The Winter King
Page 140

With each passing moment, her perch became more precarious.
A sudden, hard gust of wind bent the top of her spruce tree sideways and smacked her into the branches of a nearby fir. The blow knocked her back. Her feet slipped out from under her, and her mittened hands lost their grip on the slippery, ice-coated spruce branch. She began to slide down the branch, which bent beneath her weight the farther down its length she slipped.
Luckily, she managed to wedge one foot against a knot on the branch below and use that foothold to stop her slide. She clung to her new position and took several deep breaths to calm her racing heart.
As the daze of adrenaline faded, another gust of wind sent the fir and spruce smacking against each other again, their branches tangling together for several seconds, then pulling back apart.
The scowl faded from her face.
An idea blossomed.
A desperate, stupid, reckless idea, granted, but at this point, she was out of options. If she wanted to live, she was going to have to jump. As in let go of the spruce branch she was clinging to for dear life and leap through the air, eighty feet above a boulder-strewn ground, into the branches of one of the nearby trees.
And pray to all the gods that (a) those branches would be strong and supple enough to bear her weight, and (b) that she would actually be able to grab and hold on to them instead of plunging to her death.
Khamsin heaved out a breath. “Well, Kham, you may die either way, but as Roland always said, ‘It’s better to die swinging your sword than cowering behind it.’ ”
She glanced down at the rapidly approaching garm, then up at the dark, roiling sky. She fed the storm a little more power, only this time she tried to use that power to direct the storm’s gusting winds. Not an easy task. Wind had a mind of its own.
Whether because of her effort or in spite of it, the wind shifted direction again. The fir tree that had knocked her out of the spruce now smacked into her once more.
At the same time, a loud growl sounded below her. Icy cold shivered down her back, and the spruce needles on either side of her suddenly crackled and went white with frost. The branch beneath her feet shuddered.
Her time was up. The garm had reached her. If she didn’t jump now, she wouldn’t get a second chance.
The trees were already springing apart, the distance between them widening rapidly. She released the spruce and pushed off with her feet, diving towards the fir.
The garm screamed.
Waves of paralyzing sound enveloped her. Her feet and calves lost sensation as the scream’s accompanying vapor made contact. The freezing effect crept rapidly up her body, overtaking her thighs, her waist, her chest. It took all the effort Kham could muster to fight off the brain-scrambling effects of the garm’s scream and will the fingers of one hand to close around a thin fir branch. She held on tight as the fir sprang back and yanked her beyond the reach of the garm’s freezing cloud.
A furious howl burst from the monster’s throat.
Khamsin clung to the fir with all her might, but as the tree straightened, her branch cracked. She fell, crashing through the nest of the thin branches near the top of the fir. Her arms flailed, and she clutched at any and every thing within her reach. A branch caught her behind the backs of her still-frozen knees and flipped her upside down. Another smacked into her shoulder and spun her right side up. Tumbling helplessly, she crashed down through the thicket of branches towards the ground.
A last branch caught her thighs and spun her around. Then there was nothing but air and a thick, white blanket of snow rushing up to meet her. She landed hard on her back. All the air left her lungs on a painful whoosh, and she lay there, dazed and aching and gasping for breath as a hail of ice chips, bark, and fir needles showered down upon her.
Get up, Kham. Get up! Move or you’re dead.
Kham rolled to her knees, pushed herself to her feet, then nearly fainted when a stabbing pain radiated up her right leg. Her skirts were ripped near her thigh, the edges of the fabric dark with blood.
She pulled the ripped edges of her skirts apart with trembling hands, afraid of what she would see. A deep, six-inch furrow scored the flesh of her thigh. Blood dripped down her leg.
A loud rustle and the sound of snapping twigs in the trees overhead made her glance up.
She swore again, this time choosing one of Krysti’s more colorful and inventive curses. The garm had leapt from the spruce to a nearby fir and was quickly making its descent.
Khamsin scanned her surroundings with desperate eyes. She had no weapons. Between her sprained ankle and the wound on her leg, she couldn’t run, and standing her ground was out of the question. Even if she stoked the storm overhead, she’d lose control of it before it became powerful enough to be of any use to her. Her only chance was to reach the caves behind the frozen waterfall, scuttle deep into the narrow tunnels, and pray the garm couldn’t chew through rock the way it did tree branches.
She took off at a fast hobble towards the frozen lake. With each ungainly step, pain shot through the entire right side of her body. Shadows and stars swirled at the edge of her vision.
As she reached the edge of the skating pond, a heavy thud sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. The garm had reached the ground and was racing after her, its enormous legs eating up the distance between them. A trail of brilliant scarlet drops stained the snow behind her.
She gritted her teeth and hobbled faster, slipping and sliding across the ice. The frozen waterfall lay before her. Behind the glittering crystalline icicles, she could see the black stone of the cliffs and the darker shadow of the cave opening.