The Eye of Winter's Fury (103 page)

‘Yield!’ You hold a weapon to his throat, the tip breaking flesh and drawing blood.

The Skard nods quickly, offering up his staff. ‘Take, southlander. Ancestors deny me – I am beaten.’

Congratulations, you have bested Desnar in the challenge of the fighter. If you wish, you may now equip the following item:

Winter prime

(main hand: staff)

+1 speed +2 brawn +2 magic
Ability: slam, silver frost

Record the word
triumph
on your hero sheet, then turn to
578
.

715

Flames and smoke start to obscure your vision. Frantically you struggle to maintain your speed, seeking to stay ahead of the dragon’s breath. The circle of daylight grows larger, its bright light competing with the flames and smoke – then you are finally free of the tunnel, hurtling away from the island as fast you can. Behind you an entire section of the hive explodes outwards in a fiery tumult, raining fragments of charred rock across the gulf. Thankfully the deadly shower falls short of reaching you, your speedy manoeuvre having carried you to safety. Turn to
729
.

716

The spiralling pathway grows tighter and tighter as it twists around the mountain’s peak. None of the other racers have made it through the rock fall and for a moment you wonder if you might be the last man standing – but then you catch a shower of sparks spewing along the trail ahead. There is another sled, but one of its runners has been damaged and is now dragging along the ground. Your dog-team are tired, struggling to make it up the steep and slippery slopes, but you urge them to make a final effort, knowing that the finish line can’t be far away.

The path becomes even narrower, but you risk swerving alongside your opponent, trying to ignore the vertiginous drop to your left. To your surprise you discover your fellow racer is the girl with the blue-dyed hair. As you start to pass she makes a desperate leap for your sled, drawing a pair of daggers from her belt as she lands.

‘Only one winner,’ she cries over the roar of the wind. ‘It’s the first racer across the line, not their sled! And I’m taking this one!’

The girl goes to kick you, but you catch her boot, throwing her backwards. She makes a futile swipe with her daggers, but a lurch of the sled sends her reeling sideways. By some miracle, the racer manages to recover, coming at you again with only one thing on her mind – victory. It is time to fight:

	Special abilities
	Eyes on the prize : You cannot use special abilities in this combat.
	Competitive spirit : At the end of each combat round you must take 2 damage, ignoring armour , from the girl’s slashing daggers.

If you manage to beat this deadly racer, turn to
700
. If you are defeated, remember to record the defeat on your hero sheet, then turn to
378
.

717

Boss monster: Jormungdar the World Eater

It starts with a distant echo. A thrumming persistent beat. Then it rises, becoming louder, rippling across the chamber. You look around wildly, wondering if the dread demon has somehow come alive, but its pulpy flesh remains blackened with frost, unmoving – its tentacles reduced to a fine white ash, snaking across the cracked rock.

You watch the dust vibrate, shifting in patterns as each beat causes the ground to shudder. Louder and louder. Until there is a deafening crack of thunder. Your instinct is to look up, fearing the sky has been ripped asunder – but it is the ground that is now moving, throwing you to your knees, the stone crumbling. Falling away.

For a horrifying moment, it is as if the world has become undone. The walls blur, swaying away from you at an impossible angle. The floor rises, the ceiling finally breaking open like a cracked egg to blind you with shards of painful light.

And the drumming crashes around you. So deafening it has now become a single assault of white noise, like a furious tide swallowing you up in its rapids.

You are sinking, the stone fragments fracturing to dust, leaving you spiralling into a void. The ground has gone – and you are freefalling. Darkness and light reel past, merging into a grey madness. Then twin suns blossom into being, blazing towards you.

Eyes. Set either side of a giant reptilian face.

It streaks past. You hit something, flipping over, dimly aware of a forest of deadly-sharp spines, then scales – luminous blue and flecked with silver – rushing beneath you at impossible speed. Disorientated, you find yourself sliding and tumbling over the fast-moving surface. You reach out, claws spreading from your hands – trying to find purchase.

Sparks fly across iron-hard scales, your claws leaving trails of flickering brightness. You are falling further and further back, until a curved spine passes within reach. Desperately, you stretch out towards it – your magic transforming your claws into ghostly tentacles. They coil around the spine, finally halting your haphazard descent.

You pull yourself up, clinging to the spine like a drowning sailor as
you are dragged and jolted through the whirling dust. The creature continues to hurtle forward at speed, taking you higher and higher, until the sky breaks above you: a vast dome of cobalt blue, peppered with purple cloud. Almost beautiful, serene. Twisting your head, you see the cracked wasteland far below, the ruined city little more than a few buildings and towers hugging the edge of a great abyss.

