Merchandise

by Gustavo Bondoni

in Issue 73, February 2018

Sangr shielded his face with his hand. The midday sun beating on the endless ice created a glare that hurt his eyes even through the cloth that covered them. His main concern was to put one foot in front of the other, but he knew that walking in circles would kill him as surely as stopping dead where he was.

He’d started out so full of confidence. After all, he’d been surrounded by ice his whole life. He knew its ways, welcomed its feel, ignored the cold. Back in the village he’d always been safe in the knowledge that the sea was not far off, a source of sustenance but, much more importantly, a break in the monotony.

He could never go back, so he forged doggedly forward, the easterly wind hindering his progress towards the center of the continent.

He knew that he might be marching straight towards his doom. Perhaps all that awaited was death, his limbs frozen into unlikely positions, his body forgotten under a sun that would eternally be too weak to thaw him out.

Faith kept him alive: trust in the fact that the gods would favor him because of the noble sacrifice he’d made. Trust in the belief that somewhere, within or beyond the ice, lay a city of unparalleled beauty and unimaginable riches. Trust in the logic that held that, if the rumor could reach his village, then someone from his village could reach the city. It was a thin strand, but enough for the moment.

Three days had passed since he’d departed, a thief in the night running from the consequences of solving a crime which had left him with two options: accept the blame himself or ruin the life of one of his lifelong friends. In light of the fact that Sangr had never intended to remain in that tiny village his whole life, the choice had been an easy one.

The afternoon passed and shadows lengthened, allowing him to see without covering his eyes. Night fell quickly in the north, even the short nights of summer. An outcropping, a rare knife of rock among the whiteness, created a shield against the worst of the wind, while the last of his carefully hoarded, and painfully carried wood would be the makings of a fire. But not yet. He would huddle in the deepening shadows until his teeth chattered uncontrollably and the tips of his fingers screamed from the cold. Only then could he allow himself to light a fire – it had to last until dawn.

Sangr stared into the darkness as the mind-numbing chill descended. The starlight was enough to illuminate the barren plain before him seemingly to the edge of the world. It reflected off the ice, creating fantastic spire-topped cities and phantom armies in his imagination. Some of these were so lifelike that they’d nearly killed him the first night on the ice. He’d run joyfully to an ice castle only to spend the better part of a cold hour retracing his steps to find his provisions.

So he ignored the red glow at first. It was just the universe playing tricks on his eyes. The light from a distant star refracted through a crystal of stained ice. Or something.

And yet it refused to be ignored. It wasn’t his imagination. The light was definitely orange in cast, not the cold white of the stars. He could almost imagine that it was a fire, burning brightly, cheerfully on the plain. A large fire that would keep him warm, truly warm, not like his own tiny blaze which would only stave off death, but could never heat him all the way through.

He began to feel the cold. Soon, it would be time to light his fire. He fumbled with the strings on his pack…

And found himself walking along the ice, stumbling on the cracks, making a bee-line towards the single yellow light. The howling gale stripped him of strength even as the hidden cracks in the floor attempted to bring him down.

As the light resolved into a fire, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There were people there, and some kind of large animal. Even sleds. They would have food, warm blankets.

But the fire was further away than it seemed, and by the time he reached the circle, any thought of human companionship had faded. All he knew was that he had to reach the light.

Something touched him as he came to within a few paces of the glorious flame. Sangr shrugged it off. He could feel the warmth gently caressing his skin. He knelt at its edge and exulted in it, the crackling calling to him. How nice it would be to le himself be engulfed by the warmth and light.

He felt the last of his strength leave him, and pitched forward, happy that his end would not be a cold one.

***

“So, you’re awake,” a rasping voice said. “We weren’t sure you’d make it, and then we’d have looked like right fools, losing two days on the ice just to watch you die. Well, at least you made it interesting. First time I’ve ever had to use my burn poultice out on the ice. Usually I only get to snip off frozen toes.”

Sangr opened his eyes all the way. He was lying in a bundle of furs on the ice in some kind of tent while a dark-skinned and wizened old man peered at him through rheumy eyes. “Do you even understand what I’m saying? Strange guy like you, all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, prob’ly from some savage Ice People. Prob’ly lookin’ ta hunt us and eat us, but ya got lost.” The man’s accent was strange, but he was certainly speaking Hennic.

