Winterheim

14

Kerrick limped past a row of dead humans, the bodies arranged by the survivors with as much dignity as they could manage. The elf was sore, badly bruised in many places on his body, but he could not ask Dinekki for help. Her precious store of healing magic was expended on those with broken bones or ghastly wounds, and in this way she saved the lives of a score of valiant warriors before she collapsed from utter exhaustion.

“How many more are hurt badly?” asked Kerrick, looking first to Moreen, who shook her head, still trembling from the aftereffects of the fight. Next he turned to Bruni, who was carefully re-wrapping the Axe of Gonnas, handling the artifact with great, even reverent, respect.

“A few bruises,” the big woman said, moving her left arm through a stiff circle. “Nothing’s broken, though.”

Other warriors were moving around, bandaging wounds, collecting scattered arrows. The humans had quickly realized that those who had fallen into the chasm were utterly lost, the bodies beyond retrieval.

The survivors of the war party had all filed into the cavern. All of the ogres had been slain and their bodies dumped into the crevasse, but the cost of victory was dire. Some thirty-five humans had lost their lives in the frantic fight. Three more were terribly wounded, unable to walk, and though it broke their hearts the others knew they could only leave them behind to die. Each of the three had declined the shaman’s healing magic, knowing that it would be better used to restore some wounded fighter to health than to merely allay the suffering of those who were inevitably doomed.

The elf knelt beside Barq One-Tooth, who still lay flat on his back beside the crevasse. The Highlander thane was breathing, but his eyes were closed, and his face and beard were sticky with blood. Kerrick took a bit of water from his canteen and sprinkled it on the man’s face, eliciting a grunt of awareness. Carefully the elf tried to rinse away some of the blood.

“I think his nose might be broken,” he noted. “He took quite a punch to the face.”

He did his best to pull the thane a little farther away from the drop-off. A few minutes later Barq was sitting up, mopping his bloody beard with a rag, shaking his head groggily.

Kerrick grimaced at the sight of the burly Highlander’s face. The thane’s nose was smashed nearly flat, while bruises had extended to black circles around both of his eyes. His lips were puffy and swollen, like two ragged sausages plastered across the gateway to his mouth.

He snorted in reaction to Kerrick’s expression. “Haven’t you ever seen anyone who lost a fight before?” growled Barq.

“We won-and that was a brave charge you made,” the elf remarked.

“Never took a hit like that before,” Barq grunted. Only then did he look around curiously, finally standing up and hobbling to the edge of the precipice, staring down into the shadowy depths. “The big one-he’s down there?”

Kerrick nodded.

“How did you do that?” wondered the thane.

“I needed to use the Axe of Gonnas,” Bruni said. “The flames startled him as much as anything, and he lost his balance.”

“Did you notice the way he stared at it?” Kerrick asked. “It was entrancing to him-as if he loved that axe!”

“Not for long, he didn’t,” Moreen remarked wryly.

Barq nodded again, soaking in the information. “Nice work,” he acknowledged, finally, “all of you.”

“You, too,” Moreen said. “We make a good team.”

Barq didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes widened as he probed his gums with his tongue then reached up to feel inside his mouth with his broad, blunt fingers. He exclaimed something that sounded like “Ai oof!”

“Looking for this?” The chiefwoman leaned down and picked up a golden chip that was lying on the stone floor, holding it. Barq One-Tooth groaned as he saw it, holding it up close to his face and examining it glumly.

“We’ll have to call you Barq No-Tooth for the time being,” Kerrick observed, drawing an angry glower from the hulking Highlander.

Apparently he lacked the spirit to argue, however, for he simply placed the loose gold tooth in a small belt pouch and went about collecting his backpack, which he had cast aside early in the fight.

“Here-spread this across your nose and your cheeks.” Moreen gave him a small jar of the healing ointment Dinekki had brought. They had a small supply of the stuff remaining, which was useful mainly for minor wounds.

The fighters were exhausted from their long climb and the intensity of the brief battle, but they loaded up their gear, re-ignited their torches, and started to follow the cavern that curved and twisted away from Icewall Pass. Bruni led the way, followed by Kerrick and Moreen, with the limping and bruised Highlander joining the rest of the warriors in the shuffling column. Barq cast frequent glances behind them, sharing Kerrick’s irrational dread that perhaps the monstrous ogre guardian might not be dead.

