Barelip Seacaster called out to the drummer, who picked up the pace. Grimwar felt the galley surge beneath his feet, and he thrilled at the power of the great ship, of a hundred and twenty slaves responding to a single command.
Darkness settled across Black Ice Bay, but the prince of ogres didn’t budge from his post. Instead, he watched the sparkling lights of his home, remembered the smells of scented oil, of roasting whale meat, and the day’s catch of fish. A slit of brightness appeared in the base of the mountain, where it merged with the dark water. The gap slowly widened as the Seagate, operated by hundreds of slaves turning great capstans, trundled open. His ship had been spotted, and the ogres made ready to welcome their prince and his crew. Grimwar thought of the slaves, the throng of captives crammed below the deck, of the victories that had marked the campaign along the Icereach coast.
He hoped his father would be pleased.
“You call these slaves?” King Grimtruth Bane snarled. His massive fists were planted on his hips as he stood next to his son on a landing above Winterheim’s great harbor. The massive chamber had been excavated in the base of the lofty mountain. The great stone slabs of the Seagate were still rumbling shut, though the galley had been docked for nearly an hour.
“Why, they’re scrawny as skeletons! It’s a wonder they could even row the galley back to Winterheim!”
Beside the king a fat nobleman, Quendip, laughed in sycophantic amusement, but Grimwar’s eyes were drawn past that obese ogre, to the more sympathetic gaze of the king’s young wife, Thraid Dimmarkull. She wore a woolen gown and her long hair was loosely bound. Like the king, she had been roused from bed to greet the prince and his ship. Indeed, the smile that had brightened her face when he stepped off of Goldwing had been the highlight of this homecoming.
Now the prince, slumping under his father’s criticism, took heart from the kindness he saw in the eyes of the ogress queen, who, though she was his stepmother, was several years younger than himself. He looked to Baldruk Dinmaker, saw that the dwarf was quietly standing behind the king. Naturally, he took no chances of falling under Grimtruth’s stern gaze and any subsequent recrimination.
Grimwar Bane sighed. His mistake, if it could be called that, was arriving home at midnight, after the king had quaffed his fiery warqat and then fallen asleep. Of course, he had been rousted when the prince’s galley returned, but he was inevitably ill tempered, bleary eyed, and thick tongued with drink.
“Of course they’re scrawny,” the prince retorted, indignance overcoming his better judgment. “They’ve been cooped up, some of them for three months! We didn’t have enough to feed them, but now they’ll fatten up again.” He wanted to add that only two of the slaves had died during the months of confinement, but he decided not to waste the words.
The king leaned close, his bloodshot eyes squinting as he peered at the humans huddling on the wharf, now starting to file up the ramp toward the lower level of the ogre city. “What about wenches?” whispered Grimtruth, his boozy voice carrying easily to his young wife’s ears. Thraid flushed and compressed her thick lips as she looked purposefully away.
Grimwar winced. Certainly Grimtruth would not be the first ogre bull to pleasure himself with a human female, but the king should at least have had the decency to discuss the matter at some other time, in some other company.
Grimwar found himself wanting to remind the young queen that the son was not the father. Instead, he met the king’s leering stare and noticed a spittle of drool now dripping from Grimtruth’s protruding lower lip. He abruptly vowed, privately but solemnly, that when he inherited the crown he would take every effort to avoid slobbering in public.
For now, he couldn’t avoid his father’s question.
“Yes, of course. We brought some wenches, some fair and big-boned. Of course, we mostly need slaves to work in the mines, to row the galleys, to open the harbor gates, and so forth. So most of the prizes are men.”
“Prizes?” The king snorted, but at least his thoughts had been distracted. He squinted at the queen, who was standing around in obvious embarrassment. “Why don’t you run off to bed, my lady. I will see to the debarking of the prisoners.”
“Of course, my lord,” said Thraid meekly. Whatever she was thinking, she kept her thoughts to herself and turned to depart without another look at her husband or his son.
