Soldiers of Ice h-7

by David Cook

  At least I can die in the forest, she thought morbidly.

  At the edge of the great ramp, Martine heard voices. Dumbly, she froze where she stood, unable to think of cover or safety. She concentrated on the voices. They were guttural and sharp, not like Vreesar's hissing buzz. There were several of them, too a group, though she couldn't tell how many. Numbly she moved slowly closer to the source.

  Then she saw them, no more than twenty feet below her. There were six, perhaps seven gnolls, working their way up the slope, well armed and thickly furred. They were still too far away to understand their words, but Martine could only presume the night's events had drawn them here. Vreesar wasn't with them, and she doubted they even knew of him.

  Perhaps it was blind exhaustion that gave her the idea, or perhaps it was the need to survive. Although the Harper knew she could hide and let them pass by, instead she stepped boldly into the path or as boldly as her wavering muscles could support her and raised her arms above her head in the universal sign of surrender.

  Five

  For a moment, the gnolls stood gaping at the apparition over them, their weapons dangling at their sides. The leader tore back its parka hood and sniffed the air in suspicion, its glistening muzzle quivering to catch the scents of the night. Its black lips curled back from yellowed fangs as it barked orders to the others. In a concerted rush of flapping furs and clanking weapons, they fell upon their prisoner with astonishing haste.

  The five dog-men acted quickly to take control of their prize. Martine was so weak and consumed with fatigue that she practically fell into their arms. She knew surrendering was a risk, but if it worked, it would at least get her off the ice. She denied to herself the other possibility that they just might kill her.

  Under the leader's command, the group stripped her of weapons with brutal efficiency, even finding Jazrac's pretty little knife, before lashing her wrists with a spare bowstring. Her torn shoulder hurt terribly, but at least they

  hadn't killed her outright.

  "What do we with it?" the smallest gnoll in the group yipped finally. The fur of its hide was still raw beige and downy. It was barely more than a cub, Martine guessed.

  "Kill it." The snarl came from a stocky male, the long jut of its muzzle barely visible under the cowl of its hood.

  The leader of the pack, its hood pulled back as it surveyed the glacier, flicked a loose ear in irritation. "No killing now," it barked in gravelly whisper. "Later back in camp. We will share meat with our females." A sharp finger prodded the Harper's side, as if testing the thickness of her fat. "Or maybe we eat it all ourselves." The group broke into a coughing laugh, stomping their snowy feet with approval.

  It was clear her captors didn't realize their prisoner understood every word of their guttural language, knowledge gained from her years as a huntress. Nor was she about to tell them. It might be the only advantage she would get, so it was best to keep her knowledge concealed for now. Doing her best to play dumb, Martine waited for the last of their chuckles to die.

  "And the lights on the tall ice?" the runt asked with a nod toward the crest of the plain. "Do we go closer?"

  The bareheaded one, its thin white fur wisping in the breeze, shook its head from side to side. "We came to hunt, not to look at colored lights. Now we have good game. We go." There was no debate against the old gnoll's decision, and Martine could tell it expected none.

  The group made a quick descent, their keen night sight allowing them to move easily through the darkness. Martine, her bound hands hampering her balance, unable to see the path in the blackness, stumbled along trying to keep up. None of the hyenalike men ever once slowed its pace or suggested concern for the struggling human. Each slip and fall was rewarded with a savage jerk or shove to set her back on course, the fire in her shoulder renewed.

  Even at their breakneck pace through the starlit night, Martine tried to note their passage. It was an attention to detail born of habit. The curl of a drift, the switchbacks of their trail, even the grating shifts of crumbling snow beneath her feet were like islands of reality in a nightmarish sea of ice. The slide they were on was not fresh. She could tell by the way the wind had sculpted the snowy blocks and by the stiff-crusted drifts that nestled in the hollows. Near the base, where the slope tapered off, the path crossed a ribbon of ice that left the ranger confused. Even in the starlight, it glinted with clear purity, reflecting the night back in the smooth ripples of its surface. It should have been jagged and cracked, the way ice gets when it warms and freezes, but she could only imagine it as a flowing river.

