The northmen formed a great ring around Keane and Wultha, with the fire at one point along the circle. Tavish and Alicia came around the small blaze and sat with Brandon and Knaff the Elder. The princess wanted to stop this grotesque test. Her mind raced, trying to develop a plan with any potential of success, but nothing came to her.
Alicia sneaked a glance at Tavish and saw that the bard, similarly gagged, shook her head in apparent despair. All their hopes rested upon Keane.
A look at the two wrestlers did nothing to fan the flames of those hopes. Wultha loomed over Keane, and even in a bearlike crouch, the northman dwarfed the lanky tutor of Callidyrr. Keane did his best to look formidable, stooping forward sightly, spreading his arms to either side as if he would grapple with Wuthra and throw his huge opponent, but with his long, skinny legs, his brown hair stringing freely to either side of his face, and his wide eyes staring silently above the cloth gag, the overall effect would have been comical if the stakes hadn't been so high.
Then Wultha lunged. The northman struck with surprising speed, reaching out with a hamlike fist to try to catch Keane by the back of his neck. His other hand swung wide, and then both of the trunklike limbs smashed together with a force that could have snapped Keane's spine-if he had been between them at the moment of impact.
But to the astonishment of Alicia and everyone else, the teacher somehow ducked under the blow, rolling backward and bouncing to his feet before the baffled Wultha realized that his opponent had escaped his grasp. Angrily the huge warrior wiped his hand across his nose again, shaking his head like a great bull trying to ward off an annoying swarm of flies. He pawed at the gag in annoyance, then dropped both arms and leaned toward Keane.
The magic-user crouched again, balancing on the balls of his feet. Wultha crept closer, and Keane circled away, trying to stay in the center of the ring. Once again Wultha lunged, sweeping those huge arms like scythes through the air… and once again, he clasped his empty hands to his chest as Keane rolled, to the side this time.
Alicia caught her breath, chafing at the gag that prevented her from shouting her approval. A sobering thought reached her: All Keane had done so far was to avoid a pair of blows, either of which could have ended the fight, and his life, in an abbreviated second. Furthermore, there seemed to be no way that he could hope to do anything else.
Indeed, as if reading her mind, the magic-user hurled himself from the side against Wultha's legs, kicking the brute sharply in the knee. Keane bounced away, landing heavily on his back, while Wultha's eyes glittered with delight. If the blow had bothered him in any way, he didn't indicate the fact.
Instead, he threw himself toward the gasping form of Keane, and the wizard desperately rolled to the side. Alicia felt the ground shake from the force of Wultha's landing, but the northman's target managed to evade the blow by inches. Quickly Keane sprang upon Wultha's back, but the northman jumped lightly to his feet and shook himself. Once again the magic-user soared through the air, though he landed in a roll and quickly rose into a wrestler's crouch-or at least, a caricature of a stance that might have been taken by an accomplished fighter.
Wultha shook his head in further annoyance, once again wiping his nose and sniffling. The great barrel chest worked like a laboring bellows-a bellows that did not draw enough air. The northman growled, the sound strangled through the clotting pressure of his cloth gag.
The hulking wrestler lumbered forward with all the force of a charging bull, and when Keane ducked toward the right, Wultha's course veered. A collision seemed imminent.
But Keane's dodge proved to be a ruse, and his following dive to the left was further propelled by sheer panic. Grunting his outrage, Wultha dove into empty air, stumbling forward into the ring of his comrades, who formed the perimeter of the fight. Three cursing warriors went down from the force of the brute's uncontrolled plunge.
"Get him, you lummox!"
"The slippery devil's getting the best of you!"
"C'mon, Wultha. He doesn't weigh more than your breakfast!"
Raucous laughter accompanied the remarks as the northmen took enjoyment from their comrade's discomfort. They jeered, and this inflamed the huge wrestler.
Wultha growled, his eyes wide. Gasping, he lurched to his feet and lumbered back into the ring, peering wildly as if he couldn't see his opponent, though Keane awaited him in the center of the circle.
