“She’s made that quite clear,” said Caressa.
“He’s got the magic stick,” Wendel began to sing.
“You’re gross,” Caressa told him, not for the first time.
“Yeah, you’re gross-gross, nasty bone-bone man,” said Dingleberry.
“Just keep your distance from Ravenwing,” said Valkimir.
“Oh, I intend to,” said Murland, remembering the trouble the wand had gotten him in with the witch Gurtzarg.
“I hope that we reach land soon,” said Brannon, looking out of one of the portholes at the endless ice. “Sir Eldrick could be at the North Pole by now.”
“The compass says that we are going in the right direction,” said Murland. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”
“Yes, but will we find him alive? I mean, if he is on one of his legendary benders, well, you know what kind of trouble he can get himself into.”
“I wouldn’t worry so much about him,” said Willow. “But those ice elves are sure to be in for a surprise if he goes staggering into their city.”
“Those ice elves sound cold-cold burrr.” Dingleberry shivered.
“Are we really goin’ to meet ice elves?” Gibrig asked, sounding half excited and half frightened by the idea.
“It seems like that is where Sir Eldrick was headed,” said Murland.
“Gods help us if we are,” said Hagus, who still looked a little green around the gills. “I heard plenty o’ stories about those frigid elves. It be said that they can control ice with their minds.”
“The stories are true,” said Valkimir. “But you have nothing to fear. Brannon and I will deal with our cousins. They are not so wild and fierce as many would lead you to believe.”
“I hope not,” said Gibrig.
The companions all enjoyed hot stew for dinner, and as usual, played cards until it was time to go to bed. There wasn’t much to do on the ship besides wait, and the cold was creeping in the farther north they went. There was an air of tension in the small cabin. The companions had set out after Sir Eldrick nearly two weeks ago, and with every passing day, their worry grew.
Gibrig beat himself up about the way he had spoken to Sir Eldrick, and Brannon seemed deeply concerned as well. Indeed, he was sick with worry, and could be found up on deck puking over the rail almost as often as poor Hagus.
The cold grew as they continued, and for two more days they slowly traversed the ice flows of the north, until finally a lookout cried down from the crow’s nest that she had spotted land. But they had been spotted first, for even as the woman’s eager voice gave the call, a horn blared on shore. A moment later, all the ice floating in the harbor came crashing together to block the way.
The Iron Fist came to a violent stop against the thick ice, and everyone on board not holding on to something was thrown to the floor.
“To arms!” cried McArgh as she pulled herself up from deck, red faced.
“Please!” said Brannon as he came rushing across the deck. “Please let Valkimir and me deal with them. The ice elves are our cousins.”
“Yeah? Well they could learn some godsdamned etiquette!”
“You are on a pirate ship, you know,” said Brannon, crossing his arms.
“Have it your way, but if I sense anything suspicious, they’ll all feel the wrath of the Iron Fist.”
Brannon made an unpleasant face and shook the thought away. “Just be cool.”
“Hah!” said Wendel, cackling. “Be cool, get it!”
“Shut up, Wendel,” said everyone nearby, everyone but Gibrig that is.
“I thought it were pretty funny,” he told the skeleton.
“Look!” said Willow, pointing toward the shore.
Murland and Caressa rushed to the bow with the others and gawked at what they saw. Five teams of dire wolves were pulling a small army of elves across the ice sheet path blocking their way.
“Wow,” said Gibrig. “They’re all female folk.”
“And what’s so strange about that?” said McArgh.
“Oh, sorry, I ain’t meanin’ nothin’ by it. It just be…well, where be the males?”
McArgh laughed. “At home tending to the housekeeping and the cooking if they know what’s good for them.”
Gibrig looked confused.
“In ice elf society, the females be in charge, lad,” said Hagus.
“Oohh.”
The sled teams surrounded the Iron Fist, which was now hopelessly jammed in the ice. Ravenwing glanced at Murland, and he saw that her hands glowed deep green. “Be ready.”
