Douglas Niles - Winterheim

Tildy snatched a ring of keys from a hook on the wall and quickly turned one in a heavy iron lock.

“Hey!” growled a startled ogre as the door flew open. “What’s the meaning of this?”

He got his answer in the form of cold elven steel. Twenty seconds later, the humans and elf were pulling open a large door, another barrier Tildy had unlocked. Kerrick and Moreen charged into the room and saw two dozen or more men looking up at them in mixtures of hope and alarm.

“Barq!” cried Moreen, racing across the dingy cell. Tildy came after, still carrying the ring of keys.

The pole-wielding slaves had spread out through the other passages of the dungeon, and Kerrick heard sounds of violence from several directions.

“Hurry!” he cried, as the woman freed one after another of the prisoners from thir manacles. They stood unsteadily, rubbing chafed wrists, then stumbling out the door of the cell to look for weapons. “Where do we go from here?” the elf called to Tildy Trew.

“Let’s head for the Seagate,” she said. “I think we’ve got a rebellion on our hands, and the capstan slaves will be more than happy to help us out.”

The escapees burst from the dungeon a few minutes later, abruptly encountering a party of half dozen ogres who had gathered in consternation around the bodies of the first two guards. They were trampled by twenty or thirty infuriated slaves, as horns of alarm sounded higher up in the atrium of Winterheim.

Tildy was right, Kerrick decided. Like it or not, the slave rebellion was under way.

Stariz left the throne room, wringing her hands in agitation. The elf! Gonnas curse him-where was he? That was just one of many questions for which she lacked the answer. She could only hope that Garnet’s accomplice, the treacherous slave woman, would find a chance to stick a knife in his back before he caused any irreversible disasters.

Something powerful and appealing grabbed her attention. The Axe of Gonnas was near! She felt it, looked up, and saw the immense ogre, Karyl Drago, striding out of the ramp from the lower city. He bore the prized talisman in his great hands, and his face was rapt as he stared at that gleaming, immaculate blade.

The queen stood, her hands on her hips, watching him approach. She remembered the great oaf, an uncouth fool from her own homeland, but she felt pride that it was he who had recovered this talisman for her.

As the immense ogre strode closer, however, it became apparent that he intended to step around her, to proceed into the palace on his own.

“Give that to me!” she demanded.

“I give this to the king,” the big warrior declared, shaking his head stubbornly.

“It is mine!” she declared, stepping in and reaching for the weapon.

To her surprise and consternation the ogre yanked the axe away and glared at her as though he might dare to strike her. Rage swept through Stariz, a wave of heat that left her trembling, and she raised both hands, fingers outstretched as if to envelop the massive Drago.

“Gonnas paralaxsis!” she cried, bringing forth the magic of her god in a wave of pulsing power.

Karyl Drago halted in surprise as she reached forward to touch his burly forearm. The spell was cast in that touch, and the brute slumped to the ground as if he had been felled by a blow to the head.

The high priestess smoothly grasped the Axe of Gonnas as the big ogre fell, making sure that the device did not come into contact with the floor. Satisfied, she spun about to return to the throne room, leaving Karyl Drago unconscious, breathing very slowly, on the floor.

The Moongarden slaves spilled out of their cages as soon as Mouse and his warriors opened the latches. Some of the humans stopped to kick and spit at the corpses of the ogre guards, bristling with arrows, that lay just outside the portals. Others charged into tool sheds and work stations, emerging with all manner of picks, hammers, pipes, and other tools.

“Up to the barracks!” shouted one burly Arktos, gesturing to Mouse. “They have an armory up there-lots of weapons-and most of the ogres have gone into the Moongarden on those patrols.”

“At least one of those patrols won’t be coming back this way,” the warrior said grimly. He clapped the man on the shoulder. “Lead on!”

The war party, now augmented by hundreds of slaves, rushed up the ramp that led into the wide, torchlit tunnel to Winterheim. Mouse saw Slyce, short legs pumping, running to keep up, and Feathertail, up among the vanguard. He put on a burst of speed to stay ahead and keep an eye on her.

Several heavy spears clattered down into the midst of the humans, cast by ogres on balconies overlooking this passageway. The humans responded with a fierce spray of arrows, driving the guards back from their ramparts twenty feet or more overhead, atop the smooth stone walls.

“Those are the doors to the barracks!” pointed the burly Arktos slave. “Bash them in, and we’ll have the run of the place!”

Immediately, dozens of slaves set to work with their picks and sledgehammers, and the wooden barriers were soon reduced to splinters. Humans of the war party mingled with liberated slaves as they charged through the anterooms and tore into the few ogres guarding the area. Mouse was shocked at the frenzy of the slaves, some of whom used their fingernails and teeth as they surrounded the terrified ogres, dragged them down, and killed them. Even then, the vengeance didn’t cease as the gory corpses were spat upon, stomped, and otherwise abused.

More slaves were breaking open equipment rooms, and in moments big spears and heavy axes were being passed among the rampaging rebels. There were huge shields, too, but these they left behind as they were too heavy for human use. Still more men had discovered a great keg of warqat, and they rolled it into the center of the room. One big Highlander smashed the cork off, and the freed slaves took turns lying down, placing their heads under the stream of biting liquid, letting it pour into their mouths.

Mouse was not surprised to see Slyce squirm through this pile. When the much larger humans pushed him away, the gully dwarf settled for licking the floor where the considerable overflow had started to spread in a wide pool. Acutely conscious of time slipping away, the Arktos warrior looked around, wondering how to mobilize this large, bloodthirsty, but temporarily distracted mob for the charge on Winterheim. It seemed clear that, given their choice, these people would stay here, get drunk, and become easy fodder for the ogre patrols that would inevitably arrive here.

It was Thane Larsgall who came up with motivating inspiration. Striding up to the keg, he brought down his huge hammer with a timber-splitting blow, crushing the barrel and sending a cascade of liquor across the floor. Many of the slaves rose to their feet in fury, but the thane stood there ominously, staring them down, his own expression equally furious.

“Do you think we freed you so that you could have a party at the first chance?” he roared, his tone contemptuous. “There’s plenty of this stuff in the city-and plenty of ogres too! If you want your vengeance, follow us to victory. I promise you feasting and drinking for the ages, when this is over!”

Mouse was relieved when the slaves, after a moment’s hesitation, began to cheer lustily. A thousand strong they were now as they poured out of the ogre barracks and rushed into the Moongarden corridor toward the ogre city and a destiny for the ages.

“Here, these come from the weapons room near the dungeon,” Tildy Trew shouted.

She and several slaves were bringing out bundles of halberds and heavy swords, dropping the weapons unceremoniously on the floor of the harborside plaza, where they were quickly snatched up by some of the hundreds of slaves Kerrick, Moreen, and Barq had liberated. These still streamed out of the huge pen, through the double doors that Kerrick and the rebels had carried in their sudden attack.