Ice Country (27 page)

“Sure,” Buff says. “If you say so. We’re
heading out now, so unless you want to keep…
practicing
…up
here all by yourselves, with no one within miles and miles, you’d
better get moving.”

I look at Skye and she looks at me, and then
she rolls offa me and we head toward Buff. He turns to fight his
way back through the woods and Skye turns to me. “That was one
scorch-of-a good first kiss, Icy Dazz,” she whispers through those
lips of hers.

Although I’m still catching up on fire
country lingo, I’m pretty sure it’s a compliment.

K
issing Skye doesn’t
make my emotions any less frayed. If anything, it forces them even
closer to the surface.

I want things to be normal, for Goff to be a
distant memory, to get Jolie back, to get to know Skye. To
really
get to know Skye.

But that’s not where I’m at. That’s a
dreamland, so far away that I’ll have to grab a passing cloud to
get there.

We keep on traipsing through the forest,
down, always down, until we reach the borderlands. With the air
warming, Siena returned my coat a mile or so back, but it’s too hot
to wear it now so I’ve got it draped over my shoulder.

Skye and I haven’t said a word since her
comment about the kiss, but I’m glad for it. Words can only screw
things up right now.

Fire country stretches out like an endless
blanket of sand, while ice country rises up behind us like a ghost.
And the two are stitched together by us, as if we’re the only link
between two worlds.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Wilde
says.

Buff looks like he wants to do something,
maybe hug her, but he just rocks back and forth awkwardly.

“We’ll be waiting,” I say, a promise I have
little control over. Skye’s eyes are all over mine and I can tell
we’re sharing memories, clinging to them like the branches of a
tree that’s about to be chopped down.

“Fight like the Killer hounds of scorch are
at your heels,” Siena says and I smile at her way with words.

“That’s just what we’ll do,” I say.

Circ thrusts a hand out and I shake it. Feve
offers a firm nod, but it’s clear he’s ready to move on, to get
back to his family.

As Skye moves in close, the others look away,
already moving off into fire country, while Buff pretends to be
looking at a bird at the very top of one of the border trees.

She whispers in my ear. “Find yer sister,”
she says. “Find her and we’ll find you.”

“And then we’ll find your sister,” I say. Her
cheek slides back against my skin and then she brushes her lips
against mine, lingering for a second, causing my blood to flow and
my emotions to swirl.

I grab the back of her head and pull her in,
kissing her exactly the same way I kissed her before. We both come
up gasping and open-mouthed.

That’s when a swarm of black swamps the edge
of our vision.

“Skye,” I say, but the others have seen it
too, are already running back toward us.

For a moment Skye and I just stare as the
horizon fills with black, an avalanche of darkness, a single
roiling mass, close to the ground, sending up clouds of dust all
around them.

Dark like the tapestries on the palace walls;
the dark men on dark horses, burning, burning everything,
slaughtering Icers and the strange water riders as easily as if
they were pulling leaves off a tree.

My first thought is: are they coming for us?
But I shake that one away as quickly as it comes, because the black
mass shifts to the right, turning, dust billowing behind them, as
if marking their trail. They’re heading for…They’re heading
for…

They’re heading for ice country.

“Oh, Heart,” I say.

“Who are they?” Skye asks, looking at
me—looking right at me—like she expects me to know. Like I
should
know.

But I don’t. I don’t have a Heart-icin’
clue.

The others surround us, watching—nay,
gawking
—as the black horses gallop across the border, into
the forest, their dark riders urging them on by sticking their
heels into the horses’ sides. It’s not a friendly advance, like the
Glassies coming to pay a visit, wandering silently up the
mountainside. As the last of the dark men plunge into the woods,
the sun catches the steel in their hands, glinting like silver
coins in the distance.

Swords. The men are all carrying swords.

