Wizards Conclave

Chapter 3
A Girl of the Icereach

Coryn pushed herself to her feet, and turned to retrace her steps back along the rim of the gorge. Her legs were weary after the morning's long climb, though she knew she was capable of many more miles of hiking. More burdensome than her fatigue was the disappointment of the fruitless hunt: To this point she had not even seen a deer track, much less caught sight of any prospective quarry. There didn't seem to be any point in probing farther into the highlands toward the Icewall, when there was probably just as much chance of finding game along the bluff near the village.

That would be just her luck, she thought sourly-to hunt all this distance and then find a huge buck and bring it down with a single arrow, within sight of her village! She resolved to follow the high path back to the edge of the bluff, where the view was good and she could still find concealment if she needed it. She'd hunt just a little longer.

When she reached the edge of the escarpment, she peered ahead, imagining that she could see her village, though it would still be a long, hard march of many miles before she would feel the warmth of her parents' hearth fire.

Her how remained strung, suspended easily from her shoulder, though she hadn't used it once all day long. This after she had boasted-not just to her father, but to all the village elders-that she would bag a doe and a fawn today with her tough, sharp arrows. Why had she opened her mouth?

Umma was always telling her not to brag or boast. She thought of her grandmother with grudging affection. The old woman certainly had a lot of good advice, and wasn't the least bit shy about sharing it with her sixteen-year-old granddaughter. Why couldn't Cory do a better job of listening?

Umma was certainly the wisest person in the village, the only one Cory knew of who had ever been beyond the Ice-reach. People told stories claiming that, as a young woman, she had gone as far as the grand city of Tarsis, though Coryn had never known her to speak of that faraway place. But the girl liked spending time with Umma in her cottage. She would go there to wash her grandmother's dishes, to chop wood, tend the fire and the mending, and help out with the countless other chores that the old woman's frail fingers and failing eyes had grown too feeble to easily accomplish.

Part of it was purely for the pleasure of Umma's company, even if her tart tongue and irascible nature sometimes leavened that pleasure. But another part of her motivation brought Coryn a little flush of guilt, when she thought about it. Her grandmother had precious books, the only books in the whole village of Two Forks. Though she had warned Cory, waving her bony finger for emphasis, to stay away from those fascinating tomes, the girl was always tempted. When Umma drifted into one of her long afternoon naps, her graying head bobbing forward against her chest, long snores rumbling through her nostrils, Cory would sneak the books out of their hiding places. Some were in a jar on the hearth, others underneath the counter in the kitchen. One, the most fascinating of all, Umma kept under the mattress of her bed.

Over the years Cory had found and read them all. She wasn't at all sure she understood everything she was reading. Most of them seemed like recipes of some sort, though not for any kind of food Coryn could imagine. A few were collections of letters, missives that occasionally arrived in the village, carried by wandering hunters, trappers, or traders, over the years. Just last month Umma had gotten a new one, which she had snatched away from Cory's prying eyes. Usually the letters described far-off places-one of them even mentioned a wild forest! Coryn had often tried to imagine such a forest. Here on the Icereach there were occasional trees, cottonwoods and cedars clinging to life in sheltered river valleys. But these were sparse and scanty woodlands. What would it be like to see an expanse of woods, where the trees were so thick you couldn't even see past them to the other side?

Coryn sighed. It was not like she would ever get to see anything so exotic. Though even here, in the southern realm of the world, strange things were known to happen. She reflected, with a secret flush of delight, on the great phenomenon of this past winter. Her father and the other elders called it the Night of Two Moons. On that cloudless evening the bright silver moon Coryn had known all of her life had vanished, to be replaced by two smaller, but even brighter, disks. One of these was white and the other red.

Umma had been particularly excited by the appearance of those moons, at least for a few days. Then she had become increasingly cross, until she had taken to her bed with a high fever. Coryn had sat with her for much of the spring, until at last her grandmother had been strong enough to move back to the rocking chair where she spent so much of her time. Cory had pressed her for information about the moons-she knew that, in her parents' youth, those same orbs had ruled the night skies-but Umma quickly became contemptuous of the questions, referring to the new moons as nothing more than a taunt offered by dead, vanished gods.

