The Messenger it-1

by Douglas Niles

  “Everyone to the Hiding Hole!” declared Inga Bayguard. “Gather your precious things.”

  “I will stay here to fight alongside the men!” her daughter declared in a sudden burst of emotion.

  “You will lead this tribe to the Hiding Hole,” Inga replied in a clipped tone that somehow halted any attempt Moreen might have made at an argument. “Bruni, you must carry Grandfather Oilfish. You bigger children help with the youngsters-start out now, and your mothers will be right behind. Now hurry, all of you!”

  The chieftain’s daughter hastened into the hut. She looked at the huge black bearskin on the wall and for a moment felt a pang as she remembered Wallran Bayguard’s legacy. She should take it-the pelt was a rare treasure in this land where all other bears were white. Even more, it was symbolic of her family’s place, as chieftains of all the Arktos in their many coastal villages.

  Nonetheless it was more than she could carry alone, and there was no time for such a burden. Picking up three of her harpoons, she also grabbed a heavy woolen cloak and a large skin of water. By the time she emerged the other women were gathering in the village square. Little Mouse was directing a file of several dozen children who were already making their way up the winding hillside path, some suppressing frightened sobs, others casting longing looks toward their homes.

  “Let’s go,” Moreen said, coming to her mother’s side.

  “I said you will lead them,” Inga replied. “I will follow when I know that you are safe and the men have seen the beacon. Until then, I will stoke the fire.” Her mother indicated the signal pyre, and Moreen saw that the initial fuel had already been reduced to crumbling coals. “Now make haste-and Chislev be with you!”

  Giving her mother a quick hug, Moreen gathered the rest of the women and the elders. She saw that Tildey had armed herself with a bow and arrows, while Bruni carried a stout stick.

  “What about Grandfather Oilfish?” asked Inga. That elder, his legs crippled years earlier, would be unable to walk on his own.

  “He refused to come-he has his harpoon and sits inside his doorway.”

  Inga blinked, then nodded. “Very well-now, hurry!”

  Several other women had armed themselves with harpoons, but for the most part the group consisted of frightened, white-haired grandfathers and grandmothers wrapped in woolen shawls and wide-eyed hearthwives who bit their lips and, for their children’s sakes, made brave efforts not to cry.

  They started out of the village, moving as quickly as they could, many of the women helping the elders. Moreen cast one glance back to the sea, despairing as she saw no sign yet of the kayaks returning to the bay. Inga was tossing more wood onto the fire, and she dumped the contents of an oil lamp into the rekindled blaze. Quickly she retreated as a black, smoky cloud once more erupted into the sky.

  It seemed to take forever to climb the hill, though in reality the tribespeople ascended the twisting path in just a few minutes. Moreen and Bruni brought up the rear, watching the last of their village-mates slip through the narrow crack in the rocky cliff to enter the deep, dry cave.

  The shelter was perfectly concealed, for the irregular surface of the precipice curled around itself here, so that the cave mouth was not even visible to one who peered straight at the hillside. Still, as she glanced down Moreen was dismayed to see the trampled brush and dusty tracks leading up the hill.

  “Here, help me sweep this away,” she declared. Pulling up a brittle willow bush she moved partway down the path and started brushing away the footprints. Bruni followed, dropped tufts of greenery onto the trail until it looked no different from the rest of the hillside.

  “There are the hunters,” Moreen said, as she saw that the kayaks had come around the point and reentered the bay. The men were paddling with crisp, efficient strokes, and the little boats fairly skipped over the gentle swell, racing like gliding birds toward the shore.

  “The great boat, close behind!” Bruni exclaimed.

  Her observation was unnecessary as the chieftain’s daughter, too, saw the immense vessel glide into view. It seemed to move impossibly fast for a craft of such size, for it churned around the point and surged toward the shore, closing the distance on the nimble kayaks, looming over the smaller boats like a mountain over mere huts.

  “Let’s get out of sight”

  The big woman knelt and Moreen shrank beside her, dropping behind the cover of several boulders. She looked back quickly, saw that the mouth of the cave was still. None of the other villagers were showing themselves.

