The Messenger it-1

by Douglas Niles

  What manner of people are you?” Kerrick asked. “What is your tribe?”

  “We are the Arktos,” Bruni replied. She was leaning back, picking her teeth with a bone from one of the grouse Tildey had shot. After some muted discussion, the two had agreed to share their food with the prisoner, releasing one of his hands to allow him to eat.

  The elf had been unconscious for most of the day following his ill-fated escape attempt. He had managed to remove the ring, dropping it onto the ground and pushing enough pine needles over it to conceal it from view. He had only worn it for a short time, but even so the magic had left him drained, sapped of energy.

  Now food had restored some of his strength, and he knew his captors didn’t plan to kill him. He had shifted around enough to pick up the ring and slide it into his boot. Tildey remained suspicious and jumpy, her weapons near to hand, but Bruni seemed willing to talk and answer his questions, asking a few of her own.

  “You aren’t a Highlander or an ogre,” she observed bluntly. “Who are you, and where do you come from?”

  “I am a sailor, son of a sailor, and I come from Ansalon,” he answered. “That is a land to the north of here, across the sea.”

  “A sailor, but not a human sailor.” He was startled to see Moreen emerging from the woods. She stood with her hands upon her hips. “I’ve been thinking about it. You’re an elf, aren’t you?”

  Kerrick saw that Tildey was equally surprised by the chiefwoman’s return. The archer leaped to her feet and hugged Moreen, who seemed shorter and more wiry than he remembered. He noticed that her black hair was unkempt and that she gazed at him with a wry smile, as if he intensely amused her.

  “Of course I’m an elf,” he admitted easily, wondering why that was such a revelation to these people. “I imagine you’ve seen elves before, haven’t you?”

  “Never,” replied the chiefwoman bluntly. She turned to her fellow Arktos. “The tribe is here, on the outskirts of the grove. They marched all night to get here, but everyone made it.”

  “And the Highlanders?” asked Bruni.

  “I think we gave them the slip. It will take four or five days, I hope, before Strongwind Whalebone even learns that we’ve moved north. Then they’ll have to come up the coast, so that’s another day before they catch up with us. Still, I want us to move fast.” She looked at Kerrick again. “Now, get up, elf sailor, and come with me.”

  “Should we tie his hands?” Bruni asked, as she loosened the bond that had secured Kerrick to the tree for the past two days. He stretched, standing awkwardly, feeling with his foot the comforting presence of the ring in the bottom of his right boot.

  “I don’t think he’ll go far, not without his boat,” Moreen replied. Her words sent a twinge of fear through the elf.

  “What have you done with Cutter?” he demanded. “If you’ve damaged her, so help me Zivilyn, I’ll …” His words trailed off as he saw they were all staring at him.

  “Her?” Again Moreen gave him another look of wry amusement. “I didn’t know you and your ship were so attached. Is it usual for elves to treat ships as their wives?”

  Kerrick glowered at Moreen. “Cutter is a sailboat, not a ship-though perhaps to you barbarians they’re the same thing!”

  He was startled by the fury that suddenly darkened her features. The smile was gone, and somehow a knife had sprung into her hand. She trembled as she held the blade toward him, speaking in a low, brittle voice. “The last ship I saw was filled with killers, brutes. I have no reason to believe that your boat has brought anything different to our shores. Now, keep your mouth shut, if you want to keep your tongue.”

  The elf said nothing. He sensed that his words had wounded Bruni and Tildey, too. All three humans were in a dark mood as they roughly pushed him along the forest trail. Not long afterward they entered a small clearing, brightened by glimpses of the gray sea through the trees. Scores of people huddled under the cedars, watching him with wide-eyed curiosity. There were frail, white-haired elders clutching babes and toddlers, and several tough-looking women holding spears. A number of children watched him with unabashed interest, and one-a tall youth with a shock of dark hair hanging over his forehead-fingered his spear, as if he would cast the weapon at the slightest provocation.

  “Come this way,” Moreen said curtly, leading him through the band toward the shore.

