Ice Country (22 page)

Getting a running start she moves to meet
him.

Just when he swings one of his
bear-claw-sized fists at her head, she slides, feet first,
skittering off the stone floor, shooting right through the mammoth
gap between his legs.

He grabs at her, but she scrapes past, crying
out as the harsh stone tears at her exposed flesh, but when she’s
through—and icin’ right, she’s all the way through—she pushes to
her feet and leaps on Big’s back, throwing her arms around his
thick neck.

He starts screaming like a murderer on the
hanging block, reaching over his head, grabbing at her, trying to
find an angle to use to pound her into oblivion.

But he can’t find one. Can’t get a good shot
in. Just like he couldn’t reach the fungus that Skye had
invented.

Frantic, he runs backward, smashing Skye into
the wall.

But she hangs on.

He turns and runs backward into the bars of
Skye’s cell.

Her body’s taking a beating, but still she
hangs on.

Skye digs her heels into his skin and pulls
harder, choking the life out of him.

He starts bucking, throwing his head back,
trying to crack her face with his skull, but she keeps her head low
and to the side, safely out of harm’s way.

Slowly—

Ever so slowly—

Big stops bucking—

Stands there all dazed-like—

Drops to one knee—

Then to the other—

And finally—
finally!
—flat on his face,
with Skye on top.

She did it.

She actually did it.

“Y
ou done it, Skye,”
Siena says. “I knew you would.”

Others are saying similar things, encouraging
words, excited words, because, well, we’re getting out of this
Heart-forsaken dungeon.

Skye climbs offa Big’s back, turns to look at
us, all sweat-gleaming and muscle-tightened. She wipes the blood
off her chin with the back of her hand. A woman looking like this,
it should be kinda gross, more than a little off-putting, but nay,
it’s the exact opposite. She’s never looked more beautiful.

“Get the keys,” Feve says.

Skye nods and reaches down at Big’s belt,
trying to find them.

The dungeon door swings open.

Goff stands there, filling the doorway,
wearing the finest clothes that ice country taxes can buy. In the
cracks and crevices between him and the door I can just make out
the dozens of armed guards behind him.

“You really thought you could just walk out
of here? Haven’t you learned that I control everything? Ice country
is my game board, and you are the pieces.”

“Go to scorch,” Skye says, even as I’m
wondering why the king himself would stoop so low as to visit the
dungeons. Something about it doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t he have
people to do this kind of work for him?

“Oh I will,” Goff sneers. “But not for a very
long time, not with the Cure in my possession. But you, my dear
fire country animal, are heading there sooner than you think.”

“Stay away from her,” I growl.

Goff glances at me, a look of surprise
flashing across his royal face for a moment, but then morphing to
amusement. He laughs. “Interesting,” he muses. “Making friends with
the natives I see. What’s this girl to you?”

When I don’t answer, he takes a step forward.
“Guards! Please escort her back into her cell.”

Skye stiffens and I think she might take on
all of them, Goff included, but then she wisely steps into her
cell, says, “I’m goin’,” and even closes the door herself.

A guard moves forward and locks it behind
her.

“Is he dead?” Goff says, motioning to the
pile of flesh at his feet.

The same guard that locked the door bends
down, sticks a couple of fingers to Big’s throat, says, “Just
unconscious, your highness.”

Goff smiles an ugly smile. “You couldn’t even
kill him?” he says, looking in at Skye, who’s far enough back from
the bars that I can’t see her.

“I chose not to,” she says.

“An important difference to you, I suppose,”
the king says, “but to me, it shows your weakness just the same. In
any event, attacking a palace guard and attempting to escape are
sufficient crimes to leave me no choice as to the punishment.”

He pauses, looks down the row, calm as a
windless day, meeting each prisoner’s eyes. I’m pretty sure none of
us flinch away.

“Let this be a lesson to you all. Foolhardy
escape plans and a bunch of children carrying them out will be the
death of each and every one of you. Starting with her.” He points a
stiff finger at Skye.

Dread fills me, blackening my soul like a
fire darkens the inside of a fireplace.

“No,” Siena whispers. “No. You can’t do
that.”

