The Golden Orb i-2
Page 11
“You make a compelling case, politically, at least,” Moreen said dryly, feeling more touched by his proposal than she cared to admit-even to herself. “But I had always hoped that, if I married, it would be for a more personal reason. I am my people’s leader, but I am also a woman… a woman who wants to love and be loved.”
“I do love you!” proclaimed the king. He set down his goblet and kneeled beside Moreen’s chair, taking one of her hands in both of his. “I’ve loved you since I first saw you. I only wish I had told you the truth then, rather than speaking in political riddles. Speak, lady chief-woman: Could there be any glimmer of love in your soul, for me?”
Moreen drew a deep breath. Strongwind’s words were seductive, and his blue eyes, so close to hers, were overpowering.
“You are a good man, Your Majesty,” she said softly. “Perhaps the best I have ever known.” But she felt it was wiser for them to defeat the enemy first, and then talk about marriage afterward. “We have time to talk about these things,” she said. “For now, would you fill my glass again and join me in a toast to this summer’s alliance?”
“A new weapon, hmm?” Randall speculated. “Something to blow Brackenrock right off the face of Krynn. Of course, if it can destroy that citadel, it could blow up anything else, too. Guess I’ll be there with ye to stand against the bastards, if they come.”
The Highlander drew from his mug of warqat and instead of swallowing spat a stream into the fire. Blue flames surged upward, and Kerrick relished the feel of the sudden heat against his face. The waters of Tall Cedar Bay shimmered in the twilight, and the salt smell of the sea mingled with sweet pine smoke. Dry logs crackled as the flames devoured them, mingling with the lapping of waves against the shore-the only sounds in the still summer night.
Furtively, the elf looked up the hill, toward the inn. Subdued lights, like a fire fading low in the hearth, still glowed in the windows. Moreen Bayguard and Strong-wind Whalebone were in there, alone, had been for many hours. It was past midnight, though it had never really grown dark.
Randall saw his glance and shook his head. Lars Redbeard, the third of the companionable trio gathered around the fire, sighed sympathetically. “Don’t know what they can be talking about for so… long,” he said without much conviction.
Kerrick could imagine but didn’t want to. The king of the Highlanders was unwed, and his desire for the chiefwoman was known to all. For eight years Moreen had stood independent of the king’s will, safely distant behind Brackenrock’s high walls. If she was really frightened, convinced her tribe was in dire danger, would she weaken?
“Would the ogres be comin’ this summer, then?” inquired Redbeard. “That would be a hard blow.”
“Yes, but we’ll be ready,” Kerrick said, surprised at the realization that he had included himself among the Arktos. “Most of the past eight years have been spent building and expanding the fortress, reinforcing walls, putting up new bulwarks. We’re ready for war.”
“I have some business over in Brackenrock, anyway,” Lars said casually. “The men from my clanhold are itching for a ride across the strait. Maybe we’ll come over, camp out for awhile. We shan’t be any bother.”
Kerrick was touched by the offer of support, and he knew that Moreen would be too. “Thanks, and I’m sure your presence would be welcome,” he said. Again he looked up at the inn. The lights were even lower now, it seemed.
“Here,” the elf said, reaching a hand toward Randall. “Let me have a drink.”
She woke up to see the light of dawn brightening the eastern sky, through the unshuttered window. The great, broad swath of the Icereach morning brightened the sky to a rosy coral. Reclining on the cushioned bench, she sleepily looked out the window, between a gap in the tall cedars.
A rattling snore drew her attention to the nearby chair, where the king of the Highlanders slumbered. A goblet lay sideways on the floor, just beneath his dangling hand. Strongwind rustled slightly in his chair, extending one foot. Moreen saw the big toe jutting from a hole in his woolen stocking.
Her own head hurt, and her mouth felt gummy and sour. Grimacing with distaste she rose and crossed to the water pitcher. Her legs were unsteady, and the movement brought the pounding in her head to an uncomfortable crescendo. She drank deeply, felt a little better. Crossing back to the bench and chair, she smiled wryly, then flung the contents of the pitcher into Strongwind’s face.
