The Messenger

23

Kerrick held the golden axe upraised. The weapon was heavy but perfectly balanced. He twisted the hilt as he had seen the ogress do and was rewarded by the sight of blue flames dancing along the edge of the blade.

The dwarf, backed into the very prow of the sailboat, glared at him. His pale, milky eyes narrowed.

“I never heard of such a ship,” he said sullenly.

“You are Baldruk Dinmaker. You served as Dimorian Fallabrine’s second mate for years, at least three voyages before the last. If you lie to me again I’ll … I’ll cut off your arm.”

The dwarf chuckling ruefully. “Well, you’ve got a keen eye. I’ll tell you, though it’s not a happy story. The Oak came to these shores, and she was taken by ogres at her first landfall, captain and crew-including myself-all made prisoners. The ogre king had her renamed, outfitted her as his own ship. She’s called Goldwing, now. That’s what happened to the Silvanos Oak.”

“And the crew? What of the elves and humans and kender who crewed her?” demanded Kerrick.

The dwarf snorted. “Elves and humans went to the king as slaves. The kender he butchered-who could blame him? Kender are good for nothing, not even ballast, if you ask me. Tell me something: Why are you so concerned about that doomed voyage?”

“Dimorian Fallabrine was my father.”

Now those strange eyes came into tight focus, and the dwarf’s hand scratched thoughtfully at his beard.

“You do look a bit like that old pirate, and I know Dimorian had a son. Never stopped talking about him, in fact. So that’s you? Strange coincidence!”

Kerrick nodded numbly, but his mind was racing ahead. “The ones who became slaves-where are they today?”

Baldruk frowned. “They don’t last long under slavery around here,” he said bluntly. “I don’t think one of them lived through the first two years, not the elves, at least. Who knows, some of the humans might still be there, working in the king’s mines, or tending his harbor. Elves are too soft to make good slaves. The humans last longer … sometimes.”

Kerrick sagged. The dwarf was right. Any Silvanesti condemned to perform physical labor as the chattel of ogres would inevitably perish before long. The degradation was unthinkable, the physical toll lethal. He addressed the dwarf in cold anger.

“But you-you’re no slave, not one who marches beside the ogre king and who comes to counsel the queen. You’re a traitor!”

“Now, wait, lad. I had a chance at survival and I took it! I never betrayed my crewmates. We were captured by ogres! How can you blame me for seeing my chance at life, taking a job that got me out of the accursed mines?”

“No, I remember the stories. It was one of my father’s mates who convinced him to sail after gold. You were the one who planted the idea in my father’s head. It was you who spoke of the Land of Gold, you who claimed you could lead him to riches!”

Baldruk’s eyes were slits. His hand, unnoticed by the elf, slid to the back of his leg, touching the top of his leather boot.

“Don’t jump to conclusions!” he urged.

The silver dagger flashed, clutched in Baldruk’s fist. Kerrick couldn’t believe his own stupidity. The dwarf must have caught the blade and secreted it in his boot. Too late, he recalled Moreen’s tale of the weapon that had killed her father.

Even as he remembered this, Baldruk lunged at him, and Kerrick brought the fiery axe down. The golden blade bit into Baldruk Dinmaker’s neck, sizzling as it cut flesh.

With a gasp, the dwarf thrashed backward. His knife splashed into the water. Blood spread across the foredeck as his eyes, wild and hateful, met Kerrick’s. “Fool!” croaked the dwarf. “You still don’t know the truth-and you never will!”

He convulsed, thrashing on the blood-slick deck, rolling over the gunwale. He splashed into the water and disappeared into the inky depths.

“No!” cried Kerrick. What did the dwarf mean? Was it possible that his father still alive? Why had the fool tried to attack him? Kerrick hadn’t wanted to kill him!

“Who’s that up on the snowfield?” Coraltop Netfisher asked, standing on the cabin roof, pointing excitedly. “Is it one of the good guys? How did the boat get all bloody? Are you okay?”

