Winter Warrior (Song of the Aura, Book Two) (21 page)

   
“My fall,” said Lauro, sucking his teeth regretfully and sitting up. “What happened? I just woke up here with no memory of how I fell.”

   
“The storm hit you, and you came flying out here. You should be dead, but you’re barely injured. I happened to be near and saw it. I’ve no idea where Gribly is, but I’m afraid for him. He may have been hurt or killed when the Demon broke through.”

   
“It doesn’t matter at the moment,” Lauro frowned, standing unsteadily up. Her mention of the younger lad irked him for some reason he couldn’t pinpoint. “What happened to you? Why are you in your Other Form anyway?”

   
“When the Demon broke through, I was knocked over by the shock, and for some reason it triggered the Change. The same thing happened to most of the Reethe- look! They’re in their Snow Forms now!”
So that’s what the white creatures were… Reethe. Insane. They were actually trying to fight the Demon hand-to-hand.

   
“Blast!” he groaned, “Where’re the Frost Striders?”

   
“Behind us. Who do you think controls the lightning storm now?”

   
He turned and stared, open-mouthed. The stone platform was behind them, and atop it stood the ten Frost Striders, barely fazed, pumping their fists and shouting words of power into the air as they manipulated the elements to create the storm that harassed the Sea Demon. “Holy Sight!” exclaimed Lauro, “They’re unbeatable!”

   
“Not for long- look!”

   
He looked, and saw the Sea Demon claw great heaps of the ground up and hurl them up into the sky. Its sickly hue was growing brighter and brighter, shining with the power of the underworld that was housed within. “Oh no!” Lauro cried, “That debris will come right down on us!” And it did. He dove sideways and avoided the deadly missile as it sailed down onto the platform behind. The second followed, and soon a third and fourth as the Demon smashed more and more of the ground in an effort to beat off the tormenting storm.

   
When the swirling snow finally cleared and Lauro was on his feet again, he shouted in anger and fear.

   
“Elia! Elia! Where are you? Has it hit you?” She was nowhere to be seen. “ELIA!” he shrieked, and leaped a heap of debris from the Demon’s reckless fury. The barrage from above had buried half the platform in snow and ice, but near the ground he thought he saw a bluish forearm and soft hand protruding from the pile.

   
“ELIA! NO!” he fell to his knees amid the thunderous sounds of battle and screamed her name again and again. He took the hand and felt a pulse- thank the Aura, if they existed! Stumbling to his feet, he yelled again, in the unlikely case she could hear him. She seemed to have slipped into her normal form again. “I can get you out! I’ll save you! Just hold on!”

   
He stepped back and conjured the strongest wind he could in a short time. Plunging his hands into the snow, he drove the wind into the miniature avalanche with all his might. Snowflakes flew and ice cracked, but Elia was not uncovered.

   
Nothing, or almost nothing. He would have to try again. Raising his hands, he swung them in a circle and swept up a handful of snow. The wind followed his motion, blowing at the snow with all its strength.

   
Still nothing.

   
“ARGH!!!” he screamed, and kicked the pile with all his strength, nearly two feet above Elia’s hand. The deepest reserves of his power and anger went into the kick, and in the farthest corner of his mind he felt an unseen, yet-undetected barrier shatter and fall into ashes.

   
A lightning bolt materialized out of the air and blasted the place where his foot struck the snow. Smoke sprung up and filled his nostrils; flames licked his boot for half a second and then vanished. The bolt had been small, but its energy tore open every nerve in his body and flung him back six feet.

   
Horrified, imagining he had killed Elia, he scrambled forward and leaped onto the pile, digging furiously. Most of the debris were gone: hurled away or incinerated by the bolt. In three seconds his fingers brushed her matted-wet hair; in five he had gripped handfuls of her dress and tattered Reethe cloak and was pulling her out; in nine he was laying her out on the rough ground and checking for signs of life.

   
She was breathing. She wasn’t dead! Her chest heaved in and out laboriously, and could have shouted for joy, as undignified as it would have looked. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. Her lips parted; she sucked in air and seemed about to say something.

   
“You’re all right!” he grinned, “I can’t believe I almost…”

   
“The Demon…” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh Heavens… the Demon!”

   
He spun around. A series of blinding, sulfurous flashes lit up the leaden sky, illuminating the catastrophic scene at the center of the Shrine.

   
“It’s not possible…” he murmured. “It just can’t be…”

Chapter Seventeen: Stormheart

   
Perched precariously on Steamclaw’s back, Gribly raced into the heart of the battle. Hanging on for dear life amid the iron spikes and bristling hide of the draik, its words to him only moments before ran through his mind again and again.

   
Every creature of the Beforetime carries a Power within themselves. In some it is stronger, in some it is weaker. In all, it grants them life and strength most humans would consider unnatural. Defeat that Power, and the monster or Demon will die. Simple… except it’s not.

