“Very good,” said the new king. He made his way through the royal apartment, and decided that, in fact, this was turning out to be the best winter of his life.
The Sturmfrost raged, expanding outward across the frozen sea, surging against mountainous barriers, curling back only when it reached the bottleneck of the Bluewater Strait. All Icereach lay buried beneath a blanket of deep snow, in some places five feet deep, in others even higher, its drifts burying houses, villages, whole groves of trees. This was a world of utter darkness, for even the faint twilight that might have brightened the land at noon remained masked behind the murky clouds, the constant, ice-laden winds.
Everywhere the landscape was frozen, except for one small speck of wetness, a pool of water in a steep- walled, sheltered cove, where hot springs fed small streams, bubbling upward from the bed of the sea. Around the shore the water froze and the snow piled, but enough warmth seeped up from the seabed to hold back the ice from the inner cove.
Though it had been a full month since his landing here, Kerrick found himself still searching for the lost kender, kicking through the deep snowdrifts along the shore, staring into the dark water where the hot springs bubbled. Surely there ought to be some trace of Coraltop Netfisher! It seemed monstrously unjust that he couldn’t give his friend a proper thanks or a hero’s farewell.
He thought back to the landing, trying to reconstruct in his memory as much as he could of that frigid night. The ring of his father had given him the strength to survive until Bruni had found him, but once he had been carried into the cave the magic had seemed to sap his strength beyond recovery. He barely had the awareness to slip off the ring and conceal it in his belt pouch.
He had lain in the same spot for a week, surviving on only gruel, while the Arktos-Dinekki and Little Mouse- nursed him back to health. During that period he had come to understand the fullness of his father’s gift, and also his warning. Without the magic assistance of the ring, he would have certainly have perished in the Sturmfrost. Yet if he had worn it much longer, it might have killed him.
In the aftermath, he had vowed never to put it on again, but he doubted his own commitment. Once he had taken it out of the pouch and held it in his hand, ready to hurl it into the water, but he couldn’t. He carried it still, tucked away, hidden from view but never far from his thoughts.
Sighing, shivering, he tromped back to the cave, seeing the narrowed shadow of doorway, all that was left after the Arktos had walled off the entrance. Already his tracks were half filled with drifting snow. Experience told him that by the time he came out tomorrow for his daily round of investigation, they would be gone.
The attack caught him in the forehead, a blow out of the darkness that knocked him backward and sent shivers of ice down his face. He flinched in shock, then chuckled as he understood what had hit him.
“Mouse!” he hissed, immediately squatting, compacting his own ball of snow with his gloved hands. His keen eyes, elf-sensitive to warmth, saw a flash of movement in the doorway. Little Mouse leaned out, trying to discern the effect of his snowball.
Kerrick uncoiled in a fluid motion, the hardpacked missile soaring true, splotching into pieces across the lad’s face.
He arrived at the cave mouth and slipped through the narrow door. Warmth assailed Kerrick, and he shrugged out of his cloak with relief. He and Little Mouse were in the large entryway to the cave. One Arktos, often Little Mouse, remained on watch here at all times, peering from the narrow crack into the polar night.
Now the youth was laughing, wiping the snow from his face, pulling it out of his collar. “For someone who never threw a snowball before this winter, you’ve gotten real good at it,” he said.
“Considering how many times you’ve ambushed me,” the elf replied, “I can’t believe I still get taken by surprise.”
Little Mouse grew serious, looked out the door. “Your shipmate?”
“No sign of him,” the elf said, “but the boat is doing fine. Thanks again for your assistance getting those extra lines lashed down.”
“I’m glad to help,” Mouse replied. “I think sailing on your boat, coming over here, was one of the most fun things I’ve done.”
“It can get into your blood, the sea can,” allowed Kerrick, somewhat wistfully. “I admit that I can’t wait to return to open water.”
He leaned against the small doorway, staring into the black, impenetrable storm. He wondered if the relentless roaring of the wind would ever stop.
“Tell me how you found him, again, at sea,” Mouse said.
Kerrick settled beside the lad. “Well, I was sleeping, running with short sail and tiller lashed. I woke up when
He told the story in full detail, lingering over description of the monstrous dragon turtle, as the youth listened intently to every word.
Others of the tribe, Moreen in particular, had seemed skeptical of his tale, some even going so far as to suggest that the kender might not have existed except in his imagination. It helped, Kerrick thought, to be able to talk about his passenger with someone who did believe. He could reassure himself that, yes, his heroic companion had really been there, had sailed with him to the end of Krynn.
The Sturmfrost surged and seethed. In time that relentless pressure spilled north, roaring through the Bluewater Strait to expand across the Southern Courrain Ocean, where-finally-it was diffused by distance and sunlight into a mere tempest. As the power of the storm waned, slowly, gradually, the Sturmfrost began to relinquish its grip upon the world.
Urgas Thanoi was the mighty-tusked chieftain of the Citadel of Whitefish. He had three fine wives, each of who maintained a delectable layer of fat even through the late winter months. His wives saw to his comfort, and two had already given him fine babes. As the chief bull in this fine place, his life was splendid indeed.
This fortress had been ceded to Urgas, personally, by a mighty ogre prince. Those same ogres had spent the past year exterminating the hated humans, the tribespeople who had made the White Bear Sea a dangerous place for the last four centuries. While routing a human attack, his tusker warriors killed four of the enemy. Those bodies had served as food for the Sturmfrost rites, before the tribe of walrus-men had settled, snug and comfortable, to wait out the worst of the winter storm.
For Urgas Thanoi, life was good, his position secure, his tribe stronger than ever before. Still, he was worried. He padded through the snowdrifts now, on the wall-top parapet surrounding his mighty citadel. Here and there sentries greeted him with tusk-bobbing bows. It pleased him to know that his warriors, alone among the peoples of the Icereach, could actually survive in the face of the Sturmfrost. Of course, he allowed his guards to spell each other every day or two, but no walrus-man would think of complaining merely because the wind was blowing icily or a snowdrift was mounting around his feet. The tuskers were blessed with thick, leathery skin, and, so long as they were well-fed, their underlying layer of blubber insured their survival even in the most bitter of conditions.
Urgas Thanoi finally came to the great gatehouse, which-since it lacked an actual gate-was the weakest link in his citadel’s defenses. He plodded down the stairs inside the tower, kicking through the snow that even here had drifted to a height of a few feet. On the ground he peered through the open arch of the great entryway. Once, he knew, a great slab of iron-strapped wood had secured this portal against assault. Of course, that wooden barrier had rotted away centuries ago. Perhaps, the tusker chieftain thought, he should capture some human slaves, as the ogres had done, slaves who could build him a new gate.
A round-shouldered shape moved in the darkness, and Urgas tensed, before recognizing one of his trusted lieutenants.
“Splitlip-you have returned from the shore. What did you learn?”
The second thanoi, nearly as tall as mighty Urgas, paused in the gatehouse, out of the wind. A long icicle draped each of his tusks.
“It is as you feared, my chief. The humans are still down there. They took shelter in the great cave, and they
