Chapter Forty-Two Elvine
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Elvine
RUN!
The command came from the spear, now once again fully alive in Elvine’s grasp.
The alarm of the spirit within was so fierce it seemed the haft burned in her grip.
Looming only yards away, the beast, if beast it was, shook itself in a grotesque parody of a dog banishing water from its pelt.
As it did so, the floor of the cavern shattered and the spiral of monoliths shifted, rising from the shards to reveal themselves as spines tracing along the back of a huge, serpentine body.
Run, child! the spear instructed once more, accompanying the order with a flare of such alarm that it sufficed to tear Elvine’s gaze from the malformed ice serpent.
As she did so, her eye caught something lying amid a patch of red gore.
Lore’s satchel, she realised. Scuttling closer, she saw the edge of a book protruding from the satchel’s flap.
We have no time! the spirit warned, the thunderous echo of shattering ice providing additional encouragement.
Yet still Elvine couldn’t flee, not with such a prize within reach.
Lunging for the satchel, she got a hand to its strap.
Dragging it from the bloody remnants of its former owner, she scrambled to her feet and finally began to run.
The tunnel that had brought her here was now a cracked fissure marring the perfection of the glass-like cavern wall.
Although littered with chunks of displaced ice, it remained passable and Elvine plunged inside without hesitation.
To her rear came a vast crunch. Risking a backward glance, she saw the distorted face of the creature framed in the opening.
The black holes of its eyes were narrowed now, the shards moulded into an expression of determined malice. It wanted to kill her very much.
Drawing its head back, it lunged, birthing another booming crunch that sent deep cracks tracing along the tunnel’s flanks.
Elvine tried to run faster, though the rubble littering the channel caused her to stumble repeatedly before she reached its end.
Emerging onto the ledge and the shattered ice bridge, she found the tunnel on the other side of the chasm choked with debris.
There was also no sign of her brother or any of her companions.
The sound of a huge body forcing itself through a wall of ice made her whirl.
The cliff of frozen water before her was trembling as the creature continued to smash its way through.
This way, the spirit said, shifting Elvine’s gaze to her right.
She saw nothing that could aid her but, reasoning she had no option but to follow the spear’s guidance, started along the edge.
It was far too narrow for comfort and, though she tried to ignore the abyss to her left, her progress was reduced to a cautious half-run.
Rounding a curve in the ice cliff, she came to a halt at the sight of a column of ice being shaken free from the edifice ahead.
Moving with deceptive slowness, it detached itself in a shower of white dust and glittering shards, toppling across the chasm to slam into the wall opposite.
The column rolled with the impact before settling, its upper end resting on the edge of the opposite cliff.
“I can’t climb that,” Elvine gasped, choking down a sob at the grinding cacophony of the creature’s burrowing to her rear.
You can, the spirit assured her, the warm regard of her thoughts cooled by her next observation. What other choice have you?
A series of echoing booms, each louder than the one before, banished any further hesitation and Elvine ran for the column.
Climbing onto its teetering surface proved easier than expected, the uneven fissures providing welcome handholds.
Things became much more difficult when she started to climb.
Attempting to haul herself up one-handed led to near disaster when her fingers found a smooth patch and lost all purchase.
Rearing back, arms whirling, Elvine’s vision filled with the blackness below.
Moving with speed born of sheer panic, she drove the spear hard into the column.
As the tip connected with the ice, she felt a blossoming of its arcane power.
It was similar to the feeling that overcame her during combat, but much more focused.
Her body thrummed with a strength she knew was not her own, enabling her to drive the spearpoint into the column up to the haft.
Thus secured, she hauled herself up, steadied her feet, then withdrew the spear before plunging it back down a yard higher.
Hurry! the spirit urged, Elvine feeling a greater depth of unnatural strength suffusing her muscles.
She began to climb with frantic speed. Time did not slow now, instead it accelerated, transforming her progress into a blur of tireless effort.
Again and again she stabbed the spear into the column, scaling it in mere seconds as glittering powder clouded in her wake.
