The Golden Orb

by Doug Niles

  “How many escaped?” asked the chiefwoman.

  “Not many,” Strongwind said. “They were running south, away from the nearest villages.”

  Mouse nodded. “We killed half of them in the village and chased the rest when they scattered. Most of those we caught and killed. I think a few of them evaded our patrols and vanished into the Glacier Peaks. I presume they’ll make their way back to Winterheim from there. We posted scouts along the foothills to keep an eye out for them coming this way, but I think we’ve had the last trouble from these ogres, at least for this year.”

  “This prisoner—what does he know?”

  “He has been reluctant to talk much, my lady,” the young Arktos man explained. “He was the captain of the raiding party and knows more than he will say. Shall we bring him in?”

  Moreen glanced to one side, saw that Kerrick had come into the hall and now stood nearby with Dinekki and Bruni. The Axe of Gonnas hung on the wall behind them.

  “Yes,” she said. “I will talk to this ogre.”

  Moreen was momentarily blinded as the outer door opened, then the sunlight was blocked by a large shape that filled the portal. She heard the tromping of feet and finally made out the hulking image of the ogre standing heavily guarded about twenty feet away from her.

  Moreen’s first impression was that the creature did not look exceptionally frightening. Undoubtedly the four chains, each secured to a ring around the prisoner’s neck and held by a stout warrior, served to reduce any sense of menace. But it was more than that. This ogre’s shoulders slumped, and though he was much taller than she, the foul creature seemed somehow to be looking up at her, confused and frightened. One of his eyes was covered by a blood-crusted patch. There were other cuts in his leather tunic and dried blood all over him, on his clothing and limbs.

  “What is your name?” she asked curtly.

  “I am called Broadnose, captain of the Shield-Breakers.” His voice was deep, but more of a rasp than a rumble, and his accent was guttural.

  “You were the leader of these killers?’ Moreen demanded. “You must be a great warrior to kill mothers and the babes at their breasts. And old grandfathers, who could barely lift a cane against you!”

  She was surprised to note a look of injured pride on the tusked, jowly face. “I followed orders of king,” the ogre captain said. “He bade me to cause fear.”

  “To cause fear? Not to steal or take captives?”

  Now the ogre looked a little shamefaced. “I failed. Your Mouse-Warrior caught me in a trap.”

  Moreen was perplexed. The ogres had raided human settlements for generations, but the objective had invariably been plunder, treasure, and slaves. Why would they change their tactics now?

  “Why did the king want to cause fear?” Kerrick asked, drawing attention to himself. The ogre prisoner’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of the slender, golden-hair figure.

  “Why, to make the humans afraid, Lord Elf,” Broadnose replied. “To …” He looked down at the floor. “Just that. To make you afraid.”

  “Your king is a mighty lord, is he not?” Dinekki clucked the question as she hobbled forward, holding a finger to her lips. The ogre’s one eye narrowed suspiciously, as he warily watched the old woman.

  Abruptly the shaman waved her nimble fingers, and the ogre’s jaw fell slack.

  “Mighty king!” he declared, looking at a place over the old woman’s head. “I beg your forgiveness for my failures! What is your command?”

  Moreen realized that Dinekki had cast some kind of spell, an illusion or charm that had abruptly transported the ogre—in his own mind—to a different, imaginary council.

  “Do you know where I am?” asked Dinekki, her voice somehow booming out of her frail chest. Even the chiefwoman blinked, looked close to make sure this was still the thin, grandmotherly cleric.

  “Yes, lord—you sail to Dracoheim!” Broadnose replied.

  “Do you know why I sent you inland, told you to cause fear?”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty. You wanted me to distract the humans, so that you could see …” Broadnose blinked suddenly, shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts.

  “Ogre!” thundered Dinekki. “Your king asks you a question!”

  “Your Majesty—forgive me!” gasped the prisoner, his face growing pale. “You would see the Alchemist … give him thirty days to work!”

  “Explain to me. When will I return from Dracoheim?” Still the old cleric projected, somehow, the aura of a bull ogre. Broadnose nodded, eager to please his imagined liege.

  “You have promised that you will return for me, here at the citadel, in fifty days.”

