Beasts of the Frozen Sun

by Jill Criswell

  “I need to see.” There was so much anger in me, so much fear. I deserved to witness the awful things they’d done to Reyker, as punishment for ever trusting that the men of my clan and my island were noble.

  “No.” Reyker shook his head. “I do not want you to see me that way. I am a beast to them. You are the only one who lets me be a man.”

  Tears pressed at my eyes, but I held them back. “I wish I’d run with you that night when you asked me. I wish you hadn’t come back for me.”

  “I would do it again. I would spend a thousand lifetimes in those damned cells before I would leave you alone with them.” He spit out the last word like it was toxic. I didn’t need to ask who he meant. Torin, Madoc, Draki—the monstrous men who tormented us both.

  He was watching me closely, a question in his eyes. “Did something happen?”

  I told him of my conversation with Torin, how he was marrying me off to some man I’d never met, how he’d mistaken me for my mother. Reyker listened silently until I finished. He pulled something from his boot: a key. The same sort Torin wore around his neck that unlocked Reyker’s chains. “Run with me,” he said.

  “Where did you—no, it doesn’t matter. Tell me later.” I grabbed the key and unlocked his collar and shackles, letting the cursed chains fall to the ground.

  Reyker stretched his muscles with a groan. “Quinlan offered aid, should I escape. We can head to Houndsford, unless you have somewhere else in mind.”

  “When did you speak with Quinlan?” I headed for Wraith’s stall, grabbing his saddle.

  Reyker gathered up anything he could use as a weapon—rope, a horse pick, the shackles he’d just shed. When he was done, he found the tack for Torin’s stallion. “Quinlan came back to the dungeon after escorting you to your room. We talked for a while.”

  “About what?”

  “Our countries. Our people. You.” He smiled at me over the top of the stall, and I raised a brow. That was a conversation I’d have liked to listen in on.

  Briefly, I debated. We could go to Stalwart Bay and catch a ship to the Auk Isles, as Reyker had planned to do before he was caught. Part of me wanted to go to Aillira’s Temple and confront the Daughters of Aillira, as I’d told Sursha I would. But Torin might suspect either of those paths; he wouldn’t expect us to head back in the direction of Stony Harbor, and having Quinlan on our side would be advantageous. “Houndsford it is.”

  Before I could mount, Reyker came and took my hand. “Lira, your father. He will come after us. I could stop him now, but I won’t do so without your permission.”

  Stop. As in kill.

  Emotions clouded my thoughts, making it hard to answer. My father. My tormentor. My captor—and Reyker’s as well. Did I want Torin dead? Did I want what little was left of my father to die? “No. His fate is his own. I want nothing to do with his life or his death.”

  Reyker nodded. “Are you ready?”

  A seed of fear sprouted within me. If we failed, what would happen to us? If we succeeded, where would we go? Who was I if I was no longer Lira of Stone?

  Did it matter?

  I looked up at Reyker. Moonlight skipped along his eyes like stones across water. I knew they held secrets, things he wasn’t telling me. I didn’t care. I pushed the hair off his brow, running my fingers through it.

  It was strange to be this close without bars between us. Here there were no guards, no devious uncles or mad fathers. There was no one but us. Whatever feelings lay between us stirred. Swelled. Reyker tilted his head toward mine, pausing. I trembled, expectant.

  This was the threshold of something. A beginning. An ending. A choice. Once made, there would be no unmaking it.

  I pushed through it, stepping into the unknown.

  My lips parted, awaiting his, unable to form the words surging through me. Yes. Please. Finally. Our mouths met, sweet and gentle, a whisper of a kiss. Carefully, we learned the shape and fit of our merged lips. His tongue brushed mine, and I sighed.

  I’d battled my growing affection for Reyker for so long, building walls around my heart. It was a relief to let them crumble.

  It happened without warning, like an undertow dragging us from the shallows into the open sea. Our mouths forged deeper, growing hungry, insistent. I pressed my body against his. His hands gripped my waist.

  The drunken voices outside seemed to come from the other side of the world.