With the coming of full spring, the tribe's needs had sent Cory outside again. She had always had a gift for helping her people. From her youngest days, she could remember feeling the power in the world around her, the wild sorcery that dwelled in the wind, in the water, in the wood of the trees. She knew that she had a unique gift, and she enjoyed sharing it, finding fish even when the most experienced net-men failed, or drawing up water from a spring that the elders had deemed worthless. Unfortunately, that confidence had led her to make a few misplaced boasts-like this failed hunt today. Coryn froze suddenly, her thoughts and daydreams vanishing in an instant of alarm. Every sense tingled alertly. She looked around, saw nothing except the rock and snow of the landscape. Her nostrils sniffed carefully, but she smelled only the melt, the wetness of spring.

Yet she was certain that danger-an enemy-was near. She listened and smelled some more, turned her head slowly to look around, but saw no sign of the dread walrus-men…

She had no doubt that she was in fact menaced by a band of thanoi. Concentrating, trying to quell her rapidly rising fear, she let her senses run free. The wild sorcery spoke to her in the wind, even through the water in the melting snow. She explored those avenues, and as the wind and water spoke to her, she formed a clear picture in her mind. Coryn realized that there were nearly a dozen thanoi lurking nearby. Some of them were at the crest of the gorge, hiding out of sight, while others crept along the upstream canyon wall, using the many rocky outcrops for concealment. All were stalking her.

A whisper of panic started in the back of her mind, but Coryn roughly forced it away. As coolly as possible she considered tactics: The thanoi were on two sides of her, the churning river on the third. That gave her one narrow route of escape, down the valley on this side of, and running parallel to, the stream.

Every nerve in her body screamed: "Run!" But that would only invite immediate doom-she needed to use the element of surprise. "Be patient. Be smart," she counseled herself, forcing her fear away, breathing slowly to restore her sense of calm.

Coryn stretched, arching her back, yawning as if she had no worries. She bent double, flexing her waist to the front and to each side, reaching her hands over her head as if she was working out the kinks of a long rest. Her bow remained ready, where she could snatch it in a second. All the while, she studied the terrain out of the corners of her eyes, picking out a path that would let her sprint at full speed, not too close to the precipice. She leaned over again, touching her toes, picturing the brutish, tusked walrus-men coiling their sinewy limbs, preparing to attack.

Never before had she been so close to these brutal creatures, the traditional foes of the Icefolk. Oh, she had seen a few of their tusked skulls, and once even the body of a bull thanoi that had ventured too close to the village, a predator that her father and the other hunters had killed with a volley of arrows. Even dead, it had been a vile and disgusting sight, with its thick and flabby skin, tiny eyes, and grotesque tusks.

Now real panic began to churn in her belly, and she could tell that the thanoi were pressing closer. Blunt, calloused fingers tightened around the wooden hafts of stone-headed spears, as webbed feet braced themselves for a lethal charge.

With practiced artistry, she shrugged the strung bow off her shoulder, her hand snatching a heavy hunting arrow from her quiver. In an instant the missile was drawn, the bowstring taut against her cheek as she aimed along the crest of the bluff. No thanoi was in sight, but here was where the young Icefolk girl might give her hunters a nasty surprise.

Coryn called upon the power of wild magic, the sorcery of the natural world. She felt the power surge with each breath, every gust of wind, and she drew that airy power to herself, shaped it with her will. That sorcery spoke to her, showed her the positions of the three thanoi closest to her. They lay just beyond the overhead crest. Already their limbs were coiled; their tusked faces were rising to attack.

In one smooth gesture she drew her bowstring back and pivoted so that she was aiming uphill. She let fly, the twang of the bowstring lost in the rumble of the churning rapids below. With her usual accuracy, she aimed just past a large boulder that jutted from the ground some twenty paces away, at the crest of the slope. In the same instant of release she cast the power of her sorcery into the wooden shaft, and the arrow immediately became three identical missiles, all soaring upward on parallel paths.

