were icebergs bobbing around her shoulders.
She put up a fur-lined gloved hand and reached for the next fin up. The water, while making her soaking clothes heavier, supported some of her weight. She managed to pull herself up to the next fin. And the next. And then here was the rump, and she had to be careful — no more footholds. Instead she grabbed for handholds and found something with her left hand. A broken strap from the hay carrier.
Not a good idea — in retrospect.
For a few minutes that qualified as among the worst in her life she was showered with hay, pounded with rocks, and smothered in the dust of old dung.
When it was finally over she looked around, sneezing and coughing, to find that she was still on the thurg. The tickle stick had been broken but enough remained for her to use. Stefan was frantically asking, both aloud and by telepathy, if she was all right. Bonnie was skating back and forth like a Tinker Bell guide, and Damon was cursing at Bonnie to get back to land and stay there.
Meanwhile Elena was inching up the rump of the thurg. She made it through the crushed supply basket. She finally reached the thurg’s summit, and she settled just behind the domed head, in the seat where a driver would sit.
And then she tickled the thurg behind the ears.
“Elena!” Stefan shouted, and then Elena, what are you trying to do?
“I don’t know!” she shouted back. “Trying to save the thurg!”
“You can’t,” Damon interrupted Stefan’s answer in a voice as cold and still as the place they were in.
“She can make it!” Elena said fiercely — precisely because she herself was having doubts about whether the animal could. “You could help by pulling on her bridle.”
“There’s no point,” Damon shouted, and turned about-face, walking quickly into the mist.
“I’ll give it a try. Throw it out in front of her,” Stefan said.
Elena threw the knotted bridle as hard as she could. Stefan had to run almost to the edge of the ice to grab it before it fell in. Then he held it aloft triumphantly. “Got it!”
“Okay, pull! Give her a direction to start in.”
“Will do!”
Elena tapped Biratz again behind her right ear. There was a faint rumble from the animal and then nothing. Elena could see Stefan straining at the bridle.
“Come on,” Elena said, and slapped sharply with the stick.
The thurg lifted up a giant foot, placed it farther on the ice, and struggled. As soon as she did, Elena smacked hard behind the left ear.
This was the crucial moment. If Elena could keep Biratz from crushing all the ice between her back legs, they might have a chance.
The thurg tentatively lifted her left hind leg and stretched it until it made contact with the ice.
“Good, Biratz! Now!” Elena shouted. Now if Biratz would only surge forward…
There was a great upheaval underneath her. For several minutes Elena thought that perhaps Biratz had broken through the ice with all four legs. Then the thrashing changed to a rocking motion and suddenly, dizzyingly Elena knew that they had won.
“Easy, now, easy,” she called to the animal, giving her a gentle tickle with the stick. And slowly, ponderously, Biratz moved forward. Her domed head drooped farther and farther as she went, and she foundered at the edge of a bank of mist, breaking the ice again. But there she only sank a few inches before meeting mud.
A few more steps and they were on solid ground. Elena had to suck in her breath to stifle a scream as the thurg’s domelike head slumped, giving her a short and scary ride to where the tusks re-curved on themselves. Somehow she slid right between them and had to hastily scramble off Biratz’s trunks.
“It was pointless, you know, doing that,” Damon said from somewhere in the mist beside her. “Risking your own life.”
“What d-do you mean p-pointless?” Elena demanded. She wasn’t frightened; she was freezing.
“The animals are going to die anyway. The next trial is one they can’t manage and even if they could, this isn’t a place where anything grows. Instead of a quick clean death in the water, they’re going to starve, slowly.”
Elena didn’t answer; the only answer she could think of was, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” She had stopped shivering, which was a good thing, because a moment ago her body had felt as if she might shake herself apart.
Clothes, she thought vaguely. That was the problem. It certainly couldn’t be as cold here in the air as it had been in that water. It was her clothes that were making her so cold.
She began, with numb fingers, to take them off. First, she unfastened her leather jacket. No zippers here: buttons. That was a real problem. Her fingers felt like frozen hot dogs, and only nominally under her direction. But somehow or other she managed to undo the fastenings and the leather dropped to the ground with a muffled thump — it had taken a layer of her inner fur off with it. Ick. The smell of wet fur. Now, now she had toBut she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything because someone was holding her arms. Burning her arms. Those hands were annoying, but at least she knew who they belonged to. They were firm and very gentle but very strong. All that added up to Stefan.
Slowly, she raised her dripping head to ask Stefan to stop burning her arms.
But she couldn’t. Because on Stefan’s body there was Damon’s head. Now that was funny. She’d seen a lot of things that vampires could do, but not this swapping heads business.
“Stefan-Damon — please stop,” she gasped between hysterical whoops of laughter. “It hurts. It’s too hot!”
“Hot? You’re frozen, you mean.” The deft, searing hands were rubbing up and down her arms, pushing back her head to rub her cheeks. She let it happen, because it seemed to be only sense that if it was Damon’s head, they were Stefan’s hands. “You’re cold but you’re not shivering?” a grim Damon-voice said from somewhere.
“Yes, so you see I must be warming up.” Elena didn’t feel very warmed up. She realized that she still had on a longer fur garment, one that reached to her knees under her leather breeches. She fumbled with her belt.
“You’re not warming up. You’re going into the next stage of hypothermia. And if you don’t get dry and warm right now, you’re going to die.” Not roughly, he tilted her chin up to look into her eyes. “You’re delirious now — can you understand me, Elena? We need to really get you warm.”
Warm was a concept as vague and faraway as life before she had met Stefan.
But delirious she understood. That was not a good thing. What to do about it except laugh?
“All right. Elena, just wait for a moment. Let me find—” In a moment he was back.
Not quick enough to stop her from unwrapping the fur down to her waist, but back before she could get her camisole off.
“Here.” He stripped off the damp fur and wrapped a warm, dry one around her, over her camisole.
After a moment or two she began to shiver.
“That’s my girl,” Damon’s voice said. It went on: “Don’t fight me, Elena. I’m trying to save your life. That’s all. I’m not going to try to do anything else. I give you my word.”
Elena was bewildered. Why should she think that Damon — this must be Damon, she decided — would want to hurt her?
Although he could be a bastard sometimes…
And he was taking off her clothes.
No. That shouldn’t be happening. Definitely not. Especially since Stefan must be somewhere around.
But by now Elena was shivering too hard to talk.
And now that she was in her underwear, he was making her lie down on furs, tucking other furs around her. Elena didn’t understand anything that was happening, but it was all starting not to matter. She was floating somewhere outside herself, watching without much interest.
Then another body was slipping in under the furs. She snapped back from the place she had been floating. Very briefly she got a look at a bare chest. And then a warm, compact body slid into the makeshift sleeping bag with her. Warm, hard arms went around her, keeping her in contact all over her body.
Through the mist she vaguely heard Stefan’s voice.
