Winter Be My Shield (24 page)

Cam snorted. ‘Watching Rasten at work would be enough to warp anybody. But if Mira sees this, it's going to be impossible to convince her Sierra means no harm.'

A short distance ahead they found a scattering of discarded gear amid a circle of soot-stained snow, and some way beyond that, the sled itself, abandoned and forlorn. By now Isidro had to stop, feeling dizzy and light-headed from trying to match Cam's pace. ‘She knows,' he said. ‘She knows Rasten's behind her.'

The tracks took a turn there, striking a path through a bare wood and avoiding a ridge to the north. With a gesture Cam told Isidro to slow down and catch his breath, then forged on ahead to the edge of the trees to check the lay of the land. By the time Isidro caught up, he was off the edge of the path, shielded from the open land before them by a thicket of bare twigs. Still breathing hard, Isidro joined him, pulling the edge of his cowl up to catch the vapour in his breath.

There was a thread of ruddy light in the valley below, reaching across the dark gash of water. It was a bridge, a shallow arc of flame that spanned the open water with a figure in white halfway across.

‘Can you see her?' Isidro murmured to Cam.

‘I think there's something on the slope above him,' Cam said. ‘It could be her.'

Isidro squinted at the distant slope, and after a moment he made it out — a smudge in the snow, with a faint scratch of tracks leading up to it. The white leather wasn't a perfect camouflage — without something to break up the outline, a figure sitting exposed on a field of snow wasn't hard to spot. Rasten, crossing the bridge, was heading directly for her.

 

While she waited Sierra had gathered her power, meditating as Rasten himself had taught her. It seethed within her like a storm in the summertime: a tower of black cloud, wreathed around with lightning.

Rasten crossed the open water and came to the foot of the slope to gaze up at her.

‘Well, Sierra?' he called, and an echo of his voice boomed back at him from across the fields of ice. ‘You've made a good play of it, but it's over now. Are you going to come down quietly, or do I have to come up there and get you?'

Her head was filled with lightning. Fire was a tame thing — men contained its hungers, used it and doused it at will, but lightning  … lightning was a creature of the air and the storm — fierce, brilliant and pure. With storm clouds building behind her eyes, Sierra felt enveloped in an icy calm. She made no reply to Rasten, just watched and waited as he started up the slope.

He kept his eyes on her, wary for some trick, although that made it difficult for him to climb as the slope grew steeper. Once he was within a few dozen paces of her, Sierra stood, rising with a swiftness that made him hesitate — she wondered if he was afraid of her. When they first brought her in he had bested her easily, but the pool of power she could hold was much greater now.

Rasten stopped. ‘I tried to tell you,' he said. ‘I tried to explain, but you wouldn't listen. Every time you struggle, every time you resist, you're just making it worse. Once you give in and accept it, things will be better, Sirri. You have to trust me.'

‘Better?' Sierra said. ‘Really?' She hadn't intended to speak to him, but the words spilled out of her before she could stop them. ‘I know what he does to you, Rasten. It's not enough that you'll kneel for him and bow down even though you hate it. I know he still makes you beg for mercy just to prove that he can, even though in ten years you've never raised a hand to resist him.'

‘Because I knew what would happen if I did,' Rasten said. ‘It's just the way things are, Sirri — pain is everywhere and it's better to give than receive it, believe me … But you'll learn that for yourself soon enough.'

Sierra wanted to weep for him. He was honestly trying to help her and it broke her heart. In many ways Rasten was still the stripling boy Kell had brought to his dungeons in chains. He was a monster, but it was Kell's training and his sadistic appetites that had made him this way.

‘That's not the fate he has in mind for me,' Sierra said.

Rasten raised his hands: two cords of flame erupted from his palms and swept towards her.

All her energy was barely contained beneath her skin, just waiting for something to set it off. As Rasten reached for her, Sierra turned her face to the indigo sky and loosed all that power into the mass of snow beneath her.