“Water,” Sangr said, surprised by how difficult it was to get the word out.

“Ach.” The old man looked disappointed. “Here you go. Funny how it doesn’t matter whether one is frozen or burnt or took a spear in the chest, they always seem to ask for water. My name is Hugo, by the way.”

Sangr gulped greedily. “Sangr.”

“Sangr?” The man’s eyes brightened again. “That doesn’t sound like a plains-dwelling name.”

“It’s not. I live by the sea. I mean… I was born by the sea.”

“Hmm… Perhaps you should save your strength. Carmel asked to be notified as soon as you woke, and she’ll want to hear your tale fist hand. No use in you tellin’ it twice in your condition.” The old man left through a slit in the side of the strangely thin-looking fabric.

Sangr sat up and regretted it immediately as he was assaulted by a wave of dizziness. He discovered that he was dressed only in a nightshirt and cast about for his clothes. They were not inside the tent, which meant that he was at the mercy of his rescuers, for good or ill; he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes on the open ice dressed like that.

The tent flap fluttered and the old man entered, followed by a man and a woman who could have been twins. Both were much too tall for the tent, with raven-black hair cut to shoulders, green eyes and pale skin. Both were covered in identical black capes, Only the man’s massive shoulders and the woman’s delicate facial features set them apart.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the woman said. “My name is Carmel deDubois, and this is my cousin Nereo.” Her inflections were less familiar to Sangr’s ears than the old man’s had been, harder consonants grating strangely. And yet, the diction seemed precise and her air was unbelievably refined.

“I am Sangr. I believe I have to thank you for my life.”

“That might be a little premature. You see, we can’t afford to give you provisions, and our path leads us into danger. You might be better off walking in a completely different direction.”

“Out on the ice?”

She shrugged. “At least that way you won’t have to face the Ice Giants.”

Sangr looked at her levelly. “I’ve never heard of anything but some cities out on this ice. What are the ice giants?”

“They’re the ones who built the cities,” her cousin interjected. “We don’t know much about them except that some people say they were human once, back when this Ice was just grass. Now, they’re monsters of the worst kind.”

“The worst kind?”

“Man-eaters. Every so often, they come into the lowlands in force, and carry away a child or two. The villagers aren’t strong enough to stop them, so they called for our help. We lead a volunteer squadron against them whenever we feel that they’ve grown too strong.”

Sangr wondered at that. Neither the man nor his sister looked at all how he imagined the leader of a southern attack force. They were both too soft, too effete for it. Even the scattered merchants that had passed through his village every few years had had a lean and hard appearance, despite their wealth.

And something in Nereo’s eyes made Sangr doubt that he’d volunteered for anything out of love for potentially kidnapped children.

“How far are we from these monsters?” he asked.

“A day and a half, maybe two days’ march,” Carmel said.

“Why? Fancy coming with us?” Her eyes, on the other hand, gleamed with excitement, perhaps a little too wildly.

“That depends on how far we are from civilization.”

She smiled at him. “A little too far, I’m afraid. At least seven days due south.”

“And you won’t give me any food?”

“No.”

“Not much of a choice.”

She shrugged. “I assume you have a pack out there somewhere. I’ll have the scouts go find it and you can use your own supplies.”

“I don’t have seven days’ worth.” She said nothing, and Sangr understood. They wanted him along. “I guess I’m going with you, then.”

“It looks that way. Can you use a sword?”

“I’m good enough with the rapier, but I don’t have one with me.”

Her cousin snorted. “Why the rapier? Weren’t there any weapons fit for a man? I’ll see if we have something for you.” He left, giving Sangr the impression that he wasn’t entirely happy with his kinswoman’s decision.

Carmel stayed a few seconds more, measuring him openly. “I hope you’re worth the trouble of saving, and the time we’ve lost here. And I’m still going to want to your whole story when you get your strength back, so you’d better get some rest. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.”

She left, and left him wondering what she was all about. There was something predatory about her, but not necessarily in a good way.

