Winterheim it-3

by Douglas Niles

  He did as she bade and returned the inspection as she looked him over. He was startled to see a creature of softness and curves, with rouged lips, and eyelashes outlined in henna. He recognized her at once-she was the ogress who had watched him debark, had waved to him as he was taken off of the galley. She shifted slightly, leaning to balance on an elbow as she partially reclined on the divan. The slave king had a sense of helplessness, as if he were a small rodent being inspected by a cat, the feline pondering whether the snack had enough meat on its bones to make it worth the trouble of the kill.

  He was tempted to make some remark of greeting but decided that his new status made it safer for him to wait until she addressed him. Again she purred, her full lips curving into a small smile.

  “You look as though you will do quite nicely,” she remarked. “How are you called?”

  “I am Whalebone, my lady,” replied Strongwind. “It is an honor to be considered for your service.”

  She chuckled. “Very nice, indeed. One cannot assume that such manners will be ingrained in all those of your countrymen. You are a Highlander, are you not?”

  “Indeed, my lady.”

  “Of noble birthright, perhaps?”

  Strongwind shrugged. “There are some who would say so.”

  “I have heard something of your battle prowess,” she said, musing. “There was even a suggestion that you might be, well, dangerous, but I had a feeling that first time I saw you, when you came ashore from the ship … a sense that you would be a good slave, that I can trust you. Surely you realize-as Wandcourt or Brinda will tell you-there are many worse postings for a slave than in the house of a noble ogress.”

  “I do not doubt that for a moment, lady,” Strongwind replied evenly.

  Thraid Dimmarkull rose very slowly from her divan. She did not so much stand up as undulate into an erect posture. She was as tall as the Highlander king, and again he noticed the exaggerated contours of her shape. Her tusks were barely visible behind those full, pouting lips. She reached out a hand and placed it on Strongwind’s shoulder. The king stood still, not knowing what to expect-but he was too astonished to resist when she suddenly pressed downward with a hammer blow of force, dropping him to his knees.

  He grunted and strained to rise, but she held him down with one hand while with the other she took his chin and forcibly tilted up his face. Her expression was mildly amused-except for the spark of fire he saw in her eyes. Clearly, she was enjoying this very much.

  “Pretty words,” Thraid said, her lips pursing in an expression that Strongwind couldn’t read. “So long as you remember your place-and fall to your knees when I so command-you will do nicely.”

  She squeezed his cheeks, and Strongwind’s temper flared, but he exerted all of his self control to mask his feelings.

  “Wandcourt, show … ‘Whalebone’ … where he will be staying. You and Brinda take some time to acquaint him with the household and with his tasks. For now, leave me with Lord Forlane-I have important matters to discuss, things that are not for human ears.”

  “Very well, my lady,” replied the elder slave.

  Strongwind rose stiffly and followed him through the archway and down a smaller, darker hallway. The slave king resolved to pay attention, to learn what he could. Always he would remain alert, analyzing his new masters for the weaknesses that undoubtedly existed in Winterheim’s tenuous relationship with its slaves.

  The King’s Rampart was the loftiest platform on Winterheim’s outer slopes. Only the summit itself, ice-draped and sheer, rose above it. Several paths climbed to this flat, square surface which, by tradition, was intended only for the feet of the monarch of Suderhold.

  Grimwar Bane stood alone here, wearing his black bearskin robe, staring into the northwest, where the sun was nearing the horizon, bringing the end to an early autumn day. He looked between the Ice Gates, across the bright stretch of the White Bear Sea. The air, even at this lofty elevation, was cool but not cold.

  He thought fleetingly about his cloak, the only black bear pelt he or any other ogre had ever seen. He had captured it from what he thought was a simple village of Arktos peasants nine summers earlier. His warriors had slain every man of that tribe, and with only a few females and young escaping into the hills, he had thought the band eradicated.

  How ironic that it had been one of those women who had become his most vexing foe! It was she who had led her people to Brackenrock, reclaiming the long-abandoned stronghold from the savage thanoi who had taken up residence there. It was she who had made the place a true fortress, a bastion that stood against his most devastating attack.