“What? How did … where?” Kerrick was trembling as he turned to confront his green-tunicked passenger. The massive axe was suddenly heavy, and after a twist extinguished the flames he dropped it onto the deck.

The kender hopped down from the cabin and sauntered forward, then yelped as Kerrick lunged, seized him by both shoulders, and shook.

“Tell me! Who are you? What are you?” demanded the elf. “How do you keep disappearing?”

“What, because a simple-minded ogre didn’t find me? Have you seen those pig-eyes they have?” chuckled the kender. “It’s like my Grandmother Annatree used to say, ‘You can’t see anything, unless you look.’ ”

“Not just the ogres!” spat Kerrick, with another, none-too-gentle, shake. “You couldn’t have survived the winter out here! You couldn’t sleep for five days on a crowded boat. I looked for you. You weren’t on board!”

“Speaking of looking, who is that up there? I think he’s in some kind of trouble.”

Snarling in exasperation, Kerrick squinted, following Coraltop’s pointing finger. A figure had emerged from a narrow slit in the snowbank and was poised on a steep slope, a hundred feet above the waters of the cove.

“It’s a man,” Kerrick said, as the lone figure started to move sideways along the steep slope, kicking footholds into the wet snow.

Up on the hillside, something else moved, a hulking shape. The drama focused the elf’s attention once more on the present. A fist flailed out from the hole in the snowbank, and a long spear probed outward, though the escaping man remained just out of reach.

Kerrick felt a rush of sympathy for that desperate human. The fellow was undoubtedly a Highlander, but the appearance of the ogres had triggered a deep feeling of kinship with the humans-especially compared to the ogres and thanoi.

“I don’t think the ogre can get out through that hole,” Kerrick said. He peered at the shore, where more ogres thronged the cave mouth. The lone man was some distance away from them, but it was only a matter of time before the brutes fanned out in pursuit.

Kerrick dipped his oar in the water and pushed his sailboat across the placid, snow-bound cove. Cutter’s keen bow sliced through the surface, smoothly gliding closer. “Help paddle!” he barked. Coraltop willingly lifted the tiller, using it as an additional oar.

“And stay here, dammit!” added the elf, glaring at the kender who grinned and stroked with enthusiastic vigor.

“Down here!” Kerrick shouted, turning his attention to the hillside as they drew nearer to the snowy ground.

The ogres outside the cave had finally noticed the fugitive. Some lumbered along the shore, toward the place where Cutter approached, while others started climbing toward the lone man.

“Slide down to the water. We’ll pick you up!” called the elven sailor.

The man looked down and cursed as ogres came closer, pushing through deep snow. One brute struggled to squeeze out through the narrow slot where the man had escaped from the cave.

“Hurry!” cried the elf, eyeing the ogres as they made their way along the snowy shore.

With another curse, the man careened down the steep slope, cutting a trough through the slushy snow, sending pebble-sized ice spraying around him. Kerrick pushed off with the oar, moving the boat a little way from the shore. The man tumbled in ungainly somersaults. He struck the water with a loud splash and vanished into the black depths.

Probing with the oar, Kerrick touched a squirming form, holding the blade so that the man could grab on and be hauled to the surface. The Highlander sputtered and cursed. With loud grunts and more curses he heaved himself onto the deck.

The elf recognized Strongwind Whalebone. “I should push you right back in the water!” he snapped. “Isn’t that what you did to me?”

The Highlander king wrung out his braided beard, shook water from his hair and tunic. He did not look regal.

“It would be a reasonable act on your part in revenge for a foolish act on my part,” said the man. “Strike me down if you must.”

Kerrick glared. “How did you get out?” he asked after a moment.

“There was a spyhole. The lad, Little Mouse, found it. I used it to escape, after that shaman, Dinekki, and my priest worked a spell to collapse the cave. The ogres are stopped, at least for now.”

“What about the tribe and your men?”

“Your Arktos friends might reach safety,” Strongwind said. “Little Mouse also found a way up to Brackenrock inside the mountain. He took the Arktos and a band of my warriors up there. They’re attacking the citadel, right now.”

