Soldiers of Ice by David Cook Page A

slipped backward beneath her feet. Like a sailor washed overboard, she helplessly slid into the seething ice sea and rode down into its rough darkness. “Not twice in one day! It isn’t fair!”
    And then there was the cold and the darkness.
     

Soldiers of Ice
    67
     

Four
     

Scrabbling noises like fingernails
    grating on rock, teeth crunching bones,
    ice freezing in my veins—I hear scrabbling
    noises, the woman dreamed. It’s
    the sound of fresh earth being thrown
    on my grave, thumping with each shovelful.
    I have to scream. I have to yell and
    let them know I’m still alive.
    But that’s so much effort.
    “Dig, dig, dig,” said a little voice in singsong.
    It’s not coming from my throat, the woman concluded dreamily. It’s too dry.., my throat’s too dry.
    “Dig, dig, dig,” said the voice again. It sounded like a peevish child. “Just because he says so. Does he dig? No-oo.
    That’s why he brought me along—so he could make me dig. He gets to sulk, while I, Icy-White the Clever, I get to dig.’
    “Ow!” A sharp jab pierced Martine’s numbness.
    “Ow?”
    The pain brought things into focus. Martine was on her side, pressed beneath a mass of ice and snow. She could vaguely see a tumbled field of ice, perhaps the base of a slide, that stood out in stark shadow from the fading blue glow that lit the night, the last light of Jazrac’s magic. The slide apparently ended in the rift floor, now hard and still.
    The canyon walls had fallen inward, leaving a broad bowl where the rift’s jagged scar had been. Distant crashing rumbles still echoed across the snow, warning that all was not yet still.
    The jab repeated, not as sharp this time but still painful.
    “Get… me… out of here.” The words were a great
    struggle. A layer of frost settled on her cheeks cracked as she spoke.
    “Ice talks!” squeaked the voice. The scrabbling renewed, faster and closer. Suddenly sharp claws raked the Harper’s cheek and harshly brushed away the snow that coated her.
    The sting cracked the lethargy the ice was sealing about her. The Harper struggled against the enclosing tomb of ice and heaved upright, the motion accompanied by the grinding sound of cracking snow.
    “Awwwk!”
    “What the—” The cry escaped Martine unwillingly as she found herself faced by a creature of ice. It couldn’t have stood any taller than her thighs, though it loomed over her now as it stood on a block of ice pinning her legs. Its skin was pearly and smooth with blue-white translucence, yet cut in hard angles and sharp edges like shattered ice. The head was broad and flat, eyes gleaming under razor-edged brows.
    The creature hopped back, momentarily as startled as she. “Not ice! No, no, no. This is not ice.”
    The Harper tested her legs, trying to shift free. The block that pinned her legs was loose, but at the first tremor, the creature lunged forward, seizing her neck with one clawed hand. Its grip was cold and strong, its fingers 68
    The Harpers
     
    clicking bonily against each other as it squeezed her throat.
    “No, no! You belong to Icy-White now. My prize—mine and mine only,” the creature babbled, its mirror-sharp face fractured with glee. An iciclelike claw waggled through the steam of her exhalations. Abruptly the creature gave a startled squeal and snatched its hand away. “You burn, you steam!” it chirped in wonderment while licking furiously at the finger Martine had just breathed on. “I’ll show you to Vreesar when he comes,” it continued craftily. “Then he’ll let me stop digging.”
    Scampering like a monkey, the creature seized the
    Harper’s shoulder in its cold claws and dragged her from the icy debris, all the while taking care to avoid the steam of her breath. Its talons dug through her furs and drew blood beneath them, but Martine was too tired to fight back. It was all she could do to feebly kick free of the last bits of crust.
    “Now, no fight from you, hot one, or Icy-White kill you and