  Kerrick quickly realized that, except for some frail elders, there were no men among the group. He remembered Moreen’s words, about a ship filled with killers. How long had these people dwelled here in ignorance, pathetically surviving in this icy and forgotten corner of Krynn? They hadn’t even recognized him as an elf-at least, not until Moreen had had several days to think it over.

  A few more steps brought them to the edge of the woods, where the chiefwoman halted beneath the cover of a dense cedar. He was relieved to see that Cutter bobbed at anchor where he had left her. For the first time in hours he thought of Coraltop Netfisher, wondering at the fact that there was still no sign of the kender.

  “You are going to ferry my tribe across the strait,” Moreen said. “On your she-boat. It may take several journeys, but you must land each group on the far side and come back for more.”

  Kerrick squinted across the water. He could make out the murky outline of a distant horizon, the shoreline obscured by fog. The wind was blowing from the north, and the surface of the open water had risen into steep, choppy swells. The mission would be challenging, especially since so much of it had to be done in the darkness, but it appealed to the seaman in him. At the same time, he realized that he had no choice.

  “I refuse,” he said.

  “What?” Moreen’s lips tightened in anger, her dark eyes flashing. “Do you want to be killed, right here, right now?”

  “No, I don’t,” he replied. “But you don’t want to kill me, either … not unless one of you knows how to raise a sail, how to steer through an ocean swell.”

  The chiefwoman’s face was white, and she was trembling with rage. He wondered if he had miscalculated. Moreen stomped away from him, then whirled back, her bone knife again in her hand. “Do you have a high tolerance for torture?” she demanded.

  “No-but I have even less tolerance for slavery. I am Kerrick Fallabrine of House Mariner, and I am my own master.” He braced himself, ready to parry a thrust of that knife, to show these barbarians that elves knew how to fight!

  He was utterly unprepared for her reaction. Her whole body slumped, as if her willpower had been drained. Her eyes, inflamed with rage a moment ago, now swam with despair. “Don’t you understand? We have to get across the strait!” she said.

  He was surprised by how quickly his own tenseness faded. “And I could take you in my boat,” he said. “But not at the point of a spear! And those are not ogre weapons!” he added as an afterthought, looking at Tildey sharply.

  Moreen scrutinized him. “You are a stranger, an enemy. It is only good sense for me to guard against treachery and betrayal.”

  “Where I come from, it is not necessarily assumed that a stranger is an enemy,” Kerrick replied gently.

  “Should I just let you go to your boat and trust you to come back for my tribe? Is that how your people treat strangers? I’m thinking you must come from a land of great fools!”

  The elf sighed. Good manners, apparently, were not a cultural trait of these people. He shook his head, forging on. “Perhaps you could hire me, arrange a barter for the service of my boat. In my land, such arrangements are made all the time.”

  “Indeed I offer you such a trade-your life, for the use of your ship.” Moreen’s chin was set, her eyes still hot.

  “I tell you, that is slavery, and I am no slave!”

  “What do your ship-people barter for?” This was Bruni, her broad brow furrowed.

  Kerrick shrugged. “Lots of things. Food, furs, wine, cut stone. Steel is a common currency and gold the most precious of all.” As if these savages would know anything of gold!

  �
��Gold!” Moreen’s eyes lit up, and she looked at Bruni. “Do you still have …”

  “Of course,” said the big woman with a grin.

  Her big pack was sitting on the ground, and Kerrick watched with interest as she untied the flap and reached inside. With some strain, she pulled out a small strongbox and set it on the ground. Moreen reached down, undid the clasp, and pushed open the lid.

  “Here is gold. Will you accept it in trade for carrying my tribe across the strait?”

  It was only with great effort that Kerrick kept his mouth from dropping open or held back from lunging at the mound of coins. There were more than a hundred of them there, thick and crudely stamped but undeniably pure gold. With a display of deliberation, he knelt and picked up one of the gold pieces. Just to be certain, he put it into his mouth and tasted it, biting down, feeling the malleable metal.

  “Is that enough?” Moreen said worriedly. “We have some furs too, and I suppose we could spare some of our food, as well.”

