The Riddle - Alison Croggon [91]
Imi neighed with terror and reared, tearing the reins from Maerad’s frozen hands, and then bolted back down the pass, her reins swinging wildly and the packs falling from her saddle. Maerad watched her vanish into the storm with a sense of unreality, as if she were in a dream and this had nothing to do with her, and then she turned again to Cadvan. He was standing with his arms held high, shouting something in the Speech, but she could hear nothing over the storm. There was another huge crash, and a boulder the size of a horse hit the road in front of her, just missing Cadvan and Darsor, and then rebounded and plunged into the darkness beyond.
This jolted Maerad out of her stupor, and she was seized with fear. Cadvan was fighting some assailant, but she couldn’t see what it was. The hail worsened, slamming into her like hammers of ice. She put up her forearm to protect her face and struggled toward Cadvan, not knowing what else to do. She couldn’t go after Imi; she didn’t know where she was. Perhaps the mare, in her terror, already had plunged over the edge of the narrow road.
As she neared Cadvan, her head began to ring with the force of his power. He was a brilliant figure of blazing silver, globed in a shield of White Fire, and she could barely look at him. She stared beyond him, into the darkness, and at last saw what he was fighting.
She knew at once it was an Elemental power, as the stormdog had been, but she had no idea what it was. Like the stormdog, it was difficult to fix in the vision, seeming to be made of something not quite substantial; this was like a giant man hewn out of stone and ice, but it flickered with strange fires from its mouth and eyes, and parts of it would vanish when you looked at it, as if it were a cloud. It bore a huge, crude club made of rock, and as Maerad watched, it smashed the road very close to where Cadvan was standing. To Maerad, it seemed that Cadvan and Darsor must be squashed flat by that massive blow, but the weapon rebounded strangely, glancing off to the mountain wall, where it struck showers of blue sparks, and Cadvan still stood, swaying a little. Darsor screamed in defiance.
Maerad was a hair’s breadth from turning and bolting after Imi. Instead she gathered up what little remained of her courage and ran into the circle of light, touching Cadvan briefly on the shoulder to let him know she was there. He nodded without turning, his whole body tense with concentration. It was easier to think within Cadvan’s shield: it kept off the bruising hail, and the noise of the storm was muted a little. Maerad focused her mind to join with Cadvan’s. To her dismay, nothing happened, and before she could gather herself to try again, the creature swung at them with the club. It missed, striking the wall above, and chips of rock showered over them.
Maerad felt once more for Cadvan’s mind, wondering uneasily why she couldn’t join him, and asked silently, What is it?
A frost creature, an iridugul, Cadvan answered grimly. We are unlucky. Or ambushed. I fancy the latter.
So what can we do?
We can’t destroy it. So we have to escape it somehow. I don’t think you can sing a lullaby to this one.
Their conversation took place with the speed of thought. Everything had happened so quickly; it couldn’t have been much more than a few breaths since Cadvan had halted and Imi had run away. Maerad squared her shoulders and attempted again to join her mind with Cadvan’s. This time he flinched, and the White Fire dimmed.
It’s not working, she said desperately.
Stop, Maerad! It’s hurting me, he said. Another boulder crashed and splintered on the road beside them, and he strengthened his shield. Close up, Maerad could see his face, pale and grim with exhaustion, the whip scars around his eye suddenly