City of Ice (21 page)

As soon as she had heard the ceiling breaking, Bayang said the growth spell the fastest she ever had. Seen through the shimmering air, the tree seemed to shrink as she expanded in size. Bracing her legs, she arched forward, knocking Lord Resak and the children to the floor. Like a living shield, she stretched herself over them just in time. Her knees buckled as the ice crashed against her back, but by sheer will she held her legs rigid enough to keep from flattening her friends.

But she couldn't help groaning at the new pain in her injured wing. The fallen ice had probably set her recovery back another week. Near her, she heard a noise like the shattering of a hundred glass bells.

Dazed, she glanced toward the tree and saw that it been smashed by the ice slab.

Lord Resak crawled out from underneath her and shook his head groggily. “The tree,” he gasped.

“I'm sorry,” Bayang panted. “It was beautiful, Lord Resak.”

“After saving me twice,” the bear-man said, smiling, “I think you've earned the right to call me Uncle Resak.”

Scirye and the other children crept out from underneath the dragon and stared in dismay at the destruction. “Can you make another?” Leech asked.

“We can try,” Uncle Resak said, putting his hands beneath the edge of the giant flat chunk. “Now help me free your friend.”

Immediately the others sprang to help. The effort was sincere enough, but they were more likely to crush their hands and paws. They didn't seem to understand that she would rather that they take care of themselves than her.

“I can do it,” she said. She took several breaths of the cold air and then set her forepaws against the belly of the ice chunk. Carefully, she walked in a squat, easing herself from underneath the crushing weight. The agony renewed itself in her wing as she slipped out from underneath the huge chunk. Now there was only her right forepaw supporting the edge.

“Step back,” she warned them. When she was sure they were in the clear, she yanked her right foreleg away and the ice smashed down.

She collapsed then, panting as she tried to recover.

“What blew up?” Koko asked.

“I don't know,” Uncle Resak said, shaking like a dog to get the ice chips off him. “But I'm going to find out.”

Suddenly a gong began to sound, the reverberations traveling through the ice so that the dragon felt them through her paws.

Uncle Resak's head whipped around. “Invaders,” he said grimly. “They must have followed us somehow.”

Scirye put a hand over her mouth in horror. “It's all our fault.”

Uncle Resak shook his head. “Whether you were with me or not, they would have followed me. I think that was the real purpose of the ambush. This Roland is a clever fellow. He knew that I would come to see why there were so many vermin up there. And when I did, he was prepared.”

With one last regretful look at what had been the tree, Uncle Resak walked toward the doorway. Shrinking in size to fit through the doorway, Bayang followed him with the children. They were just in time to see a fox scurrying as fast as she could over the ice. A few paces behind were the guard wolves. All three looked grim.

“Tizheruks, Lord,” the fox panted. “At least a dozen came up at the docks.”

“They find their prey miles away in the sea.” Uncle Resak growled. “They're how Roland tracked me.”

“I thought they were solitary creatures,” Roxanna said. “You can't have two together except at mating time.”

“Roland must be a truly foul but very skilled master to bring so many together.” Uncle Resak grunted, and then jerked his head at the fox. “What about the narwhals and our sentries?”

“I don't know, Lord,” the fox confessed. “But behind the Tizheruks were dozens of humans with guns.”

Bayang assumed Roland's men were protected by breathing spells similar to the ones that Uncle Resak had cast on them.

Uncle Resak gestured toward the dragon and her friends. “Take our guests to one of the hiding places.”

Bayang remembered when she had been a hatchling cowering in her room while Badik destroyed her city. Her whole life had been preparing for this moment. “I'm staying to fight.”

Uncle Resak's chin rested against his chest for a moment as he thought. Then he slapped a hand on the dragon's scaly leg. “I'll welcome your help, but the cubs will go.”

“No!” Roxanna blurted out. “This fight is as much mine as it is yours. Roland is served by awful monsters who are a danger to my clan too. And his freebooters have put Nova Hafnia under siege. That makes him my enemy too.”

Scirye folded her arms defiantly. “And we're not going to let Roland wreck your wonderful palace either.”

“Lord—I mean, Uncle Resak is right,” Leech agreed, pulling the axes from his belt. “This is worth defending.”

She'd been so surprised and pleased when he had come to her rescue during that battle in the Wastes. But she hadn't known how to tell him at the time.