Light erupted all around and with a deep and unearthly roar the ground around them heaved and began to slip. The slope gave way beneath them and hurled them both downwards in a sudden confusion of snow, air and rock. Rasten tried to catch her — Sierra saw the ruddy glow of his power — but then they were falling, surrounded in a deadly shroud of ice that was tumbling to the valley floor.

As the avalanche swept them down the slope Rasten snatched and tried again to hold her, but in the sudden confusion of light and darkness he couldn't hold her close and defend himself against her as well. He had one hand on her arm and the other twisted into her hair, but Sierra struck out with the heels of her hands, and when they hit something solid she loosed a bolt of power through them so fierce her hands tingled and burned with the force of it.

If he cried out, she couldn't hear it over the roar of falling snow, but she felt him spasm and go rigid beneath her hands. The ruddy light of his power died and after a moment the falling snow tore them apart. With an effort of will Sierra choked off the power that was spilling from her skin, and everything went black as she slammed into the ice over the lake and the snow buried her.

 

When he realised he had lost her, Rasten rolled into a ball and shielded himself with a mantle of flame. Sierra's blast had cut through the crust of snow and ice on the surface right down to the rock and scree that had been buried since autumn. Massive blocks of rock and ice crashed around him, but the shield protected him from impacts that should have crushed him like a dry leaf. When the avalanche hit the foot of the slope
the force of it would pack the debris so dense a man with a pickaxe would find it difficult to break ground. If he was buried Rasten could blast his way to the surface, but it would take some time to find Sierra and pull her free, and every moment she was buried increased the chances she would suffocate before he found her.

Rasten gathered himself and pushed down with a thrust of power, reaching through the tumbling snow and ice to the solid ground beneath. The force of it threw him up and into the air before he fell back through the cloud of ice, but now he was on top of the slide, and the volume of the shield made him light compared to the other blocks falling around him. It all happened in seconds and the next thing he knew he was slammed into a plain of ice as hard as solid ground. The shield popped like a soap bubble and the impact knocked the wind from him. For a moment he lay there gasping for breath as the aftermath of Sierra's blast made his muscles twitch and spasm. He burned all over from the jolt she had channelled into him, but as soon as he could draw breath Rasten forced himself to his feet. His apprenticeship had taught him to function through much greater pain.

Rasten scanned the wedge of packed snow. The hillside above was a jagged grey face of exposed earth and stone and overhead there was a haze of ice, fine crystals thrown into the air by the force of the avalanche. With growing desperation, he turned towards the lake and the open water, roving over the flat plain of ice. A body buried deep by an avalanche might not be found for years — and when the snow thawed and the bones were picked clean by scavengers it was often only jewellery that allowed the remains to be identified at all.

The only thing he could see was a dark shadow on the ice, down near the open water. Rasten broke into a run, his heart pounding against his ribs. It was just a dark stain against the white, and for a moment he nearly gave up on it, thinking it to be only a smear of soil from the hill above. As he drew closer he saw it was too dark for that. It was black like the open water, black as soot — Sierra's hair, trailing like ribbons behind her. If she had been buried only a few inches deeper, he wouldn't have seen her all.

 

It was the cold that roused her, the icy touch of water wicking up through the snow. It was packed so firmly around her that Sierra couldn't move.
She could feel the bulk of her coat around her arms, but the sash binding it had come loose and the body of the coat was entombed away from her.

Her arms were spread, wrenched back at a painful angle as the force of the snow and the fall had almost stripped it from her.

As icy water seeped through her clothing, Sierra realised she had been vaguely aware of it for some moments now — it was only when the rising water touched her face that a sudden bolt of panic had roused her. If she didn't move, she would drown.

She tried to pull herself free but the ice held her as securely as chains drawn taut. To be true to the choice she had made she ought to stay here and drown, but as the icy water welled over her lips, panic won out over intellect. She didn't want to die.

Light flared around her before she had even mustered her thoughts. Lightning burst from her skin and thrashed against the snow like a wild beast. She felt rather than heard the ice crack, and the weight above her shifted.

