The Messenger it-1
Page 21
In another instant attacking creatures were everywhere, woofing and roaring and charging, spilling out of every door, each shadowy alcove. The chiefwoman saw tusked faces, mouth gaping. Thanoi spilled across the upper terrace, lumbering toward the top of the steps, big feet slapping the flagstones. A big bull came first, pausing above to wave his heavy spear and roar. Moreen threw her weapon, catching the brute in the belly. Nangrid shot her arrow at another, grazing the beast’s shoulder, giving it a momentary pause before it started down the stairs.
Thanoi charged into the courtyard, a dozen or more coming from each of the two towers flanking the yawning gate. Tildey shot, dropping one, while Bruni raised her voice in an ululating yell and charged right at another of the growling tuskers. Her stone-headed axe came down hard, crushing the monstrous skull. Recovering quickly, she spun around and bashed another walrus-man aside, while Tildey calmly fired more arrows into the mob.
Now the tuskers were charging down the stairs in a great mass, three score or more, perhaps a hundred of them. Moreen threw her second harpoon, then skipped out of the way as the tusker pierced by her cast tumbled and writhed down the stone steps. Nangrid shot again, holding her ground as the chiefwoman started downward.
“Come on!” Moreen cried, and Nangrid turned to run. Spears clattered around them, a volley cast by the tuskers who roared down the steps toward them. Abruptly the archer’s eyes grew wide and she fell forward. Moreen reached to catch her companion but Nangrid toppled right past her, the stout shaft of a tusker spear jutting cruelly from her back.
The thanoi were right on top of her now, and the chiefwoman stabbed and thrust with her last harpoon, unwilling to cast it away. The attackers halted for a moment, and she backed down, past Nangrid’s motionless body. Moreen reached out a hand, but the tribeswoman made no move. A swath of crimson blood spilled from her chest, fanning out and slicking the stairs in a gruesome waterfall.
Biting back a sob, the chiefwoman stabbed again, slicing open a tusker’s belly. She cried out in rage as the brute fell atop Nangrid’s body, but she had no choice but to keep backing down the steps. More of the monsters charged, starting to move past her on both sides. Another spear flew from below, piercing the thigh of a huge walrus-man, and Moreen sprang down the last few steps to join her comrades on the floor of the courtyard.
They fought their way toward the gates, a desperate knot of Arktos in the midst of a teeming mass of enraged thanoi. It was only Tildey’s alarm that gave them any chance of escape. If the band of humans had reached the top of the stairs before the attack, they would have been surrounded and overwhelmed, for by far the greatest number of walrus-men had been waiting on the upper terrace.
Bruni led the way through the smaller throng of tuskers in the courtyard, bashing her axe first to one side, then the other. The thanoi attacked fanatically, but many of them fell, skulls or faces or shoulders crushed by her powerful blows, and gradually the rest fell back in the face of her inexorable onslaught. Tildey launched the last of her arrows and slung the bow over her shoulder, hacking and stabbing with her long-bladed knife.
Another Arktos fell-Marin, Feathertail’s young mother-and she too was lost in the mass of pursuing thanoi. Moreen thrust the harpoon again and again, clattering against tusks, puncturing leathery skin. Somehow she held the throng at bay, aided by the spears of several comrades.
They were through the gates, those who still lived, and here for a moment the Arktos arrayed in a dense line, spears and harpoons bristling as a wall. Moreen dreaded a massed charge, knowing that the tuskers could quickly overwhelm them with a sudden, brutal rush.
It seemed, though, that the monsters were content to have driven them from the citadel. At least, they hesitated for precious moments, many clasping hands to bleeding wounds, growling and snapping at the humans. Here and there knots of walrus-men clustered around ragged bodies, and Moreen’s eyes blurred with the awareness that six or eight of her warriors had perished in this shockingly sudden, brutal battle.
Finally the surviving warrior women turned from the gate, moving down the path at a trot, eyes warily watching the citadel for signs of pursuit. Still the walrus-men held their ground, jeering and snorting, clattering their spears together, slapping their flat feet against the ground.
