Winter Warrior (Song of the Aura, Book Two) by Gregory J. Downs Page B

big, too furious for anything smaller. In minutes the sky had gone from blue to leaden gray, from calm to storm, from light to darkness. In the short time since the horrible revelation that the last nymph tribe was under attack, the waves had gone from mildly ferocious to horrifically tempestuous, and even with the combined efforts of Lauro and Elia the wessile they rode barely kept from capsizing.
     
        The air around Gribly crackled with electricity, the only noise, now that Lauro had stopped wind striding his protective shield and concentrated on keeping the boat upright. Elia had told them briefly before riding into the storm that Ice Demons actually wove enchantments around themselves as they went into battle. How they did or what exactly they were, no one knew. It was rumored they were of an older kind of creature such as had flourished before man or nymph ever set foot in Vast; half-intelligent, half-animal brutes made from the primordial stuff at the Edge of the World.
     
        Whatever the blasted thing was, he hated it. He hated every stupid red-eyed monster that had gotten in his way since Ymeer; the world was chock-full of them! They’d hardly let up since he’d left his dingy excuse for a home: bandits in the desert, draiks in the Pass, demons in the sea, draiks on the ice- did this ever let up?? If you can hear me out here, Traveller, he thought bitterly, I want to tell you how much I am certainly NOT enjoying this pitiful, grimy ‘adventure’ of yours.
     
        He got no answer, of course, and soon he had more pressing things   to think about.
     
        The Reethe snow-island where, Elia assured them, their largest and strongest settlement lay, was a small, well-planned city of a curious icy substance formed by the Frost Striders over long periods of time, able to withstand the heat of a fire and the endless tread of nymph feet. It was coupled with the same white wood found on strange undersea plants that the Treele used in building their skiffs and wessiles. The city was enclosed by two curling arms of ice-cliffs that formed a wide bay, which Gribly could barely glimpse through the dense shroud of sparking, roiling smoke sent up by the Demon’s attack.
     
        As it turned out, he was the only one with time to look at all. Elia and Lauro were still Striding frantically to keep the boat on a steady course for the bay’s narrow entrance. We’re heading straight for the Blaze, he groaned inside. Whatever was going on inside that seething blackness, it was probably too late to stop. They were all going to die if they tried.
     
        “ This is pointless! We’re going to get ourselves killed !” he screamed again and again, but no one heard him- the strange, booming silence of the Ice Demon’s spells ripped his words away into the heart of the wicked storm. He had half a mind to leap over the side into the churning sea, but that would kill him for sure. He gestured frantically to Lauro, who shook his head and looked grimly on ahead, crouching and standing, crossing and uncrossing his arms, swinging and punching and stamping to keep the wind under his control.
     
        Without warning, a thunderous darkling voice broke through his mind and shattered it with its malice.
     
        WE DO NOT WANT YOU, PROPHET. LEAVE US TO DESTROY OUR ENEMIES IN PEACE. IF YOU COME NEAR, WE SHALL SLAY YOU, AND THOSE YOU BRING.
     
        Those weren’t the words, exactly- in fact there were no words. The voice that broke his mind had no language more than a soundless, mindless, screaming, roaring, gnashing, grinding. It filled him with its void, but he knew exactly what it meant. It knew him and he knew it: the Demon, roused from slumber and ready to devour him if he intruded. How it managed to convey its message was a mystery, but it was nothing compared to his own shock and horror. Prophet? Does it know what it’s saying? What’s… ARGH! GET OUT! I CAN’T… CAN’T… can’t…