Yvvaros: The Clash of Worlds (17 page)

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll manage.”

He reached his hand down and pulled his sword out of its scabbard.

ELEMENTAL INFUSION: FIRE

The blade came alive with magical orange flames, glowing brightly and giving off precious heat. Tess smiled and held her hands out over it, as though it were a campfire.

“Good thinking,” she said. “Here, my turn.”

She chanted something under her breath, and a circle of rainbow colored light pushed out from her body.

“Protection from the elements,” she said. “I’m not a high enough level for it to be all that protective, but it should help at least a little with the cold.”

“Thanks,” said Luke. The snow was getting deeper and it was beginning to affect their movement. Ahead of them, he could barely make out the edge of the Teeth of the North. To reach the Ancestor Glacier, they would have to cut beneath the range.

They traveled in relative silence for a couple of hours. Luke continually cast Elemental Infusion to keep them warm and light their way.  He had to eat frequently in order to restore the magicka it took to keep the spell burning. Their repeated stops added time to the arduous trek.

Even with the flaming sword for warmth and light, the journey was hard and grueling. Luke lost feeling in his feet, and he felt the cold wind its way toward his ankles.

We don’t have any other choice, but this is ridiculous.

“Luke,” whispered Tess. “I don’t know about this. Maybe we should turn back for tonight.”

“Tess, that’s not really an option at this point. We’re almost there, it’ll be okay.”

The ground sloped up slightly as they passed by the western edge of the Teeth. The mountain next to them was massive, but it was so covered with snow that it was almost impossible for them to get a true sense of scale.

“Wait!” Tess grabbed his hand and pulled him back a step. “Do you… do you hear that?”

Luke listened and heard a rumbling coming from the ground. It wasn’t like the shaking that had come from the eruption of Shahidi’s Vengeance. It felt active, and somewhat directional. The rumbling sound shifted and soon Luke heard what sounded like the waves of the ocean. He realized what it was a split second too late.

“Avalanche!” He lurched forward, doing his best to pull Tess with him through the waist deep snow. “Look out!”

The snow came down the west side of the nearby mountain with the force of a tsunami, pulling everything in its path with it. Luke could only see it as a ripple of movement in a sea of white, but the strengthening vibrations in the ground and air were enough to tell him everything he needed to know.

“Luke!” Tess’s hand broke away from his as the wall of snow struck them. Snow pushed into Luke’s mouth and ears, and he panicked, gripping his sword with both hands and swinging it wildly as he tumbled forward.

He was locked in place as the avalanche came to a stop. The snow extinguished the flames of his blade, which he still held over his head, as though readying it for a downward strike.

No! I need to move!

Luke struggled to pull his arms back, or push them forward. There was far too much snow packed around him to get even an inch of wiggle room.

ELEMENTAL INFUSION: FIRE

Luke’s sword ignited, and then swiftly extinguished. Panic began to strike in the depths of his heart, not for himself, but for Tess.

I can’t breathe, and that means neither can she.

Luke thrashed every muscle in his body as he tried to unwedge himself. He felt paralyzed. His movements were stifled and locked away, and claustrophobia was setting in fast.

His head began to ache, and splotches of light and stars flickered in front of his closed eyelids. Luke knew that he was about to pass out, and decided to try something desperate.

PIERCE ATTACK 3

The combat ability shifted him up a couple of inches, but then he slipped back down. The extra bit of space it had given him, however was all the encouragement he needed.

PIERCE ATTACK 3

This time, Luke made it up and halfway through to the surface, far enough up to move his arms above the snow. He coughed ice chunks out of his mouth and sucked in air as he clawed his lower body out.

“Tess! Tess!” He didn’t see her anywhere. Snow covered everything as far as the eye could see. The avalanche had created a hill underneath him. Luke stood up, his entire body tingling with the biting cold.

ELEMENTAL INFUSION: FIRE

Luke began cutting into the snow with his sword of fire, making sure to keep it from going too deep and extinguishing itself. He had only a short amount of time before Tess ran out of air, maybe a minute or two, at max. His infused blade could melt the snow quickly, but he had to be careful with it.

