Seven Kings

11

The White Mountains did not exist on any map made by the hands of Men. Few, if any, had explored the colossal forest known as Uduria, the untamed realm known as the Giantlands. Fewer still survived the northward trek to view the frozen peaks hemming the northern lip of the continent. Here in the Icelands, on frosted plateau and glacial mountainsides, the blue-skinned Udvorg hunted the great moose and the shaggy mammoth.

King Angrid the Long-Arm was Lord of the Icelands and all the Giant clans north of Uduria. Twice Vireon had walked the eternal snows and entered the vast palace of ice and rock where the Ice King held his court. Yet now, standing once more in the shadow of the icebound peaks, he did not seek the Udvorg King or his counsel. He ran instead up the slopes of frozen hills into the face of a driving storm. He followed the spark of white flame that lingered deep in his heart.

Dahrima the Axe and twenty sisters of the Uduri trailed him, their purple cloaks and black armor sheathed in patches of blue-green ice and pristine frost. Neither Vireon nor his followers felt the bite of the cold, not in the way a human would suffer. They had run for days on end, stopping every third night to rest beneath a frozen moon. They ignored the signs of wild herds passing through the great forest, for this was no time to hunt simple meat. They hunted a Queen and a Princess, and for Vireon nothing else existed in this world. Least of all the driving snow, the smothering winds, or the whelming ice.

At first he went alone into the wild, following in the wake of the white flame. Only the fastest and hardiest Uduri ran after him, as he knew they would. Each day his long strides ate up the leagues of ground between the titanic trees, and each evening as he rested the Uduri caught up to him. After three such evenings he stopped ordering them to turn back. It was no use. Dahrima was as headstrong as any Uduru; her sister-cousins would follow her into death and beyond. So he brooded atop a moonlit boulder while they roasted a freshly killed elk to feed him. Otherwise he would not have eaten at all.

Alua was not herself… the child that was not a child had somehow conquered her mind. It must have been easy for the sorceress to twist a mother’s love into doting slavery. It was Alua’s magic that carried them into the northern sky, yet it was Maelthyn who demanded it. How could he have not seen it sooner? The long trance… Alua’s crying out… her casual dismissal of the problem… her sudden sleep. Yet how could a father ever dare to think that his daughter was not his offspring at all, but a vessel for something ancient and wicked? Was there any of Maelthyn left in the tiny body he had cradled and protected for seven years? Or was there only Ianthe the Claw now? And, if so, what did that mean for his family?

For nine days Vireon ran north through the green forest, resting briefly at each sunset. On the ninth day the summer heat was lost beneath cold rains and a sea of rolling gray clouds. On the tenth morning a network of frozen hills arose from the forest proper, a jagged rolling escarpment that was the southernmost bulwark of the White Mountains. The Uduri stared at the sparkling range at sunrise after running all night, and they were breathless. None of them had come this far north, into the realm where their menfolk had gone to join the Ice King’s court.

Despite the loss they had endured, the Uduri were grateful to Vireon. He had opened the way to the Icelands, where the pale Uduru could breed with blue-skinned Uduri of the Udvorg to produce the next generation of Giantkind. These Giantesses with their burning hearts were barren inside, like the iced-over wasteland that ringed the peaks. Their most selfless act was in letting their males go north, where they could find new wives and make families. The barren Ninety-Nine had stayed behind to serve Vireon and the City of Men and Giants.

Now they saw for the first time the sparkling realm that had stolen their husbands, brothers, and lovers. The lonesome vastness of it seemed to humble them. Some dropped to their knees in the snow and gave thanks to the nameless Gods.

Vireon climbed a tor and stared into the distance. He scanned the slopes of the white peaks from horizon to horizon as the sun mounted a blue and cloudless sky. The snowstorms had ceased for a while, yet he stood hip deep in the drifts. He heard the scrambling and cursing of Dahrima as she climbed the slope after him. Always at his heels, that one. She, too, had known his father. Perhaps she saw Vod in Vireon’s face when she looked at him. Whatever the reason for her loyalty, he was glad to have her company, though he was loath to say it aloud. In the back of his mind, he wondered how much of himself Vod had shared with Dahrima in the days before he took Shaira’s hand.

