Ice Country (29 page)

The steps to the dungeon go by on my left and
I keep running. A ceramic vase lies broken in jagged shards on the
floor. Knocked over by a horse that’s not used to running
inside?

I turn a corner to find a staircase and a
horse. The horse chews on something, ignoring me, as if I’m just
another person and today’s just another day. The stairs wind up and
up. A tower staircase. The central palace tower, the one that
splits the clouds and allows the king to see the sun even in the
worst storms, like the one today.

Rushing by the horse, I take the steps two at
a time, tripping once, banging my knee, but scrambling with my
hands to stay on my feet. Two steps, two steps, curving, climbing,
around and around and around. Higher and higher, my lungs burning,
my mouth dry, my hands fisted, higher and higher.

There are windows every twenny or so steps,
but I can’t see anything except gray and white.

Higher and higher, around and around.

My legs are aching, not in one place, but in
every
place—but that’s nothing. Nothing.

I realize I’m speaking out loud between
ragged, heaving breaths. “Jolie. I’m coming. I’m coming, Jolie.
Don’t hurt her. Don’t. I’m coming.”

I don’t stop running or mumbling. Both things
are all I have and they give me hope.

I reach a landing and there’s a door, a
vacant room beyond. I keep going.

My legs aren’t working the way they should
and I have to switch to one step at a time. With each stride they
protest, but I tell them
Only one more step
, and then I take
it. Repeating my empty promise, I take another. And another. And
another.

Just when I think the tower goes even higher
than they say, stretching all the way to the stars, I step onto a
landing. My head’s down, between my knees, but I manage to tilt my
chin enough to look up. And there aren’t any more stairs. Just a
stone ceiling.

The top of the tower.

A door stands open. I walk toward it just as
the screams fly out.

~~~

I’m in no shape to fight, too exhausted from
my harried flight up the stairs, which is exactly why the king is
probably hiding out here.

But I enter anyway, taking it all in with a
single glance.

The horseless rider is surrounded by guards,
slashing and blocking and hacking at their spears and axes and
swords, killing one with a slice to the throat, stabbing another
through the gut, fighting like someone who can’t be defeated.

Small windows are cut at intervals along the
walls, barely letting in any light at all, and certainly no
sun—nay, not one speck of sunlight; at the other end of a room that
seems too big to be held up this high, Goff stands in front of a
huge, stone throne on a raised platform like a god, eyes blazing,
his arms around…his arms holding…

I choke when I try to speak, gasping for air
and words, because he’s got her, he’s got...

“Jolie,” I say.

It’s not loud enough to reach anyone’s ears
beyond my own, not against the battle cries in front of me.

Another guard dies with a scream, the rider
vanquishing his enemies one by one.

“Jolie,” I say again, this time louder.

Both Goff and Jolie look across the room at
me. “Dazz!” Jolie screams.

And King Goff smiles. He actually smiles. His
whole world is crashing down around him and he doesn’t seem to care
one bit, as if he’s entertained by it. Jolie strains against his
arms, but he’s got her tight, so tight, and I start to run toward
her, but then Goff reaches back and when his hand returns it’s
gleaming and it’s holding a knife, jabbing it under Jolie’s throat,
and he’s still smiling and his eyes are too, warning me to
Stay
away, stay away, back off, or, or…

…
she dies.

There’s nothing I can do but stop. Rage is
throbbing in my head and in my blood and in my heart, but I have to
stop, because he’s got her and he’ll kill her—that much I can see
in his eyes.

But Jolie’s pleading, pleading with her own
eyes, giving me that hopeful look that she always has, like having
a knife at her neck isn’t anything if I’m there. Her protector.

A body crashes to the floor behind me and I
jerk my head to the side and down. Another guard, not yet dead, but
on his way, blood gurgling from his lips as he tries to breathe
through thick, red liquid.

I raise my head to see the rider standing
alone amidst a circle of bodies. He’s killed them all—every last
guard. A warrior, his strength far beyond my pathetic and useless
bar-fighting talent that I once held such pride for.

He steps forward, his dark skin dripping with
sweat, his black robe dragging at his feet, his sword held with
both hands in front of him, the tip almost touching his chin.

I won’t let him get Jolie without going
through me first.

“You’re here for the girl?” he asks, his
voice a deep rumble. I step back, as if his words are far worse
than his sword. He says it like it’s a normal question, the start
of a normal conversation, as if he hasn’t just killed ten men on
his own.

“She’s my sister,” I say. “He took her from
me.”

He nods. “He’s a bad man,” he says. “I can’t
let him live.” But what about Jolie?

“I’ll kill her if you come any closer,” the
king says, and in his tone is a promise. I see him drawing his
thumb across his neck, high atop the wall.

The rider steps toward him.

“I swear to the Mountain Heart, I’ll do it!”
Goff screams, pushing his blade into Jolie’s flesh, drawing a
trickle of blood.

“Ow! You’re hurting me!” Jolie cries.

“Don’t!” I shout, both to the rider and to
the king.

The rider looks back, but there’s no
uncertainty on his face. I see him slip a knife from his belt,
using the width of his body to hide the motion from Goff.

I signal
No!
with my eyes, but he
ignores it, turns, throws the knife toward the king and my
sister.

The sound of the knife embedding in flesh and
bone is sickening.

Blood flies.

The king slumps over, still clutching his
knife.

Footsteps thump onto the landing outside the
door.

With a whirl of his cape, the rider leaps
past me, his sword raised. I spin around as he deflects an axe, a
metal club, and a sword, each of which come flying through the
entrance in short succession.

Past him, hordes of guards clamber up the
stairs, pushing forward. The rider swings wildly, forcing them
back, throwing them back, looking over his shoulder, looking right
into my eyes. “Save her,” he says.

With a sharp yank, he ducks through the door,
pulling it shut behind him.

I rush to it, slide the thick, metal latch
across, locking us inside.

Before I can spin back to Jolie, I hear the
most awful sound.

It’s a laugh. The king’s not dead.