It was a weary and dispirited group that made its way farther into the cavern. Dinekki was carried by Bruni, who supported the elder shaman like a baby, cradled against her chest in both of her brawny arms.

For an hour they made their way deeper into the Icewall cavern, following a fairly wide passageway with a smooth floor that was, thankfully, free of any further obstacles. Finally exhaustion compelled a halt, and at a wide spot in the corridor the weary warriors stretched their bedrolls on the floor and tried to find space to rest. However, many of the men and women sat staring, eyes fixed upon remembered images. Sleep proved to be a very elusive comfort.

The torches sputtered and failed until only a few of the brands still flickered. Kerrick found himself restless and uneasy, and as he had on the faraway hill before the Tusker Escarpment, he pushed himself to his feet and wandered along the periphery of the war party.

He heard an annoyed shout and turned to see a big Highlander holding the gully dwarf, Slyce, by his neck.

“Little bugger just stole the last of me warqat!” growled the man. “I oughta punch him clear back to the White Bear Sea-knock the lights out of him!”

“Looks like he’s already pulled the shades,” the elf remarked, seeing the little fellow’s eyelids close droopily.

“Hmmph,” snorted the warrior, his rage apparently dissipating in weariness, or despair. “Stone drunk-wish I could join him there.”

He cast the gully dwarf against the wall, where Slyce collapsed and started snoring noisily. The Highlander ended up stretching out next to the pudgy little fellow, and using his chest as a pillow, he was soon snoring his own accompaniment.

Here, in the underground passage, Kerrick probed ahead of the group, allowing his elven eyes to penetrate regions of pure shadow, places that would have been utterly dark to the humans. It was a relief to get away from the torches, which sizzled and flared in his vision annoyingly.

The elf wandered on, looking for something, anything, to distract him along this twisting passageway. He saw signs of serious excavation and knew that the ogres-or more likely their slaves-had labored hard to create this route through the mountain. Steps had been carved into the floor to ease the passageway in places where it descended or rose. Narrow corridors had been widened, the walls showing the marks of countless chisels and picks, so that even at its most constricted point the corridor would allow the passage of four or five ogres walking abreast.

Before he knew it the elf had wandered a good distance away from the rest of the group. Behind him the torchlight was invisible, the faint sounds of sleep swallowed by the twists and turns of the circuitous route.

“Nice fight,” said Coraltop Netfisher, who was leaning against one of the cavern walls, a dozen paces in front of the elf. “You really know how to use that sword.”

Kerrick snorted bitterly. “Now you show up? It would have been too much trouble to help out, I suppose.”

If the kender took offense, he didn’t show it. Instead, he ambled forward then reached up to rummage through Kerrick’s belt pouch. “No warqat left, huh?” he said, disappointed.

The elf blinked in surprise. “No … but that was a good tip, to carry strong drink up the Tusker Escarpment. How did you know to tell me that?”

Coraltop shrugged. “Know to tell you what? I thought you’d drink the stuff-never thought it would go to waste inside of a polar worm!”

“Well, it was good advice, anyway,” Kerrick noted, “but we’ve lost nearly half our men, and we haven’t even made it into Winterheim yet. Now what do we do?”

“How should I know?” asked the kender, with maddening indifference. He brightened, though, even smiled. “I guess it’s going to start getting interesting now!”

Kerrick awoke with a start, sitting up on the cavern floor, his hand instinctively going for the sword that slid soundlessly from its sheath to gleam coldly in the lightless space. He was alone in a wide stretch of the underground passage connecting from the Icewall Gate, and he had somehow dozed off while sitting against the wall.

“By Zivilyn!” he gasped in a breathless whisper. “I can’t believe I fell asleep like that!”

He had. Anything or anyone that had come along could have killed him, and he would have been utterly defenseless.

“Coraltop?” he asked, remembering that he had been talking to the kender in his last moments of wakefulness.

He was not surprised to receive no answer, but when he placed his hand on the stones where his seafaring companion had been sitting, he was startled to feel that the bedrock was still warm. Perhaps he hadn’t been as defenseless as he first thought.

“Thanks, old friend,” he said quietly.