“Majesty,” huffed Dahrima, pulling herself to the top of the hill. She towered over him and squinted at the panorama of wintery mountains. Her golden braids glimmered in the early sunlight Tiny showers of snow and ice fell from her broad back, where her great axe slept. The rest of the Uduri awaited him at the hill’s base, catching their breaths and chewing on strips of dried elk flesh. Vireon shifted the scabbard strap that held his greatsword between his shoulder blades. After so many days running, he was beginning to feel the weight of the blade. The spear he carried helped him to navigate treacherous ground, but the sword was only baggage until he needed it. He chose not to think about exactly how he would use that blade, but deep in his heart he already knew.

“What lies beyond these mountains of ice?” asked Dahrima, her breath a white plume.

“A frozen sea,” Vireon answered. He had seen that sea only on ancient maps in Udurum’s library. Not even the Udvorg Ice Clans roamed that terrific expanse of frozen saltwater. It was the upper end of the world. Here, in these mountains, there was much life. Here the Udvorg made their ancestral home and enjoyed the wild game and isolation of a people at peace. The clans might fight among themselves at times, but the blue-skins had not known war since the Age of Serpents, when they had split with their Uduru cousins and sought the Icelands. Now the two strains of Giantkind were united once again. All save the childless Uduri.

“This devil we hunt,” Dahrima said, her voice lowering. “It is the same one that killed my six cousins?”

“It is,” said Vireon, his eyes caressing the great peaks. Some sign, anywhere, anything…

The mountains breathed cold winds down upon him, as if warning him to turn back.

“It has stolen the Queen,” Dahrima said. “And the little one…”

Vireon nodded. How could he explain to Dahrima that the “devil” was a sorceress who should have died years ago? How could he make her understand that this murderous bloodthirsty thing did not kidnap his daughter, but simply was his daughter? Could that even be true? Was there any truth to Maelthyn at all, or had her existence been merely a disguise? A ruse meant only to provide rebirth for Ianthe. Alua had not burned her from the world as he had so long believed… she had only incinerated Ianthe’s physical form. Had Alua ever been truly pregnant? His eyes welled with salty tears and the wind quickly froze them into tiny icicles. He wiped them away with the back of his hand.

“We will follow you across this world if we must, and into the next one,” Dahrima said. “But how do you know where to find them in all this wasteland?”

Vireon spat into the snow. “I know,” he said. He slammed a fist against his black-mailed chest. “Here.”

“This is blue-skin country,” she said.

He nodded. “They know we have come,” said Vireon. “They watch us even now. I’ve smelled them since we entered these frigid hills.”

Dahrima looked about the snowy landscape with wary eyes. “Yet we do not see them.”

“Soon,” said Vireon, running down the hill and heading north. A new day of running had begun. “Soon you will…” he yelled back at her. She and her sister-cousins followed.

The Udvorg met them at the bottom of a snow-choked ravine. Running was next to impossible here, so Vireon slowed his pace while the Uduri caught up to him. His first encounter with the Udvorg had been violent and poisoned by ignorance. He wondered if they would recognize his authority this time. He had left his gleaming crown in Udurum. Yet who else would travel this far into the Icelands with a band of fierce-eyed Uduri?

Several hunting parties had converged to meet him as one. Each of the thirty-two Udvorg stood as tall as the Uduri, a few even taller. Vireon waited between the two bands of Giants as they marched toward one another. The Udvorg wore beards matted with hoarfrost. The dyed pelts of gargantuan tigers and snow lions hung from their shoulders. Their hair, white as the snow itself, contrasted greatly with their skin, which was the color of the sky or a slightly more pale blue. They snuffled with flat noses and stared at the Uduri with eyes red as blood. They had obviously never seen or smelled anything like these pale females. Some grunted like bulls, ready to charge and force a mating. Others stood quietly behind the Leader of the Hunt, a brawny Giant with a chain of iron and icy jewels hanging about his tree-trunk neck. Their spears were longer and thicker than those of the Uduri, the keen heads forged of black iron. Each hunter carried at his waist an iron mace or hammer, as well as a skinning knife. Talismans of bone, bronze, and gold hung from ear, nostril, and earlobe. The Udvorg went barefoot in the deep snow.

