The elf nodded. “Three, or even four, yes, we can manage that.”
“But the third cannot be you,” Moreen declared sternly, then softened her tone. “Think about the risk. You, the king of all your people, in all their strongholds, perhaps lost forever.”
“The risk is as great for you!” Strongwind retorted. “Your people depend on you! You should be the one to stay-let the elf and me take a pair of veteran warriors and go look for this Alchemist! What if you don’t come back? What happens to Brackenrock?”
“I won’t send any of my people to do something too dangerous for me to try myself,” she replied. “If I don’t come back, my tribe is safer here than they have ever been, and for the first time in generations, we have allies.” She gazed at Strongwind so intensely that the king fidgeted, and ran his fingers through his coarse beard. “Loyal, true allies, who will see that even if Brackenrock falls, the ogres will ultimately not gain mastery over all the Icereach.”
“But, Lady-you are no assassin!”
Moreen lowered her eyes. “I hope this mission doesn’t call for that, but if it does, if this Alchemist must die so that my people can live, I will do what must be done.”
The king looked defeated. He went to the chief-woman, placed his hands on her shoulders, and looked down into her eyes. “May Kradok, and Chislev Wilder, and Zivilyn, and all the gods watch over you. But I insist that I come along-you must not leave me behind!”
She sighed, then smiled grimly. “All right-I guess you’re as stubborn as I am. You will come with us.” She hugged him, and he looked over her head, met Kerrick’s eyes. “We need a fourth. Who is to be the fourth, then?” he asked.
“I should like to go.” Mad Randall spoke from the doorway, then took a few tentative steps into the room. The berserker was almost shy in his manner, and as always Kerrick was struck by the incongruity of his neat appearance, his calm demeanor-when not engaged in battle. “That is, if you’d have me?” he asked, hesitantly.
“I think we need someone exactly like you,” Kerrick said, and the crew of the Cutter was set.
17
Dracoheim
The prow of the dark galley sliced the water of the Dracoheim Sea, a knife cutting through the ripples of a silk sheet, curling away two slender wakes that quickly vanished into the roiling, choppy surface. Two hundred oars dipped and drove, propelling the narrow hull with steady power, onward, westward. It had been several days since they had last glimpsed land, and the ogre rowers were worn from the long voyage. Now all of them tilted ears and eyes toward the lone figure standing in the prow, the king who remained immobile as he watched the western horizon. For now, there was only the gray sea, water stretching to all horizons. The drummer maintained his insistent pace, Argus Darkand standing beside him, marking the cadence as Goldwing pushed through the cold brine.
Stariz watched the activity all across Goldwing with a sense of satisfaction. She stood on the square observation platform that rose like a small house above the flat, long deck. From here she could look down onto the benches within the hull, at the sweaty backs, the strapping sinews of ogres flexing and pulling in unison. For six days now they had rowed relentlessly, through the ghostly bright nights and sparkling, sunlit mornings. They had persevered in the afternoons when capricious rainstorms often lashed them.
Now, at last, when the queen raised her eyes and looked past the bow, across the rippled surface of the Dracoheim Sea, she detected a tiny blemish on the horizon. Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane smiled in private satisfaction.
“Within this day we shall arrive at Dracoheim,” the queen declared loudly, her voice reaching the ear of every oarsman. She was also heard by her husband, who turned halfway around from his position to nod to her. He fought the impulse to come to her-she enjoyed watching the conflict in his posture-but finally gave in and strolled along the deck until he stood below the platform. She started down the ladder, her bulk awkward on the steep steps.
“You sound very confident, my queen,” he said, helping her to ease off the last few rungs. “That would make for a very fast crossing of this cold sea.”
“Your helmsman knows his work, and the rowers-your own warriors, brawny and loyal ogres every one-put more admirable effort into their work than human galley slaves,” she noted. “Look to the horizon. I predict that the island of Dracoheim will soon be in sight.”