  The first kayaks reached the shore. She could spot the men scrambling out of their little boats, turning to help their fellows onto shore. The great ogre vessel loomed close behind, churning toward the beach. Golden rails gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight, and the burnished image of a great, tusked head loomed awkwardly above the bow. The deck was crowded, teeming with figures bearing tall, golden-tipped spears.

  A spot of color flashed along the graveled beach and the women saw Inga Bayguard running toward the men, her dyed cloak trailing from her shoulders. She was carrying Redfist’s bear spear, his mightiest weapon, as with a flurry of powerful strokes the chieftain pushed his red-striped kayak right up to his wife.

  The big rowing ship churned right through some of the kayaks that hadn’t reached shore, breaking a few of the little boats like child’s toys crushed under heavy booted steps. Arktos hunters boldly hurled their harpoons at the hulking figures lining the gunwale of the great vessel. Moreen couldn’t see if any of these casts scored hits, but she groaned as she saw big spears fly outward from the ogre ranks, easily piercing several hunters and some kayaks. A few of the boats sank, carrying their men into the chill depths.

  Another overturned near shore, and a hunter flailed in the water, trying to crawl out of his leaking boat. Moreen saw that he was lanced through with a huge spear, bleeding so much that the wave breaking around him foamed into a crimson crest. Finally the little vessel rolled over, nudging gently into the shallows, the hunter obviously too weak to right his craft. The young woman felt a rush of guilt, oddly shamed that she couldn’t recognize which of her village-mates was dying before her eyes.

  The grinding of the rowing ship hitting shallow water was audible even up on the hillside. Surf broke to either side of the big hull. Two broad ramps dropped downward, one to each side of the bow, and big raiders lumbered down the platforms to splash into the knee-deep water.

  The Arktos hunters met them on both sides of the vessel, casting harpoons, slashing in with fishing knives, paddles, anything that could serve as a weapon. One ogre bore a huge axe, and he swung it into a human, dropping the man with a wound so deep that Moreen could see the spray of blood from her lofty vantage. The raiders were monstrous, looming a foot or two over their victims. Wearing armored breastplates, heavy boots, and thick gauntlets, they seemed to merely brush aside any of the villagers’ attempts at resistance.

  Another man fell back, lying in the shallow water with a huge spear sticking in his midriff. Here again, and now in many other places too, the frothing surf was tinged red. An ogre howled as a harpoon struck him in the shoulder, penetrating deep into gristly flesh-but even before the brute plucked the weapon from the wound his attacker was beaten down by a pack of other ogres who surrounded him. The Arktos were outnumbered and losing badly.

  “Where is my father?” whispered Moreen, as the melee spread from the shallows onto the flat beach. Here and there men established pockets of resistance, while the ogres spread out and moved in slowly.

  “There,” Bruni said grimly, pointing a finger.

  Moreen gasped, seeing Redfist wield his spear against a huge ogre with Inga behind him. The chieftain made a curt gesture to his wife, and she finally turned and raced toward the village, sprinting past the first little domes. When the ogre attacked, Redfist thrust the tip of the spear up through the creature’s great belly. With a roar, the ogre reeled sideways, and the chieftain twisted his weapon and then pulled the gory tip out of the
wound. The stricken raider collapsed on the ground, kicking weakly, as Redfist turned and race in the same direction as his wife.

  “So many are dying,” Bruni said numbly. Moreen could only nod with heartsickness. Already the surf was thick with bodies, and ogres were advancing toward the village along the whole breadth of the beach. A few men still fought in the open, while others fell back among the skin-walled huts.

  A woman-it was Inga Bayguard-screamed as burly ogre paws grabbed her arms. She was thrown roughly to the ground as another one of the raiders rushed up, raising a large axe.

  “By Chislev-no!” cried Moreen. She tried to spring forward, racing to her mother’s aid, but Bruni threw her to the ground and held her there with firm pressure.

  “I have to go to her!” hissed the chieftain’s daughter.

  “No,” Bruni said, her tone gentle despite the power of her stout grip. “You cannot help her-and you would only give away the position of the Hiding Hole.”