   
The draik’s plan didn’t sound easy. It called for climbing the Sea Demon’s back, boring inside its body, and finding its core, or heart of sorts, which Steamclaw insisted housed the Power that gave it life. It all sounded sick and impossible to Gribly, but he saw no other way to redeem himself.
I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to. I’ll never be able to look Elia in the face if I run away now. Never.

   
So he was riding straight into hell, hoping against hope that he would somehow be able to conquer an enemy hundreds of times his size, simply because it thought he was some sort of prophet.

   
But then again, he had thought… it could have just been a mirage or a hallucination, but back outside the Shrine, he could have sworn that behind Steamclaw had stood a thin man in gray robes and a long cap. It couldn’t have been, but then… it might have.

   
The intensity of the emotions inside him drove out the cold and the discomfort as Steamclaw bore him through a hole in the Shrine wall and into the heat of the battle. He barely noticed the Demon as it fought the storm that its enemies had summoned. He barely saw the stunning sight as the Frost Striders brought more and more energy to the fray. He hardly felt the fear that enveloped the carnage-strewn field as the Demon wrecked havoc on the Shrine as its agony and confusion increased.

   
He didn’t see Lauro fall out of the sky, or Elia heal the prince’s wounds. He only saw the pulsating, sludgy side of the Sea Demon as it grew closer and closer… and closer. Gribly snapped back to reality when the draik spoke to him for the first time during the ride, with his mouth or mind, the thief wasn’t sure.

   
“
THE STRUGGLE BEGINS, MASTER. IF YOU ARE NOT GRAMLING, AS YOU INSIST, YOU MUST HAVE AT LEAST HIS STRENGTH, OR YOU WILL DIE. HOLD ON… TIGHTLY.”

   
“Wait!” Gribly called, “You mean the Pit Strider’s name is Gramling?”

   
He never got an answer. The draik leaped into the air, farther and higher than any mortal beast could go, and dug its bladelike claws into the Sea Demon’s luminous flesh. A gruesome squelching sound reached Gribly’s ears, and the massive body steamed where the draik had landed. Its flesh or skin was like half-melted snow, yet it held together as if it were completely solid.
The snowman from hell
, Gribly thought, and the joke gave him a grim, sort of confidence.

   
“Let’s see what this rotten thing is made of, aye Steamclaw?”

   
No answer, but he thought he picked up a satisfied tone to the draik’s grunts as it clawed its way up the Demon’s dripping back. With every second that passed, he felt as if he understood the beast better. It was empowering and frightening at the same time.

   
The Sea Demon was utterly
huge
. Its true size wasn’t even comprehensible until one got close up, where it was apparent that the monster was almost as wide as the entire Highfast Shrine in Ymeer! Thank Traveller the Reethe place of worship was so much larger.

   
Agonizingly slow, the boy and beast crawled up the Demon’s back. It was tough going, and Gribly was infinitely glad he’d taken the draik’s advice and held on tightly. Strangely enough, the Demon didn’t seem to notice them, small as they were to it, but that didn’t stop the buckling and rumbling of the battle from almost throwing them off several times. Once, minutes later, when they were almost halfway up its back, the Demon shouted into his mind again.

   
PROPHET!

   
He cringed and almost fell off Steamclaw. The huge draik halted and slipped down the slimy side of the Demon for several feet.
PROPHET?
He asked telepathically. Gribly gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and didn’t answer- he was riding out the wave of mental pain that always accompanied the Demon’s voice.

   
Finally the voice lapsed into senseless roaring and angry images, and Gribly realized it still didn’t actually know where he was. Good.

   
“Keep… going…” he moaned hoarsely, and slumped over a protruding metal plate on Steamclaw’s back. The draik probably couldn’t hear him over the noise of the fray, but it understood his intention well enough. Claws dug into sludge-like flesh, spikes poked holes in luminous gel, and teeth fastened themselves onto the vertical mountain of the Demon’s body. The climb began again, and did not stop until the unlikely pair had reached the place directly below where the titan’s massive shoulder blades should have been.

   
Gribly had the disconcerting feeling, though, that this creature had no shoulders, or head, or arms or even a body. It was as if the Power he was intent on destroying had taken the raw elements of the world before it was fully shaped, and molded them into a rough shell for it to dwell in, the better to wreak vengeance on the world that had imprisoned it. It would at least explain why every movement of the Demon looked so unnatural; why it reminded him not so much of a giant as of a giant doll or puppet, moving to the command of unseen strings stretching out to the netherworld.

   
Steamclaw turned his head unexpectedly, twisting his metal-jointed neck at an odd angle to stare at Gribly with one bulbous, blood-red eye. The meaning was clear without words.
READY?

   
I hope so.
The thief nodded, gulping uncertainly. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn the blasted beast was
grinning
.

   
The heavy neck swung back, the thorny-hide back arched, and the draik opened its maw wide.

   
A deep-throated popping noise rose in the beast’s throat, then died on its tongue. “Nice try, Steamclaw. Is that all you can do- blow steam! Hah ha… ah…” Gribly shut his mouth when he saw the look the draik was giving him. It repeated the motions and tried again, roaring in frustration and anger.