by David Cook
Then Martine saw the intruder and understood the cause of the gnolls’ panic. It was her tormentor, the creature from the rift, icy bone-white, moving with clicking stiffness as it stalked into the center of the village. Its head snapped from side to side, its icicled brow hiding eyes that swept over the gnolls. The small, rasping mouth clicked together in threatening snaps, while its long arms swung to and fro, thin claws cutting gouges in the hard snow.
Seeing the fiend, Martine paled and promptly forgot about caution. Relying on the confusion the creature’s arrival was creating, she clutched her bundle tightly and sprinted from the shelter of the lodge into the gap that separated it from the gloom of the forest. A gnoll charged past, forcing the ranger to veer madly, but the creature seemed to pay her no mind.
I’ve made it! she started to think as the trees drew nearer.
The second she entertained the thought, the woman knew it was precipitous. Before she had completed another two steps, a rough hand seized her. “Hah!” snarled a harsh voice as clawed fingers gouged into her tender shoulder. Her arm jerked in a spasm of pain and her bundle spilled from her grasp. Kicking and struggling, she tried to break free from the gnoll, but his grip did not loosen. With a fierce twist, she was pulled about to face her captor.
“I thought you might try to escape,” Krote grunted as he held her fast, his amulets jingling as she squirmed about.
“Cyric take you!” Martine tried to kick him, a move the gnoll easily avoided.
“Varka, bring the human,” the shaman barked to a warrior hurrying by with sword and shield in hand. Varka, a short, mangy creature, grinned wolfishly, and with a sharp poke of his sword, urged Martine into obedience. Realizing her chance to escape was lost, she sullenly pretended surrender, all the while still hoping for a chance to break free once more.
“Female, what is that creature?” Krote rasped as they hurried to where Hakk’s warriors uneasily faced off against the intruder. So far, neither the gnolls nor the fiend had done more than glower at each other.
“I don’t know. It’s the same creature that captured me on the glacier.” Her near escape and failure had crumbled the Harper’s resistance.
Krote started to say something else, but his words were silenced by a warm buzzing as the fiend spoke.
“Warm thingz,” the newcomer droned slowly as it surveyed them all, talking as if they did not matter. “Many warm thingz. Good. You will be my slavez. I am your master.”
To Martine’s ears, the claim would have been preposterous were it not for the monotonous confidence with which the creature spoke. It was not a thing of this world, and there was no sure way to say what it was capable of doing. Beside her, Krote sucked in the cold air with a snarling hiss.
An eerie silence fell upon the tribe. Martine had expected outrage, or at least more of the wild tumult that had heralded the fiend’s arrival, but instead the gnolls seemed to go dumb. The warriors in the half-circle around the fiend wavered. Martine assumed it was cowardice until she realized they were waiting. The eyes of the warriors, indeed of all the crowd, turned to their chieftain, Hakk Elk-Slayer.
“What are you waiting for? Your tribe can kill it,” the Harper found herself urging the Word-Maker. Though still a gnoll prisoner, she feared the fiend more.
“Quiet,” Krote whispered. “The creature challenges Elk-Slayer. He must fight to remain chieftain.”
“What? Against that thing? What kind of a challenge is that?” Unable to contain her disbelief, Martine nodded toward the elemental.
“Quiet! It is the way things are done.”
It seemed to Martine that the fiend was as confused as she was by the sudden silence of the gnolls, for it swayed from side to side, glaring this way and that as it waited for an attack. The droning buzz of its voice went higher, perhaps in amusement, as it spoke again. “No fight? Good slavez …”
“The Burnt Fur are not slaves,” Hakk finally roared out. Even before the first faint echo rebounded from the dense woods, the chieftain sprang forward, using two hands to whirl a gnarled club over his head.
Crack! The resounding crash of wood striking bone broke the spell over the crowd. The elemental reeled from the blow, pinkish-clear blood seeping from a crack in the smooth carapace of its leg. The tribe roared in approval of Hakk’s assault, and the chieftain launched another blow while the creature was still reeling. The gnoll ran straight at the fiend, his club pointed toward its skeletal chest like a battering ram driven against a city’s gate.
