“This is Thraid Dimmarkull’s apartment,” Tildy explained. “It’s the place where Strongwind was posted for the past few weeks.”
The door was a splintered mess on the ground, and Kerrick entered the anteroom in a rush. The first thing he noticed was the rear end of an ogre, who was kneeling next to one of the lady’s trunks, rummaging inside. A small pile of valuables, including a lamp, a wine pitcher, and several goblets of gleaming gold, lay on the floor beside the brute, who was obviously looting.
Barq One-Tooth strode forward and split the surprised ogre’s skull before he could even begin to fumble for his sword. Meanwhile, Tildy quickly looked in the slave quarters of the apartment. “Brinda, Wandcourt?” she called.
Two humans, gray haired and obviously frightened, came out into the room. Each carried a knife, but they looked around in confusion at the mass of people pouring in through the door.
“What’s going on? Is the king dead?”
“Not yet,” Tildy said, “but what happened here? Where is the Lady Thraid?”
The male slave pointed mutely toward one of the rooms. They all took one glance in that chamber, the bedroom, and saw the remains of a gruesome murder. The lady’s body lay on the bed in a pool of dried blood.
Tildy clucked in sympathy. “She was a trivial creature, but she deserved better than this.”
The female slave, Brinda, looked at Kerrick intently. “Are you … an elf?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, “but I’ve thrown my lot in with the humans. Do you want to join us?”
She patted her knife, sliding it through her belt and stepping closer. “Yes, I do,” she said, staring at him with a strange expression.
The bat fluttered around his head, and he followed it into the parlor and pulled the bearskin off the wall. The outline of the door was faint but visible, and when he twisted the bracket of the lamp sconce the secret door rolled smoothly open.
“Get some lamps,” he ordered, “and follow me as quietly as possible.”
Moreen came right behind him, with Tildy next, then Barq One-Tooth, followed by the throng of armed men and the two slaves of Thraid Dimmarkull. Taking a lamp that someone handed him, Kerrick darted through the door and started up the stairs that spiraled within.
For a long time they climbed urgently. When Kerrick looked behind he saw a dozen lights bobbing through the darkened passage curving below and knew that the file of rebels remained close behind him. There were many more than he could see, as they curled into the distance, masked by the curving walls of this stairway.
Finally the elf reached a landing and held the light up to reveal another door, similar to the one at the bottom. Cautioning the humans to silence, he found the catch and slowly pulled the portal open.
A quick glance showed that he had not reached a palace hall, as he had hoped, but a narrow alley shrouded in shadow. That was better than a busy street, he thought and quickly slipped out the opening.
“Where’s Tildy?” he whispered.
She came forward, and together they crept down the alley, looking toward the lights of the promenade. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.
“I think so. Yes, that statue out there is right outside of the palace. If we go down this lane and turn left, we’ll be a dozen steps away from the king’s front door.”
“Well, that’ll do,” he said softly. In a hushed voice he outlined a simple plan. They would charge out, swiftly and silently at first. As soon as they were discovered they would abandon stealth and put all their efforts into haste.
“With luck, we can take the king by surprise. If we can capture him alive, then we’ll have something to bargain with.”
“That’s as good an insane plan as any I’ve ever heard,” said Tildy, with a wink.
The file of slaves had nearly filled the alley by then, and still more were still backed up in the secret stairway.
“No time like the present,” he muttered. “Let’s go!”
He drew his sword, took one last look at his file of anxious warriors, and started toward the promenade and the king’s palace at a full sprint.
24
Strongwind Whalebone tugged at the manacles holding his wrists, but the iron links were unbending. He tried to console himself with the fact that his spirit was equally solid, but he saw through that lie with ease. The ogress queen marched along in front of him, and he knew that his time and his luck had run out.
In truth, he was terribly frightened, more afraid than he had ever been in his life. He didn’t want to die, yet he couldn’t see any way that he would survive. It was not so much for himself that he grieved. The real cause of his despair was the deeper truth, for it broke his heart to know that so many of his friends and countrymen would perish on this mad quest. They would not only fail to set him free, but they seemed destined to bring about only widespread slaughter among the hapless slaves of Winterheim.
Why couldn’t they have just left him here to rot? Why hadn’t he simply had the sense, the decency, to die on Dracoheim next to the brave Randall? If he had perished then, it would have been but the death of one pathetic man. Now it seemed as though he would bring about the death of whole tribes, the end of humankind in the Icereach. For what would the Arktos do without Moreen? That was the greatest sadness of all.
“We had to come for you,” Bruni consoled him. She shuffled beside him, chained as stoutly as he was, and seemed to be reading his mind.
“Be silent!” One of the guards cuffed her across the head.
She turned and glared at the brute, then spoke to the king in a quieter tone. Perhaps because the queen couldn’t hear, the ogre didn’t strike her again.
“There is no point to our life in the Icereach if it means just hiding from the ogres every day of our lives, simply hoping not to get caught, to avoid the next slave raid, to live through yet another ogre attack. Don’t you see, we had to try. Besides, we’re not dead yet, are we?”
The slave king shook his head. “I would willingly give up my life if it meant the rest of you could go free! The cost is too great! I am but one man, and two whole tribes will be decimated in this vain effort to save me.”
“There are many of us who think you’re worth the effort,” the big woman said. “Do not lose hope.”
For Strongwind Whalebone, hope was already gone.
Grimwar Bane returned to the throne room, intending to speak with the human prisoners again. He was startled to see that the captives, as well as his wife and most of the palace guards, were gone.
“Where did they go?” he demanded, fixing a glare on one of the remaining standard-bearers.
“The queen commanded that the prisoners be taken to the temple!” declared the warrior, trembling and dropping to his knees. “Half-Tusk tried to object to her majesty, Sire, pleading that this was not your will, but she threatened him, and he complied! They marched out the door but a short time ago!”
The last words were still echoing from the high walls as the king burst through the doors and lumbered into a jog, hastening toward the ramp down to the Temple Level.
“Up there-take the ogre barracks!” Mouse cried, pointing to the Moongarden rampart where the slaves had first driven out the overseers.
It broke his heart to realize that they had been driven all the way back from the city, down the long cavern and to the edge of the vast food warren. How many members of his war party had fallen? He couldn’t know, and there had been no chance to count the bodies of the dead. How many slaves had been free for just a few hours only to perish in this brutal final fight?
They were at the end of the long tunnel, and there was no further retreat. If the humans went into the Moongarden, they would be surrounded and destroyed with ease. Here, in the ravaged yet still fortified barracks
