Ice Country (28 page)

There’s red and white and black
everywhere.

Long ropes are slung over the walls, which
explain the gate being open. The riders dismounted, fought their
way up and over, and then cranked open the gate for the rest of the
riders to pass through. Several lengths of rope are coiled at the
base of the wall, riders tangled in them, stuck with arrows. The
rope would’ve been cut by the archers, sending them to the earth
before shooting them.

We move for the gate, an Icer, a Heater, a
Marked, and three Wildes. A strange and deadly combination.

Before we pass through the opening, we see
the battle in the courtyard. Compared to this, our own fight to
escape was child’s play. Men play the parts of murderers in a game
of death.

Skye pulls up short, raising a hand, and we
all stop with her. This is her game.

I want to look at her, but my eyes are glued
to the fight. With a hack of his sword, a rider slices off a
guard’s hand, which falls like a rock to the ground, still
clutching an axe. Weaponless, the man runs, bleeding from his
wrist, which is now just a stump, but he only gets three steps
before the rider plows into him, trampling him beneath his horse’s
feet.

“Dazz,” Skye says.

But the rider doesn’t get far, because as
soon as he kills the guard, an arrow pierces his chest. He clutches
at it with his hands, his mouth agape as if surprised, his eyes and
teeth looking as white as the snow against his dark skin. He slumps
back, back, back, hanging from his horse, which keeps running with
a dead man bouncing on its back.

“Dazz,” Skye says again, and I manage to pull
my gaze away from the dead rider, the trampled guard. Skye’s eyes
are fixed on mine.

The others are watching me too, waiting
patiently. Perhaps only a moment has passed, perhaps several.

Skye says, “We’ll stay in front of you,
protect you.”

“Nay,” I say, shaking my head. “We’ll move
through together.”

“Yeah, we will,” Skye says. “But you need to
stay alive so you can git to yer sister. Leave that to us.”

I close my eyes.

They were on their way home. A week-long trek
across the desert, a day to rest, and a week back. Fifteen days
they wouldn’t have been here, having to fight an enemy they don’t
even know—fifteen days to be alive. And now they’re going to die
today? For me? At risk of what Buff will say later, I want to throw
my arms around all of them, hug them, thank them. For me, for
Jolie. For Wes.

“We’re doin’ this,” Skye says, as if she
thinks I’ll try to stop her. That’s what I should be doing.
Stopping them. But I can’t.

I won’t.

Not when the king’s in there with my sister.
Not when the riders are fighting their way to the king.

