The Ring of Winter Read online

  Artus hurried on, the cold eyes of the statues following his progress. A strange feeling stole over him as he glanced back at the unblinking stone faces; perhaps they really were watching him now, gathered in Ubtao's home in the sky. He heard their displeasure in the moans of the wounded, saw their disappointment in the staring eyes of a dead warrior's corpse.

  I'll change their minds soon enough, Artus vowed as he pushed open the door to the plaza.

  The burning fields lit up the night, and by that light Artus could see the city was in ruins. Gaping holes pockmarked some buildings in the Scholars' Quarter. Others had been reduced to nibble, only stray pillars marking the site of their glory. Goblin archers lined the roofs of the few buildings still standing. They fired flaming arrows at the human warriors and set more buildings ablaze back toward the library. Overhead, pteradons soared unopposed through the shroud of smoke, shrieking in triumph.

  The line of Mezroan defenders had retreated, almost to the point where the warriors had their backs to the temple wall. Corpses littered the ground, hundreds upon hundreds of goblins and men. The fierce adversaries were often locked together, their bodies frozen in some violent pose.

  The defensive line had almost collapsed completely near the Residential Quarter; even as Artus watched, the Batiri were massing for an attack on the labyrinth of buildings, last refuge for most of the city's helpless. Kwalu must have moved to that part of the battle, for a swarm of locusts seemed to be the sole thing holding the goblins at bay.

  Only a few mages were scattered amongst the defenders. Even the circle of sorcerers intent on keeping Skuld hostage was nowhere to be seen. The reason for their absence quickly became clear.

  From behind one of the more complete buildings bordering the plaza, Skuld backed into view. The silver-skinned giant had broken out of his magical cage, but doing so must have cost him a great deal of power. He stood just over one story high, about a third as tall as he'd been when Artus saw him last. He still had a malicious gleam in his eyes. The blood on his hands did not seem to be his own.

  A dinosaur stepped from behind the building now, carefully pacing Skuld, matching each move the spirit guardian made. It was an allosaurus, one of the most vicious of Ubtao's Children. Thirty-five feet from its snout to the end of its thick tail, the creature resembled the monster from Artus's nightmare that morning in the park. As it walked upright through the wreckage on two sturdy hind legs, it clawed the air with its tiny front paws and twitched its tail nervously. Deep-throated growls rumbled from its mouth. It snarled and gnashed its rows of teeth, as sharp and as deadly as Skuld's.

  "Sanda!" Artus shouted, for this could only be the work of her bara powers. The allosaurus was carefully stalking Skuld, squaring off against the giant to keep him away from the mortal troops. The bara was likely hidden somewhere safe, so she could control the beast without too much danger to herself.

  The two giants rushed together then. The allosaurus bit down hard on Skuld's shoulder as they met. The attack's ferocity lifting the silver guardian off the ground. Skuld countered quickly. He dug the fingers of three hands into the dinosaur's sides, and blood gushed out to cover his forearms. Skuld had not escaped without injury, though. The thick silver ooze that passed for his own flesh coated the allosaurus's snout.

  Artus shouted the bara's name again and slipped the Ring of Winter onto his finger. The battling titans, the human warriors, the entire city of Mezro vanished from his sight. A blinding, white landscape replaced the jumbled conflict. Pillars of jagged blue ice broke the horizon in places, and a vast, smooth plain stretched away forever to the right, the remains of an ocean frozen solid. The sun flashed rainbows through fist-sized snowflakes drifting on the wind. A music of sorts came to him, the soft whisper of that falling snow and the jangle of ice dropping to the ground.

  There was no voice, no siren's call telling Artus to lay waste to the world, but the explorer knew he could turn the lush jungles of Chult into this beautiful, icy domain. He had that power now. The Ring of Winter had granted it to him. And if Chult was not enough, then he could bend Faerun to his will, as well. Cormyr, Sembia, the Dales-all these could be buried beneath leagues of ice and snow, so deep no explorer would ever find them again. Any who questioned his right to rule could be dealt with in just such a manner, the entire world if need be. The Realms could be his until the end of time, for the ring granted immortality, too.

  Though Artus never would have believed himself tempted by this, he was. The ring promised nothing, demanded nothing. But the explorer could envision the world as he had always dreamed it might be, a place free from war and tyranny, all peoples liberated from want and ignorance. He could make it so, force the world to match his vision-or break it all to pieces in trying. He could free every country, every town or village, from evil.

  But he could never free them from his own terrible reign.

  With that realization, the snow-filled world began to fade from Artus's eyes just a little. All his life, he had fought for freedom. That was why he'd joined the Harpers, a band dedicated to nothing more passionately than the right of every individual to forge his own way in the world. And that was also why he'd sought the ring, to make certain it wasn't used to banish liberty from the world. If he had been too impatient to see why the Harpers favored caution and a temperate use of their influence on the world, it had been the zeal of his youth blinding him. Now that he possessed the power to change everything, he saw the necessity for that caution.

