Winterheim it-3
Page 20
The Port Grotto was a big cavern and well hidden from the main chamber of the Moongarden. Quickly the fighters of the war party found places to stretch out and rest, though several men remained on sentry duty, hidden along the edge of the alcove. Slyce volunteered for this important job, but Mouse ordered the gully dwarf to remain in the back of the group and assigned two alert warriors to keep an eye on the little fellow.
Mouse realized that he hadn’t seen Dinekki in a while and went to look for her. He found the shaman kneeling beside a pool of still water in a narrow niche of the cavern wall where the light of the phosphorescent fungus was muted. The liquid was still, reflective as a mirror, but he had the sense that she was peering at something far beyond the surface of the water.
“Are you all right, Grandmother?’ he asked. “I didn’t want to interrupt-”
“Help me up!” she snapped crossly, extending a frail-looking hand.
He did as she asked, unsurprised by the wiry strength in those thin fingers. He could not help noticing that she wobbled unsteadily as she rose then held his hand for an extra moment, as though fighting against a wave of dizziness.
“What is it?” he asked worriedly. “Did you see something amiss?”
The old woman sighed, for once displaying every one of her eight or nine decades of life. Her shoulders slumped, and she seemed to exert great effort just to raise her head to look at him.
“Trouble,” she replied, with a shake of her head. “Trouble on all sides of us.”
Karyl Drago paused at the entry to the Moongarden, taking in the view from a high ledge above the cavern floor. There was no place like this in all the world, he was certain. It gave him a special feeling of pride to know that he was entrusted to guard this place from the outside world. Of course, he had failed this duty, he recalled with more than a twinge of shame, and he ceased his gawking to once more take up the trail of those who had thwarted him, killed his garrison, and left him for dead.
He descended the steep trail to the cavern floor, looking for signs of the intruders. He was not terribly worried when he didn’t immediately find any tracks. The ground was mostly hard stone, and besides, there was no other way that they could have come.
Now that he had reached the Moongarden, he knew that he would have to be diligent. This place was huge, with many concealed groves and grottos as well as side caverns in a half dozen places that were huge caves in their own right, each a place where a party of dangerous intruders might hide out, watch, and wait. They could be anywhere, and it wouldn’t do for him to wander past and leave them undiscovered.
He paused long enough to take a drink of cold, fresh water. He was still sore from his drop into the crevasse and noticed that several large scabs had developed on his belly. These were starting to itch, and he remembered that there was a soothing pool of warm water very nearby. That would be just the place to wash the wounds.
Soon he was wallowing in comfort, rubbing away the grime and grit from his wounds. He was filled with thoughts of the fiery, golden axe. With a sigh of contentment, he leaned back and let the waters caress his battered flesh. It wasn’t until he emerged and shook himself dry, that he noticed something odd about the water running past his little pool. It was discolored, tainted as if by mud or some kind of rust-colored dye. Curious, Karyl Drago followed the stream to the place where it spilled over the embankment. Here he saw that the dye was coming from beneath a pile of rocks. Several bare patches of dirt nearby seemed to suggest that these rocks had recently been moved.
A minute later the big ogre had pulled one of the boulders out of the way and found himself looking down into the slashed and lifeless face of one of the Moongarden ogres who worked as overseers of the slaves.
Clearly he was on the right track of the human intruders. However, his mission took on a new urgency. Again Karyl Drago felt a surge of shame. If he had done his job properly at the gate, this ogre would still be alive.
He picked up the splintered end of his club and scrambled up the embankment. It wasn’t too far to the watch station, he knew, and it seemed time for him to start to spread the alarm.
Grimwar Bane smashed open the front door of Thraid’s apartment with a single blow from his clubbed fist, sending splinters flying as the great wooden slab broke from its hinges and slammed into the ground. The echoes still resonated as he stormed through the courtyard and into the street beyond, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“Murder! Assassination! Guards! Gather to me, warriors of Winterheim! Bring arms, and stand ready to fight!”
By the time he had crossed the promenade, his roars had raised a commotion. Slaves ran away from him in all directions, ducking into their houses or anywhere else they could find shelter. Ogres came running, including several wearing the red coats of the grenadiers. The king shook his fist at the mountaintop overhead and bellowed his rage.
“What is it, Sire?” asked one grenadier, kneeling before the enraged monarch.
“The Lady Thraid has been murdered, stabbed in her bed,” declared Grimwar Bane, forcing his breathing to slow down, pushing out each word with an effort of will. “I want you to seal off her apartments and stand watch.” He saw others of the royal guard running along the wide promenade. “As you get reinforcements, put them to work! Talk to everyone in these houses, and see if there are witnesses who observed anything! Shake the information out of them if you have to!”
“As you wish, Majesty!” pledged the guard, quickly gesturing to several of his fellows and starting toward the lady’s rooms.
His emotions roiling, Grimwar believed he already knew the culprit. It was obvious. Perhaps Queen Stariz had not wielded the knife herself, but the king had no doubts that whoever had committed this foul murder had been operating under her orders.