Her spell was not completed. Now came a gust of air, a blast of wild magic that spewed out of the gorge and swept across the precipitous ledge. The wind caught the three arrows like a trio of invisible fists, twisting, forcing them around, veering their flights. The wooden missiles, their heads razor sharp- and very precious-steel, reversed course as they crested the hill, swerving back down to drive out of Coryn's sight, vanishing behind the large boulder.

Immediately the young woman was rewarded by beastly shrieks of shock and pain. In her mind she could see the three walrus-men pierced, shot through their backs before they had climbed to their feet. In various stages of dying, they thrashed about in the snow, red blood staining the white slush.

Coryn took off, running at full speed. There was no magic fueling her flight, but her grace and strength carried her like a mountain goat along the steeply sloping side wall of the gorge. Behind and above her, the other thanoi uttered barks of alarm and agitation, but the pursuit had been delayed for precious seconds by her preemptive attack. A heavy spear, tipped with a head of sharpened stone, careened off of a rock as she raced by, while another flew past her ear and landed with a splat in the slushy snow. Ducking, the young woman turned sharply downhill then darted onto the traverse again, the maneuver throwing off the aim of the next couple of spears.

Snatching a look up the slope, she almost screamed at the sight of a hulking walrus-man loping into view. His face was ugly, with wickedly curved tusks jutting forward from overhanging jowls, and small, red eyes shining from pockets of droopy fat. He barked and woofed shrilly.

The mere glimpse of that horrible visage propelled Coryn to even greater speed. Her foot skidded in the wet snow, and she almost stumbled, catching herself with a hand on an outcrop of rock. She pulled herself up onto the boulder and sprang across a span of snow to the next limestone surface, then sprinted along a stretch of flat, dry rock. Grunts and pants came from above and behind her, sounding terribly close, but she dared not glance back-even a moment's distraction might send her tripping through a disastrous fall.

Behind her she heard a shriek of rage and the tumbling of a body through the snow ending in a loud splash. She knew that another of her pursuers had fallen, but that was little comfort as she raced along a precarious slope, snow sliding away beneath her moccasins with each step. She veered downward, following the curve of the gorge wall. Still she dared not look back-she could only run!

Too late, she saw the large wall of stone rising in her path, a twenty-foot barrier too steep for her to climb. The base of the precipice was a tangle of large, broken boulders, a tumble that dropped straight to the edge of the churning, surging stream. That Whitewater torrent was death, she knew-even her wild magic would not protect her from being crushed against the huge rocks that littered the stream.

She had no choice but to turn upward again, scrambling to climb the snowy slope. Coryn clawed with her fingers, pumped her legs, kicked each foot as hard as she could into the cold, wet surface. The barks of the walrus-men erupted anew, with an unmistakable element of triumph to their noise.

Something hit her hard in the side, a massive body bowling her over as one of the thanoi hurled himself upon her, diving down the snowy slope. She cried out as she felt a tusk jab her shoulder, then turned and punched the bestial face full upon its blunt nose. She smell the stink of old fish, felt the cold snow on her back as the walrus-man pressed her down heavily. He was powerful, too strong for her to push him away. Those nasty tusks pushed against her chest as he leaned down over her, and she gasped in pain, struggling to draw a breath. Her hands, taut fists, pushed at the tusks, but couldn't budge them away. The leering creature pushed downward, driving the sharp tips harder against her skin.

Snow was all around, white and icy, so bright that she could barely see. Out of that whiteness, a surprising notion came into her mind, a picture of a word that she had read somewhere. She didn't know what it meant, had never said it aloud before, but somehow-right then-she knew it was a perfect word. She had just enough air left to bark the sound, the word exploding from her mouth.

Coryn felt a momentary disorientation, an exhilarating sense of freedom, and then everything changed. She woke to find herself still lying on her back, still wet and cold, but the sun was gone… vaguely she realized that she was in a hut, with a crackling fire nearby. She all but sobbed in relief when she looked up to see Umma peering down curiously, rocking in her chair.

"Dear girl!" said the old woman. "What on Krynn are you doing lying on my floor?"