He thought fleetingly about his cloak, the only black bear pelt he or any other ogre had ever seen. He had captured it from what he thought was a simple village of Arktos peasants nine summers earlier. His warriors had slain every man of that tribe, and with only a few females and young escaping into the hills, he had thought the band eradicated.
How ironic that it had been one of those women who had become his most vexing foe! It was she who had led her people to Brackenrock, reclaiming the long-abandoned stronghold from the savage thanoi who had taken up residence there. It was she who had made the place a true fortress, a bastion that stood against his most devastating attack.
The human woman was dead now, slain with her elf companion in the catastrophic explosion that wracked Dracoheim, yet she continued to fascinate him. This was one reason why the captive warrior, the slave he had sent into the house of Thraid Dimmarkull, was interesting to him. That man had been willing to give his life for the Lady of Brackenrock, and sooner or later the king intended to ask him why.
He had more important matters to concern him for the immediate moment. Indeed, he had many things on his mind, did the king of Suderhold.
One of these was paramount. The matter of his vexatious wife demanded resolution, a resolution that would allow the king to proceed with his life, his future, in a manner of his own choosing. If Stariz remained attached to him, she would be his doom, a cancer eating away his manhood and his rule until he was an emasculated hulk, a mere puppet for the priestess-queen.
He had blustered and threatened, pleaded and dealt with her, but ever she remained the same. For all this time he had sought a solution that would work with Stariz ber Glacierheim ber Bane. Now, finally, he could see the error of diplomacy. There could be no solution with her, for she herself was the problem.
He realized now that he had to send her away. He would wait until she had performed her ritual sacrifice at the ceremony of Autumnblight, then he would make his announcement to his wife and to his people.
His marriage would end, and the rest of his life would at last begin.
8
Kerrick shivered under a sense of revulsion so strong that he almost gagged. He had never seen a monster like the beast towering in the Escarpment Pass, never even imagined that such a horror could exist-save, perhaps, in the lightless depths of the ocean, where even the gods never looked. To find such a grotesque creature here, in the shadow of the Icewall, seemed like a defiance of life itself, of every order of natural law.
Thedric Drake, a brave man, and a solid and sensible leader, was gone forever, taken in the first slashing bite of the monster. A dozen more Highlanders lay on the ground where the beast had smashed them, some dead, others writhing in pain, clutching broken limbs or puking up blood and guts from insides wracked by smashing force. Barq One-Tooth, knocked aside like a toy by the monster’s first rush, had struggled to his feet and managed to stumble away.
The creature seemed to barely be getting started. The elf watched as the monster rushed forward again, smashing through the front of the war party’s column, crushing men under its multiple feet, jabbing this way and that with those horrid, slashing jaws. The humans had no recourse. To a man they turned and fled back from the gap in the ridge crest, spreading out, tumbling and falling, crawling on hands and knees in frantic attempts to escape.
Some of them made it, and others didn’t. The monstrous head lunged forward again and again, each time striking some hapless person. Many of these victims disappeared in a single gulp, swallowed by the same fate meted out to Thedric Drake; others were cruelly cut, even bitten in half, until the ground at the mouth of the pass was littered with body parts and gore.
Kerrick spun around, having momentarily forgotten that the horde of thanoi remained in their grim, silent semicircle. He would not have been surprised to see that band rush forward to take advantage of the human’s consternation. Instead, the walrus-men seemed content to watch and to wait. All along they had been waiting.
“Why not?” muttered Bruni, who had apparently taken note of the same thing. “The tusked bastards won’t take any more losses, and what in Chislev’s name can we do against that thing?”
What, indeed? The monster had a segmented body that was fifty feet or more long-indeed, the tail remained out of sight, buried within the cluster of rocks from which it had burst.
“We have to try to attack it!” Moreen declared. “Surely it can be wounded somehow!”
“I agree,” said Kerrick, with another glance at the ominously waiting thanoi.
“Let’s go,” grunted Bruni.
She had dropped her heavy pack on the ground and now drew out the Axe of Gonnas, quickly pulling the leather shroud off of the blade. The metal gleamed in the pale daylight, shining with an internal brightness. The shaft alone was nearly six feet long, and the blade was as big as a barrelhead.
The Arktos woman hefted the weapon in her hands and started toward the notch of the escarpment, Moreen and Kerrick advancing stoutly at her side. Barq One-Tooth, bleeding from several wounds, joined them, and even old Dinekki hobbled behind. Others of the war party maintained the solid rearguard under Mouse’s command, facing the walrus men, banging weapons and chanting, making a show of force that would keep the thanoi away.
More Highlanders joined the small party in the advance, until there were three or four dozen fighters making the charge.
“Kradock curse that thing-it can’t be slain!” grunted Barq. “I landed a sharp blow on those chest plates, and me axe bounced away like I was smitin’ stone!”
“That’s because your blade, solid though it be, is but cold steel,” said Dinekki, who somehow managed to keep up with the striding warriors. “That is a beast of the dark corners of the planes-as such, it must be pierced by metals that have been cast in forges of godly blessing.”
“My blade was made in the ancient elven fires,” Kerrick volunteered grimly. “I will try it against the brute.”
“This axe is a talisman of the immortals-even if it was made in the name of an ogre god,” Bruni declared. “Let those gods turn its edge against the monster.”
Barq looked at the woman and the elf with an expression of grudging respect. “Well, I’ll attack with ye-even if I can’t hurt the thing, I’ll give it worry!”
More and more of the Highlanders had fallen in with them as they approached the mouth of the pass. The monster seemed to be at rest, but those bulging, multi-faceted eyes were alert, shifting and glowing as it inspected the approaching force. Slowly it drew its sinuous foreparts off of the ground, rising to twenty, then thirty feet in the air. The grotesque jaws, gory with blood and bits of clothing and flesh from its victims, gaped.
“Feel that-the beast is hot,” observed the chiefwoman in surprise.
Kerrick, too, sensed the heat against his face, a sensation as though he was approaching a large pile of glowing coals.
“ ’Tis a remorhaz-the polar worm,” said Dinekki, with a low whistle. “A creature of legend it be, and never did I think I’d be looking one in the eyes. Beware those plates on its back-they are hot enough to sear your flesh, should you come close.”
“Aim for the belly, then,” said Kerrick, “and strike hard.”
The attackers, two score or more of them, rushed forward in unison. Again that monstrous head snapped forward and a big Highlander right next to the elf screamed as the gaping jaws descended upon him. The sound was instantly muffled as the elf struck to the side, driving the tip of his blade through the plates armoring the monster’s flanks. Kerrick needed all of his strength to pull the sword out when the creature twisted away.
When the beast reared back the hapless warrior’s boots were left scattered haphazardly on the ground, the elf nearly gagging as he realized that the Highlander’s feet were still in them. He pressed home the attack, lunging in to stab at the exposed belly. Again, he cut through the hard, scaly surface, but the sheer size of the creature insured that he could not strike very deeply. Barq, too, struck a blow, his mundane steel cutting open one of the plates, but neither did he do much apparent damage to the rampaging beast.