"They roil together, more in a single paced square than snowflakes in a storm. They are not dangerous, but when they first come through the ice they weaken it. That is why we never cross between the different hordes of the Living Sea, but only in the temporary gaps. There is always open water where Selski and Slepenish first meet."
Tal was silent for a while, digesting this information. The sleigh continued more slowly, heading down the slope in the ice. The glow grew brighter. Tal watched it nervously, understanding more about what the Icecarls meant when they called the Selski migration path the Living Sea. Certainly the light of their passage seemed to fill all the world ahead.
Suddenly, Milla pulled hard on the reins and called out the names of the two leaders, "Tarah! Rall!"
The Wreska came to a sliding, ice-shard-scattering halt. Milla pulled a spear out of the scabbard, choosing the one with the largest head, a wickedly pointed piece of bone as wide and long as Tal's arm.
`,What is it?" asked Tal as he pulled out his Sunstone and raised it. All he could see was the glow in the distance. But as the Wreska stopped snorting, he heard a dull rumble as well, a sound like many distant drums. Low, loud, and continuous.
"Rogue Selski," snapped Milla. She jumped down onto the ice and lifted her face mask to see better.
"Broken off from the horde. We have to push it back in."
Tal peered into the distance. There was something there, dark upon the ice. He'd taken it for a small hillock or mound of some kind. Now he realized it was moving. Heading toward them.
"That's a Selski?" he asked in amazement. It had to be a hundred stretches long and twenty high. It was almost as big as the Icecarl's ship, a great, hulking black mass covered in glowing spots that made a pattern like the star-filled night above the Veil.
It was lifting itself up on its huge forelegs or foreflippers and then leaping and sliding forward. It was close enough now for Tal to hear the ice crack and shatter every time it came down. The sleigh shivered under his feet.
"Can't we just leave it alone?"
"No," said Milla. "Rogues are a danger to the ship and other Clans. It must be turned back to the horde."
"You won't be able to do anything to it with that." Tal nodded at her spear. The girl was even madder than he thought. Nothing could possibly turn that huge monster!
"A full harpoon would be better," Milla agreed, in the same sort of tone a Chosen performer might use to describe an Achievement that was not quite worthy of the Indigo Ray of Extreme Approval.
She drew her knife another sharpened, curved bone and added, "I will have to climb up between leaps and blind it in the left eye. That will make it turn aside."
"No!" Tal exclaimed. He couldn't get back to the Castle without Milla. She might be a dangerous lunatic, but he couldn't afford to lose her, at least not yet. "What about our quest? That has to be more important, doesn't it?"
Milla hesitated. For the first time, Tal saw her as a girl his own age. She looked like his friends at the Lectorium when they were asked a question they couldn't answer. Then the familiar control came back, and her face settled into its stern pattern.
"You are… correct," said Milla with obvious reluctance. She returned knife and spear to their scabbards, lowered her face mask, and jumped back on the sleigh. "The Quest is of the first importance. The Foreguard will take care of the rogue."
Tal breathed a sigh of relief and slipped his Sunstone back under his furs. Milla whipped the Wreska up again, and the sleigh moved off, turning a little to pass behind the rogue Selski.
"You do not need to be afraid," Milla said as they came closer. She had seen Tal shiver as ice chips blew across them from the Selski's strange leaping progress. "The Selski never turn back. They will change direction to one side, but never back."
A bit like an Icecarl,
Tal thought. He peered at Milla through the amber eyepieces of his mask. She was obviously very brave. Climbing that Selski would have meant her own death for certain, but Tal knew she would have done it if he hadn't given her a good reason not to. He was reluctant to admit it, but he couldn't think of many Chosen who would die for their Order. Of course, they lived in a much more civilized way…
Milla was prepared to change direction when she had to, Tal thought. And the danger of the Selski was over.
Or was it? As the sleigh continued on, Tal noticed that the continuous drumming sound was getting louder much, much louder. And the glow that filed the ice and sky was brighter and closer.
Tal could see more huge shapes, too, leaping and sliding. Lots and lots of them. He was just about to say something when Milla suddenly cracked her whip and shouted. The Wreska broke into an even faster gait.
The sleigh picked up speed. Tal stared at the ice in front of them, willing it to be clearer than it was. To his left he could see a solid wall of Selski traveling away from them. To his right, there was a enormous mass of Selski sliding and leaping toward them, an almost solid wall of strangely glowing flesh, preceded by a rolling wave of ice and snow.
The drumming sound was now a bass roar that drowned all other sounds.
They had begun to cross the Living Sea of the Selski, but it didn't look like the right place or the right time to Tal. The onrushing Selski were too close, and the gap between the two parts of the horde was closing.
"We must take shelter at the rock!" Milla screamed, her words fighting against the noise of the Selski. She pointed to a dark mass ahead that Tal had thought was another Selski. He hadn't noticed that it wasn't moving.
He didn't think they could make it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The rock that thrust up through the ice was only as tall as the Selski themselves and not much broader than three of them abreast. Known as the Seventy-second Splitter to the Icecarls, it was just big enough to make the Selski pass to either side rather than try to jump over it.
The sleigh pulled into the shelter of the rock just as the leading Selski crashed down behind them, closing the gap. Tal stared back in shock, barely able to believe that they'd made it. Ice chips from the Selski's landing showered over him and into his open
mouth.
Tal kept looking as the ice melted on his tongue. Huge bodies leaped and crashed, but somehow missed one another. Beyond the light of the sleigh lamps, Tal could only see the luminous patterns of the Kalikoi on the huge animals, a weaving tapestry of light that jumped and moved.
The creatures did not make any noise themselves, or if they did, it was lost in the crash and roar of so many thousands of them rising and falling upon the ice.
"What do we do now?" Tal asked finally. He had to shout close to Milla's ear.
"Climb the Splitter and look out for another gap!" Milla shouted back. She jumped down from the sleigh and started to check the Wreska's legs and their three-toed hooves, looking for strains or damage.
Tal sat down in the sleigh, pulled his hood as tight as it would go, and with his fingers on the outside, pushed the fur into his ears. Not that it helped much. The noise of the Selski's strange leaping movement vibrated through the sleigh and every bone in his body.
After ten minutes of trying to rest, Tal realized that fur stuffed into his ears didn't work. So he did what any of the Chosen would do in such a situation. He looked down at his shadowguard and said, "Shadowguard, shadowguard, shield me from sound."
The shadowguard, which was pale in the lantern light, merely twitched its copy of Tal's head in a slight sideways motion. Tal thought it hadn't heard him because of the Selski noise, so he repeated his instruction more loudly. Still nothing happened.
He was just about to shout at it, when Milla jumped back into the sleigh. Seeing Tal crouched down looking at his shadowguard, she growled and reached for her knife.
"No shadow magic!" she shouted. "You were told!"
The shadowguard didn't move. It might as well have been a natural shadow. Tal straightened up and pulled out the bits of hood that were stuck in his ears. He didn't say anything, but Milla slowly relaxed, letting her hand drift away from her knife.
"There is a gap coming!" she shouted. "We must be ready."