Dawn of the Ice Bear (22 page)

But when his vision cleared, he realized he was right back where he had been, and no time at all had passed. The Stygians glared at him and his friends. The snake that had been Conor's broadsword was still in sight, slithering away. Alanya's arm brushed against his. Had he really been away?

“We would—”

“I know!” Kral interrupted. “You would have the crown. Well, I would not give it to you, so you will just have to do without.”

The Stygian in front began to raise his hand toward Kral, as he had done toward Conor's sword. Kral knew that whatever he had in mind would not be good. He had only seconds, if that, to decide if he would follow the instructions given to him by his ancestors.

He knew, too, that Mang was the right person to take over as Guardian of the teeth. Mang was the village elder now. He deserved the role and was expecting it. But if Kral were to try to deliver the crown to the cave, it would likely never make it. He didn't have the magic to defeat these Stygians, and it looked as if steel alone would not do the job.

But Alanya! He would never see her again.

He looked at her. Her clear blue eyes, her golden hair reddened by henna, her creamy skin. More than anything, he wanted, at that moment, to draw her into his arms, to feel the warm bulk of her body against his, to taste her cherry lips.

“Kral . . . ?” she asked, surprised by his sudden, intense gaze.

“Alanya . . .” He couldn't finish the thought. Not for the first time, his grasp of the Aquilonian language failed him when it was most important to choose the right words.

But ultimately, there were no words that would help. He snatched the crown off his own head. Turned it over, so the jagged teeth faced down. As two of the Stygians broke into a run, trying to grab it while they could, and the other one finished whatever spell he planned to use, Kral jammed the crown back down on his head, upside down. The teeth gouged his flesh. Blood ran from the lacerations, streaking down his face, his neck.

And then darkness. . . .

ALANYA'S STOMACH LURCHED.

One moment, Kral was there, facing al Nasir's acolytes. The next, a strange sensation swept through her, but it was nothing she could define. Then everything seemed normal again, but after sharing a brief glance, Kral had reversed the crown on his head, ripping his own flesh in the process.

And then . . .

And then he was just gone. “Kral!” she shouted. She heard Donial and Tarawa both call him as well.

The Stygians stopped in their tracks, staring, snow and ice turning to liquid beneath their feet. One of them uttered something that sounded like a curse, except she realized she could no longer understand their words. Tarawa rushed them, her steel lashing out like sudden lightning. She drove it through the nearest one's heart, then wrenched it free and swung at the next. Alanya saw the third prepare to cast some kind of spell, but before she could even react, Donial was there with his own sword. Almost as one, he and Tarawa struck down the remaining two Stygians. Where their blood ran, the snow steamed.

Once they had fallen, an almost supernatural quiet descended. Three dead men melting the snow. Kral, disappeared.

Alanya felt a deep, powerful sense of loss. She seemed to know, somehow, that he was not coming back. A tear sprang to her eye, and she wiped it away, lest it freeze there.

“Where did he go?” Tarawa asked.

“You saw what we did,” Donial reminded her.

“Accursed Stygian magic,” Conor said, snarling at the dead acolytes. “Where have you sent him?”

Alanya put a restraining hand on the big Cimmerian. “It wasn't them,” she said.

“How do you know? You can't trust a Stygian,”

“I just . . . I just do,” Alanya replied. “I cannot tell you how, but I'm certain of it. Kral is where he needs to be.”

“What does that mean?” Donial asked. “Where he needs to be?”

“Back at the . . . at that cave? Where the crown came from?” Tarawa guessed.

“I think so,” Alanya said. “That's the only thing that make sense to me.”

“What sense is that?” Conor wondered. “Sorcery most foul, I'd say.”

“Sorcery?” Alanya echoed. “Perhaps. But it is what he wanted most.”

Donial took Alanya's hand. “To leave you behind, sister? I do not think he wanted that.”

