Martine's boot lashed out, but it was a little too stiff and slow to catch the agile creature, which scooted aside. 'See, Vreesar, it fears me already,' it chuckled gleefully. It skipped back close, watching Martine carefully. 'It knows I will make it talk.'
'Then do so, pest I hunt!'
With a sinuous leap, the elemental departed into the night as suddenly as it had arrived. The clatter of loosened ice tumbling from upslope echoed its retreat.
Martine tensed as she waited for the last sounds to fade away. The howling wind and distant rumbles from the rift quickly separated them from the world. Human and mephit faced each other at the bottom of the snowy world.
'How will I begin?' the thing across from her chortled, almost forgetful of her presence. 'A finger? A nose? A cut here… or there?' With each question, it mapped out its intentions in the snow.
Preparing to spring, Martine drew in a great breath, a breath the mephit mistook for fear. It was time to strike, she knew. Her fingers dug into the snow until they squeezed tightly on her sword hilt once more.
'How-'
The question was cut clean by Martine's charging scream, bellowed out as if to waken her rigid muscles. Snow burst outward as she jerked the sword free in a wild, slashing arc. Her legs were too stiff, her arms too weak as she lurched to her feet and lunged wildly toward the mephit.
If only she'd been faster, unfrozen and unspent, the ranger knew she could have caught the creature in that transitory moment when it froze in surprise. But her legs sagged under the need to move, her arm pulled the arc of the sword just a little too slow. With the blade still in midswing, the mephit lashed out a clawed hand. Martine heard the tear of leather and skin as the talons swept across the shoulder of her sword arm. Fire and ice mingled as blood rushed from the gashes and over her exposed skin. Pain charged her cries now.
The mephit didn't wait for the sword to complete its crippled arc but lunged forward to meet her charge. Its barbed arms sliced viciously at her legs and left her
sprawled in the snow. Springing onto her back, the imp wrapped its hard arms around her like a wrestler. With one arm, it wrenched her bleeding shoulder, triggering fits of pain, while the other wrapped around her neck and pulled at her hood to expose the soft flesh. She could feel its bitter breath, hear its teeth snap as it struggled to tear her throat
Martine writhed and thrashed, desperately trying to reach the sword that had skittered once more beyond reach. like a wild mare, she bucked and rolled, slamming the little imp on her back against the jagged ice.
'Let go, damn it!' she raged, but the imp clung with stubborn determination. Each rolling smash brought the Harper more numbing pain, at best preventing the little monster from biting home. But it seemed each lunge brought her sword no closer.
I'm not unarmed, she suddenly realized. Twisting, she gazed directly into the imp's face. Its tiny jaws snapped, crystal teeth shining fiercely. Gulping for air, the Harper blew as warmly as she could into the mephit's ice-ridged eyes.
'Burns!' squealed the imp. Its death lock grip loosened as it clutched at its scalded face, and in a flash, Martine clenched James knife.
'Burn, Hot Blood! You burn!' the creature squealed in her ear.
Martine wrenched her bloodied arm free and reached up to seize the creature's forehead. The stretch of muscles triggered fires of pain that she forced herself to ignore. Somewhere she'd lost a mitten, and now the mephit's icy ridges tore at her hand. With a panting effort, she bucked once more, twisting the imp's head back as she did. Blindly she jabbed the dagger over her shoulder. It hit something solid, held, and then dug in farther. The mephit shrieked in her ear, proof enough she'd hit home. With all the strength she could muster, Martine shoved the blade outward, feeling it slide in jerky pops as it cut through something. All at once the blade broke free, and her arm shot out like a punch-drunk fighter's.
The shriek still rang in her ears, almost blocking out the choking gurgle that replaced it. Clear blood, colder than ice water, washed down her shoulder as the arms of the imp broke loose in wild flails. Martine flung the creature off her and spun around to deliver the coup
Martine didn't wait for the creature to die. Already she felt unsteady on her feet, and her wounds were icing up with blood-soaked frost. Concentrating dully, she gutted her pouch, first taking care to pocket Jazrac's keystone, then plastered the leather over her shredded shoulder. A quick inspection gave her no relief, for her wounds were both bloody and deep. She recovered her mitten and gingerly slipped it over her scraped hand.
'I can't wait here. Vreesar might be back.' Talking kept her focused. She looked up into the darkness at the jumble of the slide. Somewhere up there was the glacier wall and the valley beyond. Gathering her sword and her few recovered possessions, the woman began to climb.
Two steps up, one back; two steps up, one back… So it seemed through the long ascent Boulders tauntingly gave beneath her feet, triggering slides that threatened to drag her back down to the bottom of the slide. Ice made her footing treacherous. Wind froze her hands into claws. She stabbed into the ice with her sword like an ice axe, chipping footholds with the point, driving the blade in as deep as possible. The blue light of magic was gone, leaving only the feeble starlight to suggest the way. More than once she
almost plunged into darkened hollows, thinking they were solid ground.
How long it took her to reach the top or how she reached it, Martine could not say. After a point there was no memory of the climb's details, only the need to climb and keep moving. The exhausted ranger wasn't even aware she'd cleared the worst of it until she found herself staggering across the cracked ice plain of the surface. Up here, with all the stars of the night to guide her, Martine could just see the subtle change where the frozen wall sagged to the valley floor, a descending road to safety. She made for it.
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