The elf glared at Strongwind for several moments before chuckling wryly. “Dinekki’s the only reason I’m alive. She gave me a spell of water breathing before you dropped me in that hole.”

“Yes, good for her,” said the man glumly. “Good for you. It was a noble thing, to come back and rescue me thus.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Kerrick said bluntly. He was struck by another thought. “Coraltop,” he called, “come and meet a human king.”

“Who do you address?” asked Strongwind, looking toward the stern.

Kerrick craned his neck and looked for himself. The tiller where Coraltop Netfisher had been rowing hung slack. There was nobody there.

“Sire!” It was Urgas Thanoi, speaking urgently. “Do you see that smoke rising from beyond the ridge. That is coming from Brackenrock!”

The ogre king couldn’t see the lofty citadel from his position on the shore, but the plume of black smoke was clearly visible, rising across the pale blue sky.

“What of it?” demanded Grimwar Bane, who was still furious about the cave-in that had so decisively blocked his army from a vengeful bloodbath. Furthermore, his wife, bleeding from a knock on the head, had just stomped over to report that the elf had overcome her when she wasn’t looking, kidnapped Baldruk and escaped.

“That is the signal for trouble. They must be under attack!”

“How? From where?”

“Is it possible, oh wise lord, that the humans have discovered a passage from their cave to my citadel?”

“What is that?” growled Grimwar Bane. “A passage to your citadel? This is a fine time to mention it!”

“Begging Your Majesty’s pardon,” offered the thanoi, “but we’re swimmers, not cavers. We’ve never explored these caverns, but legend holds that they twist and curve, rising beneath the floors of our citadel.”

“Where’s Baldruk Dinmaker when I finally need him?” The king frowned angrily. “He knows about tunnels and caverns and the like! The little runt spent fifty years living underground in Thorbardin!”

“He’s dead, I think,” Stariz said dazedly, rubbing an ugly bump on her forehead. “The elf took him on the boat, and I saw them fighting. The dwarf keeled over and rolled into the water.”

“What good is that to me?” huffed the king. He squinted at the boat, drifting on the placid water with two men visible on deck. “Well, that elven rascal won’t get far until the ice melts outside the cove. We can worry about him later.” He looked at his queen, suddenly realizing that he wanted, even needed, her advice. “What do you think? Are the humans on top of the mountain now?”

“It’s a very good chance,” said Stariz slowly, regaining her composure. “That’s clearly a big cave, warmed by the same steam that heats the tusker citadel.” She nodded contemptuously to Urgas Thanoi “Even if the tuskers haven’t discovered such a route, it’s likely that one exists or could be forged.”

“Well, then, we’d better get up there while we still have a chance to recoup our victory,” snapped the king, actually enthused by the prospect of more action. “Come on, you louts!” he roared to his warriors, who were waiting around the outside of the cavern. “We’ve got a hard climb to make!”

He pointed to the road excavated into the side of the steep slope, beginning near the cave mouth. It curved along the mountainside, making its way higher and higher above the water in the cove until, on the far side of the valley, it vanished through a narrow notch, a pass flanked by a pair of brooding, cornice-draped cliffs. Beyond that notch rose the plume of smoke marking Brackenrock.

“Up! Let’s go, my brutes! With luck, we’ll have plenty of killing on the top!”

“More of the Highlanders are here,” Bruni said, pointing to a throng of warriors spilling into the courtyard of the fortress, emerging from the door to the barracks chamber and the once-secret cave. Moreen lowered her sword and at last drew a breath. “They must be coming up the chimney now as fast as they can.”

“Only one at a time,” Moreen said, half to herself. She and Bruni were atop one of the two towers of the gatehouse. Five dead thanoi, bodies still warm, lay at their feet. The first rays of pale sun bathed them in light, but all Moreen could see was the slick, brilliant red of the blood that covered them and everything else.

The big oil fire in the gateway had been kicked apart by Highlanders and Arktos, but the smoke still lingered. It had clearly been a signal fire, and soon enough the chiefwoman expected an attack from the ogres on the shoreline below.

