as ice axes, which they were. Two of these legs gave way before Sunbright's body, and he slid clear of them, out into the open, icy stretch of canyon.
The beast had retracted its head rather than tie itself into a knot. The boy half spun and thumped a granite wall. Instinctively Sunbright scrambled to rise and defend himself, but the ice might have been oiled. Paddling uselessly, he fought down panic, tried to think how to survive.
Use what you've got, screamed instructions burned into his brain.
Ideas flashed. The beast could maneuver; he couldn't. Why? Because it had ice axes for feet. So if he…
Acting, Sunbright juggled Harvester to one hand and with the other snatched out his flint knife. Striking hard, he stabbed the ice enough to gain hold. Gingerly, warily, he scooted his feet on either side of his hand. He might look foolish, he thought, but at least he wasn't sledding on his butt.
Chipping ice, swirling in a circle as gracefully as a dancing horse, the remorhaz turned to face its foe-or meal. Sunbright marveled at the size of it, fully as long as a fourteen-dog team and sled and as many-legged, higher than he could reach with the tip of his long sword. How could he kill something like this? Or even strike it? Given a choice, he would have run, screaming if necessary, but he was a cripple on ice and the beast was at home.
Yet again, his mind shrilled, why was this monster so far from its native land? Were the gods playing with him again? Or was everything he'd heard of the beast wrong?
The one thing he did know was not to strike its back. The old tales agreed that the ice beast managed to funnel all its body heat out a vent behind its head, a slot as scorching as any natural hot springs, hot enough to melt a sword. So…
The warrior watched as the horror rippled, arched its long back like a rainbow, and lunged from on high. The slashing mandibles clashed for his head.
Yet keeping cool, Sunbright managed two things. He kicked at the granite wall behind him while hanging on to the steady flint knife, then released it. He couldn't have done it on earth or grass, but on the slick ice he fairly flew in a full circle. One second he was facing the creature; the next he was sprawled full length pointing toward it, sliding into it.
The great head smashed down where he'd been. Closing mandibles scarred the ice. But Sunbright was skidding on his side toward the first triplet of legs. His sword was ready, and as he closed on the columns he rolled and swung.
Before the keen steel, the sturdy but hollow legs snapped like thick reeds. Three of them were shorn; then Sunbright's feet rapped into the opposing column, which flinched. Clapping his feet around one woody leg, he reached high over his head-blinding himself with his own shoulders-and chopped chopped chopped wherever he felt resistance.
His efforts worked too well.
With half a dozen legs cut from under it, the undulating bulk of the ice worm, its belly as smooth and white as a snake's, sagged to the ice-pinning Sunbright underneath. At the same time, the foot he'd been clinging to lifted and slammed down on his belly.
Smothered by an icy insect carapace, Sunbright still screamed at the pain. The ice-axe foot ground into his guts like the club of a frost giant. And now the blistering cold of the monster's belly stuck to his warm skin, stuck and burned like fury, then ripped skin when it lurched. The barbarian was being suffocated and crushed at the same time, and despite the white-hot agony lancing through him, he knew it would only get worse as the beast settled.
He wasn't going to escape this trap.
Desperately thrashing his arms and legs yielded nothing, for there was nothing to strike but tough carapace. Somehow he retained his sword in a death grip, but could apply no leverage, hit nothing. And his vision was fading, swirling flashes like the northern lights exploding in his eyeballs.
The great weight of the creature settled further, and Sunbright heard his ribs snap, snap, snap, like pine trees freezing and splitting on the coldest winter days. His own screams were loud in his ears.
Then he heard nothing.
Chapter 3
Sysquemalyn slapped the top of the palantir smartly, making the image of the screaming Sunbright jiggle and fade.
Over Candlemas's chirps about his equipment, she cackled, 'Done! He's dead! That was too easy!'
'He's not dead,' protested the other wizard. 'He appears to be dying, I'll grant you, but these barbarians are tough! He may yet live!'
Smug, the female wizard only smirked and backed away from the worktable. When she was six feet away, she laughed again and snapped the fingers of both hands, then pointed at Candlemas. 'No, no, no. I win; you lose. Pay up.'
The stocky man crossed his arms across his chest. He felt cold, seeing Sunbright die frostbitten and crushed to ice like that. 'I still contend- Eh?'
Something had flicked at his sleeve. Something behind him.
Taking his eyes off Sysquemalyn, he turned to see what it was.
A vibrant hiss, like a steam geyser erupting, made him jump. Looming beside him was a monster as skinny as a coatrack, gray-skinned, with a tall head and elongated jaws sporting dripping fangs as long as Candlemas's fingers. Slanted yellow eyes bored into his from above that evil, gap-toothed grin-an evil smile much like Sysquemalyn's.
Gibbering, Candlemas backpedaled from the horror. Fiend, he identified. Lesser fiend, from the outermost rings of the Nine Hells. Not particularly dangerous to a wizard with personal shields in place, but they were known to bite…
Hopping, the fiend grabbed Candlemas, one scaly claw on the human's neck, one grasping his wrist. The wizard uttered a curse, a foolish waste of words. For a blast or banish spell was what he needed. Hurriedly he babbled, 'Fiend, I name you, and command-'
Too late. The gaping jaws clamped down on his biceps, biting flesh to the bone. Candlemas screamed, then shrilled as the beast ripped down toward his elbow. Horror-stricken, the wizard saw muscle and arteries stripped from his arm bone like a peel wrenched off an orange. The fiend bit again, and he heard its harsh teeth grate on bone-his.
Then the bone snapped, parted, and the fiend fell back with Candlemas's right arm in its mouth. Far behind him, Sysquemalyn laughed and laughed, the sound a rising shriek of hysteria.
The wizard's vision went black, as black as he imagined Sunbright's had gone only minutes ago. Was this what it felt like, he wondered for a second, for the groundling to die?
It hurt!
Then the pain was everything and crowded out all thought, all feeling.
Again, Sunbright dreamed. If a dead man can dream.
He lay on a sheet of steel that ran to the horizon: the tundra turned metal, he supposed, with a steel-gray sky overhead. He tried to rise, but couldn't lift his arms or legs or head, or even roll over, so he must be bound. Then something dark flickered and filled the sky. Soft wisps of blackness brushed his cheeks.
'Sunbright…'
Someone called his name. He should open his eyes and see who. But his eyes were open, the dream insisted, else how could he see the sky?
'Sunbright, wake up.'
He didn't want to wake up, despite being half frozen on his sheet of tundra steel. Oh, frozen! That was why he couldn't rise. Some enemy had come in the night and poured water over him, binding him with ice. Shar, perhaps, night goddess, winter goddess, in his land where nights were months long. Lady of loss, mistress of the night and cold. Would she have black hair?
He opened his dream eyes, saw it was indeed a beautiful woman with black hair who hovered over him. A