  Finally the elf trusted himself enough to speak. “Oh, that’s … enough.” He could spend a hundred years hauling passengers up and down the Than-Thalas and never come close to seeing this much gold.

  “Yes,” he said firmly, standing and meeting Moreen’s eyes. “I will accept your offer and ferry your tribe in exchange for this gold.”

  “Very good,” she said, with obvious satisfaction. “Now, how did you get from the boat to shore?”

  “I swam,” Kerrick said.

  “That won’t work. We’ll have to pull it up onto the beach.”

  “That won’t work,” the elf replied. He explained about the keel. “She needs at least four feet of water to stay afloat.”

  “What about this rock,” the woman said, gesturing to a flat boulder jutting into a little cove off the bay. “The water is deep next to it, and we can step from the rock onto the boat.”

  “The stone might damage the hull. Can you have your people gathered many cedar boughs? Perhaps they can weave them into a bumper, to surround the edges of the rock. That just might work. I’ll swim out and bring in the boat, and we can try.”

  Moreen snorted. “What if you just get aboard and sail away?”

  The elf considered the fortune in gold that was sure to keep him here, but he didn’t want to let her know how much he valued her barter. Instead, he shrugged. “What do you want to do? Swim out there with me?”

  She thought about that, as the icy wind bit through their cloaks and a spray of precipitation-snowflakes, now-whisked past. Finally, she nodded. “Yes. I will.”

  “Huh? Suit yourself.” That surprised him, but he shucked his cloak, shirt, boots, and leggings. Moreen watched hesitantly as he walked out in the water, naked, to the flat rock she had chosen for a dock. He felt every snowflake strike his skin, each gust of chilly wind, but he suppressed his misgivings.

  “Come along whenever you’re ready,” he shouted over his shoulder, and leaned forward to dive.

  “Wait!” she cried, but he was already gone, plunging cleanly into the choppy water, gasping as the icy brine coursed over his body. With strong, churning strokes he began swimming to Cutter, and once there seized the ladder at the transom and quickly pulled himself up and over the rail. Shivering, with his teeth chattering uncontrollably, he pulled open the hatch and grabbed the first woolen blanket he could find. He came back out, turned, and waved to Moreen, who still stood, fully dressed, hesitant, on the flat rock.

  Only then did he think to himself: Where is Coraltop Netfisher? The cabin was unoccupied. Nor was the kender in the cockpit or anywhere else on deck.

  “Bring the boat here!” came the shout from shore, and he saw Moreen glaring at him, her hands on her hips.

  He waved again and checked the wind, which was blowing out to sea, and the tide, which was almost at its high point. He took only enough time to slip on dry clothes before hoisting the anchor. Using his single, long oar, he stood in the cockpit and laboriously propelled the boat toward the makeshift dock.

  The Arktos, meanwhile, were gathering boughs as he had asked, and by the time he had guided the sailboat to the rock, it had been circled by a thick bumper of pines.

  Moreen and Bruni assisted a group of hesitant elders and overeager children to scramble over the gunwales. He sent as many of them into the cabin as would fit, then posted some of the more able-bodied around the deck. In all, he was surprised to find that he was able to get some twenty people aboard. Tildey, who still had Kerrick’s bow and arrows-grudgingly pronouncing his weapons far superior to her own-posted herself atop the cabin, where she had a clear shot in any direction. Including at Kerrick, the elf realized. Moreen announced she would linger behind with the rest of the tribe.

  “Where do you want the passengers landed?” asked Kerrick, making the last, hurried preparations before debarking.

  “There is a ruined citadel high on a mountainside above the water. If you can’t see the place itself, it might be marked by a permanent cloud-hot springs supposedly warm it, even through the winter. If that is the place I hope it is, there will be some kind of sheltered cove at the foot of the mountain.”

  “Okay, I’ll look for a site around there,” Kerrick said. “But you should know there aren’t a lot of good anchorages along this coast.”

  “Do the best you can. The tribe will stay together on the shore until all of us are over there.”

