Douglas Niles - Prophet of Moonshae

Among the anchored longships, gathered like dogs slumbering among horses, bobbed a number of fishing craft, some with sails hoisted, others tacking out to sea, where they swiftly vanished in the gray haze. Like the longships, these sturdy knarrs were deckless. Crates, nets, buoys, and baskets filled the hulls of the smaller fishing vessels. Great sheds at the other end of the dock emitted the unmistakable smell of fish, and Alicia felt a sense of relief when Brandon led her in the other direction, along the length of the solid wharf.

Beside the long pier stretched an area where the princess saw the bony outline of a new longship, the keel formed from a trunk of a gigantic mountain fir. Even in the partial state of the vessel's completion, she recognized a grand ship, larger than any of those currently within the bay. Hull boards ran partway up the ribwork, but she saw that the gunwales lay far above the unfinished section.

Piles of logs lay nearby, and shirtless northmen, their hair constrained by long braids down their backs, labored at shaving these into planks. Other men carried the lumber to the skeleton framework, where still more workers skillfully formed the boards to fit the sleek shape of the hull.

"She's beautiful," Alicia said sincerely.

"And she will be mine," Brandon replied. For once, the pride that had filled his voice with boasts faded into the background, replaced by a reverent sense of awe that the woman found very compelling.

"What's her name?"

Brandon smiled, his eyes distant. "I haven't chosen one yet. It will be an important decision."

The princess sensed the pride in his voice, and it seemed to soften the warrior in her eyes. She remembered Mouse and Brittany and her own fast chariot, and she understood how Brandon felt about his ship.

"Look out there," said the prince, indicating one of the largest longships currently floating in the bay. The ship's prow curved into the sweeping figure of a long-beaked bird. "That's the Gullwing. She's been my ship for five years now, and a proud vessel she is."

"The hulls are so low," Alicia observed. "It's amazing the waves don't pour inside!"

"We have to bail now and then," Brandon laughed, stepping so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body beside her through the damp chill of the air. The princess had a sudden desire to board the ship, to feel the smooth hull slide over the waves of the wide sea. With the prince of Gnarhelm at the helm, nothing would be safer-or more exciting.

As if reading her mind, Brandon turned to her. "Perhaps when our business is concluded you'll allow me to carry you back to Callidyrr in the Gullwing."

"I'd like that."

Alicia looked at the waterfront again and realized that she saw the heart and soul of Gnarhelm here. No wonder the streets had seemed so plain, the shops and houses mere structures of log, with little adornment and no sense of permanence, entirely unlike the great stone edifices of her own home city. Why should these people devote such efforts to their landbound dwellings? Now she sensed, for the first time, a thing she had long been taught but had never really understood: The northmen looked to the sea for everything-for their homes, their sustenance. . even, in times past, for their wives. As a daughter of the Ffolk, Alicia had been reared with tales of young women, during her mother's day, seized by northern raiders and carried away to lives in lodges just like these.

Finally she began to understand the neighbors of her people, and in that knowledge, there was no fear, but rather an exciting kind of anticipation.

Yak, Beaknod, and Loinwrap made their gruff farewells to the rest of the tribe and then started for the shore. The great war chief, resplendent in his cat's-head cape with its grinning, fanged helm, desired to depart with little formality.

"Where do we go once we get in the boat?" asked granite-faced Loinwrap, none too enthusiastic about the impending voyage. Yet, as the strongest giant in the band, Loinwrap was indispensable to Yak's mission should they be received with other than open arms.

"To a place where men live," Yak replied. "There we tell them what has happened, so that they know it is not firbolgs who make war upon them!"

Earlier, Yildegarde had found a fishing boat of the northmen stored between concealing rocks. It had escaped the notice of the sahuagin, and thus the hull remained intact. Now the trio of males made their way to the little craft.

"This will carry us? In those waves?" inquired Beaknod, with an anxious look at the gray swells beyond the shore.

"Quit whining. You two come in case we fight, not so I have conversation, just like at my own hearth. Now let's go."

Awed by the leering skull of the beast and also by the knotting muscles in Yak's shoulders, the other two firbolgs complied. In moments, they cast the boat away from shore, and it was immediately seized by the wind.

Perhaps the goddess smiled slightly from the depths of her long sleep, for though the gales and storms raged around them, with swells rising like mountains on all sides, the three land-dwelling giants ran before the wind, riding a following sea to the southwest.

"I'm off to Callidyrr," announced the Earl of Fairheight as he broke his fast with his sons. "I depart before noon."

Hanrald, though he had overheard his father's plans the previous night, feigned surprise. "You'll carry word about the northmen, I presume?"

"What? Oh, of course," said his father, avoiding the knight's eyes. "Also I'll have a word with the queen regarding the excavations of Granite Ridge."

Hanrald wanted to shout his accusations, his suspicions, at his paternal lord, but he forced himself to hold his tongue. In the first place, he didn't know what accusations to make, and secondly he judged that the time was not yet right.

"I leave the tending of the estates in Gwyeth's care," continued Blackstone. "See that the dwarves don't slack off. They've been grumbling about the hours and the wages again! Enough of this and I'll send the whole bunch back to the Sword Coast and hire myself a new batch of engineers!"

Hanrald knew this to be an empty boast, for the Blackstone mines employed the most skilled tunnel-working dwarves found anywhere along the coast, or a thousand miles inland, for that matter. The trouble, in any event, was that the dwarves realized their worth and insisted on being compensated accordingly.

"And the Moonwell," said Blackstone, turning to address Gwyeth. "Send a squad of men up to that accursed pond. Have them log the cedars and burn the brush. I want these rumors of a miracle stopped!"

"Aye, Father," Gwyeth agreed, his eyes flashing.

"And you, Hanrald-the cooks tell me we have no venison. Go and slay us a stag."

"Certainly." The knight admired his father's ruse. Because of the disappearance of the cantrev's hounds, the hunt for deer would be a challenging and time-consuming one. The request would have kept him from Blackstone for some time-if he had had any intention of making it.

Hanrald found the discussion an interesting charade, since the pair had already made their plans the previous night. The knight's mind clicked through plans of his own, events to occur as soon as his father departed the cantrev and his brother began the task the earl had assigned.

"See that you tend to your duties, especially as regards that Moonwell. This sorcery disturbs me. It must be disposed of quickly. Pull some of the guards off the mine crews to take care of it. I can spare a few men-at-arms."

The earl blotted egg from his beard and rose from the table, still addressing Gwyeth. "Get out to the foremen's stand this morning. I want you to understand what's happening up there."

Hanrald, already forgotten by his father, turned to Gwyeth. "And how fares my brother? I trust that your wound heals cleanly?"