But not this one.
The Specter received the impacts and noxious effects of the spells, and survived. Lasgol’s jaw dropped, and there was a feeling of horror in his stomach.
“That was to be expected,” Eicewald said. “We had to establish that our spells wouldn’t finish it off.” He turned to the other Magi. “We’ll take up our positions.”
“What about me?” Lasgol asked. He wanted to help, whatever way he could.
“In the middle,” Eicewald said, and beckoned with his mage’s staff.
The war cries of the Norghanian soldiers thundered in front of Lasgol. Eicewald handed him a pair of strange, orange-gold gloves.
“Put these on. They’ll protect you from the noxious effects of the Eternal Snowflake.”
The gloves were metal, and as soon as he put them on he felt the temperature around him rising. “Are they charmed?” he asked anxiously.
“Yes, but don’t worry, they’re a Minor Object of Power. The spell is a protective one. It’s not too powerful.”
This reply did not entirely reassure him.
Eicewald unwrapped the Eternal Snowflake from its scarf and gave it to Lasgol, who took it using the gloves.
“Hold it high above your head. Whatever happens, don’t let go of it.”
Lasgol nodded, though whatever happens did not reassure him very much. Eicewald took hold of his arms and raised them above his head, so that the Eternal Snowflake would be as high as possible.
“Remember, don’t move under any circumstances.”
He went back to the circle to join the other Magi. Lasgol stared at the Eternal Snowflake, while at the same time he felt the temperature around him beginning to go down. His gloves began to give out an orange glow, protecting him from the increasing cold. After only a moment he realized that they were not going to protect him completely, because his feet began to grow cold.
The Magi held their staves in front of them, holding them with both hands. Eicewald began to pronounce words of power which Lasgol could not understand, and the other Ice Magi joined in the incantation He felt that the gloves were now protecting his arms, his head and his upper body, but the cold in his lower limbs was beginning to bite into his flesh. He would just have to put up with it.
While the Magi invoked the great spell, the army went on with its advance. The soldiers in the front line attacked the creature as they reached it. They yelled war-cries to counter their terror in the face of something which seemed to have come from some icy abyss, seeking to devour their souls. They launched axe-blows at it, which passed cleanly through those insubstantial limbs, though their axes found elements of ice in its torso and made contact. The Specter was undisturbed by this, and they barely managed to graze the steel-hard ice. Those who sought the creature’s neck or heart found only air.
Seeing that their comrades were unable to kill the Specter, more soldiers joined in the attack until it was completely surrounded. They hit it with all their strength, but either they only found ice they were unable to break, or else their blades met thin air in those parts of its body that were ethereal. A whirlwind of Norghanian soldiers had now formed around the Specter, trying to destroy it.
They were not succeeding.
The Frozen Specter decided to get rid of this disturbance. Its insubstantial arms reached out and touched the chests of the soldiers in front of it. Enormous, spectral hands touched their hearts. The soldiers gaped and arched back, and their gaze was lost in the infinite sky. Their faces turned ghostly white, and a moment later they fell to the ground with an expression of infinite horror on their faces, as if they had been robbed of their souls alive.
The Ice Magi cast their spell, more intensely this time. A blue arc of pure magical energy left Eicewald’s staff and made contact with the Eternal Snowflake, which now turned sky-blue. A moment later a second arc formed between the staff of another of the Ice Magi and the Eternal Snowflake. One by one the others joined in, and the energy began to build up in the Snowflake, so that little by little its brightness grew.
The Specter, surrounded now by soldiers, began to move its immaterial arms at great speed, seeking to steal the souls of all around it. Those arms stretched out to touch the chests of the soldiers, and an instant later they fell dead. It was as if the more that fell, the faster it could kill the next ones. The soldiers, seeing that their weapons were having no effect, hurled themselves on it to bring it down, but without success. As soon as they touched its body the mist it was giving out froze them, leaving them as statues of ice.
The soldiers who were clustered around the Specter broke ranks in chaos, unable either to kill the Specter or escape alive from its deadly touch.
A moment later the situation turned even more complicated. The Leaders of the Peoples of the Frozen Continent stopped their ritual chant.
They gave their forces the order to attack.
Chapter 16
Sven and Gatik realized that the enemy line was advancing and that their own lines were broken at the center. They tried to redress the situation
