Chapter Thirty-nine #2
With a ragged gasp, Thea clung on to her axes and clawed at the ice with her foot, her spikes having destroyed any immediate area to gain traction or purchase. She struggled to find any sort of hold, the spikes sliding over the slick surface, making a painful scraping noise.
The wall shuddered again.
Like the structure itself was inhaling a deep breath before —
Thea’s head snapped to her left, where an entire frozen sheet dislodged from the wall with an almighty crack.
A panicked cry escaped her as she grappled with her axes to plough ahead.
One of her spikes fell from her boot; the previous struggle had loosened its laces around her foot. With a silent scream of horror, she watched it fall – only to see, as more of the wall tumbled in a deadly cascade, that it was no human-made trap beneath the freeze, no chain of destruction.
It was a scaled tail, a vicious translucent barb on its end.
Both were cleaving through the ice, barrelling towards her.
Everything in the tail’s path was obliterated, showering ice and rock and snow down into the chasm below.
Thea choked on the shout caught in her throat. There was no way she was going to make it, no way out of the path of destruction. She couldn’t climb fast enough, not even if she had the spike she’d just lost.
Numb with shock, she took in the frozen domain as the unknown monster’s tail carved towards her from above, shaving off the ancient surface as though it were a fine film.
Time slowed as the pale blue scales drew closer and closer.
Thea tried to channel her inner Kipp, to assess rather than act out of panic.
She tried to gauge the distance between where she was and the top of the wall, tried to calculate the speed at which the tail was cutting through the ice, and whether or not the creature was poised to strike from the ledge.
Judging the rest of the sheer vertical climb, she came to the same conclusion she already had: it was impossible. And she wouldn’t survive.
Thea could feel the force of the monstrous tail in the wind around her, whipping through her braid and stinging her face.
Only when she could taste the kiss of death in the air did she act.
Not to make a final scramble upward, but to let go.
Thea loosened her axes and leapt from the wall —
She fell.
Wind lashing at her, tearing at her clothes and skin.
Until she reached out, her numb hands fumbling for the thick tail itself as it swung across the face of the wall, ice raining down on her as she scraped along the jagged surface.
Thea let it take her, let it swing her down the formidable vertical face, ignoring the pain as sharp as blades ripping at her flesh. The momentum of the tail took her up, up and up the wall.
When she could see the blush of daylight above the mist, she let go once more.
Pulse pounding in her ears, Thea leapt into the crisp air, axes flung outward as she fell through the clouds.
Her blades sank into ice, sliding down that formidable vertical drop again.
But Thea rammed her remaining spike into the wall below.
Pain blazed at her ankle as that one joint took her whole weight suddenly.
It jarred and she let out a wild scream.
But she did not let go, did not falter as she clawed her way up.
Axe, axe, spike. Axe, axe, spike. Three motions again and again, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw burned.
She could taste blood on her tongue. She could feel the fire of multiple lacerations to her body, and she could see the smear of her blood across the frozen wall where the tail had nearly crushed her.
Axe, axe, spike. Axe, axe, spike.
On the next swing of her blade, Thea met no resistance, nothing for her axe to sink into.
With a rattling breath, she reached up with her fingers…
There, she found the edge of the wall.
There, she found her salvation.
With every ounce of strength she had left, Thea climbed to that ledge and hauled herself over the top of the wall.
A sudden ear-splitting roar nearly sent her sprawling back over the edge to her doom. And then she looked up.
A broken cry of terror bubbled from her lips as she gazed upon a monster not of this world. Crystalline scales gleamed like tears of the gods themselves, and piercing sapphire eyes left ice in their wake.
Thea scrambled back, careful not to look directly into its stare, lest it freeze her completely.
For it was an ice basilisk.
An ancient creature, an embodiment of winter’s wrath.
Its roar sounded again, ending on a high-pitched note that threatened to bring down the mountains around them.
Instinctively, Thea reached for her power —
Only to find it gone.
No magic would save her now.
She grasped her dagger with a trembling hand.
The basilisk’s body writhed in the mess of snow and icy shards around it, as though it had just woken from a great slumber beneath the ice.
Its scales shimmered in shades of glacial blue and silver, and it tried to pierce her with those deadly eyes, twin orbs of frosted fire desperate to freeze her in her tracks.
Its massive form coiled, ready to strike.
But magic or not, Thea had never been one to wait.
With a silent cry on her lips, she lunged with her dagger, aiming for the softer underbelly of the monster.
But the basilisk was fast. Much faster than a creature of its size had any right to be.
It lashed out at Thea with its barbed tail, and now, she could see the poison that tipped its sharp point.
She leapt from its path, grateful for a lifetime of Dancing Alchemists, grateful for all the shadows she’d fought that had made her nimble. Avoiding another strike of that horrific barb, she managed to drag her blade across the softer scales, spilling its blood across the snow.
But scales were tough, and her blade hadn’t stuck in deep enough.
Her efforts only served to enrage the creature further.
A blast of ice nearly hit her. She threw herself out of its path. A shriek pierced the air and she ducked, rolling through the bloodied snow to avoid the vicious slash of two fangs now sinking into the ground.
Panicked and exhausted, Thea felt the loss of her magic profoundly. She wanted nothing more than to reach within and find that surge of power to blast the fucking basilisk off the mountain. But all was silent within. No crackle of lightning answered her call. No rumble of thunder in the distance…
Instead, the ground beneath her shook with so much force she couldn’t stand, and that deadly barb pierced the snow mere inches from her side.
Thea scrambled up, brandishing her dagger in her aching hand, swaying on her feet. She dodged another strike, and another, but her energy reserves were empty, her movements sluggish. Desperate, she tried to use her magic again —
A blur of movement momentarily blinded her, and she was pummelled into the snow, the wind knocked out of her completely.
A searing pain pierced her shoulder.
The scream that left her lips was garbled.
Warm blood gushed from the wound, the sensation shockingly hot against her chilled skin.
Thea gagged as she saw the source of the pain… where one of the basilisk’s fangs was still embedded, torn from the monster’s mouth.
With a cry of agony, she wrenched the fang from her flesh as the monster struck again, ice shooting past her.
But Thea was airborne.
She threw herself at the creature, wrapping her legs around its scaled neck and plunging its fang into one of its sapphire eyes.
The basilisk thrashed and roared, flinging Thea from its body, blood pouring from its eye, where the fang still protruded gruesomely. More blood rained down as its whole body spasmed in pain, jerking and flailing, until its tail slipped over the edge of the cliff.
Thea gasped for air desperately, clambering back as a final shriek nearly deafened her. The basilisk had no hold in the snow as gravity did the rest, dragging its upper body towards the deadly fall.
A mad laugh of disbelief died on Thea’s lips.
With its own fang still embedded in its eye, the monster was hauled by its own weight over the edge of the cliff face.
It fell.
Several moments later, a crash echoed from below.
Thea blinked, shock wrapping around her like a vice. Half sobbing, she forced herself to crawl, to put as much distance between that ledge and the beast below as possible.
At last, her hands and knees met solid ground beneath the snow, and she worshipped it with tears and blood, bringing her lips to the frosted flakes with a broken cry.
Only when she stopped heaving for ragged breaths, only when her tears were spent and the bleeding had slowed to a trickle that cut through the soft white beneath her, did she look up.
A frozen wasteland stretched before her.
And time ground to an ominous halt.