The wind lashed at her with claws of ice. Sleet pelted her skin and coated the scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face. Her breath's warm moisture melted it, and then the frigid air froze it into a crackling glaze. Tears drawn by the bitter cold squeezed from the corners of her squinting eyes, and frost clumped on her lashes.

How did it come to this? Idasha of Westreach wondered silently to herself.

She had been a captive in the fortress of the Kathani king for three days now, and already here she was, clinging to the side of a tower in the dark, snow-whipped night.

Not all of her was ice ... her arms and shoulders were fire as if hot coals had been embedded in each of the joints. Her hands and feet, even in the fleece-lined gloves and boots, were numbed blocks of meat. Her left hand was so solidly locked around the handle of her makeshift lhote that she suspected the fingers might never uncurl.

The fortress-lodge that served as the royal castle was a built of massive logs hauled in from the great forests. A single tower rose from the top, its summit a chamber that was both comfortable bedroom and prison for recalcitrant brides-to-be.

Three days, three nights. She'd been surprised that they deemed her needing no more of a guard than Fenka, one of King Deveran's great-grandchildren. They'd also deemed that Fenka was in no danger from Idasha, for Fenka herself said that Deveran had so many descendants that her value as a hostage was negligible. The girl had stated this so matter-of-factly that Idasha had been forced to believe her.

Her captors also thought that the only way to escape was through the triply-locked door, and down through the tower. Assuming one could do that, there remained a lodge full of men and wolves.

The Kathani had reckoned without the climbing ability that came so naturally to most Westreachers, to whom the sheer rocks of their mountain-ringed kingdom were a second home ...

Idasha estimated herself at being close to a third of the way down, but in the driving whiteness, she couldn't see far enough to be sure.

Yes, the Kathani might have reckoned without the climbing ability of a Westreacher. But the Westreacher had reckoned without the weather. Even on this fairly mild night, the wind was nearly strong enough to peel her from her perch and send her plummeting to the courtyard below.

That might still be her fate, if she could not manage the descent. And as she shook her head to dislodge the snow collecting on her hood, she had to own up to that strong possibility.

Above her was the faint glow of firelight through the rent in the window. The Kathani did not use glass, but the scraped and stiffened innermost skins of the sea-bear stretched across the openings and sealed in place with whale tar. The skins made for a clear barrier with the consistency of boiled leather.

Only a short while ago, she'd been exhilarated to escape that prison. Now, as she swung her makeshift lhote and it skidded over the coating of ice that had formed on the logs of the tower without finding purchase, as her feet threatened to slide out from under her, she found herself thinking of the warm room with something akin to fondness.

But no. Even if she were so inclined as to return, there was no way to hide what she had done. The rip in the window-skin would prove her attempt, as would poor Fenka, once the girl regained consciousness and was freed from her bonds.

She swung the lhote again, and this time it chipped through to wedge itself in the wood, giving her a firm handhold by which to lower herself another few inches.

Three days, three nights. She'd been given into the charge of the wives of the king's senior grandsons and escorted to the great bathing-chamber, where they had scoured the grime of her journey from her with coarse brushes and soap so strong its fumes made her eyes water.

Despite her protests and harsh words, they had fussed over her as if she were a child or a doll, combing and arranging her burnished-bronze hair into braids. They scorned her darkly-tanned skin, murmured approvingly about the strength of her arms and the carriage of her hips, and fell into vicious arguments amongst themselves as to which colors might best suit her.

In the end, she was dressed head to toe as a Kathani woman. She'd never seen such clothes, even at Jherion's court. It stood to reason that in the long winters, they had little else to do but breed children and do handiwork.

The snug dark hose were strictly ordinary, but the cream-colored linen kirtle was daintily embroidered over every inch of fabric, so beautifully done that it hardly seemed right to wear ... let alone to wear as an undergarment! The tunic was calf-length and of dyed-crimson wool, fastening down the front with buttons carved from whale ivory and trimmed with beads of amber and the white fur and black-tipped tails of ermines. Even the functional fleece-lined leather boots, hood, and gloves were artfully stitched and decorated.

Her lhote was not nearly so fine. The one she'd brought from Westreach to Hothar had been confiscated by Felin Kathak when he'd abducted her from Jherion's castle, and she did not know if he'd kept the oxwood-and-blackmetal weapon or had discarded it. With no other options, she'd had to make do.

Most of her stay in the tower had been spent with blond, bubbly Fenka. But she was granted a respite every evening when the girl went down to dine in the lodge, and Idasha had put that time to her advantage.

The pick-blades were the long dirk-teeth of a snowbeast, pried from the jaw of the snowbeast-pelt rug that had been on the floor. The handle was the leg of a table, and it was all bound together with thongs and wax. Under other, less dire, circumstances, Idasha would never have trusted such an uncertain tool. But there had been little choice.

