The Golden Orb

9

The breeze out of the south was strong, and judging from the chill it would get stronger, and colder, sometime during the next few days. Kerrick knew from long experience that squalls, complete with lashing rain, cold winds and violent seas, could strike the White Bear Sea at any time, even in the midst of summer. Now one such storm brewed ominously, dark clouds forming an image like a mountainous horizon far to the south of Brackenrock.

Still, the elf was eager for this mission, sailing with Moreen across the Bluewater Strait, carrying her to a meeting with the Highlander king. His feelings regarding Strongwind Whalebone were far from fond. The strapping, bearded king was a powerful man, handsome and persuasive, and he had been smitten by the chief-woman of the Arktos eight years before. Now Moreen was going to seek his help, and Kerrick didn’t want to speculate on what she might have to give up to gain the Highlanders’ aid.

Yet the thought of a half day alone with Moreen as they crossed the strait before the threatening storm was enough to negate all his other concerns. The arrangements for the council had been made quickly by means of carrier pigeons. Strongwind Whalebone would arrive at Tall Cedar Bay today, and by the twin gods of Zivilyn and Chislev the chiefwoman was also determined to get there today. She was the Lady of Brackenrock, and she did not want to keep the proud Strongwind Whalebone waiting.

The elf’s fingers tightened on the tiller as he turned the sleek prow slightly to deflect the blow of a looming breaker, bracing himself for the pressure against the hull as if it was a slap against his own skin. As the boat crested the swell and pressed on, he took the same pleasure he would have gained from sloughing off a powerful but misjudged attack. The clouds were dark, but still distant, and he didn’t doubt but they would make a fast crossing.

It pleased him that Moreen was here, to see his skill, to ride his ship through this lively sea. As the spray lashed across the chill waters, soaking his oilskin slicker and stinging his eyes, he drank in the sight of the black-haired woman. She looked back at him from her position fore of the cabin, where she balanced on the pitching deck to look over at the elf from the small compartment in the stern cockpit. He loved her wry, half-turned smile, the way her dark eyes flashed when she noticed him watching her.

“Do you want me to take in some sail?” she called, flexing her knees as the bow rose sharply beneath her.

“Yes,” he replied, as much because he wanted the trip to last a little longer as to avoid the jarring and bouncing of their wild ride. Even if Strongwind couldn’t be expected to wait too long, it wouldn’t hurt the king to stand around for an hour or two before the lady got there. This was a time, a moment in his life, that Kerrick wanted to savor.

Moreen adjusted the lines, playing out the boom so that more wind slipped past the main sail. She skirted the cabin to come back and sit beside Kerrick.

“Are you worried?” she asked, after studying his thoughtful expression for a moment. “Do you think we should turn back?”

“Worried? No. Why do you ask?”

“It was the expression on your face… like something was wrong.”

Kerrick shook his head. “I was thinking about the dream I’ve been having. I’ve had it several times now, variations of the same message. It’s a dream about my father and my homeland.”

She was silent for a moment, gazing across the wind-tossed waters of the strait. “You haven’t spoken of Silvanesti since you came back to Brackenrock, but I know you must miss your home, don’t you?”

Kerrick shrugged. “Actually, I’m not so sure I miss the place as it is right now. It’s more as though I long for the place it was when I was a child, when my father was there.”

Her laughter was wry. “You’re not the only one to have such longings.” Her gaze turned ahead and her eyes narrowed as she peered at the horizon. “You know, you’ve never told me much about your father-only that he was captain of that galley, Silvanos Oak, that sailed to the Icereach.”

“He was captured by ogres,” the elf declared bluntly. “Grimwar Bane renamed my father’s ship, made it Gold-wing, the ogre flagship. My father suffered-the gods know how he must have suffered! — in the king’s dungeon. If he was lucky, he died quickly. At best, he could have survived a year or two. This is all I’ve been able to find out over the last several years. Only tidbits and rumor. But the notion that he might have escaped and returned home… ridiculous! Just ridiculous.”

Kerrick sighed. “What’s the point in knowing how he died? Or who killed him? There are some revelations better left in the dark.”

Moreen shook her head with a slight grimace. “When I saw my father killed by the ogre’s spear it was a horror, a nightmare, but at least I was there, I saw it, and I know he’s gone. There’s a comfort in that.”

“Maybe it was the same thing for me when I saw the galley under Grimwar Bane’s control. Did you know, my father drew the plans for Silvanos Oak himself? He helped with every phase of the construction. To see that beautiful vessel corrupted to the ends of the ogre king… that was proof enough of my father’s death.”

“If you hadn’t come here when you did, that ship in our enemy’s hands probably would have been our undoing. The gods work in strange ways,” Moreen replied. “I don’t know if I ever really thanked you for designing and installing the harbor boom.” The chiefwoman changed the subject quietly. She looked at Kerrick with dark eyes, soft and pensive, and he felt a stab of irrational guilt.