The fortress was mostly secured. The Highlander warriors, behind the berserker Mad Randall and the veteran Lars Redbeard, were here and there breaking into chambers within which the tuskers had barred themselves. One by one these strongholds were cleaned out. Against the most stubborn pockets of defense, the Highlanders tied burning rags to flasks of warqat and threw the flaming missiles with explosive effectiveness.

More Arktos warriors had reached the fortress in the last few minutes, fighting side by side with the men or going after individual tuskers on their own.

Tildey had led a group out the gates of the fortress, slaying the few tuskers who had tried to flee through the snow. The archer had gone all the way to the notch overlooking the cove before turning abruptly and heading back at a trot to Brackenrock, leaving four Arktos women standing guard at the pass.

“I’m worried,” Moreen said. She and Bruni climbed down from the tower and met Tildey in the open gateway of the fortress. Lars Redbeard, his axe stained with tusker blood, also met them there.

“The ogres,” Tildey announced, trying to catch her breath. “They’re starting up the path. The whole column is on the march, and they’ll be here within two hours.”

Moreen nodded curtly. She looked at the slopes leading toward the gate, imagining what a charge of ogres could do. Her eyes fell on the narrow notch, where Tildey had posted her four sentries. Tall flanks of rock, each draped with cornices of snow in deep drifts, loomed to either side of the gap, narrowing the pass to a bottleneck.

“Let’s get most everyone working on getting some kind of barricade across this gate,” the chiefwoman said. “Use whatever we can find.”

“Good plan, but it’ll take the better part of a day,” Lars noted.

“I said most of us should work on that. The rest of us will go there, to that narrow pass. It will be up to us to hold the ogres off long enough to seal the gate.”

“Will you work with me against a common enemy?” asked Strongwind Whalebone

“I don’t think we have much choice.” Kerrick pointed at the steep slope, where the outline of the ancient road was just barely visible through the snow. “Up there is Brackenrock. You know where the cave is. The Arktos and, I suppose, the rest of your army are holed up in there. You say they were going to climb up to the fortress from inside the mountain?”

Strongwind explained about the narrow chimney, the hope that Moreen and a small force could rush the castle from within, and lead the rest of the beleaguered humans there to safety.

“If the ogres get there first, Moreen won’t have a chance.” Kerrick spoke grimly, pointing to the ogres massing outside the cavern. Already they were forming up and filing along the snowy road that gradually ascended toward the fortress, curving up the side of the valley until it disappeared through that lofty notch.

“That smoke must be some kind of signal.”

“If we somehow delay the ogres, can the citadel be held against ogre attack?” Kerrick wondered.

“Yes, as long as most of my men get behind the walls before the ogres do. Brackenrock was impenetrable for generations, before the dragons came. It was the center of a blossoming civilization, and the ogres sent many armies to destroy it but could never breach its high walls. If we can seal off the gate, we can hold the advantage as long as necessary. From the towers we can harass them with bows and spears. But how can we hope to delay so many ogres?”

“There!” Kerrick said, pointing to a notch beneath the overhanging shelves of snow. “The ogres have to pass through there. If we get there first and get some help from your men, we might be able to hold them up.”

“As good a plan as any,” Strongwind agreed. He touched the hilt of his sword, secured in the great scabbard strapped to his back. “I have my weapon. What about you?”

Kerrick picked up the gold-bladed axe. “This will work,” he said grimly.

Only when he and Strongwind made ready to jump to shore did Kerrick again remember Coraltop Netfisher.

“Your passenger?” asked the king, seeing the elf look back to the stern and hesitate.

Kerrick shook his head. “Forget him. He’s gone.” If he was even here in the first place, he added to himself.

He had maneuvered Cutter to a place directly under the massive shelf of snow. Reluctantly, he abandoned the boat, consoling himself that she couldn’t drift far in the icebound cove. The ogres were on the other side of the bowl-shaped valley, slogging their way along the road that angled gradually upward, though they had yet to travel very far.

