“Sorry, Gillabrian, I underestimated you!” she exclaimed, remorseful.
“I figured that out,” he said, smiling.
“I should have imagined that the one hunted by Baila would be no ordinary Antyran!”
“Leave that. How do we stop the game?”
“I don’t understand what is happening,” she said, shaking her head. “Forbat should have gotten my message by now…”
“Sandara! Why is the game not finished yet?” he exclaimed impatiently.
“Did you kill all the monsters?”
“I don’t think I missed any. Ugo wasn’t supposed to be in the middle of his army?”
“Yes. Unless—”
She didn’t finish the sentence… The roars of agony of their utrils reached them, accompanied by a faint, unidentified murmur.
“We have to get out of here. Now!” exclaimed Gill, grabbing her arm to hurry her up.
An orzac handed her the sarpan of a fallen soldier.
They jumped into battle shoulder by shoulder to clear the way to the swampy valley. With all the furious onslaught, he indulged for a tailbeat to look at her, curious to see how she handled the sarpan. And handle she did! He watched in amazement the un-Antyran speed of her blows, the way she equally used the tip and the blade of her sarpan to spill the dogans’ water, the deadly accuracy of the forearm spikes, her elegant movements forgiving no enemy and wasting no energy—Sandara was so much more than a fruit from the wild seed of her race, she was the art of war in the purest form. The grahs had always been renowned fighters, and Sandara had a place among the best of them. He had never seen such sarpan mastery in his whole life—surely the female had played a lot of games in Uralia!
A rain of icicles started to fall in the canyon.
“The dogans are on the glacier! Hurry!” Gill shouted to the soldiers in the rear guard, signaling the grahs to move in front of the band. They quickly disengaged and joined the attack.
Led by Sandara, the grahs quickly reduced the opposition of the dogans to a shapeless pile of ice, bloodied with water springs. From time to time, dogans from side galleries jumped over them—the only way they could cross the grah falchies—but they rarely managed to make an impression before adding their bodies to the mangled remains on the glacier’s floor. The orzac rear guard, however, had serious trouble holding back the flood of monsters poised to cut off their retreat.
They advanced fast. After a while, the band reached a square split in two by the underground river, a large crossroads where the canyon widened considerably. Along the walls, a row of strange buildings resembling the monumental temples of ancient Zagrada surrounded the square. The majority had impressive terraces supported by translucent columns, worthy of the offerings intended for Pixihe, Colhan, or Antyra. This time, Gill feared they would be the ones sacrificed because the terraces provided an easy way of bombarding from above. Dozens of transparent ice bridges connected the platforms and the many roads coming out of the side galleries.
As if to answer his misgivings, a flood of dogans burst from the side roads in front of them, blocking their advance. The front line became dangerously thin, trying to cover the whole width of the opening. Just then, the unidentified faint noise in the distance—which he at first connected with the demise of the utrils, could be heard again. This time it was approaching fast, turning into a low hum, then into a distant roll resembling Belamia’s thunder. Gradually, the thunder coalesced into distinct sounds—a sort of deep rumbling, as if the mountain’s dams had broken, spitting a colossal stone avalanche at them. The rocky tide became louder and louder, till it finally exploded on the terraces, shaking the walls of the canyon and scattering countless echoes through the caverns of the ice monsters.
Gill was expecting to see huge rocks cascading from the terraces and burying them in the vein of the glacier. Instead of that, hundreds of translucent ice creatures appeared on the platforms, ready to attack them. Twice as tall as the dogans, they had slender waists and large, red eyes. In a loud crack, they fused their feet to the floor, becoming one with the glacier. Long icicles, as sharp as rikanes, appeared from their thin arms.
Then came the silence. Even his soldiers forgot to fight—quite understandably, given that their chances of getting away with their lives were just reduced to naught. The pack of creatures on the top of the highest terrace split in two, making room for an ice llandro to silently slip in front of them. The llandro was ridden by an Antyran female in red armor, holding a purple sarpan in her hand. Gill didn’t need introductions to recognize the goddess Dedris!
“Well, well, could it be little Sandara?” spoke Dedris with Ugo’s voice. “The one who always meddles her tail in matters of no concern for her?”
“The intrigues of Uralia’s traitors!” the grah female exploded.
“Ohh, ohh,” Ugo-Dedris said with a sigh. “What terrible words for such young lips. Your words hurt me grievously,” he said with pretended suffering in his voice. “You’d better use your energy to make Forbat a grandpa and keep him away from the muddle-kyi council,” he laughed.
“Take heed what you say, abomination!” Sandara burst out, enraged.
“Abomination? That’s how you talk to an old friend?” the goddess scolded her.
“The Ugo I knew and cherished died a long time ago. You’re just a corrupted shell!”
“Me, a corrupted shell!” yelled Ugo, angered in turn. “You crossed the tail, you and those weaklings! I can smell the stench of your father’s intrigues from up here. You beg me to save your spikes, then you treat me like—”
“Wait till I tell Forbat what happened here! You’ll see how—”
“Ha-ha, you’ll tell Forbat! Well, I have a little surprise for you… Disconnect them!” he ordered his ice creatures, boiling in rage.
Seeing the puzzled mugs of his monsters, which probably didn’t understand the concept of “disconnection,” he shouted, “Kill them! What are you waiting for?”
With a loud scream, the dogans rushed toward them while the creatures from the balconies began to launch a hail of icicles over their heads. As soon as they threw a spear, another one grew in their hands.
They were drawing their sap from the hearts of the glacier, so Gill expected their ammunition to last for quite a while. He took Sandara’s hand and pulled her to a wall close to the underground river. They were sheltered from the rain of spears, but the dogans would soon reach their place and trample them to death…
“What do we do now?” Gill asked her.
Sandara shook her head, disheartened, looking at the unfolding carnage. They could do nothing but wait. Attacked from all sides, their little army became thinner by the second.
“I should have imagined it wouldn’t be a fair fight,” she said, clenching her fists.
“I don’t understand—if Ugo is Dedris, who’s Voran?” he asked, bewildered.
“There’s no Voran,” she explained. “Ugo joined the game as Dedris from the beginning. There’s no way I could have expected this,” she said, trying to justify herself. “From Ricopa, he couldn’t lead his army.”
“Then who led them?”
“The slobbering pilteats—I’m sure he gave them detailed orders before the battle.”