If they stood here long enough, the snows would bury them all. How many frozen Giant corpses lay buried far beneath the drifts even now? The huntsman called to Vireon as a light snowfall began.

“Hail, King of the South!” bellowed the huntsman, raising his spear. His fellows stood cautiously behind him, more interested in the Uduri than the tiny King. The day was growing long, and deep shadows moved along the ravine. Soon it would lie in total darkness.

Vireon raised his own spear in a corresponding salute. Trudging forward, he stood within a bowshot of the blue-skins. The Uduri crept cautiously behind him, Dahrima nearly at his back. He could only imagine what went through their heads as they looked upon their ancient cousins and recognized the savage vitality their own tribe had lost centuries ago.

“They stink,” Dahrima whispered. Vireon might have smiled, but he was in no mood.

“Say nothing,” he told her.

The Udvorg huntsman called again in the language of his people, which, despite certain differences and strangeness of accent, was the same as that of the Uduru. “I am Thurguz of the Ivory Seekers,” he announced. “We go to stalk the high plateau where the mammoth roams. Yet before I leave the realm of my King, here I see another King come walking.”

“You know then who I am,” Vireon yelled through the rising wind.

The Udvorg laughed. “Only the King of Udurum would travel with such a retinue. Who are these Uduri?”

The crimson pupils of the Udvorg studied the snow-frosted Uduri with evident lust. The Giantesses stared back at them, unspoken challenges flickering in their black eyes. Dahrima lifted the great axe from her back and stepped to Vireon’s side.

“They are my personal guard,” answered Vireon. “The Daughters of Udurum. The Ones Who Stayed.”

Thurguz shared a few rough words with his hunters, then turned his eyes back to Vireon. “We shall accompany you to the Palace of the Ice King, where these Uduri may visit their male cousins.”

“No,” said Vireon. “We too hunt on this day.”

Thurguz blinked and a shower of ice crystals fell from his jutting brow. “Surely there is much game in the southern forest. None but Udvorg may hunt the mammoth, or the moose, or the tiger. The White Mountains are closed to those not of our clan. Even to Kings.”

Vireon drove the point of his walking spear into the frozen snow. “I care not for your game. I hunt for my missing child and wife.”

The Udvorg stood silent, shifting from foot to foot and studying the Uduri with animal fascination.

Thurguz laughed again. “How could mother and child be so far from home? This land is death to those born in the south. Surely your hunt will find only corpses.”

Vireon ignored the callous words.

“I seek a white flame,” he said.

The Udvorg exchanged a series of grunts and suspicious glances.

“You have seen it,” Vireon said.

Thurguz bent low and rested his weight on one knee. His craggy face loomed near to Vireon. Dahrima’s eyes followed the Udvorg’s movements with a burning intensity. She might kiss his frosty lips or slice off his head. Either was as likely. His voice was a coarse whisper cutting through the wind.

“There is a haunted mountain not far from here,” he said. His breath was like winter itself, colder than the night. “We passed it on our last hunt and saw the blazing of restless spirits about its summit. They burned like white flames in the night. This place is called Kyorla, Mountain of Ghosts. Knowing of its nature, we left these ghosts to themselves as we always do. They are the lost souls of those who died on the ice.”

“Will you show me this peak?” Vireon asked.

Thurguz ran a hand through his wild beard, pulling free the accumulated ice, frost, and snow. It rained down at Vireon’s feet. The Udvorg’s eyes turned to Dahrima. Her jaw was firmly set, her eyes unknowable.