  “But that will not happen. I have changed my mind,” said Dinekki, waving her hand dismissively. “Instead I desire that you cease making war upon the humans. In truth, you are tired, are you not? You need to sleep. Your hosts will show you to a bed, where you will rest and heal.”

  Moreen watched as Broadnose wavered, his chin drooping forward to his chest. His eyes closed and he let loose a deep, ragged snore.

  “Bruni, will you lead the ogre to the deep cell? You men, make sure the door is reinforced,” she instructed the brawny warriors holding the chains. “He is to be given the same rations as everyone else.”

  The big woman took charge of escorts and the drowsy ogre, who sleepwalked along at his shuffling gait, while the others watched Dinekki, impressed. Kerrick grinned, and Moreen couldn’t help but smile.

  “It seemed the best way to get him to open up,” the shaman said genially, waving a hand dismissively.

  “Nice work,” the chiefwoman agreed, then grew serious. “But this Dracoheim! Again we hear of that place. Clearly, that is where this terrible weapon is crafted.”

  “This Alchemist was also mentioned by Long-Swim Greatfin, the thanoi,” Kerrick noted. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he is some kind of lord in that place. Undoubtedly he is the one who created this awful weapon.”

  “The Alchemist will make another weapon, I fear, and the ogres will return here before summer’s end,” Moreen stated grimly. “We cannot count on being so fortunate again.”

  “I agree,” Kerrick said, “but there is some hope, in that Grimwar Bane will not return here for fifty days. That gives me some idea of how far away Dracoheim is and how long it will take the Alchemist to complete his task.”

  She peered at him him, knowing how important he was to her, to all Brackenrock, and yet she had to ask the question. “Do you think you could find this Dracoheim?”

  “I’m not sure. According to the thanoi, it’s west across that sea—that same body of water he called the ‘Dracoheim Sea.’ That suggests that the island is fairly large, but I don’t know how big the sea is. We might find it right away, and we might look until the Sturmfrost catches us.”

  She nodded, thinking of the dangers. Clearly, she couldn’t ask him to risk his life alone.

  “Can you take me there?” Moreen asked.

  The elf smiled thinly, with as much confidence as he could muster.

  “I can try,” was all he said.

  “It’s madness!” Strongwind Whalebone declared, pacing around the room in agitation. At the chiefwoman’s request the others had left, leaving the Highlander king here alone with Moreen and Kerrick. “You’re still injured—you can hardly see! You don’t know what you’ll find on this island, Dracoheim! Why, it’s sure to be a stronghold of ogres, as well as whatever dark magic this Alchemist fellow has worked.” The king glared at Kerrick, who had been observing the one-sided conversation without taking sides. “You tell her!” Strongwind implored.

  The elf shrugged. “Can you think of one time that I, or anyone else, has changed her mind after she decided to do something?”

  The Highlander king snorted and stalked a few steps away before whirling back to point a finger at Moreen “Then, by Kradok, I’m coming with you—and a half dozen of my best warriors!”

  Kerrick shook his head and held up a placati
ng hand. “We’re taking Cutter, remember, and it will be a voyage of many days. We can’t take that many people.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” Moreen said, surprising the elf—Strongwind, too, judging from the look on his face—with her calm demeanor. She gazed at both of them earnestly. “I know we can’t treat this mission as invasion. Stealth is our greatest ally, and a small group is our best chance of being stealthy.”

  “I will leave my warriors—but I insist on accompanying you!” The king stared at Kerrick. “Surely you can take three in that boat!”

  The elf nodded. “Three, or even four, yes, we can manage that.”

  “But the third cannot be you,” Moreen declared sternly, then softened her tone. “Think about the risk. You, the king of all your people, in all their strongholds, perhaps lost forever.”

  “The risk is as great for you!” Strongwind retorted. “Your people depend on you! You should be the one to stay—let the elf and me take a pair of veteran warriors and go look for this Alchemist! What if you don’t come back? What happens to Brackenrock?”

