The Ironhand's Daughter

The noise caused the creature to jerk its head. It blinked, then focused again on Sigarni. Thin lips drew back to expose a set of sharp teeth. Long arms came up, talons gleaming in the moonlight.

'Step aside, girl,' came a calm voice. Sigarni scrambled back.

The glowing figure of Ironhand was standing before the creature now, a two-handed sword held ready. He was translucent and shimmering, and Sigarni could not believe such an insubstantial figure could hold back the power of the beast. As the creature growled and leapt, the golden-lit sword flashed out, cleaving through the huge chest. There was no blood, and no visible wound. But the demon tottered back and then sank into the ice.

The red-garbed wizard looked horror-struck as the last of the beasts fell. Ironhand swung to him. 'It's been a long time, Jakuta,' he said.

'You can't hurt me. You might be able to slay a demon's soul - but you cannot harm the living!'

'Indeed I cannot. Nor will I have to. Is this not the third time you have tried to steal Sigarni's soul? And where is your familiar?'

The wizard blanched. Slowly he drew a wickedly curved dagger. 'There is still time,' he said. 'She cannot stand against me.'

'There is no time, Jakuta,' Ironhand told him. 'I can see them now!'

The wizard spun. Heavy footprints were thumping down in the snow. Scores of them .. .

Dropping his knife, the wizard began to run. Sigarni saw him make fewer than twenty paces before his body was lifted into the air. His arms and legs were torn from him and his screams were awful to hear. They were cut off abruptly as his head rolled to the ice.

'You should have called upon me,' Ironhand told the stunned woman.

'I needed to fight them alone,' she said.

'I would expect no less from Ironhand's daughter,' he told her.

*

Just as the dawn light crept over the mountains a tiny pocket of darkness opened like a black teardrop on the hillside overlooking the frozen falls. Taliesen stepped from it, leading a blindfolded Ballistar. As his feet touched the snow-covered earth Ballistar collapsed to the ground, trembling. Tearing loose the blindfold, he blinked in the light. Taliesen gave a dry chuckle. 'I told you the way would not be to your liking,' he said.

'Sweet Heaven,' whispered the dwarf. 'What kind of beasts made the noises I heard?'

'You do not wish to know,' said Taliesen. 'Now let us find Sigarni, for I am already growing cold.'

'Wait!' ordered the dwarf, pushing himself to his feet and brushing snow from his leggings.

'What now?'

'There are traps set,' Ballistar told him. 'She did not come here to hide - she came to fight. Now give me a moment to gather my wits, and I will lead you to her.'

'There may be no need,' said Taliesen softly, pointing to the icecovered pool. Ballistar saw the patches of blood smeared across the ice. He and Taliesen moved carefully down the slope. Then the dwarf spotted what appeared to be two boulders close to the centre of the pool. 'Atrolls,' said Taliesen. 'Creatures of the First Pit.'

A severed human leg was half buried in snow. Taliesen tugged it clear. The boot was still in place. 'Not hers,' said the wizard. 'That is promising.' Ballistar backed away from the grisly find - and stepped on a human hand.

'Dear god, what happened here?' he said.

'Aha!' hissed Taliesen, finding the head of Jakuta Khan. Lifting it by the ears, he brought it up until he could look into the grey corpse face. 'Well, well,' he said. 'Come to me, Jakuta!'

The corpse eyes flipped open, and blinked twice. The mouth began to move, but there were no sounds. 'No good trying to speak, my boy,' said Taliesen, with a cruel smile. 'You have no throat.

I take it I called you back from your torment. It must be so very terrible. Are they still hunting you? Of course they are.' Ballistar saw tears form in the sunken eyes. 'Well, I can help you there, Jakuta. Would you prefer your spirit to live for a while in this hapless skull, free from terror? You would?' Gently he laid the head upon the ice, then spoke in a harsh tongue unknown to Ballistar. The ice around the severed head began to melt away. Taliesen knelt by it. 'As long as there is still flesh upon the skull you will be safe here, Jakuta. But when the fishes have stripped it away, you will return to the pit.' The ice gave, the head falling into the cold water beneath as Taliesen stood.

'How was it still alive?' asked Ballistar.

'I called him back. I fear his stay will be brief.'

'It was terribly cruel.'

Taliesen laughed. 'Cruel? You have no idea of what he suffered where he was. He called upon the creatures of the Pit for help - and failed them. Now he dwells with them in perpetual torment. I have given him a short respite from that.'

'At the bottom of an ice lake. How kind you are!' sneered Ballistar.

'I never claimed to be kind. I am certainly not disposed towards mercy for such as he. Jakuta Khan caused the death of Ironhand and destroyed a dynasty that might have changed the course of our history. He did it for profit, for greed. Now he pays. You want me to grieve for him, dwarf?'

Ballistar nodded. 'Yes, that would be good. For in what way are you different from him, Taliesen?

You delight in his suffering and you add to his torment. Is that not evil?'

Taliesen's eyes narrowed. 'Who are you, dwarf, to lecture me? I have fought evil for ten times your lifetime. Even now in my own land the ancestors of these Outlanders are waging a war that will see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of my people die. What pity I have is for them. And there is nothing that I would not do to save them. Now, find me the woman!'

Ballistar swung away from him and walked back across the ice. With care he climbed the slope before the cave, feeling his way forward. 'For the sake of Heaven!' hissed Taliesen. 'Why the delay? I am freezing to death out here!' Ballistar ignored him. Some way to the left he halted, his hands burrowing into the snow. 'What now?' asked Taliesen, exasperated.

There was a sharp hiss, then a sapling reared upright, whiplashing back and forth. Three sharpened stakes were bound to it. 'It is a pig spear-trap,' said Ballistar, 'but angled to strike high. The twine is connected to a ring at the end of the trip-wire ...'

'Yes, yes, I need no instruction. Are there more?'

'We will see,' said Ballistar. The cave was no more than forty feet away, yet it took the two men almost half an hour to reach it. Taliesen was the first inside, where Sigarni was sleeping by a dying fire. The wizard sat down beside her.

Satisfied that she was alive, Ballistar walked away. 'Where are you going?'

'There may be more traps. I don't want some unsuspecting traveller to spring one.'

Outside the dwarf took several deep breaths. His relief was almost palpable: Sigarni was alive!

Ballistar stood for a moment scanning the area. To the right he could see a huge grey corpse, two arrows in its chest and three stakes in its back. One trap. On the hillside there was another body.

Ballistar trudged out towards it.

For two hours he searched the land around the pool. There were no more traps. Returning to the cave he found Sigarni still asleep, with the wizard dozing beside her. Taliesen awoke as he entered. ''Four creatures were killed,' said the dwarf, squatting by the fire and extending his hands to the heat. One had a dagger in its heart, one was slain by a pig spear-trap, the third by a lance-arrow. There was no mark on the fourth.'

'She did well,' agreed the sorcerer.

'How did she pierce their skin?' asked Ballistar. 'I could not pull her dagger free. It was as if it was embedded in stone.'

'It was,' said Taliesen. 'You have seen the corpses of men stiffen in death?' Ballistar nodded.

'With the Atrolls it is many times as powerful. The corpses turn grey, like rocks, then within a few days they putrefy and disappear. Even the bones rot."