair, trying for a grip that would snap his neck.

   
The Pit Strider made a strangled yell, trying vainly to break free. The yell turned to a garbled moan as he choked on his own scream, and the hood fell limply from his face.

   
“Brattle me…” Berne exclaimed, stunned. “Sand Strider! Is it you??”

   
The nymph’s surprise allowed his grip to loosen just enough, and the fight was over. The Pit Strider snarled and dug his free hand into Berne’s side. It was red-hot and burning, leaving a smoking brand-like mark in the nymph’s flesh.

   
Berne spat in his enemy’s face in parting before his wounds overcame him and he toppled soundlessly on the cold ice.

   
“What the… damnate you, nymph… Burn in the Blaze!” The Pit Strider stood over him, gloating but nearly fainting from his own wounds, swaying like a drunken man and clutching his right shoulder- though Berne couldn’t remember hitting him there.

   
Aura of the Creator, receive me into your golden heaven with open arms… find me worthy of paradise… I beg you this…
In what he thought were his last moments, Berne turned to the simple prayers he had been taught as a child and promptly abandoned thereafter.

   
The Pit Strider above him curled his lip in disgust at his fallen foe. Roughly ripping the pale-hued sword from Berne’s body and stomped away, still coughing bile and blood from the encounter. His fading footsteps were the last thing the nymph heard before he slipped into unconsciousness.