The Messenger

4

She held the harpoon against the ground and remained utterly silent, completely still. Her quarry, a sleek, fat gulf seal, was sunning itself on a flat rock above the lapping surf, an instant’s wiggle away from deep water. Moreen knew that she would get one cast, and success or failure would determine whether sixty people had a substantial meal tonight, or-once again-would have to make do with a few greens plucked from the banks of the coastal streams and whatever shellfish and mussels they could scrape off the flat beach.

What would they do in the winter when the Sturmfrost descended upon them and survival out of doors became all but impossible? That question, had come to dominate her thoughts, but she roughly pushed her fears aside. Later she would try to find an answer for the future. Right now, she had to worry about tonight’s dinner.

With deliberate motions she advanced her right hand and the harpoon, then the left hand, then each knee in turn, crawling closer to her prey. Abruptly the seal lifted its head, dark eyes alert, one seeming to fix itself on the human woman who was still fifty feet away, too far away for an effective cast. Moreen heard barking from up the beach, other seals out of sight behind the rock, squabbling and complaining.

Finally her intended prey laid down its head once again to bask in the warmth of the midsummer sun. The huntress resumed her cautious approach, watching the tundra before her, careful not to scrape a rock or crush a brittle willow twig. The soft wind came off the sea, safely carrying her scent away from her quarry.

Inch by inch, foot by foot, she wormed her way closer … forty, now thirty feet. The flat coastal ground was so wet that water soaked right through her leather pants, and her knees felt cold and sodden. Her neck grew stiff from holding her head upright, but her alertness paid off. She froze just in time as the seal again lifted its head. This time, when the animal settled into its drowsy repose, she was ready to act.

Gradually, she rose up to a kneeling position, until her back was straight, her throwing hand cocked. The smooth stretch of the harpoon, with its keen ivory tip floating almost weightless before her, was parallel to the ground, at the same height as her ear.

Now all of her care, all of her skill, her hunger, her desperation, came into sharp focus. The target seemed to grow before her, a warm heart pulsing beneath that black, shiny coat, and for just a moment she felt a powerful connection, almost as if the seal’s blood was flowing through her body. She made a soundless prayer to Chislev, a whisper of gratitude for this opportunity, and a plea for steadiness and true aim.

She let fly. The harpoon sailed through the air even as the animal, alerted by the sound of her throw, flipped toward the water. The ivory head pierced the wriggling body, and Moreen sprang to her feet and hauled on the thin line wrapped around her wrist, the sturdy cord attached to the barbed head of the harpoon.

The seal was gone by the time she reached the rock, but when she looked in the water she saw that her aim had been true. The animal floated, lifeless, in a murk of blood. Quickly she pulled upward, wincing as the animal’s dead weight came free from the sea.

“Eighty pounds, I’ll bet you are,” Moreen said. “Thanks be to Chislev Wilder. The Arktos will eat well tonight.”

Only then did her eyes fall on the beach exposed behind this seal’s rocky perch. She was not surprised to see dozens of seals there-the sounds of their barking had suggested as much to her already. Surprisingly, though, several of them were very close to her vantagepoint. This seal had been killed cleanly and had died without barking a warning.

Swiftly she lowered herself to the ground, out of sight of the animals. Methodically she started to coil the cord. Taking only the time to clean the head of her harpoon, she started crawling forward again.

“Five more seals?” Bruni’s broad face split into a disbelieving grin. “Praise to Moreen Seal-Slayer!”

“They’re all gutted-about a half a mile up the coast, behind a big flat rock,” Moreen said, staggering under the load of the one animal she had carried back with her. Exhausted, she dropped the cleaned carcass and collapsed to the ground, suddenly feeling weak in every limb, every muscle.

“Rest yourself-we’ll get the others,” Bruni said cheerfully. “I’ll carry two. C’mon Tildey, Garta, Little Mouse. Let’s go get dinner.” The big woman pushed herself to her feet. Accompanied by her three willing helpers, she started up the shore at quick pace. From her waist, hung the heavy stone hammer she had found in the rubble of the village after the ogre attack. Since that day Bruni was never seen without her favorite weapon close to reach.

“Did you really get six seals?” asked Feathertail, wide-eyed, as she came up to stare at the gutted animal.

Moreen nodded tiredly. “Would you like to learn how to skin it?”