Finally, she reached the top and looked down upon the glacier covering the slope of the ridge below.
A glance back at the chasm revealed the serpent’s head emerging from the cliff as it forced its bulk through the collapsed tunnel.
Turning back to the glacier, she judged its angle too steep to allow for anything but the riskiest descent.
Grasping the spear in both hands, she jumped clear of the column.
The snow covering the glacier was hard packed and allowed for smooth sliding while offering no way to arrest her speed, which increased at an alarming rate.
She spun and rolled her way down the slope with scant control, eventually coming to an icy protrusion that launched her into the air.
The subsequent fall required only seconds but felt considerably longer.
Fortune smiled upon her landing, Elvine finding herself half buried in a deep snowdrift.
Getting free required a good deal of squirming until she at last stood upon a flat surface.
The sound of voices drew her gaze to the sight of a small group of people a few hundred paces away.
Running closer she soon recognised her companions.
Veltta and her crew stood watching Colvyn and Varnyr striving to clear rubble from the tunnel mouth.
As they worked, the Nihlvarian cast a steady stream of critical invective at those disinclined to add their labour.
“You would abandon the Spear Maiden?” he demanded, heaving a boulder-sized chunk of ice from the tunnel. “Traitors, I name you! Unworthy scum!”
“Watch your fecking tongue,” Veltta warned him. “We’re not slaves now, and you are not a master here…” Her voice trailed off at the crunch of Elvine’s feet upon the snow. The entire party turned as one to regard her in blank-faced amazement as she staggered to a halt.
“We have to go,” she told them. “Leave the sleds. Take only what you can carry.”
Veltta continued to stare, shaking her head and blinking as if to ensure she wasn’t looking upon some form of illusion.
Varnyr required no such interval, rushing towards Elvine and gathering her up in his arms. “I knew the Altvar would never let you die!” he said, smile broad and fierce. “I knew it!”
Elvine pushed at his enclosing arms in a vain effort to dislodge herself. “We have no time…”
Her voice faded as a loud rumbling sounded from the top of the glacier.
Looking up, Elvine saw a cascade of displaced snow and, looming through the billowing white, the ice serpent rose.
Moving with dismaying swiftness, it began to coil its way down the slope.
The accompanying avalanche concealed much of its form but revealed enough to convince her companions of the danger they faced.
“Feck the sleds,” Veltta breathed, backing away with eyes widened in horror. “Run!”
Unwilling to release his hold on the Spear Maiden, Varnyr set off in sprint. Finding little impediment in the burden he carried, he soon outpaced the others, save for Colvyn.
“Once again, esteemed sister,” he called to her as he ran alongside, “your gift for finding trouble exceeds all expectations.” He darted a quick glance over his shoulder as the serpent completed its descent, impacting upon the ice plain in an explosion of debris.
Any hope it might have injured itself faded quickly as it rose from the expanding cloud to speed in pursuit.
“Any notion of what it is?” Colvyn asked her.
“A Malecite, so I’m told.” Feeling a pulse from the spear, Elvine squirmed in Varnyr’s grasp, fixing her hands more firmly on the haft.
You can’t run from it, the spirit told her, voice heavy with a grave reluctance Elvine hadn’t heard before. I’m sorry, child. To live, you must face it. We must face it.
Peering over Varnyr’s shoulder, Elvine saw the distance between them and the onrushing creature diminishing with every step.
It would be on them in moments. “Stop!” she told Varnyr, phrasing the command in the Spear Maiden’s voice, then slapping him hard across the face when he continued to run. “I SAID STOP!”
Staggering to a halt, the Nihlvarian held her a moment longer before relaxing his arms. Slipping free, Elvine raised a hand to caress his cheek, forcing a smile. “Don’t worry,” she said before turning away, hefting the spear. “And don’t get in the way.”
She was obliged to issue the same stern injunction to her brother when he attempted to come to her side. To Elvine’s surprise, Veltta and her crew had also ceased their flight. They stood a dozen paces off, regarding her with expressions of mixed bafflement and desperate hope.