The king came up swinging, almost surprising her before she hopped out of the way. Groggily Strongwind opened his eyes, wringing his long hair in both hands. “What did you do that for?” he demanded, then winced as if the sound of his own voice stung the inside of his skull.
“It’s your turn,” she said, gesturing to the goblet that lay sideways beside the king’s chair, “to make a toast.”
He gaped at her, then, grudgingly, chuckled. “You wore me down, didn’t you? A little thing like you, and I fell asleep in the chair. I know I can’t out-talk you, but by Kradok I was pretty sure I could out-drink you!”
She looked at him, feeling a strange tenderness. “Actually, I was pouring it into the spittoon after the first few rounds.”
“Waste of good warqat,” the king muttered glumly. “So that’s it, then? We talk for half the night, and that’s all we do, as usual. You won’t be my queen?”
Moreen shook her head. “You’re a good man and a good king, but I’m not ready to marry you,” she said.
“You never give me a reason,” Strongwind pressed. “I hope it is not that the sight of me repulses you?”
She smiled, a wry tilt of her lips. “Hardly. You’re right, I didn’t give you a reason. I don’t intend to give you a reason.”
“You’re a stern woman, Moreen, Lady of Bracken-rock,” Strongwind Whalebone admitted, “but I admire you, and I will send three hundred warriors to help defend your fortress, if and when the ogre king comes.”
“I think you should stay another night,” Strongwind persisted. The wind was gusting hard, and another of the periodic cloudbursts was drumming rain. “You too, of course, Kerrick-both of you, my guests. We’ll tell some stories, drink some warqat, and you can be on your way when this storm passes.”
Kerrick didn’t reply, but he concentrated all of his will on Moreen as she squinted in thought. It took all his elven reserve to conceal his elation when she finally spoke.
“Thanks, but if Kerrick’s willing, I’d like to try to get across right away-if the weather’s not too bad.”
“No problem for Cutter,” Kerrick quickly agreed. “With a wind like this, we’ll make it across in a few hours-though it will be a little bumpy.”
“Then let’s go,” said Moreen, though she turned a little green as she stared at the bay, where even the semi-sheltered waters were whipped into whitecaps. She turned to Strongwind. “Thank you again for your hospitality, and for your willingness to help.”
The king took Moreen’s hand and gazed up at her. “I am grateful for the discussions we were able to share… and may Chislev and Kradok together grant that we will lead our people into a new, bright era.”
“Yes,” the Lady of Brackenrock agreed, sincerely. “I look forward to seeing you and your warriors within the walls of our citadel.”
Kerrick offered his help as she started down the steep ladder beside the wharf, but Moreen hiked up her long skirt and hopped nimbly down the metal rungs. Kerrick followed, and soon the boatman was pushing the dinghy back to the moored sailboat.
They crossed back to Brackenrock with the sun barely visible between the scudding clouds. Kerrick was sore from sleeping on the ground, cold from sleeping outside, and queasy from the effects of too much camp-fire warqat. As Moreen sat beside the transom, wrapped in her own thoughts, her ashen face indicated that she, too, had indulged too much in the bitter but potent brew of the Icereach.
By noon the headland of Brackenrock rose before them. From several miles out they could see the fortress, the smooth walls reflecting the light of the bright sun
, the towers and parapet shimmering like jewels in a crown.
Kerrick looked over at Moreen. She had been strangely quiet during the return trip. He guessed that she was steeling herself for the task ahead. The Lady of Brackenrock didn’t even notice the elf staring at her. As she studied the strait and the pillar at the mouth of the harbor, the grim look on her face made another kind of fortress.
“You know,” Moreen said finally, over her shoulder as she continued to look over the stern, toward Tall Cedar Bay. “He isn’t such a bad man. Not so bad at all.”
Two days later a veritable parade of curraghs began to cross the strait, and a week after that Strongwind Whalebone himself made the trip, bringing his personal bodyguard of veteran axemen. All told, more than four hundred and thirty Highlander warriors arrived to camp outside and inside the walls of Brackenrock.
