Swords and Ice Magic

The red flare died. Pshawri came down rather jauntily from the top and reported to his dread captain, who dismissed him with a glare which was unexpectedly terminated by a broad wink and the command to burn another flare at the next bell, or demi-hour. Then turning once more to Ourph, the Mouser spoke low: “Talking of wizards, do you know of Khahkht?”

The ancient let five heartbeats go by, then croaked, “Khahkht is Khahkht. It is no tribal sorcerer, ‘tis sure. It dwells in farthest north within a dome — some say a floating globe — of blackest ice, from whence It watches the least deeds of men, devising evil every chance It gets, as when the stars are right — better say wrong — and all the Gods asleep. Mingols dread Khahkht and yet… whene'er they reach a grand climacteric they turn to It, beseech It ride ahead before their greatest, bloodiest centaurings. Ice is Its favored quarter, ice Its tool, and icy breath Its surest sign save blink.”

“Blink?” the Mouser asked uneasily.

“Sunlight or moonlight shining back from ice,” the Mingol replied. “Ice blink.”

A soft white flash paled for an instant the dark, pearly fog, and through it the Mouser heard the sound of oars — mightier strokes than those of Flotsam's sweeps and set in a more ponderous rhythm, yet oars or sweeps indubitably, and swiftly growing louder. The Mouser's face grew gladsome. He peered about uncertainly. Ourph's pointing finger stabbed dead ahead. The Mouser nodded, and pitching his voice trumpet-shrill to carry, he hailed forward, “Fafhrd! Ahoy!”

There was a brief silence, broken only by the beat of Flotsam's sweeps and of the oncoming oars, and then there came out of the fog the heart-quickening though still eerie cry, “Ahoy, small man! Mouser, well met in wildering waters! And now — on guard!” The Mouser's glad grin grew frantic. Did Fafhrd seriously intend to carry out in fog his fey suggestion of a feigned ships'-battle? He looked with a wild questioning at Ourph, who shrugged hugely for one so small.

A brighter white blink momentarily lightened the fog ahead. Without pausing an instant for thought, the Mouser shouted his commands. “Loadside sweeps! Pull water! Yarely! Steerside, push hard!” And unmindful of the Mingol manning it, he threw himself at the tiller and drove it steerside so that Flotsam's rudder would strengthen the turning power of the loadside sweeps.

It was well he acted as swiftly as he did. From out the fog ahead thrust a low, thick, sharp-tipped, glittering shaft that would otherwise have rammed Flotsam's bow and split her in twain. As it was, the ram grazed Flotsam's side with shuddering rasp as the small ship veered abruptly loadside in response to the desperate sweeping of its soldier-thieves.

And now, following its ram, the white, sharp prow of Fafhrd's ship parted the gleam-shot fog. Almost incredibly lofty that prow was, high as a house and betokening ship as huge, so that Flotsam's men had to crane necks up at it and even the Mouser gasped in fear and wonder. Fortunately it was yards to steerward as Flotsam continued to veer loadward, or else the smaller ship had been battered in.

Out of the fog dead ahead there appeared a flatness traveling sideways. A yard above the deck, it struck the mast, which might have snapped except that the flatness broke off first and there dropped with a clash at the Mouser's feet something which further widened his eyes: the great ice-crusted blade and some of the loom of an oar twice the size of Flotsam's sweeps, and looking for all the world like a dead giant's fingernail.

The next huge oar missed the mast, but struck Pshawri a glancing blow and sent him sprawling. The rest missed Flotsam by widening margins. From the vast and towering, white, glittering bulk already vanishing in the fog there came a mighty cry: “Oh coward! To turn aside from battle challenge! Oh, crafty coward! But go on guard again! I'll get you yet, small one, howe'er you dodge!”

Those huge, mad words were followed by an equally insane laughter. It was the sort of laughter the Mouser had heard before from Fafhrd in perilous battle plights, now madder than ever, fiendish even, but it was loud as if there were a dozen Fafhrds voicing it in unison. Had he trained his berserks to echo him?