“It was little enough,” he declared, not very truthfully. “Now you’ll get help from the Highlanders, too. Strongwind was eager to meet with you, or he wouldn’t have agreed to come to the bay on such short notice.”

“No doubt he’s worried about the possibility of a new ogre weapon; I warned him about that in the message. He’s got his own interests to look out for and will want to know everything we can tell him,” she said pensively.

“Yes. Some new horror of unspeakable power.” The elf found himself wishing that he had interrogated the thanoi aggressively, had learned more-something useful! But the creature was in such a bad way, and Kerrick had felt only pity for him.

Moreen looked past the cabin, along the bow. “It’s possible that Strongwind will already know something about it. He surprises me, sometimes, with his sources of information… with…”

“Will… will your meeting with him take very long, do you think?” asked the elf warily.

“I’d like to get back to Brackenrock by tomorrow night,” she replied quickly. “There’s so much to do.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll stay at the bay, probably sleep on the boat. We can go whenever you want to leave in the morning.”

All too soon, for the elf, the forested ridges of the strait’s eastern shore darkened the horizon. Long familiar with this section of coast, Kerrick needed only a slight course adjustment to bring them sailing directly toward the little cove that in the past eight years had become home to a small but prosperous fishing village.

Tall Cedar Bay was sheltered by the promontories of evergreen-studded cliffs that reached out to enclose the anchorage in protective arms. Only when Cutter glided though the gap between those sheltering ridges did Kerrick relax his grip on the tiller and allow Moreen to haul in more sail. The wind and storm, blocked by the flanking heights, dropped away almost to nothing, and the jarring motion of the boat settled into a smooth glide.

As Cutter sliced through the calm water, Kerrick looked to the shore and reflected on how much this place had changed. It had been his first landfall when he had reached the Icereach, nine summers ago, though then it was merely a grove of wild evergreens and a rocky, wild shore.

Now he sailed past five fishing curraghs, the sturdy boats anchored just offshore, a stone’s throw from the solid rock piers that flanked the small waterfront. On one of the banks a stone fishhouse belched smoke from its squat chimney, while the odor of salmon hung in the air.

Nearer to the anchorage, the wide log facade of the Tall Cedar Inn occupied a commanding position on a small rise of land, overlooking the bay. Several burly Highlanders were lounging about on the veranda, and they came down to the wharf as the sailboat slowed and finally came to a stop. Kerrick glanced at them, then turned his attention to the front door of the inn.

Strongwind Whalebone, king of the Highlanders, stood there, his arms planted on his hips, his straw-bearded face split by a wide grin of welcome. To Kerrick, as he turned the boat to allow the wind to flow past the sail, the day suddenly seemed to get much colder.

Moreen walked up the gentle hill and accepted Strongwind’s warm embrace, the bristly kiss on each of her cheeks. She even returned the hug with enough pressure to let him know that she was glad to see him.

Surprisingly enough, she was. There was a sense of competence and strength in his familiar, bearlike presence. Here, with his arms around her, she felt safer than she had in a long time. Here was the only place she where she could let someone else take charge, at least for awhile.

“I see Randall’s tent over there,” Kerrick said, when she finally broke away to look at the elf. His expression was strangely pinched, and she wondered, again, about the secret pain that lurked within him.

For now she only nodded, looking at Strongwind. “We’ll talk at the inn?” Tall Cedar Bay boasted but one sprawling inn, the large cabin on the rise above the waterfront and the bay.

Strongwind nodded. “Yes-Dannard has turned it over to me for as long as we need it.” He turned to Kerrick. “Randall was hoping to see you, I know. I daresay I’d rather spend the evening with you men around the fire, drinking and tell tales, than to have to bear these burdens of state.” He smiled, but Moreen saw little humor in the expression-it was more the smile of the wolf who has tired his prey and now closes in for the kill.

Kerrick smiled gamely in return, and his humor seemed genuine. “The crown weighs heavy, eh, my lord? Well, we’ll save you a draught in case you can slip away.”

“No chance of that,” said the king, turning and wrapping a lanky arm around Moreen’s shoulders. She twisted slightly to break free of his grip, taking his elbow and walking at his side to the inn. Kerrick headed in the opposite direction.

At the door to the inn Strongwind bowed, and extended a hand. “My lady, know that all the hospitality of this little den is available to your merest whim.”

“Why, thank you my lord,” she said, slightly mocking him as she passed inside. Taking a deep breath, she waited as Strongwind poured several large glasses of warqat. He led her to a pair of comfortable chairs before the hearth, where a low fire burned. Then she began to talk.

