feet. The ogre waved his club menacingly through the damp air, watching the tendrils of mist swirl and float. He could feel the moistness on his skin, in his hair, on the stout wooden haft of his weapon.
Ogres are not the most imaginative of creatures, but Karyl Drago deduced that the fog had somehow been caused by that thin wreath, no doubt through some kind of magic. He doubted he could make it go away, so instead he paused to think about what he should do next. His duty was clear, of course. He was determined to guard the entrance to Winterheim at the Icewall Pass. He had ventured out of that entrance to confront the intruders who were approaching.
Now, however, he could see nothing of those intruders. He suspected that they were still below him, but it occurred to him that they could be sneaking past him, a dozen feet away to either side, and he might not even know they were there because of the fog. He wasted no time regretting that he hadn’t squished them all with a landslide, but his duty was clear.
Retracing his route along the gully, the big ogre slowly made his way back to the summit of the pass. The gap between the lofty shoulders of the Icewall Pass was narrow, barely a twenty-foot-wide notch between two massive balustrades of icy rock, and he had no trouble reaching out with his hands to identify first one, then the opposite side of the familiar embrace of the gap. Just beyond and to the right was the entrance to the cave.
He felt the warm air of that aperture as he drew close, smelled the familiar hint of brimstone that he had come to associate with Winterheim’s natural steam heat. Two more steps took him into the cave mouth, though even here the strange fog seemed to have penetrated, and he had to feel with his hands to make sure he was in the right place.
Now it was time to roust his garrison. He clumped into the chamber a hundred paces from the entrance to the Icewall Gate, where the twelve guards maintained their lair. Roughly he kicked a couple who were sleeping and grunted a cryptic warning to the others.
“Humans come.”
Quickly the ogres picked up their clubs, spears, and axes, and followed their leader into the main passageway.
A short distance from the entry to the gate, a narrow shelf constricted the passage into a ledge beside a deep crevasse. Karyl deployed his men in several shallow niches on the side of the wall away from the crevasse, bidding them to remain there until he ordered them to attack. Finally, he turned to face the outside. He sat on a square boulder that had served as his guardpost seat for the past ten years, rested his mighty club across his knees, and waited for the humans to come to him.
Moreen knew she had Dinekki to thank for her miraculous reprieve. Once before the shaman’s magic had helped them to hide from ogres by raising a curtain of impenetrable fog. She didn’t know how the old woman had gotten the spell up to the summit of the lofty mountain, but she murmured a soft prayer of thanks just the same.
She strained her ears, listening for some sign of the monster’s advance. She didn’t dare move, certain that if she did she would make some sound that would betray her own position. However, she did shift her posture slightly, freeing up her right hand so that she could draw her sword. The cold steel of the blade, wet with droplets of fog and bare inches from her face, gave her at least an illusory sense of security.
Finally she heard a footfall on the rock, a dislodging of a few pebbles. With relief she understood that the sound came from below, and in another instant Kerrick was stretched beside her on the steep face of rock, his own sword in his hands.
“What was that thing?” he whispered. “Did you get a look at it?”
She nodded but shrugged. “Some kind of giant, I guess. It could have been a huge ogre, but I’ve never seen one that size. The face was pretty frightening-it had tusks as big as a bull walrus!”
“Any sign of it now?”
“Not since the fog came up.”
“Nice trick, that,” Kerrick said. “Saved us all, for the time being, anyway.”
“What about Bruni and Barq?”
“They’re coming along behind,” the elf replied. “We split up as a precaution, but all three of us kept climbing. The rest of the war party is following cautiously.”
Moreen wanted to ask him what they should do now, but she knew that her guess was as good as his. Her guess suggested that there was no point in doing anything but continuing with their mission.
“Let’s keep climbing,” she said, “and hope this fog hides us until we get to the top.”
Kerrick nodded. The fog was extremely disorienting, but the slope was so steep that they had no difficulty figuring out which way they had to go. Handholds appeared through the mist a few feet from their faces, and they slowly inched upward.
It seemed as if the whole day had passed, though in reality it was probably little more than an hour before the slope abruptly leveled out. For the first time since they had started climbing Moreen stood up straight. She and Kerrick held their swords ready, but nothing moved into their view nor made a sound within their hearing.
She felt a gust of wind against her cheek and shivered. Slowly the mist dispersed, carried through the pass by the moving air. Soon they could see Barq One-Tooth and Bruni just below them and to either side, and they waited for their two companions to join them in the notch of Icewall Pass. The rest of the warriors came into view farther below, Mouse leading the band. Slyce was scrambling along beside him, and even Dinekki was somehow making the ascent, disdaining any offers of help. Soon they began cresting the ridge, a dozen, then a score or more fighters joining the four companions.
Within a few minutes the last of the magical fog had dispersed, revealing once more the sun-speckled expanse of the White Bear Sea. For the first time they could see beyond the Icewall, and Moreen was stunned by the vista of glaciers and snowy summits arrayed before her, an expanse of landscape as inhospitable as anything she could ever have imagined.
“Well, we made it this far,” growled the Highlander thane. He nodded at Bruni a trifle sheepishly. “I owe my life, or at least my unbroken bones, to the wench-er, the woman-here. She made a nice catch.”
Bruni smiled benignly. “You’d do the same for me, I trust,” she said.
“Aye, that I would,” replied Barq. He glowered at Kerrick and Moreen as if challenging them to dispute him.
Instead, the chiefwoman nodded then turned to the gap. “Where to from here?” she wondered.
“Right there,” Kerrick said, pointing to the mountainside. Moreen saw a wisp of steam there and only then perceived that there was a narrow crack in the face of the rock.
“Do you think that giant-or whatever it is-is waiting in there?” asked the chiefwoman, as she examined the narrow cavern mouth leading into the bedrock at the summit of Icewall Pass.
“I think we have to assume that it is,” Kerrick replied. “We may as well just call it a giant. That club he carried was as big as a tree!”
“Bah-giant or ogre, they both bleed, and they both hit the ground hard, when they fall,” growled Barq One- Tooth. He held his great battle axe in both of his hands. “I have a score to settle with the brute. I’ll go first.”
Bruni held her cudgel, and Moreen and Kerrick had their swords drawn as they gathered behind the brawny Highlander and peered into the dim recesses of the Icewall Gate. The rest of the war party assembled behind them, some still climbing. A hundred or more fighters had reached the top of the pass, and these brandished their swords, spears, and bows, pressing forward in the confined space. Steam wafted in small wisps from the entrance, and they could all feel the warmth emanating from the hole in the ground.
“It must be like Brackenrock,” Moreen suggested. “Heated from within by the ground steam of the world.”
“I don’t care how it’s heated,” Barq snorted. “I want to see how they guard it. Don’t see any sign of that big bastard yet, but it gets dark in there pretty quick.”
“Here.” Bruni pulled from her backpack one of the many torches that the party, knowing they would be traveling underground, had brought with them. Kerrick struck a spark from his tinderbox, and in moments the oily head of the crude light sprang into flame.
“Ready those brands back there,” called Kerrick to the men who were making ready to enter the cavern. “One for every four or five people should be good-and you who carry the fires make sure to hold them high!”
“Aye-hold it high,” ordered Barq, starting forward into the shadowy passage. The walls pressed close to
