What a king Grimwar Bane, proud ruler of Suderhold, could be! If he would only heed her advice. As strapping and powerful as any ogre bull in all the land, by his mere presence he commanded the respect and devotion of his people. He was ruthless enough to be a great leader. He had proved that when he had slain his own father, more than eight years before. All Grimwar needed was a sense of his own destiny, a sense that his wife, the wise and powerful queen, could and, justly, tried to provide.
But his character flaws-how could she correct those and guide him to his full potential? There was his childish dalliance with Thraid, a mirror of his father’s weakness. Oh, yes, she knew about Thraid. Though she was disgusted by his lust, until now she had tolerated it as a harmless diversion. Thraid was one of his capricious whims, just like these ridiculous bear hunts, which hampered him from focusing on more important tasks.
Though, in truth, she admitted that he had impressed her with his determination to have a second orb created. He had been decisive in bringing his ship directly to Dracoheim. Perhaps, finally, he was starting to grow wise.
Her bath-time reverie was interrupted by a slave woman, knocking hesitantly, entering the chamber only after the queen angrily raised her voice to call her in.
“It is the Dowager Queen, Your Highness,” said the quavering human. “She says it is vital that you and the king come as soon as you can, to meet her in the Ice Chamber.”
“The king is gone hunting bears,” Stariz replied with some annoyance.
“Begging Your Highness’s pardon, but his party is coming up the road even now. He will reach the main gate within twenty minutes.”
“Very well,” grunted the queen. “Bring my towels-I will come.”
Half an hour later Stariz met Grimwar in the main courtyard and brought him down the steps to the chilly vault in the castle’s most sacred temple. This was a cavern bored deep into the bedrock, well below the main walls and keep. A sheet of ice shimmered in one niche in the black chamber, while icicles draped the walls and the ogres’ breath frosted in the air. Thunder echoed in the distance, vague and fading, as if lingering from an earlier storm.
Queen Hannareit was already there, her eyes closed, hands outstretched in the trance of seeing. She lowered her arms, relaxed, and turned to welcome the royal pair, at least one of whom-her son-didn’t appear overly pleased at the prospect of this summit meeting. Behind her, the wall of ice swirled with flashes of light and roiling images of black cloud.
“I think you both must see this,” declared the Dowager Queen, gesturing to the strange sheet of ice. “I will focus the power of the Willful One.”
Once again the elder queen closed her eyes and raised her broad hands. She murmured a prayer to Gonnas-a prayer Stariz mouthed silently-and once again drew upon the might of the god to illuminate the sacred ice.
Thunder rumbled, the sound emanating from within the depths of the world. Lightning flashed in the slick surface, flashes brightening a mass of roiling, dark cloud.
Grimwar stared worriedly. Stariz looked too, as slowly the gray brightness devolved into flickering images. The clouds parted, the lightning faded. They noted the shape of a slender sailboat, which appeared to be tossing in the midst of a storm-lashed sea.
Grimwar’s eyes widened, as he pointed in fury.
“That’s the elf’s sailboat!” declared the king.
As usual, Stariz thought, he stated the obvious.
“Where do you see this?” the queen asked, already knowing the answer. “Where is the elf?”
“On the Sea of Dracoheim,” replied the elder queen Hannareit. “No more than two or three days away from here.”
In a matter of an hour ogres were hauling casks of fresh water up Goldwing’s ramps, while slaves packed dried fish and flatbread into the huge storage lockers. Grimwar had decreed they needed provisions for a week, though they hoped to find the elven sailboat quickly and destroy it in just an easy couple of days.
“I hope we can catch him in light winds,” groused the ogre monarch. “Too often he has spread those sails and vanished over the horizon faster than my oarsmen can row. But if we get a stretch of calm, I vow he will be mine!”
“Please allow me to accompany you, my king,” said Stariz sweetly. “It may be that through my flesh the power of Gonnas will come to your aid.”
Grimwar scowled. He had resisted her entreaties, thus far. Having endured two long journeys with his wife aboard, he had looked forward to a voyage of relative independence. Even so, he knew the might of his god and could not deny that the power of a high priestess could prove very useful. Grudgingly he assented.
They carried the full complement of ogre rowers, as well as two dozen armored warriors, veterans culled from the ranks of the Grenadiers. Very soon all were aboard, and the galley pushed off from the beach, glided through the harbor, and broke from the protected anchorage into the expanse of the Dracoheim Sea.
“Turn northward-make a course for the ocean,” Grimwar Bane declared. A storm was rolling out from the land onto the gray sea across their intended course.
“No, we must go straight!” Stariz protested, pointing north of due west. “The elf comes from that way!”
Grimwar grimaced. His wife was already interfering. The king pointed to the clouds fleeing along the horizon. “That will blow past in a few hours, but for now it stands in our path,” he said sharply. “If we sail into the storm, it will put us off track to meet the Messenger and his boat.”
The king derived satisfaction from the chagrin on his wife’s face. She lacked his experience on the sea, which certainly aggravated her, but she could see the evidence of his words. Stariz grunted and went below, while the ogre king felt the icy raindrops begin to spatter against his skin. He looked north toward the black clouds and was pleased with himself.
Goldwing glided through the water steadily, leaving a white wake foaming at her stern. The warriors maintained the beat of Argus Darkand’s drumming, and in the clear light of the constant day the king of Suderhold could allow himself to believe that he really was the master of his world.
The gray waves rolled and pitched relentlessly, a legion of watery warriors marching against their speck of a foe, Cutter. Kerrick’s steadfast vessel had taken the attacks of these warriors, one by one, and defeated them.
Now the swells evidenced the rhythm of deep ocean currents, and though the waves towered higher than before, the briny summits did not break with extreme violence or frequency. The wind had settled enough to allow the mainsail almost full spread, and the elf smoothly steered his boat along the vast slopes of these watery ridges, while Moreen, Strongwind, and Randall played out the sail to its full capacity. The gray clouds lingered overhead, but off to the south they broke to reveal patches of pale blue. From the cabin top, however, there was no sign of land.
“I think it would be safe to mark a course west by southwest,” Kerrick said, seeing in the opening sky proof that the storm had exhausted itself.
“How far north are we?” asked Moreen.
“We might be eighty miles, even a hundred, from the Icereach. We’ll probably have to tack some to get back on course, but we’re not more than a day away from land, at the very most.”
“Then let’s do as you say,” said the chiefwoman.
Kerrick made the turn as they started up the slope of one of the mountainous swells, levering the tiller to move the boat through a gradual arc. Moreen pulled the line and ducked as the boom swung past her head, and Cutter heeled across the rising sea. In another moment they were racing back to the south, down the wave, up the steeper water beyond, and slicing through the narrowed crest.
Wind pressed the sail, and the boat shot forward. The sun poked between ragged shreds of cloud, lighting the deck, dazzling the flying drops of spray and turning them into liquid gemstones, and in the magical brilliance of the sunshine the gray waters became a deep, vivid blue.
After eight or ten hours, the gray coastline took shape, and they changed course to run to the west. The icy face of the mainland quickly faded to the stern, and the wide, gray swells of the Dracoheim Sea now opened up before them.
Randall joined the elf in the cockpit, while Moreen and Strongwind talked quietly in the cabin. The berserker whistled breezily, leaning back against the transom for a few minutes before abruptly sitting up straight and fixing