He was stiff and uncomfortable when he rose to his feet and felt like an old man as he hobbled back to the war party, only gradually working the kinks out of his joints and limbs. The battle with the monstrous ogre had taken a toll on him that he would feel for days, he felt certain.

He found the group of warriors stirring, though most of them, too, seemed to be suffering the aftereffects of the fight-all except Slyce, who moaned under the influence of an obviously thudding hangover.

“That’ll teach you to steal good warqat!” snapped the Highlander.

“Never no more,” agreed the gully dwarf lugubriously.

“Ah,” the warrior said, his tone softening. “It’ll wear off with a few good miles under your boots.”

“We go on the same way?” Barq asked, squinting into the dark passage Kerrick had scouted.

“No other choice,” Moreen said. She addressed Kerrick. “Will you lead the way?”

“Sure,” he agreed as Bruni fired up a torch. All along the file other brands flared, until the war party looked as if it were escorted by a legion of huge, smoky fireflies.

With his back to the blazes, Kerrick found he could see pretty well. The walking was easy here. The passage was obviously a natural cavern, with stalactites on the ceiling and stalagmites rising from the floor in many places. Here and there the walls showed signs of chisels and hammers, where the ogres-or their slaves-had widened the route to allow for easier traversing. The floor was for the most part level, though not infrequently there were periods of steep descent. These were invariably carved with steps that, even if they were a little tall for a human’s stride, made for relatively easy descent.

Nowhere did the cavern narrow to the constricted route that had marked the entrance. Kerrick speculated that the mouth of the gate had been left thus to make it easier to defend, while the interior had been widened and made smooth to allow for easy marching, possibly by a large contingent of ogres. The air throughout was warm and moist, much like the air in the caverns below Brackenrock. They knew this was the result of subterranean heat sources that would-also like Brackenrock-ensure that Winterheim maintained a comfortable and constant interior temperature even during the worst ravages of the Sturmfrost and the sunless winter.

For hours the party trudged along, mostly in silence, though there were occasional hushed observations from some of the humans, awed by the vast sweep of a chamber ceiling or an exotic column of stone that seemed to have been formed from solidified mud. They came to the longest stairway of the route, a series of thirty steps that carried them steadily downward, with a broad landing after each ten tiers. At the bottom they entered a very large chamber, and Bruni and the others held their torches high. The light barely reached the walls but reflected back from enough slick surfaces to reveal a cavern that was nearly the size of Brackenrock’s great hall.

The air was slightly cooler in here, and it felt moist against Kerrick’s skin. He looked around in a moment of silent awe and heard the gentle trickling of water. Crossing the room he found a small pool, with a stream flowing into it from a gap in the opposite wall and a little channel leading away, eventually passing through a hole in the far side of the cavern where it undoubtedly continued its descent toward the sea. Beside the pool was a wide, flat expanse of fine-grained sand. Here they decided to take an extended rest.

“Look-blindfish!” Moreen exclaimed, pointing into the shallow, clear pool.

Kerrick saw a number of the cave dwelling swimmers, including a pair that were a good foot and a half long. Quickly he nocked an arrow into his bow and with a few well-placed shots was able to pull two of the largest fish out of the water. The shiny creatures wriggled and flopped until, with a few swipes of his knife, he filleted and cleaned them. Bruni gathered pieces of driftwood that had collected here.

Several Highlanders took up positions along the riverbank with light spears, while others held torches, the light reflecting in erratic glimmers from the rippling surface. In short order they had plucked dozens of fish from the stream, while still more of their comrades set about cleaning and cooking the aquatic delicacies. They grilled the fish and ate some of their dried bread, while sharing a few companionable sips from their dwindling supply of warqat.

Moreen and a dozen Arktos offered to stand the first watch, giving the others a chance to sleep. It was hard to tell how long they remained here in the lightless grotto, each of them standing a turn at the watch, but some time later they were all awake, refreshed, and ready to continue.

Barq gently probed his battered face. “Doesn’t hurt as much now,” he said. “Still swollen, though. Right?”

“No, really, it looks much better,” the elf suggested, disingenuously. He didn’t say better than what.

They continued along the cave. The party formed a long column, each warrior staying within a few paces of those marching before and behind. They passed through an array of caverns, some narrow with low ceilings, others vaulting high overhead. Water became common, mostly in small streams or clear pools.