Just before the wooden club drove home, the fiend twisted sideways and let the chieftain charge past. Long, icicle-like claws flashed, and suddenly the dirty white snow was splattered with red. Hakk wobbled and then dropped to his knees, his fingers clutching at his side in a futile attempt to stanch the flow of blood. The gnoll’s massive chest rose and fell in desperate pants. He dropped his club and doggedly lurched to his feet, sword in hand.
The fiend seemed to be in no hurry. Mockingly it waggled its bloodstained claws, flicking little drops of blood over the onlookers. The gnolls shifted and wavered with uneasiness, but none made a move to intercede. Krote’s hand, firm on Martine’s shoulder, restrained her from fleeing.
“I’ll kill you,” Hakk croaked as he advanced, more cautiously now, having gained a new respect for his foe.
The naturally armored fiend responded with a trilling buzz that Martine imagined was laughter. It was a morbid and heartless humor that the fiend punctuated by clacking snaps of its gleaming jaw. “Come, then, and kill me,” it intoned.
Hakk was not to be goaded so easily, and the two circled round each other. The tribe formed a ring surrounding the duelists, the warriors at the front with their spears and swords held in readiness. Krote pushed Martine, whom he still held firmly, into the forefront. There the shaman fingered his charms and amulets, his lips moving silently. Martine wondered if it was a prayer and, if so, what the shaman was praying for.
All at once the fiend staggered as its wounded leg wobbled beneath it. One clawed hand dropped to the snow as it recovered its balance, and in that brief instant, Hakk sprang forward with a wild, howling rush.
In a blur of movement, the fiend struck, and Martine saw instantly that its apparent weakness had been a trap. As the chieftain’s golden-furred body lunged beneath the fiend’s intentionally clumsy sweep, Hakk overconfidently left his side exposed. Even as Hakk’s sword flashed upward for the kill, the fiend’s head lashed downward, striking faster than Martine could imagine. Hakk’s strangled shriek mingled with a pulping crunch as the fiend’s razorlike teeth clamped on the gnoll’s neck. Elk-Slayer’s thrust was never completed, with the nerves that linked thought to action severed. The pair plunged to the ground, and the air filled with a buzzing roar as the fiend tore at the spasmodically flailing gnoll like a terrier with a rat. Blood splattered the snow. The gnolls recoiled from the gruesome scene, widening the circle around the carnage.
The end came with painful slowness. Even though the jerking convulsions had long since stopped, the creature still huddled over the body, savagely gnawing at the gnoll’s neck. The tribe was held frozen in shocked surprise, the first yips of fear radiating from the edges of the throng. Martine could only gaze helplessly in disbelief, suddenly terrified at how easy it would be to pick her out of the crowd. Warily she tried to edge backward, to put bodies between her and the fiend. The shaman noted her movement and seemed to nod conspiratorially. In any case, although he didn’t let her slip free, the gnoll pulled her back a step into the crowd.
As if on a signal, howls rose from the foremost gnolls. The pain and fear behind their voices was unmistakable. At the dueling ground’s center, amid the crimson-soaked snow, the fiend rose to its full height. Red streaked the ivory armor of its body, and blood glistened from its quivering, sharp chin. One bonelike arm reached over its head, and clutched in those claws was the severed head of Hakk Elk-Slayer, his dead eyes seeming to gaze out upon his tribe.
“Warm thingz!” the creature shrille
d to the stunned gnolls, whirling about to face them all. “I am your leader now. You are my slavez!”
The gnolls wavered, caught between fear and their own traditions. Those closest to the shaman looked to him for guidance, but the Word-Maker had no answer.
As they hesitated, the fiend hurled the still-warm head at the assembled warriors and sprang in a bounding hop upon the nearest gnoll. Seizing the terrified tribesman in its long claws, the fiend shrilled, “I am your master! Vreesar is your master!” Each claim was punctuated by a brutal shake.
“Y-Y-You … are … chieftain,” the gnoll stammered. Gradually the chant was taken up by those nearby until it grew into a fear-stricken chorus of confirmation.