***

The next two days were as advertised. Long, cold slogs through ice and wind, punctuated by an unexpected snow flurry on the afternoon of the first day. But Sangr wasn’t complaining. The strange furry pack animals were strong enough to drag food and shelter for the entire troop along behind them, something that meant that his survival was no longer uncertain.

Now that it looked as though he might have a future, beyond becoming a frozen corpse lost in the glacier until the world’s end, Sangr wondered what he would do next. Obviously, that was subject to their making it out of the Ice Giants’ domain alive, but it became an important question for the first time. He’d always assumed that he’d leave the village behind someday, but now that he was actually doing so, he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

The first night was a huge contrast with anything he’d known before. Not only did the southerners burn more wood for their fire than even the best driftwood season had permitted in his village, but they also ate strange meats. He was certain that the meat must come from some animal that was neither fish nor seal nor bear. Dog, perhaps? But no one would eat a dog, they were too valuable. Even the ale seemed to be made of something other than seaweed, and they called it wine. He drank too much of the sweet, addictive brew, and was nowhere near his best when Carmel asked him to tell the tale of his sojourn.

The story came easily enough, but he feared that he might have revealed too much about his village’s position, and much too much about Lunk’s killing of the foreigner. But he felt, at that moment, that he could take on a legion of hell-sharks, and that the woman’s deep, hungry eyes were his alone. He would tell her anything, reveal any secret.

If that night was heaven, the next morning was hell. He dragged himself out of his loaned tent and seriously considered just letting the rest of the group go on without him, but was given no choice. A bright-eyed Nereo found him and slapped him on the back, making the world spin. “So, fisherman, I was right. We do have something for you. Here you go.”

The weapon had obviously not been cherished or even particularly well cared for. Rust spots marred its entire length and the blade was anything but sharp, but it did seem solid, and the balance was excellent. One of the good things about being friends with the village blacksmith was that Sangr had learned to recognize fine craftsmanship – and this weapon fit the bill. He hefted it once or twice, tentatively. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The sneer in Nereo’s voice could be heard on the coast, but Sangr ignored it. Considering the type of sword the other man carried – a two-handed longsword suitable for very little other than fighting in extremely large and uncluttered areas – it was likely that he didn’t even know what he was giving away. Sangr made a mental note to ask Hugo for a whetstone that evening, if the pounding in his head didn’t kill him first. “You’d better be as good as you claim, though. I doubt that thing is going to do much damage to an Ice Giant.”

The man walked off and the day’s cold march began.

***

“There. The palace of the Ice Giants.” On the morning of the third day – the unexpected flurry having pushed back their schedule – Carmel’s voice rang with satisfaction and Sangr suddenly realized why they’d all been on edge. Seeing the hulking block of ice atop a long rise made him realize that the forty men they had in the party might not be enough to storm the thing.

Had his guide not pointed it out, he would have missed it altogether. From a distance, it looked like any other piece of glacier, a dirt-streaked bump in the whiteness. But closer inspection revealed openings that could only be entrances and slits that might be windows. And once that connection was made, its scale became apparent.

“We’re going to try to storm that?” he asked. It didn’t seem like a good idea at all.

“Don’t worry,” Nereo said. “They aren’t particularly bright, and their skin is just as vulnerable to steel as ours is.” His eyes gleamed evilly. “Besides, I have a plan.”

“I’m happy to hear it.”

The other man faced him earnestly. “Now is the time. You need to make a decision. Will you join our assault, or will you remain behind with Carmel and Hugo?” The contemptuous look he gave Sangr made it very clear that he expected excuses, protestations that he was too weak to participate in an attack.

“Well,” Sangr replied, ignoring the unspoken insult, “I spent two hours sharpening and polishing this sword last night. It would be a shame to let that go to waste. Count me in.”

Nereo’s eyes widened slightly, but he gave no other outward sign of surprise. “So be it.” He called one of his sergeants, a thin man that seemed to always be around Carmel after sunset, over to them. “You’ve got a new recruit, Gren. Name of Sangr. He wants to test his theory that a light, maneuverable sword might work against the Giants.”

Gren grunted in Sangr’s direction, made a barely acceptable bow towards Nereo and walked back to his men. Sangr, seeing no other option, followed.

About half way there, the man turned. “So you’re the one who gets to kill me?”