The sounds were mocking and cruel, and they rang in Moreen’s ears all the way down the twisting, mountain trail.
16
Rutes of Neuwinter
The wind howled across the vast expanse of the Snow Sea. The frigid blast of air came from the southernmost end of the world, and it roared through the deep mountain canyons. This part of Krynn had already lost the sun, and for weeks it had been freezing in a lightless, lifeless glacial winter storm.
Tornadoes preceded each phase of the storm, picking up snow, ice, pieces of monstrous debris and strewing them across the land.
A wall of ice blocked the northern advance of the storm. On one side rose the mountain called Winterheim. The storms could not defeat that steep, lofty slope. Beyond the mountain was the great, frozen dam, a barrier extending a hundred miles or more across the wasteland of southern Icereach.
The monstrous storm hesitated at the Ice Wall, reaching with frigid fingers over the top, sending snow and rock tumbling down the face of the dam before falling back. Growing ever more powerful, ever more angry, the Sturmfrost held back like a living, sentient beast, watching … and waiting.
“Are you certain that you are prepared for the Reciting of Ancestry?” Stariz asked Grimwar. The high priestess wore the black robe of her station, and held the obsidian mask before her as she scrutinized her husband.
The prince had the strange sensation that he was being studied by two powerful ogres. One he had married, with square-block face and protruding jaw. Beneath her was the image of Gonnas, carved in black stone, vacant eye-slits dark and menacing.
“Yes!” he declared. “How many times must I tell you that?”
“Until you have completed the ritual,” she growled back. “I truly wonder if you realize how important it is … how much of the future rests upon your shoulders. I was not here, in Winterheim, during the debacle of four years ago, but even in my father’s remote barony in Galcierheim, the displeasure of our god was respected and feared.”
“I understand,” he said, wishing that she would understand. Huffing in irritation, he pulled on his great bearskin cloak, buckling the golden clasps that held the garment around his bull neck and massive chest. He was tired of reminders, tired of all the preparation for the future that had filled his days since his return from the campaign. It was time to be done with it, done with it all!
“I do not mean to badger you, my husband,” Stariz said with sudden, surprising gentleness, still holding the mask as she came to sit beside him. They were alone in their royal apartments, their slaves having withdrawn to allow the couple some privacy. “In truth, my spells have been full of dire warnings. I fear for you, and for our kingdom. This is a winter’s night of grave portent. You must be alert, watchful for danger.” Her eyes narrowed, a look that penetrated to his core. “Or opportunity,” she concluded.
“Bah-Suderhold is in fine hands!” he snorted indignantly.
Even as he spoke, the words sounded hollow. When he thought about his father, he, too, felt dire concern for the future. How could the realm prosper, under a king who was only concerned with counting his gold, and punishing his slaves? It had been many years since King Grimtruth had embarked upon a campaign. The last time, the prince remembered, his father had returned home with a paltry dozen slaves, Highlanders taken when the ogres had come upon an unfortunate hunting party. Though the king might insist that his son recite the names of their ancestor, back for a hundred generations, Grimwar had little faith his father could perform the same trick. Indeed, for the past three years it had been Stariz, in her role as high priestess, who had performed that ritual.
His wife seemed to sense his unease, but she only glared at him. He hated that look, just
as he hated the attention, the privilege that was his father’s due. He hated the knowledge that, so long as Grimtruth reigned, Grimwar Bane would be a mere footnote in the continuing history of Icereach, and the Kingdom of Suderhold.
“My preparations are completed,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet. “I will take in the view from the King’s Promenade while we wait for the rites to begin.”
“But our prayers-” Stariz looked up in surprise as he rose.
“Speak to Gonnas for me,” Grimwar declared, feeling a little better as his wife bit down on her lower lip. She drew the black mask over her face, but he avoided looking back as he stalked through the door that was whisked open by a slave.