  The human woman was dead now, slain with her elf companion in the catastrophic explosion that wracked Dracoheim, yet she continued to fascinate him. This was one reason why the captive warrior, the slave he had sent into the house of Thraid Dimmarkull, was interesting to him. That man had been willing to give his life for the Lady of Brackenrock, and sooner or later the king intended to ask him why.

  He had more important matters to concern him for the immediate moment. Indeed, he had many things on his mind, did the king of Suderhold.

  One of these was paramount. The matter of his vexatious wife demanded resolution, a resolution that would allow the king to proceed with his life, his future, in a manner of his own choosing. If Stariz remained attached to him, she would be his doom, a cancer eating away his manhood and his rule until he was an emasculated hulk, a mere puppet for the priestess-queen.

  He had blustered and threatened, pleaded and dealt with her, but ever she remained the same. For all this time he had sought a solution that would work with Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane. Now, finally, he could see the error of diplomacy. There could be no solution with her, for she herself was the problem.

  He realized now that he had to send her away. He would wait until she had performed her ritual sacrifice at the ceremony of Autumnblight, then he would make his announcement to his wife and to his people.

  His marriage would end, and the rest of his life would at last begin.

  8

  The Remorhaz

  Kerrick shivered under a sense of revulsion so strong that he almost gagged. He had never seen a monster like the beast towering in the Escarpment Pass, never even imagined that such a horror could exist-save, perhaps, in the lightless depths of the ocean, where even the gods never looked. To find such a grotesque creature here, in the shadow of the Icewall, seemed like a defiance of life itself, of every order of natural law.

  Thedric Drake, a brave man, and a solid and sensible leader, was gone forever, taken in the first slashing bite of the monster. A dozen more Highlanders lay on the ground where the beast had smashed them, some dead, others writhing in pain, clutching broken limbs or puking up blood and guts from insides wracked by smashing force. Barq One-Tooth, knocked aside like a toy by the monster’s first rush, had struggled to his feet and managed to stumble away.

  The creature seemed to barely be getting started. The elf watched as the monster rushed forward again, smashing through the front of the war party’s column, crushing men under its multiple feet, jabbing this way and that with those horrid, slashing jaws. The humans had no recourse. To a man they turned and fled back from the gap in the ridge crest, spreading out, tumbling and falling, crawling on hands and knees in frantic attempts to escape.

  Some of them made it, and others didn’t. The monstrous head lunged forward again and again, each time striking some hapless person. Many of these victims disappeared in a single gulp, swallowed by the same fate meted out to Thedric Drake; others were cruelly cut, even bitten in half, until the ground at the mouth of the pass was littered with body parts and gore.

  Kerrick spun around, having momentarily forgotten that the horde of thanoi remained in their grim, silent semicircle. He would not have been surprised to see that band rush forward to take advantage of the human’s consternation. Instead, the walrus-men seemed content to watch and to wait. All along they had been waiting.

&n
bsp; “Why not?” muttered Bruni, who had apparently taken note of the same thing. “The tusked bastards won’t take any more losses, and what in Chislev’s name can we do against that thing?”

  What, indeed? The monster had a segmented body that was fifty feet or more long-indeed, the tail remained out of sight, buried within the cluster of rocks from which it had burst.

  “We have to try to attack it!” Moreen declared. “Surely it can be wounded somehow!”

  “I agree,” said Kerrick, with another glance at the ominously waiting thanoi.

  “Let’s go,” grunted Bruni.

  She had dropped her heavy pack on the ground and now drew out the Axe of Gonnas, quickly pulling the leather shroud off of the blade. The metal gleamed in the pale daylight, shining with an internal brightness. The shaft alone was nearly six feet long, and the blade was as big as a barrelhead.

  The Arktos woman hefted the weapon in her hands and started toward the notch of the escarpment, Moreen and Kerrick advancing stoutly at her side. Barq One-Tooth, bleeding from several wounds, joined them, and even old Dinekki hobbled behind. Others of the war party maintained the solid rearguard under Mouse’s command, facing the walrus men, banging weapons and chanting, making a show of force that would keep the thanoi away.