And then there is the beast itself, a vast serpentine creation streaming out of the darkness, its miles of scales and ragged spines sparkling in the dawn light. Its size is almost impossible to comprehend, each dizzying second revealing more of its gargantuan form.

If you have the title
The Mourner
, turn to
482
. Otherwise, turn to
425
.

718

The monk opens out his meaty fist, showing you his five stones. This forces you to reveal your own. ‘A Queen’s Wave, double crowned,’ he declares with a toadish smile. ‘The One God shines on me. I win!’

Remove the word
scripture
from your hero sheet, then turn to
697
.

719

Raising your hands you trace the circular patterns with your fingers, connecting the lines and whorls with the magic that now flows through you. The runes start to flicker and then glow, illuminating a trail to the centre circle, where white-blue energies crackle above the podium. For a brief moment you glimpse some creature trapped within the bright maelstrom – a thin and spindly humanoid, its pale limbs coated in jagged icicles – then it is gone. The energy sparks out and the runes dim.

When you walk over to the podium you discover that the frost
magic is now trapped inside the orb, filling it with a powerful magic. (Congratulations! You have now created a
frost orb
. If you wish to take this, simply make a note of it on your hero sheet, it does not take up backpack space.) Turn to
684
.

720

Maune joins you at the edge of the fire pit. Despite a few burns across his arms and face, the prince’s magic does not appear to have done any lasting harm; his body still shines bright with holy scripture. You notice the fluttering green flames draw away from him, as if repelled by his light.

Skoll holds the three fragments of the shield. His mouth works nervously as he holds them over the flames. A shake of his head. He steps back, dropping his arms to his sides.

‘He was right. The fire is wrong. Corrupted.’

You look around at the runes encircling the dais. They remain dark.

Then you notice something else . . .

Sculptured lines stretch away from the pit’s edge, forming a bigger design that reaches as far as the circle of columns. You turn, trying to piece together the image – two crescents, linked by a crossed bar.

‘Balance,’ you nod, remembering the carving in the lower caves.

Skoll glances sideways, his brow furrowed. ‘Eh?’

You study the green flames, billowing out of the pit. ‘We have to restore balance to the forge. Cleanse the flames.’

Anise is sitting at the foot of one of the statues, tilting the last of the water from a canteen into her mouth. She lowers it, swallowing, then looks at you darkly. ‘We wasted our time, didn’t we? All this . . . for nothing.’

Skoll shifts round, his eyes coming to rest on the paladin. ‘What about you?’

Maune tightens his mouth. ‘This is evil magic. There is nothing I can do.’

Skoll continues to glare at the paladin. It takes a moment for you to understand the true intent of his question. Maune’s magic glows bright as a beacon. His whole body is blessed by the holy light, a living
library’s worth of scripture carved into his flesh. His heat repels you, as it does the flames.

A sacrifice will have to be made, boy. Only you will be able to choose, life or death
.

Maune glares at the Skard suspiciously, then meets your gaze. ‘I cannot cleanse the flames. Short of throwing myself in . . .’

A silent pause.

His hand goes to his sword. ‘No!’

‘We have to remake the shield.’ You take a step closer.

Maune regards you with contempt. ‘You’d put your faith in three hunks of ancient metal? Is that what a life is worth?’

You lower your eyes. ‘You are right, this is madness. We will have to find another way.’

Skoll rounds on you. ‘We cannot face the witch, not without the shield! She is a demon, her very gaze would freeze you where you stand – I have seen it. I have lost brothers, good men, to her evil!’ He shakes the broken shards at you. ‘Don’t be weak. We need the Titans’ magic!’

You bristle at his words.

Maune is backing away from the dais. ‘Fear is weakness. We can fight this witch together – isn’t that why I was sent here? My God sent me.’

Skoll’s head snaps round, the veins on his throat bulging. ‘Winter’s teeth! To die, you fool – to throw yourself into the flames!’

Maune draws his sword. ‘Who are you to decide my fate? You are not my king, savage.’

‘No,’ spits the Skard. ‘But he bloody is.’ He stabs a finger at you.

721

Sura takes you by the arm and leads you away from the crowd. ‘I have something to ask of you, southlander.’

You stand together at the edge of the camp, the snow spinning
on the gusting eddies. The storm has engulfed everything, leaving no sense of sky or land. It is as if the world has been erased, and in its absence there is only a cold grey nothingness.

‘What troubles you – is this day not one for celebration?’

The woman looks even frailer than you remember – little more than a jumble of knotted bones, her weathered face made even smaller by the thick swaddling of furs around her shoulders.