  We froze in each other’s arms, reality slowly seeping back, and with it, a shy embarrassment. I flushed, glancing at Reyker from beneath my lashes. “I’m ready.”

  It didn’t take long for one of the stable guards to fall asleep. As soon as the other one walked around the side of the building to relieve himself, we snuck the horses out, and then there was nothing between us and the desert.

  We rode through the night, into the morning. The Silverspires were sharp, shadowy vertebrae on the horizon, growing closer with each hoof-fall. Houndsford was on the other side, to the northeast, beyond the pass that cut through the mountains. Above us, the sky was a bright blue, but ahead, it darkened.

  Behind us, other riders appeared in the distance.

  Reyker and I didn’t speak. We pushed our horses onward, until the Silverspires loomed before us. The mountains were barely visible beneath a blanket of mist that spilled down the foothills to where gray rock met the green stretch of desert.

  The team of horses was gaining on us, carrying the Sons of Stone. They were close enough now for me to see Torin among them.

  How had they found us so quickly?

  “Stop, Lira!” the chieftain commanded, taking the lead.

  Reyker and I spurred our horses, wading into the thick fog blanketing the pass’s narrow opening. “Stay close,” he said just before we were swallowed by the white veil.

  Wraith snorted nervously as the mist circled us on all sides, vanishing the landscape. This was wrong. Wicked things hid in the mist—like Destroyers, demons who dragged evil men to the serpent-goddess Ildja to be tortured and devoured. It was a Westlander tale, but it still made me shudder.

  I couldn’t see Reyker; I wanted to call out for him, but I didn’t dare.

  The sound of hooves grew louder, and then there were horses on either side of me, hemming Wraith in, as a hand shot out from the fog and gripped my arm.

  “Where do you think you’re going, beast-lover?” Sloane asked.

  Unwilling to go without a fight, I drew my knife. A sentry on my other side reached to take it, and I prepared to stab him, but something heavy slammed into the sentry from behind. He hunched forward, face wrinkled with confusion.

  His body shifted sideways, tumbling off his horse. An axe was lodged in his spine.

  I stared at the sentry’s lifeless form, bloodying the dirt where he’d fallen. A sick fear overcame me. I’d seen this before. “Ambush!” I screamed.

  Once more, my warning came too late.

  Sloane released me and unsheathed his sword. I ducked as a man flew over my head, leaping from a ridge above us to tackle Sloane. The men collided, toppling to the ground.

  Through the haze, I could make out flashes of movement—Dragonmen landing on the Sons of Stone, throwing some from their horses. I heard the wild howls of invaders, the answering war cry of Torin and his warriors, the kiss of metal on metal.

  How many Westlanders were there? Ten? Fifty? The mist made it impossible to tell.

  Was Draki one of them?

  A Westlander materialized in front of me, trying to pull me off Wraith, and I sank my knife into his hand. He let go with a shriek, but recovered quickly and was back, seizing me, raising his axe. I pulled hard on Wraith’s reins, urging him backward.

  From out of the mist, Reyker’s horse appeared. The manacles were in his hands, a dead Dragonman dangling from the length of chain by the neck. The invader grabbing at me halted when he saw Reyker, re
cognition passing between them. He screamed in fury, running at Reyker, swinging his axe. Reyker barely had time to pull his chain loose from the dead man’s neck and stop the blade with it.

  While the two of them wrestled for the axe, I edged Wraith forward and slit the invader’s throat from behind.

  I had to bend down over the saddle, to hold his hair to keep his head steady, to push hard and pretend I was sawing through a thick slice of pork or mutton so I wouldn’t lose my nerve. My hands shook as blood spilled over them in a warm flood—my second kill only slightly easier than my first.

  Reyker claimed the dead invader’s axe. Around us was a rising tide of sound, an onslaught of shapes. I stared, trying to make sense of it. I didn’t see Torin anywhere, but I could still hear him shouting orders.

  “Draki,” I said. “Is he here?”