A cluck of sound drew Moreen’s attention. Dinekki was hobbling toward her, shaking her head and making a tsk-tsk noise over and over.

“She has to learn sometime,” Moreen said, wondering what the elderly shaman wanted.

“Well, of course she does,” Dinekki agreed readily, “but there are plenty of us who can teach her that. Why, I myself used to know how to use a skinning knife, before my hands got all knotted up like a sun-dried cord.” She inspected her wrinkled and knobby fingers with a scowl.

“Can I learn how to skin the seal?” Feathertail asked tentatively.

“Didn’t I just say you could?” snapped Dinekki, though an affectionate light in her eye softened the rebuke. “Hilgrid, you have a sharp knife, don’t you?”

Hilgrid, who was stretching out a pelt from the seal Moreen had killed yesterday, smiled and nodded. “Just a minute, Feather. I’ll show you how to do it. You know, if Moreen keeps hunting with so much success, I’m going to need to teach someone how to preserve these pelts also.”

“You,” Dinekki said, glaring down at Moreen, who wanted only to close her eyes and loll on the soft tundra for the last hour of daylight. “You must come with me.”

Knowing better than to argue, the huntress pushed herself to her feet and followed the shaman up a gentle slope, toward the small niche in a cliff wall, where the Arktos had collected the few meager belongings they had brought with them away from ravaged Bayguard.

Moreen sighed as she entered the scant shelter beneath the overhanging rock. She saw a pile of straight sticks off to the side, next to a stack of sealskin pelts, the few that had been overlooked by the ogre raiders. There were some skins full of fresh water, a couple of clay pots containing whale oil, a pile of ivory harpoon and spearheads that the survivors had scavenged from the broken weapons left behind by the attackers.

Just outside the shelter, three sealskins were drying on racks, pelts that had been cleaned and mounted by Hilgrid from animals that Moreen had stalked during the past two weeks. During that time, ever since the tribe had abandoned their ancestral home and moved to this rocky enclave ten miles up the coast, they had managed to increase their reserve of food supplies. Moreen’s hunting prowess, Tildey’s skill with the bow, and the wealth of bounty from the sea and beach, had yielded perhaps twice as much provender as the tribe needed for the short term, but it was still not enough for the long, hard winter ahead.

“How are we ever going to last the winter!” Moreen declared, trying unsuccessfully to keep the despair out of her voice.

“There are some who say we should go back to Bayguard, try and make shelter from the ruins of our houses,” Dinekki said, neutrally. “Or go live in the Hiding Hole.”

Moreen’s face flushed, and she shook her head violently. Her mind burned with the memory of her mother, staked to the ground by an ogre spear, and of her father whimpering and thrashing and dying.

“That place is cursed forever!” she snapped. “The ghosts of our ancestors will stalk the winter night there!”

Dinekki nodded, still noncommittal. “Truly, the ogres left us so little that I can see no benefit to returning there, even if the ghosts choose to leave us alone.”

Moreen turned to look outward, her gaze falling across the Arktos who were gathered across the flowered hillside below. The blue water of the gulf sparkled beyond. Here and there young children played, while several women stood along the banks of a nearby creek, fishing spears raised. A few of the elders scoured the beach, collecting such clams and crabs as they could, protein-rich morsels that would add variety and nourishment to the tribe’s diet.

“We’re finding enough to eat, day by day,” she said quietly. “Now we’ll have some extra seal-meat-some to smoke and preserve for winter. But I would have to kill six seals every day to store up enough food for the winter, even if we manage to find shelter from the Sturmfrost. You and I both know what our chances are like!”

“Yes, we know these things, and other things as well,” replied the shaman. “We know that it was a very good thing that Redfist Bayguard taught his daughter how to hunt. We know that we were fortunate that you were up on the hill, that you saw the ogre ship in time to for many of us to reach the Hiding Hole-”

“Time for what?” demanded Moreen. “So that we can starve and freeze in the cold season, instead of perishing swiftly under ogre spears?” She saw the old woman stiffen and she immediately regretted her harsh tone. “I’m sorry, Grandmother,” she said meekly. “I do not rebuke you, I rebuke myself.”

“A good thing that is,” clucked Dinekki, “else I should be tempted to rebuke you back, and I am getting too old for such foolish exertion.”