“How far do you think we’ve come?” Moreen asked when they stopped for what they guessed to be a midday rest.

“Hard to tell with all the winding around, but counting yesterday, I think we’ve gone at least ten miles,” Kerrick speculated. “That must be half way to the main citadel, judging from where we saw the mountain outside.”

“We’d better stay alert,” Barq noted grimly. “There’s bound to be more of those big brutes waiting up ahead. They ain’t gonna let us walk right into their city like this.”

The others nodded, though Kerrick was not so sure. He was beginning to think that the ogre Broadnose had been right, that this was pretty much a forgotten and remote route into the ogre citadel, not a place that any citizen of Winterheim would use for a practical purpose.

“We should be coming to that place, the Moongarden, somewhere along here,” Moreen said. “Do you suppose we’ll know it when we find it?”

In another hour their question was answered as they came through a narrow arch in the cavern passage to find themselves in a chamber much, much larger than any before. There was no way for the torchlight to reach even halfway across the huge cavern, but neither was it necessary. Indeed, Bruni quickly extinguished the light, and the companions looked around in awe.

“It’s like a forest of mushrooms,” Moreen said, gesturing to the floor of the cavern some fifty feet below them. Everywhere grew massive clumps of fungi, some the size of bushes or boulders, others as big as cottages.

Throughout the clumps of mushrooms they could see streams, some rippling over rapids, others swirling or marked by still, deep pools. Flying creatures dived and spun through the air some distance away, and Kerrick pointed out that they looked like bats-a swarm of a thousand or more.

“It’s underground,” Moreen said, gesturing to the lofty ceiling rising to a shadowy definition overhead, “but we can see everything!”

“The walls,” noted the elf, inspected the stone surrounding the arch through which they had entered. “This is a glowing lichen here, and it seems to extend all the way around this place.”

Indeed, the illumination was soft, greenish in tint, and very pleasant to the eyes. It cast no shadows but instead provided a gentle and uniform light that resembled a summer night, when the skies were clear and the white moon full with the solstice light. It struck them all at the same time, as they looked at each other and nodded in understanding. It was Barq One-Tooth who articulated the general realization.

“I think we found the Moongarden,” he said.

There was a stabbing pain in his right side. Vaguely, over a long time, he realized that his arm was twisted behind him, almost impossibly bent. Probably it was broken, he thought glumly.

Karyl Drago had very good cause to be glum. He was wedged between the walls of the crevasse, an unknown distance far below the lip.

The big ogre uttered a groan and tried to shift his body around. It was his massive belly that had lodged him here where the chasm walls leaned close together, he realized. In so doing his great girth had saved his life. He had thrown enough loose rocks into this crevasse over his years of duty here. He well knew that it was virtually bottomless. If he had slipped past this spot-he could feel by kicking his legs that the gap was much wider just below-he would have plummeted an unknown, fatal distance.

How had they managed to knock him down here? He reflected on the question, not used to analyzing his own failures following a lost fight. Indeed, he had never been beaten before, though in his time he had battled a half dozen bull ogres at once.

It was that axe! He remembered the fire that had exploded before his eyes, dazzling him, filling him with wonder. The brilliant golden-edged blade had been the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, a miracle that warmed his soul and entranced him. He had been consumed by such a sense of awe that he had gone weak in the knees just from the sight. That weakness had been enough to doom him.

Or was he doomed? With a little more determination, he wiggled around, realizing that his arm, though wrenched, was not broken. Using all of his strength, he pushed on the walls to either side and ever so slowly began to inch upward. After ten minutes he had climbed out of the narrow choke point that had pinned him and was able to support himself with his legs widespread, massive feet braced one on either side of the chasm.

He looked upward. The crevasse was not terribly wide, and he wondered if he might be able to brace himself like this all the way to the top. Grimly he pushed, lifting himself another few inches before he had to shift his feet to new perches. Now he knew he was not trapped here, not doomed.

He chuckled, a rumble echoing through the deep chasm. The chuckle boded well for him and ill for those who had left him here. He would climb out of here and go after them. It was his duty, of course, and he would not let himself fail. He had another secret reason as well. He absolutely had to have another look at the wonderful, beautiful, axe.