Frostbite

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Eira didn't breathe as the ice flew forwards and, hopefully, into the Frost soldier. Nor did she breathe when she heard it make purchase with something solid. It wasn't until ten painful seconds had passed—feeling more like hours—that she finally forced air into her lungs. They burned, and it was hard to keep herself from choking.

She scanned the bridge carefully. There was no sign of the solider in between the gaps in the sprawling tendrils of ice, intertwining jaggedly over the width of the bridge.

Heart pounding, stomach turning, breath ragged, only one thought crossed her mind: I hope he's been impaled straight through. The fact that she could so easily wish that upon someone—was wishing—terrified her greatly.

A surge of icy air came from behind, yanking down her hood and tugging on her hair. Edan and Gwen must have been fighting whatever Frost had approached from the other end of the bridge. Though she badly wanted to check that they were faring okay, she didn't dare look over her shoulder. If she left herself be exposed, it would be equivalent to opening her arms to the sharpened scythe of Death.

But at least there hadn't been any screams from either of them. That thought was enough of a consolation to let her focus on what was in front of her.

At that second, nearly catching Eira off guard, her ice fell to pieces and clattered against the cobbles. It was in one swift, blinding movement, entirely a blur to her eyes. Until she saw the Frost soldier standing in place of the ice, swinging his longsword as though it weighed nothing at all, she had no clue as to what had happened.

He had sliced down the ice, and appeared, in all honesty, blasé about the whole thing. Fear, again, began to grasp at her. Was she so outmatched?

But then Eira saw the red. Blood dripped thickly from a gap in his armour, incongruous with the clean white of his clothes.

She had got him. There was a stab wound just below his left pauldron. How deep it was, though, she couldn't tell. It could not have been particularly serious, as he still grasped his sword with two hands. Still, it was something. A start. It eased her dread a little.

Eira clenched her jaw, watching him carefully. She attempted to gauge how he planned to counterattack before he actually put it into action. Would he strike her with his sword, or unleash the Frost upon her? Or was he strong enough to do both at once?

He met her eyes, but remained in the same spot, sword hovering a hand's breadth above the ground. She could not read his expression.

Was he perhaps trying to work out her move? Or was he merely biding his time for something—

Ice on the cobblestones. It was not her own. It glided over them and left a thin coating on their surface in its wake, coming straight for her. She could work out what he meant to do from that: he was intending to trip her up with the ice, and then most likely bring down his sword on her neck.

Eira mustered all the power she could in her brief window of opportunity, and thrust it all in front of her.

A wall rose in a near perfect square, sizing at roughly a foot taller than her. It barred the oncoming ice from passing, as well as the Frost soldier with his lifted sword. There was no way to tell how thick it was, but she hoped it was enough to hold against his attack until she devised a way to stop him entirely. And regain her strength; it taken a lot of effort to build that wall so quickly, and she was gasping for air once again.

Somebody backed into her, they too panting. Eira was sure it was Gwen. She cast a hurried look over her shoulder and saw an ice wall that mirrored her own.