He drew a breath and it came out a sigh. Second thoughts assailed him. He hadn’t realized how much he was going to miss these people. The big woman drew him into a smothering hug, and though he couldn’t lock his arms around her massive waist he clutched her as tightly as he could.
“You’re someone very special,” Kerrick told her. “If you lived in Ansalon, I think the bards would be singing about you from Tarsis to Istar. As it is, you’ll have to be sure to keep an eye on your chiefwoman and all these people, won’t you? They rely on you more than you know.”
“Oh, I help out when I can,” she said, shrugging dismissively. “You come back sometime, and see for yourself how we’re getting along? Okay?”
He nodded wordlessly. More of the Arktos came to bid him farewell, friends he had made over the years, and the sense of uncertainty only grew stronger. The Highlander berserker called Mad Randall-always a genial and gentle fellow, except in the midst of battle-shared several sips of warqat with the elf, then cried lustily as he clutched the departing sailor to his breast. Mouse came hurrying along, and he gave Kerrick a gift: a splendid long harpoon, with a polished shaft, a coil of supple line, and a head of shining steel.
“That’s the metal Hawkworth is smelting now, thanks to you,” the young man declared proudly. “He says that you could shave with that edge-if you had a beard, that is.”
Kerrick rubbed his smooth elven face and shook his head. He was moved by the gift but even more moved by the all the people crowding around. Many times he had embarked from the Silvanesti docks, sometimes for voyages that would last more than a year, and never had he entertained this kind of farewell. His friends had been too casual to depart from their comfortable routines. On those occasions when he left a lover behind, she was inevitably petulant about his trip and likely as not would fail to see him off or send him away with angry words ringing in his ears.
He thought of Moreen for some reason and was startled to look up and see her standing all alone on the dockside. The rest of the Arktos had melted away all of a sudden, and were now busily watching the boat builders or fishers, leaving the chiefwoman and the elf with a circle of privacy. He heard the waves lapping against the stone wharf, punctuated by the keening cry of a gull. The bird, he thought, articulated his feelings far better than Kerrick himself could.
She came toward him dry-eyed, serious. He found himself drawing up straight, standing as tall as he could, feeling strangely vulnerable. Wondering what he would say, he was taken by surprise by the first words out of her mouth.
“That boom,” she said, gesturing to the long construct of chain-wrapped timbers. “Are you sure it is going to work right?”
He felt a familiar flash of irritation. “Yes, of course it will work,” he snapped. “That is, if the watchmen get it pulled across the harbor mouth in time. It won’t work if the ogre galley is already in the harbor!”
“No, I suppose not,” she commented, taking no visible offence at his harsh tone. Instead, she made a show of studying the length of the boom and the large winch attached to the Signpost rock. The boom itself lay in the water, opposite the spire, attached by a submerged cable. The winch, they had learned through testing, was strong enough to pull it across the harbor mouth, if ten or a dozen strong people could gather to crank the device. There was a rickety framework of scaffolding leading up the Signpost and a sturdier, more permanent-looking platform on top. A lanky Highlander leaned on the railing of that platform, momentarily noticing their eyes on him, so he quickly turned his gaze back to the sea.
“I will have to make sure that we put only the most alert people, whether Arktos or Highlander, on that duty.”
“Yes,” he agreed, his ill temper quickly fading. “You will.” You will have to do lots of things, he thought, feeling for an instant the leadership pressures weighing upon Moreen every day. She would have to look out for all of these people, leading them against a harsh environment, protecting them from the onslaughts of an even harsher enemy. She was strong-unbelievably strong-but he was terribly glad that he did not have her responsibilities.
“That boom… it’s a nice piece of work. One of many nice things that you leave us,” Moreen said, her voice surprisingly soft and nervous. “I cannot dispel the feeling that we have not changed you in such a… so many fundamental ways, as you have done for us.”
Kerrick blinked, surprised at the moisture that burned in his eyes. “I think, perhaps, that I have been very much changed by my time among the Arktos. Changed for the better.”
She smiled wanly, then nodded to the chest in Bruni’s wheelbarrow. “I see you’ve had the gold brought down. Do you think that will make a difference to your king?” She didn’t know the full story of his exile-none of these humans did-but she had gleaned enough of his past to know that he had departed his homeland under something of an shadow.
“I know it will, at least in these modern times. Centuries ago, in the time of Silvanos and the great houses, who knows-I’d like to think the elves had loftier pursuits. Now we might as well be Istarans, dwarves even-we are as enthralled with gold as any people on Krynn.”
“You know…” Moreen hesitated, choosing her words. “I… that is, we, will miss you very much.”
He almost winced. That was how it was with her-everything was about the tribe, nothing about herself. “You should know that I will miss all of you. I’m only starting to realize how much,” he responded levelly. He would miss her the most of all, Kerrick knew, but he lacked the words, the human brashness, to articulate that sentiment.
“You are welcome to return, any time you want to come back,” Moreen continued. “In fact, I do hope we-I-will see you again.” She gazed across the harbor, out the narrow gap onto the sea beyond. “Perhaps it won’t be during my lifetime,” she mused ruefully. “You could still be a young man, and come back to find our grandchildren as the new masters of Brackenrock.”
“I… I want to be back before then,” he said awkwardly. The difference in their life spans-he had centuries of adulthood waiting before him, a trackless road ahead of him, while she would become an old woman in forty, fifty, or some other finite number of years-had always yawned like a gulf between them. Now he felt an irrational tickle of guilt.
“Know that if you don’t come back for a hundred years, the Arktos will remember you and make you welcome,” she said quietly. For the first time ever he saw a tear shimmer in her eye.
“For all those years, and longer, I will carry the memory of this place, of your people-and of you-close to my heart,” he said somberly.
Kerrick held Moreen for several heartbeats, feeling the fierce strength of her embrace, the wiry muscle of her body, and he found himself wishing it could be forever. But it was she who broke the embrace, blinked, and said, “May Zivilyn Greentree ride with you across the waters! And Chislev Wilder wait for you in the forests on the other side!”
The blessing of their two gods was like a benediction around his shoulders. Kerrick could think of nothing else to say, so he climbed aboard his boat, raised the mainsail, and started toward the beckoning sea.
* * * * *
Cutter burst from the Bluewater Strait like a cork exploding from a bottle. A cold south wind gusted from the direction of Winterheim and the Icewall, a reminder of winter so lately departed. Still, Kerrick welcomed the breeze, for it had strength and would bear him in the direction he wanted to go.
The sky was cloudy now, a slate color perfectly matched by the sea. The hue matched the elven sailor’s mood. Playing out the jib, riding straight before the wind, he flew northward until the bulwark of land that was Brackenrock vanished from his view. Even then he continued, reckoning by compass, imagining the miles … twenty, fifty… eighty and more… passing under his keel.