'Can you use it, Krote? Can you use it?' the Harper asked eagerly. Everything depended on his answer.
Behind the gnoll, like the slave who warned the king of his own mortality, Jouka softly added his own words: 'Remember, dog-man. My sword is faster than-' Whaaaam!
All at once every ounce of air in Martine's lungs feit as if it had been sucked out of her. The shock knocked her lrgs completely out from under her. The next thing she knew she and the others were sprawled across a hard abas of ice, nearly blinded by the glaring reflection of sunlight morning air felt colder than it had been mere seconds ago 'Gods!' the Harper swore.
'What happened?' 'Where are-'
'There,' Krote rasped, pointing his long arm toward a ridge of upheaved ice, the edge of a great frozen crater in the center of a frozen plain.
'The glacier,' Martine mouthed in an awed whisper. 'We're here.' Slowly she stood up, like a sailor home from the sea adjusting his legs to shore. 'Me others rose, their expressions awed. Krote stared at the ring on his finger. Vil kept his eyes on the ridge and adjusted his gear, while little Jouka felt himself over, as if checking to see that all his parts had survived in one piece.
'I bring you here as I said I would,' the shaman said. 'Now what?' Vil queried.
Martine shaded her eyes and scanned the ridge. 'Now we find Vreesar. Up there, I think.' 'Where?' Jouka asked.
Vid studied the waste. 'Mats a lot of territory, Martine.' 'Well just have to look,' Martine said helplessly. She started trudging in the crater's direction.
Krote growled. 'I do not waste time searching. Woman, where are my charms?'
'What are you talking about?'
Word-Maker snapped his teeth in irritation. 'My signs of Gorellik… where are they?'
'I have them, dog-man,' Jouka answered unexpectedly. 'Give them to me.'
'Do it, Jouka,' Martine ordered.
The gnome grudgingly handed over a leather pouch. Taking out the iron fetish of his god, the shaman held it in his hands while he mumbled a prayer. When he had finished, the gnoll held the charm out and carefully turned around in a circle. Halfway through, he stopped and pointed farther up the crater wall. ''There-not far. Gorellik has given me a sign.' _
Martine guessed the shaman had used a spell to find things. She'd seen priests use them before, though only for simple searches such as finding a peasant's lost axe or a merchants stolen purse. It had worked then, and she didn't doubt its effectiveness now. 'Let's go.' Shouldering a pack, the Harper began scrambling over the uneven ice as fast as she could manage.
After only fifty yards, the group came to afresh trail concealed beyond a pressure ridge. The tracks, large and clawed, were unmistakably Vreesar's, and they were headed toward the crater's rim.
'Too late!' Jouka cried.
Martine seized the little warrior and pushed him forward. 'Not yet the tracks are fresh. If we hurry-'
'Up there!' Vil shouted, scanning the slope. The
elemental wasn't more than a hundred yards away, almost to the lip of the shattered rift. There was no indication it had seen the group, although there was nothing to prevent it from turning and seeing them at any time.
The man broke into a sprint, leaving the others behind. Martine followed at a dead run, but her shorter legs could not keep up with the long-striding-warrior. Jouka lagged even farther behind, struggling in the snow and ice, while the gnoll hung to the rear.
'Vil, wait!' the Harper shouted. 'We should attack together.'
The man kept running. 'We've got to stop it now, before it can break the stone,' he shouted back.
'Damn it, Vil,' the woman huffed as she thrashed after him, 'don't be so… paladinish!'
The elemental evidently heard something, and it turned to steal a look in their direction.
'You!' Vreesar shrilled as the charging warriors bounded across the icy field toward their enemy Although the fiend could have meant Vil, Martine felt the creatures gaze-fixed on her. 'Too late, humanz!'
The Harper was still several long strides behind Vil when the elemental held up Jazrac's blood-black stone, clutched in the viselike grip of its fingers. There was no time left, no hope of snatching the key from Vreesar's grasp before it could crush the fragile rock.
'No!' Martine shouted as she flung her sword in desperation. The long sword tumbled awkwardly toward the fiend. 'Please, Tymora-' she started to pray.
The goddess of luck must have heard her plea, for the iron hilt of her tumbling blade struck the elemental solidly across the shoulder, knocking its arm wide. The stone, clamped in Vreesar's fingertips, jarred loose and tumbled into the snow.
Before the fiend could recover, Vil sprang upon it, the man's sword cutting a brilliant arc of sunlight as he slashed. Steel rang as the warrior struck the elemental's hard carapace. Vreesar shrieked as the sword pierced the ice creature's shell with a noise like the popping of a lobster being shelled.
'Vil! Look out!' the woman screamed.
The warning came too late. Vil was drawing back his sword for another swing when the elemental slashed its glittering claws across the man's head. Martine heard the sound of tearing flesh, and Vil's head snapped back. His muscles rubbery, the former paladin staggered a few steps before collapsing to the ice, the long sword dropping from his grasp and skittering across the ice. Blood streamed from a long gash in his helm and the shredded flesh of his cheek. The slash had laid his jaw open to teeth and bone, so that when he tried to scream, the cries only made gurgling noises with no mouth to shape them. Nonetheless the warrior lunged for the elemental, desperately hugging the freezing creature in his grasp.
Martine groped for Vil's sword, the only weapon close at hand. As she searched futilely, afraid to take her eyes off the fiend, the creature shaped its tiny mouth in a mockery of a smile. Sparkling fire formed into a ball between Vreesar's fingertips even as Vil tried in vain to pull the creature down.
'Let go, Vil!' Martine shouted, helpless to stop the fiend. 'It endz, human,' Vreesar snarled. With a sudden jab, it shoved the frozen ball down Vil's breastplate and hurled the man aside. Vil's torn face barely had a chance to register confused surprise before he was pitched agonizingly against an icy upthrust. A repercussive roar filled the air. Metal shrieked as Vil's breastplate burst in bloody ruptures, blasted by the ice-splintered explosion it contained. The man heaved with a single twitch, then flopped, his shattered body barely contained by the twisted metal shell.
'Vil!' Martine screamed again. Tears blinded her eyes. She scrambled forward, anguish giving her strength. The swirling snow kicked up by the blast uncovered a glint of metal, and her hand settled on the cool steel of Vil's sword.
Using the weapon like a cane, Martine heaved unsteadily to her feet. Rage fought with tears as she faced the fiend. Martine wanted to vent her hatred of the creature more than she had ever wanted to strike out at anything in all the world. Stumbling over the snow, the Harper pulled her arm back to thrust. The elemental was distracted by its own wound, a clean split in its hardened shell, so Martine managed to get close enough to hear its heaving gasps and smell the murderer's freezing aura
She wanted to see its eyes, to see if there would be fear in them. She hoped the elemental would be afraid, afraid of its own death.
'Vreesar,' she whispered.
The fiend looked up, and their eyes met, its orbs tiny and almost hidden behind an icy fringe. The elenwaW thrust its hand forward, already crackling with energy, but mar
tine knew that trick and batted it away with a fast swat Before the creature could recover, the Harper slammed her sword forward, throwing all her weight behind it. The sword tip skidded and then found a gap where the hip met the torso and sliced inward. The creature reeled back, and Martine, still staring eye to eye, fell forward with it. They hit the ground with a bone-breaking impact that threw the Harper to the side. Vreesar's magical ice ball slipped from its grasp and rolled down the slope.
Crackle-booom!
The blast's shock wave stunned Martine, and the ice needles tore at her back, but her prone position saved her from the worst of the blast. Vreesar's knee hit her in the gut, and she flipped away to land painfully in a jagged bed of hard ice.
