Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [37]
“Kal-throk-tok! Borea-kal-lu-ki Joor-maag.”
Suddenly, something else was in that ice cavern. A presence. It was as old as the world, as uncaring of mortal creatures. It was colder than a blizzard: not just the power to freeze but the will to, to see living things shiver to stillness and crack open. This was the power behind the Dragonspawn. He wielded only a portion of it—the portion that could pour through eye sockets and skeletal fingertips. Now, Eir, Garm, and the Bigs were in the presence of the power itself.
We are in its inner sanctum, and it is going to get rid of us, Eir thought. She shouted, “Get away from the crevice!”
Big Snaff and Big Zojja clawed their way toward the wall of the chamber.
Out of the fissure behind them, a blast of cold and snow erupted. It was like an inverted avalanche. Hunks of slush smashed into the golems and coated them and froze them. The storm hauled them off the floor.
“Get out! Jump!” Eir shouted.
The hatches of the golems opened, and first Snaff and then Zojja tumbled out. They crashed to the icy floor of the cave as their golems were hauled up on the erupting storm. The golems jolted up the chasm, occasionally smashing against the ice cliffs. Moments later, the golems flew past the surface of the glacier and were flung through the air on a storm of hail.
“We have to escape,” Eir told Garm as she clambered toward the entrance to the hollow. Already it was filling in. If they stayed even minutes, they would be buried in the glacier’s heart. “Climb out!”
On the other side of the rent, Snaff and Zojja also scrambled toward the chute that had brought them down. They would have to find handholds, some way out.
Even as Eir climbed, arms stiffening beneath the onslaught of snow, she knew what this was: failure. She had not been corrupted by the Dragonspawn, but she had not slain it, either. And if she knew the Dragonspawn, her people would pay for her hubris.
The ice cave had probably saved their lives. When at last the companions had crawled from it, they found a world buried in snow. It was more than ten feet deep and still falling. The sky was black overhead, disgorging the fury of the Dragonspawn. Snow, hail, sleet, and ice pummeled the ground and piled atop glaciers. Boreal winds whipped the white stuff into gigantic drifts and tormented pillars. Winter lightning mantled the mountaintops.
Anything that had once lived on the steppes was now battered to death or buried alive.
And this storm would be pummeling Hoelbrak as well.
A week later, when Eir, Garm, Snaff, and Zojja straggled into Hoelbrak, they found a city buried in snow. Many roofs had collapsed, and most lanes were impassable. And in the main lane, opened by the work of hundreds of hands and shovels, stood an imposing figure.
The snow-mantled man strode toward Eir and her friends. Light washed across him, showing an old, battle-scarred face wreathed in silver hair. The norn’s blue eyes, though, shone with the fire of a young man.
“Knut Whitebear!” Eir gasped, dropping to her knee.
“Rise, daughter of snow.”
Eir did, a chill running down her back. No one had called her daughter since her own father had died. It was as if he stood before her once again, disappointed.
Knut Whitebear brushed snow from his pelts. His eyes were grave and kindly. “You are so strong, so determined,” he said, lifting his hand to straighten the tangled hair that fell to her shoulder, “it is hard to remember that you are just a child.”
“I am not a child!” Eir replied.
“Oh? You march a pair of windup toys through my town. You tell everyone that they will kill the Dragonspawn, only to bring upon us a millennial storm that buries us alive?”
“We almost did it,” Eir said. “We were so close. We were in the inner sanctum.”
Knut’s face stiffened. “This storm was worse than the icebrood. It has killed more—”
“What are you telling me?” Eir asked.
“The doors of my lodge are closed to you,” he said simply.
“What?”
“You and your wolf and your companions.”
Tears rolled down her face. “How long?