The First Book of Lankhmar

His breath was coming easily now, weariness departing from his body even as black depression filled his mind.
           Vlana slowly took her hands from her lips and swallowed twice. Then she said, her voice harsh, but clear, and not very loud, "A woman must always keep all ways open, can you understand that? Only by being ready to league with any man, and discard one for another as fortune shifts the plan, can she begin to counter men's great advantage. I chose Vellix over you because his experience was greater and because — believe this or not, as you will — I did not think a partner of mine would have much chance for long life and I wanted you to live. I did not help Vellix here at the roadblock because I thought then that he and I were doomed. The roadblock and from it the knowledge that there must be ambushers around it cowed me — though Vellix seemed not to think so, or to care. As for my screaming when I saw you, I did not recognize you. I thought you were Death himself."
           "Well, it appears I was," Fafhrd commented softly, looking around for a third time at the scattered corpses. He unlashed his skis. Then, after stamping his feet, he kneeled by Hringorl and jerked the dagger from his eye and wiped it on the dead man's furs.
           Vlana continued, "And I fear death even more than I detested Hringorl. Yes, I would eagerly flee with Hringorl, if it were away from death."
           "This time Hringorl was headed in the wrong direction," Fafhrd commented, hefting the dagger. It balanced well for thrusting or throwing.
           Vlana said, "Now of course I'm yours. Eagerly and happily — again believe it or not. If you'll have me. Perhaps you still think I tried to kill you."
           Fafhrd turned toward her and tossed the dagger. "Catch," he said. She caught.
           He laughed and said, "No, a showgirl who's also been a thief would be apt to be expert at knifethrowing. And I doubt that Hringorl was struck in his brains through his eye by accident. Are you still minded to have revenge on the Thieves' Guild?"
           "I am," she answered.
           Fafhrd said, "Women are horrible. I mean, quite as horrible as men. Oh, is there anyone in the wide world that has aught but ice water in his or her veins?"
           And he laughed again, more loudly, as if knowing there could be no answer to that question. Then he wiped his sword on Hringorl's furs, thrust it in his scabbard, and without looking at Vlana strode past her and the silent horses to the pile of roll bushes and began to cast their remainder aside. They were frozen to each other and he had to tug and twist to get them loose, putting more effort into it, fighting the bushes more than he recalled Vellix having to do.
           Vlana did not look at him, even as he passed. She was gazing straight up the slope with its sinuous ski track leading to the black tunnel-mouth of the Old Road. Her white gaze was not fixed on Harrax and Hrey, nor on the tunnel mouth. It went higher.
           There was a faint tinkling that never stopped.
           Then there was a crystal clatter and Fafhrd wrenched loose and hurled aside the last of the ice-weighted roll bushes.
           He looked down the road leading south. To civilization, whatever that was worth now.
           This road was a tunnel, too, between snow-shouldered pines.
           And it was filled, the moonlight showed, with a web of crystals that seemed to go on forever, strands of ice stretching from twig to twig and tough to bough, depth beyond icy depth.
           Fafhrd recalled his mother's words, There is a witchy cold that can follow you anywhere in Nehwon. Wherever ice once went, witchery can send it again. Your father now bitterly regrets...
           He thought of a great white spider, spinning its frigid way around this clearing.
           He saw Mor's face, beside Mara's, atop the precipice, the other side of the great leap.
           He wondered what was being chanted now in the Tent of the Women, and if Mara was chanting too. Somehow he thought not.
           Vlana cried out softly, "Women indeed are horrible. Look. Look. Look!"
           At that instant, Hringorl's horse gave a great whinny. There was the pound of hooves as he fled up the Old Road.
           An instant later, Vellix' horses reared and screamed.

       Fafhrd smote the neck of the nearest horse with the