Echo North(68)

Ivan gives me an almost imperceptible nod, and I rip my knife from its sheath and plunge it into the wolf nearest me. It yelps and goes limp and I tear the blade from its body and turn my attention to the next.

The storyteller wields his pick, and the acrid scent of blood grows stronger.

I stab another wolf, and find my moment to wrench the tent pole out of its socket. Canvas collapses on us and Ivan and I fight free, out onto the ice, where more wolves are waiting.

They attack in a blur of teeth and eyes, and all at once I’m back in the bauble room, raising my sword against my white wolf—against Hal. I see the blood burst bright against his fur.

Pain comes roaring through my shoulder, and I’m jerked back to the present, crying out and stabbing at the wolf who has bitten me. But he evades my makeshift sword and I’m left nearly crippled with pain. Ivan is suddenly beside me, tugging me up, waving his pick like a scythe to any wolf that gets close.

“RUN!” Ivan roars in my ear, and we do, skidding and sliding across the ice, for we’ve left our spiked boots in the tent.

The wolves lend chase, yelping angrily, and somewhere in my pain-bleared mind I realize the direction Ivan is leading us.

It’s both closer and wider than I think. In the space of mere heartbeats we reach the crack in the ice, and Ivan squeezes my hand and I catch my breath and throw all my strength into leaping across. I reach the other side and fall, landing painfully on one knee, then look back to see the wolves on the far side, snarling with hatred.

Ivan tugs me to my feet. “They loathe the water, but they’ll find a way around. We have to go. Now.”

I take a shaky breath and we run as best as we can on the slick surface, helping each other up when we fall, urging one another on and on.

Behind us, the wolves’ howls tangle up with the wind, and I glance back to see their numbers have somehow swelled—a dozen or more are coming fast across the ice, their black coats stark in the moonlight.

A sheer wall of ice rises suddenly before us, a cavern tunneling into it. We’ve come, at long last, to the end of the frozen lake.

Ivan pulls me into the cave. Cool, dank darkness swallows us, but I have no illusion of safety.

“What are we going to do?” I gasp.

His eyes track the rapidly approaching wolves, his mouth set and grim. “Get behind me.”

“Ivan—”

“Stay back.” He crouches down, his body filling up the opening of the cavern. But he has no weapon, having dropped his pick somewhere on the ice.

The wolves hurtle closer.

Ivan starts singing, a haunting melody filled with words I do not know. They slip through the air like my binding needle, shimmering with power.

The ground begins to shake. Ivan’s song grows louder.

The wolves leap toward us. Huge chunks of ice cascade down on top of them, sealing the mouth of the cave and plunging us into utter darkness. The wolves howl and shriek; I can hear them, digging.

Fear paralyzes me. “We’re trapped.”

“No, we’re not. These are the ice caves. We just have to find a path through them. Come on.”

We stumble together into the blackness. I try not to hear the sound of the wolves’ continued digging; I try not to give in to the horror of the dark. Ivan is solid beside me. Certain.

“Do you still have that tent pole?” he asks.

I hand him my makeshift sword and he snaps it in two, singing a fragment of his earlier song. Flame sparks out of nothing, catching each half of the wooden pole. He gives me one and keeps the other for himself, a smile touching his lips.

I peer at Ivan strangely but he avoids my gaze. For the first time in our weeks-long journey, I realize there is more to him than meets the eye.

We walk quickly, my ears straining always to hear sound of the wolves’ pursuit behind us. The cavern is immense, sprawling out in an impossible maze of interconnected caves, all of them beautiful, as if carved by a fairy artist with a magical knife. Strange ice formations overarch our heads like the meringue peaks that top Donia’s pies. Ice runs constant beneath our feet, and I wonder if it is ever warm enough to melt into a raging river. Magic shivers in every fiber of the caverns; I sense it all around me.

I sense it in Ivan, too. He walks before me, holding his torch high, and I almost feel like we’re dancing in the strange shadows his light casts. I begin to imagine we are shadows, that we died in the ice last night and are journeying to the afterlife.

“Are these caverns natural?” I ask him, to distract myself from the howls echoing distantly behind us.

He casts a glance back at me. “The North Wind made them.”

“Why?”

His eyes look deep and dark, and suddenly very ancient. “To keep the Wolf Queen’s court guarded from the world outside. We are close now, Echo. Very close.”

The howling grows louder, and I don’t think I imagine the sound of claws clacking against the ice. I droop with weariness, and Ivan touches my arm. “Stop and rest awhile. I will stand watch.”

“But the wolves—”

“I will stand watch,” he repeats.

I am far too tired to argue with him further, so I lay my head down on my coat, and slip into dark dreams.

Mokosh watches me from the wood, sipping tea from a chipped china cup. Her face is drawn and sad. “Time is almost up, Echo. My mother will prevail, and your journey will be for nothing. You should not have come.”