Steel and Stone

Chapter 18

Surprisingly, Xanthar had retreated northward without demurral. Xanthar had merely dipped his head, touched Tanis's sleeve with the tip of his beak, flattened his ear tufts against the sides of his head, and launched into the air.

"Not a word," Caven had said, marking Xanthar's progress until the giant bird was just a dark gray spot against the sky. "I expected an argument."

That had been days ago. Since then, the half-elf and the mercenary had walked nearly ceaselessly-and almost wordlessly. Now they stood upon rocky heights overlooking a vast sea a hundred feet below. "Ice Mountain Bay," Tanis said.

"It looks more like an ocean. How do you know it's simply a bay?"

"The owl told me, days ago, that we would come to this place."

"I wish the blasted owl had told you how we are going to get across." Caven scowled at the seething, steel-blue water dotted with floes of ice. He edged back from the precipice. Beads of icy sweat shone on his forehead. Seabirds flew overhead, cawing, but there were no other signs of life. Copses of trees dotted the expanse of rocky soil behind them.

"Right after the sandstorm, Xanthar seemed to be speaking-or at least trying to speak-telepathically with someone," Tanis mused, scanning the horizon from west to east. "The lady mage, I expect. But all he said was that our way across the bay would prove obvious. While we were talking, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in midsentence. I didn't press him on the subject. Now I wish I had."

Caven spat, sitting down on a rock. "Well, the way's not obvious to me," he said petulantly. "Unless the overgrown chicken thought we could swim through that frigid muck, or sprout wings and fly."

Tanis nodded absentmindedly. He leaned over, picked up a piece of driftwood, and regarded it thoughtfully.

Until now, each man had instinctively shied away from the real thing weighing on their minds. But shivering in the needle-sharp wind that angled north off the bay, Caven broached the subject.

"Do you think she really is?"

"Is what?" Tanis asked. He looked up from the piece of driftwood to Caven, who didn't meet his eyes. The half-elf tossed the branch behind him.

"With child, half-elf. Like the owl said."

Tanis considered. "I think so, yes," he said at last, as though he hadn't been thinking about the same thing incessantly ever since Xanthar had made the revelation.

They sat in silence for a while. Caven finally shrugged. "I can't see Kitiara getting married," the mercenary said. "Or basking in motherhood. Especially that."

Tanis ran his hand through his hair. "No," he said. He frowned and turned his back on the bay, facing north. The valley they'd just traversed sloped before him. The wind howled and pushed against his back.

"Maybe it was some other…"

All of a sudden, Tanis froze, holding up a hand in warning. Caven stopped in midsentence. The Kernan rose and drew his sword. Tanis unfastened his bow from his pack and checked his sword.

"What is it?" Caven whispered.

Tanis shook his head.

"Battle drums?" Caven ventured. "I've heard the dwarves of Thorbardin bang the hollow trunks of symphonia trees to scare their enemies, and Thorbardin is up that way. But I've never heard…" He paused to listen. "An attack from the north? It makes no sense. We've been all the way through the dust plains. I saw nothing to threaten us except miles of shifting sand."

Tanis strained his eyes, trying to see as far back as he could into the direction from where they had come. Except for a dark line in the sky, which looked like a low bank of storm clouds, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Tanis pointed. "If you told me the Valdane knows we are carrying these magic jewels, I'd say that maybe we've become a target."

They looked at each other then. Hazel eyes met black. "He might have ways of knowing," Caven replied.

Seconds later, they were hiding among the trunks of the nearest trees. The pair bent some branches to improve their cover, then crouched, armed, behind their makeshift bulwark.

The drumming grew louder. The pounding racked Tanis's nerves. It sounded like battle drums, but slower-more like the beat that resounded when a prisoner marched to the gallows. Now Tanis thought he could hear smaller beats, sounding counterpoint to the loudest reverberations. Perhaps it wasn't one large creature at all, but many smaller ones. He said as much to Caven.

"In the name of Takhisis, could it be dragons?" the Kernan whispered.

"Dragons haven't been glimpsed on Krynn for thousands of years. If ever."

Caven and Tanis waited, motionless, as the black line drew closer, widened, and deepened. Then, with a roar of wings, they were there. Cream-colored underfeathers flashed as more than three hundred giant owls settled onto the rocks and trees of the shoreline. At the fore, dropping clumsily onto a needlelike protuberance of rock, was Xanthar. In a flash, Tanis and Caven were out of the trees and dashing toward him.

