Winter Warrior (Song of the Aura, Book Two) (7 page)

   
“We’ll just leave you here,” Lauro replied, so completely serious Gribly almost believed him, before the prince winked to let him know he was joking.

   
“But truthfully,” Elia said when she’d picked up the joke, “what will we do? Time’s running out…”

   
“I
might
be able to fly Grib across,” Lauro guessed, “But maybe not. I can’t know without trying, and I’d rather not make a mistake.”

   
“You’re sounding more like a commoner every day, y’know that?”

   
“Stoppit!” Elia cried, halfway between laughing and yelling. “This is not funny.” It wasn’t. Something about her voice shut them both up right away. “Now listen,” she told them when they were quiet. “I think I may know how to cross safely, if you’re not afraid of getting cold and wet, Gribly.”

   
“Getting dumped into the sea by a giant Demon tends to make one a little less afraid of water,” he answered.

   
“All right,” she said, taking his statement at face value. “Then here’s what we’ll do: I’ll change into my Swimmer Form and dive into the water. Then Lauro can fly you down to me without much trouble, and I’ll take you the rest of the way across.”

   
“Are your gifts really that strong?” Lauro asked. “Could you take him all the way?”

   
“I can’t swim, remember?” Gribly put in, before it occurred to him he hadn’t actually mentioned it before.

   
“I’ve thought of that,” Elia said without missing a beat. “And it’ll be hard, but not impossible… as long as you can hold your breath for a little while.”

   
“Sure,” he answered, though he wasn’t sure at all.

   
The draik howls grew louder. “We’re losing our lead…” Lauro snapped, clenching his fists.

   
“Right then,” Gribly said. “Let’s do this.”

   
Elia nodded and stepped back. Raising her arms to the heavens, she closed her eyes and brought her hands down in front of her as if she was pulling a heavy curtain down over her. Her form began to shimmer and sway, becoming watery and almost transparent. It looked almost like she was actually
putting on
another body; a slimmer, sleeker, almost fish-like one that was neither nymph-like nor spirit.

   
In seconds it was over, and Elia stood before them in the water-dwelling shape of her people. It was more angular and slightly taller than her nymph shape, and- Gribly hoped it didn’t show on his face- even more beautiful. Lauro merely nodded, seemingly unaffected.

   
“Can you talk in this form?”

   
“Of course… Different, yes? But still speech…”
Her voice had undergone a change, too. It was higher and more musical- watery, just like the rest of her.

   
This is so strange,
Gribly thought. Not for the first time during his journey he wished he could have had more of a choice.

   
Swimmer-Elia paused, waiting for any last words from either Strider. When they said nothing, she did another compulsive nod and ran to the edge of the cliff, throwing herself off in a perfect arching dive. Gribly rushed to the edge, Lauro right behind him. Together they peered into the water below, where Elia’s falling form was almost invisible against the waves. Eventually, though, they saw her leaping in and out of the sea like an excited dolphin or fish. She reminded Gribly of a mermaid, one of the legendary creatures from tales told by gritty sailors that sometimes drank at one of his old haunts in Ymeer.

   
“Well, she seems to like it,” he commented. Lauro looked at him strangely, but said nothing to the point.

   
“Let’s get this over with,” the prince said. “You may as well climb on my back and we’ll see if I can even get off the ground.”

   
“Fine.” The wind Strider bent over a little and Gribly clambered onto his back, almost choking him with his arms as he tried to feel secure in the idiotic thing he was about to do.

   
“Ugh… leth gho ath lithle…”

   
“What?”

   
“Leth… go…”
Oh
. Gribly let go a little. Lauro nodded and put a foot up cautiously into the air. He flexed his ankle and suddenly stomped, pushing the pair a few inches off the ground. They hung there for less than a second before sinking back down before Lauro could get another kick in.

   
“Well… that was productive,” Gribly said.

   
“Shut up.”

   
The predatory howls and barks behind them grew louder. Gribly felt that if he looked back he’d be able to see the draiks closing in behind them. Lauro tried wind striding again, without much luck. Then again. Then again.

   
On the fifth try the pair went airborne and stayed there. The prince pedaled furiously with his feet and leaned forward more than Gribly liked, but they moved slowly through the air until they had passed the cliff’s edge and hung suspended by nothing but Lauro’s powers over a drop of more than a hundred feet.

   
“Don’t lose your breakfast,” the wind Strider cautioned. Gribly was about to say that he hadn’t got any breakfast when Lauro pointed his toes and the pair shot down at a speed that ripped the thief’s scream right out of his lungs.