The snowbeast rug itself was rolled tight and secured to her back, for she knew she would need as much for its blending fur of white as she would for warmth if she made it to the bottom alive. The tunic she had been given would stand out like a bloodstain against the fields of snow.

Idasha hazarded a look down, and saw only the log wall dropping away into the white-flecked shadows below. Her arms burned and ached from supporting her weight. She wrenched the lhote free and swung it again, lowering herself another few feet until she reached a jutting section large enough to allow her to sit.

She stifled a groan, and beat and rubbed her gloved hands together until blood tingled through them. A short rest, just a short one, for it was possible that flighty Fenka might revive, untie herself, and raise the alarm. Then, if she succeeded in reaching the courtyard, she'd have more than a few great-wolves to contend with.

If she'd killed the girl ...

But no, she couldn't have done that. Though, she had to admit, she had swiftly gotten very weary of what would come each night when Fenka returned from dinner. The girl would bring glowing reports of the splendid tributes that hopeful unwed kinsmen offered the king, each vying to be chosen to marry Idasha and as a wedding gift be given an army to wrest Hothar from Jherion Lendrin.

It had been, Idasha knew, only a matter of time before the king made his decision. And so, preferring the jaws of the wolf to the arms of a husband and the frozen wastes to the jaws of the wolf, Idasha had planned her escape.

Then, earlier that night, Fenka had come in overwhelmed with excitement and bearing the news that Rorav the Fierce had offered the king a prize beyond compare. The Girdle of Janis, a belt of diamonds that had belonged to a warrior queen of old.

"Does your king forget that I mean to kill any man he chooses as my husband?" Idasha had asked, glad that she'd begun her plans for escape before learning of her intended ... what savagery did it take for the Kathani to give a nickname such as "the Fierce"?

"Oh, he's aware of it," Fenka had assured her. "He feels any man not able to survive you isn't worthy of having Hothar. So you'll be certain of having a strong, wealthy husband of high status! I envy you, Idasha!"

"So he'd set me to help him thin his herd?" Idasha shook her head and spat on the floor, eliciting a frown of disapproval from Fenka. "Always was I so glad that I was not royal-born, to avoid just this! But this is my worst nightmare made worse ... now I am a prize in a barbarian contest!"

"No, that would be if they fought for you with wolf-spears," Fenka had said seriously. "That's how my father won my mother. He and a cousin both wanted her, and when their rich gifts were deemed equal in value, the king had them face each other in combat."

"So your father slew his own cousin --"

"No! You do think us uncivilized! The loser took his own life in ritual suicide."

There hadn't been much Idasha could say to that, and so she had eaten the dinner that Fenka brought, knowing that she'd need all of her strength for that night. She'd gone to bed and lain wakeful, listening as Fenka's breathing slowed to that of the sleeping.

Then, before Fenka had realized what was happening, Idasha was upon her. She drove one knee forcefully into the girl's stomach, and when Fenka's breath burst from her, Idasha stuffed a wad of cloth into her gaping mouth. She tied it in place with a rolled-up strip of leather, and quickly used others to tether Fenka by the wrists and ankles to the posts of the bed.

As Fenka had writhed fruitlessly and made muffled noises of protest, Idasha had torn a ragged rent in the window-skin and begun her descent.

That, she thought now, was how it came to this.

Idasha was reluctant to leave her ledge, but knew that if she stayed longer, her limbs would stiffen and make the rest of the descent all the more treacherous. She rubbed her hands briskly, bringing sensation into them, and got moving again. She forced all other thoughts from her mind, and concentrated on nothing further ahead in time than the next few handholds.

The points of the lhote were becoming dulled by the time Idasha passed what she hoped was the halfway mark. She could see the bulk of the octagonal fortress, a dark blot in the snow. Its roof sloped up to meet the base of the tower just enough so that no drifts piled atop it, which might have cushioned a fall.

She would simply have to avoid falling.

Easier said than done.

Down and down, inching her way.

On her next swing of the lhote, the dirk-tooth wedged itself deep and the handle snapped off.

Idasha dropped, catching herself by one arm and swinging back to slam jarringly against the wall of the tower. The blow made her lose her grip, but she'd gained a precious moment to reverse the lhote and strike the other dirk-tooth firmly into the log.

She got her feet braced, hoping that the wall was thick enough that no one had heard her bumping and thumping about. She glanced up at the lhote, and her eyes went wide despite the bitterly cold wind.

The wax had frozen. The wax she'd used to seal the cords that bound the teeth to the handle had frozen solid, and was now cracking. The cord, already loosened by the absence of the first dirk-tooth, slipped free.