Tanis shouted the owl's name, expecting to hear the creature's sardonic tones buzz in his head. But there was no telepathic reply. Tanis looked alarmed, Caven surprised. They slowed to a halt before the giant owl.

"What's wrong with the old canary?" Caven muttered.

Tanis looked up into the bird's flat eyes, the color of mud, dimmed with pain. The bird's beak was partially open. He seemed to be panting. Up close, the half-elf barely recognized the once-sleek creature. The bird's proud carriage couldn't disguise that Xanthar had withered to little more than bones and feathers.

"He can't speak to us," Tanis told Caven. "He's been out of Darken Wood too long. The lady mage warned him." The bird nodded. "But he can understand whatever we say." Xanthar nodded again.

"What about the other birds?" Caven demanded. "Can we communicate with them?"

Tanis turned toward the chattering mass of giant owls, which stretched for some distance in both directions on the shore. Xanthar was shaking his head. "From what Kai-lid said, I'm guessing that only Xanthar had the rare ability to mind-speak outside his race," the half-elf said. Xanthar dipped his head again.

"Could he still speak to the mage?"

Xanthar cocked his head, and Tanis shrugged. "Maybe. He trained her. They have a special bond. But it doesn't matter, does it? She's not here."

Four somewhat smaller owls gathered around Xanthar. They appeared to be arguing with the old bird. Perched at the apexes of four dead oaks, the quartet broadcast their agitation with chittering, wing-flapping, and much whetting of beaks. Xanthar sat, apparently unmoved, at the tip of the stone, imperiously overlooking them all. The smaller birds chittered again; Xanthar dipped his beak in what Tanis interpreted as disagreement. The others cross-stepped back and forth on their branches, squawking some more. Xanthar appeared to consider, then dipped his beak again. The four other owls seemed to think a decision had been made. They leaped into the air with a rush of wind.

Xanthar didn't follow. Instead, he straightened and called out to them, a screeching that rivaled the tempest of wind, ocean, and crackling ice floes.

Several owls took to the air and circled overhead, calling down to the giant owl. One seemed particularly disturbed, darting again and again at Xanthar, screeching raggedly.

"l think they want Xanthar to go back home," the half-elf said, watching as the huge owl raised his beak and uttered a deep trill, the sound of water over stones. At that, the four returned, but with a deflated air. This time, as they landed on the ground, they turned large eyes toward Tanis and Caven.

"I hate that stare," Caven whispered. "It makes me feel like lunch. Their lunch."

"I see that Xanthar rules his family still," Tanis said, ignoring his companion's remark. He raised a hand to the closest bird. The owl dipped its head slightly.

Caven raised an eyebrow. "Family?"

"Look at them." Tanis pointed at the four and to other owls on each side. "Xanthar's dark brown and gray, and they're lighter. Those two are golden, but some have the same patch of white he has over the eye. Look at their markings, at the way they stand. Do you doubt the evidence of your eyes?"

The Kernan gaped for a while, then shook his head.

"At least it's obvious how we're getting to the Ice-reach," Tanis commented. Xanthar nodded.

"Obvious?" Caven's eyes darted nervously from Tanis to Xanthar, then over to the pair of tawny owls waddling across the heights toward the half-elf and Caven. Looks of determination lit their round eyes, and panic flickered across the mercenary's face. "Oh, no!"

Tanis ignored him.

"I'd rather swim across the bay than fly on the back

of one of those creatures," Caven said, swallowing. He took a step backward. "I–I wasn't meant to fly like a bird, half-elf."

"You mean you're afraid of heights," Tanis said.

Caven bristled. "Afraid? Not me. I'd just rather… rather… walk."

"You'll have to fly, and that's that."

"I… can't."

"Not for Kitiara?"

"Not for anybody. I suffer from vertigo… I'd fall off. Half-elf, no one can defeat me in hand-to-hand combat, or on horseback, but up in the air…" A shudder shivered through his frame. "By the gods, I don't dare!"

"We need you," Tanis replied. "You can use my harness. Strap yourself on; you won't fall off."

One of the birds, a blaze of white marking its tawny forehead, had reached Tanis and turned around, presenting its broad back. The half-elf dug the leather apparatus out of his pack and fastened it around the bird's wings and chest. The owl flexed its wings, testing the harness.

"Half-elf…" Caven said warningly.

The other bird, the same golden color as the first but without the blaze, came up on Caven's other side. It looked down on him solemnly, then plucked at his shirt with its beak, nudging the mercenary toward the waiting owl. "No!" Caven said. "Go away!" He put a hand on the hilt of his sword, looking wildly from side to side.