“Thank you,” I say.

~~~

Amidst the swirling snow, we enter the
courtyard in a line, with me behind them, like I’m someone
important, someone worth protecting. I should be at the front,
fighting alongside them, but—

Jolie.

I swallow my pride and try to keep up because
they’re moving fast. They’ve all got weapons from before, but a few
of them traded up for the weapons of those dead outside the palace
walls. Circ and Feve found shiny new swords and Siena grabbed a bow
and a satchel of arrows from beside an Icer archer who was so bent
and broken he must have fallen off the wall.

Guards are everywhere, swinging double-bladed
battle axes, shooting arrows, jabbing swords at the dark, mounted
warriors, who are deflecting them with their own swords, which are
long and heavy. For the first time I notice the black riders are
not only men, but women too, fierce and carnal and full of brutal
violence that even Skye would be proud of.

The fight slams into us from all sides.

Circ gets thrown back into me by a heavily
armored guardsman who’s using a metal shield like a battering ram.
Skye deflects a blow from a passing rider with her blade. Siena
starts shooting arrows at anything that moves.

We’re fighting two armies. Having sun-kissed
skin here means everyone wants you dead. And I’m with them, so I’m
a target too.

An arrow whistles past my ear and I duck
instinctively even though it’s already behind me.

Distracted by the arrow, I’m falling behind
already, the others pushing forward. Everyone’s got their hands
full.

Circ manages to discard the guard with the
big shield, slipping past its edge and stabbing hard and deep,
practically splitting him in two. I look away.

On my other side, Feve and a dismounted rider
circle each other, their eyes wary. Their swords ring out as they
parry but the sound is immediately swallowed by the clang and grunt
and screams of the battle around them. Feve blocks an attempted
kill stroke and then aims one of his own, which the rider swats
away too easily. Another jab by Feve, another block. Then a flurry
of strokes by the rider has Feve on his heels, retreating,
blocking, retreating some more.

“Dazz!” Skye yells. “This-a-way!” She’s found
a seam, her and Wilde and Siena, a weak spot in the battle, a place
where I might be able to slip through to the palace. They’re
holding it open for me, keeping the path clear, swinging blades and
shooting arrows and kicking and punching.

My eyes flick back to Feve, to the
black-garbed rider. Feve’s losing, getting knocked back by a heavy
onslaught of sword strokes, barely keeping his footing as he steps
backwards over a dead body. But then he slips, is forced to use his
hand to keep his balance, giving the rider an opening, which he
gladly takes, swinging with enough force to crush stones, slamming
his sword into Feve’s with a fierce

CLANG!

and Feve goes down, rolling onto his back
amidst blood and bodies, trying to scramble to his feet, but being
forced to scrabble backward while blocking another swipe from the
rider’s blade.

Feve’s dead—

If I don’t do something—

Dead.

“Dazz!”

Do something!

I run toward the rider, weaponless, except
for my fists.

The rider doesn’t see me coming. He’s a
mountain lion with a mouse trapped under his paw and nothing can
disturb him from his meal.

He swings again, harder than any of the other
blows, so hard that Feve—even Feve—can only throw his sword up in a
last-ditch effort to protect himself.

CLANG!

Feve manages to block the strike, but he
can’t hold onto the handle any longer, and it skitters out of his
hand, creating a sword-shaped hole in the snow, disappearing.

I keep running.

The rider raises his sword over his head—

I keep running, still too far away.

—thrusts it down—

I keep running, and I’m screaming now.

—and Feve rolls away, narrowly avoiding the
kill attempt.

Hearing my scream, the rider turns just as I
barge into him, leading with my shoulder, smashing into his chest,
which is as hard as iron, perhaps from muscle or from some hidden
form of body armor. He lands on Feve with me at the top of the
pile. Feve grabs at his face from behind, poking his fingers into
the rider’s eyes, doing anything he can to help from his precarious
position.

The rider rains down a barrage of punches on
the back of my head, his sword not in his hand, disappearing just
like Feve’s. But I don’t feel his hits. This is my territory now
and shots to the head are a way of life.

I lay into him, punching him first in the
gut, and then in the face.

Gut and face. Gut and face.

I get a rhythm going while he continues to
pound from the back and squeeze his eyes shut against Feve’s raking
fingers.

Buff always said I had a head harder than an
ice sculpture, on account of how many bar fights I won with my
signature finishing maneuver. I crank it up now, still pounding
away with my fists, leaning my head back slightly, waiting for the
perfect moment…

Feve’s hands slip away from the rider’s face
as he’s crushed underneath him. I snap my head forward, butting the
rider’s skull like a goat defending my young. I hit him so hard—too
hard probably—seeing stars myself and feeling an instant throb in
my temples, but my pain’s nothing compared to what the rider’s
feeling. He screams, clutching at his forehead, wailing something
fierce. Then he stops screaming and lies unconscious.

I pull and Feve pushes and we get the rider
offa him. We look at each other and it’s one of those moments when
you think you should say something, but it’s impossible because
another rider’s swooping in and you’re both dead if you don’t get
your arses in gear.

Feve cracks a strange grin, dives for the
snow, somehow finds his sword, slashes at the rider, and knocks him
off his horse, which keeps on running without him. When I just
stand there, Feve yells, “Go!” and I take off, sprinting in the
direction I last saw Skye.

But she’s not there anymore and any path is
all closed up. There are so many bodies, alive and standing and
fighting, dead and crumpled and broken, that I don’t see how I’ll
get through them all. Then I spot them, Skye and Siena and Wilde,
and now Circ too, moving off to the side, looking back for me and
Feve. Skye spots me.

She waves me over and I run, run, run,
ignoring a fallen guard with a sword in his gut who cries out for
help from the ground, leap over the lean flanks of an injured
horse, which blows steam out of its nose, whinnying in pain, give a
wide berth to an axe-wielding guard who’s facing off against a
sword-swinging rider.

While Siena continues to let arrows fly at
anything that gets close, Skye, Circ and Wilde hack their way to
the wall. And then Feve is with us again, still grinning, his sword
slick with red.

We move along the palace wall, only having to
fight foes on one side now, which makes all the difference. None of
the guards or riders get anywhere near me, because the others are
so good at keeping them away. We inch our way forward, skirting the
battle, which continues to rage hot and fierce, neither side
seeming to gain an advantage. Small wooden supply structures burn
along the edge—the source of all the smoke we saw earlier—but we
run past them, barely feeling the heat.

I’m coming. I’m coming, Jolie.

We reach the pillars that hold up the roof
just before the palace entrance. A wall of guards blocks the way,
fifteen, twenny of them. Too many to fight our way through.

But it’s not just us. The riders want to get
through just as badly.

A half a dozen riders charge the line.

We charge the line.

A
n axe arcs over my
ducking head.

I raise a heavy boot and kick the guard in
the midsection, launching him back into a mess of other guards who
are attempting to hold off a pair of riders.

Something slices at me from the other side
and I turn too late, only seeing the rider’s sword in time to watch
it cut me into Dazz-steaks.

But then he slumps over before he can finish
his swing, dropping his sword at my feet. His horse keeps running
and I see the arrow sticking from the rider’s back as he passes.
Siena stands back a ways, wearing my coat, bow strung with a new
arrow, as if saving my life was just a small act, and she’s already
pushed it from her mind. Her arrow flies and pierces the shoulder
of a guard who’s fighting Circ. The guard staggers back and Circ
slashes him down, flashing a smile in Siena’s direction.

I search frantically for an opening in the
mess of bodies, but it’s all just violence and falling snow and
armor and swords and—

There.

A rider cuts down three guards in quick
succession, splitting the wall of men in half. He charges through,
riding right into the palace. He’s going for the king!

Jolie!
I scream in my head as I charge
through the gap, ignoring the killing that continues on either
side. I’m two steps from the door, two steps from getting inside,
but then I see him.

A rider, hot exhalation steaming from both
his and his horse’s mouths, galloping toward me, sword raised. It’s
the same rider who cut down Buff’s father, who let my mother and
Buff’s brothers and sisters live. The merciful murderer.

Heat flares up in my chest as I charge
him.

