"Get him, you lummox!"
"The slippery devil's getting the best of you!"
"C'mon, Wultha. He doesn't weigh more than your breakfast!"
Raucous laughter accompanied the remarks as the northmen took enjoyment from their comrade's discomfort. They jeered, and this inflamed the huge wrestler.
Wultha growled, his eyes wide. Gasping, he lurched to his feet and lumbered back into the ring, peering wildly as if he couldn't see his opponent, though Keane awaited him in the center of the circle.
The northman charged and Keane skipped away. The frail-looking tutor, his eyes squinting in concentration above the tightly bound rag, studied his brutish foe, anticipating each desperate lunge, each clumsy but potentially crushing blow. Indeed, the Ffolkman's dodging grew smoother as the fight worked its way through minute by breath-draining minute.
Keane darted towards Wultha, kicking him in his great belly with no apparent effect. The tutor lost his balance and tumbled backward, but Wultha staggered wildly, unaware of his opponent's vulnerability. The close-set eyes, now bloodshot and unfocused, grew vague as Wultha's heavy lids floated halfway down.
His nose puffed and strained, unable to bring in the air that his lungs required. He wobbled unsteadily, trying to remember where he was. . what he was supposed to do.
Keane dove at him from the side, once again striking a tree trunk of leg. But this time he timed his attack, watching the knee as it became more and more unsteady. He drove all balance from Wultha, and the northman dropped like a felled log. Keane fell on top of him, clinging desperately as the body flexed spasmodically. Finally Wultha lay still.
Immediately Keane reached around his opponent's head, a dagger flashing in his hand. Brandon stood with a shout, but then saw the Ffolkman slice the gag away. Sitting upon Wultha's chest, Keane forced him to cough and gag. The unconscious man drew in a ragged breath of air, then another. Coughing, he opened his eyes and looked around uncomprehendingly, struggling finally to sit up as the triumphant Keane moved carefully away.
The victor next reached behind his own head and, with the knife he had concealed during their entire captivity, cut free his gag. He looked at Brandon steadily, waiting for the Prince of Gnarhelm to break the silence. The fact that Wultha had been overcome by his own congested sinuses rather than the prowess of his opponent was a fact that had been observed by all.
"You have triumphed in the Test of Strength," said Brandon levelly. His face twisted in a rueful grimace. "Though I admit you have made it more a test of wits than of might. Nevertheless, you have bested our champion."
Alicia and Tavish untied their own gags. The princess warily watched the northman prince, admiring the way he met Keane's gaze squarely. Indeed, she saw, Brandon Olafsson proved to be a man of honor and of his word.
Now the young war chief gestured to a place beside him. "Greetings, guests. Come and join our supper."
Yak of the Great Cat's Head, War Chief of Grayrock, sat before his sturdy home, with its smooth-timbered walls and solid slate roof, reflecting upon the feeling of impending menace that had gnawed at him of late. The great firbolg leaned back, using a short sword designed for a human's hand to pick his great teeth. He looked upward and studied the glowering skies with a cautious air.
Around Yak's shoulders hung the cloak that had given him his name, though the massive, grinning skull currently flopped down his back. He wore it as his helm only at times of great ceremony or in battle, though since coming to Grayrock, he had found no need for combat.
He could never forget, however, that the cloak and its attendant skull had come to him following the most savage battle of all. The sleek black pelt, with its four clawed feet, had once adorned the body of Shantu, the great displacer beast. The tentacles that had grown from the creature's shoulders now served the firbolg as the straps with which he secured it about his broad shoulders. The human king, Tristan Kendrick, had encouraged Yak to skin the beast and to wear the pelt as a badge of honor.
Yet as always, Yak couldn't remember that fight without a tremor of shame and self-doubt. Had he not fled from the enemy, just when his companions' lives were in the greatest danger? The fact that he had fled from an earthly manifestation of a greatly evil god, as had several other of the young king's companions, in no way assuaged the proud firbolg's sense of guilt.
It had been that guilt, even more than the desecration of Myrloch Vale and the waning of the goddess, that had persuaded Yak to break from the usual firbolg patterns of pastoral wilderness existence.
After the battle with Bhaal, he had been spurred by an inexplicable longing. Marching to the northern coast of Gwynneth during the year following the chaos of war, he brought with him his two wives and a half dozen or so other members of his tribe.
They came upon the wreckage of a northman longship on the coast, and, ever skilled woodworkers, the firbolgs took another full year to prepare the craft for sea. As of then, Yak still didn't know where he would take his little band, but the urge to embark had grown stronger in him every day. Finally, the ship completed, they had hoisted a small, heavy sail of deerskin and allowed the wind to carry them.
The memory of that epic voyage still brought a lump to Yak's throat. Never before had firbolgs embarked on such an adventurous quest! The distance they sailed wasn't great by human standards, but they traversed the length of the Sea of Moonshae, from south to north, and came safely and unerringly to their lonely, windswept goal.
Guided by the wind and the tide, the firbolgs reached Grayrock, an inhospitable mass of stone emerging from the pounding surf. A craggy precipice formed the island's shoreline, and a few grasses and shrubs, but not a single tree, withered in small pockets of soil between jagged blocks of granite.
High waves cast the unique vessel into these rocks, but the heavily reinforced keel, a far greater trunk than humans could have employed, did not break. Instead, the firbolgs' ship balanced precariously on a rocky ledge, and the passengers debarked, scrambling upward to the more level ground surmounting the cliffs. Soon the modified longship teetered, and then plunged back into the waves, where the current carried it westward and it vanished into the gray, rolling wastes of the Trackless Sea.
The castaways set about searching their new home and quickly discovered that the level central plateau seemed more habitable than the rocky shore. Finally the truth became apparent-the reason that explained everything to Yak and completed the purpose of his life.
In a grotto at the center of the islet, they found a Moonwell. Like those upon Gwynneth, this pool had no power remaining. Yet it was pristine and clear, a place of sacred purity. The water felt warm to the touch.
It was this remnant of a once-profound power to which Yak would devote the rest of his years. Saddened by the virtual annihilation of his people-for he did not know that firbolg tribes still lived on Alaron, Norland, Moray, and even Gwynneth-and the supposed passing of the goddess who was part of all life around them, Yak looked with bucolic relief upon this placid duty.
Contrary to most human opinion, especially among the Ffolk, the firbolgs were not, and had never been, the foes of the goddess Earthmother. Indeed, they were among her most ancient followers, and their worship of her-while never formalized nor cultured-remained, in an obscure way, loyal.
Through nearly twenty years now, encouraged by the prayers and ministrations of the giant-kin, the Moonwell showed no signs of decay. The isle grew rich in barley and moorgrass. Drawn by the new fertility, northmen came and settled the rocky shore, and for years, they never suspected the presence of their firbolg neighbors. When members of the two races finally met, it was in peace. Now, when they occasionally encountered one another on the small island, they cautiously avoided giving offense and quickly parted.