The Messenger

15

Cutter emerged from Tall Cedar Bay onto ocean waters that were surprisingly, ominously calm. The band of enraged men-Moreen had called them Highlanders-had mercifully been swallowed by the darkness and the weather. A light snow was falling, and there was just enough breeze to keep the boat moving west, across the dark strait. Checking his astrolabe, Kerrick aligned the boat toward the Signpost rock and the bay where he had debarked the rest of the Arktos on his three previous crossings. He went forward to set the jib and made sure his passengers were safely arrayed on deck.

Making his way back to the cockpit, Kerrick finally sat on the bench beside Moreen, who clung to the tiller with the ferocity she had shown when she threatened him with death. Her teeth were clenched, and snowflakes speckled her bronzed skin and collected in the thick tangle of her black hair. There was no trace of fear in her expression, just that grim determination to meet and vanquish the challenge raised by the ocean.

The elf was content for the moment to let her steer while he stood and studied the lines of his boat. Tildey still sat atop the cabin. Bruni crouched with several other Arktos amidships, while Little Mouse stood in the bow, clinging to the forward line and shouting gleefully at the snowflakes-at least, until one of the women shouted something, and he reluctantly joined the huddle before the cabin.

“It will be another long night,” Kerrick said, returning to the bench. “I haven’t used my hourglass, but I swear the sun hasn’t stayed up for two hours these past few days-that is, if we could have seen it behind the clouds.”

“In a few more days we’ll bid it farewell, for three months,” Moreen noted.

“Really?” In fact, Kerrick had wondered if the days could keep getting so short that they vanished altogether, but he had discarded the notion as ludicrous.

“You didn’t know?” Moreen looked at him curiously. “That doesn’t happen in your part of the world?” She blinked in astonishment, then asked, “Do you know about the Sturmfrost?”

“What’s that?”

“It comes every year, right after we have seen the last of the sun. From the south, like a wall of wind and ice and freezing cold, it washes over land and sea. It will not be long now-a matter of a few days.”

The elf felt a premonition of that awful chill as he considered this. “How long does it last?”

She shrugged. “A month. Five or six weeks, some years. When it passes, the world is frozen, buried under snow piled higher than your-or even Bruni’s-head. It’s still dark for another month or two, though after the Sturmfrost is gone you can see stars like Chislev Wilder, the goddess of my people.”

“Even the ocean freezes, is covered by snow?” That possibility had never occurred to him, though the lapse in imagination now made him feel a little foolish.

“You can’t see where the water ends and the land begins,” she confirmed. “The gulf is like a flat plain, with great drifts of snow everywhere.”

“Sometimes in Silvanesti the winter gets cold enough to freeze fresh water,” he said, “though I’ve never known it to happen on the ocean, or the coastal harbors.” His mind was racing faster than his words. He knew that boats had to be pulled out of lakes and streams before the pressure of the ice would inevitably snap wooden hulls into kindling.

“You say this Sturmfrost is coming in a few days. Do you know exactly when?”

“Dinekki will know. I could only tell you if I had seen the sun, and, well, the clouds haven’t broken in weeks.”

Kerrick made up his mind on the spot. He had enough gold in his cabin to make him a rich man, but it seemed that his boat faced certain doom if he remained here. As soon as he dropped off his passengers, he would set a course for the north, relying on seamanship and good fortune to outrun the imminent storm. Since there was nothing like the Sturmfrost known in Silvanesti or Ansalon, he had to assume that it dissipated over the Courrain Ocean. It would just be a matter of sailing far enough to get out of its path.

“You know, we owe you our freedom-our very survival,” Moreen said. “By carrying us across the strait, you’ve given us the chance for a new life.”

Kerrick thought of the chest of gold, felt an uncomfortable flush at her words. “The crossing wasn’t without cost … I still feel terrible about Kestra.”

Moreen sighed and suddenly looked smaller as she huddled on the bench. Then she looked at him, then put a hand on his arm. “I’m sure you did everything you could. Again, we can only thank you.”

“I … I hope things are good for you on the western shore,” he said. “Your tribe has found shelter in a cave, with a lot of firewood nearby.”

