Winterheim it-3

by Douglas Niles

  “No time like the present,” he muttered. “Let’s go!”

  He drew his sword, took one last look at his file of anxious warriors, and started toward the promenade and the king’s palace at a full sprint.

  24

  Early Autumnblight

  Strongwind Whalebone tugged at the manacles holding his wrists, but the iron links were unbending. He tried to console himself with the fact that his spirit was equally solid, but he saw through that lie with ease. The ogress queen marched along in front of him, and he knew that his time and his luck had run out.

  In truth, he was terribly frightened, more afraid than he had ever been in his life. He didn’t want to die, yet he couldn’t see any way that he would survive. It was not so much for himself that he grieved. The real cause of his despair was the deeper truth, for it broke his heart to know that so many of his friends and countrymen would perish on this mad quest. They would not only fail to set him free, but they seemed destined to bring about only widespread slaughter among the hapless slaves of Winterheim.

  Why couldn’t they have just left him here to rot? Why hadn’t he simply had the sense, the decency, to die on Dracoheim next to the brave Randall? If he had perished then, it would have been but the death of one pathetic man. Now it seemed as though he would bring about the death of whole tribes, the end of humankind in the Icereach. For what would the Arktos do without Moreen? That was the greatest sadness of all.

  “We had to come for you,” Bruni consoled him. She shuffled beside him, chained as stoutly as he was, and seemed to be reading his mind.

  “Be silent!” One of the guards cuffed her across the head.

  She turned and glared at the brute, then spoke to the king in a quieter tone. Perhaps because the queen couldn’t hear, the ogre didn’t strike her again.

  “There is no point to our life in the Icereach if it means just hiding from the ogres every day of our lives, simply hoping not to get caught, to avoid the next slave raid, to live through yet another ogre attack. Don’t you see, we had to try. Besides, we’re not dead yet, are we?”

  The slave king shook his head. “I would willingly give up my life if it meant the rest of you could go free! The cost is too great! I am but one man, and two whole tribes will be decimated in this vain effort to save me.”

  “There are many of us who think you’re worth the effort,” the big woman said. “Do not lose hope.”

  For Strongwind Whalebone, hope was already gone.

  Grimwar Bane returned to the throne room, intending to speak with the human prisoners again. He was startled to see that the captives, as well as his wife and most of the palace guards, were gone.

  “Where did they go?” he demanded, fixing a glare on one of the remaining standard-bearers.

  “The queen commanded that the prisoners be taken to the temple!” declared the warrior, trembling and dropping to his knees. “Half-Tusk tried to object to her majesty, Sire, pleading that this was not your will, but she threatened him, and he complied! They marched out the door but a short time ago!”

  The last words were still echoing from the high walls as the king burst through the doors and lumbered into a jog, hastening toward the ramp down to the Temple Level.

  “Up there-take the ogre barracks!” Mouse cried, pointing to the Moongarden rampart where the slaves had first driven out the overseers.

  It broke his heart to realize that they had been driven all the way back from the city, down the long cavern and to the edge of the vast food warren. How many members of his war party had fallen? He couldn’t know, and there had been no chance to count the bodies of the dead. How many slaves had been free for just a few hours only to perish in this brutal final fight?

  They were at the end of the long tunnel, and there was no further retreat. If the humans went into the Moongarden, they would be surrounded and destroyed with ease. Here, in the ravaged yet still fortified barracks building, they could at least take a defensive position and make a valiant stand.

  Feathertail herself was wounded, bleeding badly from a cut in her leg, and Mouse supported her with his left arm as he wielded his sword with his right. All the while the rank of red-coated ogres marched along behind them like a machine, maintaining the steady pace of the chase. Any humans who fell were butchered then relentlessly trampled beneath.

  The survivors of the war party and the freed slaves moved through the wide doors that they had smashed only a short while ago. The big room still reeked of warqat, and the shattered barrel lay scattered on the floor.

  “Form a line in here!” Thane Larsgall urged.

  “Kill as many of the bastards as you can,” Mouse added. He eased Feathertail to a seat on a bench some distance from the broken door.

