Wulfgar nodded.
Looking out over the waves, he pointed at the nearest Black Ship. Almost at once they could hear the chattering of the vessel’s anchor wheel as it began hoisting the chain from the sea. Dripping, the massive, black anchor soon followed. It finally came to a halt in its holding place, just below the bow gunwale.
Wulfgar lowered his arm, took a deep breath, and then pointed at the ship again.
The gigantic vessel slowly turned until her stern was facing them. Then she moved backward through the waves and gently beached herself. The rocks lining the edge of the sea were crushed like grapes beneath her weight. Finally settling herself, she listed a bit toward her port side.
At Wulfgar’s next gesture, the huge trapdoor in the ship’s stern lowered itself. Unopened for centuries, it creaked loudly all of the way down. With a final groan, it, too, came to rest upon the shoreline, leaving a dark, gaping portal in the ship’s hull. Lowering his hands, Wulfgar turned to his queen.
“Do you remember your instructions, my love?” he asked her.
She nodded. “I am ready.”
Wulfgar looked over at Einar. “Have the demonslavers bring them out,” he ordered. While the three of them watched, seven creatures appeared from around the far edge of the shoreline.
This was the first Serena had seen of them. She gasped. The monsters were each at least ten meters high. Each had dark, leathery skin that looked much like the wrinkled pages of some old, charred book. They walked on all fours, and each bore a demonslaver atop its back. They strode ponderously toward the shore. Despite their plodding gait, their inherent strength was obvious.
Their curved backs arched upward, and then down again. Their bodies were long, tall, and very deep. The rather short four legs were huge and set wide apart. They ended in massive, cloven hooves that looked as if they could easily crush anything they landed upon. Each time one of them set foot upon the earth, Serena could hear a great stomping noise and feel the ground shake.
They had long, swaying necks with broad, flat heads and deep jaw lines. The glistening eyes were dark. An equally dark slit made up the mouth, and a long, dark horn protruded from each of the creatures’ foreheads. As Serena looked more closely at one of the monsters, she realized that its deadliest weapon was not its horn but its tail: thickly muscled, at least as long as the rest of the body, it ended in a gigantic paddle that swayed back and forth with the creature’s plodding gait.
Serena looked again to the demonslavers sitting atop the great beasts. They used no saddles, but held reins that led to bridles on their mounts’ heads. Long whips were cracked liberally to keep the lumbering giants in order.
“What are they called, my lord?” Serena asked.
“Earthshakers,” Wulfgar replied. “Or at least that was what they used to be called. Their kind has not been seen since the Sorceresses’ War.” The Enseterat smiled. “What a shock it shall be when the wizards of the Redoubt see them once again. Not to mention the Black Ships that have returned them to their shores.”
Just then one of the things stopped dead in its tracks and looked directly at them. Serena thought that her heart might stop. The Earthshaker opened its jaws wide and gave a bloodcurdling cry.
The awful sound was something of a cross between the growl of a dog and the scream of a terrified woman. Raising its head angrily, the great beast cried out again. The noise hurt Serena’s ears. When it opened its mouth she saw row upon row of long, pointed teeth. These creatures were meat eaters.
The rebellious Earthshaker stopped crying out, but the demonslaver atop it was having a difficult time getting it to move forward and enter the Black Ship.
Wulfgar looked quickly over at Serena and Einar. “Augment me,” he ordered. The Enseterat raised his hands. Azure bolts shot from them toward the Earthshaker and its mount.
Serena and Einar raised their arms, but waited to see what Wulfgar had in mind. Azure walls sprung up, one on either side of the rebellious monster. The twin walls created a passageway that led to the stern of the ship. Understanding, Wulfgar’s queen and consul added their powers to his own, reinforcing the walls.
With nowhere else to go, the Earthshaker walked through the corridor, stepped upon the lowered doorway, and entered the ship. As it did, Serena and Einar kept the azure walls in place. Wulfgar caused the ship’s stern hatch to rise up and close.