Moreen was silent for a long time, and Kerrick fell into the easy routine of steering his boat. “What do you know of dragons?” she asked suddenly. “Are there such creatures in your world?”

He shook his head with fervent conviction. “They were banished from the world when my father was but a lad, some four hundred years ago. It was after a great dragon war, the third such conflict, when the serpents of good and evil battled and came close to destroying all Krynn.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “There was a great hero, a man called Huma, was there not?”

Kerrick was surprised that Moreen knew of this conflict, isolated as her people were from the rest of Krynn, but he nodded. “Yes, the humans played some role, but it was mainly the elves and the good dragons who won the victory.”

“Good. I am glad the dragons are gone,” she said with relief.

“As are most people,” the elf agreed.

“I see the fire!” Little Mouse called from the bow.

Kerrick was surprised. The crossing had passed very quickly, considering the light wind. He stood and took a bearing on the signal, saw that his reckoning had carried them on a direct line toward the mouth of the sheltered bay.

Moreen stared intently into darkness that even to elven eyes was impenetrable except for the speck of brilliance.

“Look for a tall pillar-I called it the Signpost,” said Kerrick. “Behind that is a nice cove, with what looked like a big cove on shore.”

“There it is,” Mouse said excitedly. “Just to the left.”

“That’s, ‘Just to port,’ “ Kerrick corrected good-naturedly. He gently steered Cutter toward the opening between the Signpost and the tall rocky promontory that marked the other side of the narrow cove entrance, using the fire as his beacon.

Moreen climbed down to sit on the cockpit bench. Her breath puffed into visible vapor, and she pulled her fur jacket tightly around her torso. “The temperature is still dropping,” she observed.

The elf sensed that her words were offered in friendship, but he was still distracted by her description of the Sturmfrost and only grunted in reply.

“You said your name was Kerrick Fallabrine?” she said after a silence. “Does it have a meaning?”

“Of course. All elven names have meaning, most of them dating back to the clans that were awarded titles at the first Sinthel-Elish. That was nearly three thousand years ago,” he added with a hint of smugness, steering into the cove, gliding toward the fire that was now flaming brightly, even reflecting from the surrounding cliffs.

“Well?” She was looking at him but not in anger. Instead, one corner of her mouth turned up, and the other tilted down in that bemused half-smile.

Kerrick felt a little foolish about his pompous answer. “Oh, my name means that I am a son of House Mariner, Silvanesti. We have been sailors since the dawn of our clan. My namesake, Kerrick, fought against ogres in the First Dragon War.”

“Kerrick.” She rolled the word around on her tongue. “Very exotic.”

He didn’t know what to say to that and was spared the necessity of response when Little Mouse shouted from the bow, “Ice!”

“Take in the sail!” he called, steering the boat sharply into the light wind as Tildey, who had learned a bit during her four crossings, hauled the line. Cutter turned gently in the light wind and coasted to a stop, while Kerrick stood on the gunwale and looked toward shore.

The fire was barely a long bowshot away now, and the flames clearly reflected a surface of smooth ice between the boat and the shore. It hadn’t been there on his last visit, ten or twelve hours earlier, so he knew that it couldn’t be very thick. Still, they would have to crack a path all the way to shore-a frustrating delay, with the vivid image of the imminent Sturmfrost holding his full attention.

Impatiently he cast his eyes along the shore and noticed a bright expanse of water glimmering a short distance to the side. This was not the brightness of light, however. Instead, his elven senses perceived a place where the liquid was significantly warmer than the rest of the little bay.

“Hot springs!” he guessed, encouraged. “There must be a stream flowing out of the cave, and it’s warming the water all the way into the bay.” Indeed, as he looked farther, he could see the vague outlines of a little creek, hazy in the distance but emerging from the wide-mouthed cave. The waters were pleasantly warm to his sight.

“Give me some canvas,” he called to Tildey, and she quickly deployed the sail.

He had to tack away from shore, then come about in order to line up with the stream. Soon they were passing between sheets of ice to port and starboard, following a clear, liquid path until the keel scraped gently on the sandy bottom. By this time they could see many of the Arktos. The tribespeople had sheltered in the large cave, but with the boat’s approach they came down to the shore. One by one the passengers dropped off the bow into the waist-deep water and quickly slogged their way to emerge, dripping and shivering, onto the beach where each was hastily escorted to the vicinity of the fire.