  Some men scrambled up stairs to the second floor and took positions on the balconies overlooking the corridor and the downward ramp. The rest joined the rank in the great room, facing the door, waiting for the ogres to start through. Here they would await the inevitable final reckoning.

  There would be no escape from this place. All they could hope to do was kill as many ogres as possible before the last of them died.

  Stariz pushed open the doors to the temple, leading the way for the guards who dragged Strongwind Whalebone and Bruni of Brackenrock behind. Their chains rattled as the two captives, upon a gesture from the queen, were cast roughly to the black stone floor.

  “Fetch my mask and my robe!” demanded the high priestess, and her ogress acolytes scurried to obey.

  She drew a breath and looked up at the massive statue, the beautiful black image of Gonnas towering far above her head. This was her lord, she knew, not that pathetic weakling king who could not even bring himself to condemn these hateful rebels. Fortunately, Stariz had divined what needed to be done, and she had the resolve to take action, ruthless action. In a minute the heavy black mask had been placed over her head, the ceremonial robes draped to the floor from her blocky form. She felt pure, whole, and powerful.

  She hoisted the axe, relishing the feel of her god’s might. The two captives were held flat on the floor, two guards and two acolytes holding each limb, pressing the humans on their backs, spread-eagled and vulnerable. Fire blazed from that golden blade, warming her and terrifying the enemies of her god.

  Fingering the haft of the mighty weapon, she looked down at Strongwind Whalebone. All of the hatred, contempt, and resentment of her life swelled up in her heart as she raised the weapon.

  “Poor luck, human,” she said. “I had planned to wait for this moment-but it seems as though Autumnblight comes early this year!”

  The axe came down, and Stariz heard the satisfying sound of the big woman screaming in horror and grief.

  Kerrick led the slaves down the narrow alley toward the bright lights on the avenue before him. He had nearly reached that intersection when he tripped over something soft and small and went tumbling headlong.

  “Slyce?” he declared, astonished to see the little gully dwarf scrambling out of the way. “What are you doing here?”

  “Watching,” said the little fellow miserably. “Watch ’em take big Bruni away.”

  “They took her-where?” asked the elf urgently.

  “Come. I show you,” said the gully dwarf. “She wit’ big ogress lady and shiny axe. Not nice lady, not nice at all.”

  “No,” agreed the elf, sheathing his sword and motioning his comrades to follow. He pictured the ogre queen, and his heart was cold.

  “Not a nice lady at all.”

  “What do you mean by this?” demanded Grimwar Bane, bursting through the temple door. He advanced on his queen, his fists clenched and his face glowering red with fury. He gestured toward Bruni, who was sprawled in chains, held on the black stone floor by two ogress acolytes at her arms, two grenadiers holding her legs. Beyond was the lifeless form of Strongwind Whalebone, cloven by a deep wound inflicted by the Axe of Gonnas, which still glowed in his wife’s hands.

  “I ordered you not to harm these prisoners!
You could not wait to kill the first one, and now this one too? I will not allow it!”

  “Yours are the orders of a fool!” shrieked the queen. “Any slut with a silly smile can twist you into idiocy! Now it is this one’s time to die, just as I had your whore killed! This time I shall have the pleasure of inflicting the lethal cut myself!”

  The axe was over her head, flaming brightly. “Behold the will of Gonnas!” she cried in exultation. She started her swing.

  Something halted the downward momentum of the axe. Stariz screamed as the weapon was plucked from her fingers like someone taking a toy from a child. Enraged, she spun around, shocked to see the hulking figure of Karyl Drago, holding the axe and shaking his head at her. The big warrior had stepped out from behind the statue, and now he blinked, almost sleepily, as he shook his head in denial.

  “No,” said the monstrous ogre. “You are wrong. This is not the will of Gonnas.” Karyl Drago held the Axe of Gonnas in one meaty hand, high out of the queen’s-or anyone else’s-reach.

  “Do you know whom you address?” demanded Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane. “I am the will of Gonnas, the mouth, the tongue, and the word of our god!”