“That depends,” he said, smiling. His teeth were the light blue of a frozen pond. “If this one gives me a kiss… and promises to bring her sisters to my lord’s palace when the hunt is done.”

Dahrima spat at the Udvorg’s feet. “Unwashed savage!” she said. “You ask favors beyond your station! We are warriors, not courtesans!”

Thurguz smiled again, threw his head back and laughed. “You misunderstand me! We invite you as honored guests, not carnal conquests. We are the brothers of your ancestors! We lay our spears at your feet to show our respect.” He tossed his black spear into the snow, and his thirty-one brothers followed his example. Dahrima glanced back at her sister-cousins. They spoke without words, sentiments moving from eye to eye. The blue-skinned Udvorg women had taken their males; perhaps some of the lonely Uduri would take Udvorg males as husbands. Vireon would release them from their oath of servitude if they so desired it. But their great pride would prohibit the asking of such a thing.

“To the second part of your bargain I agree,” said Vireon. “The Uduri will come to Angrid’s Hall before the next moon rises. As for your first request… that is up to Dahrima.”

The proud Giantess looked down at her King, and Vireon wondered how she would choose. He would not order her to debase herself, but he trusted her to support his quest. Alua and Maelthyn were the goal, and this was a small thing to ask. Yet the Uduri’s innate sense of nobility was something no Man or Giant could outguess.

Dahrima sighed, dropped her axe into the ice, and approached Thurguz the Huntsman. The Udvorg’s crimson eyes grew large as she grabbed his great head, knocking the horned helm from his brow. She planted her warm lips on his cold ones, and for a while only the wailing of the night wind was heard in the ravine. When she released him, Thurguz fell backwards into the snow. His fellows roared with mirth and shuffled forward as if they, too, would receive hot kisses.

Dahrima took up her axe and faced them. “The first to touch me loses his manhood, then his head.” The Udvorg redoubled their laughter and ceased their clumsy advance. Thurguz pulled himself out of the snow and stood once more at his full height. He picked up his spear and let his gaze linger on Dahrima.

“I like this pale Uduri!” he shouted to his brothers. “Her kiss brings the heat of the sun to scorch my loins.” More laughter ensued as the hunters regained their spears.

Vireon looked up at the crescent moon sliding from behind the heavy clouds.

“Come, King of the South,” said Thurguz.

He followed the mass of Udvorg, and the Uduri followed him. They tramped up the far neck of the ravine and stood inside a ring of glacial mountainscapes. Thurguz pointed a meaty arm in the direction of the Mountain of Ghosts. East, toward the distant shore of the Far Sea. Yet this far north the sea was most likely frozen, making it part of that nameless ocean of ice that smothered the edge of the world.

The Udvorg fell into their accustomed hunters’ jog, which was somewhat slower than the pace Vireon had set for the past ten days. The Uduri had no trouble keeping up with him. Now they filed along precarious mountain trails where the snows were not so deep. In this way, following trails only Udvorg could see or sense, they moved from slope to slope, on through the night.

Vireon saw the white flame well before they reached the side of the mountain. It danced and flashed like a pale aurora about the ice-clad summit. The white spark in his heart was kindled into a fresh blaze, almost hot enough to dispel the chill in his weary limbs. In the back of his mind he wondered if Ianthe were leading him to this place, and then he decided she must be. Unless it was Alua, calling to him from afar. Yet if she was in the grip of Maelthyn’s spell-Ianthe’s spell-how could she do so? No, it must be the sorceress who stole his daughter’s body, urging him onward to his death. He might die here, but Ianthe would not escape a second time. He put all other thoughts out of his head as he climbed.

Vireon, thirty-two Udvorg, and twenty-one Uduri scaled the frozen slope, digging fingers and toes into solid ice, drawing themselves inexorably upward. The white flame was not constant. At times only darkness lay upon the mountain’s crown, but always the burst of colorless light returned again. A beacon of death, his own or that of his enemy.