“It’ll be a steep climb,” cautioned the Highlander. “Do you think we can get ahead of them?”

Kerrick snorted. “I don’t think we have any choice,” he declared. “Anyway, we can go straight up to the notch, and they’ll have to circle around half the valley.” He left unsaid that the ogres would climb a smooth track on a gentle grade, while the human and elf would be going straight up a steep slope strewn with rocky outcroppings.

Together they jumped onto the snowy shore, the momentum of their leap shooting Cutter slowly toward the middle of the cove. Sinking knee deep into the wet snow, dragging the heavy axe behind him, Kerrick started to climb. Strongwind Whalebone kept pace at his side.

The snow was wet. At first the elf tried to drag the axe along, but he quickly realized the heavy weight of the weapon made it a liability. He used the long shaft as a climbing pole, jabbing it into the snow.

“No sense in both of us doing all this work,” Strongwind suggested after a few minutes. “Why don’t you follow me for a while? Use the path I make?”

The elf found it easier to follow in the human’s bootsteps. Strongwind clawed his way upward with admirable strength, steadily ascending until finally he collapsed, gasping for breath. Kerrick passed him, taking a long stint in the lead. Within a few minutes they had risen as high as the leading rank of the ogre army, still across the valley, like a long, dark snake on the snow-covered trail. No doubt the ogres had spotted the climbing duo, though they hadn’t visibly quickened their pace.

Once more Strongwind took the lead, and soon they were climbing above the ogres, but the steep grade took its own toll. Before long both again collapsed, gasping for breath, straining to find strength in their leaden limbs.

The ogres were close enough now that Kerrick and Strongwind could see the metal speartips in the long rank glowing with reflected daylight. The king and queen marched at the head of the column, and Kerrick felt the ogress’s eyes upon him, sensed her fury, her desperation to regain her sacred axe.

“Got to keep moving,” grunted Strongwind. “You follow.”

Again he started out but after a dozen steps collapsed facedown in the snow. Kerrick clawed up behind him, his own fatigue like a heavy burden. He knew they wouldn’t be able to push all the way to the pass.

Only then did he remember the talisman of his father. “My ring!” he croaked. “Do you still have it?”

“Yes.” The human pulled a necklace from beneath his tunic and the elf saw the artifact dangling there. He looked at the strapping, muscular man, compared with his own slender frame, and knew what he had to do.

“Put it on,” he said. “It will give you strength!”

“It’s too small. You take it.”

Kerrick waved him away. “It will grow. Put your finger through it, and you’ll see.”

Strongwind followed the elf’s instructions, eyes widening as the circlet of gold expanded to surround one of his fingers. Slowly, he slid the finger through the ring. He sat up straight, and looked at his hand with wonder.

“It is powerful magic. Give me the head of the axe. I’ll pull you along.”

Looking more like a bear than a man, the king of the Highlanders set himself against the slope with heavy footsteps. His hand gripped the knob at the rear of the axeblade, and Kerrick held on to the hilt, feeling himself lifted almost effortlessly.

Strongwind Whalebone kicked and stepped, kicked and stepped, with fierce energy and determination. Higher and higher they climbed, the elf following along, the man straining and pulling and steadily ascending. Strongwind skirted the base of a tall cliff, then scrambled up and over a belt of wet boulders. Finally, Strongwind drew near to the notch, curving under the great overhanging cliffs of snow. Kerrick followed closely behind, helping himself as much as possible, leaning on the man’s strength when his own muscles started to fail.

Finally the two reached crest of the ridge, where they were greeted by four Arktos spearwomen. More humans, a dozen of each band, were hurrying toward them from the lofty fortress. For the first time Strongwind and Kerrick got a good look at Brackenrock, taking in the sweep of the high walls, the formidable gatehouse, the towers and parapets lofting behind the outer barrier.

Closer, the elf recognized Moreen, Tildey, and Bruni. At the sight of Kerrick the Arktos halted in astonishment. Abruptly Moreen hurled herself forward and threw her arms around his neck.

