The Messenger

summer, such precipitation was an almost nightly occurrence, and now already the darkening days of autumn crept closer.

The King’s Wall circled the summit perhaps two-thirds of the way up the lofty slope. This palisade of sheer stone was more than a hundred feet tall and looked like a belt of gray around the mountain’s lumpy midriff. A multitude of towers jutted from the slopes, many of these strung along the upper ramparts above the King’s Wall and across the highest shoulders of the edifice. Other spires dotted the lower slopes, and from these-as well as in great windows and doorways in the mountainside-a multitude of fires hove into view, sparks of light brightening the massif as the shadows of sunset inexorably thickened.

To the right a ridge extended into a great, flat surface with ornate columns, these pillars rising up to merge with the base of the King’s Wall. On this field the king’s troops drilled, and his people gathered for such celebrations as occurred outside the city walls. Grimwar recalled with a thrill standing up there and watching King Grimtruth drive the pillars into the ice during the Icebreaker Festival, which took place at the end of the long, sunless winter.

To the left of the mountain appeared a great, frozen cliff of solid ice. This was the Icewall, the dam holding back the Snow Sea. In a few months that wall would be shattered by the king himself, in a ritual as old as Winterheim. When the sun finally vanished for the winter, a strong male slave would be offered in sacrifice, and his blood, together with the enchantment of the high priestess, would provide the power to break the Icewall, and release the Sturmfrost to dwindle across Icereach.

Barelip Seacaster called out to the drummer, who picked up the pace. Grimwar felt the galley surge beneath his feet, and he thrilled at the power of the great ship, of a hundred and twenty slaves responding to a single command.

Darkness settled across Black Ice Bay, but the prince of ogres didn’t budge from his post. Instead, he watched the sparkling lights of his home, remembered the smells of scented oil, of roasting whale meat, and the day’s catch of fish. A slit of brightness appeared in the base of the mountain, where it merged with the dark water. The gap slowly widened as the Seagate, operated by hundreds of slaves turning great capstans, trundled open. His ship had been spotted, and the ogres made ready to welcome their prince and his crew. Grimwar thought of the slaves, the throng of captives crammed below the deck, of the victories that had marked the campaign along the Icereach coast.

He hoped his father would be pleased.

“You call these slaves?” King Grimtruth Bane snarled. His massive fists were planted on his hips as he stood next to his son on a landing above Winterheim’s great harbor. The massive chamber had been excavated in the base of the lofty mountain. The great stone slabs of the Seagate were still rumbling shut, though the galley had been docked for nearly an hour.

“Why, they’re scrawny as skeletons! It’s a wonder they could even row the galley back to Winterheim!”

Beside the king a fat nobleman, Quendip, laughed in sycophantic amusement, but Grimwar’s eyes were drawn past that obese ogre, to the more sympathetic gaze of the king’s young wife, Thraid Dimmarkull. She wore a woolen gown and her long hair was loosely bound. Like the king, she had been roused from bed to greet the prince and his ship. Indeed, the smile that had brightened her face when he stepped off of Goldwing had been the highlight of this homecoming.

Now the prince, slumping under his father’s criticism, took heart from the kindness he saw in the eyes of the ogress queen, who, though she was his stepmother, was several years younger than himself. He looked to Baldruk Dinmaker, saw that the dwarf was quietly standing behind the king. Naturally, he took no chances of falling under Grimtruth’s stern gaze and any subsequent recrimination.

Grimwar Bane sighed. His mistake, if it could be called that, was arriving home at midnight, after the king had quaffed his fiery warqat and then fallen asleep. Of course, he had been rousted when the prince’s galley returned, but he was inevitably ill tempered, bleary eyed, and thick tongued with drink.

“Of course they’re scrawny,” the prince retorted, indignance overcoming his better judgment. “They’ve been cooped up, some of them for three months! We didn’t have enough to feed them, but now they’ll fatten up again.” He wanted to add that only two of the slaves had died during the months of confinement, but he decided not to waste the words.

The king leaned close, his bloodshot eyes squinting as he peered at the humans huddling on the wharf, now starting to file up the ramp toward the lower level of the ogre city. “What about wenches?” whispered Grimtruth, his boozy voice carrying easily to his young wife’s ears. Thraid flushed and compressed her thick lips as she looked purposefully away.

Grimwar winced. Certainly Grimtruth would not be the first ogre bull to pleasure himself with a human female, but the king should at least have had the decency to discuss the matter at some other time, in some other company.

Grimwar found himself wanting to remind the young queen that the son was not the father. Instead, he met the king’s leering stare and noticed a spittle of drool now dripping from Grimtruth’s protruding lower lip. He abruptly vowed, privately but solemnly, that when he inherited the crown he would take every effort to avoid slobbering in public.

For now, he couldn’t avoid his father’s question.

“Yes, of course. We brought some wenches, some fair and big-boned. Of course, we mostly need slaves to work in the mines, to row the galleys, to open the harbor gates, and so forth. So most of the prizes are men.”

“Prizes?” The king snorted, but at least his thoughts had been distracted. He squinted at the queen, who was standing around in obvious embarrassment. “Why don’t you run off to bed, my lady. I will see to the debarking of the prisoners.”

“Of course, my lord,” said Thraid meekly. Whatever she was thinking, she kept her thoughts to herself and turned to depart without another look at her husband or his son.

Grimtruth went to the stone parapet at the edge of the balcony and looked down at the column of humans. His son joined the ogre king, and for the first time noticed exactly how bedraggled, how filthy and scrawny and unkempt, these pathetic people looked.

“These were the best of the lot?” Grimtruth asked.

“We raided a dozen villages. Yes, these were the finest specimens. The tusker told us of each place where the humans had settled, and we hunted them there. In the first battles we took many slaves, but halfway through the campaign the galley was filled to bursting with extra humans. After that, we just killed them.”

“All of them?”

Grimwar shrugged. “All of them that posed a threat. No doubt some women escaped and old ones too feeble to survive the winter. We left them no shelter, and polluted the wells and streams with the dead.”

“Good tactic, that,” Grimtruth acknowledged. “It would seem you have done well. I suppose some of this rabble will regain enough strength at least to till the fields in the Moongarden.” Even in his praise he sounded so restrained that the prince couldn’t help but feel insulted.

Once again the king’s eyes scanned the disembarking slaves, who shuffled numbly into the dark cavern of Winterheim’s Undercity. He pointed. “That one-bring her out of the line!”

Immediately an overseer hustled the woman forward. She cried and struggled, flailing with arms that were practically skeletal, then clasping the pathetic remnant of a cloak around her body.

King Grimtruth looked hard before he spat, the spittle catching on his tusk. He took no note of it. “Bah, who could enjoy one of those stick-females? I’m off to my chambers-you will report the details of the campaign in the morning.”

“Yes, Sire,” Grimwar Bane said. He watched his father lumber away and wondered how the king, who was married to the most alluring ogress the prince had ever seen, could even think about turning to the affections of a human woman.

He looked back at Goldwing and saw that young dock-workers were boarding the ship. She would be scrubbed and painted, new gold plated onto the rails, fresh caulking added where the timbers were showing signs of wear.

It occurred to him that he already he missed the sea, but even then he knew that what he really missed was the mastery of a place, where he heeded the command of no ogre, no being of any kind, especially his fool of a father, the king.