Now the earth shook and a vast portion of the mountainside fell away into darkness with a deafening roar. A rain of jagged icicles and avalanches of snow fell upon the climbers. One of the Udvorg lost his grip and fell howling into the lower dark. The winds blew fierce and terrible, driving sleet into their faces as they climbed onward. Vireon scrambled at their forefront, his urgent need driving him faster and faster up the peak. He might have told the Udvorg to stay below. They might even have listened, unlike the Uduri, who would not abandon him regardless of their fate. He supposed the blue-skins did not want to be outdone by the females, so they came along. Vireon was too set in maintaining his upward path to speak aloud of the matter.

All through the night they climbed, crossing sheer faces that no human could survive without the strength and fortitude of Giants invested in his body. The storm never ceased, and the ice at times froze over Vireon’s mouth and nose. He paused regularly to crack it from his face in order to breathe. This was not an issue for the Udvorg; snow and ice were as balmy breezes to them. The Uduri climbed on, painfully yet silently.

Perhaps an hour remained before dawn when Vireon pulled himself onto a narrow tableland within three bowshots of the mountain’s peak. The white flames danced above this great ledge clear and bright as lightning. Now he saw the source of it as he brought his legs up to kneel on the icy shelf. A tall crevice opened in the side of the mountain. A gout of white flame poured from it like a raging spirit, flying about and disappearing into the sky. Every few seconds another flash brought another flame spilling from the cave into the upper air.

Vireon walked toward the flashing cleft. The Giants scrabbled up behind him, finding their own room on the narrow plateau one at a time. Before Dahrima and Thurguz had finished their climb, Vireon stood halfway to the cave mouth. Perhaps Alua lay within, hurt or dying, sending her white flame out again and again as a message. Could Maelthyn be with her? Could she have driven Ianthe away from this forsaken place? He forced himself to remain calm as he pulled the greatsword from its scabbard on his back.

A frosted corpse lay half buried in the snow before the cave.

Vireon’s heart shattered into icy shards.

Alua…

She lay with eyes open, staring at the cold stars. Her pupils gleamed with that same cold light, like iced gems. Her long blonde hair was mostly lost beneath the snow, and her ribcage was a jagged hole. An empty crevice yawned where her heart had once been. Blood had spilled and frozen into the ice about her, leaving two lines of red from the corners of her mouth to the back of her jawbone. An artificial smile; the death mask of a naked skull. There was little of beauty left in her vacant, blue face.

Vireon’s breath came in difficult gasps now. He blinked at Alua’s dead body, realizing what her missing heart meant. The Giants closed in behind him, wordless, spears pointed at the black crevice.

Another blast of white flame shot from the darkness. The naked figure of a full-grown woman stood limned in the glow of sorcery. A mane of snowy hair flew about her shoulders, dancing in the deathwinds. Her black diamond eyes glowed like twin stars. The light and its flame were Alua’s own… but it was not Alua who stood in the cave’s mouth. Nor was it his daughter. Not any longer.

“Father…” The word fell upon him like a physical blow, borne to his ears through the cutting wind. “I knew you would come. I’ve been waiting here for you.”

The greatsword trembled in his hands. “Maelthyn?” he said, already knowing that name was forever dead.

She stepped forward and the white flames about her hands lit up her face. It was the face of Maelthyn, so like that of Alua. And yet it was not her face at all. Her hair had changed from black to bone-pale, and there was nothing of blue left in her ebony pupils. The last traces of Vireon’s blood had been shed like a viper’s skin. Where was the tiny body, the delicate limbs, the pretty face of his daughter?

Elements of Maelthyn lingered in the lovely face, distorted as it was by a cruel smile. A touch of Alua’s chin… the cast of the nose… Yet the cheekbones were all wrong, and the black eyes nearly almondine.

Khyrein. She looked at him with Khyrein eyes.

“Is this all the Giants you could rouse for me?” she asked. Laughter lurked at the edge of her voice. “They must be a lazy bunch.”

The Udvorg growled and the Uduri crouched as one into their killing stances. Yet Vireon stood motionless before the slayer of his wife and daughter.

