Free The Ice Gate of Spyre by Allan Frewin Jones

keeping close together and helping one another out when the drifts got especially deep. Trundle could hear shouting from the platform, but he didn’t waste any time looking around. His sword was out and ready, and he was determined to get to the Ice Gate, no matter what. They were halfway to the ravine already; one last effort and they would be up there, despite the cold and the wet and the hard battle through deep snow.
    “Nothing can stop us now,” panted Esmeralda. “Crown of Ice, here we come!”
    Trundle felt a curious rumbling under his feet. Then he saw a long bulge lifting itself up in the snow, running quickly in their direction, as if something huge was tunneling toward them under the surface.
    With startling suddenness, the snow ahead of them erupted, knocking them all off their feet. A frightful spiky, horned head emerged on the end of a long, sinuous, white-pelted neck. Yellow eyes gleamed and wide red jaws opened. A cruel and icy voice boomed out.
    “Aha!” roared the giant snow snake. “Luncheon!”

“G et behind me!” Trundle yelled to the others as he advanced bravely on the towering monster with his sword at the ready. “Listen up, snake!” he hollered, his knees knocking as he stared up at the hideous creature. “I think you ought to know we’re on a special quest, and that we’ve got the Fates on our side. So maybe you’d like to think twice about trying to eat us!”
    “Thanks for the warning,” roared the gigantic snow snake. “But I think I’ll scarf you down anyway, if it’s all the same to you!”
    “Big mistake, snake!” hollered Esmeralda. “Go get him, Trundle!”
    “Poke him in the eye!” yelled Jack, swinging his fists.
    “Curse his cutlets!” shouted Ishmael. “Auctions shriek louder than birds!”
    Trundle glanced unhappily at them. His only real hope had been to bluff the snake into leaving them alone. The looming great thing must be fifty feet long! Lawks! Its teeth were longer than Trundle’s sword! He let out a yelp as the huge head of the monster came hurtling down toward him, jaws wide and eyes blazing.
    At the same moment, half a dozen more snow snakes appeared on the scene, their ferocious heads shooting up from the snowfields all around them, their roars making the air shiver. Any one of them was big enough to swallow the four friends whole. They were utterly surrounded and really rather doomed.

    Trundle winced as the snow snake’s head descended, its jaws gaping. He braced himself, holding the sword above his head in both hands. Closing his eyes, he offered a quick prayer to the Fates, wondering bleakly what life would be like inside the stomach of a gigantic snake.
    But then something quite extraordinary happened.
    Through the roaring of the snow snakes, he heard a series of high-pitched whoops and calls that seemed to be coming from farther down the mountain. And then, just a few seconds later, there were whizzing and thudding noises all around him, and he was suddenly surrounded by flying figures and yelling voices.
    He stared around in disbelief.
    It was the llama lamas coming to their rescue! Trundle had never seen anything like it! They came leaping and bounding through the snow like rubber balls, springing up to plant a hoof on a snow snake’s snout, then bouncing off, turning somersaults in the air, ready and eager to launch an attack on the next one.
    “Weeeyaaah!” yelled one llama, landing lightly on the head of the snow snake threatening Trundle. He crouched and raised one hoof above his head. “Bungi! Bungi!” the llama shrieked, bringing his hoof down between the snow snake’s eyes.
    The stricken snake toppled forward so abruptly that Trundle had to leap aside so as not to get squashed underneath.
    The llama jumped on high, performing a nifty head-over-heels in midair and coming down on one knee right in front of Trundle. He gave a dashing grin as he rose to his feet.
    “That was Crouching Tiger to Leaping Mantis,” he said, bowing