  “It’s going to take me all night to make that crossing, and there’s no telling how hard it will be to find a place to land your people. As short as these days are, it will probably be pitch dark by the time I get back,” the elf continued. “If the wind is up, I’ll have to wait offshore until first light. If you can build a small fire here, one that’s visible out to sea, I might be able to make it at night. It will depend on the weather, of course.”

  “Of course,” Moreen echoed. He could tell as she gazed at the sail that she was just beginning to comprehend how Cutter was powered across the water.

  “The payment,” he reminded her, as they made ready to push off. “It would be customary to give me a portion now and the rest once the job is completed.”

  “It’s all there,” Bruni, who was going to wait with Moreen, said. She pointed at her fur-bundled pack resting next to the cabin.

  “Let’s get it below deck,” Kerrick said, trying to sound calm as he imagined a wave carrying that treasure overboard. As they drifted away from shore the strongbox was stowed in the cabin, and the tide turned. With wind and water propelling them, they quickly moved away from the little cove.

  The elf, for his part, was too harried to entertain immediate thoughts of treachery. After he raised the sail the Cutter took off like a living thing, racing out of the bay. Immediately, the north wind sweeping across the full breadth of the Courrain Ocean smashed into them from starboard. The boat heeled sharply, drawing screams from some of the Arktos, but Kerrick had anticipated the gust and posted a half dozen of them on the high gunwale. Their weight was enough to keep the boat from capsizing.

  Night descended, and Kerrick sailed with all possible speed, heading directly toward the far shore. In the stormy straight he sailed by astrolabe and dead reckoning, holding tight to the tiller during the length of the wind-lashed night. A few of his passengers nodded off at the rail or on the deck, but most of the Arktos clung with wide-eyed fright to their handholds. The elf had no doubts but that they were praying to their wild goddess.

  Whether it was Chislev Wilder or Zivilyn Greentree or Kerrick’s own seamanship that carried them through the night, he couldn’t know, but as dawn grayed the storm-tossed sea he was gratified to hear the sounds of crashing surf warning him of the proximity of rocks and reefs. Further daylight revealed a stony bank rising high before them. Unfortunately, the land plunged straight downward into the sea, and he saw no sign of any potential landing spot.

  “Go that way,” Tildey suggested, pointing south. The elf saw the heights there obscured by a clinging cloud and concurred. His passengers were
miserable, cold and, seasick, but they held on uncomplainingly as the daylight swelled. For three hours he raced along that forbidding shore, riding south with the wind, constantly seeking some sign of a potential landfall.

  “Look-beyond that pillar of rock, there,” Tildey suddenly said, standing on the cabin roof and pointing. “I think there might be a cove.”

  Kerrick steered toward shore, noting a pillar that rose like a signpost at the mouth of a sheltered inlet. Nearby rose a rugged cliff, and other elevations rose steeply to three sides, creating a sort of deep bowl that opened, through a narrow gap, to the sea.

  “Let’s land there,” Tildey declared, “and quickly.”

  Fortunately this shallow cove was even better sheltered than Tall Cedar Bay, with a smooth fringe of sandy beach at the foot of the rugged precipices. They happily noted several caves right beyond the beach.

  The air was clammy here, different from the frigid open sea. Kerrick was heartened to see several small clumps of cedars in the hollows. A plume of vapor rose from the mouth of a large cave, quickly diffusing into a sky now almost fully dark.

  “See that steam?” Kerrick asked Tildey. “I bet there are hot springs in those caves, at least in one of them.”

  “That’ll be a fine shelter for the time being,” declared one old woman, who-because of the many necklaces and talismans she wore-Kerrick judged to be a shaman or priestess.

  No flat rock offered itself as a dock, so Kerrick glided Cutter as close to the beach as he could go. He was grateful for the calm water and the sandy bottom as, at last, he felt the keel slide against the shore. By letting the adults scramble overboard first, then passing the children into their arms, he was able to disgorge all of his passengers within minutes, watching them hastily wade from the chilly water onto the beach. Insisting upon going last was the frail old shaman, leaning on her staff in the waist deep water.

  “Get some wood together and build a fire!” Kerrick called. “It’ll take me at least a day to get back here with the next group, but if you can keep it bright, we’ll be able to land in the dark.”