“You asked me to come up here. What did you want?” Moreen said, feeling weariness wash over her again.

“Fill this bowl with water, clean water,” Dinekki said, gesturing toward one of the ceramic vessels, “and bring it over to me.”

By the time Moreen had followed the shaman’s instructions, Dinekki had started a small fire, using nothing but rocks for fuel. Her fire-magic was a gift of the goddess Chislev, Moreen knew, and it was a power that the tribe relied on heavily in their unforested land, where wood was precious and rare.

The old woman sat cross-legged before her blaze, her eyes closed, her toothless gums mumbling some kind of chant that seemed more like half-chewing and half-grunting. Moreen sat down on the other side of the fire, holding the water bowl patiently, knowing enough not to interrupt Dinekki’s concentration.

“What is your question?” Dinekki asked abruptly, without opening her eyes.

“My question?” Moreen was caught off guard. “I have lots of questions!”

“What is your question?” repeated the shaman, holding out her hands, swaying her head back and forth while she continued chewing and grunting.

Moreen handed the bowl across the fire, letting the flames warm her hands for a moment, and thought carefully before she replied.

“How can we make ourselves safe before the advent of the Sturmfrost?”

Instantly Dinekki inverted the bowl, sending the water cascading across the fire to spatter and sizzle on the rocks. A cloud of steam billowed up, moist warmth enveloping the two women, wetting Moreen’s skin and suddenly obscuring her vision.

“Look!” urged the shaman. “Look into the vapor. Tell me what you see!”

Moreen wanted to cry out, to object that all she could see was a cloud of stinging steam, but then her eyes discerned vague shapes, white tufts of vapor bending and curling unnaturally. The steam flowed away, formed a column trailing up the coast. “It’s heading north, I see,” she said. She saw a wrinkled face glaring at her from inside the mist, brutish eyes perched above a broad snout and two long, curling tusks. “I see a thanoi,” she added quickly.

“A direction, and a warning,” Dinekki said grimly. “There is danger on our path, danger from the walrus-men. Look more, and remember what you see!”

“I see a wrinkled line, bending around, twisting this way and that. It’s a pathway, water on one side, hills on the other … this coast!” Moreen recognized the bay where she had lived all of her life, where she had watched her parents die, and, following the line of shore northward toward their shallow cave, she noted the flat beach where she had just slain the seals.

“What is the coast telling you?” Dinekki pressed.

Straining her eyes to see into the murk, the younger woman watched an image take shape. “The picture … leads northward along the coastline,” she said. “To the farthest hunting grounds ever mapped.… I see trees … a whole forest of them.… It must be Tall Cedar Bay! My father took me there, once.”

“Keep looking. Do you see all the way to Ice End?”

Ice End was the legendary end of the world, the place where the rocky terrain of Icereach plunged into deep gray ocean waters, leading only to limitless and uncharted roiling waves.

Even as these thoughts assailed her, she realized that the magical image was not taking her so far north as that terminus. “I see a sparkle of yellow, golden light on the coast … a glimpse of a smoking mountain. Farther down, I see sparks of red, flaring here and there. And more … steam?” She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but it wasn’t steam she was seeing. “No, it’s a picture of steam, of warmth rising up from the ground!”

Dinekki nodded. With her harrumph the vapors, the steam of the shaman’s casting, faded into the air, wafting from the shelter on a tiny breath of breeze, leaving Moreen feeling strangely hot and breathless. She looked at the older woman quizzically.

“What does the vision mean?”

“It means,” the shaman said with no trace of hesitation, “that you must lead us northward along the coast. Our hopes for survival will be found where you saw the golden light.”

“Steam coming out of the ground? What is that supposed to mean?” Moreen had never heard of such a thing.

“Remember the old legends,” Dinekki chided. “The tales you learned as a little girl.”

“I remember the tale of Ice End, the stormy point at the end of the world. Another story says Ice End is not the real end of the world but the beginning of something else. Is that what you mean?” Somewhere to the far north, according to the legends of her girlhood, there was vast land, a place where ogres and humans lived among dwarves, elves, and giants, all squabbling for control. “How can Ice End save us?”

“Yes, how?” echoed the shaman.