The northman charged and Keane skipped away. The frail-looking tutor, his eyes squinting in concentration above the tightly bound rag, studied his brutish foe, anticipating each desperate lunge, each clumsy but potentially crushing blow. Indeed, the Ffolkman's dodging grew smoother as the fight worked its way through minute by breath-draining minute.
Keane darted towards Wultha, kicking him in his great belly with no apparent effect. The tutor lost his balance and tumbled backward, but Wultha staggered wildly, unaware of his opponent's vulnerability. The close-set eyes, now bloodshot and unfocused, grew vague as Wultha's heavy lids floated halfway down.
His nose puffed and strained, unable to bring in the air that his lungs required. He wobbled unsteadily, trying to remember where he was. . what he was supposed to do.
Keane dove at him from the side, once again striking a tree trunk of leg. But this time he timed his attack, watching the knee as it became more and more unsteady. He drove all balance from Wultha, and the northman dropped like a felled log. Keane fell on top of him, clinging desperately as the body flexed spasmodically. Finally Wultha lay still.
Immediately Keane reached around his opponent's head, a dagger flashing in his hand. Brandon stood with a shout, but then saw the Ffolkman slice the gag away. Sitting upon Wultha's chest, Keane forced him to cough and gag. The unconscious man drew in a ragged breath of air, then another. Coughing, he opened his eyes and looked around uncomprehendingly, struggling finally to sit up as the triumphant Keane moved carefully away.
The victor next reached behind his own head and, with the knife he had concealed during their entire captivity, cut free his gag. He looked at Brandon steadily, waiting for the Prince of Gnarhelm to break the silence. The fact that Wultha had been overcome by his own congested sinuses rather than the prowess of his opponent was a fact that had been observed by all.
"You have triumphed in the Test of Strength," said Brandon levelly. His face twisted in a rueful grimace. "Though I admit you have made it more a test of wits than of might. Nevertheless, you have bested our champion."
Alicia and Tavish untied their own gags. The princess warily watched the northman prince, admiring the way he met Keane's gaze squarely. Indeed, she saw, Brandon Olafsson proved to be a man of honor and of his word.
Now the young war chief gestured to a place beside him. "Greetings, guests. Come and join our supper."
Yak of the Great Cat's Head, War Chief of Grayrock, sat before his sturdy home, with its smooth-timbered walls and solid slate roof, reflecting upon the feeling of impending menace that had gnawed at him of late. The great firbolg leaned back, using a short sword designed for a human's hand to pick his great teeth. He looked upward and studied the glowering skies with a cautious air.
Around Yak's shoulders hung the cloak that had given him his name, though the massive, grinning skull currently flopped down his back. He wore it as his helm only at times of great ceremony or in battle, though since coming to Grayrock, he had found no need for combat.
He could never forget, however, that the cloak and its attendant skull had come to him following the most savage battle of all. The sleek black pelt, with its four clawed feet, had once adorned the body of Shantu, the great displacer beast. The tentacles that had grown from the creature's shoulders now served the firbolg as the straps with which he secured it about his broad shoulders. The human king, Tristan Kendrick, had encouraged Yak to skin the beast and to wear the pelt as a badge of honor.
Yet as always, Yak couldn't remember that fight without a tremor of shame and self-doubt. Had he not fled from the enemy, just when his compani
ons' lives were in the greatest danger? The fact that he had fled from an earthly manifestation of a greatly evil god, as had several other of the young king's companions, in no way assuaged the proud firbolg's sense of guilt.
It had been that guilt, even more than the desecration of Myrloch Vale and the waning of the goddess, that had persuaded Yak to break from the usual firbolg patterns of pastoral wilderness existence.
After the battle with Bhaal, he had been spurred by an inexplicable longing. Marching to the northern coast of Gwynneth during the year following the chaos of war, he brought with him his two wives and a half dozen or so other members of his tribe.