Tildey, Moreen, and Bruni were the last of the Arktos on the boat. Kerrick eyed them warily, wondering suddenly if they would try and take back their gold. He looked toward the cabin, deciding he might be able to race back and snatch his sword before they grabbed him.

Moreen seemed to have other concerns and looked at him seriously.

“I am sorry that we took you by force. Your boat has given us new chance of survival.”

“Because you could escape those warriors, the Highlanders who chased you on the far shore?”

She shrugged. “In part. Here we are on the land that once belonged to our ancestors. That an ancient fortress city, up there, was long-abandoned by our people. We were forced out by dragons. We will claim it again and gain shelter from the winter. If you sail back into these waters, you will be welcomed as our guest.”

“Thank you,” Kerrick said. He found himself hoping that the Arktos would find the comfort and shelter they desired. “As for myself, I intend to be far away from here before this Sturmfrost hits.”

“Good luck.” She held out a hand and he took it, reciprocating her strong grip.

“And to you,” he offered.

He watched the trio wade to shore, then, using the oar, propelled his sailboat back through the channel between the ice sheets, noticing with concern that the passage was narrower than it had been only an hour ago. His breath frosted before his face, and the snow came harder.

From the open water of the bay he looked back to shore and saw the Arktos plodding back to the dark cave mouth. Steam rose from that opening, and he hoped the hot springs would provide enough warmth for them, at least until they could move into the ruin.

The breeze fluttered past his cheek, a little stronger than before, and he deployed his mainsail, anxious to move. The boat leaned slightly under the force of the wind, and he steered a course out of the cove, onto the gulf and its pathways to all the oceans of the world.

“Moreen! You did it!”

The chiefwoman was surrounded by Arktos, all of them trying to hug her. Gently she pushed through the throng and made her way to the fire, which swelled under the addition of numerous dry pine trunks. Her leggings, which had frozen when she emerged from the water, began to steam, and she relished the warmth seeping back into her bones.

“Right here there’s a splendid cave,” Hilgrid said. “Big and deep and mostly dry, except for a few springs of real, truly hot water!”

Moreen gestured to the looming height, the mountain rising just back from shore. She remembered her view of this place from across the strait, and the glimpse of walls and towers she had seen above. “What about a route up there? Brackenrock cannot be far away.”

“There’s a path, you can see in daylight,” Hilgrid explained. “It’s covered with rocks and scree, but at one time it must have been a real roadway. I think this cove the elf found might once have been the harbor of Brackenrock. There’s a stone shelf on the other side that looks as if it must have been a dock once.”

Moreen felt a thrill of awe and discovery. This was surely the place, the ancient home of the Arktos! To think that Chislev had favored them enough to lead them here.

“We’ll rest until we start to get some light, then go up there, a party of us, to see what we can find. I hope we’ll be able to bring the whole tribe up there before Sturmfrost.”

“We’d better not dally,” Dinekki said, hobbling out of the darkness. She looked at Moreen with pride, then clucked in concern. “I just cast the stones-a bit of a trick when you can’t see the sky-but the goddess spoke to me. I can tell you that the Sturmfrost will be here in no more than three days’ time.”

“That should be enough,” Moreen said. “Remember, at first light we go to find our home.”

“Boy, it’s cold down there. Can’t we build a fire or something?”

“Coraltop?” Kerrick, at the tiller of his boat, gaped in surprise as the kender sauntered around the side of the cabin to join him in the cockpit. “But … where were you? How did you get back aboard?”

“I just took a nap,” replied the little fellow, plopping down on the bench. “You know, I’m really hungry. Did you have any luck in your hunt?”

The elf was flabbergasted and for a moment couldn’t even muster a reply. “You mean you were here all along?” he finally sputtered. “You were sleeping? While I was captured? While we carried seventy-five people across the bay? And raced away from the Highlanders and broke through the ice?” He shook his head in utter disbelief.