10
The Forge
The royal smithy was a huge, vaulted chamber with numerous forges, ovens, anvils, and stout stone tables. Great piles of coal rose like black mountains in the far corners of the room, mingling with the shadows that seemed to creep outward from the walls. A hundred ogres and slaves could work in here at one time, raising a din like an enclosed thunderstorm. Now, however, most of the room was dark, though bright lamps illuminated the one forge where a fire burned and the master smith who worked on the artifact that would destroy Brackenrock.
Grimwar and Stariz stood on a railed platform just above the floor of the smithy. The stones had been swept, and the fans were pumping away, but the king still felt the air of sooty grime against his skin, smelled the acrid stench of the smelting process every time he drew a breath. If the queen noticed these same effects, she gave no indication. Instead, her eyes were alight, bright with the reflected light of the forge, and her thin lips were moist, glistening as she nervously licked them. Her attention never wavered.
The king, with considerable input from his wife, had decided to move ahead on invasion plans by dividing the powder from the Alchemist into two different weapons. One was small, a bell-shaped chalice designed to blast away the gates of Brackenrock and allow the ogre troops to gain entrance to the courtyard and the keep. There, Stariz’s spies had confirmed, the Axe of Gonnas was displayed above the great hearth, and she was determined that the hallowed artifact be retrieved.
After that, the main power of the Alchemist’s discovery would be brought to bear, enclosed in a round sphere of metal that the Alchemist had dubbed the Golden Orb. This weapon was a large sphere of pure gold, hollowed to contain the powder and a bottle of magic potion. When the orb was pitched into a target by catapult, the container would break, and the mixing of the potion with powder would detonate the full power of destruction.
The chalice intended for the initial attack was a small, trumpet-shaped cup of pure gold, currently gleaming on the smith’s anvil. The orb, in two hollow halves, sat nearby. When the two halves were fused together, it would weigh more than one hundred pounds and form a perfectly spherical shape.
Both vessels had been shaped precisely to the specifications laid down by Queen Stariz. The stem of the chalice was molded into a grooved mount upon a block of square granite, the heavy stone forming a solid anchor for the tall, flaring vessel. Right now the object sat on an anvil beside the forge, with the furnace doors open, blue-yellow flames flickering eerily from the coal. The smith, a burly human slave, applied foot pressure to the bellows, and the flames increased to white heat. His face was invisible behind a slit-eyed mask of steel, and his hands and forearms were protected by heavy leather gauntlets.
The dust, the treasure from the Alchemist, was now in both the chalice and the orb. Grimwar had watched his wife barely controlling the excited trembling of her hands as she poured the stuff into the two different vessels. She had taken care not to lose a single flake of the precious dust. The king had said nothing as she described to the smith the procedure for capping the potent powder in the chalice, but now he paid attention as the man carefully followed the queen’s instructions. The smith was preparing to seal up the cup, the first of the weapons to be completed.
The smith had a small disk of gold in his hand, a circle of metal with a slotted hole in the center. Now he pressed that plate down into the mouth of the goblet, and Stariz barked sharply. “The wick-don’t forget the wick!”
Grimwar knew that tone and bristled. The smith showed no irritation, merely nodded. “Of course, Lady Queen. I am merely checking to see the sizing is correct.”
“Very well,” she replied.
The man brought the disk out, then turned a valve and opened a small chute. Immediately a point of blue flame sprang up from the middle of the forge. This was a cutting flame, Grimwar knew. The smith held the golden disk in a small pair of tongs, masterfully rotating it so that the cutting flame sliced just a bit off the outer perimeter. Moments later, he pulled the plate aside, then took a slender bar of silver and inserted it through the slotted hole.
“The wick is installed, my queen,” the smith declared. “Pure magnesium. It will burn with a fire as hot as the sun.”
“Hotter still, when the dust takes light,” Stariz replied, with another lick of her lips. She almost smiled.