The two owls exchanged looks, then glanced at Tanis. The half-elf heard no voice of telepathy, but he understood the birds' intention. At that moment, the unharnessed owl raised its beak and screeched. The sound was enough to raise the hair on Tanis's neck,

and Caven whirled, fumbling with his sword. At that, the half-elf leaped for the driftwood he'd thrown away moments before, hefted it in one hand, and as the mercenary began to swing back the blade, brought the piece of wood down on Caven Mackid's head with a crack. The Kernan went down like dead weight.

Moments later the owl with the blaze, the unconscious mercenary lashed to its back, plunged from the ridge into the dizzying space above the churning waters of Ice Mountain Bay. Tanis's owl followed suit, the half-elf clinging to its neck. Xanthar launched from his pinnacle and swooped into the lead. They circled once, then turned due south.

Behind them, spread across the blue-gray sky, hundreds of giant owls followed.

Kai-lid.

Curled on the floor of the icebound dungeon, Kai-lid lifted her head and pushed back her coverlet. Her head swam. She hadn't eaten for days, although the ettin had begun showing up regularly several days ago, right after Kitiara had been dragged from the prison, to lower a pail of water. The swordswoman hadn't returned, and the ettin wouldn't answer Kai-lid's entreaties about Kitiara's safety. Several times Janusz himself had showed up and renewed the offer he'd made in the Valdane's camp, that she join forces with him and continue the magical training he'd begun with Lida and Dreena years ago when they were teen-agers. Of course, he would add, it was assumed that she would don the black robes and become his lover. Each time Kai-lid turned her head away, and when she looked back, Janusz would be gone, his scent of spices and dust lingering behind him. Her magic was useless in the face of the other mage's greater powers.

But surely she had just heard a summons. Was she hallucinating from lack of food?

Kai-lid Entenaka. Can you hear me? Have caution. I sense the presence of another, who watches. Do not speak aloud.

Kai-lid's trembling dropped away like the sloughed skin of a snake. She forced herself to concentrate, to look within, and to remain seemingly calm in the cold light from the walls, but her heart leaped.

Xanthar, is it you?

A pause. Do you speak like this with anyone else?

The lady mage practically sobbed with relief. She hid her emotions by rising and moving to the pail of water under the portal. She filled the dipper and drank deeply, all the while focusing her mind for telepathic speech.

Xanthar, my father has enslaved the Ice Folk. Kitiara has been gone for several days. I don't know if she's alive or dead. I fear she's cooperating with him. I am his prisoner, deep in some ice crevasse. Quickly returning to the parka and resuming her somnolent position under it, she mentally sketched in their trek over the Icereach in the dire-wolf sledge. You are near, Xanthar?

We are approaching the Icereach, my dear. I have brought my sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters, plus a few hundred cousins.

Anyone else? She let the parka's hood fall forward to cover her expression.

The half-elf and the Kernan. They will be there soon.

They? Not you, too?

A long pause ensued, until Kai-lid felt fear twist within her. Xanthar, are you ill? I told you not to travel so far…

Don't be ridiculous. Even by telepathy, the giant owl's tone was gruff. Of course I'm coming. And you must be ready to help us.

I'm helpless! She explained the surroundings and Janusz's offer. He-he feels responsible for my death-that is, for Dreena's death. Xanthar, Janusz says he hates Kitiara because she stole his ice jewels, but also because he blames her for Dreena's death. He says he loved Dreena. I swear I never knew, Xanthar. He taught both of us magic, Lida and me. He says the love of Dreena's maid would remind him of the happy times of the past.

The owl pondered long before answering. You must buy time, and you must get out of that dungeon and rebuild your strength. Comply with the mage, Kai-lid.

Comply? Kai-lid couldn't hide her disgust. I'd rather die.

That appears to be your choice, Kai-lid. But this pride is self-indulgent. We need you. You must find out what the mage has learned from the ice jewels. If you have to suffer his advances in order to do that, then you must. I'm sorry.

But Janusz wants…

Suddenly she felt the owl's pain through the telepathic link. She interpreted it as empathy for her, and Xanthar did not correct her. Say you are ill, Kai-lid, weak from lack of food. Put the mage off as best you can. We need a day or two to find the Ice Folk and plan an attack. A note of forced humor entered his words. / know you are absolutely unbelievable as a liar, Kai-lid, but he must believe you, so make a good pretense of going along with him.