Grimtruth went to the stone parapet at the edge of the balcony and looked down at the column of humans. His son joined the ogre king, and for the first time noticed exactly how bedraggled, how filthy and scrawny and unkempt, these pathetic people looked.
“These were the best of the lot?” Grimtruth asked.
“We raided a dozen villages. Yes, these were the finest specimens. The tusker told us of each place where the humans had settled, and we hunted them there. In the first battles we took many slaves, but halfway through the campaign the galley was filled to bursting with extra humans. After that, we just killed them.”
“All of them?”
Grimwar shrugged. “All of them that posed a threat. No doubt some women escaped and old ones too feeble to survive the winter. We left them no shelter, and polluted the wells and streams with the dead.”
“Good tactic, that,” Grimtruth acknowledged. “It would seem you have done well. I suppose some of this rabble will regain enough strength at least to till the fields in the Moongarden.” Even in his praise he sounded so restrained that the prince couldn’t help but feel insulted.
Once again the king’s eyes scanned the disembarking slaves, who shuffled numbly into the dark cavern of Winterheim’s Undercity. He pointed. “That one-bring her out of the line!”
Immediately an overseer hustled the woman forward. She cried and struggled, flailing with arms that were practically skeletal, then clasping the pathetic remnant of a cloak around her body.
King Grimtruth looked hard before he spat, the spittle catching on his tusk. He took no note of it. “Bah, who could enjoy one of those stick-females? I’m off to my chambers-you will report the details of the campaign in the morning.”
“Yes, Sire,” Grimwar Bane said. He watched his father lumber away and wondered how the king, who was married to the most alluring ogress the prince had ever seen, could even think about turning to the affections of a human woman.
He looked back at Goldwing and saw that young dock-workers were boarding the ship. She would be scrubbed and painted, new gold plated onto the rails, fresh caulking added where the timbers were showing signs of wear.
It occurred to him that he already he missed the sea, but even then he knew that what he really missed was the mastery of a place, where he heeded the command of no ogre, no being of any kind, especially his fool of a father, the king.
As he rode the icecart up toward the Royal Quarter of Winterheim, Grimwar reflected glumly on his own wife. It was ironic to think that the prince was married to a female older than his father’s wife by a full decade. Whereas Thraid Dimmarkull was a beautiful trophy, selected by a powerful king as his second wife, Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane had been matched to the crown prince because of her powerful family and the even mightier connection she had demonstrated to Gonnas the Strong, the god of all ogrekind.
His wife had not come to greet him at the dock, of course, though the king himself had been rousted from his slumber. No, Princess Stariz would doubtless be wallowing in deep prayer, seeking in the auguries of her god such messages as could be divined by the time and state of her husband’s return. These revelations would inevitably be revealed to him in painstaking detail, as soon as he reached his apartments.
Grimwar leaned back in his seat, a wave of melancholy breaking over him. The icecart rumbled through the steeply inclined tunnel, climbing steadily, its magical vibrations lulling the prince.
The lower part of the cart was a large block of ice, glowing softly from an ancient enchantment. Upon this frozen base rested a cart such as might have been found on a grand carriage. Two huge, bearskin seats faced each ot
her across a space large enough to hold a table or another pair of benches. Since the ride took the better part of an hour, it was not uncommon for a royal passenger to enjoy a repast during the climb or descent. The cart passed through a long tunnel that was fully encased, floors, walls and ceiling, in ice. The only illumination came from the magical ice that formed the base of the cart, an intentionally soft and pleasing glow.
Riding alone, Grimwar pulled the fur, a great bearskin, closer around him. His father and Thraid would have returned already, but since the prince had stayed to see the offloading of his own booty he had taken a different icecart back to the palace. Again Grimwar wondered-how could his father have such a treasure in his bed and yet fail to appreciate his good fortune?