“I doubt he had a choice,” Alanya said. She appreciated her brother's thoughts and agreed that Kral would probably have wanted a different option—one that included her. Presumably that option had not presented itself, however, and he had done what was best for his people.

She would have expected nothing less.

Conor went back into his hut. Donial and Tarawa followed. Alanya stayed where she was a while longer, watching as the footprints where Kral had been standing were filled in by drifting snow.

When she got back inside, she was shivering, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. Conor had stoked the fire, and the flames roared, blasting warmth into the small space. Every place she looked reminded Alanya of Kral, even though they had only been here for a short time. The chair he'd sat in, the sack he'd carried the crown in. That reminded her of her own mirror, passed down from mother to daughter, and in which she could see the image of Kral whenever she needed to. She would not do it right now—the loss of him was too fresh, and seeing him would be far too painful. But later, she would, and even if it showed him in someplace where she could never reach him, at least she could gaze upon him. Maybe, in some way, he would know she was there.

The time she had spent with Kral had been the strangest, most exciting, memorable period of her life. She could not say, at this moment, whether she would ever have another adventure like that. Part of her desperately hoped not—it had often been terrifying, and she'd been afraid on numerous occasions that they would never make it out alive.

She took up a mug of the stuff Conor had made for them, sipped from it, not even tasting. She felt the warmth fill her belly. Smiled at Donial, who sat close to Tarawa, clutching her dark hand in his pale one. Smiled, even, at Conor, who had caused them so much trouble and danger.

She didn't know why, but she was in a very forgiving mood.

 

 

ROAK TREEFELLER, MORNE, and the rest of the men from Taern stopped at the crest of a jagged ridgeline. Morne was the first one to notice what had changed, what had made them all halt at once. “It's the wind,” Morne shouted. “Feel it!” He held his hand out as if to demonstrate.

Roak did the same, then extended his tongue as if to taste it. Warm. Sweet. “It's from the south,” he said, surprised. “It's shifted.”

“Right,” Morne agreed. He fell silent then, tugging off his outer fur. The other men did the same. Roak, mystified, felt the wind again. It blew harder now, as hard as the north winds had, like air blasting from a huge fire. The harder it blew, the hotter it got. Ice melted from trees, dripping onto the ground, where it joined the snow that turned to water under the strange wind's influence. As they stood there on the ridge, the gray clouds parted, dissipated, as quickly as smoke on a breezy day. Roak could see the valley below, and it was obvious even from here that the same transformation took place there.

As suddenly as it had come up, the wind died. “Sorcery,” Roak said uncomfortably.

“Aye,” Morne agreed. “But not the worst kind, eh?”

Roak didn't like sorcery at all. But as he felt the warm air, saw the concentration of ice disappear, he could not disagree with Morne's conclusion,

Better this kind than the magic that had caused the ice storm in the first place. He didn't know if it meant that Grimnir was dead—or if the whole thing had been someone else's doing.

Perhaps he never would.

If Wolf-Eye still needed their help, the warriors of Taern would go to his side. But the going would be much easier, this way.

He knew that thanking Crom would be useless. The Cimmerian god would not have interfered in such a way.

But as they started down the other side of the hill, Roak issued silent thanks to whoever was behind it.

 

 

GESTIAN STOOD ON the ramparts of Tanasul with a half dozen of his best men around him, looking down into the settlement instead of out at the forest. Picts had been thronging the city, but now there were none to be seen. There were corpses everywhere. Blood filled the cracks between paving stones and collected in pools, drawing flies and other vermin. Tanasul would need major repairs and cleanup before it would be fit for human habitation again.

“They're gone,” one of the soldiers said, interrupting his contemplation.

“They seem to be,” Gestian agreed.

“But where? Why?”

“Who knows the minds of those savages?” Gestian replied. It wasn't much of an answer, but it was the best one he had. “Perhaps all they ever meant was to harass the settlements, to make us reconsider our presence here. As they did with the wall project, in Koronaka.”