If I hit Tess, it’s just going to make my hand in her death even more active.

“Tess!” Luke let out a shaky breath as he hurried across the top of the avalanche hill, gingerly testing the snow with his sword. He needed to know where to dig, he hoped to see a scrap of her clothing, or her hand above the snow.

A minute went by. Luke still hadn’t found anything. The worst case scenario kept pushing its way into the forefront of his thoughts. If Tess was deep under the snow, he could dig for hours and still not stand a chance of uncovering her.

Suddenly, he received the sign he’d been looking for. Something that looked a bit like a tree root, or a stick, was poking out of the snow a few dozen yards behind him.

That’s got to be her staff!

The sun had dropped over the horizon, and it was hard to make out anything in the light of dusk, but he was sure of it. He reinfused his sword with fire and rushed over and then slowly slid it into the snow about a foot away from the staff.

Luke’s first impulse was to chop frantically and to get as much snow out of the way as he possibly could. But that would have been far too dangerous. Instead, he forced himself to act with patience, slowly melting the snow away with the sword while he dug in the direction of the staff with his free hand.

“Tess! Hang in there!” Luke had created enough room with his sword to let him dig faster with his hands. He tunneled into the snow like a dog digging a hole, following Tess’s staff down foot by foot.

His fingers touched hair, half frozen by the snow. Luke cried out and began digging around it, freeing her head after what felt like an eternity. Tess’s lips were blue, and she didn’t open her eyes as he wiped ice crystals off of them.

“I’m going to get you out, just hold on!”

Luke used his sword to widen the hole he’d made, and then dug his feet into the snow and began leveraging Tess out of the snowy tomb. She was light, but it was still a feat of strength. The snow was sticky and packed tight, and it clung to her as though it didn’t want to let go.

After a couple of minutes, he had her back on the surface. She was unconscious, and her entire body felt as cold as ice. Luke felt for a heartbeat, and was relieved and a little surprised to find one.

I never thought about whether or not the game simulated that before.

“Tess, hey…” He rubbed his hands on her cold cheeks, trying to warm her up. He knew that even though he’d pulled her from the avalanche, the cold was still draining her stamina at a dangerous pace. She was still in mortal danger, as long as she remained unconscious and unable to warm herself or eat.

“Don’t worry, Tess,” he said. “I’m going get you warmed up.”

Luke lifted Tess over his shoulder and carried her down from the snow hill, putting space in between them and further avalanches. After packing down a small area of snow he set her down and reached into her satchel for the tent. Snow was still falling overhead, and his first priority was shelter.

The tent went up easily, each of the poles digging into the snow without much trouble. Luke set down the animal skin carpet, and then covered the tent with the fabric canopy. Tess’s condition hadn’t changed, though the night had grown dark enough to make it hard for Luke to check.

He pulled her into the tent and tied the flap shut behind him. It wasn’t any warmer inside, but the cover it gave them from the snow was a start.

“I need to get you warmed up.” Luke lay down next to her and pulled her tight against him. “Tess… I’m not going to let you die.”

He knew what he had to do. Luke first took off his own leather armor, half frozen by the snow, and set it aside. Tess had a heavy wool blanket in her bag, large enough for two people, and Luke pulled it out.

“I hope you don’t get the wrong idea about this when you wake up,” muttered Luke. He forced himself to hurry through pulling her dress armor off, averting his eyes in respect for her modesty as much as he could. Then, he took his own clothes off, and hugged her naked body tightly as he wrapped the wool blanket around them.

It was still cold. The ground underneath them sapped at their heat even more than the air. Luke quickly set up a bed mat made of their clothes and then returned to the wool cocoon. It only helped so much.

I need more heat…

He’d set his sword aside in its scabbard not far from where they lay in the tent. Luke reached over, unsheathed it, and then held it clear from the fabric of the tent.