~~~

I turn to face Goff, my heart skipping a beat
when I see the truth.

Goff
is
dead—at least the man I
believed to be the king, the tall, strong, throne-sitting man—lying
in a red pool, a knife embedded in his heart.

But another man has replaced him, shorter,
older, more grizzled, with a wispy beard and unkempt hair that
stinks of crazy, jutting out from his golden crown at odd angles.
He looks anything but kingly, and if not for his red, satin robe
and glinting crown he might be no more than a castle soothsayer. He
must’ve been hiding behind the heavy stone seat, the throne.

“You can’t save her,” the real king says.

“Dazz?” Jolie says, like she wants to know if
what the king says is true.

“Everything’s okay, Joles,” I say.

The king laughs. “Okay for whom?” he
asks.

To the king I say, “Who was that man?” The
dead man.

Goff laughs, his eyes blue and filled with a
wild glee. “Captain of the guard,” he says. “You really think I’d
stoop so low as to cavort with commoners? While my men obey, the
king can play.”

So stupid. I’ve been so stupid. I knew it
wasn’t right that the king would speak to Wes and I, that he would
venture into the dungeons to stop our original escape attempt. But
I didn’t listen to the warnings in my head. But now I know. A
second chance to make things right.

I know I can’t go right at him. He won’t
hesitate to kill her and then take his chances with me. There’s
only one thing to do: try to distract him until I can make a
move.

“Where are the other children?” I ask, taking
a step forward.

“That’s far enough,” Goff says. The trickle
of blood reaches Jolie’s neckline. I stop, take a deep breath,
fighting my urge to rush at him.

“You want to know about the
other
children?” he says. “That surprises me, Dazz. Why do you care so
much about them when your sister’s right in front of you?”

I grit my teeth and try to stay focused. “I
don’t care about them,” I lie. “I just need to know why. Why do you
take them? What do you do to them?” I can’t keep the rage out of my
voice, bubbling up like a spring. I swallow it down.

“Oh-ho! You’re worried about whether I’ve
done anything to your pretty little sister here. Why she’s still
here even after all the other children are gone. Is that it?”

The other children are gone? Does he mean—I
swallow again—dead?