“You’re alive!” she cried. “But how-”

“There’ll be time to explain later,” he interrupted.

She nodded, already scrutinizing the ogre column which had ascended most of the way up to the notch. “The fort is secured,” she declared. “We have everyone who can lift a rock working to block the gates. We’ll have to hold them here, for as long as possible.”

Even commanding the high ground, the odds of winning a long battle against the ogres were not good. They needed something else, some advantage to give them hope.

Kerrick lifted his eyes along the great drifts and cornices that flanked the pass overhead and loomed high above the outer slope.

“If we can start that snow falling,” he mused, “we could knock a lot of the ogres right down to the water.”

“How?” asked the chiefwoman. Then her eyes brightened, and she turned to the Highlander who had accompanied her. “Lars, your men have flasks of warqat, don’t they?”

The warrior, his head capped by a wolf-skull helmet, nodded. “Most do. We used a few to burn out the tuskers.”

“That’s what gave me the idea. Strongwind said you used warqat to knock down the wall of ice. If we planted the flasks on those snowbanks, could they do the same thing?”

Strongwind nodded. “Yes, if we could ignite them.”

“I know how to do that,” Kerrick said. He lifted the axe and twisted the handle, bringing the blue flames springing from the blade.

“We’ll climb, then!” the king said, as the Highlander warriors produced, between them, ten flasks of the oily brew. Strongwind slung the straps of the flasks over his shoulder and turned toward the nearest cliff. He took a step, then staggered, falling to one knee.

“My strength is gone!” he groaned.

“The ring-take it off,” Kerrick said urgently. “You’ll need to rest. Here, I’ll take the flasks.”

By now the nearest ogres were several hundred paces away. The king and queen pulled back, prudently allowing a few dozen stalwart warriors to take the lead, but Grimwar Bane followed close behind.

“Go!” Moreen urged. “We’ll hold them here!”

The elf scrambled up a jagged, steep slope of rock, quickly moving above the first of the great snowbanks. He dropped two flasks along the base of the thickest part of the drift, loosening the corks so that a bit of the flammable liquid could leak out and serve as a fuse. Then he climbed on.

A downward look showed him the first ogres lumbering into the pass. Bruni met one with a swing of her mighty hammer, knocking the brute in the head, sending him tumbling down the long, steep slope. Moreen stabbed another, the elven sword drawing blood. The Arktos and Highlanders in the narrow gap stood side by side, axes, swords, spears and hammers all thrusting outward, holding the lead ogres at bay. The rest of the column still advanced, passing directly under the elf’s lofty position.

Higher and higher Kerrick scrambled, dropping two flasks along the top of another drift, then planting three at intervals of ten paces in the base of a huge cornice. The crest masked his view of the ogre army, but he could still see the detachment fighting to block the humans from the pass. Moving quickly, he placed his last three flasks at the base of a large shelf of icicle-draped snow.

He heard a scream and looked down to see the ogre queen pointing at him. “The sacred axe! Kill the elf, and return the Axe of Gonnas to his priestess!” she cried.

Moreen lunged at the hulking ogress, her sword flashing. Kerrick gasped in horror as an ogre spearman slipped behind, his brutal weapon poised to strike the chiefwoman in the back. Then Tildey was there, knocking aside the blow, tumbling back as the ogre fist smashed her face. She lay on the snow for an instant, and before she could move the great spear plunged downward, piercing her belly and driving deep into the suddenly crimson snow.

“No!” screamed Moreen. She pulled back her sword, slashed it across the face of the ogre. Bruni added a hammer-blow, and that hulking attacker followed several others on the long tumble down the mountainside. Tildey lay still amid a growing circle of red.

Near the top of the promontory, Kerrick lifted the gold-bladed axe. He twisted the handle, and flames sprang into life. He touched those flames to the flask of warqat he had planted at the crest. Immediately the snow, saturated by the leaking brew, leaped into flames. He ignited the next two flasks, then quickly slipped downward, on the back side of the ridge.

