"Could be, but we cant count on it. Still, the snow might give us a chance to cover our tracks. Let's go."
Robyn turned to the faerie dragon. "You didn't happen to see anything we could use for shelter, did you? Near here?"
Newt shook his head. "You mean like a house? Or a castle? Nah... there's nothing around here but the ruins of that big firbolg lair we burned down."
"Ruins?" Pawldo's eyes lighted. "Where? How far?"
"Oh, not far/' Newt replied, shrugging. "In fact, they're just
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over the next patch of water. But why do?
"Is there enough left of them that we could take shelter there?" asked Tristan.
"I should say not!" Newt sniffed at the very thought. "Why, it's damp and drafty, and there's soot all over the tunnels, and it's stiff huge. I can't imagine why you'd even think of such a thing!"
"It's better than these naked trees! Can you lead us there?" Tristan tried to direct the dragon's attention.
"What? Oh, sure. But, hey, aren't we going to have something to eat first? I'm starved! I suppose you guys sat around here all afternoon and took it easy, but I've been?
"The ruins! Take us there now! Then you can eat!"
"Humph! No need to get angry about it. I guess too much rest can do that to a person. All right, all right. I'll take you there!"
The snowstorm continued to grow in fury as the party once again plodded into the fens. Tristan hoped that the dragon was right and that there was enough left of the firbolg stronghold to provide them some shelter. Though the deathbirds remained invisible somewhere in the storm, the king knew that they were doomed unless they gained protection from the snow and wind beside the warmth of a fire.
Thick snow swirled in an eddy, gathering against a sheer rock wall. The drift grew quickly, covering the narrow shelf to a depth of several feet. Above, a craggy face of granite soared upward and disappeared into the night. Below yawned a vast chasm.
The only movement here was the endless shifting and blustering of the snow. But then came a more solid motion, and a figure appeared, climbing slowly along the steep shelf. It walked upright, like a human, yet it was heavily muffled in a cape of thick fur. It left manlike footprints with its high, thick boots, but these footprints quickly vanished under the persistent onslaught of fresh snow.
Darkness was almost complete, yet this figure walked
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with precise steps along the very edge of the precipice. When it reached the high drift, two mitten-covered hands emerged from the cape. The figure took a blunt, hoelike object from its back and quickly cut a footpath through the drift. It followed the path as it was cut, and even as the snow drifted across the path behind it, the figure emerged on the other side of the drift and continued up the ledge.
Finally it stood at the crest of a sheer ridge, where the full force of the north wind carried the snow up the far side. Ducking against the increased force of the gale, the figure began to descend. Moving steadily through the night, as the snow grew deeper, it pushed its way down the high mountain ridge and into the still snowy but less windy reaches below.
The snow lay heavy on the low country, drifting into deeper and deeper piles. Here the figure paused and awkwardly reached beneath its cape to pull forth a pair of snowshoes. Attaching these to its feet, it shuffled onward, still making slow, steady progress against the storm.
The body was entirely cloaked in fur梩he fur of winter garments. Only a pair of wide eyes, with large brown pupils, were visible beneath the furs, and even those eyes peered from the depths of a fur-lined hood and woolen scarf.
All night, and into the white dawn, the figure never once stopped to rest or eat or drink. It followed an unmarked trail, somehow finding its course through a snowy wasteland of leafless trees and barren hills.
Then it climbed across a broad, snow-swept hillside and found a wide path entering a hilltop grotto, concealed by high limestone walls and somewhat sheltered from the violence of the storm. Here, in this small vale in the hills, the traveler finally paused.
Here it stood still for some minutes, looking around the grotto. Finally the figure pushed through a drift of snow higher than its head to reach a niche in one of the limestone walls. And there it found what it sought.
The traveler knelt beside another creature, this one a great white horse, now blood-spattered and torn. The stal-
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lion's flanks were still and its eyes were closed, but a wisp of steam emerged faintly from its bloody nostrils.
The traveler removed the mittens, revealing humanlike hands that were very slender, with long, narrow fingers. Gingerly those fingers reached for the stallion's head.
The Starling rounded the head of Oman's Isle and at last raced with the wind. She leaped foaming crests of gray sea in her eagerness to make the shelter of Iron Bay. There, in the most powerful bastion of the northmen inhabitants of the Moonshaes, Koll and Gwen would certainly find shelter from the ravenous hordes that had fallen upon their home.
At least, that was the plan. Koll guided the little vessel through rough seas that he knew heralded the first storms of winter. The pair had eaten no food in two days and had drunk the last of their water twelve hours ago. Not until the Iron Keep hove into view did he allow himself a measure of optimism, but finally it looked as though they would make safe landfall.
