Winterheim it-3

by Douglas Niles

A human, she realized-a captive taken by her Grimwar, brought back to the city.

  The man glared around him, and somehow Thraid felt the dazzling ice of that glance, even as far above as she was. He was intriguing, this prisoner, and strangely appealing. Queen Stariz all but spat in hatred as she stared, and the ogress at the railing quickly saw that the human was the source of the queen’s hatred.

  Immediately Thraid wanted to know more about him.

  As the ship was made fast to the dock, Strongwind Whalebone warily examined his new surroundings. Whatever fate held in store for him, he lacked the energy, the stamina, to put up much of a fight. However, his spirit remained vital, so he would look for ways to rebuild his strength, to study his enemies, and to plan.

  He had welcomed his release from the hold primarily because of the chance to breathe fresh air. For two weeks the fish guts and whale blubber that mingled effluence in the deep hold of the galley had raised a stink that choked and nearly suffocated him. There, below the benches where ogre oarsmen labored, a heavy wooden hatch had sealed out any glimpse of sun or sea, rendering the little chamber into a smothering cell.

  The lone prisoner had suffered in silence and immobility, since stout manacles secured his wrists, chafed his skin and held him awkwardly across a wide bench. Water, carrying an irregular and ever shifting array of flotsam, sloshed across the floorboards and kept his feet permanently cold. His wounds burned, while hunger gnawed at his belly and thirst parched his lips. Nevertheless, Strongwind Whalebone was determined to make no complaint, to offer no display of weakness that might give his captors a sense of satisfaction or reward.

  Indeed, what complaint could he have made? What mere verbiage could possibly articulate the devastation that blackened his heart, rendering insignificant his own predicament? There was a greater truth that doomed his whole future, signaled the end of his dreams and visions. He knew this in the naked honesty of his own heart.

  For the Lady of Brackenrock was dead.

  When the ogres had shackled him and thrown him into this dank hold he had felt a sense of vague relief-not that he had survived but that he was locked away so that he could grieve in private. In that compartment he had cried like a baby until numb, bruised, and drained, he fell into a well of dreamless sleep. Whenever he was awake, he grieved, and for the weeks of the journey his only respite had come from fitful intervals of sleep.

  In that solitary gloom he had come to understand something about himself, a surprising realization driven home by the insurmountable pain in his heart. Though he had pursued Moreen aggressively for years, making the case for their marriage as though he were proposing a political treaty-which, on the one hand, he was-he had never really considered the possibility that he truly loved her. Certainly he had desired her more than any other woman he knew, but this desire had been a feeling such as the hunter holds toward the prize stag. Moreen Bayguard seemed a trophy, valuable and even cherished but little more than that.

  Now she was dead, and he saw how very wrong he had been.

  He didn’t count the days or nights; he knew only that it was a very long time later that the hatch opened and ogre guards came down the ladder, seized his chains, and hauled him up to the deck. He saw the mountain, forced his expression to remain bored despite the wonder of this place as they glided inside.

  So this was Winterheim. He viewed the massive gate with a sense of detachment, didn’t marvel at the enclosed harbor, barely recoiled at the great crowds of ogres cheering their rulers and jeering the new captive. As the shadows of the underground harbor embraced him, the king of the Highlanders looked up as the archway passed overhead, wondering if he was looking at the sun for the last time in his life.

  That, too, didn’t really seem to matter.

  For the Lady of Brackenrock was dead.

  2

  Homecoming for the Not Quite Dead

  The Lady of Brackenrock and Kerrick Fallenbrine had to do something-fast-or they would drown together in the cold, deep waters of the White Bear Sea.

  Just a moment ago their boat, the submersible craft that was the invention of the gnome called Captain Pneumo, had collided with the rocky gate of Brackenrock’s harbor, crushing the cylindrical vessel’s metallic prow and bringing water gushing inside with furious force. Kerrick, jammed against a collection of pipes and valves, felt a fiery pain in his right leg and guessed the limb was broken. Water poured around him, an icy torrent already surging up to his waist. Choking smoke and steam swirled through the tainted air, and the vessel lurched sickeningly.

