Tadarus heard the shrieks and wails of dying warriors, bellowing Giants, throughout the castle. The storm assaulted the exterior walls, while a storm of blood and darkness assaulted the interior. This was the heart of the bloody storm right here. This thing before him was not his brother. It had never been his brother. How could he not have known this?
The greatsword fell from his hand. No, his hand was sheered away from his wrist. Sword and hand fell clanging into the dark. The pain washed over him a second later, a burning wave to drown his senses. His warm blood squirted into the shadows. It did not reach the floor. He screamed now, for that was all he could do, held tight in the grip of some amorphous, unseen, vast thing…
Fangodrel – no, Gammir – crouched below the fresh stump of Tadarus’ wrist, blood pouring into his open mouth. A flood of screams and blood gushed from Tadarus. He saw the face of Vireon, his sister Sharadza, and his weeping mother. His father’s face was a gray blur, like an underwater vision.
“Your blood was never my blood,” said Gammir, lips running with crimson. “But it is sweet… Uduru and man, a potent blend…” Gammir raised his mouth to kiss Tadarus’ throbbing neck. “Sweet and potent…”
Darkness stole the breath from Tadarus’ l s Ta potungs. His final sensation was that of a ravenous beast tearing at his throat. Mercifully, he heard no more of the terrible screams that filled the halls of Steephold.
11
He decided to call her Alua, the name of a splendid white flower that bloomed among the Uyga vines in winter. Although she did not speak, she understood immediately that this was now her name. She knew his moods and his thoughts before he spoke them. A simple glance into her onyx eyes, or the slightest caress of her hand, these were their sublime modes of communication. So when he set about putting his plan to work, she went along in her wordless way and was eager to help.
After three days of bliss in the valley where the last days of autumn held sway, Vireon and Alua ran north again into the cold mountains. She took her fox form and he ran beside her. She guided him along the safest ravines and kindest escarpments, going ever higher into the realm of wind, snow, and ice. He found the spoor of a tiger, and they tracked it along a pale ridge. The white fox ran ahead of him, following the tracks of the beast to a shallow cave lair. Vireon climbed to a high ledge above a great precipice, and the fox pranced before the cave mouth.
The tiger sprang from its den. Its pristine hide gleamed white as the breath that billowed between its fangs. It stood larger than a stallion, a mass of rippling muscles, black claws, and yellow fangs. It roared, and across the divide an avalanche fell into the gorge. Now the great cat chased the fox. Alua ran ahead of its snapping fangs along the mountainside. It swiped a massive paw at her, claws raking through her bushy tail. She pounced forward and the chase resumed. When the tiger was almost upon her, she turned back, baring tiny fangs. The cat lunged for the kill, so focused on the fox that it failed to sense Vireon crouching on the high ledge.
Vireon sprang boots first into the tiger’s skull. Its head smashed into the ice and rock, and he fell back against the wall of the mountain. The feline head rose and turned on him. The maw could tear off both legs in a single snap, but it was too late. The force of his two-legged kick sent it spinning toward the precipice. Scrambling, it slid over the edge into nothingness. It struck out with both front claws, digging into the ice. Now it hung there above the black depths of the gorge, struggling to pull itself back up onto the path. Its yellow-green eyes burned into Vireon’s as it pulled itself forward and upward, bit by bit. Its massive shoulders had cleared the edge when Vireon took up a boulder and hurled it against the feline head. With a final roar of defiance, tiger and stone plummeted into the icy gulf.
Alua approached Vireon in her girl form, wrapping her warm arms about his shoulders. She kissed him, and her quiet eyes said, I knew you would let no harm come to me.
They hurried down the mountain and found the body of the tiger on a bed of icy rocks. Vireon skinned the carcass methodically with his long knife. Before the sun had set, he wore its white hide for a cloak, tied about his neck by its front legs. Twin claws dangled upon his chest, and the hollow shape of its furred skull rode atop his own as a crude but beautiful helmet. He gave thanks to the Sky God and buried the beast’s remains v
“Now I look the part of a proper ambassador,” he told Alua. “And this skin will keep me warm should I enter that cold palace again.”
