Doom of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [190]
The River of Anger, which flowed beneath the city walls of Abri, was frozen. Its water had been frozen by their enemies, by spells cast on it. The hideous dragon-snakes had turned the river to ice in order that their troops could cross more easily.
Clambering down the rock-strewn sides of the riverbank, Marit smiled grimly. The tactics of her enemy would serve her.
There was just one small problem.
“You say this was done by magic?” Hugh the Hand, sliding down the bank behind her, skidded to a halt beside the black ice floe. He jabbed at it with the toe of his boot. “How long will the spell last?”
That was the problem.
“I don’t know,” Marit was forced to admit.
“Yeah.” Hugh grunted. “I thought as much. It might end when we’re standing in the middle.”
“It might.” Marit shrugged. If that happened, they would be lost. The rushing black water would suck them down, chill their blood, grind their bodies against the sharp rocks, fill their lungs with the black and now blood-tinged water.
“There’s no other way?” Hugh the Hand was looking at her, at the blue sigla tattooed on her body.
He meant, of course, her magic.
“I might be able to get myself across,” she told him. Then again, she might not. She was weakened in body from yesterday’s battle, weakened in her spirit from yesterday’s confrontation with Lord Xar. “But I’d never be able to manage you.”
She set foot on the ice, felt its cold strike through to the very marrow of her bones. Clamping her teeth together to keep them from chattering, she stared at the far shore and said, “Only a short run. It won’t take us long.”
Hugh the Hand said nothing. He was staring—not at the shore, but at the ice.
And then Marit remembered. This man, a professional assassin, afraid of nothing in his world, had come across something in another world he did fear—water.
“What are you scared of?” Marit jeered, hoping to bolster his courage by shaming him. “You can’t die.”
“I can die,” he corrected her. “I just don’t stay dead. And, lady, I don’t mind telling you, this sort of dying doesn’t appeal to me.”
“It doesn’t appeal to me either,” she said snappishly back at him, but she noticed she wasn’t going anywhere, had hurriedly snatched her foot back off the ice.
She drew in a deep breath. “You can follow or not, as you please.”
“I’m of little use to you anyway,” he said bitterly, hands clenching and unclenching. “I can’t protect you, defend you. I can’t even protect or defend myself.”
He couldn’t be killed. He couldn’t kill. Every arrow he fired missed its mark, every blow he aimed fell short, every slash of his sword went wide.
“I can defend myself,” Marit answered. “I can defend you, too, for that matter. I need you because you know Alfred better than I do—”
“No, I don’t,” Hugh returned. “I don’t think anyone knew Alfred. Not even Alfred knew Alfred. Haplo did, maybe, but that’s not much help to us now.”
Marit said nothing, bit her lip.
“But you’re right to remind me, lady,” Hugh the Hand continued. “If I don’t find Alfred, this curse on me will never end. Come on. Let’s get it over with.”
He set foot on the ice, began to walk across it. His swift and impetuous move took Marit by surprise. She was hurrying after him before she quite knew what she was doing. The bone-numbing cold shot through her; she began shivering uncontrollably.
The ice was slippery and treacherous. She and Hugh clung to each other for support, his arm saving her from more than one sliding fall, her arm steadying him.
Halfway across, an eardrum-shattering crack split the ice, almost beneath their feet. A fur-covered clawed hand and arm shot up from the gurgling water. It seemed to be trying to grab hold of Marit. She grappled for the hilt of her sword.
Hugh the Hand stopped her.
“It’s only a corpse,” he said.
Marit, looking more closely, saw he was right. The arm was flaccid, sucked down by the current almost immediately.
“The spell’s ending,” she said, irritated at herself. “We have to hurry.”
Breathing a sigh, she continued across. But a thin layer of