Of course, she'd felt a small twinge of worry when she'd seen how well he had fought in the Wastes. She'd wondered if that original, murderous self, Lee No Cha, was surfacing. But then she'd told herself that Leech had only been defending her and that was hardly something the dragon-hating Lee No Cha would have done.

Leech had shown he was someone she could trust to protect her back in a fight. So were Scirye and Roxanna for that matter.

Bayang smiled. “I can always count on you three
not
to do the sensible thing.”

“Can we take a vote on that?” Koko asked hopefully.

“For once, I agree with the badger,” Kles said. “It would be prudent to retreat.”

“No.” Scirye had taken out her stiletto and axe. “We came to stop Roland.”

“Besides, there are families here,” Leech added.

“Yes,” Roxanna said. “His mercenaries show no mercy even to the harmless.”

Resigned to his fate, Koko covered his eyes with a paw. “Here we go again.”

Uncle Resak pointed down the corridor sternly. “You will leave.”

Scirye drew herself up stubbornly. “With all due respect, Uncle, we won't.”

Bayang couldn't help admiring the hatchlings who had matured into fledglings in so short a time.

“You're wasting time arguing with them, Uncle,” Bayang said. “I've tried that many times already, but their heads are harder than stone.”

“And hearts bigger than their bodies,” Uncle Resak said with a grudging grin.

Bayang shrugged. “You've seen what they can do in battle.” She faced the hatchlings. “You can stay, but during the fight you have to follow orders, just as I'll be obeying Uncle Resak's commanders.” She jerked her head at Leech. “Especially you. Don't disobey me like you did in the Wastes. It was very foolhardy.”

“I was just trying to protect you,” the hatchling protested.

She relented a little. She couldn't treat him as if he were a helpless hatchling anymore. He deserved some respect. “Yes, and you fought well. But”—she thrust her head forward so they were eye to eye—“don't do it again.”

“Uncle, there's no place for them in the defense plans,” a fox objected.

Uncle Resak held up a paw. “No, the dragon's right. I've seen these cubs in action. We can use this bloodthirsty little pack. Take them straight to Taqqiq. Tell him they'll be part of our reserve.”

“Reserve?” Leech asked suspiciously. “Is that a fancy word for hiding?”

“You don't know the palace like my clan does.” Uncle Resak tweaked Leech's ear playfully. “Our defense won't be a regular battle line. We'll pick them off one by one and drive them into a trap. I'll use the reserve when we can destroy them. Will that satisfy your pride?”

“But—,” Leech began to protest.

Uncle Resak was already stomping in his transformation dance. In a moment, his shape blurred and he became a huge bear again, though he held his staff in one paw. “Now join the reserve.” When the hatchlings still looked like they were going to argue, he held up his staff. Somehow it added to his already considerable authority. “Against my better judgment, I'll let you fight. But how and when I say. Understood?”

The hatchlings reluctantly nodded their heads and followed the impatient fox into a side tunnel. Only Koko seemed glad about the momentary reprieve. As a precaution, Bayang brought up the rear, glancing behind her for invading monsters.

“Hurry, hurry,” the fox yipped at them. “We don't have much time.”

With the moss on their feet, though, it was hard to run.

“I'm taking mine off,” Roxanna said impatiently. Putting a hand on Upach for support, she pulled the moss from her feet.

Impulsively, Leech, Koko, and Scirye did the same, but while Roxanna was able to skate along smoothly, they skidded and thumped against one another and the walls, to the growing impatience of their guide.

A family of foxes trotted past, bundles tied to the adults' backs. The kits, who were almost as big as their parents, had their own smaller packs.

“You've done evacuation drills,” Bayang noted.

Their guide nodded, stepping to the side as a mother led a group of young wolves after the foxes. “There are hiding places with plenty of supplies deeper in the palace, as well as escape tunnels.”

Eventually, they entered a large auditorium-size room where about a hundred foxes, wolves, and bears waited. Strangely, most of them had their eyes closed.

Taqqiq growled irritably when the fox told him it was Uncle Resak's orders that Bayang and the others were to join his force. Glancing from the hatchlings to Bayang, the wolf snarled, “I like dragons even less than humans.”

Koko put up a paw timidly. “Uh, how do you feel about badgers?”

“Oh, I like them fine,” Taqqiq said, and licked his lips pointedly. “The fat makes them so succulent, you see.”

“Heh, heh.” Koko laughed nervously. “Good thing I went on a diet.” And he folded his forepaws over his stomach, trying to squeeze himself so he would look slimmer.