As the lhote fell apart, Idasha dug her fingertips into the snow-caked, tarred crack between the logs. She paused only to tuck the one remaining dirk-tooth into her belt, and resumed her descent slowly, feeling her way.

She felt a bath of warmth against her legs, smelled smoke. Craning her neck, she saw that she was above one of the bent iron chimney-pipes poking from the roof of the kitchen.

Almost there.

But the heated air and smoke had made the ice on the wall melt and re-freeze and melt and re-freeze again, until it was a bumpy, sooty sheet. As Idasha's questing toes reached it, her feet shot out from under her. She was dangling by her fingertips, and ice was breaking away beneath them.

It gave, and Idasha locked her throat against a scream as she plunged.

She swam up from blackness deep as the Cave Lake of Westreach. She was numbed with cold head to toe, except for a warm dampness on one cheek.

Falling ... yes, she remembered falling, and landing on the sloped roof. Rolling in a graceless tumble, and then falling again. And then nothingness.

She opened her eyes to snow, and understood. Off of the lodge and into a snowdrift.

But something ... something was here ...

Hot, meaty breath chuffed into her face. She painfully turned her head, and saw a wolf.

Not just any wolf, but a Kathani great-wolf. Large enough to carry an armored man into battle.

Its huge, white-maned head was pushed into the drift, sniffing at her. The warm dampness she'd felt hadn't been her own blood, as was her first impression, but the nose of the wolf prodding her.

Now that it had her attention, the wolf uttered a low, menacing growl. It was staring at her, locking her in challenge with its yellow-gold gaze. Others surrounded it, hanging back at a respectful distance to allow their leader first opportunity for the prey that had dropped into their territory.

Idasha held as still as she could, but for her right arm. It, like most of the rest of her, was buried in the snow, and she moved it stealthily toward her waist. Then she gathered her legs beneath her.

One chance at this, and if it failed ... well, jaws of the wolf had been her second choice, after all.

"Rrraahh!" Idasha cried, twisting and bringing the dirk-tooth around as hard as she could.

The tip of it gouged into the side of the wolf's neck, loosing a gout of blood that splashed steamingly into the snow. She stabbed again, missed as the wolf scrambled backward. The rest of the pack milled in consternation, while the leader hunkered low and shook its head.

Idasha threw herself to her feet and instantly grasped two facts. The wound she'd inflicted was far from mortal. And there was nowhere to run.

She looked around wildly, spotted the eaves above her, and sprang straight up. The wolf lunged at the same instant, and passed beneath her to collide with the wall. Idasha caught hold of the eaves and tried to haul herself onto the roof, but couldn't manage before the wolf sprang again. Its shoulders struck her legs, and she lost her grip.

They crashed down together, wolf and woman, into the snowdrift. Idasha fought her way free in a thrashing, flailing burst, and surfaced in the midst of the pack. They snarled at her as their leader emerged, shaking snow from its coat and growling furiously.

She had lost the dirk-tooth. The wolf advanced on her, head held low. She knew it meant to rip her open, dump her entrails into the snow.

Something whirred past her, and struck the wolf with the noise of metal shearing through bone. The wolf stopped, shuddered, and collapsed. The oxwood handle of a lhote, her lhote, stuck at an angle from its skull and one pick-blade traced a blackmetal arc against its white mane. The other pick-blade was sunk deep in its brain.

Incredulous, Idasha turned.

Felin Kathak's forest-green eyes locked with hers, the wind stirring his hair and belling his fur cloak behind him. He wore a heavy pack slung over his shoulder.

"I thought you might need a weapon," he said.

The great-wolves attacked.

Idasha braced herself to fight and die, but was sent to her knees by a sudden crushing wave of dark pressure. Felin grimaced, pushing his fingertips to his brow.

The wolves halted in their tracks and crouched abjectly on their bellies. They whined, covering their muzzles with their forepaws. They did not rise as Nerrar, flanked by his entourage of rats, limped lurchingly around the side of the fortress.

The mind-assault eased enough for Idasha to raise her head, just as Felin bent and seized her under the arms, lifting her out of the snow.

"When I saw the window, and not you," he said, "I feared you'd fallen to your death."

He pulled her to him, and covered her lips with a firm, fervent kiss.

She punched him in the stomach. His breath coughed out in a plume of frost and he bent double. Idasha tugged her lhote from the skull of the dead wolf, and drew it back with the intent of seating it in his temple.

Idiot woman! Nerrar's words raked across the substance of her mind like a fistful of thorns. We're *helping you!

At that moment, a baying howl arose. Not from the closest great-wolves, still groveling at Nerrar's feet, but from the throats of the smaller, war-trained ones streaking toward them from the lodge's doors. On their heels came the men of Kathan, and women mixed in. They, too, bayed and howled and voiced battle cries.