Vreesar flung the quivering gnoll aside with an easy toss and triumphantly turned to survey its new subjects. All at once it stopped and pushed its way through the rapidly parting sea of gnolls.
Martine suddenly felt the burning gaze of the fiend’s eyes. Its foul voiced buzzed in her ears.
“Human, you are here! You must come to my new throne!”
Seven
A biting wind deadened Martine’s limbs as she stood before the dais of the great Vreesar, new chieftain of the Burnt Fur. With its conquest, the fiend had taken possession of Elk-Slayer’s lodge and quickly found the accomodations not to its liking. Heaping a miscellany of wood and baskets at the entrance, Vreesar sat poised on a throne made from a cradleboard laid between two stools. This crude dais was much more to the fiend’s liking, since it was safely away from the scorching fire pit at the far end of the lodge. Elk-Slayer’s furs and robes were banished, eagerly snapped up by the tribe members determined to gain something from the chaos. Instead of rich bearskins, the platform was coated with a heap of caked, dirty snow dug from the clearing. The door flap, formerly sealed with care against the hostile outdoors, was now pulled wide open to let the bitter breeze blow through.
No gnolls lounged half-naked in the steaming heat, as they had the night before. Those tribe members in the lodge huddled tightly together as far back from the entrance as they could, trying to capture the precious warmth of the smoldering fire pit.
It was a warmth the ranger did not feel from where she stood in the bare earth between Vreesar’s throne and the clustered gnolls. Since the occupation of the lodge, Vreesar had kept her near its crude throne. No more than three paces behind her, Krote squatted, waiting for the new chieftain’s words.
Atop the ice-encrusted dais, Vreesar gave no heed to the suffering of its subjects. The fiend was in no discomfort, clearly relishing the frozen winds that blasted through the open doorway. Martine suspected that it enjoyed more than just the cold, for it seemed to deliberately prolong every action as a means to torment all those assembled with the freezing cold.
“Where iz my tribute? Did your chieftain have nothing? You!” Vreesar hummed as it jabbed a finger at Krote. “You wait and wait like an ennchi waiting to tear the hope out of a carrioned soul.”
Martine shivered in cold fear. She did not know what an ennchi was, or a carrioned soul, but together they did not sound good.
Krote must have thought so, too, for his answer was long in coming. “This is Hakk’s longhouse. What he owned is here.” The shaman guestured to the spread of goods on the dirt floor in front of Vreesar. Standing just behind the array of items, Martine felt as if she were being presented as property, too.
The Harper held her breath as Vreesar languidly drifted one clawed foot over the line of Hakk’s goods, pausing to touch a peculiar stone that rested among the dented breastplates, bone necklaces, and wooden carvings. Martine worried about what one sharp tap of the fiend’s toe might do to Jazrac’s seal. The wizard had warned her, after all, that the stone was breakable. One hard rap, and all her efforts to close the rift could end in failure.
The fiend kicked a carving with one taloned toe. “Fah!” it hissed contemptuously. “These are mere toyz. No strength in toyz.”
Martine trembled with relief. Thank Tymora for some small luck, she silently praised.
“Human, I meet you again,” Vreesar droned in chilling tones. The elemental leaned toward her, never leaving its seat.
Like a small child expecting a thrashing, Martine barely nodded her head up and down. In truth, the woman held herself in rigid control to prevent her body from collapsing in a spasm of nerves. There was no point in denying anything so obvious. This creature was clever and perceptive, not like the little one she had slain. There was no hope of fooling it into believing she had not been on the glacier.
“You killed Icy-White?”
How should I answer? This thing knows I did. What will it do if I tell the truth? Or is it trying to trick me into a lie? Martine felt her blood surge with panic. With a deep breath, she forced her body, but not her mind, to be calm.
“It wanted to play rough.” The Harper hoped her words sounded as tough and cynical as she thought they did. Barely suppressed fear made it impossible for her to accurately judge the tone of her own words.
The lodge filled with the fiend’s quavering buzz.
Oh, gods, I hope that’s laughter, or else I’m dead. The Harper could feel her nerves making her begin to tremble. The strain of the last few days made them diabolically hard to control.