  With a sob Moreen collapsed onto her stomach, still staring with horror. The ogre with the axe stumbled sideways, as Redfist raced up to jab his bloody spear into the monster’s hip. It collapsed with a roar and a feeble kick, but now the other ogre reached out and seized the haft of the chieftain’s spear. With a twist the brute yanked the weapon out of the man’s hands. Redfist drew his long, bone-bladed knife, but the ogre used the bloody spear like a club, bashing him in the head and sending him reeling to the ground.

  With casual contempt the great brute aimed the point of the spear downward, piercing Inga’s body and staking her to the ground. Her hands clasped at the blood-slick haft, but her struggles quickly ceased. In moments the chieftain’s wife lay still, a patch of crimson slowly staining the ground around her.

  Redfist, meanwhile, had been roughly hoisted to his feet. Seeing his wife’s death, he thrashed with fury, but the brute hoisted him as if he was a child, carrying him toward the rest of the raiders who were starting to gather in the midst of the village square.

  “That is their chief,” Bruni said, once more pointing.

  The gesture was unnecessary-the leader of the raiders was clearly identifiable even from this high vantage. He swaggered forward between a pair of his fellows, awaiting delivery of Redfist. A gold breastplate gleamed across his massive chest. His twin tusks gleamed with gilded wire, tightly wrapped around the ivory stubs. Bracelets and thigh guards, also made of gold and secured with golden chains, protected his limbs. Massive boots of black whaleskin rose past his knees, and at his waist he wore a sheath and a long sword. Moreen hadn’t seen this gaudy ruler in the thick of the battle, and she wondered contemptuously if he had been absent and was content to let others do his fighting for him.

  “Someday we will feed him those gold chains, one link at a time,” vowed Bruni, for the first time betraying bitter emotion in her voice.

  Numbly Moreen pledged agreement. She was tense and trembling, but her eyes were dry, and her thoughts seemed strangely calm.

  For the first time, she saw the dwarf.

  He swaggered out from behind the ogre leader, his chest thrust out, straw-colored beard bristling in a self-important display. A metal breastplate, gray instead of gold, protected his chest, and a cap of similar material fitted his head, though stiff, wiry hair jutted out from beneath the rim. With manifest arrogance he stalked up to Redfist Bayguard, staring into the struggling chieftain’s face, then walked past to turn toward the surrounding hillsides.

  “Hear me, people of Icereach!” the dwarf cried. “Come forward and pay homage to your prince! His name is Grimwar Bane, and he is the son of Grimtruth Bane, the King of Suderhold, who rules your lands from his citadel in Winterheim. Know that you are his subjects, and you owe your lives, your breath, your homes, to his beneficence!”

  Redfist twisted, tried to raise his clenched hand, but the two ogres now holding him merely exerted a little more pressure until he hung motionless in their arms.

  “We know you are up there, hiding … watching,” cried the dwarf. Even from this distance his eyes seemed unusually large to Moreen, but they were pale and empty. He brandished a dagger, a silver-hilted knife that he waved back and forth so that it sparkled in the spring sun.

  “It is important that you understand the power of Grimtruth Bane, as shown here by his son Grimwar. Do not defy him.”

  Abruptly the dwarf spun around. He stood several steps away from Redfist Bayguard, but he raised the knife as if he would have stabbed the man. He barked some word, a sound Moreen could not identify.

  Instantly the short blade of the knife flashed into a long, slender sword. The silver tip flicked across Redfist Bayguard’s cheek, scoring a shallow cut.

  The chieftain came alive with a scream, a sound of pain and anguish that would haunt Moreen’s memories for the rest of her life. Her father was a brave and stoic man-she had seen him pull a barbed harpoon right through the meaty part of his thigh after a tribesman’s miscast-and so his eerie shriek was a shock to the young woman.

  His struggles became so frantic that he somehow managed to pull away from the two ogres. With both hands pressed to his face, he stumbled weakly, bouncing off of the low stone wall surrounding the village square. The ogres watched in amusement, some of them laughing, as the stricken man staggered to his wife’s body. With a last strangled sob, the chieftain dropped to his knees, gasped once more, and then collapsed beside Inga’s lifeless form.

  Moreen didn’t have to watch any longer to know that her father, too, lay dead.

  2

  The Court of the Elven King

  Kerrick Fallabrine met Gloryian on one of the crystal bridges arching through the shadow of the Tower of the Stars. He saw her coming toward him and halted at the rail, turning his eyes toward the lofty spire, the pride of Silvanesti and this great capital, Silvanost.