One of the other men snorted angrily. Gestian knew he'd had family in Koronaka—a wife and two children who had been with the party that was attacked on the way to Tanasul. None of them had survived. “Would that they'd have stayed and fought,” he said bitterly. “Save me the trouble of chasing them into the woods to kill them.”

“You'll never kill all the Picts,” Gestian said. “King Conan is right. Better to make peace with them because they'll always be with us.”

Even as he spoke the words, a lookout on the eastern wall cried out. “Aquilonian banners!” he shouted. “I can see the lion! And a lot of them!”

“There it is,” Gestian said. “Reinforcements from the King. The Pictish scouts must have spotted them earlier, and that's why they drew back.”

“Savages and cowards,” the man who had lost his family insisted. “With any luck, the King's orders were to follow them into their own lands and wipe them off the face of the Earth.”

Gestian shook his head, but remained silent. He knew such an order was most unlikely given Conan's professions of peace. He also knew, glancing down at the dead all around, that the Picts were no cowards. Savages, perhaps, for what that was worth. But he had taken part in the raid on the Bear Clan village that seemed to instigate all this trouble. He had seen the destruction that Lupinius and his Rangers had caused, and, in the heat of the battle, he and his fellow soldiers of Aquilonia had joined in. So he was not about to make judgments about the relative savagery of his own kind versus that of the Picts. They were the enemy, but they had fought well and bravely, and if it was the coming of the Aquilonian reinforcements that had chased them off, he was glad of it.

For his part, he would be happy never to cross weapons with the Picts again. The price of peace was high, but the cost of war ever so much higher.

With a shrug and a smile for his comrades, Gestian went to the ladder, to climb down and greet the Aquilonian troops.

 

 

THE DEATHS OF his acolytes woke Shehkmi al Nasir from a deep slumber with a sensation like needles piercing his temples. These magics were wearying, and grew more so with every passing year. He had hoped that, among other things, the mystical energies of the ancient crown would help restore his strength.

But when he tried to locate the crown once again, he could not. The smoke window that should have shown it failed him. It remained empty, a blank gray screen. He cursed, extinguished the fire, and tried again, with the same disappointing result.

Furious, he stormed around the room, inhaling the enchanted smoke and swearing at the ceiling. That crown should have been his!
Had been
his, for a distressingly brief time. With all the effort he had gone through to send acolytes after it—twice!—the fact that it was still not in his possession enraged him.

Worse, he seemed to have no way to find it again. This could have meant some sorcerer with greater powers than his own had decided to shield it from him, but that seemed most unlikely. More disturbingly, he guessed that it probably meant the crown had been returned to wherever it had been hidden for the last several millennia. Somewhere, he had to assume, inside the vast Pictish wilderness. All of his acolytes, multiplied a hundredfold, could not search that entire area.

But something had to quell his wrath. He clapped for the nearest servant, and after only a moment, a man named Debullah entered the chamber.

“My lord?” the slave said.

“Bring me a dozen slaves,” al Nasir commanded. “No—twenty. Female if they're about, the younger and more beautiful the better.” Debullah nodded and went to do his master's bidding without comment. Shehkmi al Nasir smiled for the first time since he'd discovered that the crown was gone. He would picture Tarawa's face while he killed the women—face-to-face, one at a time, with a sharp knife. No magic for this task. The screams of terror and pain would blunt the edge of his fury, at least for a time.

But he was not done with the Pictish prize. He vowed to remain alert for any additional news of it. And if he ever found Tarawa again, she would pay a considerable price for her complicity in its theft. But he would not obsess over the ugly thing or waste any more time now trying to find it. There were always better things he could be doing. And if he could not challenge Thoth Amon for supremacy this month, there would be many, many more opportunities in the future.

Weary or not, Shehkmi al Nasir still had centuries of life left in him. One chance had passed him by. But there would be others. He would be prepared for them.