  Artus looked out over the city of Mezro once more, confident and determined that he could wield the ring's power responsibly. Only an instant had passed since he'd put on the frost-flecked gold band. Skuld and the allosaurus were still locked in battle. The goblins had yet to charge the Residential Quarter. Fires raged unchecked in the fields. The Batiri horde was slowly overwhelming the tired defenders around the Temple of Ubtao.

  With a graceful sweep of his hand, Artus traced a line in the air. A wall of ice a dozen feet high sprang up from the pavement. It ran the length of the plaza, cutting the goblin horde in half, breaking the advance on the temple. The battles continued closer to the sacred building, but the human warriors rallied at the sight of the wall, just as many goblins panicked at being cut off far from their fellows. The cannibals tried unsuccessfully to scramble up the slick barrier, only to be cut down by Mezroan warriors.

  At the edge of the Scholars' Quarter, Skuld had driven the allosaurus back. Gory wounds scored the dinosaur's hide, and a huge piece of the silver guardian's shoulder had been torn off. But Skuld's wounds knit themselves quickly. Before the dazed and wounded dinosaur could steady itself from the last skirmish, the silver giant was completely healed and ready to charge again. Like the battle with the mages' cage, though, this cost Skuld; even as he healed, he shrank just a little.

  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.

  The explorer reached up for the spiked mace sewn onto his tunic, the last remnant of the Silvermace crest. The mace disappeared from the cloth and appeared in his hand, as formidable a weapon as any forged with flame. Artus had to strike Skuld only once. The paralyzed giant shattered like glass.

  Artus turned, only to find the goblins hustling their queen back to the safety of the jungle. She was cursing them for their cowardice, but not struggling very hard to get away. They'd left Rayburton behind, wisely assuming the powerful human would leave them alone if they did.

  That gave Kaverin a hostage, as well, and the leader of the Cult of Frost now stood next to Rayburton, the broken spear held up to the bara's throat. Blood ran in a thin line down Rayburton's neck. "The point is too deep for you to make it so cold it shatters, or to throw a collar of ice armor around his throat to stop it from harming him," Kaverin said.

  Artus dropped the mace and took a step forward. Kaverin dug the spear tip deeper into the bara's throat. The thin line of blood became a small but steady stream. "I won't be foolish enough to ask for the ring," Kaverin said, "just my life." For the first time, Artus heard fear in his old adversary's voice-fear and barely hidden madness. "The prize is yours, so you've nothing to fear from me any more."

  "You're right," Artus said flatly.

  Without the slightest movement, Artus conjured a fierce winter wind. The icy blast struck Kaverin in the chest like a hammer's blow. It lifted him away from Rayburton, bearing him backward until he hit the partial remains of a wall. There, a dozen hands of ice grabbed him. His arms straight out from his side, his legs held apart, Kaverin hung from the brick wall.

  Artus cut the ropes binding Rayburton
's hands and gave the bara his dagger. The gem that gave off a continual radiance flared like a miniature sun when Artus held the weapon, but died back to its normal glow once Rayburton took it in his twisted fingers. "Artus," the bara said, using his gag to staunch the flow of blood on his neck. "Please. Take the ring off before you lose control."

  "I know perfectly well what I'm doing," Artus replied. He turned his back on Rayburton and walked slowly to face Kaverin.

  The leader of the Cult of Frost looked wistfully at the Ring of Winter. "So close," he murmured. "So very close." Then the expression vanished from Kaverin's features. "I could have destroyed the entire world, you know."

  A rapier appeared in Artus's hand, a long barb of ice tapering to a needle point. Silently he continued to move toward Kaverin.

  "Let me free," Kaverin said, struggling against the hands holding him to the wall. "At least let me die with some dignity, not like a madman, chained so he won't bite the headsman."

  Artus paused. "So you can die with honor? Be a 'good soldier' like Pontifax?" he asked. With a lightning-quick strike, Artus drove the rapier through Kaverin's heart. "You wouldn't know how."

  The scream had yet to die on Kaverin's lips when the two wolf-headed minions of Cyric appeared to either side of the dying man. They grabbed his jet-black stone hands with their spider's legs and yanked him free of the icy restraints. "The Lord of the Dead sends his thanks, Artus Cimber," they said discordantly, their voices rising over Kaverin's scream. Then the denizens were gone, a stench of brimstone marking their passing.

  Artus turned back to Rayburton. "Go to the temple " he said wearily. At a gesture from the explorer, the ice falcon swooped out of the sky and grabbed the bara. "The goblins will scatter without their leaders. Tell the king and Kwalu, if you can find them."

  "But what about you?" Rayburton cried as he was lifted from the ground.

  "I have a promise to keep."