“So you say,” replied the king, scratching his chin. In silence they went together to the bow and looked across the sea, the waters rippled by the steady, criss-crossing winds that had accompanied the galley all the way from Brackenrock.
Within another hour a land mass darkened the horizon. The king nodded in confirmation, as if he had expected this all along. Stariz savored her moment of triumph behind a blank and impassive expression.
“Argus,” Grimwar called to his helmsman. “I want a good pace for the run into the harbor. You rowers, put your backs into it and earn yourself a keg of warqat and a warm fire tonight!”
“Yes, Sire,” declared Argus, with a bare-tusked grin. “You heard His Highness!” he barked to the stoop-shouldered drummer. That ogre lifted his batons high and boomed one, then the other, down upon the head of his drum. With a barely a pause he picked up the pace, and the ship surged forward under the labors of the ogres at the oars. The rowers worked well in regular rhythm, propelling the vessel steadily closer to the looming island.
“You look impatient, Sire,” Stariz said, coming up close behind Grimwar and almost startling him “It has been many years since you have seen your mother. You must be eager for the meeting.”
“I am eager to see the Alchemist, to get on with the work of killing humans. As to my mother, she knows she can come home any time she wants to,” Grimwar said sharply. “Do not try to blame me for her exile!”
“Certainly I would not,” replied the queen. “I merely wondered-”
“Keep your wonderings to yourself!” snapped the king. “I will return to my cabin and prepare for landfall.” He stalked away without turning back, so he did not see the queen’s lips crease into an amused and slightly contemptuous smile.
As they approached the remote outpost, Stariz remained at her place in the bow, standing tall, staring into the horizon. The waters had brightened, now looked golden in this constant sun. The island of Dracoheim rose proudly from that bright sea, a flinty spearhead thrusting skyward. Cliffs of dark slate and lofty summits of knife-edged granite stood tall and forbidding. Cornices of snow draped the heights, and the bare teeth of hanging glaciers gleamed from many a lofty vale. The hour was midnight by the time they drew close, but the overcast skies were gray-white with an arctic brilliance that cast no shadows but illuminated every detail of the ship, the sea, and the stone-shanked island.
Goldwing was a fast, nimble ship but now her rowers exerted their skill to slow the steady glide as she passed through the mouth of the bay. Jagged cliffs, faces of dark rock so smooth they glimmered like smoky mirrors, rose to the right and left, guarding the entrance to a small, deep anchorage. Smoke smeared the air in a shallow valley, a haze hanging low over the shacks and smelters of a mining town. Other buildings sprawled along the shore, haphazard and temporary-looking against the grandeur of mountain and vale.
Cutting a graceful turn around the point of a black stone breakwater, the galley eased across the cove, through water as still and dark as shadowed glass. All was shadow here, and not just because the midnight sun lay low across the sea and was filtered by that slate blanket of cloud. No, the chill darkness here had a more peculiar cause: The cove, the shoreline, the entire slope of the island’s steep terrain, all lay beneath the stark, ominous framework of a lofty castle. Turrets and bridges arced like spiderwebs through the air, and high ramparts overlooked steep cliff and knife-crested ridge. Walls plunged like faces of lofty precipice, and slender parapets twisted and curled across every vantage.
Queen Stariz inspected the island and the massive castle-and surreptitiously studied her husband. Grimwar’s dark brows glowered. Aloft, the citadel seemed to enfold itself, concealing myriad corners with impenetrable shadow. Great winged birds, hawkish in appearance but in size more like horse or kine, curled and soared above the highest turrets. The mighty ogre, king of Suderhold, rubbed his right tusk with a quick, nervous gesture and unconsciously licked his lips.
The queen’s attention turned to the shore, the barren land sloping into the sea so close before her now. A file of ogres hurried down from the castle, and human slaves spilled from the buildings of the small town at the base of the bluff. An honor guard of armored ogre troops formed a line near the shore.