Another childhood story came back to her, a vague legend dismissed by some elders. “I remember hearing about a place, a citadel where the Arktos once dwelled, protected from ogres by a gate, by hall walls … a place that was warm even through the long winter, snug and safe against the Sturmfrost. That was the place the people once lived, long before the Scattering.”

“Brackenrock,” Dinekki confirmed with a pleased nod. “The place that was heated by steam, steam that burst forth from frozen ground.”

“Surely that place isn’t real?”

“Better to ask, where is this place?’ ” the shaman retorted sharply.

“Are you saying that it really exists-a place where we could be warm, even in the depths of the Sturmfrost?”

“Aren’t you listening?”

She tried to think. “I remember the old song. It was something about serpents breathing fire. Yes-crimson monsters flying from the sky. They came and claimed Brackenrock for themselves, and the tribe fled, spreading across all of Icereach.”

Finally Dinekki’s lips crinkled into a hint of a smile. “Yes. I sang that song to you and some of the others when you were but babies. I had hopes that you, of them all, might remember my song.”

“How did the song go? Was there really a place called Brackenrock, where monsters drove our ancestors away?”

Dinekki nodded. “They were called dragons, dragons of red scales. They came from the north, and claimed the fortress Brackenrock for their own, as comfort against the Sturmfrost. They breathed fire and killed many of our people. The rest, ancestors to you and me, they drove from the ancient citadel, scattering them across Icereach. This is a true song.”

“No one alive has ever seen these red dragons!”

“Nor white dragons or dragons of any other color, either. Yet it is believed that at the time of the Scattering there were other dragons here, as well … dragons of white. Such serpents relished the cold and were the masters of Icereach until the red dragons, which were even mightier in power, came.”

“If these red dragons mastered the whites and drove our ancestors from Brackenrock, what makes you think it would be safe or wise to go back there?”

“Because,” Dinekki said with a wink, and a sly smile, “I think there are no more dragons. I think they are gone from the world. All this was long, long ago.”

Moreen snorted skeptically, but she was intrigued. “Why do you think this?”

“Well, there are many beasts of legend recounted among our people. There are stories of ogres, that we know to be true. The Ice Worm, called Remorhaz-my own father saw one-it killed his brother and two companions. Also we know of great bears-even have a proof of the black bear, slain by your own great-grandfather. But dragons? Even old Chantarik, who was an ancient shaman when I was a girl, had never heard of anyone who had glimpsed them. Oh, to be sure they existed, once. They must have, from all the stories and songs, but by my reckoning they vanished from Krynn many lifetimes ago.”

“Are you sure enough to lead us to this legendary place?”

“Oh, you will do the leading. Brackenrock is a real place, and closer to here than Ice End. There might be danger there, and we might never reach the place, but it is a worthy goal, worth the chance.”

“And the dragons?”

“In my spell I sought dragons, and found only ancient bone and scattered remains of scales. Chislev revealed to me that there are no dragons in Brackenrock. I do not know about the rest of the world.”

“But …” Even as she spoke, Moreen knew that she had already accepted Dinneki’s challenge. “What about the thanoi?” she asked.

Dinekki shrugged. “There will be danger. We will know more about the danger when we encounter it. Now, the question is this: Are you prepared to lead the Arktos on such a march to Brackenrock?”

“Yes,” Moreen declared with sudden, honest hope. “Yes, I am.”

For the time being she did not speak of their ultimate destination but instead encouraged the tribe to simply keep heading north. Everyone knew there were groves of trees in the north, and with the goal of Tall Cedar Bay as shelter-and as a source of limitless firewood-the Arktos continued their journey with all the speed and enthusiasm Moreen could desire.

The little tribe made its way roughly parallel to the coast, sometimes marching inland to follow hillcrests around the boggy salt marshes that were so common along the Icereach shore. At other times they came down from the heights to march along the smooth beach. The months of the midnight sun were waning. Though daylight lingered for many hours each day, the sun remained close to the northern horizon, the light often filtering through a haze of clouds and mist.

A few of the women-usually Moreen, Bruni, and Tildey, though a score of others took turns in this job as well-proceeded the tribe by a half mile, roaming with care, searching the route for signs of danger. Seven days after departing their temporary cave, they had encountered nothing more belligerent than an aggressive bull seal that didn’t care to allow trespassers on its beach. That brief combat yielded a dinner of rich, fresh meat and a large, handsome pelt to add to the tribe’s growing bundle of furs.