“What?”

“Don’t play coy with me. I know what Nereo wants. All I can tell you is that I’m going to keep you beside me wherever I go, and I’ll be watching every move you make – so if you try anything, I’ll gut you like a fish. I’ll have one eye on the Giants and the other on you. He’s tried before, you know, and I’ve killed every one of his murderers.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never met any of you before two days ago.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of how we ‘stumbled’ on you. But I think it’s just a wee bit suspicious, just running into someone in the middle of the ice. A little too convenient.” He turned back. “I’ve given you fair warning. Do as you see fit.”

Sangr shrugged, but held his tongue. Nothing he could say would change the other man’s mind. He would have to prove his worth in the battle to come.

The rest of Gren’s squad greeted him with a marked lack of enthusiasm and more than a little suspicion, making Sangr think that, just maybe, the sergeant wasn’t quite as paranoid as he seemed. He also realized that it had been a mistake to spend all his time with the expedition’s leaders and with Hugo, completely ignoring the rest of the men.

It was too late to do anything about it; the group was making ready to storm the structure. Gren motioned for Sangr to march along beside him at the van while a second group, with Nereo at its head, headed towards the western side of the palace.

Sangr wondered how Nereo was planning to get into that building with such a small force. Even if the Ice Giants fought with their bare hands, they had the advantage of knowing where the attackers were coming from in order to ambush them inside the walls. Stealth might have been an option for a handful of men in the night, but even if they caught the enemy unaware, thirty-five soldiers would have a hard time staying hidden very long.

The sergeant’s group came to one of the openings on the south side with no indication that they’d been spotted. Gren himself, with Sangr in tow, moved forward to inspect the entrance.

Sangr didn’t like what he saw. The opening led into a tunnel perhaps twenty paces long, twice as tall as a man, formed entirely of ice. But while the ice on the slope was pitted and rough, ground into snow by the wind, this was smooth, wet and slick-looking. Not the surface on which he would have chosen to fight anything described as an ‘Ice Giant’. Two round gaps, a pace wide, punctured the roof of the tunnel. Sangr hoped that they were just ventilation shafts, but knew he was being naïve. Those holes were there to make life miserable for anyone doing what they were doing.

Motioning for Sangr to follow and for the rest of his squad to stay where they were, Gren moved into the tunnel, keeping to one side. Sangr held his breath and did the same, breathing again only after they’d cleared the first of the gaps in the roof. The fact that nothing fell from it was the first clear sign that, just perhaps, they might have arrived unseen.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sangr detected a sudden movement behind them and pressed his body against the wall. Something hissed by at knee-height and the back end of a crossbow dart sprouted from Gren’s calf. The man screamed.

As the tunnel filled with huge white forms, Sangr understood Nereo’s plan, and the depth of his betrayal. The crossbowman gave them a salute and disappeared before the defenders could spot him.

Human eyes stared at him from a face covered in white fur. An Ice Giant who’d materialized directly in front of him growled, but Sangr simply dropped his sword. He would never survive a fight with the strongly muscled creatures – his only hope was that they thought he was harmless. Huge arms like iron bands took hold of him.

Gren was not so lucky. Maddened by the pain of the bolt, he thrust at the nearest defender, opening a huge gash in its stomach. But there were too many of them, and the enormous forms, heads nearly scraping the high ceiling, descended on the hapless sergeant. Limbs flew as he was torn to shreds, the blood pooling on the ice in places, while it seeped into the slush in others, forming a pink mush.

The defender that Gren had attacked lay unmoving to one side with the sergeant’s sword embedded in its chest – probably the product of a final, frantic strike. The others grouped around it, and let forth a roaring, keening cry. The one holding Sangr joined the lament, and twitched, slamming him into the wall.

Blackness.

***

Ice-cold water on his face brought Sangr sputtering to his senses. He reached out to attack whichever of the village’s practical jokers was behind this outrage, but his attempts to move were crushed. He went still immediately as he remembered where he was, allowing his eyes to come back into focus.

He didn’t like what he saw. One of the Ice Giants was inches from his face, strangely human features wrinkled in distaste.

“You have stink of south on you, but it is new stink. Your own smell is clean, from ice.”

Sangr reeled. “You can talk?”

