"All right, then!" Kaffa chortled. "We'll sail with the dawn to make war on the Ffolk!"
"And we ride at the same time to invade the north!" added Larth with a grin.
Then the two men bellowed their laughter, delighted, as if they had just made a great joke.
From the Log of Sinioth:
It is with a feeling approaching disbelief that I speak the command words. Breathlessly I await the results, watching. And then it moves! It rises!
It is the child of five years' labor, but now the child looms high over the parent. Like a gargantuan of destruction, it leaves this lair-this sheltered cave where I have so carefully crafted it over this half decade-and marches into the night.
Go now, mighty slave, and do the bidding of your master! Stalk your royal prey beside the once-sacred pool. There you shall slake your thirst-and there will Talos begin his climb to ultimate mastery!
7
"Gather the tribes!"
"War-there must be war!"
The cries of hatred and rage resounded through the lodge of King Svenyird Olafsson as the northmen decried the treacherous attack on the island of their kin. None questioned the perpetrators as other than the Ffolk.
Finally, however, the king raised a hand. The rumbling in the great, smoke-filled lodge died away as these savage seamen waited to hear what their monarch would say.
"Know you all, as do I-for most of our history, the Ffolk have been our implacable enemies. In the wars between us, quarter has not been asked nor given. I myself earned my first battle scars in raids against the west coast of Alaron!"
A chorus of assenting cries, muttered in unison, echoed the king's words.
"But for these past two decades, there has been no war between northman and Ffolk. Their king seemed to my father an honorable man." All knew it had been King Olaf himself who had represented Gnarhelm in the treaty talks with the new High King within a year after Tristan had assumed the mantle of rulership over his people.
"And King Kendrick still reigns, and reigns well. What cause should he have now to break this accord-an accord which he labored so hard, together with my kinsman Grunnarch the Red, King of Norland, to bring about?"
No man could supply a satisfactory answer.
"But the proof!" cried one.
"A talisman of the Ffolk, found at the scene of butchery!" Brandon, son of King Svenyird, shouted his own accusation. "There is no other explanation!"
"Ah, my son. As always, you are ready to lead my men to war. This is as it should be. But first you must gain the blessings of old men such as myself, and I am not yet prepared to concede that the High King of Moonshae has done us wrong."
"But would you have us absorb the hurts like old women?" Brandon demanded, angry.
"Do not forget yourself in your rage," his father admonished, and the strapping war leader bowed his head in apology.
"Forgive me, sire."
"You are forgiven. But this matter needs debate and investigation, not unproven accusations and wild plans for vengeance."
"But how?" Another gray-bearded veteran, known as Knaff the Elder, now shouted his objection. "What more proof can we gain? Do we ask our enemies for explanation?"
"Our former enemies!" barked King Svenyird. "I remind you all that most of the warriors in this council today were but beardless youths when our last war with the Ffolk reached its conclusion."
"What, then?" cried another warrior, hulking Wultha, who, like Knaff and the king, was old enough to remember those wars. Wultha's nose, broken in battle, was flattened across his face. "Surely we must do something."
"Indeed we shall. It is my intent to send an ambassador to Callidyrr, one who knows the ways of war in the event of treachery. He will take a party of men but approach the throne of the High King in peace. He will present our evidence and demand an accounting."
"But it may be a trap!" shouted Knaff. "You could be sending your man to his death!"
"I will make no command. The warlord I name shall be free to accept or decline. If he accepts, he shall know the risk, though I venture it would take more than a simple ambush to place the noose of death around his neck."
"Who? Name the man!" The questions, the cries came pouring forth from the mass of northmen.
Brandon knew the answer, and he stood as his father's old eyes came to rest-with tenderness and pride, the young man thought-on the face of his son.
"Brandon Olafsson, Prince of Gnarhelm, will you accept my commission as ambassador and journey in peace to the palace in Callidyrr, there to call upon the High King in such manner as we have discussed?"
The young warrior's pulse pounded, and his face flushed with pride. "I will hasten to do as you command, sire. If the Ffolk be honorable, I shall return in peace." He paused, bowing, before he continued with the words that he knew that warriors among his people wanted him to speak.
"But if there be treachery among them, I shall make them regret their betrayal tenfold, a hundredfold, even if it means that I must shed the blood of the High King himself!"
The king sat back in his fur-lined chair, an expression of satisfaction on his gray-bearded face. Brandon's own mind soared, inflamed and encouraged by the accolades ringing from the throats of his countrymen.
Alicia stirred restlessly beneath the heavy bearskin that served as her bedroll. Finally she abandoned all thought of sleep, rising to pace about their small camp. She, Keane, and Tavish had made a sleeping place in a flat clearing among the boulders a hundred feet from the shore of the dead Moonwell.
Now, as the moth is drawn to the light, she felt herself compelled to approach that once-sacred water.
Why had she wished so strongly to sleep here tonight? The question nagged at her, for she had no idea as to the answer-and yet it had been a very compelling desire indeed. Her two companions had seemed to sense this, for both of them seemed more relaxed and comfortable here than they had been when surrounded by the hospitality of Blackstone's hearth and table.
She looked at the water, wondering if she saw a trace of its phosphorescent glow. Her mother had told her that, in Robyn's youth, all of the Moonwells had glowed in darkness with a soft white light widely taken as proof of the benign presence of the goddess. It saddened her now to look at this brackish pond, clearly outlined before her in its circular frame of the boulder-lined shore.
But why could she see it at all? The night was inky dark around her. Heavy overcast covered the clouds, totally obscuring the moon that somehow she knew waned into its third quarter. That, too, seemed odd. She hadn't seen the moon in weeks, perhaps months, yet within her mind, she had a very clear picture of the exact stage of its phase.
Alicia approached the pond, her feet stepping surely past unseen rocks, until she found a large boulder near the water's edge that would serve as a comfortable seat. She looked upon the Moonwell with a sense of wonder. It did glow, very softly.
Lost in meditation, she didn't hear movement behind her. Suddenly she gasped in alarm.
"I didn't mean to startle you," Keane said, almost whispering, "but the night is so still I didn't wish to break the silence."
Alicia moved, making room for him on the rock. "Can you see it?" she asked, indicating the well.
"Yes."
"Is it a miracle?" she asked wonderingly.
Keane laughed, very softly. "There are things in the earth-ores, and minerals-that will emit such a glow when they are properly mixed. The effect has been known to occur in nature. That, I believe, is what we see here."