He charged up the ramp, scattering ogres and slaves alike, passersby of both races who stared, slack-jawed, at the unprecedented sight of their king sprinting wildly up the sloping avenue. His feet pounded the stone, fists pumping as he lumbered up and up the many tiers of his city. Despite his exertion, he was barely out of breath when he reached the throne room on the Royal Level where the queen was supposedly interrogating rebels. The attendant guards barely had time to pull the door open as he barged in.
Grimwar Bane stalked into the great hall to find his queen seated on her own throne, a granite chair slightly smaller and less grandiose than his own. She was engaged in animated discussion with several of the grenadiers and looked up in surprise as he approached.
“My lord-” she began, then halted when she beheld the fury etched on his face.
“Out!” he roared at the guards, pointing to the door. In seconds they had raced from the room, the attendants discreetly pushing the doors shut.
“What is the matter?” asked Stariz, her square face furrowed in concern-mock concern, the king was sure.
“This time, you hateful creature, you have gone too far! You will be punished for this, punished like any treacherous assassin who dares to lurk in my halls!”
“My King!” she protested. “What has happened? Why are you so angry?”
He sneered, unwilling to consider the possibility that she didn’t know what he was talking about. “I am talking about murder, murder founded on jealousy, carried out by treachery!”
“Murder of whom?” she gasped. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You insist on these protestations of innocence?” he growled. “You know perfectly well that the Lady Thraid has been slashed to death. No doubt you even know who wielded the knife! I will have the truth from you. I will draw it out with sharp hooks if I have to! I will see that you and all of your accomplices die a slow death-a death that will give you ample time to ponder your many sins!”
“My lord, no!” she gasped, in a display of innocence. Her face drained of color, and her jaw worked reflexively, though for once no sound emerged from her mouth. “I do not know of this!”
“Enough treachery!” He stepped close, saw her shrink back int
o the throne, her face distorted by fear. Abruptly, her expression changed, a light of understanding dawning in her features. The king hesitated, surprised and puzzled.
“It was the slave! It must have been!” protested the queen. “The captive Highlander warrior that we brought from Dracoheim. He was captured in the salt room with the other rebels! He was one of the conspirators! Undoubtedly, this was the first act of the insurrection! How many more ogre nobles would have perished by now had we not caught these perfidious rebels when we did?”
Grimwar Bane had not been expecting this. He scowled and shook his head stubbornly. “Why would the rebels kill a harmless noblewoman?” he demanded, still looming close, studying this horrible creature who was his wife, and his queen.
Stariz stood up and approached him, reaching out a hand that he slapped away. She pulled her arm back but glared at him stubbornly. “Is it true that you assigned him to the Lady Thraid-as a house slave? He was arrested with the other rebels! You can ask the grenadiers,” she insisted. “Captain Verra himself saw the man taken.”
The king turned his back on his wife and stalked across the throne room. He didn’t believe her, but neither had he expected her to make this situation so complicated. Surely she was lying!
How could he prove it?
He was about to summon the guards, to have her thrown into the dungeon, when he heard a ruckus. Stepping out of the palace doors, he crossed to the railing over the atrium and glared at the sight of several guards running across the waterfront plaza far below.
One of them raised a brass horn, and several loud notes brayed through the city, rising up through the atrium, carrying all the way to the king’s ears on the Royal Level. The cry was repeated, and Grimwar Bane strained his memory. He knew it was an important trumpet call, but he couldn’t remember what it meant.
It was Stariz who interpreted for him as she burst out of the throne room and raced over to him with most un-queenly haste. “My lord!” she cried. “Do you hear?”
“Yes!” he declared, sternly. “The alarm sounds!”
He wished he could think of some way to mask his ignorance, but he failed. In frustration, he was about to ask her what the horn meant, when she spoke first.
“Intruders!” she gasped. “It is almost unbelievable, but that is the signal that intruders have forced their way into Winterheim!”
18
Alarms
The tunnel leading out of the Moongarden was wide and brightly lit, oil lamps burning in wall sconces every ten paces or so along both walls. After the soft illumination of the vast cavern, Moreen found the flaring wicks to be glaring and unpleasant. Furthermore, they seemed so bright as to render her disguise almost useless-she felt as though she were walking naked, fully exposed to any ogre who happened a glance.
It took all her will to keep her head down and to follow Tookie’s casual pace, as they passed under the balconies of the ogre guardroom. Several of the brutes were up there, and she could hear them talking, even smell the stench of their sweat. She was grateful at least for the large basket she bore on her head, and in moments she and her companions were safely past, following the young girl along the broad, mostly empty corridor toward the ogre city.
Fortunately, the girl had done a good job in providing them with disguises. Moreen glanced at Bruni and Barq One-Tooth, behind her, Kerrick bringing up the rear. All of them wore brown hooded robes that Tookie had informed them were the outfits of the slaves who bore goods from the Moongarden to the various markets in the city. They carried baskets, individual loads for Moreen and Kerrick, while Barq and Bruni shared a long, almost coffin-sized, container in which they had placed the Axe of Gonnas.
“Just get out of the way if ogres come by,” said the girl, her tone matter-of-fact. “They probably will.”