Ice country is under attack.

~~~

There’s no discussion, barely a word other
than
Go!
and
Run!
as we charge back the way we came,
back under the cover of the trees, back up the slope that seems to
want to do anything to slow us down, seeming steeper and thicker
with undergrowth than when we came down it in the first place.

Just by coming with us, the people of the
Tri-Tribes have proven their mettle. They’re willing to help the
Icers even at the risk of their own lives.

Even though we’ve got another couple hours
before we reach the village, everyone who’s got a weapon has it
out, ready, as if the dark men and their horses might be lying in
wait to ambush us.

Buff, breathing heavy beside me, says, “What
do they want?”

I don’t know, but if the tapestry was any
indication of reality, there’s only one thing: “Blood,” I say.

Buff doesn’t ask any more questions after
that. In fact, no one says much, just keep running, getting slower
as we tire. I’ve got half a dozen cramps, from a dull ache in my
calves and shoulders, to a sharper pang in my side. I fear by the
time we reach the top we’ll be too exhausted to do much to help
anyone.

I bite away the pain and try to focus on the
situation at hand. If these men are here to attack ice country—and
what else could they possibly be here to do?—then they’ll go for
the palace first. It’s the only real threat to stopping them, what
with the well-armed and trained guards, the thick, stone walls, and
the head of the dragon, King Goff, hiding behind it all. Which
means that—

That—

I can’t say her name, can’t even think it,
but I know it’s the truth.

She’s in grave danger. More than she is with
Goff.

“We’ll save her. We’ll save Jolie,” Skye
says, on my other side.

I say nothing, just keep running.

The day is dark as the clouds seem to thicken
for war. At some point snow starts falling, but I barely notice it.
Then it starts falling harder, thicker, and I look up at the sky,
feeling cold and wet all over my face.

Autumn has arrived.

I put my head down and keep running.

~~~

Before we reach the town we can smell it.
Burning. Fire. Destruction. Violence.

It hangs in the air like a haze, coating
everything; every breath, every movement, blackening our skin and
our hearts. Smoke rushes in living columns above the trees, far
thicker and heavier than the exhaust created by fireplaces, a stark
contrast to the whiteness of the falling snow. Smoke caused by fire
that’s eating bigger things than a few logs of firewood.

I throw the weariness and fatigue off me the
same way I discard my coat, which has become too hot and heavy, as
stifling as the dense forest.

Quickly and completely.

I half-notice Siena picking it up and pulling
it tightly around her shoulders.

Exhaustion is nothing. Pain is nothing.

My sister is everything.

Jolie is everything.

Saying her name in my head stings me like the
nettles on a pine branch, and I wince, but I don’t stop. Will never
stop until she’s back in my arms.

Finally—freezin’ finally—we break through the
trees and see the village standing before us, spotted with snow.
The Brown and Red Districts sit heavy and low at the base of the
slope, with their rows of small, densely clustered houses, while
the houses of the Blue and White Districts rise above, with their
tall columns and pointed roofs, generous gaps between each
residence. All burning, swept with orange and red and the darkness
of the black riders, ripping holes and tears in the blanket of snow
covering everything.

And above them all…

Above them all, the palace, an impenetrable
barrier protecting the king and his men.

Smoke pours from beyond the gates.

“Hurry,” Skye says, grabbing my arm with one
hand, a blade gripped tightly in the other.

I lead the way into the Brown District, where
most houses are burning, spitting mountains of black clouds. A dark
rider and his horse run off a ways, and we watch as he closes in on
a group of Brown District Icers, who have organized themselves and
are brandishing planks and clubs. The rider sweeps past them,
slashing with his sword, cutting them down one by one. They don’t
get one good shot in before they fall. I scream something
indecipherable and I think Buff does too.

The enemy rides on, seeking out his next
target. A cluster of children run from a burning house, shepherded
by a slightly older, but still young, girl. Her mannerisms are so
familiar, surprisingly mother-like despite her young age. A wad
forms in my throat when I realize I know her.

“Darce!” Buff shouts, warning his sister of
the rider that’s now only a few gallops away.

But she doesn’t hear, not amongst the
children’s cries and the crackle of flames and the pound of horse’s
hoofs—and the screams of the men not five houses down.