Taking another deep breath, he sent the warship sailing back from the beach and out to its original position, where its anchor rattled back down into the Sea of Whispers. The Black Ship turned gently into the wind. She tugged hard at the anchor chain, then finally settled herself.
Wulfgar turned toward his consul. “It shall be your responsibility to ensure that enough meat and water have been stored aboard the Black Ships to sustain the beasts all the way to Eutracia,” he said. “They must be strong and eager when we arrive.”
Einar bowed slightly. “As you wish, my lord.”
Wulfgar’s eye narrowed as he looked proudly at the remaining line of Earthshakers he had conjured. He turned back to his queen and his consul. They both smiled at him.
“Today we board the Earthshakers. Then I shall call forth those who shall captain the Black Ships for me,” he said. Thinking of the Jin’Sai and the Jin’Saiou, he turned his gaze back out to sea. “Nothing can stand in our way now.”
Wulfgar raised his arms again and caused yet another of the Black Ships’ anchors to clamber its way up out of the sea.
CHAPTER XX
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“GET YOUR SHOES OFF MY TABLE, YOU OLD FOOL!” SHAWNA the Short hollered, pointing the paring knife at her husband. “Considering they’re yours, only the Afterlife knows where they’ve been!”
Masters Wigg and Faegan had asked that food be brought to their upcoming meeting, and Shawna meant to do the best possible job of it. That didn’t mean having Shannon’s shoes atop the butcher’s table, or the smell of his corncob pipe stinking up the palace kitchens.
She stopped slicing the treemelon long enough to reach out with her free hand and shoved Shannon’s feet off the table. The gnome hadn’t been expecting that.
He slid off his chair and onto the floor. His chair crashed backward against a rack of freshly polished pots and pans, and most of them went down noisily with him. Shailiha was pretty sure that one of them landed on his head.
Trying to choke back a smile, the princess put a hand over her mouth. One of Shannon’s hands fumbled back up to the tabletop, then the rest of him appeared. The ever-present ale jug was still locked firmly in his other hand, and his prized corncob pipe remained clamped between his teeth—even though it was now upside down.
Angrily adjusting his black cap, he glared at his wife of more than three hundred years. Shawna stood her ground giving back as good as she got with an angry look of her own.
Shannon pointed a pudgy finger at her in defiance.
“I swear you’ll be the death of me, woman!” he blustered as he righted his chair. “When you shout like that, you sound like a mare giving breached birth to a porcupine! Is making me suffer the only reason the Afterlife put you on this earth?”
“No!” Shawna shouted back. “But it’s the one I enjoy the most!”
Seeing the ashes falling from Shannon’s pipe, Shawna’s righteous indignation went into overdrive. She dropped the knife, picked up a copper frying pan, and started after him.
Shannon could be lazy and he liked his ale far too much, but he was no fool where his wife was concerned. Backing away, he held the ale jug high, as if to ward her off.
“Out!” Shawna shouted. Without warning, she swung the heavy pan like a broadsword.
Shailiha held her breath. She didn’t know whether Shawna might actually brain him with the pan. But then Morganna started to cry.
“Now see what you’ve done!” Shawna shouted. His eyes wide, Shannon continued to back a
way. “Leave here this instant, or I’ll give you a goose egg the size of a Shadowood thorn apple!”
Shawna was particularly protective of Morganna, and no one knew that better than Shannon. Clutching his jug, he backed out of the kitchen just in time to narrowly avoid another swing of the frying pan.
With Shannon gone, Shawna looked over at the baby. Shailiha had already taken her up from her stroller, and the child was beginning to quiet.
Shawna took a pan from the stove and poured some warm milk into a bottle. Fastening a nipple to the bottle, she handed it to the princess. Shailiha gave the bottle to Morganna, who began to drink greedily.
“Men!” Shawna muttered as she went back about her work. “The small ones can be just as much trouble as the large ones—maybe more!”