"Will they carry us?" Felin asked of Nerrar, indicating the wolves.

Idasha felt the air grow thunderous again, and the pack stood tall, stood ready.

"Why?" she demanded.

"I was wrong to bring you here. You needn't suffer for my mistake," Felin replied, and as she stared at him, dumbfounded, he scooped her up and deposited her on the nearest wolf. "Hold tight to its mane!"

Nerrar swung astride a wolf, his rats clinging to the shaggy fur. He swept his arm in a commanding gesture that ended with his bunched fingers pointing at the approaching Kathani, and all but one of the remaining great-wolves charged.

"To the gate!" Felin leapt onto the last one.

Their mounts sped past the carnage that had erupted in the courtyard. Idasha had blurred, momentary glimpses of wolves and humans in bloody, desperate combat. A man grabbed at her as she went by and she lashed out with the lhote, impaling his cheek and shearing his face open.

The gate loomed before them, open and unguarded ... no, there were the guards, piled at the base of the wall, unmoving.

Felin's wolf shrieked and went down. Felin was thrown over its head. A long, heavy spear jutted from the wolf's laboring side; as Idasha's mount passed, the fallen one convulsed and went limp.

Nerrar, with the speed of the craven, was through the gates and well away. Idasha brought her wolf around, and saw Felin dazedly getting to his feet.

"Cousin!" bellowed a huge bearskin-wearing man. He was very broadly-built, with a bushy red beard and one eyebrow split by a scar to give him a sardonic expression. He held another spear in a two-handed grip. "Where do you think to go with my bride?"

"Go!" Felin shouted to Idasha, reaching for his sword. "I'll deal with Rorav!"

"Men and their foolish manly duels!" Idasha yelled in annoyance.

She hurled the lhote. It buried itself in Rorav's belly, plunging through the bearskin. He screamed like a butchered sow.

Felin made a nonplused, astonished gesture. "You ... that wasn't ..."

"Oh, be still!" Seizing his hair in one hand and the back of his belt in the other, she half-threw, half-dragged him facedown across the shoulders of the wolf. She kicked her mount hard in the haunches, and it followed the dwindling shape of Nerrar through the gate.

He craned his neck to gape, first up at her and then back at Rorav, as the wolf loped through the gate. His words were broken into grunts by the jouncing motion. "I begin ... to see ... why ... you disliked ... this mode of ... travel!"

"I begin to see why you liked it!" she called above the whistling wind, and slapped him smartly on his upturned rump.

The wolves raced on, into the snowy night.

"The spirits have sent us nothing but ill luck since you brought that woman," Belorva said, deliberately shaking snow on Idasha as he dumped a handful of dirty sticks in a heap by the small fire.

She drew the snowbeast pelt more snugly around her shoulders and returned his gaze evenly. Felin, to whom the remark was directed, said nothing, but his eyes darkened in the uncertain early twilight of the storm.

Short, thick-set Tunok shook his head. "Our ill luck goes back further than that and you know it. All the way to the fields of Trevale."

The five of them, seven counting the great-wolves and eleven counting Nerrar's rats, were huddled beneath the undercut of a towering boulder, from which hung icicles as thick and long as a man's leg. They had pressed on through a worsening blizzard for four days, barely daring to rest, and had finally found this shelter.

The fire's heat baked into the curve of stone behind them and warmed the space, making the icicles weep steady tears. The drifts had been sculpted into strange shapes by the wind, frozen over with hard shells.

"We're going to die out here and we're going to die cold," Belorva said sulkily. "And hungry. Unless we turn to the animals, or each other, for food."

Nerrar, as close to the fire as he could get without being physically in the flames, raised his head and shot Belorva a deadly look. The smallest of his rats, brown Curdnibbler, was nestled in his lap and shivering violently. The larger three, as well as both wolves, were gathered around Nerrar with their sides pressed against him, as if to give of their warmth to their master.

"We shall not freeze, nor shall we starve," Felin said, sweeping his cloak beneath him as he sat between Idasha and Tunok. "We have wood, and food, and we'll be where we're going 'ere long."

"Where are we going?" Tunok asked. He had slung a hide-pot full of snow over the fire to melt, and began to add grain and dried meat. "Where can we go, for that matter? We'd be unwelcome in three kingdoms now."

"We are bound for the Iceblown Sea," Felin said.

His words, which meant nothing to Idasha, struck instant horror on the faces of the other men.

Nerrar's brow furrowed in concentration, and though he directed his mental speech solely at Felin, Idasha felt the weight of it like a block of stone on her mind.

"Because the king will send men to check the harbors and roads, but the Iceblown Sea is the last place he'd think to seek us," Felin replied. "It would be considered madness to go there."