Alua ran her delicate fingers along the fur, and her eyes said, You look like a King.
Back in the foothills, where snow was light and the wind hardly blew at all, he found a thin, straight tree and sliced its trunk clear from the roots. He pared off the bark and limbs, carving it into a perfectly round pole. He tested its strength against boulders and larger trees, wielding it like a staff against imagined enemies. She watched him with infinite curiosity, tilting her head this way or that. Finally, he took the ropes of tendon he had cut from the tiger’s body and used them to secure his knife, point forward, to the end of the staff. Now he had a great spear worthy of an Uduru. He was ready.
Vireon told her with his eyes, Do not follow me. You are my secret. If they capture me again, you may need to free me again.
Her eyes responded, What if they kill you?
His eyes laughed, and he kissed her pink lips, ran his hands through her saffron hair.
“Stay here,” he said aloud. “I will return soon.”
He stalked alone into the highlands. Despite his plea, she would follow him in her fox form, but stay well back from the domain of the Udvorg. She was clever and elusive, his Alua. She was much more that he did not know, but hoped to learn eventually. He turned his thoughts forward, and they carried him into the mountain depths.
A day of following the scattered and obvious tracks of Udvorg hunting parties, and he found the great plateau that was the center of their territories. He climbed the wide trails, avoiding now and then a group of hunters coming or going. Wrapped in his white tiger-cloak it was easy to hide himself among the snowdrifts. One group of hunters lumbered right past him without ever noticing. They were six blue-skins carrying the immense carcass of a shaggy mammoth. He recognized its great tusks as the substance from which the throne of Angrid the Long-Arm was built. There must be vast plains to the north where such behemoths grazed.
At last he topped an escarpment and saw the blue-green spires of the ice palace. He crossed the naked plateau during a snowstorm, the glacial towers growing larger with every step. A ring of frozen peaks hemmed the Udvorg tableland. The sky was a sliding mass of gray and black cloud, an aerial sea pouring tempests upon the world.
When the vast open gates stood before Vireon like the maw of some gargantuan beast, the guards first caught sight of him. There were only two at ground level, though he supposed more must be stationed along the battlements of the outer wall. Eight guard towers lined its forward expanse. He walked unhurriedly through the flying snow toward the sentinels at the gate.
Both blue-skins took up their spears. One hefted a great axe in his second hand, while his companion held a war hammer of stone and iron. One yelled something at Vireon, raising his spear in an unmistakable command. Vireon did not cat {n dhand, wch the words, but the gesture was obvious.
His own voice pierced the wind. He spoke loudly and slowly, so they could understand every word through his accent. “I am Vireon of Udurum! Son of Vod, King of Uduru! I escaped your dungeons days ago! I come to surrender myself to King Angrid!”
The Giants blinked, exchanged a fierce glance, and lumbered toward him.
“But only to King Angrid!” shouted Vireon. “Only to the King himself!”
The blue-skins rushed at him, grinning, their crimson-dyed furs swirling in the wind. He vaulted above the thrust of the first spear, coming down to catch its haft under his boots. The blue-skin’s spear snapped in half. The second guard tried to impale him as well, but Vireon’s own spear came up in a blur and turned it aside.
He rolled between their legs and swept the blade of his spear across the back of a Giant ankle. The guard howled and fell to one knee, while the other swung the big hammer. Vireon avoided the blow – Uduru, blue-skinned or not, were powerful but slow. He was the wind and they were clumsy trees. The hammer cracked open the ice- floor of the plateau and Vireon sliced at the wrist that held it. The Udvorg leaped back, dropping the spear in an attempt to staunch his bleeding. Both sentinels kneeled in the snow, dripping ichor. Vireon tore the battle axe away