Lanthe. He must not say the name aloud. Something inside him knew it would mean his doom. Yet it was her. The Claw of Khyrei.

Her smile was wicked and gleeful. The white flame surged and she became a great white panther tall as a warhorse. It bared yellow fangs longer than daggers and spoke to him in Maelthyn’s voice. “You did not think your whore of a wife actually ended me?” The words fell impossibly from the panther’s maw. “You knew all along that something was not as it should be. Tell me you never had the urge to smother the little brat while she slept. To slit her throat and be done with it.”

Vireon tightened his knuckles about the grip of his sword. He took one step closer.

“No,” the beast said, wistfully. “You were a kindly father, and I thank you for that.” The panther glanced at the mutilated corpse of Alua. “And she was a dutiful mother. She brought me here to save me from you.”

A tiny sound fell from Vireon’s lips, almost a whimper.

“She was as ancient as I am,” said Ianthe. “Yet still so ignorant. She thought to burn my life away, but that was only my physical shell. I planted my immortal essence inside her womb like a seed in fertile soil. All I needed was a new cradle of flesh for this world, and she birthed it for me without ever knowing the truth. For seven years I dreamed inside that tiny crucible… until I remembered who I was. Then the bloodshadows came to answer my call… feeding me with the hearts they stole… and I grew.”

Vireon recalled the white panther soaring above the dying Shar Dni. The cries of panic and chaos, the bloody streets choked with bodies. He saw again Alua release the full power of her white flame and the panther dissolve like smoke in its blinding glow. Alua had fallen to earth, scarred but whole, and he had lifted her in his arms. The spirit of Ianthe had already infected Alua’s body, though he would never know until it was far too late.

His daughter’s entire existence was a lie.

“So nice to wear the flesh again,” said the panther. Its black eyes flashed. “So many pleasures to indulge, so much blood to taste.”

Vireon’s eyes darted to the corpse of Alua and back to the great cat. A red tongue slithered out to lick its chops.

“Her heart was tender and delicious,” said Ianthe. “And now her white flame is mine. Yet still I am hungry. Thank you for bringing these lovely Giants to me. Already I smell the power of their ancient blood.”

The cry that escaped Vireon’s lips was something between a growl and a bellow of agony. The blue blade of his sword swept across the panther’s throat. The beast pulled back its head and avoided the weapon’s bite. It reared above him on its hind claws as he brought the blade back in the opposite direction. A crimson weal appeared across the cat’s wide chest, then forward claws and gnashing fangs fell upon him like a storm. Its weight seemed that of a mountain, and he fell beneath its bulk to the floor of the broad ledge.

Twelve great spears came flying. Each one sank deep into the beast’s snowy flesh. Its wounds rained scarlet upon the snow. It caught Vireon’s right arm between its jaws, but the fangs did not break his stony flesh. Its slicing claws tore his mail shirt to shreds. His left hand grabbed a fistful of its underbelly fur, and he heaved it back toward the cave. Spear hafts splintered and cracked as it rolled across the ice and came up on all fours. The seeping wounds did not faze it.

The swipe of a great claw caught the side of Vireon’s head, and he tumbled toward the lip of the plateau. He would have fallen into the great chasm below, had he not driven the sword’s point into the ice like a climbing spike.

Uduri and Udvorg circled the raging beast, some jabbing with spears, others swinging iron maces or axes. The panther moved faster than the wind itself. Its long claws found throats and eyes, puncturing both. Udvorg hunters screamed, and their violet blood stained the snow. The weight of the beast’s front and back legs shattered more spears, snapping their shafts like twigs. Bronze spearheads went flying and Giants toppled bleeding.

Vireon climbed to his feet, barely noticing the lacerations on his arm where the fangs had finally broken through his skin. The panther vomited a gout of white flames now, and the blue-skins burned, wailing. Some of them fell, or leaped, from the ledge, hurtling into the glacial dark, smoldering until they hit the snows far below.

