Cold eyes, as dark as the Abyss, stared out at Deirdre from lined sockets. A bald pate of blotched skin covered the man's scalp, and his ears lay back against his skull as if they were too tired to support themselves. His mouth was almost lipless, his cheeks and chin creased with a multitude of lines.
It was a man, she knew, but a man who was extremely, impossibly old.
"Where is Malawar?" she demanded, finding her voice.
"My dear," cackled the ancient shape through toothless gums. "I'm disappointed you do not recognize me."
"No!" Deirdre moaned, unaware that she slumped against the corner of her room and slowly sank to the floor. "You-you're not! It's impossible!"
But even as she spoke, she knew that she lied to herself. How else had he come to sleep and awaken beside her?
The stooping figure rose stiffly from the bed and pulled Malawar's robe over his scrawny form. "Must serve the needs of dignity," he noted, with an obscene edge to his laugh.
Suddenly Deirdre's stomach heaved in revolt. She turned away from the grotesque form and vomited onto the floor, retching until she could barely breathe.
"I hope you're quite finished," announced the now-hooded priest, his tone acid, "because we have a lot of work to do."
But Deirdre could not bring herself to rise. Instead, she turned toward the window, curling herself into a protective ball. The world swam around her, and then it felt as though she was swallowed up by blackness.
King Sythissal drove his finned legion with all the brutal authority of his command, yet he knew that the sahuagin could never match the pace of the flying dracolich. Still, the fish-men slipped through the sea a hundred feet below the surface to avoid the turbulence of the storm.
Yet by the time the Army of Kressilacc reached the coast of Alaron, the sea battle was over. The ravenous sahuagin discovered, much to their delight, the wreck of the Vulture. The bodies of her crew served as splendid sustenance in restoring the creatures' stamina.
Beyond this wreck loomed rainswept Alaron. Here Sythissal would not go. Too often in the past his warriors had ventured upon land, only to meet with gory disaster before they could reach the protective refuge of the sea.
Instead, the sahuagin turned back from the battle, swimming to their deep home in Kressilacc. His forces intact, the King of the Deep would await a more opportune time to work the will of Talos.
"Hey! That's not fair!"
Pryat Wentfeld started backward, interrupted in the casting of his spell. He had attempted to summon an air elemental in order to set the creature against Hanrald and quickly end this duel between the brother knights. But now this high-pitched voice from nowhere distracted him, and the spell was wasted.
"Who speaks?" he demanded. "Show yourself or face the vengeance of Helm!"
"It's not fair, I told you!"
The priest gaped in astonishment, for the speaker was a tiny dragon, bright blue and hovering on wings that belonged more appropriately to a great butterfly.
"How dare you destroy my spell!" snarled the pryat, lunging toward the creature, who instantly blinked out of sight as the man stumbled through the place he had been.
"I didn't destroy your spell!" The now invisible dragon was indignant. "I just made it more interesting!"
Staring in shock, which quickly blossomed into mind-numbing horror, the cleric saw that the diminutive dragon spoke the truth: The spell had in fact already begun to work.
The summoning and control of an elemental by a spell-caster is a two-stage procedure, and it is always dangerous. These beings, representing the fundamental forces of air, water, earth, and fire, are called only reluctantly from their respective home planes. Vengeful and mighty, they constantly seek a way to release themselves from the bondage of their sorcerous masters.
Once summoned, the caster must maintain careful concentration in order to shape its unwieldy slave to the controller's will. Pryat Wentfeld had successfully concluded the summoning portion of his enchantment, but Newt had distracted him at the very moment when he should have been asserting his control over the invoked being.
In the case of this air elemental, it had been dragged summarily from a windy display of exuberance with hundreds of its kin, the usual pastime of the creatures on their home realm in the Inner Planes. Now, alone, confused, and compelled to enter a hateful world of unpleasant solidity, it reacted with forceful resistance. Then it suddenly found itself freed of its summoner's will.