They came upon the wreckage of a northman longship on the coast, and, ever skilled woodworkers, the firbolgs took another full year to prepare the craft for sea. As of then, Yak still didn't know where he would take his little band, but the urge to embark had grown stronger in him every day. Finally, the ship completed, they had hoisted a small, heavy sail of deerskin and allowed the wind to carry them.
The memory of that epic voyage still brought a lump to Yak's throat. Never before had firbolgs embarked on such an adventurous quest! The distance they sailed wasn't great by human standards, but they traversed the length of the Sea of Moonshae, from south to north, and came safely and unerringly to their lonely, windswept goal.
Guided by the wind and the tide, the firbolgs reached Grayrock, an inhospitable mass of stone emerging from the pounding surf. A craggy precipice formed the island's shoreline, and a few grasses and shrubs, but not a single tree, withered in small pockets of soil between jagged blocks of granite.
High waves cast the unique vessel into these rocks, but the heavily reinforced keel, a far greater trunk than humans could have employed, did not break. Instead, the firbolgs' ship balanced precariously on a rocky ledge, and the passengers debarked, scrambling upward to the more level ground surmounting the cliffs. Soon the modified longship teetered, and then plunged back into the waves, where the current carried it westward and it vanished into the gray, rolling wastes of the Trackless Sea.
The castaways set about searching their new home and quickly discovered that the level central plateau seemed more habitable than the rocky shore. Finally the truth became apparent-the reason that explained everything to Yak and completed the purpose of his life.
In a grotto at the center of the islet, they found a Moonwell. Like those upon Gwynneth, this pool had no power remaining. Yet it was pristine and clear, a place of sacred purity. The water felt warm to the touch.
It was this remnant of a once-profound power to which Yak would devote the rest of his years. Saddened by the virtual annihilation of his people-for he did not know that firbolg tribes still lived on Alaron, Norland, Moray, and even Gwynneth-and the supposed passing of the goddess who was part of all life around them, Yak looked with bucolic relief upon this placid duty.
Contrary to most human opinion, especially among the Ffolk, the firbolgs were not, and had never been, the foes of the goddess Earthmother. Indeed, they were among her most ancient followers, and their worship of her-while never formalized nor cultured-remained, in an obscure way, loyal.
Through nearly twenty years now, encouraged by the prayers and ministrations of the giant-kin, the Moonwell showed no signs of decay. The isle grew rich in barley and moorgrass. Drawn by the new fertility, northmen came and settled the rocky shore, and for years, they never suspected the presence of their firbolg neighbors. When members of the two races finally met, it was in peace. Now, when they occasionally encountered one another on the small island, they cautiously avoided giving offense and quickly parted.
But for the first time in two decades, Yak felt a sense of danger, a menace that disturbed his peaceful existence and brought him to a pitch of readiness. Now, sitting in the door of his house, he slowly raised the great cat's skull and placed it upon his huge, shaggy head. The jaw, with its long, wickedly pointed teeth, rested upon his forehead, the fangs framing his eyes. His huge nose jutted outward like a block of granite, and his brown beard flowed down his chest in a lush, rippling torrent.
His small tribe gathered from the nearby houses and the pastures where they tended sheep and goats. A dozen of them assembled, hulking adult firbolgs, each at least ten feet tall. The youngsters they left to play, but Yak fixed each of these full-grown tribe members with a somber glare.
"Danger threatens us," he announced, "of a form I know not what, though it will strike from heaven and sea together. We must go to the humans who live here and warn them."
The others could not question their war chief when he wore the great helm of his rank. The mighty beings dispersed around the island, each going to one of the small collections of hovels and fish shacks where the northmen lived.
Yak himself proceeded to the largest of these, following the rough, downhill trail toward the place where perhaps three dozen buildings huddled together. He was still high above the human habitations when he saw the huge, shadowy form descend from the gray clouds. It was a long beast, serpentlike, with a trailing tail and long, pointed wings-a dragon!
The monster's wings had an odd, insubstantial look to them. As it came closer, the firbolg saw why. Much of the leathery skin had rotted away, yet somehow the beast flew, propelled by a web of bones!