The Giant looked at him critically, as though inspecting a particularly slow child. It was hard to tell under the fur, but the face seemed female. Or maybe that was just an impression Sangr got from the melodious voice. “Yes, some of us talk. We capture little people, make them teach we.”

Sangr’s stomach heaved. So it was true. They did kidnap village children. “And then you eat them?”

The Giant’s face wrinkled. “No eat. They no taste very good. Smell bad, like smoke and dirt. Not clean like ice.”

“Then why do you take them?”

“Take?”

“Why do you go to the cities and steal the children?”

“What is children?”

“Children. Many young humans. Little people.”

“We no see young ones. We only see little people.” The Ice Giant seemed genuinely puzzled. It placed a huge finger on Sangr’s chest. “You little people.”

Then he understood. The term ‘little’ was applied to all humans, even adults. It was logical enough: even the largest human was tiny beside the Ice Giants. “But you take the children. You eat them.”

“No.”

“Then why would they come all the way out here to defend themselves?”

The Ice Giant seemed to hesitate. It sniffed Sangr again. It grunted rhythmically, and another series of grunts came from behind Sangr, probably from the Giant that was holding his arms. It sniffed him again. “You no come with the other folk.”

Sangr knew what the creature wanted to hear. “I am from the ice.”

It nodded, and gestured. One of Sangr’s arms was freed. “Then I show you.”

He was herded through cold, wet passages into which light seeped from the top and sides to a place where a small patch of ice had been smoothed out, acting as a window. Through this small transparent piece, Sangr could see two men laboring over the body of an Ice Giant. They were working quickly, looking up frequently to make certain that none of the creatures could sneak up on them, but Sangr had seen seals butchered often enough to recognize the motions. “They’re taking the pelt,” he whispered to himself. It made sense – logic indicated that the coats would be warm, and the fur was fine and beautiful.

“We not understand,” the Ice Giant told him.

“The little people are killing you for your skin. Your hair.”

“That is the reason?”

“Yes. They use if for clothes, to be warm in the cold.”

“But the south is not cold. We know this.”

“It is for us. We do not have fur to protect our bodies.” Sangr kept watching the men work, and fury rose inside him. How could the men be so barbaric? “I would like to help you,” he told the creature. He was certain of it now: this one was a female, a mother mourning lost family.

“You no can help. Him already dead.”

“I can make certain this doesn’t happen again.”

“How you help?”

“Give me my sword. Lead me to the place where men are.”

A warning growl came from the Giant holding Sangr’s arm. He was shorter than the other, but broad, and pug-nosed.

“No,” the first one said.

“I will fight them. We can fight them.”

“We no can fight. They have magic teeth. Sword.”

“But you are many. They can’t kill you all. You’d beat them if you fought.”

The Ice Giant shuddered. “No can fight magic teeth.”

They were clearly terrified of the southerner’s swords. But it was stupid. Why didn’t they just use the swords they took from the men they killed? “Where is my sword? The magic tooth I brought.”

“It stay where it fall.”

They must have learned that the touch of a blade brought pain, not realizing that the swords were merely weapons. “Take me there.”

She hesitated. “You no use magic tooth to hurt we?”

“No. I want to help.”

They led him through another series of passages back to the tunnel through which he’d entered initially – easy to recognize with Gren’s dismembered corpse littering the floor. The grip on his arm released, and Sangr bent to pick up his blade and turned to face them.

The Ice Giants took a step back and growled menacingly. Sangr sheathed the sword. “I am not going to hurt you,” he said, holding out his hands. “I want to hurt the southerners. Show me how to reach them.”

They seemed extremely reluctant, but finally, the first giant to speak to him walked down a passageway. Two steps in, she turned back, as though expecting him to follow. Sangr hurried after her, slipping on the slick surface.

They came to an opening at the end of an endless maze of ice tunnels. “There,” the Ice Giant told him. “I go no farther.”

Sangr nodded and pulled the sword. Its light but not insubstantial weight comforted him as he turned the last corner. The two men had finished skinning the carcass, and were speaking to Nereo. “…and with this one, we have enough pelts to make the trip profitable. We don’t need to go into the tunnels to look for more.”

