But for the first time in two decades, Yak felt a sense of danger, a menace that disturbed his peaceful existence and brought him to a pitch of readiness. Now, sitting in the door of his house, he slowly raised the great cat's skull and placed it upon his huge, shaggy head. The jaw, with its long, wickedly pointed teeth, rested upon his forehead, the fangs framing his eyes. His huge nose jutted outward like a block of granite, and his brown beard flowed down his chest in a lush, rippling torrent.
His small tribe gathered from the nearby houses and the pastures where they tended sheep and goats. A dozen of them assembled, hulking adult firbolgs, each at least ten feet tall. The youngsters they left to play, but Yak fixed each of these full-grown tribe members with a somber glare.
"Danger threatens us," he announced, "of a form I know not what, though it will strike from heaven and sea together. We must go to the humans who live here and warn them."
The others could not question their war chief when he wore the great helm of his rank. The mighty beings dispersed around the island, each going to one of the small collections of hovels and fish shacks where the northmen lived.
Yak himself proceeded to the largest of these, following the rough, downhill trail toward the place where perhaps three dozen buildings huddled together. He was still high above the human habitations when he saw the huge, shadowy form descend from the gray clouds. It was a long beast, serpentlike, with a trailing tail and long, pointed wings-a dragon!
The monster's wings had an odd, insubstantial look to them. As it came closer, the firbolg saw why. Much of the leathery skin had rotted away, yet somehow the beast flew, propelled by a web of bones!
A blast of fire erupted from the serpent's gaping maw, and the watchers saw smoke spew from gaps in the long neck where flesh and scale had rotted away. The cloud trailed in the air behind the monster, like a spoor marking its trail, but that spume was as nothing compared to the infernal blast that erupted before it every time it belched its awful breath weapon.
Then the horror expanded as fish-men, the sahuagin, emerged from the sea, scaling the rocks around the little village and attacking from all sides, trapping the helpless humans within. In moments, the attack became a slaughter as the dragon soared back and forth overhead, rending with its great claws and spewing hellish flame from its awful jaws.
Suddenly the dragon banked, veering toward the highland above the village. Yak ducked away from the trail, diving across the broken ground, racing toward a narrow cave he had discovered years ago. He reached the entrance and crept inside, turning cautious eyes skyward.
Outside, the Claws of the Deep spread around the shore of the island, aided by the death-spewing beast in the skies.
"Lances first, men. We want to make sure they get a good look at our banners." Larth growled the order quietly as he unfurled the silken image of the Great Bear, the royal symbol of the Ffolk.
His company, pledged to the service of Talos, was drawn into a long line. Thirty armored knights sat astride their war-horses, each armed with a long steel-tipped shaft. The long march through the Fairheight Mountains had proved to be a surprising ordeal. Since they couldn't take the main roads, they had been forced to lead the heavy mounts along muddy trails and up and down steep ridges. Only on the previous day had they finally reached lowlands again.
But these were the lowlands of Gnarhelm, and before them was a community of northmen. Larth and his warriors were about to start earning their pay.
The predawn mist swirled around them while the small village of fishermen slowly came awake. Oil lamps winked in some of the windows, and one enterprising sailor was already preparing his boat at the village pier.
"After the first charge with the lance," Larth concluded with a grim smile, "we use the swords."
A horse whinnied nervously somewhere along his line, and in the village a dog began to bark. In a few moments, it was joined by a chorus of other dogs.
"Now-charge!" shouted Larth. "Remember, no prisoners!"
Twenty minutes later, the dogs had ceased to bark.
Musings of the Harpist
I watch the princess and future queen of my people, and again I see her as the little girl I knew so long ago. She possesses an innocence, reflected especially in her laugh, that has quickly won the hearts of our captors. But in her joy and her sincerity, she reveals herself, and she does not know her own weakness.
May the goddess watch over you, child, even though she has not watched over anyone these past twenty years! The hopes of all of us depend on that.
13
Deirdre slept but little, her mind surging forward, out of control with ideas and ambitions and new, profound understandings. The power! Never had she imagined such might as now, she knew, lay within her very grasp!
For a few moments, her mind drifted to more conventional concerns. Reports had reached the castle from several different coastal cantrevs claiming that northmen had savagely raided and plundered the Ffolk. This serious violation had alarmed the soldiers and captains of the king's guard. Because of her mother's malaise, the officers had sought Deirdre's permission to muster the Ffolk to arms, but she had not granted them that authority. To her, it seemed that these tales of war and atrocity were unreal. Reality was what she found in her books!
Once more her thoughts turned to those ideas, those powers. She almost laughed out loud in her delight at a remembered image: She, Deirdre, raising a block of earth into a form that walked, a monstrous slave! Or doing the same with fire, or water, or even air! She knew that she would travel places in the blink of an eye, could gain the knowledge of secret counsels, of kings and wizards. .
Even of the gods themselves.
And the price, it seemed, was small. The books had shown her the way, and Malawar had been her guide. Now she stood at the brink of might, and it remained only for her to take the final step.
The oath. A pledge to Talos of a life devoted to his cause. But the cause, Deirdre knew, was one much related to her own ambitions. Indeed, she could serve her god well in her high state as princess of the isles.
Finally she closed her eyes in a semblance of sleep. She did not hear the slight gusting of wind that billowed her curtains, entering the room stealthily and gathering as a mist to hang over her bed.
Instead, she dreamed of Malawar-golden-haired, bright Malawar, with his subtle knowledge of her inner self and his soft smile that melted her heart so that she could think, when confronted by its glow, of nothing else! In her dreams, they went through the world together, outside the walls of this room, to everywhere she imagined.
And the cloudy thing in the air above her lithe body coalesced as she dreamed, watching and sharing her vision. It was much pleased, though the ephemeral form gave no sign of the fact. Two spots of red, however, glowed like sparks. They burned side by side, where the eyes might be if it were a human form, and their heat washed crimson across Deirdre's face.
But still she slept, and in her dream, Malawar took her into his arms and held her, and she knew joy. She sensed him beckon to her, and then he stood before a cave, which loomed very dark and gloomy against the ecstatic backdrop of her dream.