as the Icehart reared and spun again, and had she been beside the Bear, she would surely have been felled by those deadly hooves.
The Icehart turned its attention to Ilmari. Moving its head in tiny circles, threatening him with its antlers, it lunged at him again and again. He darted out of the way, only to find that the Icehart had managed to drive him together with his brother, so that it only had to face one front, not two. The Icehart had them right where it wanted them. Now it could hunt them around the clearing until it could ready one of those terrible breaths to freeze them both where they stood.
Aleksia sought through her memory for any sort of spell that would help in this situation, and cursed under her breath as she realized how woefully inadequate she was at combat. Fireballs? No, she had only seen those, never made them herself. Levin bolts? The same. A magical weapon, sword, lance, shield? No, no and no — they all took too long to create. Lightning? Nothing to call it down from.
Light! she thought, finally, and with a cantrip of three words, caused another ball of Mage-light energy to appear in front of the Icehart's nose. Only this time, instead of letting it build to a steady glow, she made it explode in a wash of brilliance.
The Icehart started back, but Ilmari and Lemminkal also stumbled backward with profane exclamations of pain. “Curse it, you fool woman!” Lemminkal spat. “I can't see!”
Hastily she summoned a spell for clearing the perceptions and graced both of them with it — and just in time. The Icehart shook off the effects of the light and lunged for them, taking care to come at them obliquely so that they could not separate again. They scrambled out of the way, as Aleksia pummeled her brain for something else that might work.
So much of her magic had to do with ice and snow, and she was sure the Icehart was immune to the effects of both of these! A blizzard? No, that would handicap the men more than the Icehart. Ice underfoot? Same. Cold? It was already cold enough to burn, and the Icehart did not even notice it.
She tried a spell of warmth, such as the ones that let her stay comfortable when her throne room was set to discourage Kay, setting it on the spirit in hopes of making it uncomfortable.
The Icehart didn't seem to notice, and the clearing became no warmer.
She saw its flanks heave as it inhaled again, and shouted a warning; both men flung themselves to the side as it breathed out deathly cold for the second time.
This time was worse. This time it wasn't just a coating of ice it left behind; everything in the path of that breath was frozen.
The men hadn't yet gotten to their feet, and she saw it take another deep breath. They would not escape this breath. Desperately, she did the only thing she could think of. With an outflung hand she created a mirror of ice between the Icehart and the two men.
The outrushing breath hit the mirror and — somehow reflected back. The mirror, ice already, became coated in the stuff, but it also sent the breath back to hit the Icehart full in the face. And the Icehart danced away awkwardly, shaking its massive head from side to side as it tried to free face, muzzle and antlers from the sudden overburden of ice coating it. From the way it blundered and slipped as it moved, Aleksia wondered if it had been temporarily blinded by its own power.
But it had not been so blinded that it could not continue to fight back. Even as the men closed in, swords swinging in deadly arcs, it swept its massive antlers at them and nearly knocked the swords from their hands. A shake of the head, and showers of ice exploded in every direction from it, like a thousand tiny knives. It lunged at the men, but this time they managed to split and attack it from the side.
Ilmari missed, Lemminkal hit, but his blade clanged and skidded on the beast's flank without so much as scratching it, and it reared and whirled on its hind hooves and lashed at him with its forehooves. He stumbled backward and it began another of those long inhalations, preparatory to one of its icy blasts.
Urho slammed into it from the side. Both of them tumbled to the ground. The Icehart got up first, but it had lost its breath, and the Bear managed to roll out of the way of its hooves.
The Icehart was now at the far end of the clearing. The Bear shuffled back to the women, standing at their side, head down, a splotch of red blood making an ugly mess of the white fur of the top of his head.
Ilmari and Lemminkal crouched at the side of the clearing about halfway between the Icehart and the women. They were not making a protective stance to shield the women. They were pressed back against the tree trunks, panting, faces cut by the close passage of antler tips and flying shards of ice. They were half ice as well; beards and hair crusted with it, and ice glazing their chain mail. To Aleksia's eyes, their movements were slowed. They had not completely escaped the Icehart's breath, and they were showing the effects.
Her heart was in her mouth. They were all the worse for wear, and the spirit did not even look winded.
The Icehart stood very still. It was impossible to say who it was looking at, given those strange, clouded eyes, but it was not moving, and it was certainly looking at something — or someone.
Annukka was fumbling with the pack on her terrified deer, and in a moment had brought something out. Aleksia was going to caution her against using her bow, unless somewhere in there she had managed to get hold of arrows capable of destroying a spirit, but it was not a weapon that she brought out.
It was her kantele.
Before Aleksia could say or do anything, Annukka had struck the first chords, and with a look of fierce determination on her face, began to sing.
With the sound of the first bars, the two men roused themselves with difficulty and brought up their weapons, moving sluggishly.
She is going to sing a war song to strengthen them, but will that be enough? Aleksia wondered. She searched for the energies of The Tradition; they were here, but unfocused, and all but useless. So, anything she put into Annukka's song would have to come from her own reserves, which meant she would somehow have to do that and create another ice-mirror shield if it came to that.
But with the first words, it was evident that both Aleksia and the men had been mistaken in Annukka's intentions. This was not a war song.
It was a love song.
