A hard, cold wind sliced out of the north, driving the snow almost horizontal at times. Although Yal Tengri was many miles away, Gyaidun could taste the tang of salt in the air. He'd hoped the storm would slow their quarry, that they wouldn't make it here until the sun rose beyond the thick clouds. He remembered Amira's account of her first encounter with the sorcerer in the ash-gray cloak, how the sun had weakened him and how he had been almost no threat at all until the coming of darkness. No such luck this time. The word passed throughout the line of those waiting in ambush on the slopes above the little valley. The attack forces sent out before midnight had done their job.
Their prey was being driven right where they wanted them, and they would be here at any moment. The packs sent out to harry their quarry's scouts had annihilated every one of them, taking only minor injuries themselves. The Vil Adanrath outnumbered their foes by a great many warriors. Gyaidun had even heard-through Amira, who had heard it from the belkagen-that Leren was afraid the pack's honor might be tainted when they won such an uneven fight. Gyaidun was not so sure. He knew the Vil Adanrath were the finest, fiercest warriors for five hundred leagues. Other than Haerul, Lendri was perhaps the most dangerous being from Yal Tengri to Almorel-and that cloaked horror had almost killed him with seemingly little effort. Had they been able to hit them after sunrise- even a sun hidden through thick layers of cloud and falling snow-Gyaidun might have felt better. But as it was, crouched alone in the unquiet darkness on the hillside, frost thick on his three-day beard, a sickening apprehension filled him. It was not fear. Gyaidun had stopped fearing death long, long ago. This was something else. An unreasoning dread that left him feeling hollow and unready. The already frigid air went suddenly bone-cracking cold, and Gyaidun knew. That walking terror in the ash-gray cloak had arrived. Out there in the snowblind dark. Even as the knowledge hit him, he heard a great many padded feet tearing through the snow below him. Gyaidun drew his long knife from its sheath, gripped his iron club, and charged.
Amira had lost sight of Gyaidun some time ago. He'd taken a position only a few dozen paces downslope from her, but in the darkness and driving snow, she was nearly blind. She'd never seen such weather, not even in the deepest winter at High Horn, and it was still autumn here. The snow was already knee deep in places, and the wind blew the flakes so hard that they struck any exposed flesh like tiny stones. She pulled her left glove off with her teeth, just long enough to rummage in her pouch for another kanishta root and put the root in her mouth. Bitter as they were, she was developing a taste for them, and they worked wonders in keeping her warm. The temperature dropped so swiftly that Amira saw her breath go from steam to snow before being pulled away by the wind. Her next intake of breath hurt. In that moment of pain coursing down her throat, she knew that the cold bit deeper than the physical. Knew beyond doubt. The devil-possessed sorcerer had come, and somewhere in the near darkness, Jalan waited for her. She stood and gripped her new staff so tightly she felt the tendons in her fingers creak. A sudden gust of wind tried to push her over. She uttered a quick prayer and charged.
Gyaidun saw the viliniket before it saw him-but only barely. The horse-sized shadow loomed out of the snow, one of the pale Siksin Neneweth perched on his back, and almost ran over Gyaidun before it saw him. He took advantage of the huge wolf's surprise and swung his iron club at its jaws. The beast pulled back, causing the blow to just graze its nose, then snapped forward, its jaws shutting so close that spittle hit Gyaidun's face and froze there. A quick swipe of his knife sent the huge wolf back, and the creature reared on its hind legs.
Gyaidun saw its rider raising his spear-and an arrow struck the rider in the throat. He jerked back, and the sudden change in weight overbalanced the wolf. It fell back, raising a huge cloud of snow that the wind tore away. Now riderless, it regained its footing, faced Gyaidun-and three arrows struck it in quick succession. What began as a snarl ended in a scream, then the wolves of the Vil Adanrath were on it, clawing and biting and tearing.