Gasping for breath and soaked to the skin, she scrambled to her feet. There was a rumble beneath her and the ice groaned, the low, ominous sound punctuated with deep, percussive cracks. It trembled as though the avalanche was beginning all over again. It took Sierra a moment to realise it wasn't her that was swaying — the ground beneath her rocked like a boat on water and Sierra staggered to keep her feet. The impression of her body in the snow was turning grey, growing darker by the second as the water wicked up into the hollow.

Rasten was coming towards her, but as another muffled crack echoed around them, he hesitated. ‘Sierra!' he called. ‘Come to me!'

She was sinking into the slush. Water was bubbling and frothing up through the ice around her. The full weight of the avalanche, all that snow and ice and rock, had landed on the slab of ice reaching over the lake, and that weight was more than it could bear. The ice was breaking up.

‘Sierra!' Rasten shouted, with a bark of command in his voice. ‘Come here! Now!'

‘Come and get me!' she screamed as the water reached the top of her boots and poured in. It was so cold it was painful, like needles in her flesh, and Sierra realised she was shivering and sweating at the same time.

Rasten started towards her, walking on cushions of power that kept him from sinking into the slush.

Sierra spread her hands and let her power spill. The avalanche had taken most of her strength  — she was getting a small recharge from Rasten, his muscles still twinging from the bolt she had flung into him, but it wasn't enough. This was her last chance.

As he drew near, Rasten cast a shield to protect himself. ‘Just give it up,' he said. ‘You couldn't take me before; you can't do it now. It's over, Sierra.'

She stood her ground and waited — waited until he was close enough to touch, waited until he reached for her with cords of flame ready to enhance his strength  — then she leapt for him, wrapping her arms around his neck and, with the last of her power, she shattered the slab of ice beneath them and dumped them both into the black water.

The shock of the cold drove the breath from them. Rasten tried to wrap his arms around her, refusing to let her go even as they shivered, but before he could take a firm hold Sierra twisted in his grip. She grabbed his neck with both hands and drove her knee into his crotch with all the force she could muster. With a grunt of pain, he doubled over, and Sierra pulled her knees up to brace against his chest and slammed her elbow into his face. She pulled back to do it again and with a roar of rage and pain Rasten struck her with a blast of power that lifted her out of the water and hurled her against the ice on the far side of the lead. Sierra had time to wrap her arms around her head to brace for the impact, but nothing more. She hit the edge, half in the water and half on the ice, and before she could recover she slipped back into the water. The impact knocked the breath from her body and, too stunned to fight it, she felt herself slip beneath the surface, where the current caught her and swept her away.

 

Cam grabbed Isidro's arm and cursed. ‘By the Bright Sun Herself, did you see that? Who was it?'

Isidro staggered under his grip and Cam quickly released him. ‘Where is she?' Isidro said, scanning the black water.

‘I can see one of them,' said Cam.

‘That's Rasten,' said Isidro, watching one small figure swim across the black water. ‘Where's Sierra?'

For a moment, Cam didn't reply; when he did speak, his voice was hushed. ‘She went under the ice.'

 

Her lungs burned as the current swept her onwards. It pulled her under then slammed her up against the ice again and again. She curled into a ball with her arms raised to protect her head, but knew she wouldn't have the strength to hold it for long. The cold was seeping into her muscles and sapping her strength. Her coat, floating free in the water, caught the current and pulled her along like a sail. The only thing that mattered was the need to breathe, but there was no air, only the cold and the dark and surging water all around. She was tumbling head over heels, so disoriented in the darkness she couldn't tell which way was up.

Ruddy light flared through the water — Sierra glimpsed it for only a moment before the current tumbled her away. It lit up the channel, illuminating boulders and dead-wood snags that stretched dark, skeletal fingers towards her. She saw a shape that might have been Rasten diving into the airless channel to follow her, but before she could take in anything more the Black Sun, the queen of cold and darkness, opened her arms and took her in.