As they made their way over to an empty spot, they heard a bear complain loudly to his neighbor, “Everything was fine until these strangers showed up. Then the next thing you know we were being invaded.”

Scirye was about to reply hotly, but the griffin quieted her with a touch as he always did. Leech's shoulders slumped guiltily.

Suddenly the chamber went dark. Not just the dark of night, because the stars give off a faint light even when there is no moon. The darkness now was the complete absence of light. It was impossible for Bayang to see her paw in front of her face.

“Yee-owch,” Koko screamed.

Taqqiq barked loudly, “What's going on?”

“I…I think I sat on an icicle,” the badger said.

There was harsh laughter from around the chamber. They heard the high voice of a fox: “How are you going to help us if you can't even see what you're sitting on?”

Darkness held neither terror nor confusion for Bayang, who was used to swimming in the sea depths where no sunlight ever reached. But it still took a moment for her eyes to adjust.
That's why the defenders had their eyes closed,
she realized.
They wanted to be able to see in the dark sooner.

“You always planned to shut off the light from the ice worms,” she said.

“In our drills, we practice moving in pitch-blackness,” a fox said grimly.

A bear gave a deep, ominous laugh. “We hunt best in the dark.”

Leech stood, unsure of what to do next, when he felt Bayang's paw pat his shoulder. “It's safe to sit where you are.”

It was reassuring to feel the dragon's bulk next to him. He eased himself down on his haunches in the place where he had been standing. Despite his harsh words, she was still trying to take care of him.

He sat guiltily while Bayang helped Scirye, Upach, and Roxanna in the same way.

He had said such mean things to Bayang before. Ashamed, he cleared his throat. “Bayang, I want to apologize again for what I said in the Wastes.”

“They were just words,” the dragon said—he could almost see her shrugging in the darkness—“and far less harsh than the things I've done to you.”

Koko took advantage of the momentary silence.

“Psst, Bayang,” Koko said. “I can't see my caboose. Am I bleeding?”

After a moment, the dragon said distastefully, “No, but trust you to find the only spot where there was an icicle sticking out. Step a foot to your right and you'll be fine.”

“Some help we're going to be. It's like being inside an ink bottle,” the badger grumbled. “We should have skedaddled like Uncle Resak said to do.”

“Too late for that now,” Bayang said in a low voice. “Just stay close to me.”

As he sat there with his knees up against his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs, Leech knew that he would do just that. He'd find a way to show her that he trusted her.

He'd been so lost in thought that it was only now that he noticed that his eyes had gradually become adjusted to the darkness. All around them were glowing eyes, the highest pairs belonging to the bears and the lowest to the foxes.

He hated combat, beginning with the struggles in the nooks and crannies of the orphanage where the bullies took their victims because the staff never went there. And standing back-to-back with Koko in street brawls, he had swung his fists out of desperation rather than rage.

Even though Primo had been refining Leech's martial skills, he had always emphasized self-defense rather than attacking. Perhaps Primo had sensed that Leech's heart wasn't in fighting. So he didn't understand why he was suddenly hearing a voice that took such delight in battles.

Occasionally in the distance they heard a howl and a gigantic crashing noise from some battle, but all he could do was imagine what horrors were coming for him. He decided that waiting in the dark was worse than any battle itself.

He fingered the disks on the armband in frustration. If only he could fly. With the disks, he'd gone from being a gutter rat to someone special. When he was flying by himself, he felt as free and comfortable as Kles and Bayang. If he could have fought from the air, he would have had more confidence.

However, even when the corridors had been lit, they'd been too narrow and too twisting for him to fly. Now that they were in the dark he knew it would be impossible. And that dumped him right back in the gutter again, which made him increasingly uneasy.

His hand found the other band and he changed it into the weapon ring. It was as light as if it were made out of cotton candy and yet he knew it was as strong as steel.

As he felt the familiar hum in his palm, the inner voice whispered to him,
You have this. You don't have be scared of any bullies ever again—not humans, not dragons, not monsters, not Roland.

Leech recalled that strange bloodthirsty battle rage that had seized him back among the Wastes. If he let it take him over again, he would be as dangerous to his friends as his enemies. He shut out the voice though it screamed in rage. Even if it put him at risk, he couldn't give in. He would rather have something happen to him than harm his companions.

So Leech fought a battle within the palace not against Roland but against himself. And even though Leech's friends were around him, it was a very lonely fight, but he won at last.