He nodded and wrapped his hand around the wand in his pocket.
“Greetings!” Brannon called down in the elven language. “We come in peace!”
“You have trespassed on our territory, explain yourselves,” said one of the drivers as she reined in her team.
“We have come looking for the human knight, Sir Eldrick van Albright.”
The ice elf glanced around at the other females in recognition of the name.
“What is your business with the human?”
“We are his friends.”
“To whom do I speak? Surely a wood elf is not the captain of a pirate ship.”
“I am Prince Brannon of Halala,” said Brannon proudly.
The ice elves exchanged glances. “Prince of Halala?” said the lead driver, laughing. “You are a liar. Prince Brannon was named a Champion of the Dragon.”
“You are correct. And Sir Eldrick was named a champion as well. That is why we are here; to collect him so that we might continue our quest.”
The ice elves conferred with one another, and at length, the lead driver nodded. “You and the other champions may speak with the queen. The rest of you will remain where you are.”
Chapter 7
Tired of Being Tired
Sir Eldrick opened his eyes slowly and was surprised to find that by some miracle, he was still alive. The thick stink of yeti fur permeated the air, and along with it, the coppery smell of blood. The ceiling of the cave was black and charred, and a haze of fire smoke hung there. He could hear the slow crackle of a fire and could feel its warmth upon his back. He tried to remember if he had been the one to start the fire, and more importantly, why he was in a cave in the first place. His memory was often muddled when he woke up from a bender, and this time was no different. He fought through the fog in his mind, which was thick and stagnant, like the smoke hanging near the ceiling.
The memories slowly emerged from the murky depths of his mind. They were disjointed and fuzzy, but he remembered the fight with the pack of yetis. “Kit!” he cried and sat up straight.
“It’s about time you woke up,” said his daughter. She sat beside a fire, cooking some sort of meat.
“Thank the gods,” said Sir Eldrick, lying back against the mound. He rolled his right shoulder, which ached terribly.
The floor of the cave was soaked with frozen blue blood. The furs of the yetis were stacked in the corner—likely the cause of the smell—but the bodies had been disposed of.
“You’ve been asleep for two days and two nights,” said Akitla as she got up and walked over to him.
Pride swelled in Sir Eldrick when he remembered her incredible fighting prowess. She sat beside him, producing a bowl of thick green salve, and pointed at his many bandages. “May I?”
“Sure, but what is it?”
“Mud and moss gathered beneath the northern lights. It will help.”
Sir Eldrick had many cuts, scrapes, and gashes, and he found that the worst of them had been stitched up. Akitla removed the bandages one by one and applied the salve before replacing them with fresh cloth. All the while, Sir Eldrick stared at his daughter.
“What?” she said after a time.
“It’s just…I cannot believe that someone like you could be my daughter.”
She blushed deep blue. “I think you’re still drunk.”
“I have never been more sober.”
Akitla finished tending to his bandages and helped S
ir Eldrick to his feet. He favored the left leg, having received a particularly nasty gash during the fight with the yetis.
“Come,” she said, motioning to the fire. “I’ve prepared a meal.”
“Do I even want to know what it is?”
“Don’t worry, it isn’t yeti meat. I trapped a few snow hares.”
They sat and ate out of wooden bowls with forks that Akitla had brought with her. There was tea, as well as a loaf of dark bread. The young ice elf seemed to be prepared for everything; a large pack, which looked heavy enough to give a full-grown man trouble, sat leaning against the wall behind her.
A growl suddenly issued from outside, and Sir Eldrick perked up, alert, hand instinctively going to his sword hilt.
“Don’t worry, it’s just my team.”
“Ah,” said Sir Eldrick, remembering the dire wolves that the ice elves kept as pets.
“I didn’t want to move you while you were recovering. We are about twenty miles north of Shivermoore.”
“Twenty miles?” said Sir Eldrick, astonished. “How the hells did I get so far?”
