"How did we get here?" Lida asked quietly. Her breath froze in the air as she spoke.

"I teleported you to this spot, then teleported myself to meet you here. I thought that the uninhabitable surroundings might dissuade you from any thoughts of escape."

"I don't understand," the lady mage said. "That's not how teleporting works. I thought you needed an artifact."

"The ettin had one."

"But-"

"That's all I intend to reveal."

"But-"

"Enough!" Janusz thundered. Fearfully Lida clutched the front of her fur coat. "Ask Kitiara about the ice jewels she stole from me. She can clarify why you are here."

Lida turned toward Kitiara. "You're responsible for this? Do you know what he and the Valdane are doing, the damage they're causing? The deaths, the heartbreak among the Ice Folk?"

Kitiara snorted. "Do I care?" she shot back. "Let the Ice Folk take care of themselves."

At that moment, Kitiara heard a howl from the south. "Wolves," the swordswoman said. "But like none I've ever heard before."

"Dire wolves," Janusz said.

That information offered no solace. Moments later, snow churning under their broad feet, a dozen huge wolves drew up, attached to an empty sledge by braided leather thongs.

Kitiara had seen wolves before, of course, but these were fearsome, snarling beasts, a sea of gray, white, and black fur on scraggly bodies. One gray beast, the largest of the pack, stood motionless at the fore, eyeing Kitiara through bloodshot eyes. Plumes of steam rose from its mouth, forming ice drops on its muzzle.

They didn't seem to be primed for attack. Kitiara looked questioningly at Janusz.

"They eat only meat, dead or alive. There's not much else to eat down here, of course. They're as stupid as ice floes and always hungry, so don't turn your back on them, Captain Uth Matar."

Kitiara raised her eyebrows. At a sign from Janusz, Res-Lacua brandished a whip and hustled the women on board the wooden sledge. The ettin cracked the whip and sent the wolves driving to the left, then to the right, breaking the runners free of the ice. The lurch sent the swordswoman crashing back into the lady mage. Soon the two women were kneeling as they rode with their hands braced on the wooden sides. The ettin raced behind.

Kitiara looked around for Janusz. Janusz was levitating a few inches above the ground, off to their right, his robe fluttering in the wind as he matched their speed across the Icereach, heading inland over the snow.

All of a sudden they stopped. The ettin pushed warily ahead, placing one foot in front of the other cautiously. Janusz watched but said nothing.

"What is it?" Lida whispered to Kitiara. "I sense nothing magical-nothing new, anyway."

The swordswoman shrugged. "Looks the same as the rest of the Icereach to me. Windswept, chunks of ice strewn all over. A few hill-sized blocks, but otherwise snow, snow, and more snow. Maybe a bit of a depression up ahead, but…"

At that moment, the ettin broke through the snow and disappeared with a shout into a gaping hole. Janusz chanted and traced figures in the air, and Res-Lacua floated back up through the hole, laughing as he landed back on solid ice. Kitiara slipped out of the sledge, dashed forward, and leaned over the edge of the crevasse.

The crevasse was a hundred feet deep. Kitiara hastily backed away from the edge. "It's a crack in the ice,"

she told Lida. "And it's practically invisible until you fall into it."

"Another barrier to an invading army," Janusz commented.

Soon they resumed, cutting to the west around the crevasse and then veering south again. Nearly as quickly, however, they drew to another stop. "Now what?" Kitiara muttered. Lida pointed to a dark patch in the snow. "A lake?" Kitiara asked. "In this climate?"

The ettin didn't move forward to investigate. It merely snapped the whip, forcing the dire wolves around the dark patch. Sun glinted off the surface, revealing the ice that formed a thin skin on the water. "An ice lake," explained Janusz. "Filled with fish. Everything that lives in the Icereach feeds from these ice lakes-except us, of course. I offer far better fare at the ice warren. Unless, of course," he amended, "you like raw fish. The Ice Folk certainly do, but they're not civilized. Raw fish, untreated skins, smoky peat fires, and the infernal stink of walrus grease. They use fish for everything from cooking to greasing the runners on their iceboats."

After a short time, Res-Lacua shouted to the dire wolves, who slowed as they curved around a line of huge blocks of ice. The captives had seen isolated outcroppings of the formations, but these blocks looked as though they'd been placed there by intent and design, not chance.

Lida pointed wordlessly to the silhouette of a figure at the top of one block, but Kitiara had already noticed the bulky form, the short horns that curved forward over the creature's forehead. "Minotaur," the swordswoman said.

The sledge swung around the end of the blocks, and suddenly they were in the middle of a shouting, gesturing mass of minotaurs and ettins. Res-Lacua barreled into the crowd with a cry of joy, greeting several ettins with undeniable affection. The ettins, nearly twice the height of the minotaurs, crashed their spiked clubs together, pounded each other on the shoulders, and roared in orcish. The minotaurs overlooked the display, seeming to think it beneath them, but a third group of creatures, half-men, half-walrus, watched with stupid expressions. "Thanoi," Kitiara said. "Walrus men."

One of the thanoi, a broad creature with long tusks growing from each side of its mouth, seemed especially irritable. It was unclothed, with the arms and legs of a human and the face, build, and dark gray hide of a walrus. Thick webs of skin joined its fingers and toes. Coarse bristles hung from its upper lip, masking the thanoi's broad mouth. One hand clenched a harpoon; the other hand reached for the women. It reeked of dead fish. Lida shrank back against Kitiara; the swordswoman thrust the mage to the floor of the sledge, leaped out onto the packed snow, and assumed a combat stance, even though she had no weapon. She lunged for the thanoi's harpoon just as a cry rent the air.

"Despack!"

The ettins and thanoi drew back. The minotaurs stood their ground, but made no move toward Kitiara or Lida.

Janusz spoke again, in a language Kitiara did not know. The minotaurs listened, however, and when the mage's speech was over, one of the bull men stepped forward, glanced down at the swordswoman as though she were no more worrisome than a flea, and used the butt end of its double-edged ax to prod the swordswoman toward the mass of walrus men

and two-headed trolls. Kitiara shouted back at Janusz, "Remember, mage, if I am killed, you will never get the information you seek."

The mage only smiled; his self-assurance seemed limitless, and Kitiara, looking around her at the weapons of the hundreds of evil creatures that served him and the Valdane, thought for the first time that she might finally be up against an unbeatable foe. She marched in the direction that the minotaur had indicated. The crowd parted before her and the minotaur, and Janusz called after them. "Toj is pledged to protect you, Captain-unless, of course, he believes you are trying to spurn my hospitality. So do take care, Captain."

Kitiara didn't reply. Clearly she was outnumbered, and Lida Tenaka, her magic weakened, was only a hindrance. Toj drew up next to Kitiara. "You were a mercenary?" the minotaur said.

"Not were," Kitiara corrected. "Are."

Toj laughed. "The mage said you were a stubborn one. I see he was right."

The creature had a curiously formal way of speaking, as though he were translating from some other language into Common. Kitiara didn't even come up to his shoulders, and she was unarmed but unafraid. For the moment, at least, the minotaur wouldn't harm her, and she might learn something if he proved talkative. "You are a soldier for hire?" she asked. "Like the ettins and the thanoi?"