The first explosion shook the valley with a muffled thump, followed almost immediately by two more booms. The icy drift trembled and began to slide. Kerrick was already lighting his lower charges. One after another flames surrounded the bottles, heating the warqat, licking eagerly toward eruption.

The elf climbed to his feet and looked outward, just in time to watch sheets of snow tip forward and roar down.

As the huge slab of snow and ice swept toward the marching ogres, Grimwar Bane knew in a sickening instant his army was doomed.

“Forward! Carry the pass!” cried the king, seizing his wife’s arm and pulling her out of the way of the avalanche-which meant lunging almost onto the blades of the furiously resisting humans in the narrow pass. Two of his warriors flanked him, cutting down a Highlander in the king’s path, gaining for Grimwar as small space to stand.

They made it by inches as the slab plummeted behind. He turned back just in time to see dozens of ogres vanish in the first strike. The avalanche spread, as more of the snow cover broke free and toppled toward them, until it seemed as though the whole mountain was falling. White fury engulfed the slope, a cascade of powder and ice, burying everything in its path.

The wave of white swept the ogres away as though they were toys. Some of the warriors tried to flee ahead of the catastrophe, tripping and cartwheeling clumsily down the slope. They had little chance. The snow swept down crushingly. So powerful was the avalanche that it tore rocks from the mountainside, mixing these missiles into the mass of snow and ice.

Grimwar watched in horror, until the ogre beside him fell with a dull groan. He turned back to the battle, the Barkon Sword in his hands, to face an infuriated human woman.

“This is for my father, you bastard!” she cried, jabbing a sword with remarkable dexterity, a slashing blow that drew blood from the king’s leg. He chopped back, but his blow was unbalanced, hacking only the trampled snow in the pass.

Another human woman, this one almost as big as an ogre, charged in with a huge hammer raised over her head. One of the king’s warrior’s intercepted her, buying Grimwar precious seconds before falling with a crushed skull. On his other side, Stariz screamed and tumbled against the king, her face gashed by a sword cut, blood spilling through her mouth and onto the snow.

Everywhere the humans were closing in. A trio of Highlanders cut down the last of Grimwar’s ogre warriors, leaving only the king and queen remaining in the pass. The long slope of churned snow spilled downward behind them, and vengeful men and women closed in from the front.

Fear propelled Grimwar Bane into the only choice he could make. Seizing his wife by the arm, he pulled her with him, falling back from the pass, slipping and tumbling down the steep mountainside. With Stariz clinging in terror to him, he skidded and plunged and rolled down from the pass toward the bottom of the mountain. After many minutes-it seemed like hours! — both of them splashed into the icy water. In wild panic Grimwar kicked and grasped, feeling the weight of his gold as a cursed anchor. Somehow his hands dug into the snowbank, and finally he was able to crawl out of the cove, shivering and soaked. Stariz gasped and cursed at his side. She was still bleeding grotesquely, and he saw that half of her nose had been hacked off.

All around his warriors were gasping and thrashing in the cove, many of them slipping beneath the water. The avalanche had been relentless, sweeping away the road, smashing through the ogre ranks. Half of the army was gone, wiped out in the first instant of frosty assault.

Above them now was only a clean, steep mountainside. Around the king were the remains of a proud army, ogres drowning in the water, or clawing their way onto shore. The cove was spotted with floating bodies.

“We must attack, get revenge!” hissed the queen, leaning over Grimwar and staring into his face. Her eyes, staring from that mask of blood, were wild and terrifying. “They have the Axe of Gonnas! Lead your ogres up there again!”

“No!” Grimwar roared, with a look so fierce that, for once, even Stariz shrank back. “We will go back to Winterheim and wait for this accursed snow to melt. I told you, this is no time for a campaign!”

“The Willful One demands, requires vengeance!”

“I promise you this: Summer will come, and the snow will melt. I will gather the rest of my army from Winterheim, bring reinforcements from Glacierheim and Dracoheim, and demand troops from all of my tribute lords.” Grimwar was making a grand plan already, a design for blood and victory. The humans had thwarted him, but they had not defeated-they would never defeat-him!

