Before the Battle

Click!

The flash went off, and a photograph slowly slid out of the top of the camera. He pinched it up and looked at it. The figure in the photo and the Penguin before him could not be called exactly the same—they were practically completely different. That left him a little puzzled. Penguin had not been frozen in ice. Around him crowded plump penguins, each holding a parcel in its beak, huddled together, each with a cute little pack on its back, while the Penguin in the center wore hiking clothes, as if he were choosing a place he had never been to for an adventure.

Ogden felt a chill seep into his fingertips. Fine frost was creeping upward along his nails. He stuffed the camera back into Penguin's arms, pinched the photo and thought for a moment, then tucked it into his pocket and turned toward the ice sealing off the forest.

Time passed second by second. He used every trick he had to attack the ice blocking his way, but that enormous Ice Wall, like the silent Penguin, did not budge in the slightest. At last, when his arms had gone weak and sore from swinging his wand, he fell silent, sat down on the ground, and leaned against the Ice Wall without a word.

Almost all the trees in the forest had fallen, but the ice sculptures, no fewer than the trees had been, filled their absence. He slammed his fist hard into the ice. Scalding blood ran down from his knuckles, then quickly turned cold. Ogden no longer even had the strength to curse. To this moment, he still did not know what battle he was supposed to take part in next, but such a vast number of elites had fallen at the very first hurdle.