She told him of Kerrick’s encounter with the dying thanoi, the missive from the ogre king to his mother on mysterious Dracoheim. She said she was convinced of the truth of the threat, that the ogres had some powerful new weapon. Moreen related the results of Dinekki’s auguries, indicating they still had some time to prepare their defense. The king listened thoughtfully, drinking slowly from his goblet, until at last Moreen was done talking and ready for his reaction.

“Will you stand with us against this new threat?” she asked. “If you will send warriors to Brackenrock to reinforce our own fighters, we can present a united front-and give the ogres a serious defeat if they do come against us.”

Strongwind nodded solemnly, and for a few moments Moreen wondered if he was going to say anything at all. She took a sip of her warqat, feeling the warmth slide down her gullet, surprised to note that her glass was nearly empty. Finally he looked up at her and spoke.

“I remember Dinekki,” Strongwind said softly. “It was she who brought our two gods together, caused the very ground to shake-and helped save our lives when the ogres attacked eight years ago. If Dinekki is convinced of the threat, that is enough for me. Added to the elf’s story about saving the thanoi, I agree that we are in for some dangerous times. For now, of course we will help,” he said, “but I beg you to think of this alliance more for the long term.”

“What do you mean?”

“Become my queen!” Strongwind pleaded in a burst of emotion. “Marry me, and unite our peoples in a way that will bind them together through the future. Certainly, I will send warriors to aid you now. I assume you would do the same, if we learned of any threat against us. That is to be expected of old friends, but that is not enough! If we were wed, our descendants would be linked forever, and we would present a front against the ogres they would never shatter!”

“You make a compelling case, politically, at least,” Moreen said dryly, feeling more touched by his proposal than she cared to admit-even to herself. “But I had always hoped that, if I married, it would be for a more personal reason. I am my people’s leader, but I am also a woman… a woman who wants to love and be loved.”

“I do love you!” proclaimed the king. He set down his goblet and kneeled beside Moreen’s chair, taking one of her hands in both of his. “I’ve loved you since I first saw you. I only wish I had told you the truth then, rather than speaking in political riddles. Speak, lady chief-woman: Could there be any glimmer of love in your soul, for me?”

Moreen drew a deep breath. Strongwind’s words were seductive, and his blue eyes, so close to hers, were overpowering.

“You are a good man, Your Majesty,” she said softly. “Perhaps the best I have ever known.” But she felt it was wiser for them to defeat the enemy first, and then talk about marriage afterward. “We have time to talk about these things,” she said. “For now, would you fill my glass again and join me in a toast to this summer’s alliance?”

“A new weapon, hmm?” Randall speculated. “Something to blow Brackenrock right off the face of Krynn. Of course, if it can destroy that citadel, it could blow up anything else, too. Guess I’ll be there with ye to stand against the bastards, if they come.”

The Highlander drew from his mug of warqat and instead of swallowing spat a stream into the fire. Blue flames surged upward, and Kerrick relished the feel of the sudden heat against his face. The waters of Tall Cedar Bay shimmered in the twilight, and the salt smell of the sea mingled with sweet pine smoke. Dry logs crackled as the flames devoured them, mingling with the lapping of waves against the shore-the only sounds in the still summer night.

Furtively, the elf looked up the hill, toward the inn. Subdued lights, like a fire fading low in the hearth, still glowed in the windows. Moreen Bayguard and Strong-wind Whalebone were in there, alone, had been for many hours. It was past midnight, though it had never really grown dark.

Randall saw his glance and shook his head. Lars Redbeard, the third of the companionable trio gathered around the fire, sighed sympathetically. “Don’t know what they can be talking about for so… long,” he said without much conviction.

Kerrick could imagine but didn’t want to. The king of the Highlanders was unwed, and his desire for the chiefwoman was known to all. For eight years Moreen had stood independent of the king’s will, safely distant behind Brackenrock’s high walls. If she was really frightened, convinced her tribe was in dire danger, would she weaken?

“Would the ogres be comin’ this summer, then?” inquired Redbeard. “That would be a hard blow.”

“Yes, but we’ll be ready,” Kerrick said, surprised at the realization that he had included himself among the Arktos. “Most of the past eight years have been spent building and expanding the fortress, reinforcing walls, putting up new bulwarks. We’re ready for war.”

“I have some business over in Brackenrock, anyway,” Lars said casually. “The men from my clanhold are itching for a ride across the strait. Maybe we’ll come over, camp out for awhile. We shan’t be any bother.”

Kerrick was touched by the offer of support, and he knew that Moreen would be too. “Thanks, and I’m sure your presence would be welcome,” he said. Again he looked up at the inn. The lights were even lower now, it seemed.

“Here,” the elf said, reaching a hand toward Randall. “Let me have a drink.”