  “I don’t know.” Reyker glanced at me, my question reflected in his features. More invaders pushed toward us through the mist, blockading the way forward. “You have to go, Lira.” When I didn’t react, he jerked Wraith’s reins to the side, so the horse would turn, and then he slapped Wraith’s haunches. “Go!”

  Already panicked, my horse bolted, with no regard for his rider. Wraith backtracked through the pass, dodging around the bands of fighting warriors too fast for me to make out any faces, emerging from where we’d entered only minutes before.

  Half the world lurched by in a heartbeat.

  Wraith ignored my attempts to control him. I pressed myself into his neck, clutching the reins. There was nothing but the pounding of hooves, the shrieking wind, smears of white and gray and green unfolding on every side. He ran until the mountains and mist were long gone and we were flying across the hills of the Green Desert, his hooves propelling us forward. Eventually, I remembered my medallion and pressed it to his coat. “In Veronis’s name, slow down, you stubborn stallion.”

  On the verge of collapsing, Wraith finally slowed.

  Around us, moorlands stretched endlessly in every direction. I had no idea if there were villages nearby. My sense of distance had been thrown off-kilter. I rode on, not sure where I was going, but certain if I stopped moving I would fall apart.

  Reyker is alive. Reyker will find me.

  I repeated this, over and over, as I searched for a safe place to rest. I’d been riding for several hours when I spotted tents in the distance. A deserted nomad camp.

  I dismounted and searched the camp for supplies, but someone had pillaged it, tearing the tents, scattering belongings. Among them I found a broken spear, its shaft snapped in half. I tucked it into Wraith’s saddle.

  The sounds of horses made me go still. I motioned for Wraith to kneel behind a tent, and I peered around it as the horses came into view over the top of a rocky knoll. Two Westlanders, riding mounts branded with a triad of swords. Over the haunches of each horse was a body, tied up. Sons of Stone. One man was limp, but the other struggled—even from this distance, I recognized the gruff sound of Sloane’s voice as he cursed at the Westlanders. The invaders leaped off the horses, hobbled them with rope, and dragged their captives into a hole in the side of the knoll. The yawning mouth of a cave.

  I could leave them. I owed them nothing. But they were my kinfolk, and it didn’t matter that they hated me. I wouldn’t abandon them to be slaughtered.

  Leaving Wraith at the camp, I made my way to the cave. “Help me, Silarch,” I beseeched the goddess-mother. “Grant me the courage and strength of a true warrior.”

  Gripping the broken spear in one hand and my knife in the other, I took a deep breath and stepped through the crevice. The throat of the cave was narrow, but it expanded the deeper I went, until I stood inside a nook the size of my bedroom. A single candle burned, illuminating the earthen vault. Food and furs were piled along the walls. There was more light ahead, and muffled voices.

  The passage tapered once more before swelling into a wide, lofty cavity, as spacious as a cottage. A small fire blazed in a pit. Glossy fingers of rock protruded from the floor and hung like amberous icicles from the ceiling high above.

  Sloane and the other sentry were tied up at the rear of the cave, with two Westlanders looming over them. I inched closer, raising the spear.

  Sloane noticed me, his eyes widening in surprise. Giving me away.

  The Westlanders whirled, already swinging their axes. I dropped to my knees as a blade whisked above my head, stabbing my spear into the larger of the two men.

  The invader grunted. Grabbing the shaft of the spear, he wrenched it from his belly with a wet slurp and tossed it aside like it was no more than a splinter. He lumbered toward me, firelight splashing across his features.

  “Run!” Sloane said.

  The invader’s long hair was matted, his face heavily scarred. He was tall and thick, with limbs like tree trunks. The widening gap of his mouth revealed rows of teeth filed down to fangs. When he reached for me, I sliced at him with the knife. He sidestepped my strike and grabbed my wrists, tearing the weapon from my fingers as he slung me to the floor.

  Sloane kept shouting at me to run, even though it was too late.

  The invader leered at me with sharp-edged eyes that promised pain. The Dragonman who had beheaded the men of Reyker’s village.

  The executioner.

  “When you were a wee babe, did someone drop you on your head?” Sloane asked. We leaned against the cave wall, wrists tied behind our backs. “Because there’s no other explanation for how you could be so stupid.”