Turning to face the onrushing serpent, Elvine felt the spear’s power surge once again. It was the most potent infusion of strength yet, her perception of time slowing so that the creature barrelling towards her moved as if through air rendered into treacle.
Stand firm, child, the spirit warned. There will be but one chance at this.
Did you find what you wanted? Elvine asked her, beset by a sudden, absurd calmness.
Shorn of all other choices but this possibly suicidal stand, it appeared her mind had dispensed with the burden of fear.
In the cavern. Lore said it was a place where the veil between worlds had thinned.
Is that not what you hungered for? A chance to leave this world and return to your own?
The veil was thin there, it is true, the spirit replied. But the way was guarded by my enemy. What we face here is a fragment of a far greater monstrosity, sent here ages past to prevent one such as I using the veil.
The Malecite. They are your enemy? Would that not make you… one of the Seraphile?
Mortal names for those who can never know death. The spear emitted a pulse that Elvine intuited as equivalent to a despairing sigh. There are as many colours to my realm as there are yours. More, in truth. What you call the Malecite are but one, dark as shadow and red with endless hunger.
But the veil was still thin, Elvine insisted. You could have at least tried to go home. Yet you didn’t. Why?
In all the vast span of my existence, child, there is only one true lesson I have learned: no one is ever really certain why they do anything. Now, be ready to leap at my command, and look hard for your target.
Elvine focused on the onrushing creature, now a snarling, ravening mask of ice framed by roiling white clouds.
Even with time slowed to a crawl, the thing was barely twenty yards away.
The impression of insurmountable, bestial power was overwhelming.
How could she hope to stand against it? Target? Elvine asked.
You’ll know it when you see it. Remember, leap when I say.
Elvine crouched, hands firm upon the spear and feet evenly spaced as Colvyn had taught her.
As the ice serpent inched ever closer she found herself unable to look away from its concocted features.
The ice shards that formed them rippled and shifted in a constant slow dance, the shape of the mouth and its many dagger-length teeth widening and narrowing as if in anticipation of its meal.
Yet the eyes remained the same. Two holes of utter darkness…
Wait! She saw it then, the faint glimmer in the beast’s right eye.
A dim, crimson flicker deep within its being. Look for your target…
Now, child! The spirit’s command rang like a bell in Elvine’s mind, her leap both swift and instantaneous.
Imbued with the spear’s power, she sailed high, rising above the creature’s mouth, its maw snapping closed beneath her.
Gaze fixed entirely on the glow within the serpent’s eye, she drew the spear back and plunged it into the empty orifice.
As she did so, her hand entered the shadowed interior of the beast and pain exploded along her arm, spreading with impossible speed through her entire being.
It was an agony the like of which she had never known.
Elvine felt as if every nerve, muscle and sinew had been frozen, but instead of numbness, it brought searing, mind-wrenching torment.
She was dimly aware of a blast of displaced air, of tumbling head over heels through a cloud of shredded ice, the spear still, impossibly, clutched in her hand.
Her landing was hard, accompanied by the crack of at least one rib.
She tasted blood and felt compacted snow scrape her skin.
It was all as nothing next to the pain that dominated her being.
Fear not, the spirit told her, voice distant at first but growing stronger. I am here, child.
Elvine could only weep in response, and even that brought a fresh wave of agony.
Then, with slow insistence, warmth began to spread from the spear into her arm, then to her shoulders, and beyond.
Soon it filled her, banishing the pain until Elvine sagged, still weeping, though this time in sheer relief.
Colvyn reached her first, gathering her up to stare into her half-lidded eyes with desperate entreaty. “Elvine?” When she didn’t respond right away, he shook her. “ELVINE!”
She groaned, shoving at him in annoyance.
“The queen,” she said in a voice so faint she couldn’t credit it as her own.
“We have to reach the queen… It has to stop…” Elvine frowned when a great wave of fatigue settled upon her, too heavy to be ignored.
“It all has to stop…” she managed before slumping into a dead faint.