  More Highlanders joined the small party in the advance, until there were three or four dozen fighters making the charge.

  “Kradock curse that thing-it can’t be slain!” grunted Barq. “I landed a sharp blow on those chest plates, and me axe bounced away like I was smitin’ stone!”

  “That’s because your blade, solid though it be, is but cold steel,” said Dinekki, who somehow managed to keep up with the striding warriors. “That is a beast of the dark corners of the planes-as such, it must be pierced by metals that have been cast in forges of godly blessing.”

  “My blade was made in the ancient elven fires,” Kerrick volunteered grimly. “I will try it against the brute.”

  “This axe is a talisman of the immortals-even if it was made in the name of an ogre god,” Bruni declared. “Let those gods turn its edge against the monster.”

  Barq looked at the woman and the elf with an expression of grudging respect. “Well, I’ll attack with ye-even if I can’t hurt the thing, I’ll give it worry!”

  More and more of the Highlanders had fallen in with them as they approached the mouth of the pass. The monster seemed to be at rest, but those bulging, multi-faceted eyes were alert, shifting and glowing as it inspected the approaching force. Slowly it drew its sinuous foreparts off of the ground, rising to twenty, then thirty feet in the air. The grotesque jaws, gory with blood and bits of clothing and flesh from its victims, gaped.

  “Feel that-the beast is hot,” observed the chiefwoman in surprise.

  Kerrick, too, sensed the heat against his face, a sensation as though he was approaching a large pile of glowing coals.

  “ ’Tis a remorhaz-the polar worm,” said Dinekki, with a low whistle. “A creature of legend it be, and never did I think I’d be looking one in the eyes. Beware those plates on its back-they are hot enough to sear your flesh, should you come close.”

  “Aim for the belly, then,” said Kerrick, “and strike hard.”

  The attackers, two score or more of them, rushed forward in unison. Again that monstrous head snapped forward and a big Highlander right next to the elf screamed as the gaping jaws descended upon him. The sound was instantly muffled as the elf struck to the side, driving the tip of his blade through the plates armoring the monster’s flanks. Kerrick needed all of his strength to pull the sword out when the creature twisted away.

  When the beast reared back the hapless warrior’s boots were left scattered haphazardly on the ground, the elf nearly gagging as he realized that the Highlander’s feet were still in them. He pressed home the attack, lunging in to stab at the exposed belly. Again, he cut through the hard, scaly surface, but the sheer size of the creature insured that he could not strike very deeply. Barq, too, struck a blow, his mundane steel cutting open one of the plates, but neither did he do much apparent damage to the rampaging beast.

  Bruni had a little more success-the Axe of Gonnas blazed fire as she drove against the monster’s other side, and with a powerful blow sliced off one of the spidery legs. The creature shrieked and whirled toward her, but she fended off the jaws by waving the sacred axe back and forth. Kerrick and the others then attacked frantically, stabbing, chopping, even shouting invective, and finally the monster turned away from the big woman to snap at another victim. This time it was a courageous Arktos warrior who vanished into that insatiable maw.

  When the worm reared back again, the elf and humans had to yield to the inevitable, retreating in a scramble to get out of the mouth of the pass. The remorhaz lunged but came up short. This time it clawed its way fully out of its rock pile, twisting the serpentine body and sending huge boulders tumbling this way and that. Kerrick felt a stab of panic as the creature came on in a startling rush, undulating the body as its many legs clawed across the ground.

  Moreen sprinted next to the elf, and he held back, giving her the edge to get away. A Highlander tumbled and fell, then screamed horribly as those mandibles stabbed down and ripped him apart. A quick glance showed the creature gathering for another lunge, and Kerrick ran desperately, passing Dinekki. He stopped in shock as he realized that the slight, elderly shaman was standing firm and alone in the face of the monster.

  She held up a skinny hand and barked out the words to a spell, a casting that Kerrick had seen her use once before.

  “Chislev Wilder, born of flood-render bedrock into mud!”