The King’s Promenade was a circular hall at the heart of the Royal Level of Winterheim. The central atrium of the mountain was open before him, the shadowy cavern plummeting thousands of feet. Far below, he could see the still waters of the harbor, reflecting the light of the magical ice panels. Goldwing, already refurbished from the summer campaign, gleamed beneath the atrium, gilded rails shimmering like metal fire, oiled decks smooth and perfect.
“It is a beautiful ship.”
He was startled and pleased when Thraid spoke from his side. She stepped up to the stone parapet and peered with him into the depths beneath the great city. “Despite what the king says, I think you did very well to bring back so many slaves … hundreds of them, was it not?”
“Three hundred and twenty-seven,” he replied with a proud smile.
“Did the humans fight hard?” She asked the question absently, as if thinking about something else.
He chuckled, reflecting on the mild skirmishes at the various Arktos villages. “Mostly not,” he allowed. “They seemed almost not to believe we were there.” He was about to go into detail when he realized that Thraid was looking at him with a peculiarly intense gaze.
“What?” he asked, feeling suddenly stupid and apprehensive.
She began to sob, quickly clapping a hand over her mouth. “It is no life-this fate of mine!” she said, crying softly. “He is a monster! And you choose to allow it!”
“I do not!” Grimwar protested in bewilderment. “He makes all the decisions. I have no power, but to obey his commands!”
“How … how could you give in to him about this?” Her voice was a rasping whisper, reaching his ears alone. “You knew how I felt-about you. How could you let your father …” Thraid shook her head and turned away, drawing a deep, ragged breath.
The prince grew increasingly confused. Couldn’t she understand? Surely she knew what it was like, to live a life determined by the whim of one’s father, a king who seemed incapable of thinking beyond his own immediate pleasure!
He glowered, feeling his face grow hot, then shivered with a sudden chill. Turning, he saw Stariz approaching, wearing her obsidian mask and looking as fearsome as Gonnas himself.
He grunted a farewell to Thraid, who glanced up through narrowed eyes to nod to the high priestess. Stariz returned the nod contemptuously, her small eyes glittering like beads through the narrow slits in the mask. She reached to take the prince’s arm, accepting her husband’s escort toward the great feast that was about to commence.
The Rites of Neuwinter combined somber religious ceremony with ribald feasting, a lavish banquet in a vast, warm chamber with the brutal onset of winter, a solemn commemoration of Suderhold’s dynastic history with blood sacrifice and the release of primeval power. The festivities traditionally began in the huge room known as the Hall of Blue Ice, a massive chamber carved from a huge portion of the mountain’s eastern shoulder and protected from the outer weather by a wall-sized window of frost, the deep azure color giving the hall its name.
The chamber was a massive, semicircular vault, with one side a series of tiers rising high into the mountain’s interior. The outer wall was the vast sheet of blue ice, now murky and obscure because of the lightless night yawning beyond. Just outside the window was the juncture where the massive Ice Wall met the flanks of Winterheim. The sweeping dam extended into the far distance, and, beyond that, the surging Snow Sea.
The entire population of Winterheim, ogres and human slaves alike, gathered in this massive chamber. The ogre masters were arrayed around the three lower tiers, seated at huge banquet tables, all facing the vast window of blue ice so that they could see the climax of the rite. They were ranked in order of status, the royal clan and fellow nobles on the first tier, the warriors and merchants on the second, commoners on the third. The temperature in the hall was cosy for now, but each ogre had brought plenty of furs and blankets, for they knew that when the window melted away, the full fury of winter would surge into the chamber.
Above the ogres, the humans gathered in a silent body. Their involvement in the feasting was limited to their role as preparers and servers of food. Those humans who were not working remained on the upper terraces, silent faces turned downward, watching and waiting. All were required to attend, and they, like the ogres, would witness the death of a chosen slave that would mark the culmination of the rites and the release of another bitter, sunless winter onto the tundra, mountains and seas of Icereach.
At one time, the hall would have been filled with one hundred thousand ogres, the long-ago population of Winterheim, each ogre accompanied by chosen slaves. Now, in the reign of King Grimtruth, there were barely twelve thousand ogres in all the city, and perhaps that many human slaves. The upper chambers of the hall remained silent and empty.