The lady mage sat up, agitated, stroking the sealskin trim on the sleeves of her parka. Finally she nodded, forgetting that the owl couldn't see her.

Kai-lid?

I will try, Xanthar.

Then… The link faded, and Kai-lid sensed that the owl was struggling for words. Farewell, he finally said simply.

For now, she amended.

Of course, Xanthar said gruffly after another pause. For now, my dear.

Then the link dissipated. Kai-lid waited for a time, wondering if the giant owl were truly gone. Then she raised her voice, addressing the walls. "Janusz? Are you there? I have decided."

Moments later, the mage was at the portal, gazing down at her, hope dancing in his eyes. She let herself sway as she stood looking up at him. "I can stand the hunger no longer, Janusz. I am ill. I will… I will do as you ask, but I need time to recover."

As the mage surveyed her, Kai-lid felt a shiver of fear. The mage had been watching her, Xanthar had said. Could Janusz tell that she had been mindspeaking? He'd given no hint that telepathy was one of his skills. She forced her expression to remain blank, but her hands trembled. She toyed with the pouches of spell-casting material at her belt to hide her terror.

But Janusz's next words were neutral. "Very well," he said. He threw the rope down. "Climb up."

She tried, but the parka and her fear of touching the clinging ice hampered her. Finally Janusz spoke an incantation and drifted down beside her. He placed one hand on her shoulder and declaimed a second spell. They rose gracefully into the air, drew even with the portal, and drifted through. Once their feet touched the floor, Janusz helped her down the long hallways to his quarters. She forced herself to lean against him.

Xanthar almost missed the Ice Folk village. The native people covered their dwellings with white fur and snow, and the village blended in perfectly with the glacial setting. Xanthar was nearly blind by now, and the other night-seeing owls were experiencing difficulty in the glare. It was Tanis who spotted the spindle of smoke that trickled up from one of the dwellings. He shouted, and Xanthar angled down, followed by Tanis's owl, whom the half-elf had dubbed Golden Wing, and Caven's mount, whom Tanis had named Splotch, for the mark on his forehead.

At the last moment, instead of landing within the village, Xanthar swung to the south and brought the group down in an open field nearby. The field was outside a wall of gigantic rib bones, taller than a man, that formed a border around the community. The rest of the owl phalanx landed silently. Once again Tanis marveled at the discipline the birds showed. They could fly without a sound, as they had just now, or with a slight change in the way they used their wings, they could soar with the insistent booming that had so unnerved him before.

For a moment, nothing happened. Tanis untied Caven, who regained consciousness to complain about the cold and a splitting headache. Tanis glared him into silence. Neither man was dressed for the bitter wind, which blew right through their clothing.

Then a lone figure, swathed in furs, emerged from a chink in the rib fence. The figure carried a spear and a shiny weapon that seemed to be an ax made of ice. Soon a dozen other figures, similarly dressed and armed, joined the first. At a spoken command, they moved as one toward the giant owls. Tanis slid from Golden Wing and stepped forward. Caven slipped off Splotch, clinging to the owl for a moment, then hurrying unsteadily after the half-elf. Xanthar, a head taller than the other owls and imposing despite his infirmities, shuffled forward, too. Tanis didn't draw his sword, and when Caven moved to pull his weapon from his own scabbard, the half-elf waved for him to stop.

The two groups, one armed, the other staying their weapons, surveyed each other silently. Then one of the Ice Folk, a man of medium height with a dark, hatchetlike face, handed his spear to a companion and used his free hand to pull back his hood. His hair was dark brown, his face smeared with grease-protection against the cold and wind, Tanis guessed. The owls seemed unbothered by the cold, but he and Caven were shivering.

"You speak Common?" the man asked.

"He and I do." Tanis pointed to Caven Mackid and introduced the Kernan, then Xanthar, Golden Wing, Splotch, and himself. The eyes of the giant owls widened as the half-elf uttered their new human names, and Xanthar rubbed his beak with a claw, a movement that Tanis had long since realized signaled amusement. Golden Wing and Splotch merely looked at each other, blinking.

"I am Brittain of the White Bear clan. This is my village. What do you want here?" the leader asked.

Trained in the formalities of Qualinesti greeting rituals, Tanis matched the Ice Folk leader's ceremonial tone. "We have come to the rescue of two friends, kidnapped by an evil man and brought to the Icereach. We fear for their lives-and the lives of the Ice Folk-if he is not stopped."

