Rebel Ice Read Free Page A

apprentice moved away. "I vow, Skjæera, that
    woman would have you staked before the season is out." A large hand helped me to my feet. "Do not give me reason to permit it."
    "It will be as you say, Skrie." I breathed in deeply, willing the cold to ease the pain. "Over there seems a likely spot. Go and search it." Daneeb nodded toward a chunk of the fuselage far from Galla. "Work quickly. The salvagers become impatient."
    I waded through piles of useless components and grid housings before I reached the fuselage, and put my lever bars to work on an intact compartment.
    You might have saved him.
    The remarkably undamaged alloy refused to give, apparently once a door panel that had been secured.
    Staked before the season is out.
    I wedged the tip of one bar into a seam and pulled back with all my weight. The physical work was difficult for me most of the time, perhaps because my hands had been trained to repair, not to destroy.
    Do not give me reason to permit it.
    The panel slid open, and something fell out. An arm, glistening wet and red, horribly broken and yet still attached to a body. I stepped back, astonished not by the limb, but by the fact it was still moving .
    I moved in to have a closer look. "Mag D? vena."
    The ensleg was small, slight, and apparently Iisleg. It wore offworlder garments, so I assumed it to be human, like the ancestors of the Iisleg, whom the Toskald had abducted and brought here to Akkabarr centuries ago. Impact had mangled its puny body, judging by the broken bones and torn flesh showing through jagged rents in its garment. Blood masked its face, and for a moment, I thought someone had already claimed worgald from this one. But no, more red blood still pumped from the wounds, and gushed from a deep crater in its skull. I drew in my breath when I saw the gray-and-pink brain showing plainly through silver-sheened dark hair. Odd, broken lengths of chain encircled its wrists and lower limbs. They did not rattle, as the blood on the alloy links had frozen them together.
    And despite all of this, the shattered arm still moved, the broken hand still reached. A miracle . I found myself unconsciously reaching down to cover the hand with my mitt.
    Enafa appeared at my side. "Skjæera, it lives!"
    Her voice jerked me back to reality, and I snatched my hand away in revulsion. What was I thinking, trying to touch it? "Not for long."
    We would have to wait for it to die.
    But my young apprentice was already kneeling beside the ensleg, shouting, "Skrie! Here! Over here!" She looked up at me. "Skjæera, can you heal it?"
    I hesitated, eyeing the terrible head wound, knowing what I might have done for it had I my instruments
    Daneeb hurried over. "What now?" She halted, and stared. "D? vena yepa, it cannot be."
    I turned to Enafa, who was touching the ensleg, and took in a swift breath. "Skrie, no one has yet seen this." "I will tell them!" My apprentice jumped to her feet and ran for the wind skimmers, leaping over debris. Daneeb and I immediately took off after her, trying to stop her. But Enafa was young, and swifter than
    both of us, and threw herself down before the chief gjenvin's hovering skimmer.
    I was terrified—Enafa had not listened to me when I had told her that skela are forbidden to speak to the gjenvin unless spoken to—and ran faster. She was already pleading with the chief when I sank to my knees in the snow beside her. "You see?" She held out her bare hands for the chief to see the frozen crystals of ensleg blood glittering
    on them. "It lives." "You put hands on it?" She nodded eagerly, and I closed my eyes briefly. The chief turned to Daneeb. "You are head-woman?" "Yes, Kheder." She knelt beside me. "Forgive this transgression. The fault is mine." The chief, an older male with much experience on the ice, nodded. "I trust you to see God's work is
    done." He tossed a pistol to her, which she caught neatly. "Now take your filth out of my eyes."
    Enafa opened her mouth, foolishly trying to