  “I won’t send any of my people to do something too dangerous for me to try myself,” she replied. “If I don’t come back, my tribe is safer here than they have ever been, and for the first time in generations, we have allies.” She gazed at Strongwind so intensely that the king fidgeted, and ran his fingers through his coarse beard. “Loyal, true allies, who will see that even if Brackenrock falls, the ogres will ultimately not gain mastery over all the Icereach.”

  “But, Lady—you are no assassin!”

  Moreen lowered her eyes. “I hope this mission doesn’t call for that, but if it does, if this Alchemist must die so that my people can live, I will do what must be done.”

  The king looked defeated. He went to the chiefwoman, placed his hands on her shoulders, and looked down into her eyes. “May Kradok, and Chislev Wilder, and Zivilyn, and all the gods watch over you. But I insist that I come along—you must not leave me behind!”

  She sighed, then smiled grimly. “All right—I guess you’re as stubborn as I am. You will come with us.” She hugged him, and he looked over her head, met Kerrick’s eyes. “We need a fourth. Who is to be the fourth, then?” he asked.

  “I should like to go.” Mad Randall spoke from the doorway, then took a few tentative steps into the room. The berserker was almost shy in his manner, and as always Kerrick was struck by the incongruity of his neat appearance, his calm demeanor—when not engaged in battle. “That is, if you’d have me?” he asked, hesitantly.

  “I think we need someone exactly like you,” Kerrick said, and the crew of the Cutter was set.

  he prow of the dark galley sliced the water of the Dracoheim Sea, a knife cutting through the ripples of a silk sheet, curling away two slender wakes that quickly vanished into the roiling, choppy surface. Two hundred oars dipped and drove, propelling the narrow hull with steady power, onward, westward. It had been several days since they had last glimpsed land, and the ogre rowers were worn from the long voyage. Now all of them tilted ears and eyes toward the lone figure standing in the prow, the king who remained immobile as he watched the western horizon. For now, there was only the gray sea, water stretching to all horizons. The drummer maintained his insistent pace, Argus Darkand standing beside him, marking the cadence as Goldwing pushed through the cold brine.

  Stariz watched the activity all across Goldwing with a sense of satisfaction. She stood on the square observation platform that rose like a small house above the flat, long deck. From here she could look down onto the benches within the hull, at the sweaty backs, the strapping sinews of ogres flexing and pulling in unison. For six days now they had rowed relentlessly, through the ghostly bright nights and sparkling, sunlit mornings. They had persevered in the afternoons when capricious rainstorms often lashed them.

  Now, at last, when the queen raised her eyes and looked past the bow, across the rippled surface of the Dracoheim Sea, she detected a tiny blemish on the horizon. Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane smiled in private satisfaction.

  “Within this day we shall arrive at Dracoheim,” the queen declared loudly, her voice reaching the ear of every oarsman. She was also heard by her husband, who turned halfway around from his position to nod to her. He fought the impulse to come to her—she enjoyed watching the conflict in his posture—but finally gave in and strolled along the deck until he stood below the platform. She started down the ladder, her bulk awkward on the steep steps.

  “You sound very confident, my queen,” he said, helping her to ease off the last few rungs. “That would make for a very fast crossing of this cold sea.”

  “Your helmsman knows his work, and the rowers—your own warriors, brawny and loyal ogres every one—put more admirable effort into their work than human galley slaves,” she noted. “Look to the horizon. I predict that the island of Dracoheim will soon be in sight.”

  “So you say,” replied the king, scratching his chin. In silence they went together to the bow and looked across the sea, the waters rippled by the steady, criss-crossing winds that had accompanied the galley all the way from Brackenrock.

  Within another hour a land mass darkened the horizon. The king nodded in confirmation, as if he had expected this all along. Stariz savored her moment of triumph behind a blank and impassive expression.

  “Argus,” Grimwar called to his helmsman. “I want a good pace for the run into the harbor. You rowers, put your backs into it and earn yourself a keg of warqat and a warm fire tonight!”

  “Yes, Sire,” declared Argus, with a bare-tusked grin. “You heard His Highness!” he barked to the stoop-shouldered drummer. That ogre lifted his batons high and boomed one, then the other, down upon the head of his drum. With a barely a pause he picked up the pace, and the ship surged forward under the labors of the ogres at the oars. The rowers worked well in regular rhythm, propelling the vessel steadily closer to the looming island.

