they have warm fires and blankets and featherbeds! We haven’t even got a horse to pull us out of here, because you said we could take theirs instead, and told us to beat it to exhaustion to get here! You swore that we’d have them out of a ruin in no time. And what do we find? A fortress! And if that isn’t bad enough, you swore the bitch was without allies now that her protector was dead, and we find out there’s plenty of mages in that stone vault!” His features were contorted with anger. “Just as you were oh so confident you could steal the old one’s treasure all those years ago, and talked me into coming along. And then instead of sticking to that plan, you saw the girl and had to have her power too! And look where all that got you!”
“And this is why you are an idiot berserker, and not a mage, and never will be, kleine Dieter,” the man that Giselle had known as “Johann” sneered. “You get one idea in your head, and that’s all there is room for.”
“Well, it’s a damn good thing for you that the idea I got in my head years ago was to haul your broken carcass away from that bitch and her bitch mother, and take you to our mother!” Dieter shouted, standing up and clenching his fists, spittle flying from his lips. “And it’s a damn good thing for you that I still serve as your legs, you crippled eunuch!”
“Sit down, Dieter!” the old man thundered. “Or by all the dark gods I will make you his double!” With a curse, Dieter spat in his brother’s direction and sat back down, wearing a snarl.
“Obviously they were better prepared than we thought,” said “Johann,” as if Dieter’s outburst had never happened. “That’s no matter. I always have more than one plan. We have the power we got from sacrificing those filthy gypsies. That’s enough to build a frost giant. Or between us, Father and I can summon the Breath of the Ice Wurm. Or both.”
“Both,” said the old woman, her eyes bright with emotions that Giselle could not read. Hate? Greed? Both? “Better be safe. But we need to have that girl and whatever allies she’s got in there out alive, or we’ll never get their power.”
“Oh, too bad you can’t get her power the proper way, brother,” sneered Dieter. “But you can’t do that anymore, now, can you? You ought to let a real man have her—”
“Oh yes, a real man who’d kill her in his rage and let the power drain away altogether? Just like you did the first girl we let you have? You get no second chance, dolt.” “Johann” spat into the snow. “The village must be missing its idiot with you gone.”
“That’s enough Johann!” the old man growled. “You’re on probation yourself, here. We’re only giving you a second chance at this bitch because you promised a rare fount of power from her and any of the treasure her protector left behind. So your plan had better work, or you’ll be the one stretching his neck on the altar.”
“You and what army will put me there, Father?” Johann grated back. “Even crippled, I can take you!”
This might have turned into something even more interesting than it already was, had the old woman not hissed at them. “Be quiet!” she spat. “I think I heard something!”
And with that, the vision faded away.
“What happened?” Giselle asked, stabbed with fear.
“The raven faded into the spirit world,” Fox said, in reassuring tones. “A wise move, to avoid detection. They will find no trace of him. He will return to his post when he believes it is safe—or if that does not happen, at night I can send an owl. And now . . . now we know what it is we are dealing with.”
“The Breath of the Ice Wurm. . . .”
They turned to Rosa, who was as white as the snow outside. “What?” Cody snapped. “What is it?”
“It’s . . . cold. The very essence of cold,” Rosa replied, her words laden with a fear that Giselle had never heard in her before. “It’s cold so intense that it is said that even fire freezes. If they can direct that at us, nothing, no spell, no protection, will keep it out. And there is nothing we can do to keep ourselves warm enough in here. We’ll freeze to death. That’s if we’re lucky.”