  She stalked away from the hulking Drago and the king, then she spun to confront them both below the obsidian statue of Gonnas that loomed high in the center of the room.

  “I am the voice of Gonnas!” she shouted triumphantly. “I am his will, manifest upon the world of Krynn!”

  As she shouted the words she knew that it was true, for she felt the power of her god infuse her. She was the Willful One, and she threw back her head and laughed aloud. No one could stand in her path.

  “You are a puny fool!” she screamed at her husband.

  Extending her hands, she barked a sound of rage and violence. Magic exploded from her fingertips, a blast of fiery power that rushed outward, swatting him aside with one powerful blow. The other ogres in the temple gasped and cried out as the king tumbled across the floor, rolling over and over, finally smashing, hard, against the base of the wall. He gaped up at her in shock and horror, drooling.

  “You are an insolent toad!” she spat at Karyl Drago, who was backing away, clutching the Axe of Gonnas. “You are not worthy to touch that sacred relic!”

  She extended her hands another time, ready to blast that massive ogre and snatch the talisman from his grasp. Stariz noticed a bat soar down before her-but what could a bat do?

  Dinekki’s goddess was in her, and she was content. For more than eight decades she had cherished a life upon the Icereach, cold and cruel though that life had often been.

  Now she had reached the end of those years, but strangely she was not the least bit sad. Instead, she came to rest on the floor, her claws clicking on the smooth stone. In another instant the spell faded away and she stood, frail in appearance but powerful in spirit, before the enraged, astonished ogre queen.

  The old shaman said nothing, merely looked upward with a sly smile creasing her wrinkled face. Stariz shrieked and shrieked, consumed with rage at this mad interruption, and drove a crushing fist downward, smashing the old woman’s brittle bones, driving the mortal life from her flesh …

  Bringing the power of two gods into collision.

  The guards at the temple gate were surprised by the sudden determined appearance of the charging rebels, too surprised to pull shut the heavy iron door. They fell, stabbed and bleeding, as Kerrick led Moreen, Barq One-Tooth, Tildy, and at least a hundred freed slaves into the great hall.

  Here they stopped, frozen by the sight of a fiery apparition-a giant ogress, in the image of Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane, reeling backward, shrieking in unholy pain. Her hand was blackened and blistered, and flames flickered up and down her limbs like hungry scavengers.

  Nearby, the body of Strongwind Whalebone lay on the floor, cloven almost in half by a monstrous blow. The elf saw another ragged, broken shape on the floor, and he recognized poor Dinekki-or what was left of her. The frail old shaman’s body was torn and broken, as though rent by terrible violence. Smoke rose from her tattered flesh and from the floor around her. An explosion had shattered one leg of the looming black statue that rose above everything else in the room. That obsidian icon teetered now on its remaining leg, and the rubble strewn beside the smashed limb was smoking in the same manner as Dinekki’s flesh.

  Incensed beyond reason, Kerrick charged the queen, trying to slash with his sword. She didn’t appear to notice him but instead staggered away, still screaming, swatting at the flames that burned along her body. Her right hand was a charred stump, blackened and still smoking. He thrust, missing her, and sprang forward to resume his desperate pursuit.

  “Don’t do that!” cried an excited voice.

  “What?” Kerrick asked, stunned by the sudden appearance of his small companion at his side. The elf stopped and stared at the kender.

  “That’s better,” said Coraltop Netfisher. “Just watch. This is getting better and better every second!”

  “Bruni!” Moreen cried.

  The big woman, still chained, was rolling away from the gaping ogres who had held her. The acolytes fled to the far corner of the temple, while the guards drew their weapons and ran to protect their king.

  Together with Barq One-Tooth, the chiefwoman raced across the throne room toward her old friend, who was struggling to stand, her hands chained before her. An ogre guard lunged to intercept them, but when Barq raised his axe the warrior retreated warily.

  “Cut these!” cried Bruni, kneeling on the stone floor. She placed her manacled hands on that hard surface, and Barq brought his axe down with one crushing blow, slicing through the iron links.