Thraid Dimmarkull was not new to Winterheim. The daughter of a minor noble family, she had grown into ladyhood on the fringe of the circle familiar to the crown prince. Indeed Grimwar had noticed her, had seen that she received the right invitations, was placed near the royal table at banquets. He had spoken to her, and her smile had spoken in return. Certainly she sensed his attentions. Very quickly she had changed her style of dress to favor gaudy, low-cut gowns that favored her voluptuous figure. She made a startling contrast to the typical dour ogress clad in tentlike robes with the typical ogress face that seemed as likely to catch fire as to break into a smile.
Unfortunately, the king himself took notice of this vision of ogre femineity. Thraid had cheeks as round and red as apples, a wide mouth with full lips and dainty twin tusks, breasts that swelled with every movement. Her waist was slender, by ogre standards, and her legs long and muscular.
Grimwar had watched jealously as his father had made his desires known. During his decades on the throne, the king had grown tired of his first wife, Hananreit ber Fallscape. Abruptly he ordered her exiled to the remote island of Dracoheim. After a brief farewell to her only son, the galley had taken Hanareit away at the first crack of spring, three and a half years ago. There, so far as the prince knew, his mother still spent her days in the dark, sky-piercing castle on that fortress isle, pining for the luxurious life she had known in Winterheim.
Thraid had been summoned to the royal chambers barely a week after the Elder Queen’s departure. Shortly thereafter the Grimtruth had taken her as his Younger Queen. And as if to emphasize his ultimate power, the king at the same time had arranged for the daughter of the baron of Glacierheim to marry his son, the royal heir. Stariz had been brought to Winterheim, and father and son had each been joined to a mate in a double ceremony at the Neuwinter Rites.
The icecart’s rumbling gradually slowed. The narrow corridor opened into a vast chamber, illuminated with a hundred torches. Looming far above the prince saw the great gates of the palace. He was home.
He suddenly felt a terrible longing for Goldwing, and the sea.
“The auguries are positive, for now.” Stariz Ber Glacierheim reported, as a human slave woman removed Grimwar Bane’s boots and several others filled a great marble tub with steaming water. “You came back with many slaves, and you won great victories over the humans.”
“Yes, these are truths,” the prince said, trying to suppress his irritation. He could have told her these very facts! Yet he had long ago learned that it was best not to act impatient with his wife’s prognostications. Her words had a way of turning very ugly very fast if she sensed his devotion was wandering.
Stariz began to recite a remarkable litany of his landings, the tactics he used to capture each human village, numbering the captured and the dead. This recounting, Grimwar suspected, was intended to serve as a reminder that she could keep magical tabs on him wherever he roamed. Whether she had a spy in his crew or actually learned through the medium of her arcane powers, the prince did not know. Her information, as always, proved impressively accurate.
Stariz mentioned the name of an ogre who had been killed in the second raid, where more than a hundred humans had fought courageously. She droned on. Despite his good intentions to pay conspicuous heed to her words, the prince found his thoughts following their own path. He gazed curiously at his wife, studying her as if he was observing a picture, an image completely detached from the words she was saying.
Stariz had never been a beauty. Her body was stout and squarish, like her face, possessing all the grace of a craggy, ice-splintered boulder. Ropy strands of hair dangled past her shoulders, forever unkempt. Instead of the full lips that added such beauty to Thraid’s visage, Stariz’s appearance was dominated by an exceptionally large nose, and two prominent tusks that were nearly as big as a young male’s.
“And in the final battle you killed the men, but allowed the women to escape!” Stariz concluded. There was a hint of a questioning in her statement.
“Yes. It was no different than I had done before. What use are the wenches with no men? I suspect the lot of them will die over the winter.”
“I would not be so sure,” she said, with a tone of warning.
“What do you mean?”
“You remember my prophecy, the words I said to you in spring?”
“Yes,” Grimwar replied. “I must beware an elf. He will be a messenger, the messenger of the Bane Dynasty’s doom. My princess, Baldruk and I were forever interrogating prisoners, and always we asked about an elf. The humans of Icereach know nothing of any elves-they think they are creatures of myth!”