Goff laughs, which is beginning to annoy me.
“My dear, I’m the king. I can do whatever I want. She’ll be hung at
dawn.”

~~~

“Skye?” Siena says for the fourth time.
There’s no answer.

I take another look through the wall hole but
Skye’s tucked in a corner somewhere, outta sight.

“Skye, we’ll find a way out of this,” I say.
I mean it, although I don’t have an icin’ clue how.

“There’s no way out,” Skye says, finally
breaking her silence.

“There is,” Siena says, almost pleadingly. “I
lost you once, I won’t again.”

“Goff’s one sick man,” Feve says. “He’ll make
us watch.”

“Yeah,” Circ says, latching onto the thought.
“We’ll all be there. We’ll fight. We’ll do everything we can to
break you out.”

“So you can be hung right after me?” Skye
says. “Sear it all to scorch, don’t be foolish. Jade and Jolie are
as good as dead if we all die. We’re the only ones who know.”

“No,” Siena says. “No. You can’t die. You
can’t.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Sister, I’ll fight like
a Killer. They won’t get me that easy. I’ll fight ’em with my every
last breath, and then keep fightin’ even after I got none
left.”

I close my eyes as reality sets in. There’s
no escapin’ what’s comin’. The king probably knew exactly what
would happen with all of us born fighters in the dungeon together.
He wanted us to try to escape, so he could have his fun. So he
could give us hope and then snatch it away. So he could make us
watch him kill one of our own. With a jerk I realize that’s who
these people from fire country are to me. My own. All of them, even
Feve. He may not like me, and I may not much like him, but we’re in
this together now.

And Skye, well, there’s something with her
that’s worth exploring. I can’t let her slip away so fast. I just
can’t. But there’s nothing for it. There’s no plan that’ll work.
There’s no spy I can call upon. There’s just me, Dazz, who’s failed
at everything I’ve tried for the longest time. Except fighting. So
like Circ said, that’s what we’ll do. Every last one of us.

Fight until they stick us in the ground.

~~~

There’s no dinner tonight. My stomach’s all
clenched up, aching and aching, but it’s not because I’m hungry.
Every last ache is for her.

Every beat of my heart seems to ring out,
louder than ever, like a dull bell ringing, counting down the
moments on her life. I squeeze my chest tight, try to slow down my
heart’s frantic pace, but on and on it beats, never ceasing,
speeding up if anything.

Big’s gone. It took half a dozen guards to
carry him out.

Siena and Skye talk across my cell, but I shy
away from it, staying against the back wall, because I don’t want
to intrude. I’m nobody, just an outsider, someone they met by a
strange twist of fate that left me with a bloodied nose and a black
eye. And Skye with a death sentence.

They talk about all kinds of things, stories
from their childhood and all that, and although her voice hides it
well, I can sense the tears on Siena’s cheeks. Skye, however, is
herself, as tough and stalwart as ever, talking as if it’s just
another night, rather than the night to end all nights for her.

“Siena,” she says. “You take good care of
Circ, you hear me? Treasure him like you always have. Don’t ever
take him for granted. Guys like him don’t grow on pricklers these
days.”

“I will,” Siena sobs, and I feel a hot tear
slip down my cheek, the first in a long time, since the Cold took
my father. I wipe it away with an angry hand. Wes stares at me
across the hall, brows heavy.

“And you, Circ,” Skye says, a little louder,
“don’t let me hear of you doin’ anythin’ to hurt my lil sis, or you
know I’ll find a way to kick yer butt from wherever I am.”

“I won’t,” Circ says.

She’s not stopping there. Everyone’s getting
a turn. “Feve,” she says, “you’ve done some searin’ stupid things
in yer time, and you’ve hurt me and my sister more’n anyone, save
fer my father, but yer more’n yer past, more’n what you done. Throw
it all behind you and be the man yer capable of.”

“I’ll make you proud,” Feve says.

“Wilde, my sister,” Skye says. “You might
have a different mother, a different father, but you’ll always be
my sister.” Another freezin’ tear splashes below me and I scrub at
my eyes with my fists.

“I know, Skye. And you mine. Go with honor,”
Wilde says.

