At one time, the hall would have been filled with one hundred thousand ogres, the long-ago population of Winterheim, each ogre accompanied by chosen slaves. Now, in the reign of King Grimtruth, there were barely twelve thousand ogres in all the city, and perhaps that many human slaves. The upper chambers of the hall remained silent and empty.
Lord Hakkan, the protocol chief, emerged onto the upper platform and signaled the trumpeters. The human slaves raised their golden instruments and a fanfare quickly resounded through the hall. Rustling and rumbling, the ogres turned their attention upward.
Prince Grimwar Bane, Princess Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane on his arm, entered to the sounds of the triumphant processional. He marched down the long, inclined aisle from the upper section of the hall, to the royal table far below. He wore his golden breastplate, with the Barkon Sword encased in a bejeweled ceremonial scabbard at his belt. His tusks were fully coated with gleaming gold. Around his shoulders was draped the pelt of the massive black bear, a fur so large that the forelegs descended to his belly, and the tail all but dragged on the ground behind him.
The crown princess was an equally awe-inspiring sight. Stariz, wearing her obsidian mask, carried the mighty Axe of Gonnas, the golden blade extended before her. The ghastly visage of the Willful One was the same tusked, snarling face carved into the huge temple statue. Turning her head this way and that with regal grace, she cast her masked, searing gaze across the entire assemblage. There was none, ogre or human, who did not feel as though the powerful god looked directly into his soul.
Grimwar led his wife Stariz to their ceremonial chairs at the great table that stood directly before the sweeping pane of blue ice. Baldruk Dinmaker was already there, standing behind the chair he would occupy between the prince and the king. The trio remained standing while the trumpets blared again, this time announcing the arrival of the king and queen. The royal couple, too, started down the long procession.
Later, it would be Grimwar’s task to invoke the names of all his ancestors, calling upon them to melt the icy blue barrier. Only then would ogre and human alike feel winter’s deadly kiss, only then would the king release the Sturmfrost across the land.
Grimwar could hear the mournful wail of a cyclonic wind. The tumult was pure, frigid winter, churning with sleet and icy snow. The levels of snow had risen dangerously high, threatening the ice wall. Now, in this ceremony dating to the origins of time, the ogre king would once again release the storm onto the wider world, and Winterheim would be protected for another long, cold, sunless winter. Grimwar glanced toward the vast sheet of blue and was startled to see Balrduk Dinmaker glaring up at him, the dwarf’s expression somewhere between contemptuous and pensive.
“Prepare yourself!” hissed the royal adviser, before turning his attention to the royal couple, now but one tier above them.
The princess sniffed disdainfully at Grimwar’s side, and he glanced at her and her impassive mask. “She could at least wear a decent covering,” Stariz hissed. “Like too many others, she does not understand the sacredness of the event!”
Grimwar looked up at the young queen. Thraid wore a gown of white bearskin, cut low across her impressive bosom, gathered tightly to display the unusual slenderness of her waist. Rouge brightened her cheeks and her lips, creating an effect that the prince found altogether appealing. As she walked serenely, Thraid Dimmarkull ber Bane clutched King Grimtruth’s arm, clear proof to all of her position. Her eyes caught the prince’s as she approached, and she met his gaze with a hurt expression. For some reason, the emotion cut Grimwar deeper than any display of fury.
Angrily, he pulled his eyes away from the young ogress. The king himself, his father, Grimwar thought, looked downright disgraceful. Of course, he was dressed in the traditional white robes of his station, with the Crown of Cospid gleaming on his head, his black boots polished to a bright sheen. His slaves had seen to all that. As to the king’s person, his eyes were bloodshot, narrowed suspiciously, and a strand of drool dangled casually from one of his tusks. Those tusks were also circled with golden wire, but the monarch had not bothered to have slaves polish either the metal, or the ivory of his teeth. From the unsteadiness of the big ogre’s gait, the prince suspected that his father had begun celebrating early.
Nevertheless, the king reached the table without incident, and soon they, and all the other ogres of Winterheim, were seated. Stariz intoned a prayer, asking for the blessing of the Willful One. Baldruk raised the first toast, and the king took a gulp from his goblet that left warqat shining, slick and oily, down his chin.
A procession of slaves came forth with slabs of beef, whole salmon, great wheels of cheese, iced sturgeon eggs, and cask upon cask of pungent warqat. Throughout the hall ogres began to eat and drink.
To Grimwar, everything tasted like ash.
Baldruk Dinmaker rose again from his seat between the two mighty ogres. He cleared his throat, bringing the crowd to silence.
“It has been my great honor to serve the Bane kings for two generations-three, if we count the crown prince who, some day, will prove himself worthy of this throne.…”
The dwarf shot Grimwar a glance before continuing-again, that look half of disdain. The ogre heard none of the rest of the words. Instead, he flushed with a feeling of rage that started at his toes and spread upward through his entire body. Someday? He looked past the dwarf to the king, who was slurping noisily from his goblet, paying no attention to the speech, until he sensed that Baldruk was reaching his conclusion.
“… has applied himself with diligence to the learning. May it please the gods of us all-let the Rites begin!” Once more the trumpets, played by the human slaves who stood on the high rampart, brayed through the Hall of Blue Ice.
“The crown prince will now recite the Names of Dynasty!” proclaimed Hakkan. The lord of protocol, rigid and serene in a long green robe, stood before the royal table, his back to the king’s family as he bellowed his announcement through the Hall of Blue Ice.
“Are you ready?” hissed Stariz, who had sat through the dinner without eating, since to do so would have meant removing her tusked mask and risking the displeasure of her god. She rose to follow her husband, bearing the Axe of Gonnas as was required by her role.
Grimwar tried to concentrate on the names that were marching through his skull in dynastic progression. Baldruk leaned over and glared at him intensely. “You know what to do,” he said. Putting down the empty mug of warqat, which he had nursed through the long meal, the prince rose to the cheers of all the assembled ogres. Barely hearing the accolades, he was making his way past the king’s seat when Grimtruth seized his son’s hand and pulled him down closer.
“Do not embarrass me again.”
His father stank of warqat and sweat, both equally repugnant. Angrily, Grimwar pulled himself away and lumbered toward the massive window of blue ice.
Lord Hakkan was standing by to escort him, but the prince marched past without halting. The great sheet of frost, the window to the glacier and the Ice Wall and the Storm Sea, rose before him. Now Grimwar halted in the prescribed position. The names of his ancestors were ready, about to trip off his tongue, when his mind veered backward, to the humiliation of four years earlier.