For some time they made their way toward the city, meeting small parties of slaves, occasionally stepping to the side as an ogre or two ambled past. The ogres strolled along with no apparent sense of urgency. None of them seemed to take any interest in the small party of slaves.
Moreen almost dropped her basket, however, when the braying notes of a trumpet began to ring through the hall. The three rising notes originated behind her in the Moongarden and were repeated many times. Soon they were picked up by other trumpeters, and in a few minutes the notes were ringing throughout the halls of this vast underground city.
“I think they must have found Harmlor already,” Tookie said, her dark eyes serious. “You’d better just do your best to look like slaves. There’s gonna be some excitement now, you can bet.”
True to the girl’s prediction, the corridor they followed soon echoed with lumbering footsteps, and the five of them pressed to one side, allowing a band of heavily armed ogres, a score or more, to race past.
“Uh-huh, they’re going to the Moongarden,” Tookie said. “Here … we’re almost up to the city now.”
She led them through a wide archway, and Moreen looked up in amazement. The size of the place yawning before them almost defied comprehension. Clearly they were inside a great mountain. A hundred feet below them was a wide plaza, and the smell of the sea was strong in her nostrils. She saw the ogre king’s galley, Goldwing, berthed at one slip in a large harbor and realized that the whole port was enclosed within the mountain. A channel led up to the great gates, providing access to all the seas of the Icereach when those gates were opened.
Above, the ceiling soared away, up a long shaft encircled by numerous balconies. All these seemed to be filled with ogres gathering, on ledges, along the railings, peering down and up, gesturing in agitation, roaring out to each other with questions and speculation. Torches flared throughout these levels, and grotesque shadows were cast on the walls as the citizens of the city raced about in confusion and consternation. On the waterfront, several ranks of red-coated ogres were forming with military precision, responding to the orders of a silver-helmed captain.
“This way,” said Tookie, leading the four intruders onto a wide, curving ramp, a climbing surface that led them away from the harbor and into the interior of the great city. Soon they had left the view of the central atrium behind. It was again as if they were wandering through a network of caverns, only this passage seemed to lead higher and deeper into the city of ogres.
The chiefwoman couldn’t put the danger out of her mind. There were so many of ogres. How could they ever hope to succeed, now that the enemy was alert to their presence?
They had to stop and wait as yet another troop of guards rushed past, these too apparently heading toward the Moongarden. Everywhere slaves were gathered in small groups, whispering, looking around nervously, and the chiefwoman felt acutely exposed.
A voice boomed out, as loud as thunder, and Moreen froze in shock.
“The axe of fire-there it is! They try to hide it, but its glory is revealed!”
She spun around, astonished at the sight of the massive ogre they had battled at the Icewall Gate. There he was behind them, mud-splattered and bloody, pointing unerringly at the long basket borne by Barq One-Tooth and Bruni. A score of ogre guards were with him.
Astonishingly, that basket was glowing brightly, yellow light flaring beneath the wicker frame. The top seemed to quiver and dance, and the brilliance of the golden axe was the brightest thing she had ever seen.
Strongwind leaned back against the cold stone walls of his cell. He was chained in here with the rest of the men who had been taken in the salt room. It was ironic, when he thought about it-those chains were probably all that was keeping him alive right now. From the looks of hatred and contempt on the other rebels’ faces, especially Black Mike’s, he had no doubts but that the men would have killed him if they had the chance.
He had told them again and again that he was innocent of treachery. He thought of trying one more time. They had to believe that he had not been the one to reveal the plot to the queen and to call in the royal guards.
It was pointless. They refused to even look at him.
Grimwar Bane paced fretfully back to the throne room, his wife trailing behind. Six grenadiers stood around with their halberds raised, swords loose in their scabbards, watching the doors with narrowed, squinting eyes. The king looked up when someone pounded on the doors. One of the guards, after checking through a viewing slot, opened the portal to reveal Lord Forlane.
“Well?” demanded the king. “What is the nature of the intrusion?”
The lord spoke rapidly. “The guard at the Icewall Pass gate reports that a great number of humans attacked him. He was ashamed to admit it, but apparently they bested him and killed his entire garrison. They caused him to fall into a crevasse where they left him and made their way into the Moongarden. There it seems that they made further progress by killing an ogre guard, one of the overseers of the warren slaves.”
“And the guard in command at the gate-he is not dead?”
“No, Sire. You may remember him: Karyl Drago, the, ahem, very large warrior who came here from Glacierheim in our queen’s entourage.”
“Yes-I was just thinking of him the other day. You say he was overcome by these attackers?” Grimwar Bane found that hard to believe.
“That is what he says, Sire, and he seems to be speaking the truth. There was a small army of them by his report. He says that they used a golden axe and that the magic of that blade felled him. Nevertheless, he climbed free and pursued the intruders. It was he who discovered the overseer’s body and subsequently issued the alarm.”
“Golden axe? What kind of description do we have of these intruders?” demanded Grimwar Bane. He wished Stariz would venture some suggestion, but she watched silently, white-faced and trembling.