Today’s hunt was going to range over the expanse of gullies and spinney-crowned hummocks that stretched back from the crater floor. The mounted Silfen had split into two groups. The first was making their way along the range of crags that plunged out across the crater, heading for the tip. While the second were cantering around the rim away from them. Those on foot were splitting into small parties, and fanning out through the spinneys and boulder fields.

Ozzie watched with considerable interest as individual riders dropped away from the group moving along the base of the crags, to stand a lonely sentry duty just above the uneven shoreline. After forty minutes, the last rider reached the apex and halted. Facing him, a mile away on the crater rim, the other group was spaced out in a corresponding formation.

Somewhere a horn was sounded, its clear note ringing through the frigid air.

“Cover your eyes,” Sara shouted in warning.

Ozzie and Orion exchanged a look. No one had mentioned this before. Ozzie quickly stepped in front of the sledge’s windscreen. When he glanced back at the crater, he zoomed in on the farthermost rider out at the end of the crags. The Silfen was perched on his mount, arm back in a classic spear-thrower position. Ozzie just had time to order his retinal insert filters on-line. The Silfen threw his spear. Even on full zoom, Ozzie was hard pushed to see the silver splinter as it sliced through the air at an impossible speed. When he checked, he could see the Silfen on the crater rim opposite had thrown his spear as well.

“What—”

At the top of their arcs, the spears ignited, stretching out to became lightning bolts. Incandescent white light flashed across the crater, casting the waiting Silfen riders into stark relief. Red sunlight was momentarily banished in the silent starburst splendor.

The twin ribbons of energy dived down into the lake of ice granules. Two blue-white circles of phosphorescence erupted where they vanished below the surface, expanding until they were hundreds of yards across, then slowly dying away.

“What was that?” Orion cried.

“I don’t know,” Ozzie replied truthfully. He was mildly surprised that the surface of ice granules hadn’t shot up like a depth charge explosion, but it remained perfectly calm. A plangent boom rolled in across the landscape, reverberating off the crags and hummocks.

The second mounted Silfen on each wing stood up in their saddles, and flung their spears. White light scorched down again. It wasn’t until the fourth set of spears had been launched that Ozzie saw movement out in the crater. A low, smooth arrowhead wave rose up between the twin pools of light and the shoreline, surging along for almost fifty yards before sinking down again.

A chorus of joyful chanting rose from the Silfen waiting for the beasts to be driven ashore, their cadence mingling with the thunderclap of the fourth set of spears.

“It’s working,” Ozzie mumbled inside his balaclava.

More bow waves were visible out in the crater now, all of them heading in toward the rim as the terrifying spears of light continued to fall behind: goading. The two closest to the shore were permanent, rushing forward ever-faster. Ozzie held his breath, eager to see an icewhale at long last.

The first one burst out of the ice granules a hundred yards from the shoreline; a huge gray shaggy mountain of fur sliding up into the air with the ease and grace of a dolphin sporting at sea. It was like a polar bear grown to dinosaur size, but with a row of arm-length tusks curving out wickedly from each side of its muzzle. The legs, of which there was a whole series running along its underbelly, were more like fur-clad fins.

“It’s huge!” Orion squeaked.

“Yeah, man, pretty damn big.”

The icewhale surged back into the ice granules, splashing up great gouts of the dry powder. Spears detonated into pure light behind it, converting the billowing cloud of particles into a seething mass of whirling rainbows. Its head rocked about in fury at this deliberate provocation, but it kept up its dash for the crater rim. Four more waves were close behind it.

Individual Silfen on foot were racing forward, their smaller black spears held above their heads. They had shed their big heavy coats to sprint toward their prey, dark motes skipping grimly over the bleak land. Overhead, the sky careered haplessly from red to white, spinning shadows around and around with giddy discord as the volley of twinned lightning bolts seared their way along steep curves. Ozzie had seen old documentary videos of soldiers storming ashore in wartime, and the charge of the Silfen was almost identical to that. A breathtaking insanity that made him want to scream encouragement.

The first icewhale reached the rim, and just kept on going at the same speed. Ozzie couldn’t believe anything that huge could move so fast. Its head was still scything from side to side, tusks snapping in berserk rage. Silfen fanned out around it. Several spears were thrown. These didn’t burst into a monochromatic blaze, but held true. They had little effect when they struck the flanks of the icewhale, its matted fur was so thick that most hit and rebounded to clatter on the ground. Those that did manage to stick their tips into whatever flesh was underneath didn’t penetrate far. They simply enraged the creature further. Its body bucked and twisted, contorting to allow its legs to scrabble at the slim poles like a dog scratching at fleas. Those Silfen who had thrown their spears started to retreat; several of them were pulling their bows around ready to shoot arrows. Ozzie had seen no sign of eyes anywhere amid the icewhale’s fur, but it seemed to know where its tormentors were. It lunged forward, giant muzzle snapping. Three tusks sliced straight through a Silfen. Jets of ebony blood squirted from the killer punctures. Then the muzzle sprang open again, ripping the body apart. Legs spun off one way, while the torso flopped to the ground. The icewhale thundered over it, and charged at another Silfen who was falling backward even as he tried to notch an arrow.

Orion screamed in horror.

“It’s all right,” Ozzie shouted. He hugged the boy, turning him away from the carnage. “I promise you he’s all right. They don’t die. Do you understand? The Silfen don’t die. They have an afterlife, a real heaven.”

The boy was shaking violently inside his embrace. “It ate him!” he wailed. “It ate him!”

“No it didn’t. It can’t. They’re too hot. It would burn its mouth away if it tried to do that.”

“But he’s dead.”

“No! I told you. The Silfen go to their own heaven. I’m not bullshitting you, man. That’s the way they are.”

Orion clung to him, his head pressed hard against Ozzie’s chest. “Will the monsters come for us? Please, Ozzie, I don’t want to die. I won’t go to heaven, I know I won’t.”

“Hey,” Ozzie squeezed reassuringly. “Yes you would. It’s me that’s headed down into the heat. Why do you think I keep having to get rejuvenated? The big bad dude with the pitchfork and an attitude is all that’s waiting for me.”

There was no answer; no smart or sarcastic comeback. Ozzie hugged the boy again, and took a quick look down at the hunt. The last of the aggressive spears from the riders had been flung, leaving the red sun victorious in the battle to light the sky. There were four icewhales on the land now, one of them even bigger than the first to emerge. Each of them was encircled by fast-moving Silfen on foot; spears and arrows were fired inward, black flecks shimmering through the air. Most still bounced off the tough lank fur, though the numbers sticking were increasing. Over a dozen Silfen were dead already, torn apart or mashed into the unyielding ground. Blood ran thick from their ruined bodies, steaming feverishly and boiling the snow before the pools and runnels started to freeze.