White Fist

It started with a tiny spark in his left bicep, a minuscule bolt of lightning that shot up his arm along dormant nerves. Drew turned to the White Fist of Icegarden as the metal began to hum, its cold glow sending waves of strange heat over him. Another spark raced up his arm, this one reaching his shoulder. Did the gauntlet just twitch? Drew blinked, staring intently at the metal glove, his eyes bleary in the face of its glow. He could feel the heat in his fingers now, radiating up the limb and through his body. My fingers? What am I thinking? I don’t have any fingers!

His arm was alive now with shooting pains as long-lost digits came back to life. Drew watched with wonder as the gauntlet suddenly became animated, metal fingers twitching in time with his thoughts. He concentrated, willing them to close. The hand made a fist. Drew gasped. He looked up at Florimo and Miloqi. The old Tern’s jaw was slack and useless, while he could see tears of hope in the White Wolf’s eyes. Greta’s eyes fluttered open where she lay in the smith’s lap, and she nodded weakly as she witnessed the Wolflord’s joy.

Slowly, Drew rose to his feet, fearing the gauntlet might separate from his arm as he lifted it from the boulder. It didn’t. It remained in place, fixed firmly to bone and tendon, as weightless as Moonbrand and as real as his own flesh. Sword and White Fist continued to glow in the moonlight as the crowd of onlookers around the hill’s summit grew.

B6 P4 C6