  “Shut your ungrateful mouth. I came here to rescue you.”

  “Oh, good! Well, get on with it then.”

  “Tystille! ” shouted the older invader stationed at the opening to the passageway. This man’s face was familiar to me as well, from Reyker’s memories. Einar—one of the few honorable Dragonmen.

  Sloane dropped his voice to a whisper. “What’s he saying?”

  “He wants you to shut your ungrateful mouth too,” I whispered back.

  “Can you really understand them?”

  “Mostly.”

  After I was caught, the Dragonmen stood over me, arguing. The executioner—Ulver, his name was—had growled and laughed when he found the skoldar on my wrist as he bound my hands together. Some of the men’s words were gibberish to me, but I’d understood enough to know Sloane and I were hostages. The invaders planned to ransom us to our clan.

  The other sentry, captured alongside Sloane, had succumbed to his wounds. The Dragonmen left his body lying near us to serve as a warning.

  Sloane didn’t know what happened to the rest of the party. The Sons of Stone had scattered, some pushing through the mountain pass, others backtracking into the desert, some still on horseback, others dragged off and fighting on foot. The invaders had split up to pursue them. “That ugly beast ran me down,” Sloane said, pointing his chin in Einar’s direction. “One minute we were fighting, the next I woke up tied to the back of a horse.”

  There was a noise at the cave entrance. Ulver tromped up the passage, returning with more goods he’d stolen from a nomad camp, tossing weapons and food and clothing in a pile. The wound I’d given him seemed to bother him no more than an insect bite, but it had angered him that a Glasnithian girl managed to injure him. He glared at me, argued more with Einar. “She’s more valuable unharmed,” Einar was saying.

  “I just want to play with her,” Ulver said. “I want to hear her scream.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Sloane pressed his arm against mine. “I’m sorry I called you beast-lover.” He seemed to be apologizing for much more.

  “It’s all right.”

  When I opened my eyes, Ulver was sneering at me, licking his lips. Einar tried to hold him back, but Ulver shoved the older invader away, ordering him to go guard the cave’s entrance. Sloane fought for me too, throwing himself into the Dragonman. It was short-lived, ending with t
he Son of Stone on the ground, an axe buried in his gut.

  “Sloane!” I screamed as Ulver grabbed me.

  The Westlander bit through my bindings with his fangs and grinned, scraps of rope stuck between his sharp teeth. He wanted me free to fight. It was no fun if the deer didn’t run. I finally understood how Reyker felt, being treated like an animal.

  I ran, but I only made it a few steps before Ulver’s hands closed around my arms. I fought, knowing it was what he wanted, unable to deny him the satisfaction. I punched and kicked, scratched and bit, until he let go, only to chase me again. Laughing, he toyed with me—letting me attack him, releasing me, recapturing me.

  “Skriga,” he said. Scream.

  I bit my tongue.

  He pinned me against the rock wall. His jaw widened, and those inhuman teeth darted toward my neck.

  Grappling for strength, I let go of the present, shutting myself off from Ulver, sliding into a place where he couldn’t touch me: memories from childhood, of Mother holding me after I’d woken from a nightmare. This was just another nightmare. It would end.

  It was already ending.

  The invader stilled. He clamped a hand over my mouth, listening to something. Voices echoed from the front of the cave—Einar, speaking to someone in Iseneldish.

  My skoldar prickled with warmth.

  Not everything they said made sense, but the context was clear and their inflections spoke as loud as their words, making it easy to fill in the gaps.

  “I’ve come for your hostage,” Reyker said to Einar. “Where is the girl?”

  “What’s become of you, Reyker?” The Dragonman sounded sad. Disappointed. “We thought you dead. We mourned. And here you are, alive, killing your own to protect these dogs, wearing their mark.” I imagined him pointing at Reyker’s slave-brand. “You sicken me.”

  “Don’t be so quick to judge, Einar. Let me explain.”

  “I saw you kill men you once fought beside. What more do I need to know?” I heard him stand, heard the slide of steel pulled from leather.