The princess smiled. She enjoyed being in the kitchens with the gnomes, and so she had brought Morganna here to pass the time, as she and the other members of the Conclave waited for the meeting to be called.
Tristan had told them all that there would be a meeting as soon as the wizards ended their research. It was now well into the afternoon, and still the two irascible mystics had not called for them. Shailiha knew that Tristan had spent much of last night and most of today prowling the palace, trying to release his pent-up frustration.
She really couldn’t blame him. She had seen the changes he had gone through, and she had shared many of them with him. She had wept for him, laughed with him, mourned with him, and been terrified for him. In the end they had always had each other, and nothing could change that. Today might prove to be one of the most important days of his life. She would be there with him, no matter what news the wizards might bring.
There was something else that had been tugging at the princess’ heart—something other than their predicament concerning the Orb of the Vigors. It was a deeply personal concern. She had yet to talk to anyone about it, not even Celeste.
Despite all of the people now living here in the palace with her and her brother, Shailiha was desperately lonely.
Tristan and Celeste had found each other. After more than three hundred years, Abbey had found her way back into Wigg’s heart. Traax and Duvessa seemed drawn to each other. But for Shailiha there was no one.
Her grief at the death of her husband Frederick had been all-consuming at first. She had loved him more than her life. With his passing she had thought that the secret, fiery part of her heart that could feel such love for a man had been smothered forever, and that she would never again want it rekindled.
But as time went by she felt familiar needs stirring within her once more. Was it wrong to feel this way? she asked over and over. Was Frederick looking down upon her from the Afterlife? If he was, would the presence of another man in her life hurt him?
Shailiha looked down into Morganna’s face. At least Frederick lived on in their child, she thought. For now, she supposed that would have to do.
“Begging your pardons, ladies,” a strong male voice said from one of the several kitchen doorways. “The wizards wish to have the food brought in so that they may start the meeting.”
Shawna and Shailiha looked up to see a Minion warrior standing there. “Keep your armor on,” Shawna said. “I have a few more items to prepare.”
Repressing a laugh, the princess watched the gnome finish her work. Soon several silver trays lay on the butcher’s table, each piled high with delicacies: roast pork with plumberry stuffing; selected fruits, vegetables, and cheeses; and one of Shawna’s specialty desserts, a five-tiered, swizzle-rum and cinnamon cake, slathered with farmer’s cheese frosting. It all smelled wonderful.
Shailiha wondered whether any of them would want to eat after they had heard the wizards’ news. She shrugged. They all had to eat sometime, she supposed.
Finally finished, the gnome wife wiped her hands down her apron. Looking up, she cast her commanding stare upon the unsuspecting Minion warrior.
“Well, don’t just stand there with your wings drooping!” To emphasize her point, she pointed a diminutive forefinger at him as though it were a deadly weapon. “Help us with these! That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
The warrior stiffened. “Minion men do not do such work.”
Pursing her lips, Shawna walked over to him. She barely reached his waist.
Shailiha waited. She knew that this would prove interesting.
Shawna crooked her finger, beckoning the warrior closer. As he bent over, quick as a flash she reached up and grabbed one of his earlobes. Then she gave it a savage twist. The warrior’s face went red with indignation but, surprisingly, he did not move.
“Now then,” Shawna said. “You can either help us carry these things to the meeting room, or I can report to the Jin’Sai that you chose to be uncooperative. Which would you prefer?”
She let go. With a sour look, the warrior picked up two of the trays as though they weighed nothing and started for the door. Shailiha placed Morganna into the stroller and took up the remaining tray. Shawna took the stroller by the handle. Then she stretched up toward Shailiha’s ear. The princess bent over.
“I told you men were trouble,” she whispered. Then she winked.
“But if a girl knows how, they can be managed. Even the really big ones.”
Smiling, Shailiha followed the gnome from the kitchen.
