Douglas Niles: The Messenger

Another overturned near shore, and a hunter flailed in the water, trying to crawl out of his leaking boat. Moreen saw that he was lanced through with a huge spear, bleeding so much that the wave breaking around him foamed into a crimson crest. Finally the little vessel rolled over, nudging gently into the shallows, the hunter obviously too weak to right his craft. The young woman felt a rush of guilt, oddly shamed that she couldn’t recognize which of her village-mates was dying before her eyes.

The grinding of the rowing ship hitting shallow water was audible even up on the hillside. Surf broke to either side of the big hull. Two broad ramps dropped downward, one to each side of the bow, and big raiders lumbered down the platforms to splash into the knee-deep water.

The Arktos hunters met them on both sides of the vessel, casting harpoons, slashing in with fishing knives, paddles, anything that could serve as a weapon. One ogre bore a huge axe, and he swung it into a human, dropping the man with a wound so deep that Moreen could see the spray of blood from her lofty vantage. The raiders were monstrous, looming a foot or two over their victims. Wearing armored breastplates, heavy boots, and thick gauntlets, they seemed to merely brush aside any of the villagers’ attempts at resistance.

Another man fell back, lying in the shallow water with a huge spear sticking in his midriff. Here again, and now in many other places too, the frothing surf was tinged red. An ogre howled as a harpoon struck him in the shoulder, penetrating deep into gristly flesh-but even before the brute plucked the weapon from the wound his attacker was beaten down by a pack of other ogres who surrounded him. The Arktos were outnumbered and losing badly.

“Where is my father?” whispered Moreen, as the melee spread from the shallows onto the flat beach. Here and there men established pockets of resistance, while the ogres spread out and moved in slowly.

“There,” Bruni said grimly, pointing a finger.

Moreen gasped, seeing Redfist wield his spear against a huge ogre with Inga behind him. The chieftain made a curt gesture to his wife, and she finally turned and raced toward the village, sprinting past the first little domes. When the ogre attacked, Redfist thrust the tip of the spear up through the creature’s great belly. With a roar, the ogre reeled sideways, and the chieftain twisted his weapon and then pulled the gory tip out of the wound. The stricken raider collapsed on the ground, kicking weakly, as Redfist turned and race in the same direction as his wife.

“So many are dying,” Bruni said numbly. Moreen could only nod with heartsickness. Already the surf was thick with bodies, and ogres were advancing toward the village along the whole breadth of the beach. A few men still fought in the open, while others fell back among the skin-walled huts.

A woman-it was Inga Bayguard-screamed as burly ogre paws grabbed her arms. She was thrown roughly to the ground as another one of the raiders rushed up, raising a large axe.

“By Chislev-no!” cried Moreen. She tried to spring forward, racing to her mother’s aid, but Bruni threw her to the ground and held her there with firm pressure.

“I have to go to her!” hissed the chieftain’s daughter.

“No,” Bruni said, her tone gentle despite the power of her stout grip. “You cannot help her-and you would only give away the position of the Hiding Hole.”

With a sob Moreen collapsed onto her stomach, still staring with horror. The ogre with the axe stumbled sideways, as Redfist raced up to jab his bloody spear into the monster’s hip. It collapsed with a roar and a feeble kick, but now the other ogre reached out and seized the haft of the chieftain’s spear. With a twist the brute yanked the weapon out of the man’s hands. Redfist drew his long, bone-bladed knife, but the ogre used the bloody spear like a club, bashing him in the head and sending him reeling to the ground.

With casual contempt the great brute aimed the point of the spear downward, piercing Inga’s body and staking her to the ground. Her hands clasped at the blood-slick haft, but her struggles quickly ceased. In moments the chieftain’s wife lay still, a patch of crimson slowly staining the ground around her.

Redfist, meanwhile, had been roughly hoisted to his feet. Seeing his wife’s death, he thrashed with fury, but the brute hoisted him as if he was a child, carrying him toward the rest of the raiders who were starting to gather in the midst of the village square.

“That is their chief,” Bruni said, once more pointing.

The gesture was unnecessary-the leader of the raiders was clearly identifiable even from this high vantage. He swaggered forward between a pair of his fellows, awaiting delivery of Redfist. A gold breastplate gleamed across his massive chest. His twin tusks gleamed with gilded wire, tightly wrapped around the ivory stubs. Bracelets and thigh guards, also made of gold and secured with golden chains, protected his limbs. Massive boots of black whaleskin rose past his knees, and at his waist he wore a sheath and a long sword. Moreen hadn’t seen this gaudy ruler in the thick of the battle, and she wondered contemptuously if he had been absent and was content to let others do his fighting for him.

“Someday we will feed him those gold chains, one link at a time,” vowed Bruni, for the first time betraying bitter emotion in her voice.

Numbly Moreen pledged agreement. She was tense and trembling, but her eyes were dry, and her thoughts seemed strangely calm.

For the first time, she saw the dwarf.

He swaggered out from behind the ogre leader, his chest thrust out, straw-colored beard bristling in a self-important display. A metal breastplate, gray instead of gold, protected his chest, and a cap of similar material fitted his head, though stiff, wiry hair jutted out from beneath the rim. With manifest arrogance he stalked up to Redfist Bayguard, staring into the struggling chieftain’s face, then walked past to turn toward the surrounding hillsides.

“Hear me, people of Icereach!” the dwarf cried. “Come forward and pay homage to your prince! His name is Grimwar Bane, and he is the son of Grimtruth Bane, the King of Suderhold, who rules your lands from his citadel in Winterheim. Know that you are his subjects, and you owe your lives, your breath, your homes, to his beneficence!”

Redfist twisted, tried to raise his clenched hand, but the two ogres now holding him merely exerted a little more pressure until he hung motionless in their arms.

“We know you are up there, hiding … watching,” cried the dwarf. Even from this distance his eyes seemed unusually large to Moreen, but they were pale and empty. He brandished a dagger, a silver-hilted knife that he waved back and forth so that it sparkled in the spring sun.

“It is important that you understand the power of Grimtruth Bane, as shown here by his son Grimwar. Do not defy him.”

Abruptly the dwarf spun around. He stood several steps away from Redfist Bayguard, but he raised the knife as if he would have stabbed the man. He barked some word, a sound Moreen could not identify.

Instantly the short blade of the knife flashed into a long, slender sword. The silver tip flicked across Redfist Bayguard’s cheek, scoring a shallow cut.

The chieftain came alive with a scream, a sound of pain and anguish that would haunt Moreen’s memories for the rest of her life. Her father was a brave and stoic man-she had seen him pull a barbed harpoon right through the meaty part of his thigh after a tribesman’s miscast-and so his eerie shriek was a shock to the young woman.

His struggles became so frantic that he somehow managed to pull away from the two ogres. With both hands pressed to his face, he stumbled weakly, bouncing off of the low stone wall surrounding the village square. The ogres watched in amusement, some of them laughing, as the stricken man staggered to his wife’s body. With a last strangled sob, the chieftain dropped to his knees, gasped once more, and then collapsed beside Inga’s lifeless form.