Carrying her torch back into the main room, she was startled to hear soft voices coming from behind one of the stacks. She crept forward, trembling, hoping that it was only Tookie coming back. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her sword, ready to attack if this was a threat.
She recognized the elf’s voice, but he didn’t sound frightened or agitated. Leaning closer, she tried to hear what he was saying.
“… hiding in here, for now, but we’ve got to do something. We’re both going to go crazy if we just have to sit around and wait!” the elf declared.
“Well, then find something useful to do,” replied the second voice, with a sense of mild exasperation.
The tone was childlike, but it wasn’t Tookie. Instead, it was male, and though high-pitched it sounded vaguely mature.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Kerrick declared sharply.
Moreen came around the stack, holding up the torch. Kerrick chuckled shyly as he saw her and shook his head apologetically. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t find anything. Then, I guess the dark just kind of got to me-I was having a quiet conversation with my imaginary friend.”
“Coraltop Netfisher?” the chiefwoman said in awe, looking wide-eyed into the shadows past the elf.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” the elf replied. “I know it makes me seem kind of crazy … what is it?” he asked, seeing her expression of amazement.
“If he’s imaginary,” she replied quietly, “why can I see him?”
Captain Verra paced restlessly on the edge of the market, looking at the tangle of docks. Crates and barrels were stacked up, great lengths of rope coiled, and all manner of nets and oars piled haphazardly here and there. In time of peace they were useful for all manner of nautical tasks, but he had no care for that.
Right now, each of them looked like a potential hiding place for an elf intruder, or any number of rebellious slaves.
Farther along the wharf long racks of fish hung to dry over beds of charcoal that had yet to be ignited. The sawmill hummed in the lumberyard as slave labor turned the heavy gears, whirling the blade through one after another log of fresh pine, splitting the timbers into boards. Stacks of wood were growing in the vast storage yards, but all he could thnk of was the slaves moving to and fro. He wondered what they were planning, feeling.
He had received the king’s orders via a message tube that had been tossed down the city’s atrium to land, with a loud splash, in the waters of the harbor. One of Verra’s men had fished it out with a long pole, and the captain had quickly read the directive, and acted on it.
“Elf loose in the city … potential uprising of slaves … human war party penetrated the Icewall Gate and Moongarden …”
How could this be happening?
Verra was grateful that he had warned the king of a possible human insurrection only a few days earlier, yet now that he was confronted with the reality he felt woefully unprepared. He had three hundred ogres under his direct command here in the main square, with hundreds more scattered in detachments around the harbor level, but there were so many humans!
In agitation, he reviewed what he had done so far. First, he had secured the Seagate slaves in their vast warren. The humans in there numbered nearly a thousand in total, and they were now locked behind double doors of heavy steel, with hinges anchored several feet deep into the bedrock of the mountain. A dozen ogres stood guard at the second, outer door, while an equal number had commanding positions over the corridor, which the humans would have to traverse if somehow they managed to break out. Verra was satisfied that the Seagate slaves were safely locked away.
The slaves in the lumber yard numbered nearly an equal amount, but he had been unable to curtail them as effectively. For one thing, that vast work site was busy with cutting the timber that had been hauled across the tundra by the summer work parties. Much of that wood was needed for the Ceremony of Autumnblight, only two days away, and Verra had been reluctant to halt the work based on mere suspicions, so more and more boards made fresh piles, slaves carrying the planks from the saw to the storage racks.
Since he could not close the yard, he had posted an extra company of grenadiers-fifty veteran ogres-to reinforce the three score overseers who usually maintained order in the area. The odds were not unfavorable, but he had instructed his troops to be quick with the whip and vigilant.
The other work sites on the harbor level-the fish house and tanning factory, notably-only housed a few hundred slaves apiece. Verra had increased the guards at each of these and had given instructions for extra caution and discipline. He had ordered his troops to report anything the least bit out of the ordinary and had impressed upon them the seriousness of the situation. Now he could only wait.
He shuddered nervously, unable to shake the fear that he was forgetting something that might prove to be very important.
“You’re Moreen Bayguard,” declared Coraltop Netfisher. The diminutive fellow advanced with a wide smile and an outstretched hand. “It is a real pleasure to meet you. I mean I’ve been hearing about you for, oh, I don’t know how many years. It’s great to meet you!” He took her hand and pumped it, his small fingers wiry and strong in her own grip. “You came here to help Kerrick, of course. I’m glad. I try to give him a hand now and then, but Zivilyn Greentree knows I can’t do everything!”
“Um … likewise, it is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard very much about you over the years, too,” replied the chiefwoman.
She was stunned to see this little person, talking to Kerrick. He could not have entered through the door of the warehouse without attracting her attention. She was just as certain that he was really, truly, standing here in front of her.
“Where did you come from? How did you get in here, and find us?”
“Oh, I keep pretty close tabs on Kerrick here,” said the kender. He looked just as the elf had so often described him, wearing a plain green tunic and soft deerskin boots. His hair was tied in a long topknot that gathered at the crown of his head then flowed like a mane down his back. He leaned close and winked at Moreen. “I don’t know if you noticed, but he has a way of getting himself into trouble. I’ve tried to help him out, whenever I can. I guess you do that too. He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have us! Why, there was a time he was sailing along, barely paying attention, and he just about smacked into a dragon turtle! If I hadn’t come along just then-”
“You were stranded on the dragon turtle!” Kerrick declared indignantly. “I rescued you, remember?”
“Not much of a mind for details, you know,” Coraltop said with another wink. “Still, he’s kind of likeable, just the same, though as I was saying, trouble seems to follow him around.”
Moreen shook her head grimly. “I think I’m the one who usually gets him into trouble. Take now, for example. Our two companions have been captured, the ogres have got the Axe of Gonnas back, and we’re hiding out here, depending on a little girl to help us.”
“Tookie? She’s really something, that one,” said the kender enthusiastically. “You’re lucky you met her.” He looked at Kerrick and nodded sternly. “See what I mean-you keep coming across these good friends, and they all do their best to get you out of trouble.”
“You’re right about that,” Kerrick said, with an audible sigh.
“Well, I really am delighted to meet you,” Moreen said, smiling in spite of her anxious mood, “and you’re right about Kerrick making friends wherever he goes.”
“Kind of unusual for an elf that way,” the kender said, leaning close and whispering very loudly. “Most of them are anti-social, but not our Kerrick Fallabrine!”
Kerrick glared at the kender, clearly vexed. “Is there anything else you want to say?” he demanded.
“Well, I wonder why the ogre queen wants to see your friend Bruni,” Coraltop said with an elaborate shrug. “She seemed pretty interested in talking to her. The king too, I guess. They’re quite a pair, you know.”