"With good reason!" Belorva cried. "It's death! Bad enough that you've made us outlaws in our homeland, but must you also get us killed?"

"We can't stay in Kathan," Tunok said. "Suppose we must go someplace. If we survive the crossing, I hear the river down the mountains is navigable most ways to the coast. Narluk, though ... I'm not partial to snakes." He shuddered, then brightened. "But it would be warm, and no one with half a wit can starve in the jungles ... I hear you can't walk ten paces without bumping into half a dozen fruit trees, and the --"

Belorva rounded on him. "Are you as mad as he is? We'd never reach Narluk, because we'd be cold-dead or spirit-enthralled long before we crossed the Sea! We'd be better off going back to Kathan!"

Nerrar sent his thoughts to them all, and through familiarity even Idasha could hear him. We'd be killed just as fast in Kathan, you fool.

"Not if we give back the prisoner. The king will understand --"

"The king is a vengeful and pitiless old wolf," Felin cut in. "His only mercy might be a quick execution. Either way, the cubs would gnaw our bones. And she is not our prisoner."

Idasha wasn't the only one to raise her eyebrows at that last bit.

"We were welcome in Kathan!" Belorva almost wailed. "We could have made good lives for ourselves! But no! You had to destroy our chances, Felin! You defied the king, made an enemy of him! And we were blinded enough to go along! I've followed you into war, given my blood and half my arm in your service. We stole provisions, attacked the king's gate-guards, and fled into the night like a traitor on your orders ... but now you go too far!"

"Belorva!" Tunok, in his shock, sounded as prissy as a spinster.

The big man gave no ground, thrusting his finger at Felin. "Was it because you couldn't stand seeing Hothar go to someone besides yourself? Or was it something else? Yes, I'll say you what it truly was! You couldn't stand seeing her go to someone besides yourself. You let your feelings for a woman ... a woman who despises you! -- come before the well-being of your loyal men!"

"And for that you think me soft-hearted." A silkenly dangerous tone entered Felin's voice. "Which you must think me, else you'd never dare speak to me so."

But I see you do not deny the charge, Felin Kathak, Idasha thought. Still plotting, aren't you? Still wanting me to believe your professed love is genuine, and not a means to win you Hothar despite your lack of an army?

"Commander ..." Tunok said nervously, "Belorva is tired and overwrought, as are we all, and speaks out of turn."

"Don't tell me what I do and do not speak!" Belorva said hotly. "He has betrayed Kathan, betrayed his own kinsman-king --"

"I repay the courtesy the king has shown to me with courtesy in kind," Felin said with great self-control. "If these things -- Hothar and Idasha -- are not to be mine, why should I help them to belong to another?"

"Then you should have let the wolves kill her when she sought to escape! That still would have denied the king the weapon of the Lendrin heir, and we would still be in his good graces instead of halfway to the Iceblown Sea! You are leading us to our doom, for the sake of a woman!"

Felin rose in one swift, fluid motion and threw back his cloak to place a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Your doom could be here and now, Belorva, if that is your choice. I may be an outlaw in my own homeland, as you said, but I am still your commander. Either accept my orders, or depart yourself from my company this moment."

Unbidden and certainly unwelcome, Idasha was struck with the memory of his lips on hers, the urgency and intensity he had conveyed with that single kiss. As he stood there now, strong and proud with his jaw resolute and his eyes narrowed in challenge, she felt once more the rush of fire through her veins, and scolded herself for it most bitterly.

Belorva slowly got up, his height topping Felin's. The others, including the rats and the wolves, watched with keen interest as the two men faced each other across the fire.

Idasha saw Nerrar rest a hand on the head of the larger wolf, as if petting it, but she had noted how his power seemed greater when he was touching his victim, and knew that he was preparing to send the wolf for Belorva's throat. Tunok, torn between duty to his friend and his commander, had to look away and fuss uneasily with the pottage.

"We have been through much together," Felin said. "I should not like to lose your skills."

For a moment, Idasha was certain it would come to blows anyway. Then Belorva's wide shoulders sagged and he bowed his head.

"Cry pardon, Commander," he said. "I forgot my place. What are your orders?"

Felin exhaled with a small smile, his posture relaxing. "Good man, Belorva. Eat, and rest. We have a long journey still ahead of us."

"What is the Iceblown Sea?" Idasha asked, catching up to Felin at the head of the line. "Your men turn pale every time you mention it."

They were far enough ahead of the others that she felt she could risk the question without sparking another argument. Nerrar and his rats rode one of the wolves, while the other was laden like any pack-beast with their dwindling supplies of wood and food. Tunok hung back frequently to strip bitter but edible leaves from the few branches pushing their way above the snow, and Belorva brought up the rear.

"If I am right," he said, "we'll see it when we reach the top."

