The Dragon’s Daughter and the Winter Mage by Jeffe Kennedy
~ 23 ~
Isyn was saved hearing Gendra’s reply to that—and the argument that would inevitably follow—by the astounding sight of a golden gryphon shooting up into the wintry sky.
He thought he’d been prepared for the sight of the shapeshifters after listening to Gendra’s many stories about them. But he somehow hadn’t expected them to be so… larger than life. First there was Stella becoming a glossy black jaguar—a shock after her relatively unprepossessing nighthawk form. Then Gendra herself, looking like something out of a book of tales, her incisors easily the length of his forearm, her snow-shadowed fur-covered body more than large enough to carry a man his size. And Rhy as the biggest black wolf Isyn had ever seen.
But seeing a real, live gryphon with his own eyes was something else entirely “Is that…”
“Zeph, yes,”Gendra mentally snapped, and he quickly recalled what he’d said only moments before. “There’s Nilly,” she added before he could muster a soothing reply.
Her sharp eyes had spotted the sorceress first, but Isyn made her out now, standing on the rocks, the Star of Annfwn glowing like a small sun in her hands, echoing the larger star that was the gold-furred and feathered gríobhth.
“Hold on,”Gendra said. “I’m making the jump.”
Jump? He tore his gaze from the gryphon, glittering as if made from gold even in the snow-laden air, who wheeled about on a wing tip then dive-bombed something. Leaning out to look ahead to the rock promontory towering over the frozen sea below, he saw it was a drop of at least four times his height. Surely Gendra didn’t mean to… “It’s too high! You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I’m bouncy,”she replied, her forbidding tone making a mockery of the term. “Trust me.”
Which he did. But he still closed his eyes, hanging on to her warm fur and lying as tight to her lithe body as possible. Her muscles bunched… She leapt. They were falling through the air, his stomach somewhere far behind… And they landed with a jarring thud that became a scrambling slide across the ice. He opened his eyes and lifted his head just in time to see a massive grizzly bear, the brown form standing out amidst the gray, rearing on his hind legs and battling…
There his brain stopped making sense of anything at all. “What in the Three is that??”
“Nothing to do withour goddesses, that’s for sure,” Gen answered grimly. “That’s the intelligence I told you about, in the flesh, or rather, ice. It makes itself out of whatever is available.”
That helped his lagging brain resolve what he was seeing. A creature, manlike in shape but unrefined, towered over the grizzly by several times, and was formed entirely of ice. Semitranslucent and collecting snow by the moment, it looked like an animated snow monster from a child’s tale—if not for the blood spattered everywhere. The grizzly roared, swiping a chunk of ice and snow from the thing’s thigh, while the gríobhth dove, ripping at the thing’s head with beak and talons. It laughed, taking a step toward Stella and kicking the grizzly out of its path as if the enormous bear was a child’s toy.
“Stella!” it howled. “You are mine. I love you!”
Zeph flew into its face, forcing it back as it batted at her. One massive ice paw caught her hard and sent her tumbling through the air—but she recovered, circling back immediately.
Gendra slowed in her headlong race across the frozen sea, catching up to Jak, who was still running and had made it amazingly far. Reading Gendra’s intention, Isyn held out a hand to Jak. Catching sight of them, Jak reached across with his far hand, grasped Isyn’s forearm, and used the leverage to vault onto the saber cat’s back behind Isyn. Gendra took off at top speed again, Jak wrapping a viselike arm around Isyn’s waist to hold on.
“Use the Silversteel sword against it!” he yelled in Isyn’s ear. “Get to the head if you can. Between that and my Silversteel daggers, we should be able to take it down—or at least hold it off until Stella can open a portal for us.”
Isyn nodded. Not like he could argue, but…
The ice giant slammed down a great fist, just missing the prone Astar, who barely scrambled out of the way in time. But that gave Isyn an idea. Drawing the magery to him, he fed it into the ice at the giant’s feet. The healing had replenished him in more than physical health, the magic swelling in him as it hadn’t since his youthful early days in the Winter Isles. Without needing to hold the weather back, he poured melting magery beneath the giant as Gendra skidded to a stop and roared at the monster, drawing its attention from Astar.
“Be careful of the ice,”he told her. “I’m melting a hole beneath it.”
“Smart.”As soon as Jak leapt away with agile grace and Isyn followed more slowly, she took off again. Gendra dodged another fist, slamming into the ice, cracks radiating outward as Isyn’s magery weakened it. The ocean wasn’t deep here, but if he could drop the giant into a hole and quickly refreeze it… His mind half on the melting ice, half worrying about Gendra as she played her cat’s game with the ice giant, he blindly followed Jak.
The guy was insane, fearless, or both. Using his daggers as handheld crampons, he leapt onto the back of one leg, climbing rapidly. Isyn didn’t notice any particular effect from the Silversteel. As he looked up at the towering giant, however, he felt puny, even the large and beautifully crafted Silversteel sword like a toothpick in his hands. How was he supposed to attack it—hack at its ankles like a small rodent?
“Nilly destroyed its last incarnation by slamming both daggers into its ear holes, so that’s probably Jak’s plan,”Gendra filled in for him, clearly aware of his thoughts. Zeph screamed an eagle’s cry and dove for the giant’s head, pulling its attention from Gendra. “That’s why he said get to the head if you can. It’s more vulnerable.”
“If it’s self-made of ice, why would the head be any different?”
“Good question with no good answer. But that seems to be the case, no matter its shape. Especially if you can get inside its head. Can you tell when the ice will give?”
