Chapter Two

    Freya had always felt uneasy in the woods. Her twin Eoin loved playing games there, but Freya always felt strangely unwanted, as though the trees shied away from her, whispering secrets, and mostly she avoided that whole part of the valley.

    There was no avoiding it now, though. The jarring screeches of the moving ice faded a little once they ran in between the trees, but they didn't stop. The centre of the valley was full of the sound, a cacophony of tortured ice that sheared and grated against itself as it moved.

    They ran deep into the woods, brushing through the chest-high ferns that flickered out from the trees like green flames, jogging along familiar tracks and copses, until they reached the Hedgehogs' Ballroom. Eoin had often sneaked into the woods at night, and once he'd crept up to this clearing and seen a group of hedgehogs here, and he had sworn to Freya that they'd been dancing round the big rock in the middle. She never believed him, but from then on it had been known as the Hedgehogs' Ballroom, and the rock, which Eoin thought so comfortable to sit on that it might have been carved for him, had been called the throne rock. 

    Eoin stopped to take a breath, his right arm still wrapped around his baby sister Willow, who seemed to regard the whole experience with amused interest. In his left hand he held the cracked leather book his father had given him.

    Freya brushed Willow's hair out of her face. "Are you alright, sweetie?" she asked.

    Willow nodded mutely, and smiled.

    "Eoin, do you want me to take her?" she said, but Eoin shook his head.

    "You know she doesn't weigh anything, I'm fine," he said. "Freya, what's... I don't understand any of this. Why was Mum talking about powers?" He sat down on the throne rock.

    Freya frowned. "I don't know. I hoped you would. The only power I have is the power of speech. Let's have a look at that book." She bent down and took it from his hand.

    "Is it a map?" asked Eoin hopefully, but Freya didn't reply. She was leafing through the pages in disbelief. "Freya, what is it?" he asked.

    Freya held up the open book in front of his face. The pages were completely blank. "There's nothing in it," she frowned.

    Eoin shook his head. "Maybe at the beginning..." he started, but Freya interrupted.

    "It's empty," she said, flicking back to the beginning to show him that every single page was blank.

    "But Dad said the book would help," said Eoin faintly.

    Freya glanced around her at the unforgiving trees and shivered as she tossed the book back to him. "I don't like this place, Eoin. We can't stay here."

    Eoin open his mouth to reply but a loud shriek of ice stopped him. The sound from the valley had been slowly growing louder, almost imperceptibly, as they spoke. That doesn't make sense, thought Freya; if it's getting louder, that means...

    Then there was another sound, an irregular, crunching sound that at first they couldn't place.

    "Footsteps!" cried Freya suddenly. "Lots of them!"

    With a shock Eoin realised she was right - it was the sound of dozens of heavy feet crunching down the ferns as they marched through the forest. Coming towards them. Freya leant down and grabbed Eoin's wrist to pull him to his feet but he cried out in pain and snatched his arm away.

    "What? What is it?" she said.

    Eoin stared at his arm in confusion. A red hand-shaped mark was left on his wrist. "It burns," he said through gritted teeth. "Freya, your hands are hotter than ever."

    Over the screeching and the crunching there was a sudden crackling sound all around them. As they watched, the tips of the ferns turned white and froze.

    "The Ice!" cried Freya, reaching to grab Eoin again then abruptly stopping herself and beckoning instead. "Eoin, come on!"

    Eoin leapt up from the throne rock as the white ice raced in delicate patterns down the stems of the ferns, branching elegantly out along each frond until the plants hung heavy and defeated all round one side the Hedgehogs' Ballroom. He didn't have to think twice about which path to take, just pushed his way past where the ferns were still green and headed away from the sound, with Freya almost tripping over his heels.

    He'd taken less than twenty paces when he stopped. "The book!" he exclaimed. "Have you still got it?"

    Freya shook her head. "I gave it back to you in the Ballroom."

    Eoin scowled in frustration. "I haven't got it. We've got to go back for it," he said, but Freya shook her head.

    "There's nothing in the book," she said. "It's blank. Just leave it. Come on, Eoin."

    "Dad said it would help us," he said stubbornly. "Stay here with Willow." He dropped Willow gently to the ground and she stood there passively as Eoin darted back to the Hedgehogs' Ballroom.

    The walls of the Ballroom were now completely white. The sound of pounding feet was very loud, and if he'd stopped to think he never would have gone back in there, but Eoin just darted into the clearing, dashed over to the throne rock, and spotted the book which had fallen into the frozen wild grass at its side. He reached to grab it as something burst into the clearing. He lifted his head and barely had time to register it as it pounded across the clearing towards him. 

    It was huge, twice as big as Eoin. Two thick legs supported a barrel-shaped torso with a massive head shaped like a bull's; the whole beast was made out of dense white ice, refracting the pale daylight into a myriad blotches of light. It reminded Eoin of the minotaurs he had read about in books, but this one looked like it had half-melted and then refrozen, and its features were angular and badly formed. Its arms seemed to bend in slightly the wrong places and all the beast's joints screeched as it moved.

    Eoin grabbed the book and turned to run, but the iceotaur was surprisingly fast. It crossed the distance in three steps and clapped a massive claw around his upper arm. The claw instantly froze into a solid ring which Eoin strained against in vain. Behind his captor, he could see another iceotaur lumbering into the clearing, and then another appeared from the other side. 

    They all screeched as they moved, but the sound wasn't loud enough to drown out the scream from Freya as she dashed into the clearing. "Get off my brother!" she was yelling, and ran at the iceotaur holding Eoin's arm. She did the only thing she could think of, and went to grab hold of the massive arm, but as she tried to grasp it, it turned to water in her hands and the whole forearm broke away leaving little more than the ice ring around Eoin's arm.

    The iceotaur turned on her in anger, its left arm swinging round in a blow that would knock Freya into the trees. She held up her hands to defend herself and the iceotaur's arm liquified as it made contact with her, drenching her with water like a sudden spring shower. The armless iceotaur stared impotently at her out of two holes in its icy bull's head, and the other two beasts behind it stopped warily. 

    Eoin and Freya wasted no time but scrabbled out of the clearing. Willow was still standing calmly where they had left her and Eoin snatched her up without stopping, the book now clutched tightly in his other hand.

    "The Gasping Gorge," gasped Freya as she ran behind Eoin. "We've got to get out of the valley."

    "How did you do that?" called back Eoin, the ice ring still frozen tight around his arm. "How did you just... melt them like that?"

    "I have no idea," said Freya. "What's the quickest way to the Gorge?"

    "I was going to go round through the Hanging Pass," said Eoin. "It's much safer."

    "There's no time," said Freya. "We've got to get away from that... that Ice. It's coming after us."

    Eoin stopped running and looked at her for a heartbeat, as though he was going to argue. But he knew from long experience that there was no point arguing with Freya. Instead he nodded, thought for a moment, then turned and ran again, heading slightly off to the left, towards the Gasping Gorge.