His men murmured, but the leader didn't move. The wind ruffled the white fur at the edge of his hood. His glance flicked from half-elf to the Kernan, then to the owls. "I believe you are lying. I believe you are an emissary of this evil one of whom we have heard much. I believe that you and your followers seek to learn about yet another village of The People so that you can take this knowledge back to the evil one and his hordes of bull men, walrus men, and two-headed slaves." Brittain scowled. "You are our prisoners." He gestured, and a squad of armed Ice Folk strode forward, grabbing Tanis and Caven by the arms.

"Don't struggle," Tanis whispered to Caven. "We must convince them that we mean no harm. We don't have time to fight another battle."

Caven glared and set his feet in the snow. "I'm a man, half-elf. I will not be taken without a fight!"

Tanis sighed. For a moment, he locked gazes with Brittain. He was surprised to note humor creep into the leader's brown eyes. However, that hint of goodwill, unless he imagined it, was gone as quickly as it had come.

At that instant, Xanthar, Golden Wing, and Splotch stepped forward. Xanthar lifted his head and trilled, and the giant owls in the field beyond turned and massed into lines. As one, they dipped their heads in unmistakable greeting. Xanthar, Golden Wing, and Splotch leaned forward and plucked the hands of the Ice Folk captors from the arms of the half-elf and Kernan.

Brittain signaled to his followers. "These great birds are not of the Icereach…" he said tentatively.

"They are from the north, as are we. They desire only good, as do we."

Brittain smiled at last. "We shall see."

"They come at the behest of Xanthar, who is their elder and leader, not at the call of the evil one."

Brittain's smile broadened. "We shall see," he repeated. "You are hardly dressed for the Icereach. Indeed, the evil one would have more sense."

Xanthar trilled again, and Tanis, turning toward the owl, felt a familiar sensation within his mind. Could the bird still speak telepathically? Had he the strength? Caven's own expression was surprised. Brittain, too, seemed alert to some message.

"Grandfather owl," Brittain murmured respectfully. "The People revere the aged, and you appear to have much wisdom."

Xanthar's eyes were closed. His claws gripped the snow so tightly that it melted beneath him. He was concentrating with all his dwindling power, Tanis could see. The telepathy flickered in the half-elf's brain again.

"The…the…"

It faded and returned. Xanthar staggered with the effort as Golden Wing and Splotch hurried to his side.

"The lovers… three, the… spell-cast maid. Xanthar took a shuddering breath and leaned against the two owls.

"Tanis!" Caven hissed. "The dream! What's he doing?"

"The winged one of loyal soul," the owl continued. He opened rheumy eyes for an instant. That's me, half-elf.

Tanis, too, recited. " 'The foul undead of Darken Wood, The vision seen in scrying bowl. Evil loosed with diamond's flight.' "

Caven joined in on the second stanza. To Tanis's surprise, Brittain spoke in concert on the third.

"The lovers three, the spell-cast maid, The tie of filial love abased. Foul legions turned, the blood flows free, Frozen deaths in snow-locked waste. Evil vanquished, gemstone's might."

The last syllable faded, and the tickling in Tanis's mind ended. Xanthar swayed against Golden Wing for a moment, then he sighed and slumped to the snow. By the time Tanis and Caven had reached him, the giant owl was dead.

A cry of despair rose from Golden Wing, Splotch, and the other owls. Caven swore violently. Tanis was silent. Tears welled in his eyes as hundreds of owls trilled and keened behind him. He felt a hand on his arm and shook it off, thinking it was Caven's, but the hand returned and Tanis looked up. It was Brittain.

"I, too, had a dream," the Ice Folk leader whispered, "many weeks ago, before the evil one destroyed the first village. The Revered Cleric said the dream, sent to warn us, came from the great polar bear. Since then the evil one has taken many of The People." His brown eyes studied Tanis for a moment, the pressure of his hand increasing on Tanis's arm. "You cry real tears for your friend. I am convinced."

Brittain barked orders, and his followers hurried forward to raise Xanthar's body. Leaving the mourning owls on the icy plain, Tanis and Caven accompanied the Ice Folk into the village.

Women and men scurried right and left to accommodate the newcomers. Brittain's wife, Feledaal, gave orders to a crew of women and children who were concocting a vat of fish chowder.

"Prepare for the funeral of a great warrior," Brittain commanded a man in a robe decorated with beads of pebbles and bird bones. "Our Revered Cleric," Brittain indicated respectfully after the man had bowed and hurried off, his beads clicking. "He interprets our dreams and fashions our frostreavers, among other things. Although I am master of our glacier-bound life and the Revered Cleric pretends to follow my dictates, he controls all things spiritual. Thus I sometimes suspect our Revered Cleric has more real power than I do."