She woke up to see the light of dawn brightening the eastern sky, through the unshuttered window. The great, broad swath of the Icereach morning brightened the sky to a rosy coral. Reclining on the cushioned bench, she sleepily looked out the window, between a gap in the tall cedars.

A rattling snore drew her attention to the nearby chair, where the king of the Highlanders slumbered. A goblet lay sideways on the floor, just beneath his dangling hand. Strongwind rustled slightly in his chair, extending one foot. Moreen saw the big toe jutting from a hole in his woolen stocking.

Her own head hurt, and her mouth felt gummy and sour. Grimacing with distaste she rose and crossed to the water pitcher. Her legs were unsteady, and the movement brought the pounding in her head to an uncomfortable crescendo. She drank deeply, felt a little better. Crossing back to the bench and chair, she smiled wryly, then flung the contents of the pitcher into Strongwind’s face.

The king came up swinging, almost surprising her before she hopped out of the way. Groggily Strongwind opened his eyes, wringing his long hair in both hands. “What did you do that for?” he demanded, then winced as if the sound of his own voice stung the inside of his skull.

“It’s your turn,” she said, gesturing to the goblet that lay sideways beside the king’s chair, “to make a toast.”

He gaped at her, then, grudgingly, chuckled. “You wore me down, didn’t you? A little thing like you, and I fell asleep in the chair. I know I can’t out-talk you, but by Kradok I was pretty sure I could out-drink you!”

She looked at him, feeling a strange tenderness. “Actually, I was pouring it into the spittoon after the first few rounds.”

“Waste of good warqat,” the king muttered glumly. “So that’s it, then? We talk for half the night, and that’s all we do, as usual. You won’t be my queen?”

Moreen shook her head. “You’re a good man and a good king, but I’m not ready to marry you,” she said.

“You never give me a reason,” Strongwind pressed. “I hope it is not that the sight of me repulses you?”

She smiled, a wry tilt of her lips. “Hardly. You’re right, I didn’t give you a reason. I don’t intend to give you a reason.”

“You’re a stern woman, Moreen, Lady of Bracken-rock,” Strongwind Whalebone admitted, “but I admire you, and I will send three hundred warriors to help defend your fortress, if and when the ogre king comes.”

“I think you should stay another night,” Strongwind persisted. The wind was gusting hard, and another of the periodic cloudbursts was drumming rain. “You too, of course, Kerrick-both of you, my guests. We’ll tell some stories, drink some warqat, and you can be on your way when this storm passes.”

Kerrick didn’t reply, but he concentrated all of his will on Moreen as she squinted in thought. It took all his elven reserve to conceal his elation when she finally spoke.

“Thanks, but if Kerrick’s willing, I’d like to try to get across right away-if the weather’s not too bad.”

“No problem for Cutter,” Kerrick quickly agreed. “With a wind like this, we’ll make it across in a few hours-though it will be a little bumpy.”

“Then let’s go,” said Moreen, though she turned a little green as she stared at the bay, where even the semi-sheltered waters were whipped into whitecaps. She turned to Strongwind. “Thank you again for your hospitality, and for your willingness to help.”

The king took Moreen’s hand and gazed up at her. “I am grateful for the discussions we were able to share… and may Chislev and Kradok together grant that we will lead our people into a new, bright era.”

“Yes,” the Lady of Brackenrock agreed, sincerely. “I look forward to seeing you and your warriors within the walls of our citadel.”

Kerrick offered his help as she started down the steep ladder beside the wharf, but Moreen hiked up her long skirt and hopped nimbly down the metal rungs. Kerrick followed, and soon the boatman was pushing the dinghy back to the moored sailboat.

They crossed back to Brackenrock with the sun barely visible between the scudding clouds. Kerrick was sore from sleeping on the ground, cold from sleeping outside, and queasy from the effects of too much camp-fire warqat. As Moreen sat beside the transom, wrapped in her own thoughts, her ashen face indicated that she, too, had indulged too much in the bitter but potent brew of the Icereach.

By noon the headland of Brackenrock rose before them. From several miles out they could see the fortress, the smooth walls reflecting the light of the bright sun, the towers and parapet shimmering like jewels in a crown.

Kerrick looked over at Moreen. She had been strangely quiet during the return trip. He guessed that she was steeling herself for the task ahead. The Lady of Brackenrock didn’t even notice the elf staring at her. As she studied the strait and the pillar at the mouth of the harbor, the grim look on her face made another kind of fortress.

“You know,” Moreen said finally, over her shoulder as she continued to look over the stern, toward Tall Cedar Bay. “He isn’t such a bad man. Not so bad at all.”

Two days later a veritable parade of curraghs began to cross the strait, and a week after that Strongwind Whalebone himself made the trip, bringing his personal bodyguard of veteran axemen. All told, more than four hundred and thirty Highlander warriors arrived to camp outside and inside the walls of Brackenrock.