"If you're right. By which you mean you've never been there?"

"No, but my father was, once and long ago. They call it a sea, but in truth it is a lake, a lake made mostly of floating mountains and fields of ice, caught here at the top of the world." He paused to catch his breath, and grinned wryly when he noticed that she was barely winded. "Just like home, is it?"

"Not quite. Even in the heart of winter, it was never this cold. Snow falls in the valley only once or twice a year. This lake, why then is it so frightening?"

"It's not the lake itself, but the accompanying legends." Felin withdrew a waterskin that he'd filled with snow and then tucked under his clothes to melt. He drank and offered it to Idasha. "As I heard it, one of the first kings of Kathan fell in love with the wife of a magician, and wooed her away from him. Years later, when the king was returning with his fleet from waging war on a land across the sea, the magician took his revenge. He called up wind-spirits and sent a hurricane that swept up the fleet and much of the ocean, carried them across the land, and let them fall onto the mountains. The water pooled in a valley and froze, and what was left of the ships froze with it. Everyone aboard perished."

"And so," said Idasha, handing back the waterskin, as they began to trudge onward and upward, "it is a haunted place. All of the spirits of the dead, trapped there."

"Yes. It is a dangerous place as well, for the ice floats and shifts, grows and splits. A boat trying to cross it risks being ground to splinters, or swept into a whirlpool called the Throat of Ice."

"Why would any go, then?"

"The few who dwell there are not so superstitious as my fellow Kathani, and rely on the sea for their livelihood. And some go for wealth. The ships were said to be filled with treasure." Felin chuckled, but with little amusement. "Such as the Girdle of Janis. The king had sent it ahead to his wife, as a sign of his victory and example of his plunder."

"At least I drew a high bidding-price," Idasha murmured sourly.

"It was Rorav's gift to my uncle that made me remember the legends. I owe him that small debt of thanks, at least."

"Why? What do you hope to find there, aside from a place where no Kathani will follow?" She eyed him, and nodded. "Oh, yes ... I see. You hope to find enough gold to buy yourself an army."

"I have no more need of an army."

"Do you think me a fool, Felin? You cannot hope to take Hothar without one."

"I've forsaken my plans for Hothar, Idasha. I know you do not believe me, but it is the truth. I know you suspect me of trying to win you over and make my claim for Hothar that way, but I do not."

"Then why do you throw your future away by betraying your king?" she demanded. "Or would you have me be convinced that your actor-show a few nights gone was real? That Belorva is right and you put your feelings for me ahead of yourself, your men?"

"It was real," he said, and sighed. "It is. Although it meant giving up whatever future there might be for me in Kathan, I knew I had to do what was right. I realized once I was before my uncle that he would have meant to invade Hothar anyway, whether Jherion was the true king or not. Whether you agreed to his decree or not. I knew that I had to get you out of there. Especially once Rorav was chosen. You would have been his sixth wife, you know."

"Dare I ask what happened to the previous five?"

"I wouldn't, were I you."

"Very well."

"As it turns out, we had the same plan, you and I. Rather than fight my way through lodge and tower and back, I thought to scale the wall and rescue you by way of the window. Too late, for brave Idasha had already taken matters into her own hands."

"I wasn't expecting a rescue. But, Felin, why should I believe you?"

"Why did you rescue me?" he countered.

"I don't know what you mean," Idasha lied.

"You could have left me in the courtyard to be cut down by my kinsmen. Instead, you dragged me across that wolf and it carried us both to safety. Why, Idasha? Could it be that you felt as I did?"

"If by that you mean was I reluctant to let you die because of something I had done ... for you would not have been attacked if you hadn't been trying to help me escape ... then perhaps yes, that was some of it."

They had crested a small rise, and were momentarily alone, out of sight of their companions. Felin stopped and turned to her.

"And the rest?"

"I needed you alive to keep me from harm," she said hastily. "How long would I have lasted with Nerrar and Belorva?"

"I am not afraid to admit what is in my heart. Why are you?"

"I know what is in your heart, Felin Kathak. Greed for a crown that is not yours. You plan to marry me, and --"

"No."

"No? And since when that change of mind?" she said scornfully.

He seized her wrist in a tight grip. "Since I realized that I would rather forget Hothar and have you perhaps look kindly on me, than have all of Ilgrath and your hatred."

She stared at him.

"Such it is," he went on. "Such irony. I love you, Idasha, and that is why I cannot make you my wife. That is why I risk the lives and souls of myself and my men on the Iceblown Sea. Not for treasure, not for escape to Narluk. The others do not know, but we go there to take you home."

"What are you talking about?"

"From the Iceblown Sea is a secret way into Westreach. My family has known of it for years, but as it is impractical and dangerous to send an army, we've never used it. Perhaps then, when I have returned you to the place you call home, and said farewell to you and gone my way forever, perhaps then you will accept that I am sincere in this."

