Winterheim

20

Here-you can hide for a time, while I try to find out where the ogres are taking your friends,” Tookie said, pushing open a door and leading Moreen and Kerrick into a small, dark room. Moreen was out of breath, her heart was pounding, and her palms were slick with sweat.

“What is this place?” asked the elf, sniffing cautiously.

“Well, it used to be a brewery for warqat,” the slave girl replied. “Now I think they just store the barley and stuff in here. Nobody comes around this way any more, so you two should be safe here for enough time for me to go and look for Tildy Trew. She’s the one who will probably know where your friends are being taken. She knows a lot for a slave. Wait for me right here, okay? I’ll see if I can get her or someone else to help.”

Moreen knelt and took the child by the shoulders, looking into her tear-stained face. “You have been very brave, and you’ve helped us a lot. That big ogre came after us because we fought him two days before we met you. You have to help us a little longer, but I’m sorry, for getting you into danger.”

“Danger?” the girl snorted. “This is the most fun I’ve had in my whole life! Don’t worry. We’ll find where your friends are … and … and do something!”

“You are a great friend,” Kerrick said, touching her gently on the shoulder, “and Moreen is right, you are very, very brave. We owe you a lot already, and we thank you.”

A moment later Tookie had slipped out through the storeroom door, leaving the elf and the chiefwoman in the large, shadowy chamber.

“I’m frightened,” Moreen found herself saying, surprised at her own admission. “I can’t stand waiting here! We have to try and do something!” She paced a short distance, turned back in agitation, then glared around at their surroundings.

“I’m frightened too,” replied Kerrick. “Seems like a pretty natural reaction to our situation, wouldn’t you say? Let’s have a look around and take our mind off our troubles.”

To Moreen the chamber looked almost midnight dark, though Kerrick assured her that his elf eyes could make out some details. He removed one of the torches from their equipment basket and ignited it, sending flickering yellow illumination throughout the cavernous room.

They found several stacks of massive kegs and judged them to be empty by the hollow sounds when they tapped the sides. Much of the floor was covered in a layer of tangled straw, and several alcoves with raised floors branched into different directions from the three interior walls.

“You take the torch,” Kerrick said. “Check out those rooms over there. I’ll have a look on the other side.”

The chiefwoman was reluctant to separate from her old friend, but she agreed and investigated the first two alcoves. These seemed like additional storage rooms, smelling dank, musty, and vaguely sweet. A few crates and barrels were stacked about, and there was a heavy layer of dust over everything. She found no sign of a doorway or any connecting passage in either place.

Carrying her torch back into the main room, she was startled to hear soft voices coming from behind one of the stacks. She crept forward, trembling, hoping that it was only Tookie coming back. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her sword, ready to attack if this was a threat.

She recognized the elf’s voice, but he didn’t sound frightened or agitated. Leaning closer, she tried to hear what he was saying.

“… hiding in here, for now, but we’ve got to do something. We’re both going to go crazy if we just have to sit around and wait!” the elf declared.

“Well, then find something useful to do,” replied the second voice, with a sense of mild exasperation.

The tone was childlike, but it wasn’t Tookie. Instead, it was male, and though high-pitched it sounded vaguely mature.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Kerrick declared sharply.

Moreen came around the stack, holding up the torch. Kerrick chuckled shyly as he saw her and shook his head apologetically. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t find anything. Then, I guess the dark just kind of got to me-I was having a quiet conversation with my imaginary friend.”

“Coraltop Netfisher?” the chiefwoman said in awe, looking wide-eyed into the shadows past the elf.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” the elf replied. “I know it makes me seem kind of crazy … what is it?” he asked, seeing her expression of amazement.

“If he’s imaginary,” she replied quietly, “why can I see him?”

Captain Verra paced restlessly on the edge of the market, looking at the tangle of docks. Crates and barrels were stacked up, great lengths of rope coiled, and all manner of nets and oars piled haphazardly here and there. In time of peace they were useful for all manner of nautical tasks, but he had no care for that.

Right now, each of them looked like a potential hiding place for an elf intruder, or any number of rebellious slaves.

Farther along the wharf long racks of fish hung to dry over beds of charcoal that had yet to be ignited. The sawmill hummed in the lumberyard as slave labor turned the heavy gears, whirling the blade through one after another log of fresh pine, splitting the timbers into boards. Stacks of wood were growing in the vast storage yards, but all he could thnk of was the slaves moving to and fro. He wondered what they were planning, feeling.

He had received the king’s orders via a message tube that had been tossed down the city’s atrium to land, with a loud splash, in the waters of the harbor. One of Verra’s men had fished it out with a long pole, and the captain had quickly read the directive, and acted on it.

“Elf loose in the city … potential uprising of slaves … human war party penetrated the Icewall Gate and Moongarden …”

How could this be happening?

Verra was grateful that he had warned the king of a possible human insurrection only a few days earlier, yet now that he was confronted with the reality he felt woefully unprepared. He had three hundred ogres under his direct command here in the main square, with hundreds more scattered in detachments around the harbor level, but there were so many humans!