“Buff,” Skye says, and I stop rubbing my
face. I didn’t expect us to be included in her goodbyes. We’re just
Icers. “You seem like a good fella, and you’ve got a good friend
sittin’ ’ere ’side me. He seems like he’s got more thunder in him
than a storm sometimes. Help him control it ’fore he searin’ gits
himself killed, will ya?”

I can’t hold back the laugh that chokes outta
my throat. “I’ll try,” Buff says, as if he’s just been given the
biggest challenge of anyone.

“Uh, Dazz’s brother,” Skye says.

“Wes,” he reminds her, watching me when he
says it.

“Thank you fer tryin’ to help us. When you
think of me, I hope you think of someone who tried to pay you back,
who tried to fight fer you the same way you fought fer me.”

“I will,” Wes says, tucking his head in his
hands. He barely knows her at all, and yet I can tell he feels her,
the truth in her. The realness.

“Now git yer rest everyone,” she says and I
stop moving, stop fidgeting, just sit there like a stone, waiting.
Has she forgotten me? She mentioned me in her speech to Buff, so
maybe that was all she had to say. I hang my head, knowing full
well I shouldn’t expect more than that considering we’re only a few
days from having met each other.

But still—I’d hoped.

Selfishness. That’s what my thoughts are,
plain and simple. She’s gonna be hung and I’m worried about whether
she’s thinking of me the night before she dies.

But still—I’d hoped. I won’t sleep
tonight.

Not one wink.

~~~

I musta fallen asleep because my eyes jerk
open suddenly. The wall torches continue to burn, because Big’s
probably not conscious enough to put them out. Everything’s quiet,
except I know something woke me up.

A stone clatters around my feet, which are
sticking out into the middle of my cell, away from my head, which
is resting uncomfortably against the wall. I look at the rock,
changing color from orange to red to yellow and back to gray as the
flames flicker.

Clatter, clatter
.

Another stone careens across my cell,
skipping all the way to where it rests by my side. I curl my
fingers around it, retrace its path to where it musta come
from.

The hole in the wall. Skye’s hole.

I slide on over to it, blinking away the
sleep I didn’t expect in the first place.

Skye’s looking at me. “Icy Dazz,” she says.
My toes curl slightly.

“What’re you doing awake?” I say.

“Hard to sleep on yer last night,” she says.
I cringe, wondering how I manage to consistently say stupid things
through this hole.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t me—”

“I’m just kiddin’ ya,” Skye says. “Don’t git
yer—whaddya call the small clothes you wear under yer other
clothes?”

“Skivvies?” I say, like a question.

“Sure. Whatever. Don’t git yer skivvies all
in a knot.”

“Skye, I—”

“No,” she says. “It’s my night to do the
talkin’. ’Cause if I’m talkin’, I ain’t fallin’ apart, I ain’t
losin’ the dignity I found when I left my father behind to join the
Wildes. I won’t lose that, not tonight.”

“I’m sorr—”

“What’d I say?” she says, showing me the
finger she’s got to her lips.

I don’t say anything. Just wait.

“Better,” she says, sending her eyes through
again. “I know we ain’t hardly more’n strangers, but I’ve got
feelin’s for you, Dazz, I’ll go right on out and say it, ’cause,
after all, what do I have to lose, right?” I nod, feeling a burst
of something good in my chest. I don’t say anything because she
told me not to.

“I don’t go chasin’ after guys. I don’t got a
Circ, like Siena. I’ve never…” Her voice falters for the first
time. “Dazz, I’ve never kissed a guy,” she says.

Not what I expected her to say. How could a
girl like her not have kissed anyone? She should have fire country
guys leaping over each other to get to her. I don’t say anything,
because, well, you know why.

“Well, ain’t ya gonna say somethin’?” she
says.

I almost chuckle, but I hold it in. “I
thought I wasn’t allowed.”

Now she does laugh. “You take my words pretty
seriously, don’t you?”

“I do,” I say.

“Why?” she says. “I ain’t smart, the sun
goddess knows that as well as anyone. I got things to say, but
they’re probably not always the right things.”

I gawk at her brown eyes through the hole.
The right things? She’s worried about saying the right things when
every time we speak I’m the one bumbling along. “You’re wooloo,” I
say, turning her fire country word back on her.