He let go of her wrist, nearly flinging it from him. He turned away from her and started walking again.

A trick, Idasha thought, but her conviction felt false. A trick, he's an enemy, he'll say or do anything to get what he wants.

The beauty of the Iceblown Sea pierced Idasha to the core, and at the same time touched her with an awed fear that bordered on terror.

Beautiful, yes, but deadly, merciless, unforgiving. It filled a valley that was almost the size of Westreach itself, was a sparkling expanse of white and deep glacial blue. Masses of ice reared above the surface and extended into the depths. Where there was water, it was crystalline, clotted with cloud-patterns of frozen slush.

At first glance, some of the ice-mountains appeared marked with dirt, but as Idasha's eyes became accustomed to the dazzle of the sunlight, she understood that those brownish smudges were the hulls and masts of ships. Buried, sealed in the ice ... whole and in battered pieces ... proof of the legend that Felin had told to her. Some of the warships were partly exposed, as time had eroded away their encasements.

The sound was perhaps the worst. It was constantly there, never quite fading into the background, always nagging at the fringes of the mind. The squeal of ice rubbing against itself, the ominous groans of unknowable shiftings and pressures, the occasional crashing splash of fragments calving away.

The boat, a wide and wallowing bowl-bottomed thing, stayed well away from the ice and moved through channels of clearer water. In direct contrast to the boat, like sleek-weasels beside a sow, were the two 'underwater craft' secured to the sides.

"The sea is home to giant fish that must be killed, not merely caught. As well as sea-bear and seals, which are hunted beneath the waves," Felin explained when Idasha asked what on earth those things could be. "They are made from the whole trunks of the giant trees, coated in seal-oil and tar, and for windows --"

"Sea-bear skins," Idasha finished. "Yes, I see."

"When the crew spots a likely site for hunting," he said, "they unmoor the craft and dive down, propelling them by means of those paddle-wheels and launching harpoons to kill their prey. They also use the craft to scour the sea bottom, salvaging what goods and artifacts break free and sink from the ice-locked ships."

They had booked passage on the boat in a fishing village that crouched defensively on the shore. The people were short and stocky like Tunok, though fairskinned where he was swarthy. They hadn't fallen silent or stopped in their work as the strangers passed, but many pairs of eyes had followed them, taking special note of the rats and wolves.

Felin bought their way with gold and trinkets that Nerrar's cunning little friends had liberated from King Deveran's lodge. More of this sly-gotten gain had gone to outfit each of them in warm, lightweight, waterproof sealskin.

"Don't take us for thieves," Felin said with a grin. "But as it came from your bride-price offerings, I didn't think you'd mind."

"Not at all," she said. "A shame you didn't have them steal the Girdle of Janis as well."

"What makes you think I didn't?"

Now they were leaving the village -- with its stink of fisheries and the tannery where the pelts of seals and sea-bears were cured -- to dwindle in the distance.

A secret way into Westreach ... Idasha had never even heard rumors of such a thing. Surely if there was one, her family would have known about it. Felin had to be wrong ... or lying to her, which was of course more likely.

"Warm, balmy Narluk," Tunok said through chattering teeth. "Nut-brown jungle maidens wearing wreaths of flowers and very little else."

Nerrar rolled his eyes at Belorva, and a meaningful communication passed between them that didn't need the weight of Nerrar's usual 'speech.' The two of them, never friends, began spending more of their time together. Idasha found this queerly unsettling. As the journey progressed, found reasons to stay even further than usual from the rat-master and the big soldier.

A gurgled gasp and the touch of a hand woke Idasha with a start. She rolled over and in the pale light reflected from the ice saw fingers leaving trails on the pristine white snowbeast pelt.

Tunok mouthed her name. Mouthed it, could not speak it, for his voice was lost in the hiss and bubble of air trying to move through a slashed throat.

She bit back a horrified cry.

His head fell forward, hitting the planks with a muffled thump. He convulsed once, and the torrent flowing from his neck slowed to a trickle.

Looking around, she saw that she was alone. Felin's berth was empty, as were those of Nerrar and Belorva. The rats, the wolves, were missing as well. A trail led from Tunok's berth to hers, showing how he had even in his dying agonies dragged himself across the cabin to try and wake her, warn her.

Treachery!

She flung on her cloak over the sealskin wrap, drew the dagger Felin had given her, and rushed quietly to the door leading onto the deck.

It was the midnight watch, all but two of the crew fast asleep just as their passengers had been. But she saw no sign of the men who were supposed to be on watch, who were supposed to be at their most alert now that they were so near the dreaded Throat of Ice. She could hear the rushing thunder of the whirlpool.