In agitation, he reviewed what he had done so far. First, he had secured the Seagate slaves in their vast warren. The humans in there numbered nearly a thousand in total, and they were now locked behind double doors of heavy steel, with hinges anchored several feet deep into the bedrock of the mountain. A dozen ogres stood guard at the second, outer door, while an equal number had commanding positions over the corridor, which the humans would have to traverse if somehow they managed to break out. Verra was satisfied that the Seagate slaves were safely locked away.

The slaves in the lumber yard numbered nearly an equal amount, but he had been unable to curtail them as effectively. For one thing, that vast work site was busy with cutting the timber that had been hauled across the tundra by the summer work parties. Much of that wood was needed for the Ceremony of Autumnblight, only two days away, and Verra had been reluctant to halt the work based on mere suspicions, so more and more boards made fresh piles, slaves carrying the planks from the saw to the storage racks.

Since he could not close the yard, he had posted an extra company of grenadiers-fifty veteran ogres-to reinforce the three score overseers who usually maintained order in the area. The odds were not unfavorable, but he had instructed his troops to be quick with the whip and vigilant.

The other work sites on the harbor level-the fish house and tanning factory, notably-only housed a few hundred slaves apiece. Verra had increased the guards at each of these and had given instructions for extra caution and discipline. He had ordered his troops to report anything the least bit out of the ordinary and had impressed upon them the seriousness of the situation. Now he could only wait.

He shuddered nervously, unable to shake the fear that he was forgetting something that might prove to be very important.

“You’re Moreen Bayguard,” declared Coraltop Netfisher. The diminutive fellow advanced with a wide smile and an outstretched hand. “It is a real pleasure to meet you. I mean I’ve been hearing about you for, oh, I don’t know how many years. It’s great to meet you!” He took her hand and pumped it, his small fingers wiry and strong in her own grip. “You came here to help Kerrick, of course. I’m glad. I try to give him a hand now and then, but Zivilyn Greentree knows I can’t do everything!”

“Um … likewise, it is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard very much about you over the years, too,” replied the chiefwoman.

She was stunned to see this little person, talking to Kerrick. He could not have entered through the door of the warehouse without attracting her attention. She was just as certain that he was really, truly, standing here in front of her.

“Where did you come from? How did you get in here, and find us?”

“Oh, I keep pretty close tabs on Kerrick here,” said the kender. He looked just as the elf had so often described him, wearing a plain green tunic and soft deerskin boots. His hair was tied in a long topknot that gathered at the crown of his head then flowed like a mane down his back. He leaned close and winked at Moreen. “I don’t know if you noticed, but he has a way of getting himself into trouble. I’ve tried to help him out, whenever I can. I guess you do that too. He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have us! Why, there was a time he was sailing along, barely paying attention, and he just about smacked into a dragon turtle! If I hadn’t come along just then-”

“You were stranded on the dragon turtle!” Kerrick declared indignantly. “I rescued you, remember?”

“Not much of a mind for details, you know,” Coraltop said with another wink. “Still, he’s kind of likeable, just the same, though as I was saying, trouble seems to follow him around.”

Moreen shook her head grimly. “I think I’m the one who usually gets him into trouble. Take now, for example. Our two companions have been captured, the ogres have got the Axe of Gonnas back, and we’re hiding out here, depending on a little girl to help us.”

“Tookie? She’s really something, that one,” said the kender enthusiastically. “You’re lucky you met her.” He looked at Kerrick and nodded sternly. “See what I mean-you keep coming across these good friends, and they all do their best to get you out of trouble.”

“You’re right about that,” Kerrick said, with an audible sigh.

“Well, I really am delighted to meet you,” Moreen said, smiling in spite of her anxious mood, “and you’re right about Kerrick making friends wherever he goes.”

“Kind of unusual for an elf that way,” the kender said, leaning close and whispering very loudly. “Most of them are anti-social, but not our Kerrick Fallabrine!”

Kerrick glared at the kender, clearly vexed. “Is there anything else you want to say?” he demanded.

“Well, I wonder why the ogre queen wants to see your friend Bruni,” Coraltop said with an elaborate shrug. “She seemed pretty interested in talking to her. The king too, I guess. They’re quite a pair, you know.”

“Who?” demanded the elf, mystified by that segue.

“Why, the king and queen of the ogres. Both kind of fierce, but personally I think that she’s the really scary one. Anyway, the guards will be taking her upstairs any time now.”

“What do you mean? Bruni is going upstairs? To the high part of the city?” Kerrick asked.

“Well, yes, of course.” Coraltop looked at the elven sailor as he might scrutinize a slow-learning child. “Would you expect to go upstairs to the lower part of the city? Anyway, do you want me to show you the way?”

Kerrick snorted in exasperation, leaving Moreen to answer. “Yes, please take us there-right away!”

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Coraltop Netfisher, turning toward the door, then addressing the elf. “You’d better pull your hood up, though. I don’t think they see too many elf ears in Winterheim.”

