By now the slaves had perceived the danger in the king’s attention and were busying themselves before the two guards arrived at the high scaffold. Nevertheless, the ogres wasted no time in seizing one wretch by the shoulders and dragging him down the long ramp toward the ground.
The prince noticed that his father’s young bride was looking a trifle stricken. Thraid mopped her brow with a handkerchief and glanced around restlessly, letting her eyes fall on anything except the sobbing, pleading, pitiful human captive.
“Would you like to return to the cart, my Queen?” asked Grimwar. He offered her an arm which she gratefully accepted. The king cast his son a glance of disgust, then turned away as the prince and queen started down the trail, past the smelting houses, and back toward the ice bears and the royal sled.
“By Gonnas, is it necessary to kill him?” Thraid asked in a low voice with exasperation. “You’d think he could be whipped or tortured instead!”
Grimwar snorted, looking at her from the side. “Sometimes we must do things … unpleasant things, but necessary,” he said pointedly.
“Necessary?” She met his gaze, her large brown eyes flashing. He could tell she was upset. “Necessary, like marrying the daughter of a baron?”
“Or marrying a king-one who is older than your father!” he retorted.
She pulled her hand off his arm and turned her eyes forward. They walked as quickly as decorum allowed, but still they were well within earshot when the human slave, now stricken by the dwarf’s slow-acting poison, began to scream.
“O Great Gonnas, show your humble priestess thy immortal will.”
Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane bowed her massive head, averting her eyes from the blazing visage on the temple dais. She was on her knees, befitting her status as petitioner and priestess. A mask of black obsidian, carved into the bestial face as the god’s own image, covered her face. The princess of Suderhold-and daughter of the baron of Glacierheim-held her pose for a long time. Grimwar knew that she was letting the awe and the wonder and the power well up within her.
The prince stood in a darkened alcove off the temple’s entryway, feeling some of that awe himself. His wife did not know he was here. At least, Grimwar corrected himself, she had not been informed of his arrival, though she had ways of finding things out he had never been able to understand. For now, he would respectfully wait for her to conclude her devotions.
The image of Gonnas the Strong, the Willful One, rose in all its glory, the obsidian image of a massive bull ogre, improbably long tusks jutting proudly from the lower jaw. The great black statue, outlined in sparkling points of fire, was three times the size of the greatest ogre. It filled the whole central atrium of the temple, which itself was one of the largest chambers in the great underground sprawl that was Winterheim. The massive golden blade, the Axe of Gonnas, rested at the feet of the statue.
The high priestess was alone, except for her husband and an unimportant human slave. Even the king and queen were respectfully waiting outside. Any lesser ogre would have faced a sentence of death for daring to intrude upon her worship.
“Gonnas, source of all wisdom,” Stariz intoned, tusked mask turned upward. “Gonnas, Lord of Strength … Gonnas the Mighty … Gonnas, protector of ogrekind, we seek only to do honor to your image and your name.” Her voice boomed like a powerful drum. The power of the dark god was clearly in her now, as she began to tremble through her elephantine torso, neck, and limbs.
“Gonnas, Lord of Strength … Gonnas the Mighty …” Again came the Reciting of Names, the energy infusing her, slowly raising the pitch of her voice. Grimwar took a step backward, fearful of the power, envious of the frenzied joy he witnessed in his wife.
Stariz rose to her feet, arms outspread, face upturned to the black image. The voice of the ogress was a desperate plea for a sign, for some indication of the god’s favor, or of his will.
Smoke and vapors thickened in the chamber, swirling around, obscuring the air so that Grimwar could see neither his wife nor the black statue symbolizing the object of her worship. Crashes and roars resonated from the murk, and the prince fought to hold his nerve, fighting the urge to flee. He stayed in place, hands clenched so tightly that his fingers hurt. The smoke stung his eyes, but he blinked away the tears and stared intently.
Abruptly Stariz screamed and stumbled out of the smoke cloud, staggering drunkenly, her hands clasped to either side of her face. The human slavewoman stepped forward only to be slapped roughly aside by an accidental blow of the ogress’s flailing hand. Finally the priestess slumped to her knees, holding herself as her huge body was convulsed with deep, racking sobs.
Grimwar froze, again feeling that almost insurmountable urge to flee. He shook his head sternly, reminding himself that he was a bull ogre, heir to a great kingdom. He would not, could not, allow himself to give in to fear.
He went to his wife, knelt at her side, helped her pull off the heavy mask. Supporting her in his strong arms, he assisted her to the clearer air behind the temple’s heart. The smoke was thick and choking but finally parted enough for him to breath easier. Nearby the human slave groaned and followed them groggily.
“What? What is it?” demanded Grimwar, as his wife’s eyelids fluttered open.
“I have seen the visions of the Willful One, and they are filled with messages of doom if we-if you-fail to act!”
“But what-”
“The elven messenger!” gasped the princess, cutting him off, her bloodshot eyes fixing Grimwar with a look of terror that he found utterly unsettling. “He has come to Icereach! He is here! I saw more, a deeper warning. There is a human woman, a survivor of your raids this summer. You should not have let her escape! For it is as I told you-she will be his agent of destiny!”
“How?” The prince couldn’t suppress his irritation. Why was she telling him this now, when it was too late to do anything about it. “What else did you learn? What other dangers do we face?” he demanded, as they came out of the temple gates to find Grimtruth and his queen watching them worriedly. Stariz staggered, leaning against the wall, slowly slumping to the floor.
Finally the high priestess, with a groan, struggled to a sitting position, legs splayed before her on the marble floor. The queen touched her arm and Stariz impatiently brushed the other ogress’s hand away.
“Other dangers. Is that not enough? No, I saw none beyond those two,” Grimwar’s wife said slowly. But he noticed, as she spoke, that her tiny eyes shifted, narrowing with a scowl that was directed straight at Queen Thraid Dimmarkull ber Bane.
12
That smoke will be visible for miles,” Moreen said with concern. She, Bruni and Tildey stood atop a rocky hill, watching the camp where the Arktos were beginning to stir on this cold, misty morning. During these short days, the tribe rose before dawn and continued marching long into the hours of darkness. “Do you think there are any thanoi around here?”
“It seems like those whale-killers are everywhere these days,” Bruni said with a grim shake of her head.
“Best to keep a constant lookout,” Tildey remarked. She looked at her half-empty quiver. “I wish I had more arrows.” After the fight with the thanoi, she had recovered about ten of her lethal missiles, but that was all she had.
“The way is probably clear to the south and east,” the chiefwoman continued, thinking aloud. “I’d like to head north for another day’s march, though, to scout in that direction. We must be getting close to the place my father called Tall Cedar Bay. I’d like to find Tall Cedar Bay and maybe take shelter there until we can find Brackenrock.”