23
Mouse looked up and saw a high, vaulting archway and a vast space yawning beyond. Torches and lamps flickered like stars high above, and he knew that he was seeing the inside the ogre city. There was a scent of salt in the air, suggestive of the sea, and the Arktos sailor knew that somehow, inside this mountain, the great city’s harbor was near.
The bodies of a hundred ogres lay scattered through the cavern behind them. Mouse and Thane Larsgall had led the defeat of the defenders of Winterheim. As the war party surged through the wide tunnel, each detachment of ogres had been overwhelmed in a brief, furious skirmish.
The war party had been reinforced by hundreds of slaves liberated from the Moongarden barracks. Along the way to the city, as they passed other slave pens, caverns to either side of the passageway that were fenced off by pickets of stout timbers, they threw each gate open, and additional men and women had joined the revolt.
Slyce was still running with the humans, a grin on his face. The gully dwarf carried a long knife that he had claimed from a foe, and though at first Mouse was afraid the little fellow would get injured, he had welcomed the enthusiasm with which Slyce had flung himself into each attack.
The Arktos captain had no idea how many slaves had spilled out of their pens and were charging along with the throng-hundreds, perhaps even a thousand or more. They carried pitchforks and cudgels, hammers and picks, anything that might serve as a weapon. Shouting and whooping, they headed toward the ogre fortress with an air of joyousness, a spirit that Mouse suspected would be violently dashed all too soon. He couldn’t help feeling that it had been too easy up until this point.
He saw Feathertail running along in the crush, her eyes alight. She smiled at him, a slash of white teeth in her brown face, and she looked fierce and beautiful at the same time. He wanted to live through this battle, to spend the rest of his life with her, but he knew that if they were to die here it would be a death that would be the stuff of legends.
At last the corridor opened into a wide atrium, but here the momentum of the rush slowed. Mouse pushed himself to the front rank, then stopped and stared in dismay. The exit from the corridor was blocked by a solid phalanx of ogres, six or eight deep, armed with long spears and sheltered securely behind a wall of tall, iron shields. A captain stood with them, and upon his order the formation began to advance at a measured stride.
The slaves outnumbered the ogres here, but the weapons and the narrow frontage all worked to the defenders’ favor. Mouse heard murmurs of dismay and a few cries of fear, coming from the slaves who were massed behind him. As if sensing this wavering morale, the captain of the ogres shouted something, and the heavy formation, spearheads gleaming like wicked swords, broke into a trot, still holding those tight, precise ranks.
Mouse raised his sword. “Archers, shower them with arrows!” he called. “Highlanders and Arktos, meet them with your blades and your blood!”
Thane Larsgall was beside him, the man’s bearded face creased into an almost bestial smile. He held his hammer high and cried out an ululating challenge. The shout was picked up by the humans of both tribes.
The tromp of the ogre march was a drumbeat in the corridor. Arrows poured down, bouncing from the shields, here and there penetrating the chinks in the enemy armor. No order was given, no signal made, but as if they shared the same mind the humans surged forward against the ogre steel.
Grimwar Bane stared at the captive human woman, who in some ways reminded him of Thraid. She had that same buxom, attractive shape, and her eyes were large and entrancing, even now as they burned with anger and contempt. At the same time, he saw an intelligence there, a depth of knowledge and wisdom that far exceeded any ogress, even his shrewd queen.
“I think I start to understand your feelings,” he said, surprising himself with the blunt truth of the statement.
She shook her head in what was almost a gesture of pity. “What does a monster like you understand about anything?”
“A monster?” The king felt genuinely hurt. “I try to rule my realm with wisdom and care. I study, and I learn, and I rule.”
“You’re a killer of innocents, a maker of war!” she declared, though her eyes narrowed as she seemed to consider his words.
“You are an interesting person,” he said. “I regret that we are forced to be enemies by the reason of your birth.”
“It’s not my birth,” she retorted, glaring at him. “It’s because you keep coming out of your city and attacking my people, dragging us into slavery or killing us. That’s why we’re enemies!”
The king flushed. Nobody spoke to him like this! Even in his anger, his response was not the slap or kick that such a remark would normally have provoked. By Gonnas, why did she have to make everything so confusing? He wanted to talk to her, and she insisted upon saying these infuriating things!
Abruptly he spun on his heel, stalked out of the palace, and crossed the promenade to the edge of the atrium. It pleased him to see that the battle was progressing well. The humans were being pushed back everywhere. He should be happy, but he was not. Instead, he was confused.
Absently he started along the promenade, walking, not paying attention to where he was going.
He needed to think. Think!
Stariz made her way back to the throne room, satisfied that the ogres were determined to win for their god and their king-or at least, their queen. Her thoughts, when they turned to her husband, were furious. He was a weakling! He lacked the resolve necessary to destroy his enemies, and thus, unless she continued to protect him, it was inevitable that his enemies would destroy him. For the first time, she no longer felt willing to coddle him.
The Axe of Gonnas was a good weight, a touch of familiar power, in her hands. In the haft of that weapon she felt a sense of immortal violation at having been handled by humans, but at least the weapon had come back to her. She deserved it, for she was the true source of ogre power in the Icereach. The axe was the most potent symbol of that might, and it pleased her to know that it was once again in the hands of its rightful owner.
The guards pulled open the door to the throne room, and she stalked inside, having made up her mind. She took long strides toward the center of the great hall. The two humans were still chained, and they sat motionless while a dozen ogre guards stood around, keeping careful watch on the prisoners. Her foolish husband was nowhere to be seen.
Stariz raised the Axe of Gonnas, twisted the handle, and relished the power that surged forth, flamed forth from that golden blade.
“Hear me, faithful subjects of Gonnas! See the vengeance of your immortal lord! Bear witness to the fate of those who would stand in his path!”
She spun on her heel, enjoying the look of consternation on the two humans’ faces as she stalked back and forth before them, chanting her prayers. A bat fluttered through the air, flying away from the man and out the palace doors. She ignored the creature but glared at the human woman who watched the bat, not her, with a strangely thoughtful expression. The man’s eyes glowed with malice. She relished that spark of hatred, of pride and resistance, for she knew that she could crush that light, extinguish it forever.
All her hatred, her revulsion at the blasphemy, her fury at the treachery of the slaves, welled within the queen as she raised the sacred weapon. This human woman represented weakness and evil, just as surely as had Thraid Dimmarkull. Stariz had dealt with the Lady Thraid. Now she would do the same with this pathetic human.
“You humans!” she cried. “Behold the vengeance of Gonnas!”
She turned, gestured to the sergeant in charge of the palace guard detail. He hastened forward, dropping to one knee so that he could bow his head.
“Take the prisoners to the temple!” ordered Stariz ber Bane.
“My queen!” objected the guard, looking upward with wide eyes. “The king commanded us to remain-”