  Magic blasted and a shower of sparks swirled through the air, as Stariz howled in fury and managed to cast another explosive spell at the Highlander thane. Barq One-Tooth flew across the room and smashed into the wall, slumping next to the ogre king, his axe spinning free onto the floor.

  “My turn,” muttered Bruni, seizing the weapon, and turned to face the looming, burning queen.

  The big woman hurled the weapon with both hands. Barq’s axe flipped over and over through the air and thunked loudly into the black mask over the queen’s face. That obsidian shell broke away, and Stariz ber Bane stood glaring at them, unhurt, her eyes blazing with maniacal fire.

  “Blasphemy!” cried the high priestess and queen. She turned toward the tilting statue, raising her arms in a gesture of pleading. “Hear me, O Master! Smite those who thwart your will, who endanger the place of your people in the world! Show us your favor, and destroy those who are your enemies!”

  She spun back to face the ogres, humans, and elf, casting back her head with a shriek of crazed sound, half prayer and half laughter. The statue tilted wildly, but Stariz wasn’t looking. Her face was distorted by glee and fury, joy and rage all mingled in an expression of insane frenzy.

  “This is the will of Gonnas the Strong!” she howled, raising her hands for one last spell.

  The statue of the Willful One toppled forward on its one leg. Slowly, like a tall tree breaking free of its ancient roots, it plummeted, smashing down upon the ogress queen with a weight of thirty tons. The brittle obsidian shattered. Black stone chunks tumbled across the floor. Bits flew everywhere, the roar filling their ears.

  Of Stariz ber Bane there was no sign except for a smear of dark blood that slowly oozed between the shattered rock, spreading in an oily slick across the floor.

  “The queen is dead!” gasped an ogre warrior, one who wore a gold-braided helm that seemed to mark him as an officer.

  Others of the guards were tending the king, helping him to stand unsteadily. Two of them offered shoulders for the ogre monarch’s support.

  For a long time no one spoke. Everyone was too astonished, too exhausted.

  “With her passing, let the killing cease,” finally declared Grimwar Bane, stumbling for a moment, then shaking off the support of his warriors. He took three steps forward and held up his hands in a sign of truce
.

  Kerrick’s sword was ready, the ogre monarch just a long lunge away from him, but something caused him to hold the blow. Instead, he remained on guard, watching and waiting.

  Bruni came slowly forward, wrapping one arm around Kerrick, the other around Moreen Bayguard. Other slaves closed in, swords and spears leveled at the king, as a rank of red-coated ogre guards came forward to flank their monarch,

  “What did you say?” asked Moreen, her eyes narrowed.

  “I said, let the killing cease,” declared Grimwar Bane. He looked at Bruni and nodded quietly. “You were right,” he said, “about many things.”

  “Bruni, what did you say to him?” asked the chiefwoman, in a tone of wonder.

  “Well, for one thing, that I was more worried about the queen’s rage than the king’s,” the big woman said with a wry snort. She looked at Grimwar Bane, then stepped forward with an outstretched hand. “I think you’re talking about how we waste too much of our energy in trying to kill each other. How slaves, in bondage, will inevitably strive for freedom.”

  “Yes, yes … Bruni,” replied the king. “You saw the truth, and you dared to tell me, even when I had your life in my power.”

  “What about the slaves and all the dead?” demanded Moreen. She gestured toward Strongwind Whalebone’s corpse, which was being reverently covered by Barq One-Tooth. “He could have been the greatest leader his people have ever known, and your queen killed him for her own pleasure. Many of your people and ours have died on this day, and your guards are hunting and killing humans in your city even as we speak.”

  “Send word to Captain Verra!” commanded the king, shaking his head, wiping blood and dust from his face with a beefy hand. “Tell him that I order a truce effective at once. All attacks are to cease immediately!”

  “Aye, Sire! It shall be done!” declared the golden-helmed guard. He departed at a run.

  “Those slaves are pretty mad,” said Coraltop Netfisher, striding right up to the ogre king. “I must say, of course, they have cause to be. You haven’t treated them very well, have you now?”