   
A long, drawn-out
hisssssssssssssssssss
was all that came from his mouth. The fall almost
did
make him throw up. Wind rushed by and the ever-thickening rain pelted them faster than they could fall away from it.

   
A second passed.

   
Then another.

   
This isn’t so different from house-jumping,
Gribly realized, and stopped trying to scream. If he tried to forget they were about to hit the water, it seemed almost identical. By the time Lauro had slowed their fall to a steady careen, the waves were mere yards away.
Time to show Elia the prince isn’t the only one with skill,
he thought, and before he had even thought about it he was letting go of Lauro and pushing off in a backflip-dive into the water.

   
It was exhilarating, those two seconds before he hit the water. He wondered in a little-used corner of this mind if this was what Lauro felt like every time he strode the wind.

   
Then he hit the crest of a large wave and tumbled underwater, feeling himself sucked down like a rock beneath the curling surface. Suddenly he remembered he couldn’t swim.

   
Blast it.

   
For a few frightening seconds he was tossed about like a leaf in a waterfall, gulping in full breaths of water that choked him as he twisted to and fro, trying to find his way back to the surface. Where was up? Every direction felt the same, and the torrent was so strong he couldn’t have opened his eyes if he wanted to.

   
Then a smooth
something
wrapped itself under his shoulders and around his chest, dragging him back up to the free air like a fish caught on a line. The next second he broke the surface and found himself being carried by the silvery-skinned Elia, who seemed able to stay afloat and move in any direction without moving her limbs. As soon as she brought him up he began to cough up the water he’d inhaled, and two hands grabbed him roughly from above.

   
“Idiot! What in Vast did you do that for?” it was Lauro, flying horizontally to the waves, helping Elia keep him afloat.

   
Gribly didn’t bother answering. It was true.

   
“We don’t have time for tricks,”
Elia said. That hurt much more than anything Lauro could say. Gribly just nodded.
“Hold onto me, and try not to slip off.”

   
The Sand Strider obeyed stiffly, wishing there was another way. Lauro let go and flew on ahead in massive mid-air strides. Gribly tried to hold tight to Elia’s waist, and found it nearly impossible- like trying to catch hold of a river and ride it. The girl spread her arms out in either direction and they started to move forward unaccountably.

   
“Hold my shoulders,”
she yelled over the sounds of the breaking storm.

   
He did, and felt her lean forward under him, making a sort of living raft. Evidently she had not idly boasted about her wave striding. The waves split on either side of her and the sea itself seemed to push her along through the water. Sea spray tickled Gribly’s nose and the wind lashed his wet, straggly mess of hair back and forth behind him. He felt exhilarated.

   
“Is this how you feel every time you swim??” he called to Elia over the roar of thunder overhead.

   
“This is nothing,”
she replied without moving her head an inch.
“I’ll show you something far better…”

   
Suddenly the largest wave yet rose in front of them and threatened to crash down and engulf them. Gribly yelped in fear and surprise when Elia moved right into it. One second they were swallowed, and the next they were shooting up in a massive pillar of water that hurled them up into the air over the iceberg they’d been heading for.

   
“WHAAAA!!!!!!”

   
He felt himself holler, but the pillar didn’t drop them like he’d expected. Instead it curled downward and splashed onto the ice and snow without harming them, becoming a sort of flowing river without banks or source. His feet banged against the ground and he ran with the flow until it subsided and drained away in multiple twisting rivulets, released from Elia’s power.

   
“That… was… was… insane! Wonderful! Fantastic! It… I…” Gribly talked too fast and had to pause for breath. Bending over, he sat down on the ice, shaking from sheer excitement. Elia walked over to him and helped him up again. She was smiling and back in her nymph form, pale-skinned and dressed in blue.

   
“It is what I
live for,” She told him. Her voice was evidently the last thing to change back to normal, which it did mid-sentence.

   
“Incredible,” came a worried voice behind them, “But we don’t have time for frivolity.” Lauro hovered above them, slowly kicking his feet to stay in the air. “The draiks are right behind us.”

   
Gribly turned and saw the creatures line the cliff. Three massive draiks larger than the one he’d killed at the Arches lined the cliff opposite their position.

   
“Three…” Elia mused. “One’s missing. At least four have been hunting me since I last left home… and this iceberg, however it got here so sudden…”

   
“No time!” Lauro almost screeched. “Come
on
!” he dropped heavily to the ice and stumbled a little. When he had recovered, he beckoned again, and the Sand Strider and Wind Strider followed him up the snowy hill and deeper into the Berg.