A blast of fire erupted from the serpent's gaping maw, and the watchers saw smoke spew from gaps in the long neck where flesh and scale had rotted away. The cloud trailed in the air behind the monster, like a spoor marking its trail, but that spume was as nothing compared to the infernal blast that erupted before it every time it belched its awful breath weapon.
Then the horror expanded as fish-men, the sahuagin, emerged from the sea, scaling the rocks around the little village and attacking from all sides, trapping the helpless humans within. In moments, the attack became a slaughter as the dragon soared back and forth overhead, rending with its great claws and spewing hellish flame from its awful jaws.
Suddenly the dragon banked, veering toward the highland above the village. Yak ducked away from the trail, diving across the broken ground, racing toward a narrow cave he had discovered years ago. He reached the entrance and crept inside, turning cautious eyes skyward.
Outside, the Claws of the Deep spread around the shore of the island, aided by the death-spewing beast in the skies.
"Lances first, men. We want to make sure they get a good look at our banners." Larth growled the order quietly as he unfurled the silken image of the Great Bear, the royal symbol of the Ffolk.
His company, pledged to the service of Talos, was drawn into a long line. Thirty armored knights sat astride their war-horses, each armed with a long steel-tipped shaft. The long march through the Fairheight Mountains had proved to be a surprising ordeal. Since they couldn't take the main roads, they had been forced to lead the heavy mounts along muddy trails and up and down steep ridges. Only on the previous day had they finally reached lowlands again.
But these were the lowlands of Gnarhelm, and before them was a community of northmen. Larth and his warriors were about to start earning their pay.
The predawn mist swirled around them while the small village of fishermen slowly came awake. Oil lamps winked in some of the windows, and one enterprising sailor was already preparing his boat at the village pier.
"After the first charge with the lance," Larth concluded with a grim smile, "we use the swords."
A horse whinnied nervously somewhere along his line, and in the village a dog began to bark. In a few moments, it was joined by a chorus of other dogs.
"Now-charge!" shouted Larth. "Remember, no prisoners!"
Twenty minutes later, the dogs had ceased to bark.
Musings of the Harpist
I watch the princess and future queen of my people, and again I see her as the little girl I knew so long ago. She possesses an innocence, reflected especially in her laugh, that has quickly won the hearts of our captors. But in her joy and her sincerity, she reveals herself, and she does not know her ow
n weakness.
May the goddess watch over you, child, even though she has not watched over anyone these past twenty years! The hopes of all of us depend on that.
13
A Minion of Talos
Deirdre slept but little, her mind surging forward, out of control with ideas and ambitions and new, profound understandings. The power! Never had she imagined such might as now, she knew, lay within her very grasp!
For a few moments, her mind drifted to more conventional concerns. Reports had reached the castle from several different coastal cantrevs claiming that northmen had savagely raided and plundered the Ffolk. This serious violation had alarmed the soldiers and captains of the king's guard. Because of her mother's malaise, the officers had sought Deirdre's permission to muster the Ffolk to arms, but she had not granted them that authority. To her, it seemed that these tales of war and atrocity were unreal. Reality was what she found in her books!
Once more her thoughts turned to those ideas, those powers. She almost laughed out loud in her delight at a remembered image: She, Deirdre, raising a block of earth into a form that walked, a monstrous slave! Or doing the same with fire, or water, or even air! She knew that she would travel places in the blink of an eye, could gain the knowledge of secret counsels, of kings and wizards. .
Even of the gods themselves.
And the price, it seemed, was small. The books had shown her the way, and Malawar had been her guide. Now she stood at the brink of might, and it remained only for her to take the final step.
The oath. A pledge to Talos of a life devoted to his cause. But the cause, Deirdre knew, was one much related to her own ambitions. Indeed, she could serve her god well in her high state as princess of the isles.
Finally she closed her eyes in a semblance of sleep. She did not hear the slight gusting of wind that billowed her curtains, entering the room stealthily and gathering as a mist to hang over her bed.
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