The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 22

22

R HAIF CIRCLED THE beached sailraft for the sixth time, but nothing had miraculously changed since the fifth time.

He stared at the stretch of sand, dotted by thorny bushes with crimson berries that were surely poisonous in this landscape that only the undergod, Nethyn, could appreciate. Everywhere he looked, the strand extended to lapping green waters.

“Why did you have to land us on an island?” Rhaif complained, turning back to the raft. “We’re trapped here.”

The pirate’s snowy-locked daughter, Glace, stalked atop the sailraft, wading through the ruins of their shredded gasbag. Its remains draped and hung over the raft, like a god’s dispirited cock.

She glowered down at Rhaif, her almond skin darkening with anger. “Be thankful you’re in one piece.”

Hyck, the Sparrowhawk ’s engineer, crouched up there, too, inspecting the wreckage. The scrawny man had stripped off his shirt in the humid heat, showing all his ribs. He fingered a ragged rent in the balloon’s fabric, then tossed it aside. “No sewing this back together.”

“Don’t matter,” Glace said with a hard scowl. “We have no way to inflate it. And we only have dregs of flashburn left in the raft’s forge. We’re not going anywhere.”

“Then we’re stuck,” Rhaif groused, swiping the sweaty strands of ruddy bangs from his brow. “And with nothing but salty water all around, we’ll be sucking on pebbles before long.”

The twin pirate brothers, Perde and Herl, hauled out the last of their supplies, stacking crates and barrels in the sand. It hadn’t taken long. In the rush to flee the Sparrowhawk, they hadn’t had time to stock their provisions. The pair had also shed their roughspun shirts, showing wide chests and a splay of tattoos over their backs, depicting various scenes of carnage and debauchery, likely preserving the histories of their respective exploits. It was the only distinguishing feature between the two, that and Herl’s crooked nose from an old break. The two Gyn-sized behemoths both hailed—or rather escaped—from the closed and walled-off Hegemony of Harpe. They certainly had the typical Harpic jaundiced complexion and pinched eyes.

Herl had noted Rhaif’s complaint. “Aye, the thief is right about sucking on pebbles. We have only one barrel of water.”

Perde shrugged. “But two of ale.”

“Well, at least you all prioritized correctly,” Rhaif conceded. “We can get drunk before we sweat to death on this god-fekked island.”

He scanned the mists.

The fog hung thicker on one side, where the waters boiled and spat, giving rise to heavier steam. Far overhead, the world was roofed by ice, the underside of the mighty Shield above. Through the hot mists, the surfaces glowed in hues of crimson, blues, and emerald, shining from crusts and drapes of moldy growths.

Rhaif only knew the source of illumination because their raft had gotten too close to that jagged roof. Earlier, while descending into the massive rift in the Shield, Glace had guided their craft away from a cliff of ice that rose on one side. She feared colliding with it, especially when near blinded by the fog. That avoidance sent their vessel gliding into the mouth of a vast cavern hidden below the Shield. Apparently, it must have melted into existence countless millennia ago, creating the mineral-rich, salty sea below.

They hadn’t even been aware they had swept into that cavernous space until one of the roof’s fangs of ice ripped into their gasbag, sending them into a wild, spiraling dive.

Even now, Rhaif hadn’t completely caught his breath. His heart continued to pound in his chest.

Still, despite his grousing, Glace had saved them all. She had staved off their plummet long enough to spot the sea under them—only it had been bubbling and belching with steam. The heat had come close to boiling them alive, like crabs in a stewpot. Glace fought the raft away from the danger, spotted a beach ahead, and aimed for it, believing it was a shoreline. They crashed here, gouging a deep groove in the sand and rock, cracking a gaping rent in the keel.

Only after bailing out did they recognize their error.

It wasn’t a shoreline, but the crest of a sickle-shaped island. The sandbar stretched half a league in length and a fraction as wide. Except for the scraggly bushes, it appeared barren.

“How are we getting off here?” Rhaif asked.

Hyck clambered down from his perch and offered an option. But from the engineer’s sour expression, he wasn’t confident in his plan. “We have two axes. Maybe we can hack free a section of hull and create a raft. Make oars out of other planks and row free from here.”

Rhaif scowled, pointing out the largest flaw in this endeavor. “And go where exactly?”

Glace looked equally unconvinced. “We don’t know if those boiling waters encircle us. We could cast off and be overwhelmed by the heat or fumes.”

Rhaif wiped his brow again. The air reeked of sulfur and bale-breath. It already stung his eyes and burned his nostrils.

“But worse,” Glace added, “we don’t have enough rope to rig a stout enough raft. Especially not one that could carry all of us.”