He became aware then of fur rustling and claws clicking on the ice as clan warriors stirred restlessly. Then came a screech that made him grit his teeth.

Szzz-eee.

It repeated in a slow, steady rhythm:
Szzz-eee. Szzz-eee.

“What's that?” Leech pulled back his coat sleeve to expose the Dancer's ribbon so he could see.

Ever since he'd gotten the ribbon, he'd been studying it, but it was handiest for Koko's suggestion as a flashlight.

The ribbon glowed faintly at first but grew brighter when Leech touched it. All around him, he saw animals turning their heads in surprise at the intense light.

“Cover that thing,” Taqqiq barked. “We don't want to lose our night vision.”

Shamefaced, Leech yanked the coat sleeve back over the ribbon, and the room was instantly dark.

Scales rasped against one another as the dragon bent her neck and lowered her head. “I think they're using a stone to sharpen their claws,” she said.

Leech spoke in a whisper, hoping no one else heard him: “Sorry. I guess I'm a little jumpy. Were…were you ever scared before a battle?”

“All the time,” Bayang sympathized in a low voice. “Just like I am now. Being scared isn't cowardice. It's wisdom.”

“Thanks,” he said, but Bayang's words didn't really reassure him. The last thing he wanted to do was turn tail and leave his friends in the lurch.

Szzz-eee. Szzz-eee. Szzz-eee.
The noise came from a different part of the room as the stone was passed on. Round and round.

The sound seemed to put everyone on edge, and the clan warriors around them stirred even more. So tense was the clan that they did not speak except to growl in low voices at the echoes of the distant struggle. They had only one thought, one desire—to defend their home. There was no place for idle conversation to pass the time. Even Koko, who normally talked your ear off, picked up on the mood of the room and stayed quiet.

Leech heard again the patter of a fox messenger and then Taqqiq barked out something short and harsh. Around them, the clan warriors rose as one, just as silently as they had waited. As scared as Leech was, it was almost a relief to stand back up.

Bayang spoke softly to each of the other friends in turn and then her paw took his wrist and guided it against her side. “Stay close to me. And no heroics when we get there.”

He felt Koko's paw next to his hand. He was sure Scirye and Roxanna were holding on to Bayang the same as he. Upach would be staying protectively near his mistress, as would Kles.

Claws clicked against stone-hard ice, angry tails whispered as they whisked at the air, and a breeze brushed Leech's cheeks as the warriors surged out of the room.

Leech and his friends shuffled through the slippery corridors that had once been so filled with laughter and light and were now eerily silent and dark. Taqqiq had detailed a young wolf to make sure the human cubs stayed with the reserve, and she did so with a warning
whuff
or nudge of her muzzle like a dog guiding particularly stupid sheep.

The reserve padded along at about the same speed as a human walking fast, but even that pace was enough to leave Leech and the others behind. Without their nursemaid, they would have become hopelessly lost.

Fortunately, when the reserve halted they managed to catch up. Leech would have plowed into the warrior ahead of him, but their nursemaid turned sideways like a furry barricade. Somewhere up ahead, Taqqiq was talking with a fox—another messenger perhaps, because after a moment Taqqiq barked another set of commands and the clan swung around.

Moving back the way they had come, Leech and the others were suddenly at the head of the column, but not for long. The others slipped past them like shadows until they were again at the rear.

They caught up with the reserve once more only to have it march in a totally different direction after receiving orders from another fox messenger.

By the time they had repeated the process three more times, Leech was ready to scream. Sometimes it seemed to him that they were going downward rather than forward or backward. He was ready to take out his frustration on someone with his weapon ring.

“Why don't they make up their minds?” Koko grumbled.

Bayang's talons bit into the ice floor with crunching sounds. “Uncle Resak said their plan was to hit and then run,” she explained, “which is smart against guns. The darkness takes away much of the freebooters' advantage in weapons. And the clan knows the layout of the palace and Roland's men don't. But that means the battlefield will keep shifting from place to place. When it does, we must be moving to catch up with the new struggle.”

As they stood in the blackness, waiting yet again, Leech felt the mist wrap itself around his ankles like cold, damp snakes.

“Oh, great,” Koko complained. “Now there's fog.”

“The explosion must have heated up the air,” Kles reasoned. “When that air came in contact with the ice it created the vapor, and it's drifting through the corridors now. That could help Uncle Resak's clan even more.”

