Artus crossed his hands over his chest and concentrated. A wide pillar of ice rose from the ground, lifting him up over the battle. "Skuld!" he shouted. "Leave the beast alone."
The booming voice caused a momentary lull in the fighting, as many-human and goblin alike-looked up to see what powerful new combatant had entered the fray. Before the echo of the challenge had died in the plaza, three pteradons were soaring toward Artus. They dove straight at him, ready to knock him from his high perch even if they couldn't get his soft flesh into their beaks.
Calmly the explorer watched the flying reptiles as they drew closer. When they were over a somewhat deserted section of the plaza, he pointed at their wings and coated them with ice. Paralyzed, the pteradons could not ride the air currents that kept them aloft. Like game birds with arrows through their hearts, the shape-shifters plummeted from the sky one by one and crashed to the ground.
Skuld smiled with savage glee. "So my great savior is not dead." He turned from the allosaurus, which slumped against the building. "I have not yet thanked you for taking me from those ruins in Cormyr."
In four or five steps, Skuld was over the wall. Crushing both goblins and Mezroan warriors, he strode to the pillar. He snatched the explorer from his perch with one hand. "Hah! Where are your powers now?" he shouted, holding his captive high over his head.
Triumphantly, he leaped back over the wall, a dozen Mezroan spears sticking harmlessly out of his legs and feet. With no regard for anyone or anything in his path, Skuld made his way to the plaza's edge. There, in the remains of a ruined building, Kaverin Ebonhand and Queen M'bobo had their headquarters. The two directed the battle far from the fighting, far from any danger. Two camp chairs sat side by side, bracketed by guttering torches and tables laden with food and pitchers of wine. In the squalor behind the leaders, Lord Rayburton lay chained and gagged. Ten goblin guards, armed and armored better than any others in the motley Batiri horde, stood watch over the prisoner.
"I have him for you, master," Skuld announced proudly. Artus's body was still, his legs hanging as limply as a rag doll's. At the sight of Kaverin, though, the explorer began to struggle against the silver guardian's grip.
Kaverin leaped to his feet. "Kill him, you idiot! He has some kind of magical artifact that lets him control ice, some wand or-" His dead eyes went wide with amazement. "Cyric's blood," he whispered. "He found the ring!"
Skuld tightened his fist, but it was as if Artus had suddenly been shielded by some powerful armor. The silver guardian clapped another hand over the one holding his prisoner, but that didn't help either. Perhaps I should just bite the nuisance's head off, he decided. That's always effective.
But when Skuld tried to pull his hands apart, he found them locked together. A cold more profound than any he'd felt in his fourteen hundred years began to seep into his fingers, climb up his arms. He felt his limbs stiffen, his hands grow absolutely numb. In desperation, Skuld pulled at the frozen arms with his other set of hands. The fists holding Artus cracked, then came apart with a loud snap.
The explorer rolled off the giant's frozen hands and tumbled through the air. As he fell, he touched the Silvermace family crest on his tunic. The diving falcon sewn in white on the green cloth flapped its wings and loosed its hold on the spiked mace. The raptor was a thing of thread no longer, but a creature of ice. It pushed away from Artus, instantly growing as large as the explorer. With its cold talons, the ice falcon snagged Artus's tunic and lowered him gently the rest of the way to the cobblestones, Then it circled up into the sky.
"This time, Kaverin, I'd say I have you," Artus said slyly. He held up his hand, letting the torchlight glitter off the Ring of Winter.
A line of ten-foot-tall spikes shot up between the command center and the rest of the Batiri horde. Seeing themselves cut off from the rest of the troops, the guards lifted M'bobo off her feet and set her down next to Rayburton. They surrounded their queen, holding their spears out menacingly to form a spiny circle that resembled some sort of deranged land urchin. Rayburton tried to struggle to his feet, but M'bobo kicked his legs out from under him. "You not going anywhere," the queen said, brandishing her scimitar.
The bara slumped to the ground with a muffled groan. He turned once more to Artus, but the explorer couldn't decide if the sadness in Rayburton's eyes was the result of his mistreatment or the fact someone had recovered the Ring of Winter.
Kaverin Ebonhand didn't run, neither did he let his surprise show. Calmly he placed his stone hands on his hips and said, "You 'have me' no more than I had you in the goblin camp."
A pair of silver hands grabbed Artus by the shoulders and spun him around. Another pair slammed into his sides, cracking ribs and sending daggers of pain through his lungs. Artus tried to call upon the powers of the ring, but the barrage of fists was so fast he couldn't concentrate. Blow after blow rained down upon him, battering his head, his arms, his chest. Desperate, the explorer reached out to shield himself, but Skuld grabbed his hands.
"You can't use the ring if I tear your arms off," the spirit guardian said gleefully. He stood little more than ten feet tall now, his magical energy having been drained in repairing the wounds wrought by both the dinosaur and Artus.
As he spoke, Skuld yanked the explorer's arms up and pulled him from the ground. All the while, he drove his other two fists into the man's ribs, hammering away like a dwarf in a diamond mine.
Though the pummeling was painful, it was not as furious as Skuld's first assault. Artus focused his thoughts through the haze of pain. He could feel the ring's power coursing through him, knitting broken bones and healing the muscles torn by Skuld's attack. And as the spirit guardian cocked his free arms back for a killing blow, Artus struck.
A set of muscular arms made of crystal-clear ice sprouted from the explorer's side, blocking Skuld's attack. The silver-skinned giant found all four hands caught in globes of ice that tightened like vises each time he moved. He howled in frustration, but that quickly turned to a panicked cry for help. The ice was spreading up his arms, paralyzing him as it went.
"Master!" Skuld shouted. "I will be slain!"
Kaverin had already foreseen that possibility. With a spear he had snatched from one of the goblin guards, he charged silently forward. Artus could not turn, could not see the attack coming. Certain of victory, Kaverin raised the spear to strike.
The spearhead never reached its mark.
With a shrieking war cry, the ice falcon dropped from the sky. It tore the weapon from Kaverin's grasp, knocking the redheaded man onto his back. The falcon snapped the wooden shaft in two, then sailed back into the night to circle protectively, high over its creator.
From the cobbles, Kaverin looked up with dead, lifeless eyes at Skuld. The spirit guardian gnashed futilely at Artus with his filed silver teeth. His arms, torso, even his legs were coated with ice. Skuld's head remained free, but it only moved sluggishly from side to side. His breath turned to steam in the chill air. Then that, too, stopped, and the silver earrings on the guardian's ears ceased to jangle.
Artus stepped back to study his handiwork. Skuld stood rigid, his arms held menacingly before him-just like the statue he and Pontifax had found that day in the Stonelands, only much larger. Perhaps that's why the Skuld statue was in those ruins; someone had trapped the treacherous spirit guardian and left him to stand forever in the rubble-until some unfortunate stumbled across him, of course. Artus couldn't let that happen again, not after all the suffering Skuld had caused.