The Ring of Winter - James Lowder [39]
Something struck the door and a voice cried out, high and filled with fright.
Artus leaped to the door and braced himself against it. "Pontifax, quick!"
Startled from a deep sleep and a pleasant dream of a room in Cormyr's finest inn, the mage was slow to his feet. "What's going on?" he murmured, rubbing his eyes with awkward fingers.
"Help, Father!"
"Mystra's wounds!" Pontifax cried. "That's Inyanga!" Artus stepped to one side of the door, then pulled it open. A tall figure, pale and ghostly by the fight of Artus's dagger, blocked the way. Its body was made entirely of crystal-clear ice. The explorer had faced assassins like this before, minions of the Cult of Frost, conjured servants of Kaverin Ebonhand.
Cursing, Artus grabbed for the door. The frost minion lashed out, knocking the sheet of metal from its hinges. The door crashed to the ground. Swiftly the explorer jumped back, but the assassin grabbed him by the front of his tunic and lifted him from the ground. It raised one massive fist to strike.
A tiny ball of fire hissed across the hut. It struck the frost minion in the side, then burrowed in. The assassin probably didn't feel any pain, but it was sentient enough to sense danger. It dropped Artus and tried to dig the ember out. Too late. The pinpoint of fire exploded, and the minion's clear body filled with flame, then shattered into a thousand shards.
Artus wiped a line of blood from his cheek where one of the larger shards had grazed him. The other fragments had been too small to do any damage.
The mage smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," he said. "A bit of an overreaction."
"At least we know it's Kaverin," Artus said. He gestured to the scattered shards of ice. "This is like an engraved calling card."
There was noise in the compound now-doors being flung open, shouts of alarm, and the clatter of weapons. Artus charged outside and was immediately knocked to the ground from above. The roof! He tumbled, feeling icy hands fumble for his throat.
When Artus stopped rolling, another of Kaverin's frost minions was on top of him, its weight crushing the air from his lungs. Its arms were as thick around as fenceposts, its hands like dwarven hammers. It turned its smooth, eyeless face toward Artus and reached for his throat, but the explorer struck with his dagger. The enchanted blade carved a deep furrow in the assassin's arm. Another frantic blow, and the limb shattered. Water dripped down on Artus as the thing loomed over him, melting even as it tried to choke him with its one remaining arm.
Again and again, Artus dug his dagger into the frost minion, gouging out chunks of ice. Half its head was gone, then much of its torso. Artus felt the thing's grip falter. It went stiff then, and dropped onto him, lifeless ice once more.
Ibn pushed the cold mass from atop the explorer. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," Artus said softly, his throat raw from the attack. He sat up and looked at the hut. Pontifax knelt in the doorway, consoling Inyanga.
"I climbed on the roof to watch over you," the boy said between sobs. "I saw them coming from the jungle, but I thought it was two of the bearers and their child."
Something about Inyanga's words jarred Artus's mind. A child? Artus pushed himself from the ground. "Pontifax!"
In the darkness of the hut, a figure no larger than a human toddler had slipped through the gap beneath the back wall and stolen up behind the mage. The frost minion had been diminished by the heat, so much so that it barely resembled a man. That was to its advantage, though. Its hands were no longer large enough to strangle Pontifax, but they had melted to points at the ends.
It rammed one spearlike arm through the mage's back.
From the compound, Artus saw his old friend gasp, then slump forward. Inyanga screamed. The boy reached for the figure that still stood with its arm buried in Pontifax's back. Stiffly the frost minion jerked free. It disappeared into the hut and out through the hole