  “Head for the hatch!” cried Pneumo. “We’re going down!”

  The elf tried to force himself upright but was still stunned from the force of the collision. He was aware of the cold water rising past his belly, of the two gully dwarves bouncing against each other, one clawing to reach the ladder leading up from the control chamber, while the other strove irrationally to flee toward the boiler room in the stern. The first broke free to scamper upward and twist the valve, pushing the hatch open to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of sunlight, a precious waft of fresh air.

  “Come on!” Moreen demanded, shaking her head groggily though her voice was strong. She forced herself to her feet and offered him a hand. “Stand up!”

  “My leg!” Kerrick protested weakly, shivering under a dizzying onslaught of pain. The water was up to his chest now.

  The chiefwoman seized the elf beneath the arms. She was not a big person, but her strength surprised him as she pulled him upright, dragging him toward the base of the ladder. Pneumo shouted, the gnome sprinting through the hatchway in pursuit of the gully dwarf who had fled to the stern. Kerrick shook himself and tried to stand, only to scream in agony as his leg twisted uselessly beneath him. Grabbing a rung of the ladder, he hung limply, teeth clenched as he forced himself to remain upright.

  “You go first!” he barked.

  Moreen looked ready to argue, which was a pretty standard look for her, but then she apparently decided that she could help him more by lifting from above than by pushing from below. She went halfway up the ladder in a single bound, then reached down to grab the scruff of Kerrick’s shirt.

  The elf looked up and saw the gully dwarf called Slyce pop out through the hatch. A gush of water followed as a wave swept over the low hull. Moreen shook the brine from her hair, then tightened her grip on Kerrick’s collar. He grunted as she lifted, then did his best to pull upward, kicking and flailing with his good leg as he sought to stand on the cold steel rungs. Now the air was sweet and pure, spilling right through the open hatch, and the elf exerted every effort to drag himself along.

  That sunlit sanctuary was elusive, apparently slipping farther away with each passing second. More cold blue water poured through the hole, blocking the daylight as the submersible slipped below the surface of the sea. Moreen cursed, and her grip broke from his collar as the force of plunging brine drove into them. Kerrick clung to the ladder with one hand, while with the other he pushed upward, pressing her against the current.

  The boat was going down. Pneumo had led them this far, but he had been unable to steer between the rocky pillars marking the mouth of Brackenrock Harbor. Instead, he had rammed one of those reefs and doomed his invention and perhaps himself. Kerrick tried to see through the flowage, hoping to catch a glimpse of the gnome or Divid, the other gully dwarf, but there was only the foaming, churning sea. Once again he felt Moreen’s hand on his shoulder, and he groaned at this proof that she was still within the steel hull. He couldn’t let her die, especially not here, within sight of her home.

  Resolutely he started to climb, allowing her to aid him, employing all of his strength in a battle against water pouring down. They were near the hatch now, but his broken leg was a dead weight, and the force of the current was too strong. The cold sea surrounded him, but he could feel no trace of the chiefwoman overhead-he could only hope she had escaped.

  A sailor throughout his eight decades of life, the elf had faced nautical emergencies on m
any occasions and always had survived. He believed he could do the same here. A rational corner of his mind told him that he just needed to hold onto the ladder until water filled the sub then swim out through the hatch without having to battle the crushing pressure of the inward flow. The chances for the gnome and the other gully dwarf deep in the hull, sadly, were not very good-the water had them trapped far below, and he doubted they would make it out.

  There was nothing he could do for them. Instead, he clutched the ladder and held his breath, feeling the current ease after another minute until it ceased altogether. He exerted himself no more than necessary, conserving the air in his lungs. When he released the ladder, the natural buoyancy of his body actually lifted him up, bore him out through the open circle of the hatch. He looked upward, toward the brightness that was not so terribly far away, and started to swim.

  Again he felt the stabbing pain in his leg, agony that would not let him kick. A glimmer of panic took root in his mind. He strained with his hands, tried to kick with his good leg, but he rose very, very slowly.