Akitla shrugged. “Don’t you remember anything when you…get like that?”
“What, drunk? Sometimes I do. Depends on how deep I get into the spirits, and what kind they are.”
“Do you…remember the conversation we had before the yetis showed up?”
Sir Eldrick nodded.
“Did you really mean what you said? Do you really want to die?”
Sir Eldrick considered that as he stared at the fire, feeling slightly embarrassed. “No,” he said at length. “I don’t think that I ever really did. I just…life gets tiring, you know? And what is even more exhausting is screwing up time and again. The truth is, Kit, I’m not a very good person.”
“That’s not what I have heard.”
Sir Eldrick waved her off. “You shouldn’t trust everything you hear, or read.”
“Then the tales of your achievements are lies? Are you not a legendary monster slayer?”
“I have slain many beasts, and won many battles, but while those things might make a great man in the eyes of the people, they do not make a good man.”
“It is not too late,” said Akitla.
“Maybe you’re right. But I don’t know how I can face the others now.”
Sir Eldrick told her all about the fallacy that was the Prophecy of the Champions of the Dragon, and how he had made a deal with the Most High Wizard to lead the others to their death. She was a good listener, and sat quietly while Sir Eldrick spilled his guts about the death of his father and the many children that he had scattered across the lands.
When he was done, he wiped the tears from his cheeks and laughed. “You must think me weak.”
“All males are weak,” she said teasingly. “I won’t hold it against you.”
“And she’s funny!” said Sir Eldrick with mock amazement. “Well, you certainly got the best of me, didn’t you?”
Akitla surprised him then by suddenly hugging him and kissing him on the cheek.
“What was that for?”
She shrugged. “You seem like you needed it, and I guess I did too.”
“It must have been hard for you growing up a half-human in such a harsh place,” said Sir Eldrick. He didn’t know if it was the liquor, the fight with the yetis, or meeting his daughter, but he found himself more emotional than usual. He forced down the lump growing in his throat at the thought of Akitla growing up all alone in Shivermoore, the only one of her kind.
“It wasn’t easy, but mother said that it would make me tough.”
“It seems to have worked.”
She smiled, dark eyes transfixed by the flames. “I used to dream of you all the time, out there in the wide world, fighting the forces of evil. I was convinced that you would show up some day and take me away from this cold world. When you never did, I began to…I began to hate you. I got in a lot of fights back then.”
“I bet you won them all.”
“I lost until I won, and then I never lost again,” she said with a smile.
“Kit, I want you to know that I’m sorry.”
“You did nothing wrong. After all, you never even knew about me, right?”
“I did not. I swear it. I have not had any correspondence with your mother since I left this place, long before you were born.”
“I wrote you letters…” she said, glancing at him. “My mother said that she sent them to you.”
“I don’t want to start something between you two, but I never received your letters.”
“Then what are you sorry about?”
“I don’t know. I just am.”
“Well, it hasn’t been all bad. Astrila has been a good mother, and never allowed anyone to tease me about being half-human while she was around. But I have never felt like I belonged here. I’m tired of the cold. I want to see sandy beaches, forests, mountains that aren’t covered in white. I want to meet people other than pirates and merchants. I want to drink in a pub and talk to a dwarf. I want to hear the music of the Vhalovian Orchestra in person.”
She looked to Sir Eldrick longingly, and it wasn’t hard for him to know what she was thinking.
“Do you want to come with me when I return to Fallacetine?” he said.
“Do you mean it?” she asked, eyes tearing at the thought.
“Of course I do.”
Akitla practically leapt across the fire to hug him. She pushed away from him suddenly and shot to her feet. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get the hells out of here!”