Buff takes off and the rest of us do too,
because we’re not separate people now, not anymore, we’re like a
single living, breathing creature, with lots of arms and legs and
more hearts than anyone could ever break.

But we’re also too slow and too far away and
too late. Far too late.

The rider closes in, his sword out, level
with Darce’s neck. Buff screams and screams and screams—

And I think I’m screaming too, my throat
hoarse and dry—

And the rider raises his sword—

And my body’s all tensed up, preparing itself
for the
slash, slash, slash
and more
slashes
that’ll
destroy Buff’s life far worse than mine’s been destroyed, that’ll
change him forever—

But it never comes.

It never comes.

The rider gallops on, a shadow passing down
the road, cutting up the slope toward the upper lofts of the Brown
District.

Toward where I live. Where my mother, even
now, is likely in a drug-induced stupor and oblivious to the world
falling down around her.

W
e leave Buff to
take care of his family, his brothers and sisters. His father, who
was in the group of men defending themselves, is lying in the snow
bleeding, being worked on by a group of healers.

There’s nothing more we can do to help
them.

But we can still help my mother.

Can still save my sister.

(Can’t we?)

Buff thinks so and he pounds my back before
we leave. I think he’s trying to boost his own morale, because of
his father bleeding in the snow. I say, “I can stay, Buff,” even
though I know I can’t.

“Nay,” he says. “Fight.”

I try to smile, but it comes out all crooked.
“Even now, I fight with you,” I say.

And he says, “Cut the cosmic shiver. Just get
it done.”

Up the hill we go, stepping in the snowy
horse prints, seeing spots of red where blood’s dripped off the
rider’s sword. Buff’s father’s blood, so fresh the rapidly falling
snow hasn’t had time to cover it.

I’ll kill that rider. I swear to the Mountain
Heart I will.

We reach Clint and Looza’s place, which isn’t
burning, which, if you look just at their house, appears to be
separate from the battle that ravages everything else. Untouched.
Pristine. Just another house in a snow-covered village.

I burst through the door, nearly snapping it
off its hinges.

Clint and Looza, who are sitting in the dark,
look up sharply, their eyes wide and white. “Dazz?” Clint says. His
eyes flick to the posse of brown-skinned people behind me.

“My mother,” is all I say, my eyes darting
everywhere and seeing no one else.

“She’s here,” Looza says, pointing to a pile
of blankets on the floor. “She passed out and we couldn’t bear to
wake her.”

“There are riders,” I say.

“They came here,” Clint says.

“What?” I say. And then again, “What?”

“One of them barged in just like you did. We
just sat here looking at him, not moving, not doing nothing at all,
and he left, like he couldn’t see us. He left.”

“Oh, he saw us all right,” Looza says. “He
looked me right in the eyes and I could see him deciding, like he
was working out whether we were any kind of a threat, which of
course we aren’t. I guess he decided the same, because he left us
alone.”

“Thank the Heart,” I say. I bend down, pull
the blanket away from my mother, touch her cheek with my knuckles,
kiss her once on the forehead. “Wes is dead,” I say, and both of
their mouths open, as if they might say something, but then they
don’t. They just nod. “Don’t tell her. I have to tell her.”

They nod again and I leave, out into the
autumn snowstorm.

There’s only one place left to go: the
palace.

~~~

We don’t see any more riders as we run
through the Blue District. They’ve come and gone, leaving burning
buildings and bloody bodies in the snow, who are being tended to by
healers, of which ice country seems to have plenny; they’re
crawling like insects out of the woodwork.

Every rider seems to have moved on, focusing
everything on the final goal of taking the palace.

Where Jolie is. Trapped with Goff, who’s
surely the riders’ ultimate target.

The gate’s been cranked wide open, but the
guards didn’t just open it up and let the riders in. There are
signs of a major fight littered all over the ground. Hundreds of
arrows lie in bunches, some on their sides, some stuck in the snow,
some poking from the dozens of black-skinned bodies of riders and
their horses, which lie at a dozen different angles, forcing us to
weave our way through the carnage.