“I dreamed that it got kind of loud there,” the kender said cheerfully. “I suppose if you carry seventy-five passengers you have to expect they’re going to do some talking. Not very polite of them, though, when I was trying to get a little nap.”

“A little nap? I haven’t seen you for a week!”

“I was tired.”

“How could you sleep that long? By Zivilyn, I looked for you. I was worried! Where in Krynn were you? I hunted all over the boat!”

Coraltop waved dismissively. “I didn’t want to be a bother. I lay down on one of your spare sails in the hold and pulled the other one over me.”

“For seven days?” sputtered the elf.

“It was probably this sleeping potion,” the kender said brightly, producing a small, silver flask. “I traded a gnome for it in Tarsis. I had, oh, I don’t know, something pretty valuable, and I gave it to a gnome who brewed this potion. He said it would help me rest real good. I guess he was right.”

Kerrick swore an old sailor’s oath. “Let me see that,” he declared, snatching the flask out of Coraltop’s hand. Cautiously he removed the stopper and sniffed a seductively sweet aroma.

“Careful,” warned the kender. “All I did was wet my fingertip and lick it.”

The elf quickly stoppered the flask and handed it back. “Your timing was terrible. While you napped I got beaten up, tied up, chased by bearded barbarians. I carried a tribe of different barbarians across this strait, on three trips, fought through a storm, and found a harbor on a barren shore!”

Indignantly he remembered the kender’s earlier question. “No, I didn’t have any luck hunting. You were going to be fishing while I was gone, right? I don’t suppose you even remember that.”

“Well, I was going to do some fishing, after I slept, but I just woke up now. Speaking of impolite, I think it’s a little rude for you to do all this yelling when I still barely have my eyes open!”

Kerrick groaned in exasperation. In any event, he had bigger problems than an extra passenger, and his mind quickly returned to those concerns.

Most significantly, he had all three sails deployed, and yet Cutter barely moved through the water. The waters of the gulf were unnaturally still, barely shifting with an almost imperceptible swell, so dark gray they were almost black. Snowflakes fell, making a rasping hiss as they touched the still water.

Against this placid stillness it was hard to imagine the violent Sturmwall described by Moreen, yet Kerrick had often know periods of almost miraculous calm to lie across the ocean a mere hour or two before the onset of a savage gale. Even if the brutal blizzard didn’t come, he pictured the ice encroaching, slowly but inexorably, until Cutter was locked in a frozen grasp. The ice would tighten, pressure expanding, smashing against itself, inevitably crushing anything so frail as the hull of a sailboat.

“Can’t you go a little faster?” asked Coraltop, frowning over the water. “This is kind of pointless, don’t you think? I mean, I know you’re doing the best you can-of course you are! — but I like it better when we go shooting up the waves and stuff.”

“Do you see any waves?” the elf asked tersely.

“Well, it’s morning, at least. Maybe that will help.”

The kender was right. A vague illumination suffused the white-gray sky and the gray-white sea. The increasing light brought no corresponding increase in wind. If anything, the sails hung even more slackly than before. Such air as did move came listlessly out of the north, from the exact wrong direction, if Kerrick were to have any hope of getting away from the Sturmfrost.

In the spreading light, which brightened to no more than a twilit murk, he stared across the gulf, looking southward, wondering about the winter’s violence stewing there.

Knowing they would never be able to sail out of its path.

“There it is-Brackenrock!” Moreen couldn’t keep the delight from her voice. After the dangerous trek, the escape from the Highlanders, and finally a perilous climb up a steep, twisting pathway, her hopes were confirmed.

The place was a ruin, clearly, but it was the ruin of what had once been a mighty citadel. High, smooth walls merged into the cliff top, blocking a view of the interior of the place, except for several towers that jutted into view. The tops of these were crumbled and eroded, denoting long decades of disuse. A wide gateway at the upper terminus of this path yawned open and dark. Whatever slabs of wood or stone that had once blocked that entrance were now gone. Steam swirled in front of the place and rose from within, a clear indication that the hot springs for which Brackenrock had once been fabled were still warm.

This path seemed to be the only approach, for the fortress stood atop a steep-sided crag. Before it the cliff plunged hundreds of feet straight down to the gray waters of the sea. Behind it towered a peak streaked with snow and ice, flanked by impassable cliff. Only the narrow trail, which wound its way along a narrow ridge crest, allowed access.