Behind her, the gnolls milled in consternation, no more able to fathom the fiend’s mood than she was.
At last the buzzing subsided. The fiend swiveled its glittering eyes, sparkling beneath its shadowed brow, on her. “You close my gate?”
Despite her dry throat, Martine tried to swallow before she answered. “No. What gate?”
“Again you lie!” it thrummed, springing down from the dais. With a kick, it sent Hakk’s possessions flying. Martine bit her lip and tried not to let her eyes betray her interest as Jazrac’s stone tumbled across the floor and came to a stop against the lodge wall.
With jerking, angular steps, the creature stalked around her, each stride drawing it closer to her until Martine felt the crystals of icy breath on her neck. “I want gate open,” Vreesar whispered, constantly circling her. “It iz cold and empty here—nice. Open the gate and I will make you my general. Open the gate and I will give you armiez of Icy-Whitez. You will rule the warm landz for me. I will make you powerful, human.”
Vreesar stopped behind her. Cold claws gently wrapped over the Harper’s shoulders, the sharp click of its fangs sounding next to her ear. “How do I open the gate?”
I’m a Harper. I can’t betray that trust. I must not betray that trust. Martine seized on these thoughts, focusing her mind on her duty as she steeled her body for her death. It would surely follow, the minute she refused Vreesar. All she had to do was say, “You can’t,” and the fiend would fly into a rage, and she would be dead. She knew it instinctively. A few quick words, some pain, and then freedom from this terror. It would be a true Harper’s death.
“I—I don’t know.” They were the wrong words, said before she even realized what she was saying. She wanted to refuse Vreesar, to deny the fiend all hope, but fear overpowered her. Her own death was too close for her to be brave.
“It can be opened again! It must!” The fiendish creature hissed in frustration. “How?” Its claw tips pressed into her shoulders.
“I don’t know,” Martine gasped, her knees starting to buckle as the pain of unhealed wounds flared beneath the creature’s talons.
With the flick of a clawed finger, Vreesar sliced a ribbon of red across her cheek. “Tell me or I cut more.”
The cut’s burning sting made bitter tears well in her eyes. Were she uninjured, it would have been a small matter, but now the cut added far more than it should have to her ledger of pain. “I was never told.” The ranger could barely gasp the words out.
“Uselezz!” Vreesar flung the shaken woman to the ground like a rag doll. Martine clutched the cold earth, relieved to still be alive, her body weak from the questioning.
Vreesar angrily turned to Krote. The shaman was still crouched at the very foref
ront of his people, intently watching the interrogation. His eyes took in every detail as his mind calculated the strengths and weaknesses of the tribe’s new chieftain.
“Did she have anything when you found her, shaman?”
“Only that”—Krote pointed to Martine’s leather backpack in the dirt—“and a sword. It was of no value.”
The hells it was, Martine thought in the midst of her fog of pain. Her sword was made of good magical steel. She had had to fight a pirate lord for it. From where she lay, the Harper waited for the Word-Maker to point out the stone, but he never did. Perhaps he’s forgotten about the rock, she thought hopefully. I can still get it back. Get the stone, escape, and get back to Jazrac—that’s all I have to do.
The fiend snatched up her backpack and shook it. When nothing fell out, it tore at the leather bag with its claws and teeth, all the while growling with inarticulate rage. Bits of shredded leather rained on the bare ground. Metal buckles jangled as Vreesar hurled them across the lodge.
“There iz no key here. Where are her other thingz?” The barbed fiend strode back toward Krote, claws flexing convulsively. Seeing the icy body with the needlelike teeth advance toward them, the gnolls scrambled backward.
“What about the little ones? Maybe they have it,” a trembling voice deep in the throng barked out. The suggestion was quickly taken up by other gnolls in the lodge. Belief or truth had little to do with their agreement; all that mattered was diverting the fiend.
“Little onez? Explain, shaman.”
“The gnomes, great chieftain. They live to the south, beyond our lands.”
“Iz their land warm or cold?”
The question flabbergasted the gnoll. “It’s snowy, the same as here, but their valley does not have the tall ice.”