  She noticed, too, that there was something about the ice that spooked the gnolls. Their rapid pace broke as they neared its edge, and they crossed almost gingerly. The eyes of those closest to her were filled with fear, constantly straying to one another as if waiting for some hidden peril. Once they were off the ice, the tension faded as quickly as it had risen.

  At the leader's barked call, the pack plunged across the snowy moraine at the glacier's base. They followed the winding moraine straight into the woods, moving along a well-packed track that cut through the waist-deep snow.

  In the darkness of the screening branches, Martine had no opportunity to take sightings and therefore had no clear idea where they were when the pack finally rounded a dense thicket and broke into a shimmering clearing. Five dark arches of primitive longhouses were nestled at the forest's edge. The tang of pine smoke and burnt meat filled the air.

  "Harrrooo!" the pack's leader howled before stepping

  into the clearing. A deep-throated howl blended with the echo. Satisfied, the pack hurried across the trampled snow, past cold fire pits and snow-buried mounds of wood to the largest of the longhouses, an arch of bent wood clad in birch and leather that flapped in the breeze, as if welcoming the hunters with ghostly applause.

  The leader threw open the thick hide doorway and barked at Martine to go inside. She stumbled at the sill, and a gnoll shoved her through, mistaking the near fall for hesitation. The inner curtain was pulled aside, unleashing a thick rush of humid odors, a mixture of leather, blood, smoke, flesh, birch, and sweat. A mumbled snarl rising from a horde of throats greeted her entrance.

  The lodge was filled with warm yellow flickers of fire that made Martine blink. The long hall was draped with furs and hides. The work was sloppily done. The coverings didn't always match up, leaving the frame of woven saplings that formed the longhouse's arch exposed. Elk skulls and antlers hung from the arch as macabre decorations, alongside soot black strips of jerky. The general impression was that of a moldering cellar. The ranger could guess the rest of the lodge's construction a layer of pine boughs for insulation, capped by the outside shell she'd already seen.

  This place is a tinderbox waiting for a spark. The thought came nervously to the Harper's tired mind. Perhaps it was prompted by the source of the glow, a long fire trench dug at the far end of the hut, filled to the edges and beyond with glowing coals.

  The fire illuminated a tangle of furry bodies that covered the floor, a carpet that drew back before the blast of winter air that accompanied her entrance. Tawny, spotted arms stretched curiously while muzzles raised to sniff the new scent that had suddenly intruded upon them. Ears twitched; fleshy lips curled back from needle-sharp fangs.

  Just beyond the sprawled mass, at the far end of the lodge, stood a high bench, the only recognizable piece of furniture in the place. The wooden benchtop was heaped with elk robes and mantles stitched together from the pelts of innumerable sables. Planted deep in its center was a burly gnoll. He dozed upright, robes pulled around him till they fell away from his shoulders like the talus slope of a mountain. Even asleep, his immense size and his passive dominance over the rest of the pack left no doubt that he was the chieftain.

  "Forward," grunted her guard. The command prompted another of her guards to step forward and force a path through the pack, which reminded Martine of dogs or wolves sleeping in huddled mounds to generate warmth as she gingerly stepped thr
ough the narrow passage.

  Unlike the party that had found her, most of the gnolls in the hall were nearly naked, their winter gear hung from the arches near the entrance. Propriety was served only by simple loincloths and ornaments of bone, wood, and feathers. Each was covered with tarnished white fur, dappled with spots that ranged from red to black.

  "What is it?" The chorus of whispered voices slithered through the cramped lodge.

  "Human."

  "Trouble."

  "We kill it?"

  "And eat it"

  'Too stringy."

  "What is this you bring me?" rose one voice above all the others, speaking with presumptive authority. The whispers stilled only slightly.

  "Tonight we found new game, Hakk," the old gnoll boasted, shoving Martine forward roughly. Pain shot through the Harper's wounded shoulder, penetrating through her freezing numbness. With a strangled moan, the woman lost balance and sprawled onto the dirt floor just

  before the fire pit The landing caused another searing stab of pain, which left her sweating, almost writhing before the coals.