  “You look impatient, Sire,” Stariz said, coming up close behind Grimwar and almost startling him “It has been many years since you have seen your mother. You must be eager for the meeting.”

  “I am eager to see the Alchemist, to get on with the work of killing humans. As to my mother, she knows she can come home any time she wants to,” Grimwar said sharply. “Do not try to blame me for her exile!”

  “Certainly I would not,” replied the queen. “I merely wondered—”

  “Keep your wonderings to yourself!” snapped the king. “I will return to my cabin and prepare for landfall.” He stalked away without turning back, so he did not see the queen’s lips crease into an amused and slightly contemptuous smile.

  As they approached the remote outpost, Stariz remained at her place in the bow, standing tall, staring into the horizon. The waters had brightened, now looked golden in this constant sun. The island of Dracoheim rose proudly from that bright sea, a flinty spearhead thrusting skyward. Cliffs of dark slate and lofty summits of knife-edged granite stood tall and forbidding. Cornices of snow draped the heights, and the bare teeth of hanging glaciers gleamed from many a lofty vale. The hour was midnight by the time they drew close, but the overcast skies were gray-white with an arctic brilliance that cast no shadows but illuminated every detail of the ship, the sea, and the stone-shanked island.

  Goldwing was a fast, nimble ship but now her rowers exerted their skill to slow the steady glide as she passed through the mouth of the bay. Jagged cliffs, faces of dark rock so smooth they glimmered like smoky mirrors, rose to the right and left, guarding the entrance to a small, deep anchorage. Smoke smeared the air in a shallow valley, a haze hanging low over the shacks and smelters of a mining town. Other buildings sprawled along the shore, haphazard and temporary-looking against the grandeur of mountain and vale.

  Cutting a graceful turn around the point of a black stone breakwater, the galley eased across the cove, through water as still and dark as shadowed glass. All was shadow here, and not just because the midnight sun lay low across the se
a and was filtered by that slate blanket of cloud. No, the chill darkness here had a more peculiar cause: The cove, the shoreline, the entire slope of the island’s steep terrain, all lay beneath the stark, ominous framework of a lofty castle. Turrets and bridges arced like spiderwebs through the air, and high ramparts overlooked steep cliff and knife-crested ridge. Walls plunged like faces of lofty precipice, and slender parapets twisted and curled across every vantage.

  Queen Stariz inspected the island and the massive castle—and surreptitiously studied her husband. Grimwar’s dark brows glowered. Aloft, the citadel seemed to enfold itself, concealing myriad corners with impenetrable shadow. Great winged birds, hawkish in appearance but in size more like horse or kine, curled and soared above the highest turrets. The mighty ogre, king of Suderhold, rubbed his right tusk with a quick, nervous gesture and unconsciously licked his lips.

  The queen’s attention turned to the shore, the barren land sloping into the sea so close before her now. A file of ogres hurried down from the castle, and human slaves spilled from the buildings of the small town at the base of the bluff. An honor guard of armored ogre troops formed a line near the shore.

  The keel scuffed the gravel bottom, and a moment later the narrow hull was firmly grounded. There came from the hold a rattle of timbers as the ogre rowers shipped their oars. Argus Darkand barked orders, while several burly sailors dropped into the frigid, calf-deep water. They bore stout cables ashore, and soon the vessel was securely anchored to a pair of massive pilings planted well above the tidemark.

  With a rattle of chains, the broad ramp descended from the bow of the ship to rest on graveled ground. For this occasion Queen Stariz donned her ceremonial mask, the obsidian image of Gonnas, the bull ogre-god of her people. Her robe, spreading regally to the sides under the span of her shoulder boards, hung straight and umoving as she accompanied her husband down the ramp and onto the beach.

  The king had donned full ceremonial regalia as well. His golden breastplate gleamed, and the cloak of black bearskin—his prized trophy from the raids against the Arktos—was a sheen of inky shadow around his shoulders. He walked down the ramp with what he hoped was immense dignity, accepting the salutes of the guards who formed a long aisle leading upward from the beach. His eyes searched the shoreline, looking for one ogress in particular.