Ice Country(61)

Big stops, looks in at Skye, who’s already ferociously diving into her gruel, as if she don’t give two shivers about the dungeon master.

“What fungus?” Big asks, taking the bait.

Skye stops shoveling food, finishes chewing her last mouthful, says, “The flesh-eatin’ kind you got growin’ on yer back. You’d better git it removed ’fore it kills you.”

Big tries to look over his shoulder, but when that doesn’t work, he slides the plates of food to the ground, and then swats at his bare back. “Where?” he says.

“Right there,” Skye points. “In the center. No, no, you tug-brained fool. You’ll never reach it that way. ’Ere, let me. I’ve removed the nasty stuff ’fore.”

Big keeps scrabbling helplessly at his back, but then eases arse-first against the bars of Skye’s cell.

“Ooh, there it is, big fella,” Skye says. “It’s even nastier’n I thought, plumin’ out every which way. I can’t quite get to it through these ’ere bars. Maybe if you come inside I can git you cleared up right quick.”

Pretty obvious what’s going on here, right?

Yah, Big’s not heavy in the area of brains, or he’s just too obsessed with the idea of fungus eating him from the outside in, because he clinks a coupla keys and shoots that door open faster than you can say “moron dungeon master.”

Even stretching as far as I can through my cell bars, I can’t see what’s happening now, so I go to the hole. I can’t see much, just Skye’s backside, but I keep on looking.

My heart skips a beat, then starts thumping harder than before.

“C’mon over, big fella, let me have a look,” Skye says. She shifts out of view and I let out an audible sigh. A giant leg comes into view, as big as a tree trunk. What were we thinking letting Skye be the one to take on this monster? She’s half his freezin’ size!

Then the leg turns and Skye’s leg flashes out, quicker than lightning, all the bite with twice the grace, and Big cries out with a boisterous bellow that reminds me of the goats during mating season.

The ogre doesn’t go down, just staggers away from where I can see, screaming the whole way. Skye streaks past the hole and there’s a thud and another Big-sized bellow.

They’re heading for the door.

I clamber to my feet and rush to the bars, just in time to see Big plow through the opening, bashing a shoulder on one side of the metal doorframe, which twists him around so I can see his face contorted in pain, making him even uglier, if that’s possible. Skye’s work.

He grabs madly at the door and tries to close it but—

—Skye’s there already, kicking it back and—

—it swings and crashes off Big’s arm and hits the outside of the cell and—

—it’s all happening too fast but in slow motion, like they’re both walking through heavy drifts of snow, but then—

—time speeds up suddenly, with Skye a blur of fists and feet and elbows and knees, pounding, pounding, hitting Big as hard as she hit me, except again and again and—

—Big’s wailing and covering his head and staggering around like some drunk at Yo’s pub, occasionally swatting at Skye, but always missing, always a second too late or a foot too high, but finally—

—just when I think Skye’s going to win the fight without any opposition at all, he connects.

A direct hit, right on her jaw.

A blind, lucky swing that sounds like a stomp and feels, even from where I’m standing, like a bone-breaking blow that even the toughest scoundrels in ice country would have trouble getting up from.

“Skye!” Siena cries out beside me.

Skye lifts off the ground, floating, flying for an instant that might as well be an hour, and then jerks to the hard, stone floor, crumpling in a way that makes her look more like a cloth doll than a person.

My mouth’s agape and I’m staring, just staring, watching a trickle of blood meander from her nose and over her lip.

She won’t get up from that hit.

She won’t.

She gets up. Slowly at first, but then faster, almost with a spring, and I can’t see her face because I’m looking from behind her, but I know—I know—there’s fury in her brown eyes.

“Get him, Skye!” Siena says and I’m echoing the thought in my head.

Big’s got his hands away from his face, and he’s bleeding all over the place, just dripping the red liquid, but his teeth are clamped shut and he doesn’t look close to being finished either. It’s like she’s been pounding on a boulder for the last few minutes, hoping it’ll break right down the middle, but all she’s managed to do is knock off a few crumbly edges.