Page 101 of Quicksilver

ICE BREAKER

Night had fallenwhile we were inside. The sky was black as pitch, and a vicious wind had kicked up, sending a maelstrom of embers from the campfires swirling all over the place. One landed on my cloak, singeing it, but that was the least of my worries. Every warrior in camp was rushing toward the bank of the Darn, carrying monstrous sledgehammers and wicked axes in their hands.

“We should keep out of the way,” I repeated for the fifteen millionth time. Carrion hadn't heeded me the first time I said it, and he wasn't listening now either.

“I'm not hiding in a tent when it sounds like we're all in grave danger,” he said.

“Have you forgotten how many times Ren put you down this morning? We are way out of our league here.”

A look of resolve had settled over Carrion, though. “I might not be able to match these fuckers in a fight, but I can sure as hell break some ice. And anyway, it turns out my ex can make shrapnel out of swords, so I reckon we're gonna be just fine.”

“I am not your ex. And I didnotknow I could do that! I don't think I can do it again!”

“Let's hope we don't need to find out.” Carrion took off at breakneck speed. For a second, I considered heading back inside the war room, but he was right. I couldn't just hide in there while the world sounded like it was ending out here. It took twenty seconds for me to catch up to him. Another minute for us to find our way down to the riverbank.

We both stood there, stunned to silence, taking in the chaos.

Huge warriors, twice as tall and twice as wide as Fisher, stood at the edge of the river. In time to the pounding of a drum that rang out further downriver, they heaved giant sledgehammers over their heads and brought them down with terrifying force onto the thick ice.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

The frosted ice fractured and splintered, making metallic, rippling sounds, but the surface held. On the other side of the bank, a seething dark mass had gathered and wasroaring.

“What...is that?” Carrion whispered.

A fighter hurried past us, breathing erratically. Not Fae. It was Holgoth, the earth sprite who had greeted us when we arrived at camp. “That...” he panted. “Is the better part of the Sanasrothian horde. Fifty thousand strong. We had...no warning. If they make the crossing, they'll...overrun us!”

“What do you mean, horde?” Carrion bellowed after him as he ran down toward the river.

Holgoth yelled one word in answer. “Vampires!”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The sledgehammers rained down on the ice.

I scanned the dark, looking for any sign of Fisher, but he was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Ren. Everywhere, unfamiliar faces, tight with nerves, ran to lay their hammers against the ice. Aspark of blue temporarily lit up the scene, illuminating the other side of the bank, and what I saw there turned my legs to lead.

There were thousands.

Writhing. Seething. Snarling. Snapping.

Fifty thousand blood-thirsty feeders, baying at the riverbank. Even as the source of the blue light appeared—a white-hot orb that arced into the air and fell to the middle of the river—the first of the vampires were halfway across the ice. The orb exploded, shattering a small hole in the surface when it made contact. Water erupted fifty feet into the air, but the vampires didn't seem to notice. In droves, they began their approach.

“Fuck me,” Carrion muttered. “Fucking fuck me.”

I couldn’t voice my agreement. But I felt it.

Another blue-white orb jettisoned into the air, throwing wild shadows over the approaching mass and the warriors on our side of the bank. Another, and another, and another went up into the air. Loud cracking sounds tore the night apart as they exploded, creating larger holes in the ice. Now that this section of the river was unstable, the hammers slamming down onto the surface at the river's edge were more effective. Little by little, the ice began to spiderweb and crack.

“Will it work?” Carrion whispered.

“I don't know. Come on. We need to help.”

A ridiculous thing to say. Just one of those massive fighters with the hammers could have taken down half of the buildings in the Third by themselves, and yet the ice was so thick that they were making slow progress. We were so weak in comparison. So human. But still, we both took up the heavy hammers we found waiting on the bank and brought them down onto the Darn with all our might.