“What a fortress,” Tildey said under her breath. “I can see how it stood against the ogres for so long. There’s no other way to get in, and two dozen skilled archers could make sure any enemy coming along the trail never made it to the gates.”

Moreen looked at her warriors. She had made this ascent, which had required more than two hours, with twenty Arktos, all veterans of the Battle of the Black Whale, as they had come to call their skirmish with the thanoi. Now each held a spear or a stone-headed axe and turned a face of grim purpose toward the chiefwoman.

The rest of the tribe remained in the seaside cave, which had proved to be a spacious and, because of a surging hot spring, surprisingly warm shelter. It lacked comforts, and the gaping mouth allowed the wintery wind to penetrate with cruel persistence, but Moreen was confident that the rest of her tribe was safe enough for the time being. Once they explored the ruin, the whole tribe could come up here.

“Why don’t I go ahead and have a look,” Tildey suggested. “If it’s clear, I’ll wave the rest of you forward.”

“No,” Moreen said, shaking her head firmly. “We’ll go together-if we find some ice bear making a den in there, it will be better to have twenty spears than one bow and arrow.”

No one dissented, so the chiefwoman led them over the crest of the little pass where they had stopped to make their observation. She looked up at the citadel, now rising to fill the whole view before them, and felt a vague sense of misgiving. There were dark holes all along the walls, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of menace, that something was staring down at them, watching, waiting. She wished that Dinekki was here to cast the spell of blessing she had bestowed before they attacked the thanoi, but the chiefwoman had decided that speed was important, and despite the shaman’s sturdy legs, it would have taken her much longer to make the climb to this elevation. Now, at least, they still had a little daylight.

Her misgivings were just nerves, she told herself. It was important to remember what this place offered to them: a real home, defensible against Highlanders or ogres, a place where her little tribe could not just survive but perhaps, one day, return to a life of peace and prosperity. Furthermore, after her conversation with the elf, her worries about dragons were finally laid completely to rest.

The path turned sharply to approach that great, gaping gate. They could see an empty courtyard, walls, and buildings rising beyond. A great stairway rose from the ground, providing access to the ramparts atop the wall and to a whole row of compartments-merely vacant doors and windows-that had apparently been excavated directly out of the mountainside.

Tildey and Nangrid carried bows and arrows and now, as if responding to an unseen command, each nocked and readied an arrow. Moreen’s hand tightened around her harpoon, while she checked to insure that the two extra weapons strapped to her back were still there, and easily accessible. She picked up her pace, trotting through the aperture of the gates and moving toward the center of the large courtyard. The walls rose on all sides, except for that gate, giving her a sense of being down in a well, looking upward for a glimpse of gray, leaden sky.

A few snowflakes scudded past, driven by the rising breeze. She sniffed, smelling the onset of winter, tainted by the smell of stale fish. Probably seagulls, she guessed. There were numerous openings leading into buildings placed all around the walls, though none of them had doors or shuttered windows in place.

“Look here,” called one of the Arktos warriors, Sanga, probing with her foot into a blackened pit near the gateway.

It was a fire scar, with chunks of burned logs sitting amid a heap of flattened, soaked ashes. “Cold,” she said, reaching down to touch the debris. Sanga pointed at the charcoaled logs, which still showed cracks from a not-terribly-distant burning.

“But this was a fire sometime over the last summer.”

“Be alert,” Moreen called. “Let’s stay together.”

She led them across the courtyard toward the wide stairway they had noticed from beyond the gates. With Bruni and Nangrid at her sides, the chiefwoman started up the steps, the rest of her warriors following in a loose formation.

“There!” hissed Tildey, pointing with her bow toward a shadow doorway across the courtyard, on the lower level. “Something moved.”

“All right. We’ll back down the stairs and check it out,” Moreen said.

Bruni, on the bottom step, now took the lead. Moreen cast a glance above, at the rim of that rampart. Her harpoon was light in her hand as she waited until the others had started down. Safely on the courtyard, the big woman started toward the door Tildey had indicated. Nangrid and Moreen started to descend backward, still facing the upper terrace.

