Jen ran, soul force blazing in her legs, the world a blue-and-green blur. She glanced back over her shoulder in time to see Damien surrounded by a horde of ice trolls. She clenched her jaw and kept going. If her brother could handle a demon, a bunch of trolls wouldn’t bother him. Jen trusted him to survive and catch up.

If he didn’t make it she’d kill him.

“Captain!” Talon pointed at a patch of evergreens a little ways ahead.

Jen nodded, that would be a good place to rest and wait for Damien to catch up. They raced through the first few rows of spruce and skidded to a stop in a clearing in the center of the stand. It looked like someone had cut some trees and not that long ago if the fresh stumps were any indication. She’d never heard of ogres or trolls cutting timber; they lived in ice caves, at least according to everything she’d read.

“How long do we wait?” Edward asked.

Jen wanted to snarl, until my brother catches up, but that wouldn’t be practical with the dragon and its army on the march. “We’ll give him fifteen minutes. If Damien hasn’t caught up by then he isn’t going to.”

No one argued, which was just as well given her mood. She’d left her brother surrounded by trolls! What kind of sister did that?

It didn’t matter if he told her to go, or that he was the strongest sorcerer she’d ever seen, he was her brother and she’d left him on his own.

A branch snapped, jolting her out of her recriminations. That hadn’t taken long. Jen figured even Damien would have needed more time than that to deal with so many trolls. A nine-foot-tall, blue-skinned figure wearing a mask of ice carved to look like a dragon stepped into the clearing, an icy club held loosely in one hand. A moment later eight more stepped out of the trees. The silent figures pointed their clubs at Jen and her squad.

Jen drew on her soul force, enhancing her perception and preparing her body for battle. She raised her blade, eager to take her frustration out on ogre flesh.

She recognized the ogres standing before them. Numerous reports mentioned the masked berserkers that served as the Ice Queen’s elite troops. They were essentially the monstrous equivalent to warlords.

The first ogre blurred and attacked her in a rush. Ice club met soul-forged steel with a resounding crash. If she hadn’t sped up her awareness she wouldn’t have gotten the blade up in time.

All around her the crack of ice on steel filled the clearing. Jen pushed the ogre back half a step and counterattacked. It matched her blow for blow as they raced around the clearing fighting for an advantage.

She leapt at a spruce, twisted in midair so her boots hit the trunk, and pushed off with enough force that the tree cracked down the middle. At a blinding speed that even her father, the great Fredric the Lightning, would be hard pressed to match, Jen raced toward her opponent.

The masked ogre raised its club a fraction too late and her sword found its heart. She kicked the brute off her blade in the nick of time as a second berserker barreled toward her with murderous intent. Jen met it head on and the battle began again.

If any normal person entered the clearing all they would have seen were blurry images racing around in clouds of snow. To Jen’s soul-force-enhanced perception the battle unfolded in real time. This ogre didn’t have the same skill as the first and she soon had it on the defensive. She gashed its leg then cut a shallow groove in its chest.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted an ogre coming up at high speed behind Rhys. A second ogre had a death grip on his shield.

The elder warlord beat on the brute’s arm, trying to force it to let him go, but he’d never turn in time to block the incoming berserker.

Jen abandoned her wounded opponent and raced to cover Rhys’s back.

Her sword came up and the ogre’s club came down.

Steel met flesh at its wrist and the ogre’s club went flying, hand and all. Her back cut took its head half off.

A wet crunch made her spin around in time to see Rhys yank his mace out of the second ogre’s skull. At that moment Damien flew into the clearing.

Jen tried to shout a warning as her wounded opponent, his injuries all closed up, raced toward her brother, club cocked and ready.