Chapter 8
A Raving Reunion
Shivermoore came into view as the sun was beginning to set. The city of ice, which had seemed so dark and cold to Sir Eldrick previously, was illuminated by the fiery sunset, and glowed brilliantly against the blue horizon. A horn blared on the battlements as Akitla steered the dire wolves toward the gate, and the guards must have recognized her, for they lifted the gate and let them pass without a word. Ice elves stopped and watched the two go by, no doubt impressed by the heaping pile of yeti furs stacked on the sled.
After leaving the dire wolves with the stable master with instructions for the yeti hides, Akitla and Sir Eldrick walked into the palace to meet with the queen. But when the doors to her audience chamber opened, Sir Eldrick stopped dead in the doorway, staring.
“Sir Eldrick!” Gibrig cried and rushed across the icy floor. He lost his footing, falling on hands and knees and sliding right into the knight, taking him in the knees and toppling him like a felled tree.
Sir Eldrick hit with a thud, but he laughed and shook the dwarf by the shoulders, smiling. “What in the blazes are you doing here?”
“We came to find you,” said Murland, as he, Brannon, and Willow carefully shuffled across the ice to stand before him.
Sir Eldrick took Murland’s offered hand and let himself be pulled up.
“We wanted to say that we be sorry for the way we done treated ye,” said Gibrig, teary-eyed.
“You’re sorry?” said Sir Eldrick. “But it is I who—”
“I told them all that I was in on it,” said Brannon. “They forgave me, and they forgive you as well.”
“It hasn’t been the same without you,” said Willow, giving him a one-armed hug.
Sir Eldrick was overcome with relief. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you all about it sooner.”
“Water under the bridge,” said Murland.
“Now that we’ve all made up, can we get the hells out of here?” said Wendel, teeth chattering. “I’m freezing my nuts off here.”
“You ain’t got no nuts,” said Hagus.
Dingleberry slapped herself in the head and did a backflip in the air.
Everyone shared a much-needed laugh, and the companions all came together for a group hug. “You four are the best friends a man could have,” said Sir Eldrick.
“My father has been quite torn up over his betrayal,” said Akitla, and everyone turned to regard her f
or the first time.
“Father?” said Brannon, looking to Sir Eldrick.
“Indeed,” said Sir Eldrick, beaming. “Everyone, I would like you to meet my daughter, Akitla, Princess of Shivermoore.”
“Hello, everyone,” said Akitla. “I have heard so much about you all, I feel as if I already know you.”
“Good things, I hope,” said Brannon, shaking her hand.
“Of course.”
The queen appeared at the top of the stairs leading off the right side of the audience chamber, and a trumpet blared.
“The queen of Shivermoore, Astrila Glacius,” one of the female guards called, and all eyes fell upon the queen.
She strode down the steps with a grace that puzzled the companions, for her movements were sure and fluid, despite the steps being made of sheer ice and smooth as placid water. The queen said not a word, but walked silently toward Sir Eldrick, stopped before him, and slapped him across the face. “That is for not finishing what you started the other night.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“Yes, you will.”
“Yuck,” said Akitla.
“My fearless daughter has returned from the wild north with her father, and with five yeti furs,” said the queen. “This calls for celebration!”
That night, the companions learned what it meant to celebrate like an ice elf. The festivities took place outside, and though it was cold out, they were provided with enough furs to keep warm, and a fire was even lit in their honor. Overhead, the northern lights lit up the sky like electric ribbons of starlight and mist, dancing with the beat of the elven drums. Songs were sung in honor of those brilliant, ethereal rulers.
The Champions of the Dragon told stories of their adventures to the eager elves, who sat around the long table, listening intently. Males were never allowed to dine with the females, and so the news that the queen was sharing her table with not only sun elf males, but also men and dwarves, had spread through the city quickly, and hundreds arrived to meet the newcomers.
A group of six female dancers put on a show. They skated across the sheer ice with bladed boots, leaping, spinning, and twirling. They used their powers to alter the ice sheets, bending them and turning them, creating a halfpipe that was opened to the companions so that they might see the daring tricks the skaters performed as they went up one side and twirled before coming back down again to shoot up the other side.
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