A clawlike hand gripped the Mouser's elbow hard. Then Ourph was pointing at the big, broken oar end on the deck. “It's nought but ice.” The old Mingol's voice resonated with superstitious awe. “Ice forged in Khahkht's chill smithy.” He let go Mouser and, swiftly stooping, raised the thing in black-mitted hands widely spaced, as one might a wounded deadly serpent, and of a sudden hurled it overboard.

Beyond him, Mikkidu had lifted Pshawri's shoulders and bloodied head from the deck. But now he was peering up at his captain over his still, senseless comrade. In his wild eyes was a desperate questioning.

The Mouser hardened his face. “Sweep on, you sluggards,” he commanded measuredly. “Push strongly. Mikkidu, let crewmen see to Pshawri, you chink gong for the sweeps. Swiftest beat! Ourph, arm your crew. Send down for arrows and your bows of horn — and for my soldiers their slings and ammunition. Leaden ball, not rock. Gavs, keep close watch astern, Trenchi at prow. Yarely all!”

The Gray One looked grimly dangerous and was thinking thoughts he hated. A thousand years ago in the Silver Eel, Fafhrd had announced he'd hire twelve berserkers, madmen in battle. But had his dear friend, now demon-possessed, guessed then just how mad his dozen dements would be, and that their craziness would be catching? and infect himself?

* * *

Above the ice fog, the stars glittered like frost candles, dimmed only by the competing light of the gibbous moon low in the southwest, where in the distance the front of an approaching gale was rolling up the thick carpet of ice crystals floating in air.

Not far above the pearly white surface, which stretched to all horizons save the southwest, the messenger hawk the Mouser had released was winging east. As far as eye could see, no other living thing shared its vast- arched loneliness, yet the bird suddenly veered as if attacked, then frantically beat its wings and came to a twisting stop in mid-air, as if it had been seized and held helpless. Only there was nothing to be seen sharing the clear air with the thrashing bird.

The scrap of parchment around its leg unrolled like magic, lay flat in the air for a space, then rolled itself around the scaly leg again. The white hawk shot off desperately to the east, zigzagging as if to dodge pursuit and flying very close to the white floor, as if ready at any moment to dive into it.

A voice came out of the empty air at the point where the bird had been released, soliloquizing, “There's profit enow and more in this leaguer of Oomforafor of Stardock and the Khahkht of the Black Ice, if my ruse works — and it will! Dear devilish sisters, weep! — your lovers who defiled you are dead men already, though they still breathe and walk awhile. Delayed revenge long savored and denied is sweeter than swift. And sweetest of all when the ones you hate love, but are forced to kill, each other. For if my notes effect not that mebliss, my name's not Faroomfar! And now, wing sound-swift! my fleet steed of air, my viewless magic rug.”

* * *

The strange, low fog stayed thick and bitter cold, but Fafhrd's garb of reversed snow-fawn fur was snug. Gauntleted hand on the low figurehead — a hissing snow serpent — he gazed back with satisfaction from Sea Hawk's prow at his oarsmen, still rowing as strongly as when he'd first commanded them on sighting Mouser's red flare from the masthead. They were staunch lads, when kept busy and battered as needed. Nine of them tall as he, and three taller — his corporals Skullick and Mannimark and sergeant Skor, the last two hid by the fog where Skor clinked time at the stern. Each petty officer immediately commanded a squad of three men.

And Sea Hawk was a staunch sailing galley! — a little longer and narrower of beam and with much taller mast, rigged fore and aft, than the Gray Mouser's ship (though Fafhrd could not know that, never having seen Flotsam).

Yet he frowned slightly. Pelly should be back by now, provided Mouser had sent a return message, and the little gray man never lost chance to talk, whether by tongue or pen. It was time he visited the top anyhow — the Mouser might burn another flare, and Skullick wake-dream on watch. But as he neared the mast, a seven-foot ghost loomed up — a ghost in turned gray otter's fur.

“How now, Skullick?” Fafhrd rasped, looking up their half span's difference in height. “Why have you left your station? Speak swiftly, scum!” And without other warning or preparation, he struck his corporal major a short- traveling jolt in the midriff that jarred him back a step and (rather illogically) robbed him of most of the breath he had to speak with.

“It's cold… as witch's womb… up there,” Skullick gasped with pain and difficulty. “And my relief's…