Douglas Niles - Winterheim

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 into 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!”

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.