Ice Country(81)

CLANG!

and Feve goes down, rolling onto his back amidst blood and bodies, trying to scramble to his feet, but being forced to scrabble backward while blocking another swipe from the rider’s blade.

Feve’s dead—

If I don’t do something—

Dead.

“Dazz!”

Do something!

I run toward the rider, weaponless, except for my fists.

The rider doesn’t see me coming. He’s a mountain lion with a mouse trapped under his paw and nothing can disturb him from his meal.

He swings again, harder than any of the other blows, so hard that Feve—even Feve—can only throw his sword up in a last-ditch effort to protect himself.

CLANG!

Feve manages to block the strike, but he can’t hold onto the handle any longer, and it skitters out of his hand, creating a sword-shaped hole in the snow, disappearing.

I keep running.

The rider raises his sword over his head—

I keep running, still too far away.

—thrusts it down—

I keep running, and I’m screaming now.

—and Feve rolls away, narrowly avoiding the kill attempt.

Hearing my scream, the rider turns just as I barge into him, leading with my shoulder, smashing into his chest, which is as hard as iron, perhaps from muscle or from some hidden form of body armor. He lands on Feve with me at the top of the pile. Feve grabs at his face from behind, poking his fingers into the rider’s eyes, doing anything he can to help from his precarious position.

The rider rains down a barrage of punches on the back of my head, his sword not in his hand, disappearing just like Feve’s. But I don’t feel his hits. This is my territory now and shots to the head are a way of life.

I lay into him, punching him first in the gut, and then in the face.

Gut and face. Gut and face.

I get a rhythm going while he continues to pound from the back and squeeze his eyes shut against Feve’s raking fingers.

Buff always said I had a head harder than an ice sculpture, on account of how many bar fights I won with my signature finishing maneuver. I crank it up now, still pounding away with my fists, leaning my head back slightly, waiting for the perfect moment…

Feve’s hands slip away from the rider’s face as he’s crushed underneath him. I snap my head forward, butting the rider’s skull like a goat defending my young. I hit him so hard—too hard probably—seeing stars myself and feeling an instant throb in my temples, but my pain’s nothing compared to what the rider’s feeling. He screams, clutching at his forehead, wailing something fierce. Then he stops screaming and lies unconscious.

I pull and Feve pushes and we get the rider offa him. We look at each other and it’s one of those moments when you think you should say something, but it’s impossible because another rider’s swooping in and you’re both dead if you don’t get your arses in gear.

Feve cracks a strange grin, dives for the snow, somehow finds his sword, slashes at the rider, and knocks him off his horse, which keeps on running without him. When I just stand there, Feve yells, “Go!” and I take off, sprinting in the direction I last saw Skye.

But she’s not there anymore and any path is all closed up. There are so many bodies, alive and standing and fighting, dead and crumpled and broken, that I don’t see how I’ll get through them all. Then I spot them, Skye and Siena and Wilde, and now Circ too, moving off to the side, looking back for me and Feve. Skye spots me.

She waves me over and I run, run, run, ignoring a fallen guard with a sword in his gut who cries out for help from the ground, leap over the lean flanks of an injured horse, which blows steam out of its nose, whinnying in pain, give a wide berth to an axe-wielding guard who’s facing off against a sword-swinging rider.

While Siena continues to let arrows fly at anything that gets close, Skye, Circ and Wilde hack their way to the wall. And then Feve is with us again, still grinning, his sword slick with red.

We move along the palace wall, only having to fight foes on one side now, which makes all the difference. None of the guards or riders get anywhere near me, because the others are so good at keeping them away. We inch our way forward, skirting the battle, which continues to rage hot and fierce, neither side seeming to gain an advantage. Small wooden supply structures burn along the edge—the source of all the smoke we saw earlier—but we run past them, barely feeling the heat.

I’m coming. I’m coming, Jolie.

We reach the pillars that hold up the roof just before the palace entrance. A wall of guards blocks the way, fifteen, twenny of them. Too many to fight our way through.

But it’s not just us. The riders want to get through just as badly.

A half a dozen riders charge the line.