“You are correct,” Strongwind Whalebone said decisively. “But you are also wrong. There is a way. There is a way to cross the strait without a boat.”
Lars looked askance at the king, and gestured to the storm. “You can’t mean-”
Yes!” Strongwind cut him off with a fierce grin. “Yes, we can cross the strait before the ice breaks up. We will summon my priests, and they will send the word to all the clans. I am ordering the Highlanders to make a winter march!”
“Tell us something about Silvanesti,” Moreen asked, as Kerrick sat with the Arktos at another meal of tough, dried whale meat.
He sighed. After eight weeks in the cave with the tribe, he felt as if he had exhausted every anecdote, every detail about his homeland. During the same time, of course, he had learned much about life in Icereach, about the ogres and their prince, Grimwar Bane, about the villainous dwarf who was his henchman, who had slain Moreen’s father with his magical, poisoned blade.
They had also spent much time exploring the cave, which had proved to be surprisingly spacious. There was a wide entryway, mostly closed off from the outside by the wall of ice, and after a short, narrow passage the place widened into a large cavern where the whole tribe gathered for meals. A wide, fast stream of comparatively warm water churned through the center of this chamber, until it plunged through a deep hole. This was a vortex, the most dangerous spot in the whole cavern, and the Arktos took pains to keep their children away from it. Anyone who fell in would be swept into a lightless chasm and drowned somewhere in the bowels of Krynn.
Far back, the cave devolved into small passages, several cozy grottos with their own hot springs, and a few passages that were dark and dirty and seemed to twist around forever. Though Little Mouse had volunteered to spend the whole winter exploring these passages, Moreen had forbidden him to roam beyond the sight and sound of the rest of the tribe.
Their stay here had been comfortable enough. Their biggest enemy was boredom. As Kerrick chewed on the tough jerky, he thought that the food would make passable sailor fare, and he was reminded of another tale, one of the few he hadn’t told yet.
“There was a time, not too many years ago,” he began, “when Silvanesti went to war with the great human kingdom of Istar.”
“What did you fight over?” asked the ever-curious girl named Feathertail.
“Lots of things,” the elf admitted. “But mostly, it was about gold.…”
The Sturmfrost had relaxed its icy grip to the point where sometimes the wind barely gusted, and during clear spells the sky revealed a vista of stars. The midday hours were marked by a brightening of the northern horizon, like the promise of a dawn that had not, thus far, actually materialized.
It was no longer dangerous to go outside, and despite the deep snow, it was possible for the hardy to move about.
“Summon the clans,” Strongwind Whalebone ordered, and the priest of Kradok, bruinlike in his massive fur robe and cap made from the skull of a great bear, nodded.
The two men were alone on the highest tower of Guilderglow, and the king forced himself to curb his impatience as he watched the priest at work.
The man kindled a fire, burning seven sticks of coal that had been shaped into smooth rods and piled into a narrow-peaked pyramid. As blue flames began to flicker through the shafts, the priest chanted in the guttural tones of his ancient language. Strongwind stood back, musing that the man sounded like a bear as much as he physically resembled one of the great creatures.
The blue smoke spiraled upward from the coal fire, swirling like a corkscrew, rising through the still, frigid air. When the pillar of vapor was thirty or forty feet tall, it ceased ascending. More smoke rose from the fire, seeming to surround and compact the first spire, until the king saw a shaft of darkness so thick and lightless that it might have been mistaken for solid obsidian. Still the smoke poured from the coal, thickening the spume, and still the priest growled his incantation. The column of murk swayed this way and that, propelled by mysterious pressure, for there was still no breeze. Strongwind felt a tightness in his belly, a sense of impending release.
“Gather to your king!” cried the priest at last, reverting to the normal tongue of his people. “Gather on the Blood Coast, where the tall cedars grow!”
The cleric spread his arms wide, hands in taloned gloves reaching up like bear paws. Instantly the smoke pillar erupted, tendrils of darkness exploding into missiles that flew up and away, soaring through the dark sky.
Through the air the magical summons flew, arcing high, then at last soaring back to Krynn, one to each of the citadels of the Highlanders that lay within a week’s march of Guilderglow and the sea. Each missive found a priest in its destination, and within minutes each priest was telling his thane or chieftain of the king’s command.
Within seven days a force of one thousand Highlanders emerged from their winter quarters, riding great sledges pulled by their dogs, or walking on snowshoes, some sliding on skis. Each made his way by the fastest route, moving through the winter to the great mustering in the grove of tall cedars. These men of the Icereach were dour and fierce, ready to march.
When all had assembled, they started across the icy waste of the frozen sea, dogs barking, men grunting and cursing. It was a great gamble that the king took, for a late-winter blizzard could roar up from the south and wipe out the whole force.
Kradok seemed to smile on his chosen people, though, for the skies stayed clear and starry, the winds light. Like a great, furred snake, the column of the marching army moved onto the ice, bearing for the opposite shore, and the ancient realm known as Brackenrock.
19
Though Thraid Dimmarkull Ber Bane put on an admirable show of grief in public, the widowed ogress left no doubt during her private moments with Grimwar Bane that she was very thankful indeed that Winterheim had a new ruler.
It was only Grimwar’s fear of mortal consequences-not so much from his priestess wife but from her connection with Gonnas the Mighty, the Willful One-that caused the new king to exercise some discretion in his dalliance with his father’s widow.
“She is expecting me for an augury session,” he explained apologetically to Thraid, while his new mistress, beautifully, elegantly recumbent upon her huge, fur-covered bed, pouted coyly. The king looked into those deep, limpid eyes and fought surrender. With a sigh he reached out to wrestle his foot down into his tall boot.
“You have slaves for that sort of thing,” Thraid suggested with a gesture, deliberately allowing the fur blanket to droop seductively off her shoulder. “Even the minor nobles don’t have to put on their own boots.”
“Yes, well …” The king grunted in irritation.
They had been over this topic more than once. At this point, only six weeks after the death of his father, Grimwar was taking no chances. He intended to keep the affair secret even from the most insignificant slaves who, it seemed, were almost always underfoot. Why did he have to repeat his explanations, every time the two of them stole an hour or two of privacy?
Grunting from the uncharacteristic exertion-it was not as easy to bend double as he thought it used to be-Grimwar reached for the other boot, his mood souring fast. When he was done wooing Thraid, he only wanted to be away from her, to get out of her chambers without being seen-at least by anyone who might report his activities to Stariz. Throwing his cloak over his shoulders, he leaned over the massive bed for a farewell kiss, but the voluptuous Thraid was sulking and had turned her back to him.
He muttered his goodbyes and slipped out of her sleeping chamber. The great hall was empty. He turned down a back corridor leading to the king’s study, where he had ostensibly been poring over mining reports, after having left strict orders not to be disturbed.