The full vengeance of the air elemental swirled into the vale. Immediately it saw the two knights bashing at each other, the hounds and the men-at-arms all awaiting the outcome. It sensed the druid staked to the pole, and even the pilgrims who watched the fight from above. But most of all, the air elemental detected the cowering cleric-the one who had forced the creature to come here but now held no power over it. The tenuous form became a howling vortex, swirling upward into a funnel-shaped cloud of destruction. Furiously the mighty wind surged toward the cleric, casting limbs of trees and piles of wood chips into hailstorms of splinters.
Wentfeld screamed and raised his holy symbol, a medallion depicting Helm's ever-vigilant eye, in a desperate attempt to ward off the monster. When this failed to deter its advance, he ducked away from the whirlwind and scrambled toward the imagined shelter of a cluster of cedar logs.
Danrak, like the others, stared in astonishment at the airy form. Only after a few moments did he notice another figure in front of him, but then he grunted through his gag when he saw that the tiny blue dragon had returned.
Newt, for his part, scowled at the druid. "What is it? If you've got something to say, spit it out! Can't you talk?"
Danrak strained against his bonds, furious with the dragon's failure to understand.
"Oh-ropes!" the creature said, seeing his arms flex. "Well, why didn't you say so! I untied Tristan once when he had to fight a monster but he couldn't because he was all tied up. He was grateful, too. He gave me some cheese to eat. As much as I wanted!"
Danrak sputtered, chewing on the rancid cloth. The guards forgot their duties as they nervously watched the elemental, which now tossed cedar limbs aside like matchsticks in an attempt to reach its desperate victim.
"Say, should I untie you? You're all bug-eyed. . does that mean yes?"
Newt dove behind Danrak and started chewing on the ropes that bound him. Beside the Moonwell itself, the two knights continued to hack at each other. Hanrald bled from a gash on his ear, and Gwyeth's breastplate and helmet bore several slashes and dents. Still, neither had seriously injured his foe.
The younger knight struck his brother a ringing blow to his helm, twisting Gwyeth's visor across his face and blocking his vision. Cursing, the brutal warrior pulled the iron headpiece away as Hanrald held his blows until his brother could once again see.
"Fool!" Gwyeth spat, sneering. "You should have taken me when you could!"
"I shall take you," replied Hanrald calmly, "but it will in a fair fight."
Their blows became less frequent, their gasps of breath more strained. Steel rang against steel as each stumbled over the rough ground, struggling to remain standing. On wobbling legs, the two men struggled against exhaustion.
"Surrender your blade, bastard of my mother's house!" demanded Gwyeth, lunging at his brother.
"Better a bastard," retorted Hanrald, with a desperate twist to the side, "than a traitor!"
Still the hounds held Gwyeth's men at bay, and Danrak, aided by the desperate nibbling of Newt upon his bonds, slowly worked his way free of his bonds.
The night seemed endless to the forlorn crew of the Gullwing, who battled tirelessly to keep the graceful vessel afloat. But the damage was severe, and whereas the sea could maintain its pressure for hours and days, the muscles of the humans aboard the ship could only labor for so long. Inevitably the sea must prevail.
Alicia bailed until her arms grew leaden, until her back creaked and ached like an old woman's, and still the water rose. The bow of the longship had been punct
ured by the onslaught, and though the firbolg Yak and the northmen Wultha and Knaff the Elder waded into the foaming leaks and stuffed rags and cork plugs into the worst of them, the rolling swell placed additional stress on the vessel.
Finally, as dawn colored the gray sky with its own grim cast, the princess collapsed. Brandon hoisted her from the watery hull and held her exhausted form by the shoulders.
"Here, now-you must rest!" he ordered her, and she was too tired to rebuke him.
"But the ship!" she said, shaking her head. Her rust-colored hair hung in an unruly mat across her face, and she pulled it aside to look at him.
"You've done as much as any sailor-more than most," he assured her. "Others can take over for a time. You'll do none of us any good if you work yourself to death!"
"No!" she cried, suddenly frantic. She took him by the arms and stared into his face. "I have to-don't you see?"