The keel scuffed the gravel bottom, and a moment later the narrow hull was firmly grounded. There came from the hold a rattle of timbers as the ogre rowers shipped their oars. Argus Darkand barked orders, while several burly sailors dropped into the frigid, calf-deep water. They bore stout cables ashore, and soon the vessel was securely anchored to a pair of massive pilings planted well above the tidemark.
With a rattle of chains, the broad ramp descended from the bow of the ship to rest on graveled ground. For this occasion Queen Stariz donned her ceremonial mask, the obsidian image of Gonnas, the bull ogre-god of her people. Her robe, spreading regally to the sides under the span of her shoulder boards, hung straight and umoving as she accompanied her husband down the ramp and onto the beach.
The king had donned full ceremonial regalia as well. His golden breastplate gleamed, and the cloak of black bearskin-his prized trophy from the raids against the Arktos-was a sheen of inky shadow around his shoulders. He walked down the ramp with what he hoped was immense dignity, accepting the salutes of the guards who formed a long aisle leading upward from the beach. His eyes searched the shoreline, looking for one ogress in particular.
Only then did a figure emerge from among the party on the shore, advancing to stride toward King Grimwar and Queen Stariz. The Dowager Queen wore a heavy cloak of white bearskin, and diamonds winked from the great coil of her white hair. She was short and round for one of her race but walked with a solid gait. Her tusks were blunt and small, barely protruding from behind her lower lip. She regarded her visitors with an expression of interest, of welcome combined with surprise.
“My son and my king, welcome to Dracoheim,” declared Hannareit ber Bane, with a shallow curtsy. “Welcome to your gracious Queen Stariz, as well. This is an unexpected surprise and pleasure.”
“We come on a mission of some urgency, Mother,” Grimwar declared. “There was no time to send word announcing our arrival.”
“Nor is such word necessary,” replied the elder queen. “As I said, welcome to you both.”
Grimwar stepped forward and kissed his mother on both cheeks, then looked past her, up at the formidable castle on its black stone summit. His every gesture spoke of impatience.
“My Dowager Queen Hannareit,” declared Stariz, pausing to remove the heavy mask. Even without the impressive guise, she stood nearly a foot taller than the other ogress. Stariz regarded the elder, studied the visage that was strong, square, and stern-exhibiting the same characteristics that were the best features of the younger queen’s face, as well. “I see that you have borne these long years in Dracoheim with the grace of a true monarch,” she said graciously.
Hanna snorted, but reached up a great hand to touch the cottony threads of her hair. “I do what I can… what I must. I have my household here, and gold mines aplenty. The Alchemist provides me with productive distraction. It is true, though, there are things in Winterheim that I miss.” She darted a sharp glance at Grimwar.
“The Alchemist is a valuable tool, indeed,” Grimwar commented dryly. “He is the reason for our visit. I wish to see him, as soon as possible.”
“Of course, my son and lord king. Even now he awaits you in the great hall of the castle.”
The monarch turned to his wife. “Let us go there now and waste no time. I want the Alchemist to begin at once.” He raised his voice to bark commands to Argus Darkand, who had remained on deck. “Make arrangements to bring my belongings to the royal suite. Then report to me in the castle.”
The helmsman saluted and turned to organize the unloading.
“May I come too, Sire?” asked Stariz, with a slight, mocking bow.
Grimwar ignored her. He knew she would do what she willed. Without another word, he started toward the road leading up to the great fortress, accompanied by a dozen of his loyal guards. Shrugging at each other over his impetuousness, the two queens followed behind.
* * * * *
Grimwar Bane was astonished at the frail appearance of the person who greeted him in the great hall. He had not laid eyes on the Alchemist for five or six years, since his last visit to Dracoheim. At that time, as he always did, he had found the place cold and forbidding and had vowed not to return until he had a good reason for the trip. Nor had he cared to hurry any next visit with the strange Alchemist.