Douglas Niles - Winterheim

He grunted and strained to rise, but she held him down with one hand while with the other she took his chin and forcibly tilted up his face. Her expression was mildly amused-except for the spark of fire he saw in her eyes. Clearly, she was enjoying this very much.

“Pretty words,” Thraid said, her lips pursing in an expression that Strongwind couldn’t read. “So long as you remember your place-and fall to your knees when I so command-you will do nicely.”

She squeezed his cheeks, and Strongwind’s temper flared, but he exerted all of his self control to mask his feelings.

“Wandcourt, show … ‘Whalebone’ … where he will be staying. You and Brinda take some time to acquaint him with the household and with his tasks. For now, leave me with Lord Forlane-I have important matters to discuss, things that are not for human ears.”

“Very well, my lady,” replied the elder slave.

Strongwind rose stiffly and followed him through the archway and down a smaller, darker hallway. The slave king resolved to pay attention, to learn what he could. Always he would remain alert, analyzing his new masters for the weaknesses that undoubtedly existed in Winterheim’s tenuous relationship with its slaves.

The King’s Rampart was the loftiest platform on Winterheim’s outer slopes. Only the summit itself, ice-draped and sheer, rose above it. Several paths climbed to this flat, square surface which, by tradition, was intended only for the feet of the monarch of Suderhold.

Grimwar Bane stood alone here, wearing his black bearskin robe, staring into the northwest, where the sun was nearing the horizon, bringing the end to an early autumn day. He looked between the Ice Gates, across the bright stretch of the White Bear Sea. The air, even at this lofty elevation, was cool but not cold.

He thought fleetingly about his cloak, the only black bear pelt he or any other ogre had ever seen. He had captured it from what he thought was a simple village of Arktos peasants nine summers earlier. His warriors had slain every man of that tribe, and with only a few females and young escaping into the hills, he had thought the band eradicated.

How ironic that it had been one of those women who had become his most vexing foe! It was she who had led her people to Brackenrock, reclaiming the long-abandoned stronghold from the savage thanoi who had taken up residence there. It was she who had made the place a true fortress, a bastion that stood against his most devastating attack.

The human woman was dead now, slain with her elf companion in the catastrophic explosion that wracked Dracoheim, yet she continued to fascinate him. This was one reason why the captive warrior, the slave he had sent into the house of Thraid Dimmarkull, was interesting to him. That man had been willing to give his life for the Lady of Brackenrock, and sooner or later the king intended to ask him why.

He had more important matters to concern him for the immediate moment. Indeed, he had many things on his mind, did the king of Suderhold.

One of these was paramount. The matter of his vexatious wife demanded resolution, a resolution that would allow the king to proceed with his life, his future, in a manner of his own choosing. If Stariz remained attached to him, she would be his doom, a cancer eating away his manhood and his rule until he was an emasculated hulk, a mere puppet for the priestess-queen.

He had blustered and threatened, pleaded and dealt with her, but ever she remained the same. For all this time he had sought a solution that would work with Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane. Now, finally, he could see the error of diplomacy. There could be no solution with her, for she herself was the problem.

He realized now that he had to send her away. He would wait until she had performed her ritual sacrifice at the ceremony of Autumnblight, then he would make his announcement to his wife and to his people.

His marriage would end, and the rest of his life would at last begin.

Kerrick shivered under a sense of revulsion so strong that he almost gagged. He had never seen a monster like the beast towering in the Escarpment Pass, never even imagined that such a horror could exist-save, perhaps, in the lightless depths of the ocean, where even the gods never looked. To find such a grotesque creature here, in the shadow of the Icewall, seemed like a defiance of life itself, of every order of natural law.

Thedric Drake, a brave man, and a solid and sensible leader, was gone forever, taken in the first slashing bite of the monster. A dozen more Highlanders lay on the ground where the beast had smashed them, some dead, others writhing in pain, clutching broken limbs or puking up blood and guts from insides wracked by smashing force. Barq One-Tooth, knocked aside like a toy by the monster’s first rush, had struggled to his feet and managed to stumble away.

The creature seemed to barely be getting started. The elf watched as the monster rushed forward again, smashing through the front of the war party’s column, crushing men under its multiple feet, jabbing this way and that with those horrid, slashing jaws. The humans had no recourse. To a man they turned and fled back from the gap in the ridge crest, spreading out, tumbling and falling, crawling on hands and knees in frantic attempts to escape.

Some of them made it, and others didn’t. The monstrous head lunged forward again and again, each time striking some hapless person. Many of these victims disappeared in a single gulp, swallowed by the same fate meted out to Thedric Drake; others were cruelly cut, even bitten in half, until the ground at the mouth of the pass was littered with body parts and gore.

Kerrick spun around, having momentarily forgotten that the horde of thanoi remained in their grim, silent semicircle. He would not have been surprised to see that band rush forward to take advantage of the human’s consternation. Instead, the walrus-men seemed content to watch and to wait. All along they had been waiting.

“Why not?” muttered Bruni, who had apparently taken note of the same thing. “The tusked bastards won’t take any more losses, and what in Chislev’s name can we do against that thing?”

What, indeed? The monster had a segmented body that was fifty feet or more long-indeed, the tail remained out of sight, buried within the cluster of rocks from which it had burst.

“We have to try to attack it!” Moreen declared. “Surely it can be wounded somehow!”

“I agree,” said Kerrick, with another glance at the ominously waiting thanoi.

“Let’s go,” grunted Bruni.

She had dropped her heavy pack on the ground and now drew out the Axe of Gonnas, quickly pulling the leather shroud off of the blade. The metal gleamed in the pale daylight, shining with an internal brightness. The shaft alone was nearly six feet long, and the blade was as big as a barrelhead.

The Arktos woman hefted the weapon in her hands and started toward the notch of the escarpment, Moreen and Kerrick advancing stoutly at her side. Barq One-Tooth, bleeding from several wounds, joined them, and even old Dinekki hobbled behind. Others of the war party maintained the solid rearguard under Mouse’s command, facing the walrus men, banging weapons and chanting, making a show of force that would keep the thanoi away.

More Highlanders joined the small party in the advance, until there were three or four dozen fighters making the charge.

“Kradock curse that thing-it can’t be slain!” grunted Barq. “I landed a sharp blow on those chest plates, and me axe bounced away like I was smitin’ stone!”

“That’s because your blade, solid though it be, is but cold steel,” said Dinekki, who somehow managed to keep up with the striding warriors. “That is a beast of the dark corners of the planes-as such, it must be pierced by metals that have been cast in forges of godly blessing.”