Tanis and Caven were speedily equipped with clothing for a glacial climate-fur parkas, sealskin boots lined with fur and sealed with walrus oil, and thick mittens. The travelers also received a strip of leather with slits cut in the front, and Brittain showed Tanis how to position the slits before his eyes and tie the ends behind his head. "To guard against snow blindness during the brightest part of the days," Brittain explained.

Brittain told Tanis he would take him on a tour of the village. Caven, on the other hand, surprised them both by gathering some of the village's warriors and heading back into the area south of the village. "I will show these Ansalon-bound rustics how trained soldiers can fly," he explained stoutly, tying his leather strip around his head.

Brittain pointed toward the largest construction in the village, a dwelling of packed snow and ice topped with white fur and snow. "We gather there for discussions that affect the future of The People," Brittain said. He motioned to two children who leaned against the side of the building and watched the activity with solemn eyes. The rest of the Ice Folk children wore their hair long, but these youngsters' brown locks had been shorn just below the ears. Their face bore smudges of gray and white ash. Neither child smiled. At Brittain's gesture, they came swiftly over, their gazes never leaving the half-elf.

"You must forgive their stares. We have heard of the pointed-eared people to the north, but we have not seen them in this village. Terve, Haudo," he said, his voice gentle, "this is Tanis Half-Elven. He has come to help us fight the evil one." The boy nodded; the girl said nothing. Brittain dismissed them, sending them to help with the food preparation.

"They are in mourning, as you can tell," he explained as soon as the children were out of earshot. "We received from them our first word of the evil one's rapacity. Their parents were killed, and the rest of their village, too."

Tanis turned back toward the children, but they had vanished into a hut. "What do you know of the size and nature of the Valdane's forces?" he asked. Then, at Brittain's quizzical expression, he explained that the Valdane was the name by which he knew the "evil one."

Brittain stood back to make room for two women who struggled past with a seal carcass. "For the evening's chowder," Brittain said: Then he returned to Tanis's question. "We hear reports and estimates from members of The People who have escaped when their villages were attacked, or who have fled the enemy camps and made their way back to us. Thanoi guards distract easily, apparently." He sketched in the latest intelligence of the size and makeup of the Valdane's troops, and where they had established their main camp. "There had been rumors, of course, that someone of great power had come to the glacier, but the destruction of Haudo and Terve's village was the first proof we had that the power was of evil intent. Since then, reports of fresh atrocities have arrived nearly every day." Brittain turned aside and seemed to be struggling with great emotion. When he turned back, his face was composed but pale. "You will forgive me. Terve and Haudo's mother was my sister."

Brittain forced a dispassionate note into his delivery. "We have heard that the evil one lives under the ice and that the entrance to his dwelling is nearly impossible to spot. But our spies have located it, and they can pinpoint it on a map. Even better, they can lead us there. Look! One of them is practicing owl flight with your friend!"

As he spoke, four owls whooshed overhead, barely missing the tops of the Ice Folk dwellings. Four parka-clad men clenched the birds by the necks, shouting in a strange tongue. Caven, on Splotch, yelled directions from the rear. The sight brought a faint grin to the Ice Folk leader's face. 'They cry out in the tongue of our fathers for the protection of the polar bear," he explained. Then he grew solemn again.

"We have heard sickening rumors of this evil one, and they grow worse with each day," Brittain said, seating himself upon an ice bench next to a dwelling. He indicated the empty space next to him, and Tanis sat, too.

"Rumors?" the half-elf prompted.

Brittain nodded. "Of deadly ice that holds its victims until they die-or are released magically. Our Revered Cleric has an ointment that he believes will offset the ice, but he admits that he has not had the opportunity to test it."

Tanis stored the information away, urging the leader to continue.

"We know that the evil… that this Valdane has a powerful mage who sometimes oversees the troops. We know the mage appears old and frail, and our Revered Cleric has posited that the mage's strength wears thin from the oppression of this Valdane. That gives us cause for hope. But the latest rumors have been the most troubling."

"And they are?"

"That the Valdane has found a new commander who has great practical skills and has led enemy troops, within the last days, into a deadly assault against a village of The People."

"What do you know of this new commander?" Tanis pressed.

"Only that it is a woman."

Tanis felt his face grow pale, but he said nothing as Caven and his Ice Folk students returned boisterously from their practice flights. Brittain ushered them all into the large central dwelling for supper-and a planning session.