Instructing the Novice Read online

  Lone had to admit she was draped heavily in the thick purple fur wraps which were specially made for extremely cold and bitter weather. But she still looked too feminine—too beautiful—in his estimation.

  "I can still see your eyes,” he pointed out.

  “Because if you couldn’t, then I couldn’t see where I was going.” She put a hand on her fur-padded hip. “Look, I understand that we’re going into hostile territory but there’s only so much I can do to hide the fact that I’m a woman. Besides, we didn’t see anyone on the 360 view when we landed.”

  Lone had to admit that was true. But he didn’t want to take any chances. His own furs were considerably lighter than hers, for added maneuverability, but he didn’t want Lizabeth getting frost bite in the bitter weather or looking like an attractive female target to any Friezens who might be in the area.

  “I think we’ll be fine,” Lizabeth said. “Could we just go, Lone? I don’t know when night falls here but it’s already pretty gray out there. I’d rather do this in the daylight than when it gets dark.”

  “Good point.” Lone sighed and checked his blaster one more time. “All right, we’re going out. Stay close.”

  He opened the door hatch and immediately a blast of icy air whipped inside, stealing their breath away.

  “Oh my God!” Lizabeth gasped, wrapping her arms around herself. “I knew it was going to be cold but didn’t that guard from the Tower say it was supposed to be summer here right now?”

  “From what I understand, the whole planet is completely impassible in their winter months,” Lone informed her. “I know it’s not very warm but apparently this is as warm as it gets on Yonnie Two.”

  “Not very warm?” She gave a breathless little laugh. “That’s an understatement. Ugh—come on. Let’s get out there before I lose my nerve.”

  They stepped outside, into the howling wind, and Lone shut and locked the shuttle and put up the anti-theft shield for good measure. He surveyed the landscape which was flat and barren in all directions without a single bit of vegetation as far as the eye could see. The ground they were standing on was naked rock and small swirls of icy snow scudded over it as the ferocious wind whipped and howled.

  He didn’t see any of the Friezens—in fact, he didn’t see anyone at all. But he did see a large, yellow arrow pointing off to the left over the frozen landscape.

  “This way!” he shouted to Lizabeth who was shivering visibly. He hoped she would be all right during the walk to the train platform. She came from a warm part of the Earth—the South-Eastern United States—and he knew she wasn’t used to such bitter weather.

  He took her hand and they made their way to the arrow but the wind was blowing so fiercely that she was soon shivering almost uncontrollably. Though he wanted to keep her in sight, Lone reluctantly decided to put her behind him, so he could act as a kind of wind-break for her.

  “Walk behind me, Lizabeth,” he shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the whining moan of the weather. “Just stay close.”

  She nodded, apparently too cold to say anything, and they started forward again. Lone saw the next large, yellow arrow painted on the bare, gray rock and then the next after that. He pressed forward, intent on making their goal.

  It wasn’t until they got to the last arrow that he saw they weren’t alone anymore.

  Lizabeth looked up when Lone halted abruptly. She’d been keeping her head down and concentrating on staying directly behind his broad back so she didn’t immediately see why they were stopping. Nerving herself up for a blast of freezing air, she peered around one of his muscular arms and frowned.

  Their path seemed to end abruptly up ahead. After the last arrow all she saw was a sheer face of rock, rising up into the grayish air. There was a deep oval opening in the rock face and a kind of metal platform was coming out of it. Steep metal stairs led up to it. Lizabeth thought it must be where the train came out.

  But the train station, which was their ultimate destination, wasn’t what drew Lizabeth’s eyes. Directly in the middle of the yellow paint of the last arrow, a shivering female form huddled. She must not have been there long because when she saw them she looked up and cried out something. The wind snatched her words and despite the translation bacteria she’d been given aboard the Mother Ship, Lizabeth couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.

  “Is she hurt?” she shouted to Lone. “We should check on her.”

  “We should be careful,” he shouted back. “Could be a trap.”

  “But she—” Lizabeth began but the woman got up and staggered over to them before they could debate any longer. She was wrapped in ragged brown and gray furs and from the glimpse Lizabeth got of her face, she looked humanoid and seemed to be about her own age—somewhere in her mid-forties.

  “Please!” she gasped when she got to them. “Please, are you going to the mountain stronghold? Will you take me with you?”

  “Who are you?” Lizabeth asked, raising her voice above the wind. “Are you all right?”

  “I am Anya. They were holding me in the ripening hut but I ran away before the shaman could cut me.” The woman was almost crying now, her large brown eyes filled with emotion. “I don’t want to be the Snow Queen!”

  The Snow Queen? Lizabeth frowned. Hadn’t Karx, the head guard they’d talked to on the viewscreen said something about that? Had this woman run away from the savage Friezens before they could force her to participate in their rituals?

  “Of course we’ll—” she shouted to Anya. But just then the wind died abruptly and her voice came out much too loud. “Of course we’ll help you,” she finished in a more normal tone of voice.

  “Thank you.” The woman blinked back tears. “Oh, thank you so much! I said to myself when I got away that I would come to the last marker and wait and if anyone came I would beg for help. And if not…I would freeze.”

  “You mean freeze to death?” Lizabeth asked, frowning. She pulled down the scarf that covered her face and stared at the woman. “Why would you want to do that?”

  Anya lifted her chin. “I would rather die than become the Snow Queen. The cold is a kinder death.”

  She shivered as she spoke and Lizabeth could see that her attempted suicide would almost certainly have been successful. Her ragged furs didn’t look warm enough to withstand the freezing cold.

  “Look at you—you’re already freezing! Here, take some of my furs,” she told Anya.

  “No, take some of mine.” Lone frowned and unwrapped the heavy purple mantle he had around his broad shoulders.

  “It’s all right, Lone—I’ve got more on than you—I can spare some,” Lizabeth protested.

  But Lone shook his head firmly.

  “I won’t have you freezing. I’m much better adapted to handle cold weather than you. Kindred anatomy is tougher than human.” He draped the mantle around the woman’s shivering shoulders. “Come—we need to get up to the platform.” He motioned to the metal platform embedded in the rock face above the last arrow.

  “You’re going nowhere off-worlder—not until you give back what you have stolen.”

  The new voice was deep and harsh and it came from behind them. They had been huddled together, Lone and Lizabeth concentrating on Anya. Now all three of them whirled around.

  Standing there, wrapped in gray and black furs which looked much warmer and more substantial than the ones Anya was wearing, were three big, burly men. They were all heavily bearded and their faces looked almost gray with frost. Or was that just the natural color of their skin?

  Lizabeth didn’t know and didn’t care. What concerned her most were the crude but effective-looking bows the three men held in their hands. They all had bone and metal tipped arrows and the arrows were pointed directly at her heart.

  Suddenly, Lone shoved her roughly behind him and drew his blaster.

  “We’re going,” he said in a grim, steady voice. “And you won’t try to stop us unless you have a death wish. I will kill any male who comes nea