  Another hand took his. He knew that Moreen had dived under the surface, and the sensation gave him a strange sense of peace. She pulled, and he rode along with her. When they broke through the surface and he drew a breath, he saw a boat-a sailboat-and he knew that he and she had somehow survived the long journey home. Either that or death was a wonderful dream.

  In another moment he felt strong hands pulling his arms, then the familiar feel of a deck under his body as he collapsed onto wooden planks. He saw people, including a familiar round face beneath a shock of black hair-Mouse, but what was he doing here? — and finally succumbed to a sensation of peace, warmth, and silence.

  Moreen Bayguard lay on the deck, too exhausted even to cough. That weariness was almost her undoing, as her breath gurgled in watery lungs and a pleasant darkness began to close across the vision of her one good eye. Her eye patch, the flap she wore over the ruined socket, had been washed away by the sea, and salt burned in the scarred flesh of her face.

  Someone wrapped strong arms around her and squeezed with crushing force. The reaction was instantaneous: She spewed a gout of brine across the pine planks then drew a ragged, gulping breath. Again she coughed and again, and slowly the darkness pulled back. Weakly she rolled upon her side, looking up to see a young man’s face, the brown skin furrowed into lines of dire concern.

  “Mouse?” she said weakly. “I’m dreaming.”

  “It’s me,” said her tribemate, one of Moreen’s most capable aides-and her lifelong friend. “Don’t try to talk. Just breathe.”

  “What about Kerrick?” she tried to ask, ignoring his advice and paying for it with another bout of choking and gagging.

  “Bruni’s working on him. He’s breathing. The little fellow seems to be okay, too.”

  The chiefwoman turned her head and saw the elf, prostrate upon the deck nearby. with the unmistakeably large shape of Bruni leaning over him, wiping his brow with a towel. The heights of Brackenrock rose just beyond, as the sailboat stood in the water just outside the entrance to the harbor. Just beyond she recognized Slyce, or at least the gully dwarf’s hindquarters, as the stubby castaway was bending over to look through a hatch, his head and upper torso sticking down through the hole in the deck.

  Questions churned in her mind. What boat was this? How had it come to be here, just outside the entrance to her homeport?

  Again ignoring the young man’s advice, she tried to push herself into a sitting position. The sailboat had to be Mouse’s, she realized-his home-built craft, dubbed Marlin, which had been nearly ready for launch when she and Kerrick had departed for Dracoheim. Mouse had taken it onto the sea … and now she noticed that he had passengers, strange folk she didn’t know.

  She saw two burly men, unmistakably Highlanders, watching her suspiciously from the foredeck. One of these was huge, nearly as large as Bruni, displaying a gold tooth as he glowered and clenched his jaw. The second was an older man with hair and beard of gray. His expression was unreadable.

  “Who are they?” Moreen asked Mouse, as he helped her to a bench in the sailboat’s cockpit.

  “The big one is Barq One-Tooth, the other Thedric Drake. They’re Highlander chieftains, and I picked them up on the east shore to bring them to Brackenrock.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They want to know what happened to Strongwind Whalebone. That is, they want their king back,” the young Arktos sailor said grimly.

  “Strongwind …” Moreen declared weakly, despairing anew at the bitter memory. “He was captured by the ogre king … he created a diversion, allowed Kerrick and I to get into the castle.”

  “The ogres have him now? They’ve taken him to their stronghold?” replied Mouse, his expression bleak.

  Moreen nodded, then gestured to the two thanes.

  “Tell them-” she began to say, then paused as another interval of coughing seized her. Even as she had started to speak, she hadn’t known what she was going to say.

  “Tell them that I am going to get him back as soon as I can get ashore and make a plan.”

  Kerrick looked around and quickly realized that he was lying in one of the nicer suites in the upper reaches of Brackenrock’s keep. He could see the midnight sun through the south-facing window, low and pale over the distant peaks of the Glacier Range, the rugged mountains beyond the Tusker Escarpment. His first thought was that he was dreaming, but when he shifted in the soft bed he felt a twinge in his right leg and remembered everything: the voyage back to this fortress, the desperate escape from the sinking boat, and the miraculous appearance of a sailboat on the surface of the sea.