She looked toward the one member of their group who weighed as much as Herl and Perde put together. Rhaif turned to where Shiya had stopped along a curve of the island. The bronze woman stared out to sea.

Shiya must have overheard their discussion. “I detect firelight in the distance.”

Rhaif crossed to her, drawing the others with him; even Glace leaped deftly to the sand. He searched the dense fog but saw no flicker of flames.

“Where?” he asked.

Shiya pointed out into the mists.

Rhaif squinted but still failed to see anything different in that fogbank compared to the rest. He glanced at the others. “Are my eyes too old? I see nothing out there.”

They all shrugged, equally confused.

“It’s there,” Shiya insisted. “Flickering flames. Many of them.”

Rhaif trusted Shiya. Her glassy eyes were sharper and capable of seeing the world with a perceptivity far beyond any of them.

“How far off?” Glace asked.

Shiya turned to the woman. “I cannot properly discern.”

“Could it be the others trying to signal us?” Rhaif asked. He pictured both the sailraft that carried Nyx’s group and the Sparrowhawk.

Hope surged through him.

“I do not know,” Shiya admitted. “But you are correct about these waters. They’re dangerous. I can hear other regions bubbling and spewing hotly out there.”

“Then what do we do?” Hyck asked.

She faced him. “I will walk there.”

Rhaif took hold of her arm. “Shiya…”

She turned her glassy blue eyes upon him. “I have no need of air. My weight will keep me to the seabed, allowing me to cross. Though it may take time. I suspect some of the magma vents could damage me, so I will have to keep clear of the worst of them.”

Rhaif swallowed, struggling how to convince her otherwise, but he also knew she was right. With this heat and foul air, they couldn’t risk staying on this island for more than a day or two.

“I will do my best to fetch help here,” she said.

She stared at the group, awaiting their agreement.

They all shared worried looks, but no one objected.

Rhaif let out a strained sigh. “Just be careful.”

Shiya’s eyes glowed softly upon him. She lifted a hand to his cheek. Her palm felt like the warm flesh of any woman. The curling strands of her hair, a dark bronze, wafted gently about her brow. Her skin swirled in hues of rich coppers, from pinkish to a darker red, especially her lips.

Rhaif lifted his arm and covered her hand with his palm. He remembered when he had first set eyes upon her, deep in the mines of Chalk. Seeing her ensconced in her glass bed, he had thought her a statue come to life by some god’s miracle.

But no longer…

They had spent months aboard the Sparrowhawk in each other’s company. He already knew she was far more than simply the masterwork of some skilled artisan working in bronze. After so long together, he recognized her unique intelligence, her true compassion, even the humor infused into her form. While she might not have been born of womb and blood, she was as much a woman as any other—only more so.

Rhaif swallowed hard, hating to see her leave. After so long together, he could not dismiss his heart. He had grown fond of her, as he would any woman of flesh and bone. He even desired her. She was beautiful beyond words, his dreams given form.

Sadly, he knew she couldn’t return his base cravings, but that did not lessen his tenderness for her. She recognized his affections, even returned them in her own fashion. She would often sing in his cabin, stirring the bridling gift in his own blood, a heritage from his mother. In those moments, shared together, it felt as intimate as an embrace.

She lowered her hand. “I will be back,” she promised him, easily reading his apprehension.

He stepped away, letting her go. He struggled to clear his throat, then called before she turned away. “Bring back ice.”

She grinned at him. “Or course. I know how you hate warm ale.”

He smiled in turn.

How well she understands me.

With a wave, Shiya waded into the sea. He stared as her form slowly sank into the waves—then was gone.

R HAIF SAT IN the sand, dreaming of a long cool bath. He’d kicked off his boots and soaked his feet in the lapping water. At least the sea was cooler than the air. A single tin cup rested next to him, pushed into the wet sand.

Maybe I can learn to appreciate warm ale.

In his head, he tried to guess how long it would take Shiya to reach some distant shore. She had already been gone a while. Still, he had no inkling of how far off her destination might be or even the pace that she could maintain while navigating a seabed, especially one that was a maze of fiery vents.

As he lounged in the heat, he tried to imagine what it must look like down there. He pictured his homeland. He grew up in the smoke-shrouded city of Anvil, the hub of the Guld’guhl territories, a dry and inhospitable land of mines and diggings. Along its northern coast lay the Boiling Bay, named after the many volcanoes, large and small, that steamed in those waters. He imagined the seafloor here much like that, a Boiling Bay flooded over, drowning those scores of volcanoes.

Still, he quickly shook that thought away. It only stoked his worries. Shiya might be sculpted of bronze, but even metal melted in the hottest of furnaces.

