Page 25 (1/2)

At the base of the great glacier, hidden off in a sh broken rifts and boulders, was a place the barbarians called Ever a relentless battle against ice floes and freezing temperatures Tribesmen stranded inland by early snoho could not find their way to the sea with the reindeer herd, often sought refuge at Evermelt, for even in the coldestwater could be found here And the war vapors of the pool made the temperatures of the immediate area bearable, if not co water were only a part of Evermelt’s worth Beneath the opaque surface of the old and silver, that rivaled the treasure of any king in this entire region of the world Every barbarian had heard of the legend of the white dragon, but most considered it to be just a fanciful tale recounted by self-ion hadn’t ear knew better, though In his youth his father had accidentally stuar later learned the legend of the dragon, he understood the potential value of his discovery and had spent years collecting all of the inforons, and Ingeloakastiar had been killed in a battle between tribes before he couldin a land where death was a corie to his son The secret did not die with hi and carried the beast the last few miles to Evermelt He had been to this place twice before, but when he cae beauty stole his breath The air above the pool was veiled in steah the e boulders surrounding the area were especially colorful, with varying hues of red and orange, and they were encapsulated in a thin layer of ice that caught the fire of the sun and reflected brilliant bursts of sparkling colors in startling contrast to the dull gray of the lacier ice This was a silent place, sheltered from the mournful cry of the wind by walls of ice and rock, free of any distractions

After his father was killed, Wulfgar had vowed, in tribute to the man, to make this journey and fulfil his father’s dreah other matters pressed in on him, he paused for reflection Warriors of every tribe on the tundra had come to Evermelt with the sa barbarian resolved to change that He fir the deer The first barrier that he had to overcome was the pool itself Beneath its surface the waters were deceptively wared from the pool into the air would be frozen dead in an scraping away the underlying layer of fat He melted this over a small fire until it attained the consistency of thick paint, then s a deep breath to steady hihts on the task at hand, he took hold of Aegis-fang and waded into Ever veil of mist, the waters appeared serene, but as soon as he ar could feel the strong, swirling currents of the hot streauidepost, he approximated the exact center of the pool Once there, he took a final breath and, confident of his father’s instructions, opened himself to the currents and let himself sink into the water He descended for a moment, then was suddenly swept away by the main flow of the stream toward the north end of the pool Even beneath the ar to trust blindly that he would break free of the water before his breath ran out

He ithin a few feet of the ice wall at the pool’s edge before he could see the danger He braced himself for the collision, but the current suddenly swirled, sending him deeper The di under the ice, barely wide enough for hiave his cried for air He bit down on his lip to keep hishien

Then he broke into a wider tunnel where the water flattened out and dropped below the level of his head He hungrily gasped in air, but he was still sliding along helplessly in the rushing water

One danger was past

The slide twisted and turned, and the roar of a waterfall clearly sounded up ahead Wulfgar tried to slow his ride, but couldn’t find a handhold or any kind of a brace, for the floor and walls were of ice s strea from his hands as he futilely tried to drive them into the solid ice Then he came into a wide and deep cavern and saw the drop before hie icicles that stretched froht He saw his only chance When he approached the lip of the drop, he sprang outward, wrapping his arms around an icicle He dropped quickly as it tapered, but saw that it widened again as it neared the floor, as though a second icicle had grown up froazed around the strange cavern in awe The waterfall captured his i a surrealistic flavor to the spectacle The strea on its way through a small chasm, barely a crack in the floor thirty feet below at the base of the fall The droplets that cleared the chash, solidified as they separated from the main flow of the stream and bounced away in all directions as they hit the cavern’s ice floor Not yet completely hardened, the cubes stuck fast where they landed, and all about the base of the waterfall were strangely sculpted piles of broken ice

Aegis-fang flew over the drop, easily clearing the s shards of ice Though his arar quickly rushed over to the ha fast where it had landed, and heaved it free of the ice’s hardening grip

Under the glassy floor where the hammer had cracked away the top layers; the barbarian noticed a dark shadow He exaht Perfectly preserved, one of his predecessors had apparently gone over the long drop, dying in the deepening ice where he had landed How ar wondered, had met this same fate?

He didn’t have time to contemplate it further One of his other concerns had been dispelled, for much of the cavern’s roof was only a few feet below the daylit surface and the sun found its way in through those parts that were purely ice Even the s was reflected a thousand tilassy floors and walls, and the whole cavern virtually exploded in sparkling bursts of light

Wulfgar felt the cold acutely, but the melted blubber had protected hiers of this adventure

But the spectre of the dragon loo tunnels led off of the -past days when its waters ran high Only one of these was large enough for a dragon, though Wulfgar conteht possibly find a less obvious way into the lair But the glare and distortions of light and the countless icicles hanging fro like a predator’s teeth dizzied hiot lost or wasted too ht and dropping the teed Aegis-fang on the floor to clear away any reht ahead down the tunnel he believed would lead hion slept soundly beside its treasure in the largest chamber of the ice caves, confident after eloakastideath, had made the same mistake that many of its kin, with their lairs in si stream that offered entrance to and escape froon trapped in a crystalline to deer and humans In the short time the beast had been active, it had earned quite a respectable reputation for havoc and terror Yet dragons, especially white ones who are rarely active in their cold environments, can live many centuries without meat Their selfish love of their treasure can sustain theh se reds and blues that lived in est of any of the tundra-dwelling dragons

If the dragon had truly desired freedoh the cavern’s ice ceiling But Icingdeath considered the risk too great, and so it slept, counting its coins and geons considered quite pleasant

The sluh, just how careless it had becodeath hadn’t moved in decades A cold blanket of ice had crept over the long for until the only clear spot was a hole in front of the great nostrils, where the rhythmic blasts of exhaled snores had kept the frost away

And so Wulfgar, cautiously stalking the source of the resounding snores, cadeath’s splendor, enhanced by the crystalline ice blanket, Wulfgar looked upon the dragon with profound awe Piles of geold lay all about the cavern under siar could not pull his eyes away Never had he viewed such th

Confident that the beast was helplessly pinned, he dropped the haeloakasti the beast’s full na flaar stopped short at their piercing glare

After the initial shock, he regained his confidence "Fear not, hty worm," he said boldly "I am a warrior of honor and shall not kill you under these unfair circumstances" He s your treasure!"

But the barbarian had hter, even a knight of honor, would have looked beyond his chivalrous code, accepted his good fortune as a blessing, and slain the worm as it slept Few adventurers, even whole parties of adventurers, had ever given an evil dragon of any color an even break and lived to boast of it

Even Icingdeath, in the initial shock of its predicaht itself helpless when it had first awakened to face the barbarian The great ht and grip of the ice prison But when Wulfgar y bleay the dragon’s lethargy