“I say we do,” Nereo said. “And I think I know just the person to guide us.” He smiled. “Sangr, so good of you to join us. I must admit that I underestimated your swordsmanship. Not everyone can fight their way through a mass of angry Ice Giants.”

Sangr shrugged. “I underestimated you as well. When you said you had a plan, I thought you were going to breathe on the palace until it melted.”

Nereo smirked. “I probably deserved that. But if you ever want to get back to civilization, lead us to more of these creatures so we can make some money on this trip.”

“I suspect that leading you anywhere would probably end with your sword between my back ribs. You don’t look like the kind to keep his word, and that would be my opinion even if I hadn’t already seen you betray one of your own men. Some people just smell wrong.”

“You’re coming dangerously close to being abandoned here when we leave. I am of noble blood – there is only so much you can insult me without consequence.”

“Any true man would have drawn his sword already. You seem pretty brave against terrified animals, but not much when the opponent can think for itself. Let me be clear then. I am going to kill you. I’ll do it even if you don’t pull your sword, but it would be much more satisfying if I can gut you in a fair fight. With your size, you should have the advantage of reach.”

Nereo tugged at the sword he wore in a scabbard across his back. The blade was an impressive piece of armory, as long as Sangr’s rapier and twice as thick. “I am a master swordsman. This is your last chance to repent.”

Sangr doubted it – master swordsmen didn’t advertise the fact. They just chopped you to bits. All he said was: “And I’m very upset with you.”

The two men circled on the ice of the small courtyard. Sangr would have preferred to face that sword in the corridors, where its weight would have been a disadvantage, but even this situation wasn’t hopeless. The important part was to avoid getting in the way of the other man’s sword because even deflecting a blow with the rapier would probably do little to slow it – and Sangr’s blade definitely wouldn’t last long under a barrage like that.

Sangr feinted a pair of times, trying to see what Nereo would do to defend himself. The bigger man refused to be drawn out, all he did was to take a step back, making extremely certain that he was out of the smaller man’s range. He held the longsword two-handed, which nullified what little advantage Sangr had due to his own weapon’s lighter weight.

And yet Nereo’s overall movements were cumbersome. His feet were planted just a little too flat, the speed with which he changed direction to face his opponent a little too slow. He was well aware that he only needed to land one blow for the fight to be over.

Sangr feinted again, and his opponent smiled. “Not ready to commit yourself yet, are you?” It was an attempt at distraction. With the word ‘are’, Nereo launched a savage attack, pulling the sword over his head on the backswing and cutting diagonally down.

The swing was well-judged, starting while Nereo was out of Sangr’s reach, and finishing where his shoulder met his neck – or it would have if Sangr hadn’t dived to the right.

Sangr slipped on the icy surface as he evaded, and received a deep gash in the left arm for his troubles. He cried out.

Nereo also misjudged the surface, and overextended, leaving himself open to a counterattack, but Sangr, still sliding on the treacherous floor, was unable to strike.

They got themselves upright once more. “First blood to me, it seems,” Nereo said.

“That’s not the one that counts,” Sangr replied, but he was worried. He hoped the bigger man would attack again quickly – he knew the other had the advantage of being able to parry Sangr’s strokes, and the only way to do him real damage was to catch him after a strike, where the big sword’s inertia could work to his favor. The real risk was that Nereo would stop and think about things, and turn the battle into an exchange of blows and parries, something he would have a decided advantage in. He needed to get the man off guard. “I suppose I shouldn’t take this personally. You probably didn’t want to have Gren’s brats in the family. I guess I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“On the contrary,” Nereo replied. “Things couldn’t have gone better. I was just hoping that Gren would spare me the bother of gutting you myself.”

The big man’s words were measured, but Sangr could see he’d managed to score. He smiled. “Second blood to me, it seems. Watching the way you looked at her when she spoke to him was fun. It would probably have been even more fun to accept her insinuations on that first night by the fire. Cousin Carmel wants everyone but little Nereo, doesn’t it?”

