I shook my head as I spun to return to the cave. “How honorable of you.”
Darcke’s breath danced over my neck. “I wouldn’t call what I have in mind honorable.”
All right then.I cleared my throat, feeling all kinds of hot that had no place in this world full of ice. We came up behind the others as they huddled by the opening, staring out into the white storm.
Something muted thudded through the air, like an echo of ancient drums or?—
“Footsteps,” Darcke said. “Are those…”
“Hrimthursar,” Kilia confirmed grimly.
I was too short to see over the men standing before me, and I had to slap a hand over my mouth not to yelp when Darcke lifted me so that I could see over their heads. My stomach whirled as I took in the frozen giants—twice the height of the man behind me, their hair made of ice and skin of packed snow. The ice picks in their hands glittered like the ground beneath them.
“They caused the storm,” Ilse said.
A horn made me jerk, and Darcke held me closer as the tallest hrimthurs turned his neck, the ice it was made up of groaning from the pressure. White wind was sucked into his nose, and his glittering white eyes flickered with snow.
“Can hesmellus?” Vero whined. “We don’t even have any weapons yet.”
As the line of hrimthursar came to a stop, Darcke backed up a step. “Looks like it.”
The frozen men spun toward us as one, and the ice hanging outside the cave started trembling.
“Let’s go,” I whisper-shouted. “Hopefully there is another way out.”
No one asked what would happen if there wasn’t.
Darcke shoved me behind him as he took the lead. “Stay close,” he ordered when I turned to make sure everyone else was coming.
I didn’t bother fighting him as he lockedhis hand in mine, only took Ilse’s as she stumbled after me, nodding for her to do the same to Kilia coming fourth.
We passed the spot where I’d nearly lost my mind for the umpteenth time when it came to Darcke. The farther in we walked, the more the passage began to taper, the stone pressing inward until the air became as thin as Darcke’s patience. With every step it felt like the hill was pushing harder on my chest, reducing my breath to a frantic rhythm.
I tried counting inhalations, but after two hundred and something, I stopped.
“There’s light ahead,” Darcke said after what felt like an eternity but might only have been an hour.
The pounding in my head, the pulse that had kept me warm, didn’t steady when the light turned out to be a fork, each one with its own inviting glow. The stalactites hung so low here everyone but Ilse and me had to cower, and Darcke was nearly decapitated on an especially sharp one as he waved the rest of us forward, into the circular area that had opened up before the two paths.
“We need to split up,” he said.
“That sounds like a bad idea,” Ottoh growled. “Who knows what’s down those paths?”
“Those hrimthursar could be waiting in one,” Vero added.
“Or both,” Darcke said. “Better only a few of us die in that case.”
“Way to inspire confidence,” Kilia grumbled as he pulled Ilse to his side. “You’re with me,” he added when the short girl glared at him. “I don’t care what you have to say.”
“And you’re with me.” Darcke held on to me as if I would run away if he didn’t. “We’ll take this one.” He nodded down the right passage.
“Why?” Vero demanded.
“Because Valhalla is at the end of it,” Darcke snarked. “I don’t know! But I don’t plan on dying here by taking too long to decide.”
As Ottoh took a step toward my second, I slammed an arm into Darcke’s chest. “Stop fighting. If we’re splitting up, everyone should be allowed to decide which one they want to take.”
“Fine.” Kilia started dragging Ilse down the left path. “Better we split up if you both die, right?”