Dahrima cleaved the beast with her axe, opening its flesh in three places. Her sisters fought with sword and spear, though the beast was too fast for most of them. It swirled, a whirlwind of claw and fang, knocking Giants back, wounding, killing, or casting them from the mountain.

Vireon charged through the great legs of the Giants and found an opening. He drove the point of his blade deep into the panther’s heaving side. Already it bled from a score of wounds, yet it did not slow or howl with pain. Unlike a real panther, it did not growl or roar. It only breathed another flood of white flame, catching Vireon in the blaze.

He lost his grip on the sword as the full force of Alua’s stolen power fell upon him. Never before had he felt the sensation of burning. It was a new agony for one immune to the earth’s natural heat and cold. He stumbled back, howling, and his stubborn flesh steamed.

The panther grabbed an Uduri’s head in its fangs and crushed the skull to pulp. Dahrima screamed as the first of her sisters died. The beast lapped at the hot blood spilling from the headless body, and Vireon watched its score of wounds closing and steaming with white flame. How could he kill this abomination?

He took up a fallen Giant’s spear and charged forward again, his skin red and blistered. Again she caught him in the sweep of a mighty claw and sent him flying. He crashed into the hulking body of an Udvorg, solid as a marble wall. Regaining his senses, he saw that it was Thurguz.

“Up, King of the South!” howled the Giant, raising his bloody mace. “We kill or we die!”

Thurguz leaped into the fray, where Dahrima and the others suffered beneath a new blast of flames from between the beast’s jaws. The Uduri howled their pain across the mountaintops, a sound that would chill the bones of the Gods if they bothered to listen. Several Giants of both tribes died in that single moment, flesh turned to ash over blackened bones. Death played no favorites.

Thurguz slammed the panther to the earth with his great mace. Now it was a panther no longer, but a young woman once again. Naked and savage. The distorted face of Alua gleamed, the last remnants of Maelthyn’s smile lingering there. Her dark eyes flashed and the Udvorg huntsman fell strangely still. Vireon leaped forward but it was too late. Ianthe wrapped her lithe arms and legs about Thurguz, digging fangs into his neck. She ripped through the solid flesh as if it were straw, drinking deep of his cold, indigo blood.

The blue-skin hunters rushed forward again. She whirled the Udvorg body around to shield her as she feasted. Three spears and a sword blade plunged into Thurguz’s gut and chest. His allies had not been quick enough to turn their attacks.

Vireon watched the life go out of the huntsman’s ruby eyes while the battle paused, the Giants and Giantesses horrified by their own error. Now the huntsman’s body fell forward on its face. The snow-maned woman crouched on his back, dripping purple blood from her narrow chin.

Vireon lunged for her, but the force of her scream held him at bay. A winter storm poured from Ianthe’s gore-smeared mouth. The shrill wailing of a cyclone rose from her throat into the sky, and the mountain itself trembled beneath her. Great sheets of ice broke off from surrounding peaks and tumbled into the darkness.

Then the peak of Kyorla, Mountain of Ghosts, shattered into a storm of frozen splinters.

Vireon and the Giants fell, many pierced by lances of ice, others tumbling amid the great boulders of frosted stone. Vireon reached out and grasped the lip of the ledge with the fingers of his right hand. The wind tore at his blistered skin and the screeching cry of the sorceress shivered the world. He dangled above the roaring abyss.

As the last of the Giantesses sailed past him and was lost in the chasm below, his only thought was to hold on. She could not escape him a second time. Her crime was too great. The Bitch of Khyrei must die this day, on this crumbling mountain. A howling void yawned below him, eager to swallow his tiny form.

Now she stood on the flattened summit of the mountain, atop a pile of bloodied ice and torn bodies. At the bottom of that frozen cairn lay the remains of Alua, unless the demon winds had already scattered them to nothing. At last the screaming stopped and the white flame raged about Ianthe’s lean body like a torrent. She was laughing, awash in the glory of her new power, stolen from the heart of Alua and the blood of Uduri and Udvorg alike.