  Gloryian, too, stopped at the rail, several paces away from him. For several moments the two stared with apparent interest at the lofty tower, as other elves, nobles and servants, made their way past. Finally the sound of receding footsteps told Kerrick that, for the moment, they were alone.

  “Can I see you tonight?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she replied in similar tones. “My brother has returned home from his duty on the Bloten frontier-there will be a feast for the early part of the evening, but I will make excuses, and slip away before midnight.”

  “The door on your balcony will be open?” The elf dared a sidelong glance and was rewarded by the dazzling beauty of his lover’s smile.

  “Naturally,” she replied. She gave him a pinch as she left her spot on the railing and glided past him to continue across the bridge.

  He waited a few more minutes, then wandered along in the opposite direction, lost inside a haze of anticipation, scarcely noticing the splendors of this city, the heart of the greatest civilization on all Krynn. Silvanost occupied a great island in the middle of the deep, wide Than-Thalas River. Much of that great current was visible from this lofty vantage, iridescent waters dotted with graceful watercraft. High barges, moving by oar power and often bearing the canopied pavilions of great nobles, made their way here and there, while slender galleys and deep-drafted sailing ships coursed through the main channel. Nimble fishing boats scuttled like waterbugs among the larger craft, while the heavy gunwales of the king’s war galleys were visible in the fortified harbor of House Royal.

  A casual glance might take the island for a fabulous grove of well-tended gardens. Many of the elven manors were towering spires of wood, rising from yards crowded with flowers, bright with blossoms, and sparkling with blue pools, crystalline fountains, trilling streams. The dominant structure was the Tower of Stars, of course, and Kerrick couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe as he stopped again and looked at the looming spire of crystal and steel. Several of the lower railings were gilded, but the shortage of gold during this era of the Istarian Kingpriests required that golden ornamentation be kept to a minimum, so steel had often been made to serve.

 
; The young elf started down the spiraling stairway connecting the great bridge to the courtyard of House Mariner, where he had his apartments. He passed a veranda where an elf was playing a lyre to a small audience of his fellows. On the road to his house he met more musicians, flautists dancing in step and playing merry tunes. With a tolerant smile he moved to the side, vaguely impatient. His mind was filled with anticipation-he would have a long bath and a steam, then a good rest while he awaited the hour of midnight.

  He could see much of the city from the gate to House Mariner-the bustling shipyard where a new galley took shape, the temple of E’li with its lofty towers of gold plate, the royal arboretum with acres of flowered gardens terraced across the side of a great hill-but, as it did so often, his mind drifted to gold.

  He was thinking about gold as he climbed the outer stairway to the balcony ledge outside of his quarters. Kerrick had precious little of the stuff-three coins tucked safely in hiding. A mere squire in a minor house could have no delusions of attaining any significant wealth. He reminded himself that he had everything he needed in the luxury of his appointment at court and in the attentions of a noble young maiden.

  Nevertheless, gold had cast a spell over Kerrick’s life. It was gold, or at least the lure of gold, that had claimed the life of his father, the famed admiral Dimorian Fallabrine … gold that had given his father great stature, gold that had led him to doom.

  Like his father Kerrick thought too much about gold.

  Later that night, at the corner where High Avenue met the waterfront, Kerrick turned for one last look at the harbor. The full moon shimmered in the water, white Lunitari rendered into clear, soft light. The ships at anchor made perfect reflections against a surface mirror-still in the windless night. For a moment Kerrick had a dizzying sensation-which way was up, which down?

  Cutter stood at anchor there amidst the other vessels, and he relished the beauty of the high prow, the swept gunwales, and the single mast jutting so proudly before the low cabin. She was not as big as the king’s warships, at anchor close to the mouth of the harbor, nor the mercantile galleys belonging to many of the elder houses. These gaudy showpieces displayed ornately carved bowsprits, engraved transoms, and even, to distinguish the highest ranking nobles, gilded rails and gunwales. The white moonlight sparkled into fiery orange here and there as it caught one of these surfaces of gold and reflected their light straight into Kerrick’s eyes.