He mentally tested the rapidly thinning ice. Between the cracks the giant had created and Isyn’s magery, a hole could open at any moment. “It’s weak enough now. But the others—”
“Have been in the water once today already.”The giant roared, batted Zeph away, and grabbed for Gendra. She ducked, drawing it back to the thinnest spot. “Do it.”
If he couldn’t climb to the head, he could bring the giant down to his own level. Driving his magery into the ice directly beneath the giant’s feet, he melted it fast. With a massive crack, the ice gave, a black hole of arctic water opening up, taking the giant down in a huge splash of water. Astar’s hind end fell in, but he held on with his front paws, claws digging in for purchase. Zeph landed and held out a taloned paw to him, which he grabbed—an unreal sight. Gendra scrambled away in the other direction, a shadowy white blur in the whirl of snow. Jak, momentarily dislodged by the sudden fall, dangled by one hand from the dagger embedded in the back of the giant’s neck, until he caught himself and swung up with gymnastic grace to resume his climb.
All of which left Isyn face-to-face with the giant, now armpit deep in the rapidly reforming ice. Isyn froze it as fast as he dared, especially immediately around the giant, keeping one eye on Zeph’s lashing tail and bunched haunches as the gryphon slowly towed the grizzly out of the icy water.
The giant swiped at him with a massive hand—one that looked more like a bear’s paw than a human appendage—and Isyn ducked, bringing the sword around with his momentum. A solid, powerful strike, weakened somewhat by the lack of muscle in his newly healed leg. Much as Isyn hated to admit it, Jak was right about him needing to build up strength again. Still, the blow should’ve sliced deeply into the giant’s wrist—but it bounced off, jarring Isyn to the bone, the Silversteel chiming with a clean, sweet note of purest silver.
The giant struggled, tossing its head to shake off Jak, who’d reached one ear. “Stella! You are mine! I love you,” the giant yelled, imploring and furious in one.
“Wrong,” Jak snarled. “She’s mine.” The head was far too massive for Jak to stick both daggers in simultaneously. Gendra roared and sprang, leaping to one shoulder and climbing to the giant’s head. The ice cracked and snapped like breaking boulders around the giant as it tried to free itself, and Isyn poured more magic into solidifying the ice’s hold, melting and melding the surrounding ice into the giant’s body.
The chiming note of the Silversteel sword seemed to hang in the air still, a haunting song telling him something… It tugged at him, calling to his magery. The magic and the Silversteel pulling at each other. Following instinct, he poured magery into the sword. Gendra had suggested that, using objects to focus his power, and now he found the path as easily as the well-worn trail he’d paced around the island for so many years alone.
He was no longer alone, and these people needed him. With a two-handed grip, he swung the sword in time with the giant’s next swipe at him, focusing his magery into the Silversteel… and lopped off the entire hand like a hot knife through butter. Animal voices roared in approval, Jak flashing a grin from his precarious perch.
“Nice,”Gendra said, the single word worth a world of eloquent praises.
The giant focused on him, its features literally sharpening as its eyes studied him with an uncanny expression of dawning recognition. “You,” it said, its voice clearer now. “I killed you. You drowned. You should be dead.”
“Not quite yet,” Isyn bit out. Though it had been a near thing and growing nearer all the time.
Its features sharpening further, the face became something Isyn almost recognized. The familiarity tugged at his attention, in what turned out to be an unfortunate lapse.
“You are mine,” it growled.
“What, no declaration of love?” Isyn sneered.
“Isyn!”Gendra screamed in his mind, eerily echoed by the saber cat’s roar, and the giant’s other hand clamped onto him, trapping his sword arm against his body. Stupid of him. Too stupid, too old, too slow. The giant brought him closer, the mouth gaining definition, cracking, then opening with slow and horrific majesty.
“This time you will not survive. Your magic will be mine.”
The Silversteel sword was still in his hand, though hanging at a useless angle, a silver toothpick he couldn’t even swing. He could lift the point, though, and infuse it with his magery. Especially if you can get inside its head. Here was his opportunity. He only needed to wait for the perfect moment. The mouth opened wider.
“Stella has opened a portal,” Jak shouted. “Retreat! Everyone to the rocks!”
Zeph stooped from above, landing near Jak just long enough for him to clamber onto her back. Below, Astar began to lope toward the rocks, pausing to look over his shoulder to roar at Gendra, still on the giant’s shoulder.
Gendra growled a protest. “Can you get free?”
No, he couldn’t, but even if he could, he wouldn’t try. The giant dragged him closer. If nothing else, he could buy them time. “One more strike,” he told her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Liar,”she spat, a big cat’s cough in her mental voice. “You’re not tricking me again.”
“I’m not tricking you,”he lied as earnestly as he knew how. The stories always said you couldn’t lie mind to mind, but he figured people lied to each other in all sorts of ways. Spoken words were just the surface. “I’m buying you time.”
“When we get out of here, you and I are going to have a long conversation about your obsession with being a martyr,”she snarled. The giant paused, looking to the side and waving its handless arm. Gendra appeared around its neck, claws dug in as she balanced with feline grace.
“Go!”he yelled at her, audibly and mentally. Her deep-blue gaze fastened on him, whiskered muzzle lifting in a snarl of disdain.
The giant shrugged, irritated, and a long icy tail rose in the air behind it. With a whiplike snap, it hit Gendra, sending her tumbling from its shoulder.
“Nooo!” Isyn shouted. And was enclosed in the giant’s gaping maw.
