building, they could at least take a defensive position and make a valiant stand.
Feathertail herself was wounded, bleeding badly from a cut in her leg, and Mouse supported her with his left arm as he wielded his sword with his right. All the while the rank of red-coated ogres marched along behind them like a machine, maintaining the steady pace of the chase. Any humans who fell were butchered then relentlessly trampled beneath.
The survivors of the war party and the freed slaves moved through the wide doors that they had smashed only a short while ago. The big room still reeked of warqat, and the shattered barrel lay scattered on the floor.
“Form a line in here!” Thane Larsgall urged.
“Kill as many of the bastards as you can,” Mouse added. He eased Feathertail to a seat on a bench some distance from the broken door.
Some men scrambled up stairs to the second floor and took positions on the balconies overlooking the corridor and the downward ramp. The rest joined the rank in the great room, facing the door, waiting for the ogres to start through. Here they would await the inevitable final reckoning.
There would be no escape from this place. All they could hope to do was kill as many ogres as possible before the last of them died.
Stariz pushed open the doors to the temple, leading the way for the guards who dragged Strongwind Whalebone and Bruni of Brackenrock behind. Their chains rattled as the two captives, upon a gesture from the queen, were cast roughly to the black stone floor.
“Fetch my mask and my robe!” demanded the high priestess, and her ogress acolytes scurried to obey.
She drew a breath and looked up at the massive statue, the beautiful black image of Gonnas towering far above her head. This was her lord, she knew, not that pathetic weakling king who could not even bring himself to condemn these hateful rebels. Fortunately, Stariz had divined what needed to be done, and she had the resolve to take action, ruthless action. In a minute the heavy black mask had been placed over her head, the ceremonial robes draped to the floor from her blocky form. She felt pure, whole, and powerful.
She hoisted the axe, relishing the feel of her god’s might. The two captives were held flat on the floor, two guards and two acolytes holding each limb, pressing the humans on their backs, spread-eagled and vulnerable. Fire blazed from that golden blade, warming her and terrifying the enemies of her god.
Fingering the haft of the mighty weapon, she looked down at Strongwind Whalebone. All of the hatred, contempt, and resentment of her life swelled up in her heart as she raised the weapon.
“Poor luck, human,” she said. “I had planned to wait for this moment-but it seems as though Autumnblight comes early this year!”
The axe came down, and Stariz heard the satisfying sound of the big woman screaming in horror and grief.
Kerrick led the slaves down the narrow alley toward the bright lights on the avenue before him. He had nearly reached that intersection when he tripped over something soft and small and went tumbling headlong.
“Slyce?” he declared, astonished to see the little gully dwarf scrambling out of the way. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching,” said the little fellow miserably. “Watch ’em take big Bruni away.”
“They took her-where?” asked the elf urgently.
“Come. I show you,” said the gully dwarf. “She wit’ big ogress lady and shiny axe. Not nice lady, not nice at all.”
“No,” agreed the elf, sheathing his sword and motioning his comrades to follow. He pictured the ogre queen, and his heart was cold.
“Not a nice lady at all.”
“What do you mean by this?” demanded Grimwar Bane, bursting through the temple door. He advanced on his queen, his fists clenched and his face glowering red with fury. He gestured toward Bruni, who was sprawled in chains, held on the black stone floor by two ogress acolytes at her arms, two grenadiers holding her legs. Beyond was the lifeless form of Strongwind Whalebone, cloven by a deep wound inflicted by the Axe of Gonnas, which still glowed in his wife’s hands.
“I ordered you not to harm these prisoners! You could not wait to kill the first one, and now this one too? I will not allow it!”
“Yours are the orders of a fool!” shrieked the queen. “Any slut with a silly smile can twist you into idiocy! Now it is this one’s time to die, just as I had your whore killed! This time I shall have the pleasure of inflicting the lethal cut myself!”
The axe was over her head, flaming brightly. “Behold the will of Gonnas!” she cried in exultation. She started her swing.
Something halted the downward momentum of the axe. Stariz screamed as the weapon was plucked from her fingers like someone taking a toy from a child. Enraged, she spun around, shocked to see the hulking figure of Karyl Drago, holding the axe and shaking his head at her. The big warrior had stepped out from behind the statue, and now he blinked, almost sleepily, as he shook his head in denial.
“No,” said the monstrous ogre. “You are wrong. This is not the will of Gonnas.” Karyl Drago held the Axe of Gonnas in one meaty hand, high out of the queen’s-or anyone else’s-reach.
“Do you know whom you address?” demanded Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane.
She stalked away from the hulking Drago and the king, then she spun to confront them both below the obsidian statue of Gonnas that loomed high in the center of the room.
“I am the voice of Gonnas!” she shouted triumphantly. “I am his will, manifest upon the world of Krynn!”
As she shouted the words she knew that it was true, for she felt the power of her god infuse her. She was the Willful One, and she threw back her head and laughed aloud. No one could stand in her path.
“You are a puny fool!” she screamed at her husband.
Extending her hands, she barked a sound of rage and violence. Magic exploded from her fingertips, a blast of fiery power that rushed outward, swatting him aside with one powerful blow. The other ogres in the temple gasped and cried out as the king tumbled across the floor, rolling over and over, finally smashing, hard, against the base of the wall. He gaped up at her in shock and horror, drooling.
“You are an insolent toad!” she spat at Karyl Drago, who was backing away, clutching the Axe of Gonnas. “You are not worthy to touch that sacred relic!”
She extended her hands another time, ready to blast that massive ogre and snatch the talisman from his grasp. Stariz noticed a bat soar down before her-but what could a bat do?
Dinekki’s goddess was in her, and she was content. For more than eight decades she had cherished a life upon the Icereach, cold and cruel though that life had often been.
Now she had reached the end of those years, but strangely she was not the least bit sad. Instead, she came to rest on the floor, her claws clicking on the smooth stone. In another instant the spell faded away and she stood, frail in appearance but powerful in spirit, before the enraged, astonished ogre queen.
The old shaman said nothing, merely looked upward with a sly smile creasing her wrinkled face. Stariz shrieked and shrieked, consumed with rage at this mad interruption, and drove a crushing fist downward, smashing the old woman’s brittle bones, driving the mortal life from her flesh …
Bringing the power of two gods into collision.
The guards at the temple gate were surprised by the sudden determined appearance of the charging rebels, too surprised to pull shut the heavy iron door. They fell, stabbed and bleeding, as Kerrick led Moreen, Barq One- Tooth, Tildy, and at least a hundred freed slaves into the great hall.
Here they stopped, frozen by the sight of a fiery apparition-a giant ogress, in the image of Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane, reeling backward, shrieking in unholy pain. Her hand was blackened and blistered, and flames flickered up and down her limbs like hungry scavengers.
Nearby, the body of Strongwind Whalebone lay on the floor, cloven almost in half by a monstrous blow. The