ELEMENTAL INFUSION: FIRE

The blade gave off light, heat, and luckily for them, no smoke. It was one of the upsides of using magic to create fire in the place of regular means.

Luke stabbed the sword a third of the way into the snow next to them and let it stay there, shining and warming the room. Luke lay back down next to Tess and made sure that the wool blanket was still completely wrapped around them both.

“You have to pull through this, Tess,” he whispered. “Please… You can’t die on me.”

Her body was soft against his. It was still cold, but the heat of his body and the sword’s warming of the air were beginning to have an effect. Luke rubbed his hands up and down her back, and tried to ignore his natural, male response to having a naked female body so close.

“Ohh… uh… Luke?” Tess spoke the words in a whisper, almost too quiet to hear. She still didn’t open her eyes, and instead buried her face against his shoulder. Luke smiled.

It’s going to be okay.

CHAPTER 18

Luke spent another hour in the tent with her. The sword gave off far more heat than he’d been expecting, and the tent was surprisingly effective at holding it in. He made sure that Tess’s body was warm enough, and her breathing was steady, and then climbed out and pulled his clothes back on.

As much as Luke wanted to continue lying next to her, to fall asleep with Tess in his arms, there was still something nagging at the back of his head. He pushed his way out of the tent and into the cold, trying to keep the heat from escaping as he slipped through the flap.

The snow had stopped falling. An inch or two of it had collected on the tent. Rather than making them colder, it was acting as insulation.

A new message icon was flashing in the corner of Luke’s vision. He hadn’t noticed in the panic that followed the avalanche. After digging around in his bag for a moment, he pulled out a letter from Kaoru.

Kato,

This is exactly what we need. My contacts can narrow it down to a couple of candidate buildings in Plattsburgh. I’m still finishing up my reconnaissance mission. The Arbiters aren’t NPCs, like we expected, but external bots controlled by a former developer who joined with the government after the takeover.

Move as fast as you can. Everything is falling into place with Silverstrike’s recruitment efforts and we’ve determined a location for a meeting. We should be ready to strike within the next few days. No pressure though.

Kaoru

Luke smiled. Kaoru worked fast. He was impressed, and suddenly felt appreciative of the fact that the two of them were on the same side.

He’d only agreed to Kaoru’s plan in the beginning out of desperation. Tess was vulnerable, whether she admitted it or not, and Luke didn’t even want to consider the possibility of something happening to her.

Why did I agree to let her come with me, anyway?

Something rustled in the snow about a hundred yards, from deep within the hill of snow. It stopped almost immediately. The night was silent for a moment, and then a creature that Luke hadn’t seen before burst from the snow.

WRAITHLING: A cursed spectral creature that takes on the appearance of snow as a disguise. When active, it looks like a swirling mass of ice crystals and white powder. Attacks using ice magic, freezing its opponents before slowly absorbing their energy.

Luke reached for his sword and grabbed thin air at his side. It was still in the tent, still warming Tess.

CONJURE SWORD 3

He plucked one of his magical blades out of the air and squared off against the Wraithling. Its movements were strange, unpredictable, and hard to follow. It flew toward Luke and he launched one of his swords at it. The Wraithling dodged it easily, creating a donut shaped hole in its center for the blade to pass harmlessly through.

Luke rolled backward as it blasted an icy stream of mist at him. It caught a couple of strands of his hair, freezing them into little, breakable icicles. He gripped his sword and adopted a defensive posture.

ELEMENTAL INFUSION: FIRE

His blade exploded into flames. Luke was quickly realizing that he needed to keep it lit all the time to stand a chance against the enemies of the north. The Wraithling moved into range, and he swung his sword at it, forcing it back a little.

Now’s my chance!

PIERCE ATTACK 3

His attack carried him directly toward the Wraithling’s vague center. The create let out a strange roar, but Luke continued past it, his blow doing little more than superficial damage. One of its ice crystals struck his sword hand, freezing it to the hilt and making it unwieldy.

MIRROR IMAGE 3