Leech almost jumped when he heard the noise from overhead, as if a herd of cattle were stampeding toward him from overhead. The icy roof began to glow with a weird purple light and there was a flash as bright as lightning and a roar like thunder. Was it a storm within the palace?

Bayang studied the ceiling. “We must be on a lower level.”

“I thought we were moving downward for a while,” Leech said.

Suddenly humans shouted and guns roared overhead. Through the ice above he saw their silhouettes as their weapons flashed. The humans seemed to be gathering in a defensive circle, but at its center was a strange tubelike shape that writhed. It seemed to be about twelve feet in length, with all sorts of bumps and rough patches along its side, like a giant worm with acne.

“What's that?” Scirye gasped.

“A Tizheruk, Lady,” Roxanna said.

“It's sort of knobby, isn't it?” Scirye asked.

“The bumps are caused by parasites, or skin that grows over barnacles that latch on,” Roxanna said. “Whales are the same way. The young ones are sleeker, so this must be one of the older ones.”

The monster was big enough to crush a human with one blow of its body.

I hope the defenders have destroyed the others,
Leech decided.

Shadowy beasts skated and danced on the edge of the humans' circle like angry clouds whipped about by a hurricane. They howled and growled defiantly. Every now and then a bullet found one of them and they went down, but the others didn't retreat. They kept on wheeling around the intruders.

With a shock Leech realized that the clan warriors were herding the surviving invaders together before they sprang the final ambush.

The faint light filtering down from above let him see the others now. With their comrades fighting and dying so near them, it was hard for the company to keep silent. They shifted restlessly from paw to paw. Next to him, a wolf spun in a circle as if impatiently chasing her tail.

A bear in the company, eager to join the struggle, began to rumble in sympathy until a sharp word from Taqqiq cut him off.

The veteran barked a series of low commands and in the overhead twilight he saw dozens of bears slipping from the company to gather a few paces away. There they reared up a little bit away. Scrambling up their backs were foxes who stood upon the bears' shoulders and heads so their forepaws could scrabble at the ice. Their limbs were a blur as their claws raked the ceiling, and the shavings swirled around them like snowflakes.

Leech heard a click and turned. In the dim light from overhead, he saw Scirye hand her axe over to Roxanna. Upach had taken out the curved dagger that was so deadly in her hand.

Scirye was wiping the sweat from her hands onto her coat before she pulled the gauntlet over one hand. Kles was perched on her shoulder, arching his back and fluttering his wings, stretching before the exertion of battle. And the boy couldn't see what protection the leather would provide against bullets. She smiled nervously at him as she took out the stiletto.

Leech put away the axes. He realized he had even less practice with them than with the armband weapon. Taking off the armband, he changed it into the weapon ring again.
Yes, this feels a lot better than the axes,
the boy thought.

Koko had taken out an axe and was eyeing the blade.

Bayang lowered her head and whispered to the badger. “Do you really know what to do with that?”

Koko shrugged. “What's to know? You swing it at something.”

“Wouldn't it be more effective if you changed into a creature more deadly?” the dragon asked, and then added, “If you can?”

“I didn't miss every lesson,” Koko said defensively, and changed into a miniature dragon. Unfortunately, he retained the same silhouette he had as a badger, so that unlike Bayang's body, with its sleek lines, Koko's was wide of hip, with stubby legs and short forelegs.

“That,” Bayang sniffed, “is insulting.”

“Picky, picky, picky,” Koko said. In another instant, he became his lumpy version of a wolf. “Satisfied?”

Several wolves nearby swung around, pulling back their lips in a snarl.

“Change back,” Leech warned, “before they take you apart.”

“Everybody's a critic,” Koko grumbled, and returned to being a badger.

Bayang scratched her snout. “I think we'll work on your transformation skills later.”

“You could have saved me a lot of trouble,” Koko complained. His belly rumbled. “All that shape-shifting makes a guy hungry too.”

The blizzard of ice shavings stopped abruptly and a fox yipped something to Taqqiq. Taqqiq gave another low command and the foxes leapt down. The foxes dropped to all fours but stood up again, this time with small hammers in their paws. They swung the tools awkwardly as they began to rain blows at the weakened ice.

It was as if a giant crystal plate had broken overhead. Ice fell in splinters as sharp as Scirye's stiletto and some chunks as big as refrigerators. Fog billowed downward. And within the mist fell screaming freebooters. But then a huge serpentlike horror crashed on top of them and they fell silent.