Hennet also risked a look back. "Shall I do it now, or are we too close?"
Sonja shook her head. "We need more distance."
But they didn't seem to be increasing the distance. The scorpion showed no evidence of falling behind, and in fact it seemed to be gaining on them.
Looking back at this image of frozen fear, Lidda observed that it didn't walk like a normal scorpion, small or large. The scorpions she'd seen generally kept their bodies close to the ground with their legs arched above. The stumps that littered the ground made that impossible here. Instead, this beast raised itself on its spindly legs to lift above the obstructions. She could see its belly, and that made her think… even a creature made of solid ice probably was more vulnerable on its underbelly than anywhere else.
"You want it slowed down?" Lidda asked. "Watch this."
Swiftly she stood on Regdar's shoulders and sprang backward to land feet-first. The snow reached up almost to her neck, but she used this to her advantage. She dropped to her knees and burrowed below the surface of the snow to conceal her exact location from the icy behemoth. She felt the cold intensify as the monster approached. When one of its legs speared through the snow beside her, she sprang forward and plunged headfirst under the icy body.
For all its terror, the scorpion was a thing of beauty when seen up close, like an intricate, gorgeous ice sculpture come to life. Every leg, tail section, and pincer looked as if it were carved from a single block of impossibly pure ice. Lidda could see right through the thing. The sight was distorted but unobstructed by any visible organs that might be vulnerable to attack.
She drew her sword and thrust upward with all the force she could manage. The blade penetrated the ice with a shower of chips, and Lidda pushed it in hilt-deep. No blood flowed, and the scorpion never made a sound, but it reacted in obvious pain, shuffling backward and trying to dislodge Lidda and the sword. The halfling held onto her weapon with all her might. She heard the clack of Regdar's arrows striking the scorpion. She watched Hennet's magic missiles strike the scorpion's midsection. The ice refracted the image so that it looked to Lidda like a kaleidoscopic comet exploding into a carnival of light above her.
The scorpion tried to smash its body downward to crush Lidda, but the stumps beneath it prevented its weight from falling on her. Frustrated, it chased after the others but paused to lunge downward again any time it entered an area with fewer stumps. Lidda knew that it was only a matter of time before it found an area sufficiently bare to flatten itself, and her, against the frozen ground. She yanked on the sword but couldn't free it, so she let go and slipped into the snow. Moments later, the creature maneuvered over a clear spot and flopped down, but all it succeeded in doing was driving Lidda's sword even farther into its insides.
Lidda raced through the snow, plowing through drifts almost as tall as herself. She climbed atop one of the broken trees and leaped from stump to stump while waving furiously to the others. In its preoccupation with her, the scorpion had fallen behind the others, giving Hennet the room he needed to launch his fireball, if Lidda could get clear. Her short legs were no match for the nimble ice monster's, though. Even with her sword driven into it, the scorpion was able to keep up with her. Part of her wished Hennet would just broil the damned thing and let her take her chances.
Regdar's arrows and Hennet's spells did little to deter the monster's relentless pursuit.
"We have to stop it!" shouted Sonja. "It will catch Lidda and kill her!"
The druid looked at Hennet, standing at the ready with his wand of fire, wordlessly asking her for permission. She shook her head-there was too much risk of Lidda being caught in the blast. Sonja considered trying to draw a lightning bolt down from the storm, but she rejected the idea for the same reason. Her control over the spell was too coarse. She would only put them all at greater risk.
A cold smile crossed her face briefly. "Save that fireball," she called to Hennet before sprinting away from the others and toward the unearthly monster.
"What's she doing?" asked Regdar.
Hennet shrugged. He had long since stopped asking that question. He was just happy that she seemed to have some plan.
As Sonja ran, she extended her hands in preparation for a spell. When she thrust them forward, the scorpion burst into blue fire. The brilliant, azure flames shimmered across its icy back.
"What?" Regdar stammered. "How can ice burn?"
Hennet laughed, understanding instantly what Sonja had done. "She's clever! It's not real fire but faerie fire. No heat, no smoke, just light. Pray that the monster doesn't know the difference."
The giant scorpion had never seen fire before, let alone been engulfed by it. As a creature of ice, however, its fear was instinctive. Too wide and bulky to roll over, it spun instead, desperate for some way to tip itself onto its back. Lidda was forgotten. Sonja rushed back to join the others, and Hennet lifted the wand, readying it to launch the fireball.
Lidda tried not to look back to see what Sonja had done, but when she heard the sound, something between a camp-fire crackling and a lion's roar, her curiosity won over. She spun on the top of a stump just long enough to see a blood-red sphere of flame rocket across the field from Hennet's wand. It struck the ice scorpion with thunderous force. The explosion sent a wave of flame roaring out in all direction, incinerating stumps, evaporating snow, and scorching the frozen ground. She felt a blast of heat against her face. The warmth was jarring. When the flames flickered out, the scorpion was reduced to a puddle of hissing slush.
Relieved, Lidda waded back to the others, avoiding the scorched area. She could hear Hennet's exclamations of glee long before she reached the sorceror.
"That was beautiful," he shouted. "It worked perfectly!" His arms were wrapped around Sonja. "That thing didn't know what hit it!"
"What was it?" asked Regdar. "That's what I'd like to know."
Lidda congratulated Hennet with a sincere "Well done."
"Many thanks." He bent down and clutched the halfling by the waist before lifting her up to his eye level. "What about you?" he gushed. "Diving under a giant scorpion with nothing but a short sword? If that's not heroism, I don't know what is." He kissed her on both cheeks before plunking her back onto the ground.
"Unfortunately," continued Hennet, "that's it for the wand of fireballs. When they gave it to me in Atupal, they told me it had only one more blast in it. I hoped they might be wrong, but they weren't. That's it for the big fireworks." He tossed the spent wand aside.
"My sword!" Lidda said, looking back at the scorpion's molten corpse. "Do you think it survived?"
"Maybe," said Hennet. "We should look for it before that melted mess can freeze solid again."
Hennet and Lidda's jubilation faded when they saw the concerned expression on Sonja's face. Regdar stepped up next to her, looking every bit as stern. "We can celebrate later, you two," he said. "We need to know what that was, and we need to know if there are any more. Sonja?"
"Whether there are any more I can't say," the druid said. "Nor am I entirely sure what it was. I've certainly never seen anything like that on the Endless Glacier. But I've heard stories…"
"What kind of stories?" asked Lidda. She wondered if there might be some connection to Burrowling and Endra.
"I've heard that many creatures native to this plane have equivalents, like them in most ways but wrought of solid ice, living elsewhere."
" 'Elsewhere'?" Hennet asked. "You mean, as in other planes?"
"Cosmology is not my specialty," Sonja said. "Like all of you, I'm sure, I've heard of the elemental planes. There are planes of fire, water, air, and earth, each of them populated by elementals and other creatures of those elements. On the borders of those planes are other, smaller, and less-known regions where the elements mix. Perched between the planes of water and air is the quasi-elemental Plane of Ice."