Nereo attacked, a sweeping strike that began on Sangr’s left and would have disemboweled him in a perfect horizontal arc. But the little man was ready for it. A sideways blow had the advantage that it was difficult to avoid by stepping to one side, but Sangr had spent hours practicing out on the sheet ice beside the forge, matched against the much larger Lunk the blacksmith. He knew what he had to do, but this time, if he misjudged it, or slipped, he wouldn’t be whacked by a stiff rod – he’d lose parts of his body, probably even his life.

He had no choice. If he didn’t risk it now, he would inevitably lose this battle.

Sangr jumped. A single mighty push sent him straight into the air, and he pulled his feet up beneath him, as far as they would come. He saw Nereo’s eyes widen as the sword passed under him, concentrated on landing as straight as possible – if he slipped, the opportunity would pass.

Nereo kept spinning, the force of the blow rotating him so that his back was to Sangr. He wind-milled his shoulders, sword akimbo, trying to straighten out, but it was much too late.

Sangr didn’t even bother to use the blade. He pushed forward with the point of his rapier, striking his opponent in the right kidney and driving the sword upward, grating against the ribs, puncturing kidney, lungs and anything else in his reach. Nereo’s feet gave almost immediately, and Sangr followed the big man to the ground. The longsword buried itself in the slush from the Ice Giant’s fluids.

Nereo coughed blood and attempted to lie on his back, but the rapier’s wrist-guard made it impossible. Sangr pulled the blade free and helped the man to turn. He was no longer a threat.

Nereo attempted to smile. “I should have known,” he said, voice a soft, bubbling wheeze. “You were just too eager to join us. And too quick to switch sides.” He coughed and weakened visibly. “My men will hunt you down, you know. Even if they didn’t stay around to help.”

Sangr looked around, noticing for the first time that the two men who’d been there before were nowhere to be seen. “I guess they didn’t like you much.”

“No, but Carmel does. She’ll have them feed you to the dogs.”

“She’ll have to catch me first. But why did you say I was too quick to switch sides?”

Nereo gave him a contemptuous look. “Don’t play coy with me.” And then he smiled weakly. “But everyone knows the diamond’s cursed. Perhaps it would be justice if you found it.”

“Diamond?” Sangr asked, immediately interested – he liked diamonds. But Nereo was beyond reply, no matter how much he was shaken and cursed at. Soon, approaching footfalls sent Sangr back into the relative safety of the ice corridors.

Well inside, an arm reached out to stop him. It was his old acquaintance, the Ice-Giant-Mother. “You kill them?”

“I killed one of them, the leader.”

“There are many.”

“Yes, but I can’t do it alone. You have to help.”

“We no can fight. They have magic teeth.”

“Now you can have magic teeth, too.” Sangr held out the longsword he’d taken from the fallen noble, hilt-first. The Ice-Giant recoiled, but Sangr insisted. “Take it. It can’t hurt you now. The owner is dead. I have his magic, and this won’t hurt you.”

The creature hesitated, sniffing Sangr again, before reaching out to touch the pommel with a single extended finger. It pulled back quickly, but soon realized it hadn’t been hurt, and allowed Sangr to take its wrist and show it how to hold the blade.

The Ice Giant soon gained confidence, and was brandishing the sword like some kind of palace guard from hell. Sangr would have hated to be the next fur merchant to enter the passages, and he wondered whether he’d done the right thing in breaking their fear of cold steel. These monsters could be a formidable force if they ever decided to avenge the wrongs done to them by the southerners.

He contemplated the huge creature holding the enormous sword – which looked ridiculously small in its grasp – with a ferocious scowl and decided that it was definitely not the right time to ask about diamonds.

©February 2018 Gustavo Bondoni

Gustavo Bondoni is an Argentine writer with over a hundred stories published in fourteen countries, in seven languages. He is a winner in the National Space Society’s “Return to Luna” Contest, the SF Reader short fiction contest (2014) and the Marooned Award for Flash Fiction (2008). His short fiction has appeared in Pearson’s Texas STAAR English Test cycle, The Rose & Thorn, Albedo One, The Best of Every Day Fiction and many others. His work has appeared previously in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.

Bondoni’s latest book, Siege, is a science fiction novel published in December 2016. In addition to this, his ebook novella entitled Branch was published in 2014. He has also published two reprint collections, Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011, Dark Quest Books). The Curse of El Bastardo (2010) is a short fantasy novel. His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com.