Douglas Niles - Winterheim

“No!” Grimwar Bane roared, his voice a blast of sound that brought all activity in the great hall to a stop.

“My king-” Stariz began.

“Silence!” shouted the monarch, with enough force even to mute his wife. “There has been enough bloodletting for the moment! We must wait and talk to this prisoner. When we decide what to do, it will be a thoughtful choice, not an orgy of revenge! She came into the city through the Icewall Gate-she knows about a whole war party, an invasion that has the potential to incite all our slaves to revolt. If you have any role in this investigation, my queen, it will be to learn what this prisoner knows, that we may use that knowledge for the defense of our kingdom! Do I make myself clear?”

“Aye, Majesty, perfectly,” said the queen demurely. Again she bowed, but Grimwar could see her look sideways at the human woman. Stariz’s eyes narrowed to slits of burning hatred.

As for himself, he was startled by the depths of his own feeling. When Stariz had suggested slaying this woman, this enemy prisoner, Grimwar’s reaction had been one of stark, heart-stopping fear. He meant what he said. How much killing must there be before the queen would be satisfied? In the privacy of his mind, he knew that there was not enough blood in the world to fully slake her thirst for violence and vengeance.

“You came here with the Elven Messenger, did you not?” spat the queen, turning again to confront the female prisoner.

The big woman’s eyes widened slightly, and though the prisoner shook her head contemptuously, the king knew that his wife had struck at the truth.

“How is it that he was not killed on Dracoheim?” asked Grimwar Bane, genuinely curious.

The woman looked at him and drew a slow breath. He thought that she would remain silent and saw his wife tense with anger. The king was surprised when the prisoner answered him with quiet force.

“He escaped because he is a favorite of the gods-not just his own god of the Green Tree but Chislev Wilder as well. I believe that the gods have sent him to watch over the Lady … and he’s doing a damned good job of it.”

Mouse came around the corner of the winding path at a dead run, leading the file of warriors through the mushroom forest. They all trotted silently, weapons ready.

The captain of the ogre patrol was right in front of the Arktos warrior, just where Mouse had expected him to be. Mouse stabbed with his spear, piercing the ogre’s throat and dropping the surprised brute to his knees. With a gurgled cry of alarm, the ogre toppled forward, the weight of his body driving the spearhead right through the back of his neck.

The next ogre in line gaped in shock, and the Arktos warrior slashed him across the face as he drew his sword. Mouse hacked with all of his strength. Thane Larsgall sprinted past the second ogre, crushing the skull of another brute with a mighty downward blow of his steel-headed hammer. The humans attack came in eerie silence, and they flew past the enemy formation, stabbing and chopping with ruthless efficiency.

In seconds the dozen or so ogres of the patrol had been slaughtered to the last one. Mouse was surprised to see Feathertail, who was running with the second wave of attackers, pause to drive her light spear through the throat of a writhing, wounded ogre. The brute kicked reflexively, grasping at the pronged weapon with two flailing fists for several seconds before he grew rigid and died.

The young woman jogged up to him. “I saw you stab that other one in the neck. That was smart.”

“Can’t you stay in the back?” Mouse pleaded, but Feathertail ignored him, pushing past to continue her part in the attack.

The war party raced through the fungus forest of the Moongarden. The other ogre patrols had already passed them, and the humans-as well as the gasping, panting Slyce, who was forced to keep up-headed pell-mell toward the far end of the great cavern and Winterheim.

The trail ascended through groves of giant mushrooms and carried them across wide, mossy meadows beside a roiling, whitewater stream. They came upon a few ogres in one of these clearings, and the surprised brutes howled and chucked spears at the humans. The big missiles fell short, but the twenty or thirty arrows launched by the human archers found their marks. These ogres, too, fell dead, looking like a misshapen, bloody pincushions.

Breathing a little harder now, the war party approached the wide ramp leading up and out of the vast food warren. They saw slaves milling around in a great pen at the base of the ramp, with several ogres gesturing in agitation from platforms overlooking the route. One raised a brass horn, but before the instrument touched his lips he was pierced by a dozen arrows. The bugle fell from his nerveless fingers, and the ogre sagged forward, balancing for a moment on the railing before toppling over to plop heavily onto the ground twenty feet below.

Mouse looked up at the ramparts and windows. He judged this to be a large garrison house, but only a few ogres materialized, buckling on armor, hastening down to form a thin line across the ramp.

“Others are behind us,” Larsgall said, pointing to the ogres forming a line of defense. “They’re all spread out for now.”

“Let’s not give them time to regroup,” the Arktos warrior said.

“Wait!” It was Feathertail. She pointed at the great fenced corrals, with hundreds of slaves pressed to the palisade, looking through the gaps between the stakes. Only three ogres were visible there, nervously standing guard at the closed gate. “Free the slaves!” urged the woman.

That idea was inspired. Mouse looked at the defense, no more than a dozen and a half ogres standing across the ramp leading to the city. If they could swell their ranks with a thousand rebellious slaves free in the Moongarden, the ogre king’s problems would multiply considerably.

“All right,” he said, pointing to the three guards at the gate of the slave pen. “Let’s chase those ugly buggers off and let these people go.”

Kerrick led Moreen out of the storage room, both of them concealed in the Moongarden slave robes. The elf turned to hold the door for Coraltop Netfisher but was not surprised-not very surprised, in any event-when there was no sign of the kender coming after them.

“Where did he go?” Moreen asked, her eyes wide.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” the elf replied with a thin smile. “I expect he’ll be around somewhere. He has a way of showing up when he’s needed.”

“For all those years I thought you were losing your mind,” the chiefwoman said.

“Just because my imaginary friend is real doesn’t necessarily prove me sane,” Kerrick said with a wink.

They hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when they spotted Tookie approaching with a sturdy, apple-cheeked, human woman in tow. The adult regarded the two intruders with intense interest.

“You were supposed to wait for me,” said the slave girl, with a worried glance around.

“I know,” Moreen replied, “but we looked around some and learned where Bruni and Strongwind are-now we’re going to see if we can find them.”

“Strongwind Whalebone, King of Guilderglow?” said the woman with Tookie. “Do you know him?”

“Yes-we came here to rescue him,” Moreen said pointedly, assuming that anyone Tookie brought to them must be trustworthy. “I take it that you have met him as well?”

“Yes. I’m Tildy Trew. I run the Posting House where all the new slaves are brought to be cleaned up. Before they get sent to their posts, that is.” She looked at Kerrick, so appraisingly that the elf felt as though he was one of the new slaves subjected to inspection by a prospective owner. Finally she nodded with the hint of a smile.