"Wow," Regin said casually. "They must have an automatic thermoelectric anti-icing system."
Just as she was about to destroy Regin, Ivan called out, waving them over to the snowcat. Kaderin pointed at Regin but couldn't manage words. Regin pointed back with a wink, then turned to grab their gear, including their swords hidden in ski cases.
Shake it off. Focus.
After Ivan opened their doors and they climbed in, he pulled down his mask and leaned in close to Regin to say something very earnestly in Russian.
Regin translated. "He says if a storm blows in or if we're not back by a certain time, they'll be forced to leave us."
"How much time do we have?"
"They've got enough fuel to keep the rotors creeping for four hours." Regin tapped her chin with her gloved fingers. "Four hours or possibly forty minutes. I can't be certain, since my knowledge of Russian really does blow," she admitted baldly.
Before Kaderin could say anything, Regin raised her hand and lovingly scrunched Ivan's cheeks. She waggled his face back and forth, then pushed him back with a forefinger against his lips so she could slam the door shut.
"Hey, there's more than one amulet, right?" Regin said when they were alone. "You don't get extra credit for being there first."
Kaderin slid her sword out of the case in the backseat, readying for trouble. "No. But they could set traps."
"And how are kobolds going to chopper out here in the first place?" Regin asked. "I just can't picture the critters at the helipad, you know?"
"They can turn invisible and stow along. I unknowingly sailed one all the way to Australia in the last Hie," she said, then added, "Sadly, he had an accident and wasn't quite up for the return trip." When Ivan gave them another formal bow, Kaderin frowned. "What type of scientists did you tell them we are, anyway?"
"Glaciologists from the University of North Dakota studying a sudden massive fissure caught by satellite. I thought there was a certain irony in saying we had to act swiftly about a glacier."
"Dakotan glaciologists, huh?"
"If those guys want to believe two preternaturally foxy Valkyrie - one of whom is sporting disco snow boots - are scientists, who am I to naysay?" Regin blew a bubble, revving the engine. "Let the science commence."
Another helicopter banked over them.
14
At sunset, when Sebastian traced to find his Bride and his skin flash-froze, he realized the goddess had duped him.
He'd spent the entire day in Kaderin's townhouse, having traced from the temple to London, then hailed a cab. Just minutes before dawn, Sebastian had arrived at the address Scribe had finally surrendered, then traced inside.
In her home, after drawing all the curtains, he'd discovered he could, in fact, "listen out of the corner of his ear" to TV while he speed-read through newspapers. Yet he'd discovered nothing new about Kaderin from her Spartan, nondescript living space. If he hadn't smelled her scent on her silk pillow and finally found a collection of weapons, shields, whips, and manacles in a closet, he might have wondered if Riora and her Scribe had even given him the correct address.
And now this.
"Low-hanging fruit," Riora had said. "She'll stay close by Europe," she'd reassured Sebastian. Yet he'd appeared in the wake of an unwieldy vehicle choking out black smoke as it crawled over an icy plain.
Chapter 9
His Bride was doubtless in that vehicle, and tracing to her had taken him very far from "close by Europe." With fumbling fingers, he dug the scroll from his pocket, then scanned the ten choices. Antarctica.
He could see the tips of his fingers blackening from near instantaneous frostbite. Bloody hell. Fortunately, Antarctica was dark twenty-four hours a day this time of year; unfortunately, it was bloody cold. This was something for a man who'd been raised along the Baltic Sea to say. He needed coverage against the elements - more than the mere coat and gloves he'd bought last week.
In an instant, he traced to one of the clothing stores he'd purchased from, sure to appear in a dressing room - which luckily did not have another customer in it. After grabbing insulated gloves and layers of clothes to go under a heavy trench coat, he noted the name of the store to send payment to and exited the same way.
Fifteen minutes later, he was back again in the wake of the same vehicle, though it seemed he could have thrown it farther than it had traveled.
He wrapped a black wool scarf over his ears and face, then pulled out the scroll once more. Within the highest peak in the Transantarctic mountain range was a couloir, an ice tunnel. Inside the couloir were three amulets.
Kaderin was traveling to the mountain range towering over this plain, so that must be it. He traced to the highest overhang he could make out on the tallest mountain. From that vantage, he saw one even higher up and traced there.
Directly in front of him - a tunnel. He traced within it as far as he could see, reached the end of the first straightaway, turned left, and progressed to the next end. He easily covered ground this way. Yet even dressed in heavy clothing, he was still suffering from frostbite at his extremities, then healing from it in grueling intervals.
A narrow ledge marked the end of the tunnel, and atop it were the three small amulets that looked like jagged mirrors carved from ice. He grasped the one he intended for Katja, then traced back to the overhang to scan for her.
As he waited, he gazed out over the alien scene. He'd never imagined a landscape like this. During his human life, Antarctica had been a rumor, an impossibility.
Here the stars didn't glint but were motionless and dead like the static photographs he'd seen everywhere in London. The moon didn't rise and set, but in the half hour he'd been here, it had floated farther to the left over the horizon.
He wouldn't have been able to see this preternatural scene if he'd died. He wouldn't be waiting anxiously for his Bride.
What to say to her?
Suddenly, two helicopters roared overhead, circling before landing at the base of the mountain. Curious, he traced down. Two other competitors were organizing ropes to climb to the slender overhang. A plan formed. If Kaderin thought he was quiet and unassuming - well, he was most of the time - but if she thought that was all that he was, he was about to surprise her.
Kaderin swore imaginatively with every foot she climbed higher up the rock face, irritation running rife in her.
She mimicked Regin's voice to say, "Why, they must have a thermoelectric anti-icing system!"
Regin had never riled her like this before. Kaderin had always been one of the few older Valkyrie who could tolerate her for long periods of time. But Regin had to play "Radar Love" at least eight times. As if they were chugging along fast enough to merit a song like that. The Cadillac-o-Snowcats redlined at ten miles per hour.