  The next thing he saw was Mouse, seated on a chair beside the bed, studying him worriedly.

  “How’s the leg?” asked the Arktos sailor.

  The elf blinked in surprise, stretching the limb that had been badly broken when he lost consciousness. “Not bad at all,” he replied. “Have I been out for weeks, or did Dinekki have something to do with that?”

  “Her healing spells are the best in all the Icereach,” Mouse said with a smile. “She said you’d be jogging around by tomorrow. No, you haven’t been out long-we brought you, Moreen, and that little fellow ashore just a few hours ago.”

  “Captain Pneumo was lost, and Divid, too,” sighed the elf, feeling a weary sadness. “Still, if you hadn’t been sailing past when you were, I don’t think any of us would have made it to shore.”

  Exhausted, Kerrick leaned back and closed his eyes.

  “I still can’t believe it!” the young Arktos man said, shaking his head in amazement. “I thought I was the only boat on the sea, and then people start popping up on both sides of me. To find out it was you and the Lady … and that little fellow. What kind of a person is he, anyway?”

  “A gully dwarf,” Kerrick said with a grimace. “Not the most appealing folks of Krynn, but he was a loyal crewman, and … and he lost his best friend.”

  “He didn’t seem too broken up about it. He was pilfering fish from the market down at the waterfront within a minute or two after landing. Moreen had to talk Old Cutscale out of throwing him into the harbor. Now he’s drunk, I think-he found his way into the cook’s beer barrel.”

  “Yes, that’s Slyce,” the elf agreed. “I’m glad he had the sense to climb up when the boat started to sink.”

  “You,” Mouse continued, “how … why were you coming back underwater? What about Cutter?”

  The very word, the name of his beloved sailboat, nearly broke Kerrick’s heart. He looked at his friend, very possibly the only man in all the Icereach who could understand the depths of his attachment to the boat that had been left to him by his father.

  “She sank,” he explained, trying to hold back the anguish. “We accidentally rammed the same metal boat that brought us so close to Brackenrock. Staved in the bow, and she went down like a stone.”

  “All your gold … it was on board?” Mouse said, remembering.

&nb
sp; “Aye. Eight years’ work-and I would let it go without regret, if I could only have my Cutter back.”

  “She was a beauty,” the man agreed. “Like a swan, while poor Marlin is at best a duckling.”

  Kerrick closed his eyes again. He didn’t have the energy to think about his future-and now, without his boat, the course of his life seemed destined to be guided by forces, powers, beyond his control. He was in a land where the sun disappeared for three months at a time, where icebergs the size of mountains loomed in foggy ocean mists, where he had grown accustomed to surviving on hard bread and fiery, intoxicating warqat, on meat and fish and little more.

  If he had been in a mood of fairness, he would have acknowledged that there was in fact much more to the Icereach than this. He had great friends among these loyal people, the Arktos-and among the Highlanders as well. There were summer days of literally endless sunlight, vistas of sea and fjord to explore, places where neither elf nor human nor ogre had ever ventured. Above all things Kerrick Fallabrine was a sailor, and the Icereach, notably the coastlines of the White Bear and Dracoheim Seas, made as thrilling a nautical life as anywhere upon the world.

  At least, they did when those waters weren’t frozen solid, layered in mast-high snowdrifts and scoured by winds so bitter they threatened to tear flesh from bone. That was the side of the Icereach he pictured looming now, ahead of him a lifetime of such winters. Moreen would be gone after fifty or sixty of them-

  He stopped short. This was a dangerous line of thought, and he had schooled himself never to go there. With his own elf blood likely to grant him five or more centuries of life, it would be foolish to nurture an attachment to any human. He had proven a useful companion, even ally, to the chiefwoman of the Arktos, and she in turn had been an ally and a friend to him. That was as far as it went, as far as it could ever go.

  It did not occur to him to blame her for the loss of his boat or his gold. True, he had been bearing her upon a mission of her own devise-a mission that never would have been undertaken if not for her determination, the force of her will, and her courage, but he had gone willingly enough. At least, that’s the way he chose to remember it now.