"I see one who has worked herself to exhaustion. Here, sit for a moment." Gently he guided her to a bench, and she slumped there, feeling all the fatigue he described. A feeling of utter hopelessness and dejection sapped her.
"Is there any hope? Of saving the ship, I mean?" she asked.
Brandon appeared to think before answering, but she saw the answer in the pain reflected in his eyes. "The hope we have is that we can reach the shore of Olafstaad before she goes down."
In the stern, Tavish didn't hear the conversation between the prince and princess. Indeed, she knew little at this point beyond the blistering pain that wracked her fingers and the cramps that threatened to stiffen her arms into locked positions around her harp.
Yet she had strummed the night through, and now, with the coming of dawn, she once again wanted to raise her voice in song. The magical harp had given strength to the northmen for many hours; indeed, it seemed likely that they never would have kept the Gullwing afloat without her.
"Lady bard!" cried Yak, straining to hold a plank against the hull while two sailors lashed and nailed it into place. "Give us a song to make us laugh!"
Tavish chuckled, albeit hoarsely. "I know just the one! It's called the 'Ballad of the Murderous Maid,' " she announced, strumming the first chords.
" 'A farmer saw a maiden; he took her as his wife. She didn't know her pots and pans but surely liked her knife!' "
Tavish bounced through the chorus, the pain in her fingers forgotten.
" 'The maiden, she was willin', the menfolks she dismayed, for it was her taste for killin' to which this maiden made!' " She sang heartily.
" 'The wedding night was cloudy as the couple rode away, and when they fin'ly found him, he was smilin' in the hay! His britches, they were missin', and his tunic and his bibs, but not his bride's stiletto: That was stickin' from his ribs!' "
Tavish played and sang more loudly, her pain forgotten. The music drowned out the noise of the pounding seas, ringing above the grunting and cursing of stone sore, staggering men. As the rude song unfolded, the bailers bent to their tasks with renewed energy, while the oarsmen labored to keep the stricken vessel nosed into the wind, grinning despite their weariness at the raunchy lyrics.
For a time, it seemed that new life had come to the Gullwing, and indeed the prow forced its way through the swells proudly once again. The song ran through many verses, for the maid had lived a long and productive life, and all through the choruses and notes, each time the sea swelled before them, the longship rose to meet each looming crest, foaming its way through the dark, frothing caps.
And when the song of Tavish finally faded away, the sound of the combers had changed, becoming deeper, somehow more substantial. In the bow, Alicia instinctively looked at Brandon and saw him listening carefully to the sound.
"That's surf pounding against the rocks," he said after a moment. "We'll make our landfall, perhaps more quickly than we desire."
"Headlands!" The booming cry came from Knaff, who gripped the tiller firmly on the raised deck at the stern. The old man pointed over the bow. "A rocky bluff, dead ahead!"
Brandon leaped upward, seizing the cracked remains of the figurehead and staring over the rolling swells into the mask of gray. "Starboard helm!" he cried.
Immediately the Gullwing veered to the right. Then, with shocking quickness, Alicia saw a dark mass of rock looming high above them. Waves bashed against it, exploding in chill clouds of spray. In the gray mist, they hadn't see the menace until they were upon it.
"Row! Row for your lives!" cried the northman prince. The Gullwing leaped ahead, carving a sharp curve through the storm-tossed sea. Perhaps if she had been a whole ship, she would have made it.
As it was, the weight of the waterlogged bow, coupled with the drag of splintered planks, slowed her down just enough to doom her. A heaving swell raised them high into the air, and Alicia had a sickening image of a shore lined with massive, brutal rocks.
Then the longship crashed onto the boulders, and the sound of splintering wood and shouting men filled the air. Alicia felt herself tossed upward, and she tried to curl herself into a ball to lessen the inevitable shock of landing. Nevertheless, she crashed into a solid surface of stone with stunning force and lay motionless-still conscious, but unable to move. Icy water doused her, covering her completely as she feared that she would drown. Finally the brine receded, and she gasped and choked as it washed away.