Spirits were high. The day after they battled the big seal, they came upon a small group of Arktos, survivors from the Goosepond Clan. These told a tale much similar to the Bayguards-the ogres in their great rowing ship had set upon them from the sea, killing many, carrying others away as prisoners. The fifteen Goosepond women and children were nearly starved and gratefully accepted the comfort and company of Moreen’s clan. After partaking of a fine feast, they joined in the northward trek.

“We’re lucky, in a way, that the ogres left us so little,” Dinekki said with a wry chuckle as she joined Moreen on a rocky headland and gazed ahead at the approaching stretch of shoreline. “Otherwise, how would we carry it all?”

Though she hobbled awkwardly, her posture bent, her weight supported by her staff, the old shaman never showed signs of slowness or age. The coast was rugged and precipitous, and again and again they had to curve inland to avoid the steep-walled ravines that regularly plunged to the sea.

Moreen looked back at the file of her people, carrying their waterskins and few weapons. They carried dried meat suspended on sticks, while some of the stronger females carried bulky bundles of furs, in addition to the few spears and harpoons they had saved.

They started along a pathway that followed the edge of a high bluff. Moreen’s eyes drifted toward the horizon, where the setting sun lingered. All too soon, she knew, that warm orb would vanish for the long, dark winter, and within days of that disappearance they would face the brutal, lethal onslaught of the Sturmfrost.

She couldn’t help but wonder: Would the Arktos ever see another spring?

Bruni came up to join them, the big woman actually dwarfed by the great pack on her shoulders. Still, she climbed the hill with an easy, rolling gait and pointed inland as soon as she joined her two tribemates. “Look there,” she said, with an urgency that broke through Moreen’s reverie.

“What?”

“Men … six of them, just coming onto the next summit.”

Moreen saw them now, little spots of movement with pale, heavily bearded faces and fur cloaks that blended smoothly into the brown terrain. “Highlanders!” she guessed, as one of the men raised a hand in a slow, ceremonial wave. “They want to parley.”

The man who had gestured broke away from his companions and hastened down the slope of the hill with one of his fellows advancing a few steps behind. The other four remained standing, watching from the summit.

“Come with me,” Moreen said, starting down from their own elevation at a pace she calculated would meet the Highlander at the shallow stream below. Bruni descended too, as her escort. As the strangers drew closer, Moreen saw that the first man was wearing a large wolfskin cloak. The head of the creature, with jaws split to bare white teeth, rested as a cap on his skull. Eyes of golden nuggets gleamed from the animal’s sockets, while the man’s face was masked by a beard of rusty red. His hair, in two long braids of the same color, dangled from beneath the wolfjaw cap all the way down his muscular chest.

The Highlander halted on the bank of the opposite stream, and Moreen came to a stop just across the quiet, shallow waterway. The second man, who bore a heavy spear and a shield, stood a few paces behind his leader, while Bruni quietly took the same position behind the chieftain’s daughter.

“Greetings. I am called Lars Redbeard of Guilderglow.” The Highlander’s accent was thick but intelligible, his tone friendly but neutral. “I bring you salutations from Strongwind Whalebone, King of Icereach.”

Moreen snorted contemptuously at the thought of anyone arrogant enough to consider himself king of all the known world. “I am Moreen Seal-Slayer of the Arktos. What does Strongwind Whalebone have to say to me?”

Lars bowed stiffly. “Strongwind Whalebone has heard of the sufferings faced by your tribe. He knows of the ogre cruelty, and he wants you to come to him in Guilderglow. He commands an audience.”

“Commands?” Moreen’s temper flared. “Who is he, to give me commands? Tell your ‘king’-” she spat the world with clear mockery “-that I take orders from no one, not ogre nor Highlander.”

“No!” Lars Redbeard looked dismayed, and shook his head. “You don’t understand. He wants to talk-”

“He can talk all he wants to!” she replied, infuriated, “but he should not dare to presume I will listen! We are proud Arktos and Goosepond people. Now, get out of our way-and let us continue on our path!”

“I cannot tell him this!” the emissary protested.

“Tell him to come here, and I will tell him myself!” snapped Moreen. Trembling in rage, she turned her back and left the Highlander gaping in disbelief.