CHAPTER XXI
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THE ORB OF THE VIGORS WAS SLICING A PASS INTO THE Tolenka Mountains.
Geldon stared in disbelief.
The orb still screamed—perhaps even louder now than before. As its golden rain fell onto the granite mountains, it vaporized the stone, leaving in its wake a narrow, charred passage. The newly created canyon penetrated the slopes like a long, dark finger trying to poke its way through to the other side. The rough-hewn pass was already several hundred meters long, and the orb showed no signs of stopping or of changing course, even as it headed directly toward one of the Tolenkas’ many deep, white glaciers.
His mouth agape, Geldon watched as solid, living rock was melted, and freshly carved boulders and granite shards were ripped away from the mountain. Occasionally rubble tumbled down to obstruct the pass, but then the energy dripping from the orb pulverized it, clearing the way again.
Geldon tried to recall what Wigg and Faegan had told him about the mysterious mountain range. Lining Eutracia on her entire western side, the Tolenkas had always been insurmountable. No pass had ever been found through the imposing slopes. Their peaks were so high that even the wizards could not climb them. As an experiment, Tristan had recently ordered a group of the hardiest Minion warriors to try to fly over them. They had been forced back by the thin air and the savage, icy conditions that prohibited any traversing of the peaks.
For centuries, rumors abounded about what might lie on the western side of the mountains. Some said that it was a great, dark void, and that if a man stepped too far, he would fall off the edge of the world. Others swore that it was a home to savage, inhuman creatures that would kill every Eutracian man, woman, and child if set free to roam the eastern lands. Still others maintained that the western side held the Afterlife: that the souls of their departed friends and relatives could be found there, that the howling winds that whistled down the slopes were actually the plaintive cries of the dead, and that the runoff of snow during each Season of New Life was in fact their tears, as they cried in their torment to be set free to rejoin the world of the living.
In truth, no one really knew. Wigg and Faegan did not believe such rumors. Even so, when Geldon had pressed them about it, they had abruptly changed the subject. He got the feeling they knew more, but chose not to speak of it.
Geldon looked up toward the peaks. As always, their tips were shrouded in fog. Then he looked back down at the orb, as it blasted through the icy slopes.
Suddenly a new sound could be heard: strange, more ominous than the screaming of t
he orb. It started softly at first, but soon Geldon felt it as much as heard it. As it grew in intensity, the litter began to shake. He looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. When he finally saw what was causing it, he knew he and the Minions would have to act quickly. They had left most of the warriors behind to eat and rest in a grassy field—and now those warriors were in great danger.
Part of the nearby glacier, melted by the heat from the ruptured orb, had sheared off and roared down the side of the mountain toward the field below. Had it been only snow, it would have been deadly enough. But this was ice, harsh, hammering, unyielding. As Geldon watched, it plummeted on down the slopes and tore into the forest, crushing the pine trees in its path as though they were matchsticks.
The smoke and soot from the orb obscured the onrushing crash of ice from the unsuspecting warriors resting in the field. Wild-eyed, Geldon looked out at Ox, and then both were barking out orders to their bearers to take them back down as fast as they could.
Folding his wings behind his back, Ox launched himself from the litter and soared downward in a near vertical free fall. He opened his wings and swooped upward at the last possible moment, then flew with all his strength as the huge chunk of glacier chased behind him.
As the litter descended, the smoke and soot obscured Geldon’s vision completely. He had no choice but to hold tight to the swaying litter and hope that his bearers could find their way out of it. When he could finally see again, he almost wished he couldn’t.
Ox had succeeded in ordering most of the remaining warriors into the air in time, but not all. When the massive disintegrating glacier plowed out of the smoke-filled forest, some of them had no chance. They stood there in shocked disbelief as the ice overcame them, burying them instantly. Ox and the survivors, hovering beside the litter, watched in horror as the glacier carved its way across the ground, ripping up the green turf of the fields and throwing great hunks of it dozens of meters into the air.
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