Lord Hakkan, the protocol chief, emerged onto the upper platform and signaled the trumpeters. The human slaves raised their golden instruments and a fanfare quickly resounded through the hall. Rustling and rumbling, the ogres turned their attention upward.
Prince Grimwar Bane, Princess Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane on his arm, entered to the sounds of the triumphant processional. He marched down the long, inclined aisle from the upper section of the hall, to the royal table far below. He wore his golden breastplate, with the Barkon Sword encased in a bejeweled ceremonial scabbard at his belt. His tusks were fully coated with gleaming gold. Around his shoulders was draped the pelt of the massive black bear, a fur so large that the forelegs descended to his belly, and the tail all but dragged on the ground behind him.
The crown princess was an equally awe-inspiring sight. Stariz, wearing her obsidian mask, carried the mighty Axe of Gonnas, the golden blade extended before her. The ghastly visage of the Willful One was the same tusked, snarling face carved into the huge temple statue. Turning her head this way and that with regal grace, she cast her masked, searing gaze across the entire assemblage. There was none, ogre or human, who did not feel as though the powerful god looked directly into his soul.
Grimwar led his wife Stariz to their ceremonial chairs at the great table that stood directly before the sweeping pane of blue ice. Baldruk Dinmaker was already there, standing behind the chair he would occupy between the prince and the king. The trio remained standing while the trumpets blared again, this time announcing the arrival of the king and queen. The royal couple, too, started down the long procession.
Later, it would be Grimwar’s task to invoke the names of all his ancestors, calling upon them to melt the icy blue barrier. Only then would ogre and human alike feel winter’s deadly kiss, only then would the king release the Sturmfrost across the land.
Grimwar could hear the mournful wail of a cyclonic wind. The tumult was pure, frigid winter, churning with sleet and icy snow. The levels of snow had risen dangerously high, threatening the ice wall. Now, in this ceremony dating to the origins of time, the ogre king would once again release the storm onto the wider world, and Winterheim would be protected for another long, cold, sunless winter. Grimwar glanced toward the vast sheet of blue and was startled to see Balrduk Dinmaker glaring up at him, the dwarf’s expression somewhere between contemptuous and pensive.
“Prepare yourself!” hissed the royal adviser, before turning his attention to the royal couple, now but one tier above them.
Grimwar looked up at the young queen. Thraid wore a gown of white bearskin, cut low across her impressive bosom, gathered tightly to display the unusual slenderness of her waist. Rouge brightened her cheeks and her lips, creating an effect that the prince found altogether appealing. As she walked serenely, Thraid Dimmarkull ber Bane clutched King Grimtruth’s arm, clear proof to all of her position. Her eyes caught the prince’s as she approached, and she met his gaze with a hurt expression. For some reason, the emotion cut Grimwar deeper than any display of fury.
Angrily, he pulled his eyes away from the young ogress. The king himself, his father, Grimwar thought, looked downright disgraceful. Of course, he was dressed in the traditional white robes of his station, with the Crown of Cospid gleaming on his head, his black boots polished to a bright sheen. His slaves had seen to all that. As to the king’s person, his eyes were bloodshot, narrowed suspiciously, and a strand of drool dangled casually from one of his tusks. Those tusks were also circled with golden wire, but the monarch had not bothered to have slaves polish either the metal, or the ivory of his teeth. From the unsteadiness of the big ogre’s gait, the prince suspected that his father had begun celebrating early.
Nevertheless, the king reached the table without incident, and soon they, and all the other ogres of Winterheim, were seated. Stariz intoned a prayer, asking for the blessing of the Willful One. Baldruk raised the first toast, and the king took a gulp from his goblet that left warqat shining, slick and oily, down his chin.
A procession of slaves came forth with slabs of beef, whole salmon, great wheels of cheese, iced sturgeon eggs, and cask upon cask of pungent warqat. Throughout the hall ogres began to eat and drink.