  "We trapped it on the tall ice, Hakk," the old one continued. "It was doing terrible magic, but me and my pack mates caught it." He proceeded to tell a tale of their great victory, more fanciful than real. In it, Martine became a powerful fiend, able to make the whole glacier tremble. The gnoll's lies were palpably obvious as it strutted about, miming out the tale. Martine was astonished to note the rapt acceptance of the huddled pack. Martine was in no position or condition to object. As the pain finally eased, she struggled to a kneeling position, no small accomplishment with her hands still bound.

  Just as the mighty sorceress of the tale was about to fall for the final time in the leader's spirited retelling, the one called Hakk cut in. "Enough! You are a brave pack leader, Brokka. You will have the choice meat." With a thicknecked shrug, Hakk stood, letting the robes fall to the floor. Golden fur with fat rubbed into it was plastered smooth against the gnoll's hard muscles. With a casual move, the chieftain sprang across the fire pit, landing in a squat just before the Harper.

  Hakk is not without his share of vanity, Martine noted. That might be useful.

  "It might need fattening up." The chieftain prodded at Martine, reigniting the shuddering pain in her shoulder. Instinctively she reeled back, only to be shoved forward again by strong hands behind her.

  "Kill me and you won't know the danger of the tall ice," Martine sputtered out in a mixture of gnoll and trade common.

  The chieftain's eyes flared, and a deep snarl forewarned her of the savage backhand that followed. Martine barely had time to pull back and roll with the blow, but the gnoll's

  fist still glanced viciously off her temple. Her vision blurred in one eye, and it took more willpower than she thought she possessed to face the chieftain once more. She dare not show weakness now. She had to play it out all the way.

  "There is someone else on the ice." The words came hard as she blinked, half-blind and shivering.

  "You speak only when I say!" the chief raged, but his face gave away his curiosity.

  The Harper took a deep breath and then daubed with her bound hands at a trickle of blood seeping into the corner of her eye.

  "What other? Speak, human, or I kill you." The gnoll's hot, greasy breath steamed against her skin.

  "If you kill me, you'll never know," she whispered. She heard him snarl, heard the clawed arm draw back. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone bone dry.

  "Consider the human's words before you strike her again, Hakk." The voice came from the very back of the lodge, from deep behind the antlers, the skeletons, and the furs. It was clear and authoritative without being loud.

  The chief's arm remained poised. "I asked for no advice, Word-Maker."

  The darkness rustled, and from its perimeter emerged the speaker. As the creature neared, his features resolved themselves out of the gloom. Martine's first impression was of a skeletal mockery of a living thing, even of its own kind. He appeared emaciated, with a sunken muzzle and bony pits for eyes. Mustard-brown skin was drawn tight over hard ridges, while patches of fur hung in stringy clumps from his long jaw. Unlike the others in the lodge, the stranger was dressed for warmth. Ragged ears jutted through gaps in a dirty scarf wrapped around his head. Bandagelike wrappings covered his arms, twining all the way down to his clawed fingertips. Leather straps, gleaming red in the firelight, crossed and wound over themselves

  to hold the rags in place. Where the straps crossed the backs of the gnoll's hands, they glittered with spiked silver. Broad crossbelts of dark brown banded his skeletal chest. Each was decorated with metal studs and beadwork worked into crude designs of birds, wolves, and other symbols the Harper could not identify. They rippled in the lodge's wavering light like things alive. A grimy bearskin cloak was draped over his gaunt shoulders. The incongruity of his dress made him stand out from the bestial crowd.

  The gnoll came forward almost hesitantly into the light. As it had for Martine, the pack parted before the new arrival's advance, shrinking back with his every step forward.

  At the edge of the fire pit, just short of where Hakk stood, the challenger stopped. His black lips pulled back from his long muzzle in a brutal smile. From this distance, the Harper could see that fully half his taut face was etched with tattooing. Two purple-black scars radiated from one eye, the first cutting a wedge from his matted hairline, the other running down the length of his muzzle.

