Whereas Stariz had really found her element in Winterheim, quickly assuming mastery of the great temple there even as her husband ascended to the throne, Drago was even more out of place in the great city than he had been in the less cultured land of his birth. His first experience with a royal banquet had been nearly disastrous when he had elbowed the obese Lord Quendip out of the way in a lunge for a prime rib-all the ribs, actually-of beef. The lord’s six handlers had tried to intervene, and they had ended up with one broken arm and two dislocated shoulders. Lord Quendip had demanded exile for the offending lout, but the king-who knew a good fighting man when he saw him-declared instead that the hulking Karyl would be assigned to the garrisons of the outer palisades.
His first post had been at the South Gate, where the roads to the vast gold mines converged upon the city. Drago had been part of a hundred-ogre garrison charged with careful observation of all who entered or departed the city, as well as with the operation of the great stone gate itself. Karyl’s strength was a great asset in the gate-opening-he could turn the massive winch alone, though it had previously required the efforts of a half dozen stalwart ogres. Here too, however, his uncouth behavior led to suspicion and dislike from his barracks-mates. There never seemed to be enough food or drink for both Drago and the ninety-nine other ogres who shared his quarters.
It was at this posting, however, that Drago really began to develop the love that was to last the remainder of his life. It was not an emotion extended toward any other being, male or female, that welled up in his mighty heart. Instead, he began to truly nurture his fascination and fondness for the golden metal itself, the product of the rich mines that had always captured his fancy.
Not that he was greedy or inclined to thievery or the amassing of wealth-far from it. Drago’s worshipful affection for gold was a purely aesthetic expression. Quite simply, he liked it because it was pretty to look at. He loved to study the metal, caress golden objects in his huge hands, feel its good, solid weight against his chest. His favorite items of gold were not the solid ingots that were imported so steadily into the city. Rather they were the small ornaments, the rings, chains and medallions, even the children’s toys sculpted into the shape of seals or bears. To most ogres, these lacked the value of the solid gold bar, and Drago had no difficulty amassing quite a collection of such trinkets. When he was not working he would sit in his room in the barracks, surrounded by his toys, admiring them.
In the end, as it had been in the palace, it was an incident with a noble that rendered the assignment at the South Gate unworkable. A certain duke, Greckan Marst, was charged with administering nearly half of the royal gold mines. On one occasion, he decided to make journey of inspection and to do it incognito so that his charges would have no advance warning of his arrival. Leaving the city on foot with merely a dozen slaves to bear the provisions required by the duke on his three-day tour, Grackan Marst led his entourage through the gate that had been opened by Karyl Drago.
The last slave in Grackan Marst’s entourage captured the eye of the hulking gatekeeper, whose appetite had been enhanced by the exertions of wheeling aside six tons of solid granite. A carelessly wrapped leg of venison jutted from the hapless human’s backpack, and Drago reacted without thinking. He reached and tugged, freeing the deer meat but inadvertently breaking the slave’s neck in the process.
The duke’s mission had been thwarted by the subsequent delay though his wrath was soothed by a royal payment. Once again Drago was reassigned. This time he joined the overseers of the many hundreds of slaves at the Seagate, the massive portal allowing access to the city’s subterranean harbor. His work was good-he terrified the slaves into certain obedience, but since this was the route by which all the salmon fishers brought their goods into the city it was only a matter of time before trouble resulted there as well.
Finally the king decided upon the perfect assignment for Drago. There was a lonely gate into the Winterheim Warrens, far from the city and removed from nearly all ogre citizens of either noble or common birth. It was such a small and unimportant outpost that it required but a dozen ogres to guard it, so long as they were led by a warrior of stout courage and battle fitness. In other words, it was the perfect place for Karyl Drago.
He was assigned to the gate at the summit of Icewall Pass. He watched the narrow aperture throughout the sunlit months of the year, withdrawing into the city only during the fury of the Sturmfrost and the three months of frigid night that followed that epic, annual blizzard. Bears and seals were not uncommon around the Icewall, and Drago and his men were allowed to kill and eat as many of these as they desired. They had an ample supply of coal for cooking, and every few months a caravan of slaves would bring them a new keg of warqat from the city’s distilleries.
The ogres of his garrison were as uncouth and barbaric a lot as one could find in all the Icereach. They respected him as their master and allowed him first pick of all sustenance, be it in solid or liquid form. In return, he gave them freedom to drink, hunt and gamble unfettered by the restraints of civilized society.
He never bothered any other ogres because he never saw any other ogres, and the king gained the security of knowing that the Icewall garrison was commanded by as fit a warrior as any in his service.
Karyl brought his golden trinkets with him, of course, and on days when his henchmen watched the sea and the land, he spent much of the time in simple play, admiring the sleek coat of a little golden seal or imagining the growls of a rearing golden bear. He made jangling necklaces of his medallions and rings, and he found the music of that metallic tinkling to be the most pleasant sound in the world.
For ten years Drago had held this post. On many sunny mornings he took the guard duty himself and beheld the dazzling expanse of the White Bear Sea extending far to the north from the base of the Icewall. When the weather was cloudy or foggy he patrolled the steep, narrow pass relentlessly, assuring himself that no intruder ventured there. For ten years there had been no intruders, save for the hapless bears that occasionally and fatally mistook the entrance to the Icewall Gate for the mouth of a sheltering cave.
Despite the lack of any real threat, Karyl Drago’s vigilance never waned. His loutish appearance might have suggested a certain simplicity of intellect, but-except when it came to matters of self-control-he was in fact a rather intelligent example of his race. He knew every inch of his pass, each approach to the narrow entrance that did, indeed, resemble the mouth of a natural cave. Though wafts of natural steam warmed the shelter and the entire interior of the cavern, he never shirked the duties that drew him outside to study, inspect, and patrol. His men came to respect, even to love him, for he was fair and willing to work as hard as any of the guards under his command. Also, he could smash the skulls and break the bones of any two of them without breaking a sweat, and to an ogre warrior this was an attribute demanding high honor and complete obedience.
Thus it was on yet another sunlit morning, with the mountainside slicked by early autumn frost, that he decided to look upon his world. He called in Squint-Eye, who had had the duty through the pale dawn, and Drago emerged alone to look down the steep slope toward the always-empty tundra. He stretched, yawned, and scrutinized-then hesitated. Was that something down there? He stared and blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again, wondering if his vision was playing tricks.
His eyes were accurate. There was a file of people down there, either humans or thanoi, since they were too small to be ogres, and they seemed to be marching directly toward the base of Icewall Pass. As the disbelieving Drago watched, he studied the posture of the marchers, noted that they wore fur and wool clothes, and lacked the characteristic tusks of the walrus men. This could only confirm his first suspicions: There were humans coming toward his pass, his gate. The mighty ogre warrior crouched low in the crest of that pass and watched. He estimated that there were several hundred potential intruders.