Quickly the smith pressed the disk down into the chalice, compressing the dust in the bottom. With practiced gestures the man took a small cup of molten gold and poured it carefully into the chalice, sealing the disk in place as the metal cooled. Finally he slammed the door to his furnace, immediately cooling the large chamber, and lifted his mask to regard the queen with a blank expression.
“It is finished, Lady Queen. The chalice may lay on its side or even upside down, and the dust is contained in the base. It is penetrated by the shaft of magnesium, and when that wick is ignited the fire will inevitably take its course. The granite gives it plenty of heft, of course, so that once the weapon is placed it will remain stationary.”
“To the orb, then,” the queen declared curtly. She produced a clear bottle that Grimwar saw was full of a cloudy liquid, the magic potion that would interact with the powder.
“Careful!” she snapped, as the smith took the vial, inspected the stopper-which was waxed in place-then carefully set it into the shell of half the orb.
Following Stariz’s instructions, the smith lifted the second half of the sphere into place, and used an oil torch to carefully fuse the two halves together with a bead of molten gold. When it was finished, Grimwar saw an object that looked almost innocently like a large child’s ball.
“You have done well,” Stariz said. The smith bowed and departed. He was a man with rare skills and a unique status among the slaves of Winterheim. He knew that he would collect a reward later. The queen turned to her husband.
“The weapons are prepared. We must depart for Brackenrock immediately.”
“One more day,” growled Grimwar Bane, in such a tone that his wife had to bite her tongue. “There are still preparations to be made, but the galleys will sail on the morning tide.”
“Very well,” she said, regarding him with that gaze that seemed to bore into the center of his being. “I will prepare for a departure on the morrow.”
The king nodded. He was not happy that his wife would accompany him on this campaign-she rarely journeyed onto the sea, and when she did she was invariably ill-tempered and demanding. All the same, he was glad to have her aboard the ship, for there was another reason, even more compelling, that he didn’t want to leave her behind when he embarked for war.
“How-how long will you be gone?”
Thraid was still pale from her spell of sickness, though she had smeared some rouge upon her round cheeks. The effect was rather garish, Grimwar thought, though he made no remark. Instead, he patted her hand and tried to answer her question.
“Maybe a month. It’s hard to say, with these things. I will return in plenty of time for the Harvest Festival.”
“That’s not terribly long, then,” said the ogress, trying bravely, albeit unsuccessfully, to control he
r sniffling. “Not like when you campaign over the whole summer.”
“No,” he agreed, not sure what else he could say. “How are you feeling?” he asked lamely.
“It’s passing, I think,” she said bravely. “The purgatives of the royal physician seem to have made a difference.”
“Good.” He wanted to tell her about his arrangement with Stariz, the queen’s pledge of safety, but somehow he feared even the mention of the other ogress, as if her name was a toxin that would weaken, perhaps kill, his cherished mistress.
“I wish… I wish that I was able to send you off with a proper farewell,” the ogress said, with just a hint of her old sexiness. He felt the familiar flush, and though he tried to remain silent his chest rumbled to an unconscious growl. Thraid smiled. “However, I will be waiting for you here, my king, when you return.”
“And I, my lover, will find my way back to you soonest,” he pledged.
Whatever the cost, he vowed to himself. He rose, bent over to kiss her cheek, and turned to the door. The golden orb was ready, and Brackenrock awaited.
Sunlight spilled through as the great harbor doors rumbled open. Hundreds of slaves labored, straining against their lines, as the huge capstans rotated and the gap between the massive slabs grew wider and wider. Open water beckoned, shimmering in the sunlight, and the two great ships moved forward, like eager creatures ready to emerge from a long winter’s hibernation.
Goldwing was in the lead, the king standing at the rail, accepting the cheers of the thousand ogres gathered on the waterfront to wish the warriors well. Light swelled around him as the harbor shadows fell behind, and the salt breeze was sweet in his nostrils. He let the accolades wash over him, bearing him into that light, and he tried to convince himself that he embarked upon an epic mission.