She did not look at the dangling Vireon. Her flaming eyes stared southward.

In the ecstasy of her seething sorcery she ignored him. She was bloated on the blood of Giants, and she must have thought him fallen, dead, or lost with the rest of them. Now was his chance. He strove to bring his left arm up to join his right one, grasping a narrow spar of ice at the terminus of the ledge. He sank powerful fingers into that ice and pulled himself upward. He would lunge at her from below, and once he got his fingers around her neck let her burn and bite him. He would not let go until she was dead. Even his own death would not prevent this.

It was not the strength of his limbs that betrayed him. It was the ice that crumbled beneath his double grip. He clutched only a meaningless chunk of it now, and he fell into utter blackness.

For the second time he fell watching a pale comet speed away into the sky.

Khyrei. The name lingered in his mind as he plummeted into the chasm, a far greater fall than that from his tower.

The white flame soared across the southern sky, and he knew exactly where it would alight. Ianthe was going home.

He would have shouted a promise to pursue and destroy her once and for all, but the sudden impact of his body carried him deep into a vast bank of frozen snow, and on through the layer of ice beneath it. He knew only darkness then, and all thoughts faded as rushing snow filled his mouth and throat.

How does one measure time when trapped in the jaws of death?

How long he lay sleeping under the ice he could not guess.

The first inkling of his own continued existence was a burst of sunlight on his face. Deep cracking sounds filled the cocoon of ice and snow in which he lay. Something had broken through above him, admitting the sun’s golden rays. He blinked into the brilliance. The shaggy head of an Udvorg looked down at him, then called out to his fellows. They tore the compacted snow and ice away from him and lifted him from the hole.

The day was painfully bright. The flesh of his arms, chest, neck, and face was red, and he bled from a score of wounds. He was unaccustomed to feeling such discomfort. Yet when he focused on his suffering, it gave him a kind of reckless strength. He stood by himself on the surface of the frozen snow.

The surviving Udvorg had been digging out their fellows all day. Nine Uduri lay senseless but alive on the bright snow. They had also been dragged from icy graves. Seventeen Udvorg had survived the collapse of the mountain peak. Hot tears brimmed in Vireon’s eyes and ran across his burning cheeks.

Dahrima…

Her name was a sudden flame bursting to life in his breast.

She lay among her sister-cousins, weaponless, her armor battered and torn, dried blood crusted or frozen along her limbs. She, like him, had been burned. Yet she lived. Even now she groaned and lifted her head from the snow. The Udvorg milled about them, sniffing the snow for other survivors they might dig free. They found none. The White Mountains stood high and imperious about them in all directions. The peak directly above was broken Kyorla, standing like a crownless king among his glittering brothers.

Vireon stood near to Dahrima as she raised herself into a sitting position. She moaned and cracked her back with a stretch of her torso. She blinked into the sunlight. Her gaze fell across her sleeping sister-cousins.

“How many?” she asked.

“All but nine,” he answered. “I am sorry.”

She ignored the apology.

“And the panther bitch?”

“Gone,” he said. “To Khyrei.”

“Then we march…” She paused to spit a mouthful of blood from her torn lip.

“Yes,” said Vireon. “We march. But remember our bargain with the Udvorg.”

“Must we go with them?” she asked.

“I would go regardless,” he said. “To see the Ice King. To win all his forces for the Long March.” “Majesty?”

“War,” he said. “War on Khyrei.” Dahrima stood and dusted the frost from her limbs. “You will join with the Sword King of Uurz?” Vireon nodded, focusing on his pain. His reminder. His touchstone.

“I will bring the wrath of Giantkind down upon her head,” he said. “I will crush her black city into dust. I should have done it long ago.”

Dahrima’s voice sank to a whisper. She touched her King’s shoulder tenderly. Her lips came close to his ear. “What of the little one? And the poor Queen?”

Dead, he wanted to say. Both are dead.

One never had a chance to live at all.

Instead he said nothing, but only sat down in the snow and wept.