Goff laughs again. “Kid, you look like you’ve
swallowed a frog. If you’re thinking I killed the rest of them,
you’re mistaken. I might be a monster, but even a monster has a
heart. I sold them, like I have for years. What do I need a bunch
of snot-nosed Heater kids running around here for? My servants wait
on me hand and foot. My guards protect me…well,
try
to
protect me, although they’re not doing the best job of it lately,
are they?”

I’m dumbfounded, speechless.
He sold the
Heater children? To who? And for what?

“Mountain lion got your tongue?” Goff
says.

“I’m just surprised,” I say, trying to keep
the conversation going.

There’s a heavy thud on the door behind me,
which doesn’t bode well for the rider. He lasted a while, but never
had a chance against so many foes—not really. I don’t look
back.

Goff smiles, looks past me to the door.
“Seems we’re finally winning,” he muses. “Should we let them in and
end this quickly?”

“Nay,” I say. “Not until I understand.”
And freezin’ kill you
, I add in my mind.

There’s a heavy thud on the door and the
metal bar rattles in its fixture.

Goff smiles, but I’m not sure if it’s at the
door or at what I’ve said. “As you wish,” he says. “It’s simple,
really. The Stormers want children.”

“The Stormers? But they’re…”

“Attacking us?” the king says, smiling. “I
guess I’m not delivering enough of them, or the children aren’t
strong enough, who knows? Although this one”—he squeezes Jolie
harder—“is a real firecracker, always trying to escape, fighting
the guards—I wonder where she gets it from?” He kisses the top of
her head.

“Let go of her!” I scream, my rage rising up
quicker than I can bite it down.

“Oh-ho, are you forgetting who has the knife
to whose neck? Another outburst like that will get her killed,”
Goff says, his green eyes gleaming maliciously, as if he’s hoping
he gets just such a chance.

Thud, thud!
The hammering on the door
is getting louder, more persistent. If Goff’s guards get in, it’s
over.

“You wouldn’t,” I say.

He laughs and that answers my question. He
would. He has. Killed children. Enjoyed it. “Don’t be so naïve,
Dazz,” he says.

I grit my teeth. I shake my head, trying to
take it all in. “Why children?” I ask, pushing the conversation
forward. The second it ends Jolie dies.

“How should I know? I don’t even give them
our children, just natives from fire country, but I’m sure you
already know that.”

THUD, THUD!

I ignore the pounding, keep things moving.
“And you give the Heaters the Cure.”

“
Gave
the Heaters the Cure,” Goff
corrects. “Since Roan was killed, the situation has changed, become
more complex. But I never gave him much, just enough to get the
children. I keep the rest for me and my men.”

“What do the Stormers give you for the
children?” Food, goods, what? Nothing seems to fit.

“Are you slow, Dazz?” the king says. “The
same thing I gave Roan, except in much larger quantities.”

The air goes out of my lungs. The reason the
bags of dried plants looked so unfamiliar, unlike any plant I’d
ever seen growing in ice country, was because they weren’t from ice
country.

“The Cure comes from…” I don’t finish the
statement.

“Of course. It comes from storm country.
Those plants only grow on the shores of the sea.”

The pieces click, snap, lock, and then
weave
together, into a sickening and screwed up tapestry
that somehow, somewhere came to include my little sister, Jolie,
ending with a knife to her throat.

THUD!
The slam on
the door is the loudest and heaviest yet, but I barely notice it,
barely notice the metal bar bending under the pressure.

“Why
her
?” I say, spitting out the
words, feeling a fresh wave of anger boil to the surface. “You said
you only traded Heater children, but then you—you—” Memories of the
night I went to visit Jolie at Clint and Looza’s hits me like a
punch to the gut. Finding them tied up, silence and darkness
surrounding the house like a suffocating blanket. Seeing them drag
Jolie out the back. Running, running, a knock to the back of my
head, falling, falling,
failing
the only one I ever wanted
to protect…

I can’t speak another word or I’ll lose
it.

“I took your sister,” Goff says. “Well, not
me personally, but some vile men I dredged up from the Red
District. They’ll do anything for silver there.”