  The remorhaz roared forward, and at the same time the swath of mountainside in its path began to darken and sag. Kerrick saw an outcrop of rock melt like butter under a hot sun, oozing down. The monster’s front end reached the soft terrain, and it fell in, sinking with a splat, throwing mud up in the air as it thrashed and fought. Slowed by the mire, it pulled backward and lifted its forequarters high into the air, shaking free of the muck, regarding the humans and elf with cold, baleful eyes.

  Instead of resuming its pursuit, however, the polar worm roared a shrill sound of triumph, spewing a cloud of sulfurous smoke. Several grisly objects, charred and unrecognizable, belched from those horrific jaws to bounce and roll across the rocks. Each of these was blackened and charred, still smoking. A couple bore ghastly resemblance to burned human skulls, while one bounced and clanged metallically, rolling all the way down to the surviving warriors.

  Barq One-Tooth, his expression furious, kicked at the charred and sooty object, tipped it over to reveal a concave shape. “That is Thedric Drake’s helm,” he growled. “Half melted by that infernal heat-and now all that is left of a brave thane.” His knuckles whitened around the haft of his axe as he glared at the monster, and Kerrick wondered if his rage would compel him to make a suicidal charge, but the big warrior, with a visible effort, gained control of his emotions.

  “The tuskers are still keeping their distance,” Mouse reported, climbing up to where Kerrick and Moreen were studying their monstrous foe.

  “I’m not surprised,” Kerrick replied

  “So now they just wait here for us to starve,” asked Moreen bitterly, “or does anyone have any better ideas?”

  Something was rattling around in Kerrick’s mind, an idea that maddeningly eluded his attempts to articulate it. What had Coraltop Netfisher said in their brief conversation atop Brackenrock’s tower? They would need strong drink to get over the escarpment … but how could that …?

  In a flash, he understood.

  “The fireplace!” he blurted, suddenly, to looks of consternation from his companions.

  “What?” snapped Moreen in irritation.

  “Warqat-we have lots of canteens of it along with us, right?”

  The chiefwoman shrugged her drinking skin off of her shoulder. “Here, if yours is empty, take a drink of mine, if that will cheer you up.”

  Dinekki’s ey
es were glowing excitedly. “The fireplace, you said?” she repeated.

  “Yes. Remember, the banquet … the glasses thrown into the fire?”

  “And the warqat puffing up into blue flame!” the shaman added.

  “Look at this charred helmet. The inside of that worm is hotter than any coals. If we can get it to swallow a bunch of warqat …”

  Kerrick turned back to the monster, which continued to gaze at them from its position astride the entrance to the Escarpment Pass. The many wounds inflicted by the warriors at the cost of a score or more of lives were mere scratches on the armored surface. It was hard to imagine doing any more damage than that, no matter how many men and women were willing to sacrifice their lives.

  “Well,” he was pleased to hear Moreen say, “it’s worth a try.”

  The polar worm drew back into the confines of its narrow pass and curled itself around the pile of boulders. The beast lay still and silent, but those bulging eyes never closed or blinked Moreen could feel them seemingly focused directly on her even when her back was turned. At least the monster seemed content to remain in place, as did the thanoi that closed the war party off from retreat.

  All of them were exhausted, following the interrupted rest of the previous night and the day of constant battle and march. Reasoning that their next attack stood a better chance if the warriors were refreshed, Moreen and Barq ordered a bivouac on the mountainside. They posted pickets to watch the tuskers and others to keep an eye on the remorhaz, while a detachment of Arktos and Highlanders went around and gathered all the canteens and skins of warqat. Naturally, Slyce volunteered for this task, but his services were politely rejected. Instead, the gully dwarf sat and watched sadly as the containers of the potent liquor were collected into an ever-growing pile from which he was kept a safe distance.

  The chiefwoman stood nearby and watched the monster, thinking of the brave men who had been swallowed whole during the frantic battle and of the many others who had been grievously injured or killed by the crushing mandibles, flailing tail, and slashing claws. Did she even stand a chance of defeating it? She murmured a soft prayer to Chislev Wilder and tried to convince herself that she did.