Magnus Frostbeard's Arc

Chapter 4 of 15

The hooves faded east. Magnus pressed his ear to the crawl hole until the sound died. The riders had missed them in the storm. But the danger stayed. Come morning, he had to move the crew forward, and he had no idea where forward was safe. The dome walls hid the ice ahead. He could not chart what he could not see. Guess wrong, and they would break through hollow ice like they nearly had before. At first light he crawled out. The plain stretched white and blank in every direction. No landmarks. No solid line to follow. Greta lumbered out behind him, her red braids stiff with frost. She looked at the empty ice and crossed her huge green arms. "Which way, chief?" she said. "Or are we guessing again?" The jab stung because she was right. Last time he guessed, he almost drowned them. Magnus turned to Winterchase. The small ice elf stood wrapped in the bright quilt, her blue skin pale in the dawn. "You read the ice with your hands," he said. "But you can't feel a mile ahead. We need to see the ground before we walk it." He dug through his big leather rucksack and pulled out a coil of rope and a driven stake. An idea took shape. "Thornpaw," he called. The were-bear rose, white fur bristling, black eyes sharp. "You're the heaviest and the strongest. We tie you off and send you ahead on the rope. You test the ice with your weight. If it holds you, it holds us. If it cracks, we haul you back." Thornpaw grunted and flexed his claws. "Bait on a string," he said. But he took the rope and looped it around his chest. They drove the stake deep. Greta braced it with her bulk. Thornpaw walked out slow, testing each step, claws spread. Winterchase paced beside the rope line, one hand near the ice, calling soft warnings. "Left is thin," she said once. Thornpaw swung right. Magnus followed at a crouch, charcoal in hand, marking every safe step on his chart. The blank half of the map filled with a thin dark line. A quarter mile out, Thornpaw stopped hard. His paw broke through. Water hissed up black around his leg. "Pull!" Magnus roared. Greta heaved. The rope snapped taut and dragged the were-bear back onto solid ice. He rolled clear, soaked and steaming. Magnus knelt at the crack's edge. Beyond it the ice looked the same, but he knew now it was rotten. He drew a bold line on the map and marked the hollow with an X. Then he traced a curve around it, following where Thornpaw had held. A safe path. A real one, tested and true. He rolled the chart tight. "We go this way," he said, and pointed past the X. For the first time, he was not guessing. But Thornpaw's soaked fur was already freezing stiff, and the cold would kill him before they crossed.