Had they met a fate just like that of poor Tunok? Had the entire crew?

At the edge of her mind, a familiar pressure.

Nerrar. Angry.

She crept toward the source, toward the prow of the boat. There, she saw them. Nerrar, flanked as usual by his beasts, and in front of him Belorva, holding Felin with a sword to his neck. A sword already wet with Tunok's blood.

"-- drove us to it!" Belorva was saying, sounding anguished and enraged and ashamed all in one. "Nerrar told me what you meant to do, take us to Westreach! And then what? Give ourselves over to their justice? No, Commander! I think not!"

"Belorva, listen to me --"

"I am done with that! Done with you! Nerrar is right ... you've been led astray by your fancy! But I haven't! We'll take her back, and tell the king how it was all your doing! He'll forgive us then, I know he will."

Idasha went far colder than the frigid night could account for. She remembered her conversation with Felin, how he'd told her that the others didn't know of his plan ... but Nerrar must have set his rat-spies upon them!

Which meant ... which meant Felin had been speaking the truth?

"Your father may have been Kathani, Belorva, but you don't know their ways. Even if the king lets you live, what would you do? They have no place for the crippled and infirm, they distrust magic ... how long do you think you and Nerrar would be allowed to stay? What sort of life do you think you would have?"

Belorva faltered, and Felin moved. He ducked-spun out from under the sword at his throat, tearing it from Belorva's grasp.

Nerrar's mental shout sent spikes of pain into Idasha's head.

Felin, face twisted with regret, sank the blade into Belorva's chest and whirled to face the first of the wolves. He stop-thrust it as it leaped, and Nerrar uttered a glottal cry as if he shared the sensation.

Idasha, too aware that the dagger she held was next to useless against anything larger than Curdnibbler, started forward.

Nerrar's eyes narrowed into hateful slits, and if the pain Idasha felt on the periphery was unbearable, she could not imagine what it was like for Felin, who bore the brunt. All four rats keeled over, and the remaining wolf stumbled drunkenly.

The sword clang-clattered to the deck as Felin dropped to his hands and knees. His fingers curled in spasms on the wood. His breath labored through clenched teeth.

Fight him, Felin! Idasha thought, trying to will the words to him just as he must be hearing Nerrar's. Fight him! You are stronger!

Nerrar took a step forward, and then another. With the third, he grabbed Felin's shoulder and triggered another burst of his dark magic.

Felin straightened up. Idasha's victorious cry died unvoiced as she saw his eyes. Flat and glassy, unseeing eyes. The stare of a soulless thing, a corpse ... and she knew that the essential Felin was gone ... enslaved to the mind of Nerrar.

The rat-master, grinning as smugly as his ruined features would allow, issued a silent command. At once, Felin obeyed, and climbed onto the railing of the boat.

And without a word, without resistance, jumped into the Iceblown Sea.

"Felin!" Idasha shrieked. She reversed the dagger and threw it at Nerrar.

The remaining wolf sprang between them and took the strike meant for its master, which sufficed only to enrage it.

She dived-slid across the deck on her stomach, under the legs of the wolf to snatch the sword Felin had dropped. She rolled and brought it up just as the wolf's gaping jaws came down at her face, and the point skewered the back of its mouth.

Gagging and spraying blood around its new steel tongue, the wolf half-trampled her as it rampaged in a panic. She bumped into Belorva's body and his arms shot out to seize her from behind.

"Got ... you ... now!" he wheezed.

She slammed the back of her head into his face, causing him to loosen his hold. Wrenching herself away, she stumbled into Nerrar as the rat-master reeled weakly against the rail. A feeble push at her mind was the best he could do, between what he'd done to Felin and the link he shared with the wolves.

Belorva, crawling on the deck, caught her by the ankles and yanked her legs out from under her. Desperate to get free, she held tight to the railposts and pulled ... pulled ... too hard; when he lost his grip she shot herself out through the posts and fell six feet to land on the curved roof of the underwater craft.

The maddened Belorva launched himself over the rail after her. His weight snapped the ropes, and the craft fell free with both of them atop it. The impact when it smacked into the swirling water jolted Belorva off, headfirst and under.

Swirling water?

The rushing thunder of the Throat of Ice was a cataclysm. Aboard the boat, the crew that had been alerted by the noise were screaming orders at each other. They tried frantically to turn away, come about, get clear of the suction before they were sucked down.

The craft swept around in a tightening circle, veering away from the boat as it surrendered to the current.

Idasha acted on purest impulse. She opened the hatch, scrambled down and in, and closed it behind her, just as the water surged to engulf the craft.

All she could see through the window-skins was churning water, going from indigo to black, as the Throat of Ice swallowed her.

Continued in Vol. X -- Chilldark

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