Strongwind shuffled along, the chains restricting his steps. He was determined not to fall, so he kept up with the guards and with Bruni, who trundled along right behind him.

“I still can’t believe you all came here for me,” he declared, shaking his head in misery. “There has to be a better purpose to all this! So many will get killed because of me. I can’t bear it!”

“Well, we were going to try to rescue as many slaves as we could,” she replied softly. Apparently the ogres didn’t object to their conversation. At least, none of the guards said anything to intervene.

“There were some who were ready to rebel,” the Highlander continued in despair. “They’ve all been captured now-they’re doomed, too! Doomed, probably because they had the misfortune to encounter me! Why couldn’t you all have just stayed away!”

How many of his friends and allies, his comrades and subjects, would die because of this mad quest? He meant it sincerely: He wished he could have perished on Dracoheim and spared them all this insane undertaking.

Now they would die, and he had only himself to blame.

Dinekki’s shoulders were sore, and she found herself wishing she had thought to rub some of her walrus-blubber ointment on her joints before she had taken off. She loved to fly, yet as with so many other things, getting old complicated the whole procedure.

How many years had it been since she had worked the shape-change spell, taking on the form of a creature with wings? More than she could remember in truth. Still, the enchantment had come easily, the familiar blessing of her wild goddess warming her with the power. Normally she would have shape-shifted into the body of a bird, but the bat seemed to be more appropriate in this vast cavern. She found that the technique of flying remained pretty much as she remembered, though instead of the easy glide of a feathered form she had to flap her wings constantly to remain in the air.

Still, the fur lining her limbs looked sleek and soft and felt wonderful, and the skills needed to fly came back to her the instant that she had thrown herself from the ledge in the body of the tiny bat. At first exhilaration had filled her heart as she soared upward, chasing the flight of her fellows, winging past the fungus forests and those glowing, lichen-encrusted walls, fluttering over cold, clear streams.

She still had a long way to go when she first felt the cramps starting in her shoulders then extending through her back and her wings. The other bats had flown on or scattered, moving too quickly for her to keep up, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t need their company. She just needed to find the strength to make it farther into the vast, underground city.

Fatigue had started to drag her down, but now at least she was in the wide tunnel. She had gained some altitude in the early part of her flight, and now she swooped down near the floor, trying to ease the strain on her muscles. Lower and lower she dropped until she was nearly skimming the stone surface. She had to work constantly, however, for she had no more room to descend.

Finally the vast gateway loomed high overhead. The elderly shaman used her last strength to fly up through the high arch. She saw a ship docked in the middle of the harbor, a tall mast rising from the deck. With a few more wingstrokes she lifted herself up, slowed, and came to rest upon the crosspiece high on the mast.

Here she panted, trying to catch her breath, and started to look around to see what was happening and where she should go from here.

“We can’t stay here and wait any longer!” Mouse declared.

He studied the ogre patrols that were sweeping back and forth through the Moongarden. At least four of them were making circuits around the huge cavern. Each detachment numbered a couple of dozen enemy warriors, but the Arktos warrior reasoned that if the humans attacked fast they might be able to overcome at least one or two detachments. If all hundred or so ogres banded together, he knew his little force would have a very tough time of it.

“We have to do something,” he stated to Lars and Feathertail, who stood on either side of him. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Better to be on the move and attack them on our own terms,” agreed the Highlander thane.

“What should we do?” Feathertail wondered.

“I think we should hit ’em hard and just keep moving,” counseled Thane Larsgall. “Make for the city and see what kind of damage we do before …” His voice trailed off.

Feathertail looked at him then turned her large, dark eyes to Mouse. “Before we die, he means, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but we have to try something, don’t you see? It’s better than waiting here like rats in a trap, waiting for them to find us and rub us out!” He looked into those gentle eyes, and his heart nearly broke.

To his surprise, this Arktos maiden whom he had teased as a girl, and watched grow into the most beautiful woman in the tribe, nodded in agreement and understanding.

“Yes,” she said. “We have to try at least.”

Mouse reached out and took her hand. He wanted to tell her so many things, but he found that he could not speak.

“Let’s hurry then,” suggested Thane Larsgall.

A few minutes later they had gathered the war party. Every man and woman clutched a weapon, swords and spears in the front, those armed with bows consigned to the rear. Grateful for the protection of the waterfall’s noise, Mouse nevertheless spoke softly as he outlined the plan.

“Our plan is to head directly to Winterheim,” he said. “Right now, most of the ogre patrols are down in the far end of the Moongarden, where the passage to the Icewall Gate leads out. We’re not going to worry about them. There’s one group, twenty or thirty of the brutes, that’s up in the near end of the cavern. They’re down there in a fungus forest now, looking around. They’ll see us and get in our way. We’re going to attack, kill or cripple every one of the bastards and keep moving. Does everyone understand?”

There were no questions. He was glad that no one asked what they’d do after they got to the city, because he was afraid he would blurt out his honest opinion: Truthfully, he never expected them to get that far.