All around her, Alicia heard cries of pain and the groans of the injured, even over the smashing of the waves and the splintering, tearing sounds of the Gullwing's destruction. Crying in agony, she tried to sit up, but collapsed after raising her head an inch off her rocky pillow. Explosions of pain whirled in crimson torture through her mind. She closed her eyes, but that only made the torment worse.
Then, where her body contacted the ground, she felt a strange thing, as if a soothing balm caressed her, washing away her pain. As she lay still, the feeling of warmth spread throughout her body, the rocky ground forming a soft and well-cushioned bed beneath her.
Finally she dared to look around, and her blurred vision slowly cleared. The princess couldn't locate any members of the crew, but she tried to convince herself that that didn't mean they had all perished. She had landed among huge boulders, and they blocked her view to either side.
By the time she had forced herself to a sitting position, relieved that she could do so without pain, several men came into view. Brandon led the group, and they cried out with relief when they saw her.
"Lady Princess!" gasped Brandon, his voice thick. "By the gods, if you had been-"
"I'm not," she said quickly, not wanting him to go on. "Can you help me up? What about the others-Tavish, and Keane, and your crew?"
"Your companions survived," Brandon said, assisting the woman to a grassy knoll above the reach of the waves where the ragged castaways had gathered.
In addition to the three Ffolk, only Yak had survived of the firbolgs, the one called Loinwrap drowning in the wreck. A dozen of Brandon's crew had also perished, leaving the prince with fewer than twoscore warriors. Many had suffered broken limbs or other injuries. Now the healthy members of the band tended the wounds of their comrades while Keane and Wultha went to make a reconnaissance of the area.
"We've landed at the right place, in any event," announced Keane, upon their return. "We found a village that was ransacked by horsemen. No one is alive there now, but the hoof-prints were still visible."
"Going which way?" demanded Brandon, his hand instinctively seizing the hilt of his axe.
"Inland."
"But how can we catch them now?" groaned the prince in sudden and complete dismay. Alicia had never heard him so disheartened. "Even if they continued to follow the coast, without the Gullwing, we couldn't hope to pursue!"
"I know where they went," Tavish said suddenly. "And that dragon, too. It explains why it hasn't attacked us before!"
"Where?" demanded Alicia, Keane, and Brandon.
"The Moonwell-the Fairheight Moonwell! May the goddess forgive my ignorance, I should have seen it
days ago!"
Tavish cried, shaking her head in frustration.
"Why would they go there?" demanded the Prince of Gnarhelm.
"The goddess!" Alicia exclaimed. "The power of the Earthmother returns, and these knights go there to destroy the hope that was born!"
"I–I meant to speak of this earlier. Now I regret the fact that I didn't," the bard stated with unaccustomed solemnity. "But I've dreamed of the well each time I sleep these last few days. A power awakens there that offers tremendous hope for the isles, but it's a frail thing and menaced by great danger. I believe that it's imperative we go there, with all speed!"
"I remember your tale of this well, and your description of its location," interjected Brandon, addressing Alicia. "It's at least four days' march from here!"
"But less than that for horsemen or for a flying beast," the mage observed grimly.
"Keane!" Alicia said suddenly. "Do you have some way you could get us to that well quickly?"
"I wish, Princess, that I did," replied the sorcerer with a shake of his head. "I have a spell-teleportation-that will take me there in an instant. But it will not benefit anyone else."
"Isn't there something you can do?" demanded the princess.
"As I said, I can go there myself," he said curtly. "And it may be that we have no other tactic available to us."
"Not good enough," grunted Brandon. He seemed to have shaken off his despair. Once again his voice was commanding and controlled. "You have great power, but alone you could fall to a single arrow, or even a well-thrown rock. No, we must travel together."
"Those who can march, at least," Tavish noted, with a look at the dozen or so injured men who were having legs or arms splinted by their companions.
In another hour, a bedraggled band of castaways shivered under a steady rain. The injured had been moved to the village, quartered in as much comfort as possible. Finally those who could walk started across the lowland moor. In minutes, the buildings of the tiny community had vanished into squall and murk.
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