~~~

When we’re so close that I can see the
individual spots of blood on his sword, I dive to the side,
narrowly avoiding getting trampled by his horse, which pulls up
sharply, lifting its hoofs in the air, bucking at something that’s
spooked it.

With a cry, the rider falls back, tumbling
off and landing awkwardly. The horse returns to all fours and
gallops away, leaving a clear view beyond. Skye stands stalwart,
her blade raised, her brown skin steaming in the cold as her sweat
vaporizes the moment it leaves her skin.

I stride toward the fallen rider, but Skye
says, “Go. Save your sister.”

I glance at the rider, who’s struggling to
his feet, looking dazed, then back at Skye. She walks toward
him.

I run through the doorway.

Tapestries flash past me as I run, full of
blood and dark men and violence—all of it having come to life just
outside the doors. One of them, the one depicting the battle
between the people living on the water and the riders, is shredded
in half, each side hanging limply from its frame. Sliced by the
rider who already came through.

Fear rises up, dwarfed only by the red hot
anger that continues to pulse through my veins. As I pass the
throne room I can’t hold back the images. Wes in chains, being led
into the dungeons; Wes holding his bloody gut; Goff on the wall
holding my sister. Goff. Icin’ freezin’ Goff.

The fear disappears and I’m all anger and
it’s okay—it’s okay this time. Necessary. Right, even.