  With the sweep of one long arm, the new arrival threw his heavy bearskin cloak off. It landed with a dull thud on the ground behind him.

  "You may not wish to hear my advice, but a corpse tells neither truth nor lies."

  "It lies about another creature on the ice, mighty chief' We told you the truth about what happened. Nothing else is on the ice." Brokka stepped closer to Hakk, leaning over the chieftain's shoulder to hiss the words.

  The chieftain took it as a cue. "You question Brokka's word, Word-Maker?"

  "I am sure Brokka saw what he saw."

  Clever, thought Martine. His answer ducked the chieftain's challenge. Better still, it was beginning to appear as if Word-Maker wanted her alive. Tymora's wheel seemed to

  be turning back in her favor.

  "Then she knows nothing and is of no use to us. We will kill her for the meat."

  The Harper could see her chances doing an about-face again and refused to remain silent about her own fate. "Brokka did not see the death creature… the fiend. The fiend hunts us all."

  Barely had she finished the words before the chieftain threw his head back and burst into a chorus of baying yelps that sounded like laughter. The pack held silent for only a moment before the young curs began to yip derisively. The joke grew as they drummed the earthen floor with savage delight.

  "This is our valley. No one comes here who does not fear the Burnt Fur. Let this fiend come if he does not fear our might." Hakk's boast triggered scattered howls of approval as the drumming faded in the hall. Then he turned once more to face Martine. "As for you, you will be meat in our stewpots." The chieftain drew a knife of curved bone from its sheath.

  "It is a shame to kill such a prize, Hakk Elk-Slayer," the one called Word-Maker said, nodding toward the woman. Already tensed for the deathblow, Martine grew tenser still as she wondered what the gnoll was up to.

  "I do not fear a shortage of meat for the tribe," the WordMaker continued, so softly he was almost whispering. "You are a great hunter and will lead us to game. You do not need to kill this scrawny human for our pots. Let her live, and we will steal the humans' secrets from her."

  Hakk shook his head. "Humans are weak. They teach us nothing. She will merely be another mouth to feed."

  "But think of the fame you would gain with a human captive in your lodge. In all the tribes, the packs would repeat your name with respect around their fires."

  The chieftain paused and gave a sly glance toward the

  one called Word-Maker. By now the lodge had
quieted as their audience slowly realized something was afoot. "What other chief could rival you?" Word-Maker pressed on. The human is a good omen. Brokka said the ice stopped moving when he found her. She might have great powers." His long tongue licked greedily as the chieftain prowled before the fire pit, considering the Word-Maker's words. The scene swirled before her as Martine awaited the outcome. Blood loss, fatigue, and the raw grate of overtaxed nerves were overcoming the Harper. Only fear kept her conscious. The scene around her blurred until she saw only Elk-Slayer and Word-Maker standing before the glowing pit.

  The chieftain stopped pacing and reclaimed his position on the wooden platform. Martine snapped back to full consciousness. "I have chosen!" Hakk barked loudly to the pack. Ears eagerly perked to listen, the gnolls ceased their murmured barking and focused their attention on the platform.

  "Brokka, you are a brave hunter. You bring the tribe much meat." At these words, the old gnoll smiled toothily at the rest of the pack. Praise from the chieftain probably translated into improved status better meat, better females, Martine guessed.

  The chieftain wasn't done speaking, however. The ranger tensed again, fully expecting him to pronounce a grim judgment for her. "Let the tribe know I offer three fine robes and the first meat of our next kill for the human. Does my hunt brother agree?"

  Martine hadn't enough skill to read Brokka's emotions accurately and could only guess that the gnoll was surprised. Still, considering the honor just accorded, the gnoll was not in a position to refuse. "Elk-Slayer is kind. He gives me more robes than the human is worth." Apparently the old gnoll knew how to play the game:

  "It is good," the chieftain said. The pronouncement ended what little bargaining there was. With cold yellow eyes, he sized up his new possession, still sprawled on the floor. "Word-Maker!" he roared.

  "I am here, Elk-Slayer."