In another instant attacking creatures were everywhere, woofing and roaring and charging, spilling out of every door, each shadowy alcove. The chiefwoman saw tusked faces, mouth gaping. Thanoi spilled across the upper terrace, lumbering toward the top of the steps, big feet slapping the flagstones. A big bull came first, pausing above to wave his heavy spear and roar. Moreen threw her weapon, catching the brute in the belly. Nangrid shot her arrow at another, grazing the beast’s shoulder, giving it a momentary pause before it started down the stairs.

Thanoi charged into the courtyard, a dozen or more coming from each of the two towers flanking the yawning gate. Tildey shot, dropping one, while Bruni raised her voice in an ululating yell and charged right at another of the growling tuskers. Her stone-headed axe came down hard, crushing the monstrous skull. Recovering quickly, she spun around and bashed another walrus-man aside, while Tildey calmly fired more arrows into the mob.

Now the tuskers were charging down the stairs in a great mass, three score or more, perhaps a hundred of them. Moreen threw her second harpoon, then skipped out of the way as the tusker pierced by her cast tumbled and writhed down the stone steps. Nangrid shot again, holding her ground as the chiefwoman started downward.

“Come on!” Moreen cried, and Nangrid turned to run. Spears clattered around them, a volley cast by the tuskers who roared down the steps toward them. Abruptly the archer’s eyes grew wide and she fell forward. Moreen reached to catch her companion but Nangrid toppled right past her, the stout shaft of a tusker spear jutting cruelly from her back.

The thanoi were right on top of her now, and the chiefwoman stabbed and thrust with her last harpoon, unwilling to cast it away. The attackers halted for a moment, and she backed down, past Nangrid’s motionless body. Moreen reached out a hand, but the tribeswoman made no move. A swath of crimson blood spilled from her chest, fanning out and slicking the stairs in a gruesome waterfall.

Biting back a sob, the chiefwoman stabbed again, slicing open a tusker’s belly. She cried out in rage as the brute fell atop Nangrid’s body, but she had no choice but to keep backing down the steps. More of the monsters charged, starting to move past her on both sides. Another spear flew from below, piercing the thigh of a huge walrus-man, and Moreen sprang down the last few steps to join her comrades on the floor of the courtyard.

They fought their way toward the gates, a desperate knot of Arktos in the midst of a teeming mass of enraged thanoi. It was only Tildey’s alarm that gave them any chance of escape. If the band of humans had reached the top of the stairs before the attack, they would have been surrounded and overwhelmed, for by far the greatest number of walrus-men had been waiting on the upper terrace.

Bruni led the way through the smaller throng of tuskers in the courtyard, bashing her axe first to one side, then the other. The thanoi attacked fanatically, but many of them fell, skulls or faces or shoulders crushed by her powerful blows, and gradually the rest fell back in the face of her inexorable onslaught. Tildey launched the last of her arrows and slung the bow over her shoulder, hacking and stabbing with her long-bladed knife.

Another Arktos fell-Marin, Feathertail’s young mother-and she too was lost in the mass of pursuing thanoi. Moreen thrust the harpoon again and again, clattering against tusks, puncturing leathery skin. Somehow she held the throng at bay, aided by the spears of several comrades.

They were through the gates, those who still lived, and here for a moment the Arktos arrayed in a dense line, spears and harpoons bristling as a wall. Moreen dreaded a massed charge, knowing that the tuskers could quickly overwhelm them with a sudden, brutal rush.

It seemed, though, that the monsters were content to have driven them from the citadel. At least, they hesitated for precious moments, many clasping hands to bleeding wounds, growling and snapping at the humans. Here and there knots of walrus-men clustered around ragged bodies, and Moreen’s eyes blurred with the awareness that six or eight of her warriors had perished in this shockingly sudden, brutal battle.

Finally the surviving warrior women turned from the gate, moving down the path at a trot, eyes warily watching the citadel for signs of pursuit. Still the walrus-men held their ground, jeering and snorting, clattering their spears together, slapping their flat feet against the ground.

The sounds were mocking and cruel, and they rang in Moreen’s ears all the way down the twisting, mountain trail.