And the elf-that elf-would taste his vengeance!

“As Gonnas himself is my witness,” Grimwar told Stariz, “we will return and take our revenge.”

Dimly Kerrick heard the cheers from the gatehouse of Brackenrock. Moreen embraced him, and he was touched to see tears in her eyes. She turned to the Highlander king, meeting his abashed look icily.

“You’re don’t know how lucky you are. Killing him would have made me hate you forever. Our tribe owes our very survival to him.”

“I was doubly lucky, it turns out,” said the Highlander king with unusual humility. “His survival is the only thing that saved me when I came out on the snowfield below.” He coughed awkwardly, looking down at the ground, then back into Moreen’s eyes.

“My lady chieftain,” he said bluntly. “I have acted wrongly in ways that, as you have correctly pointed out, are more suited to ogrekind than man. I would humbly and sincerely beg your forgiveness.”

Moreen’s dark eyes flashed, gleamed with a note of triumph. Kerrick watched her, wondering if she would unleash the crooked half-smile that he found so intriguing. Instead, her face remained tight, pensive, and Strongwind eventually lowered his eyes.

“We won!” Little Mouse said, running up to them excitedly. “I took a spear from a tusker! And I killed two of them.…” His voice trailed off, and he looked at the notch, still bloody and covered with scattered bodies, some from their side. “It wasn’t quite the adventure I thought it would be,” he admitted. Then his eyes widened in dismay. “Not Tildey?” he groaned, his voice cracking.

“Yes,” said Bruni, kneeling beside her tribemate. She closed Tildey’s eyes with a gentle touch of her big hand, as the big woman’s tears mingled with Mouse’s and Moreen’s.

“We suffered much today, losses we will never replace,” said the chiefwoman sadly.

Garta and several other Arktos came from the fortress to join them at the pass. The matronly woman, her handless arm draped awkwardly around Feathertail, looked at Moreen with tears of relief and grief in her eyes. “The Highlanders carried me up the rope,” she said. “It’s true, Moreen-you brought us here, to safety! You did it!” Emotion overcoming her, she began to cry softly. Feathertail offered her a small rag to dry her tears.

“Now, don’t be carrying on like that!” snapped Dinekki, hobbling up to join them. “We’ve got plenty of work to do before that place is liveable! And I swear, it’s going to take years to get the fish stink out of these stones.”

“Welcome to Brackenrock,” Moreen said, stepping back and gesturing Kerrick and Strongwind toward the tall towers, the still-yawning gateway where people were still busy gathering tusker bodies, and cleaning up rubble.

“It is warm here, and the sun is returning.” She took the elf’s hands and looked into his face. “Your coming was a message from the goddess to us. You brought us across the strait and here, at the end of the battle, started the greatest avalanche in the history of Icereach. I welcome your friendship and will do anything I can to repay you.”

Kerrick flushed, suddenly ashamed of his base motives. She didn’t know he had sailed on a quest for gold. Right now he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. He nodded gratefully.

“I have a lot I want to say to you,” Moreen added, before looking over at Strongwind Whalebone sternly. “You, too.”

“I will listen,” promised the king of the Highlanders, “but know that my people have paid in blood for this place, even as have yours.”

“You told me that this is a place sacred to your people’s history, as it is for ours. Perhaps we have more in common than we thought,” Moreen said. “Perhaps now, with a shared victory, we can explore our points of similarity, instead of our differences.”

“Yes,” the king said sincerely. “Let us talk.”

“You go ahead,” Kerrick said, as they started toward the warm fortress. “I’ll be right there.”

The elven sailor wanted to check on his boat. He walked out to the very brink of the notch, until he could see the small circle of water that was the cove. He looked down, saw Cutter floating there still icebound and safe. The ogres in their chaotic retreat were vanishing around the shoulder of mountain at the shoreline, and they had left his boat alone. He waved, and was not surprised to see a small figure seated at the tiller, waving back.

He waved again and blinked, and there was no one there.