Amira heard the clash of steel on steel and followed it. In the darkness, she almost ran into the combatants. Two warriors faced off, their swords clashing, and in the murk of the predawn storm, Amira could not at first tell them apart. Both had skin only slightly darker than the snow in which they stood, and both sported a long mane of silver hair tossed by the wind. Each wore clothes cut and sewn from animal hides, but one was taller and had the larger form of a human, and the other-now that she was close enough, she could hear it, no mistake-was growling like a beast unchained. She raised her staff, pointed it at the larger of the two combatants-and the sky overhead blazed. A burst of light, like a tiny piece of the sun itself, glowed in the air several dozen feet above the valley, lighting all the land beneath in harsh contrasts of frost white and blue shadow. A spell from the belkagen, Amira felt sure. Still, in the fierceness of the snowstorm she could see little but whirling white beyond the two men trying to kill each other. The human-in the new light, she saw him clearly as one of the Frost Folk-was startled by the sudden flare. The elf before him was not. The Vil Adanrath warrior brought his single-edged blade across the human's stomach in a horizontal swipe-so hard that Amira felt blood splatter her face four paces away. The pale human's knees collapsed even as his entrails spilled on the snow before him, but the elf was already gone, seeking another foe. Amira followed him.
Even with the new light blazing overhead, Gyaidun could not see more than a dozen paces in any direction. But he knew where to go.
Just as a blindfolded man can come to the fire by following the heat in the air, so Gyaidun knew where to find the thing in the ash-gray cloak. This cold was beyond anything an autumn snowstorm could muster.
Gyaidun had the protection from the elements offered to him by the blessings of his covenant as athkaraye to the Vil Adanrath, and his body was swathed in thick hides and furs, but even he was beginning to feel the harsh bite of the unnatural cold. Rather than fleeing, he waded into it, following the source of the thing that drank in all warmth and life. Trudging through snow that reached almost to his knees, Gyaidun passed the corpses of one of the Vil Adanrath and his wolf brother, both mangled and torn. The sounds of battle surrounded him-the growling of wolves, steel striking steel, and the screams of men and elves killing and dying. In the near distance, through the sounds of fighting, Gyaidun thought he heard the belkagen, his voice raised in chant. Power within the words infused the air. Even a warrior like Gyaidun, unskilled in the arcane, could feel it, a drumbeat rhythm in the earth that resonated in the air around him. The wind slowed, then stilled, and like the drawing aside of a curtain, the snow stopped falling. One moment the air in the valley was thick with snow, and the next the night air was clear as starshine. Twenty paces away, seated on the back of a winter wolf so huge that it would have dwarfed a Tuigan horse, was a figure of frost and shadow, the ash-gray cloak swathing a deeper darkness within. In the bloodied snow before him were two dead winter wolves, their bodies a garden of arrow shafts, two dead Siksin Neneweth, one lying a few feet from his head, the other with his throat torn out, and the bodies of a dozen or more Vil Adanrath, both elves and wolves. Three Siksin Neneweth stood before their dark master, two with blades frosted with blood and one carrying a long, barbed spear hung with tiny red icicles. Another Siksin Neneweth stood beside his master's winter wolf. In one hand he held a reddened battle-axe and in the other a boy on the verge of manhood, his arms and wrists bound tight behind his back. The boy seemed unharmed, but his eyes stared blankly at the carnage around him. 'Jalan!' Gyaidun stopped his advance long enough to glance over his shoulder. Amira, her new staff held high, charged down the slope in the midst of a band of Vil Adanrath. Gyaidun turned back around and resumed his advance, slowing a little to give the others a chance to catch up. The boy had looked up at the sound of his name, but he seemed more confused than elated at the sight of his mother. Arrows fell toward the dark sorcerer and his men. The sorcerer raised his hand, and the shafts burned in midair, raining to the snow as ashes, the metal points falling as bits of molten metal to steam in the snow.
Gyaidun dropped his club and felt the leather leash linking its handle to his wrist pull taut. He grabbed the leash and set the heavy iron to twirling in a figure eight. The dark sorcerer and his minions stood, seemingly frozen for an instant, staring at the dozens of elves and men descending upon them, then things began happening too fast for Gyaidun to plot and calculate. He became a creature of instinct, action and reaction happening faster than thought. The Siksin Neneweth, except for the one holding the boy, ran to meet their attackers. Their master turned his mount to face them even as his hands began twisting a spell in the air. Gyaidun was closest. He could hear the Vil Adanrath hard on his heels but knew he would still be the first to face an enemy. The barbarian with the barbed spear was advancing fast. Gyaidun increased the speed of his twirling club. It moved in a black iron blur, humming as it ripped the air. The dark sorcerer shouted something in a language that hurt Gyaidun's ears.
Five seasons ago he and Lendri had spent the winter in the pine forests that clothed the foothills of the Hagga Shan. In the deepest heart of winter, when the sun was no more than a pale, distant fire lingering behind clouds thick with snow, some nights would grow so cold that the woods echoed with the sound of trees exploding