“Would that were true,” muttered Stariz.
“Aye, praise to Gonnas,” Grimwar agreed. He had been well schooled on the events of Krynn’s history over the past five thousand years, since the rise of humans and elves had driven his own people, once masters of the world, into remote enclaves such as Icereach.
“But here we are strong-the Kingdom of Suderhold endures, even when the rest of ogrekind is on the wane!”
“Yes, that is true … so far,” Stariz mildly agreed. The prince was surprised and a little unsettled to see a hint of real fear in his wife’s eyes.
“The auguries show great danger in the future,” she continued. “The warning about the elven messenger came to me again, writ large in words of fire. The god tells me that a human woman may be the agent of his might and our doom.”
“I’m tired,” Grimwar objected, suddenly fed up with all the complications of this homecoming. “Tell me the rest in the morning.” He rose, bypassing his waiting bath on the way to their cavelike sleeping chamber and its warm hearthfire.
“I will tell you now,” Stariz said sharply, rising to follow him. “Even so, I fear I may be too late.”
8
The Castaway
The horizon was gray, angry cloud, and gray, angry water. A gray, angry mist swirled through the air. Now, at least, the murk and tumult was proof of real weather, not the enchantment of elven sorcerers.
Cutter was bearing due east, parallel to the coast of Ansalon, which was somewhere out of sight a hundred miles to the north. The mainsail billowed overhead, angled sharply across the deck, filled with the canted forces of a northerly wind. The topsail and jib remained in the locker, at least for now.
Three days earlier, Kerrick had been borne by the Than-Thalas through the lofty Towers of El’i. He was blocked from returning to his homeland, but the moment he turned Cutter toward the east a strong tailwind had risen, and his boat fairly flew along. His aches and bruises were healing, and his broken rib too. He quickly fell into a comfortable routine with his boat. Now, surrounded by the freedom of the ocean, he had finally begun to feel a little bit like his old self again.
In this weather he wore his leather cloak, a good thing, too, as spray constantly blew over the gunwale. Throughout the long afternoon his course didn’t vary. He was navigating by compass since he could see little of the sun through the murk of clouds. Only the gradual darkening of his surroundings told him that evening approached. He decided to take in some sail for the night so that he could rest a little during the hours ahead.
He set the tiller in place and went forward. He hauled on the line, reducing
the mainsail. The boat still made good headway but no longer such rocketing speed.
Pitch darkness had descended when he finally noticed a break in the overcast. He was sitting on the bench atop the cabin, sipping a small, scalding hot cup of Istarian tea, when he saw a single star, bright with a hazy shade of green, sparkling just above the bow. He knew then that Zivilyn Greentree had emerged from the heavens to guide his voyage.
Kerrick felt a sense of connection with that iridescent blur of emerald. Zivilyn was a wandering planet, unfixed in the heavens, and to spot it now, directly on his bearing, could only be an omen. That star had been the patron god of his clan since the dawn of elvenkind. Most of the Silvanesti elves saved their highest allegiance for the great E’li Paladine, but the Fallabrines and many other elves of House Mariner traditionally made their devotions to Zivilyn Greentree. It was an odd choice, in a way, for a clan of sailors. As a wanderer, the star Zivilyn was of little use in navigation, and its sporadic pattern meant that it was often absent from view for years, even decades, at a time.
As the sky cleared, his eyes swept the rest of the constellations-the great Draco Paladine, the five-headed serpent of Takhisis, Gilean and his open book, and the rest. Only at sea could the stars appear so bright. They were like familiar landmarks on a highway, symbols that told a sailor his bearing and the number of hours until dawn.
Far to the south another bright speck of light caught his eye. This was tinted yellow, and he recognized Chislev Wilder, the symbol of a nature goddess cherished by many humans, especially barbarians. As he watched that star drifted visibly lower until it was finally obscured in the mists lying close to the horizon.
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