He reached for his cup, determined to acquire that taste for warm ale. As his fingers closed on it, a melon-sized rock floated to the surface of the water. He had heard how pumice stones, spewed from the throat of Boiling Bay’s volcanoes, dotted its waters, sometimes forming great floating rafts of rock.

Intrigued, he sat straighter—until that rock opened its eyes.

He gasped and scooted on his backside away from the surf. The rock lifted from the waves, revealing a long, snaking neck. Its jaws gaped open with a sibilant hiss, showing row upon row of jagged teeth.

Feck this place…

As he fled, more creatures sprouted from the waters. They formed a swaying forest behind him, rising out of the sea. Their necks pulled muscular bodies, lined by overlapping ridges of armored scales, from the waves. They came rushing ashore atop powerful legs, claws digging into the wet sand.

Rhaif turned and fled up the face of a dune. His bare feet slipped and slid, but he didn’t slow, chased by that hissing chorus. He crested the dune and spotted the crashed sailraft ahead.

Herl and Perde sat atop crates, playing a game of dice. Nearby, Glace leaned over a map she had taken from the Sparrowhawk.

As Rhaif dashed down the dune, he hollered, “Hyck!”

By now, the others had noted his panic. The engineer, who had been lounging with a pipe, sat straighter, then stood up, shading his eyes.

“Those axes!” Rhaif shouted to him, remembering Hyck’s plan to build a raft.

“What about ’em?” Hyck asked.

Rhaif waved behind him. “We’re gonna need both of ’em.”

He watched their faces go shocked and knew the slavering pack had topped the rise behind them. Herl tossed his dice aside. Glace ducked into the raft, hopefully going for a weapon. Hyck followed her.

Rhaif glanced over his shoulder. One of the creatures had a lead on the others, some bull version of the beasts. As it came down the far side of the dune, it lowered its head and flung high its tail, an appendage tipped by a spiked fan. From its end, a rain of darts shot toward him. They peppered the sand around him.

A sharp sting struck his upper thigh, but he ignored the pain and ran faster.

Hyck reappeared and tossed an ax to each of the twin brothers. They caught the hafts in midair and ran forward. Behind them, Glace dashed out of the raft’s hold, sword in hand, and sped past the brothers. She was lithe on her feet, a blur of black leather, appearing to fly across the sands without disturbing a grain.

“Down!” she ordered him.

Rhaif didn’t need the warning. The pounding in the sand was more than enough. He flung himself headlong, skidding on his chest across the sand.

Jaws snapped where he was—then shot over his sprawled body.

Steps away, Glace dropped to her knees and slid toward him. She stopped with Rhaif’s head between her thighs. She swept her sword high and cleaved the neck of the beast. Its head continued onward, chased by a fount of blood.

A large dead weight shoved into Rhaif from behind, further burying his face into Glace’s fork. The severed length of neck, still squirming in death, fell heavily over his back. Hot blood soaked him.

Glace scooted back and hauled him to his feet. “Get into the hold!”

To the side, Perde and Herl had dispatched two of the creatures. Swinging bloody axes, they charged toward the others.

From the top of the raft, Hyck shouldered a crossbow and fired a dart that struck an eye of a beast that had just crested the dune. Its neck writhed, tossing its head about, then collapsed to the sand. Its body rolled and tumbled down the sandy slope.

The rest of the pack—responding to the scent of blood, the sight of the dead—trumpeted their distress and thundered back around. They retreated for the safety of the water, vanishing over the dune.

Still, Rhaif hobbled toward the raft’s hold, his leg on fire. His hand probed and found the impaled barb. He tried to tug it out—then screamed, falling to a knee. It was barbed in place. He fought to stand again, but his assaulted leg would no longer hold his weight.

He rolled onto his hip.

Noting Rhaif’s distress, Hyck leaped to the sand and ran to him. Glace backed there, too, but kept her sword ready, facing the dune, prepared if the beasts should regain their bloodlust and attack again.

Hyck dropped next to him. “What’s wrong?”

Rhaif twisted enough to show the end of the barb sticking out from the meat of his upper thigh.

“Hold still,” the engineer warned, and removed a dagger from his belt.

“What are you gonna—”

Hyck sliced the back of Rhaif’s leggings, exposing buttock and leg. Blood welled and ran into the sand. The pain continued to spread, a fire eating away all control. He lost hold of his bladder, soiling himself and the sand. His stomach cramped. Agony strangled his breathing into gasps.

Hyck pointed the tip of his dagger at the blood. Where it welled out, it had begun to boil and go black.

Glace passed her judgement. “Poison.”