The fortress loomed high above the bay. The dark stone of its walls gave it the reddish-black hue that had provided its name. Though not truly made of metal, the Iron Keep's walls were hard and its position unassailable. It had stood for a hundred years as a symbol of northern might, and no doubt would stand a hundred more.
Koll and Gwen, far from shore in the bay, could not see the cleric Hobarth poised beneath the walls of the fortress. Nor could they see the masses of undead swarming from all across Oman's Isle to finally converge upon the fortress. They were not aware of the Claws of the Deep emerging from the shore of Iron Bay to march upon the fortress from seaward.
And they could not hear the words of Hobarth's powerful chanting as he called upon the might of his god to lend power to the cleric's most awesome spell: the earthquake.
But they saw the effects.
Dumbstruck, the pair watched the high wall of the Iron Keep crack, crumble, and fall before their eyes. A breach a
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hundred feet across fell open, and Koll and Gwen could see the massive army crawling into that breach to meet the thin line of northmen who recovered from the disaster in time to take up arms.
The result of the battle was perhaps not preordained, but il may as well have been. Thousands of attackers poured into the breach, to be met by hundreds of defenders. The defenders could not stand, nor did they.
The Starling bobbed to a halt in the choppy waters of the bay as her two passengers fell silent, stunned observers of the end. Nor did they turn about until flames had erupted from every part of the castle, ample proof of evil's triumph.
"And where can we go now? What is left to us?" demanded Gwen.
"We can't return to Gwynneth. We've seen what awaits on that shore." Koll did not consider the possibility of landing in southern Gwynneth. The Ffolk of Corwell were every bit as much the enemy to him as were the Claws of the Deep. "Likewise we have seen the fate of Oman's Isle梠ur fate, to be sure, if we make landfall here.
"I see but one choice. We shall sail on to Norland. There, if that land has been spared the fates of these, we shall find help. King Grunnarch the Red rules there, and his vengeance will be terrible when he hears of these outrages."
He did not mention that, to get to Norland, they must sail without provisions into the teeth of the first winter storm across the breadth of the Sea of Moonshae.
Oh, yes, all this in a boat not meant to sail beyond the sight of land.
Wide yellow eyes watched the circling of the flock, but Shantu did not move toward the grotto. The beast, with an unnatural patience, waited for the chance to slay a lone member of the party. One by one, they would die, but there was plenty of time.
Shantu saw the flock depart and then return. It heard the screams of the horses, and the beast sensed that its prey had departed. With stealth and speed, it loped around the
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hill and found the chute into the Fens of the Fallen.
Here, though the companions had traveled through water, in many places leaving no physical trail, the displacer beast again took up the trail. Slipping silently through the chill mire, now a thing of the swamp, Shantu moved quickly in order to close with its prey.
Then came the wind and the snow and the storm. This, of all things, was hateful to the beast, for it was a creature of blackness and fire. Shantu growled into the face of the wind, but the weather blustered even harder. Finally the storm did what neither fatigue nor hunger had been able to do: It forced the displacer beast to seek shelter and delay its hunt.
Shantu found the root cluster of a massive tree, recently fallen, and it curled up in this slight protection, still snarling its rage against the storm. The killing, for now, would have to wait. . . .
"Throw another stick on the fire," suggested Pawldo lazily, leaning back against a slab of rock and wiggling his hairy toes at the very fringes of the fire. "Oh, yeah!" He watched tendrils of steam curl upward from his feet.
"It hurts to thaw them out again, but I love it!" the bard agreed as her own feet absorbed the welcome warmth of the blaze.
They had found a large chamber, partially underground and completely insulated against the wind and snow, in the ruins of the firbolg lair. Though the inferno they had created梞ore than a year earlier, upon their escape from this place梙ad damaged it heavily, destroying the wooden beams that had supported the stones, much of the original structure remained intact. Stone ceiling tiles rested upon solid stone or earthen walls, creating long passages without obstruction. The larger rooms had all collapsed, and in places the corridors were blocked with piles of rubble, but much of the stronghold remained habitable.
An interconnecting network of passages remained, sheltered by the huge stones of the fortress that had fallen in
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upon themselves. Some of the fortress had been underground, and those tunnels remained virtually intact. After a little exploring, they had come upon a large room connected to the outside by a winding corridor, with several other passages apparently leading to the depths of the building. The deathbirds remained outside the narrow entrance, perched in the branches of nearby trees.
This roomy chamber had been the best of many they had discovered. It had a slow but steady draft that carried the smoke from the room, and yet it was far enough from the outside that the light of the fire would be invisible to anyone beyond the walls of the lair. And now the fire had generated enough coals to warm the chamber appreciably.
Robyn and Tristan, too, massaged their numbed feet beside the fire. The moorhound lay sound asleep, curled between them and unmindful of the steam sizzling from his drenched coat. Yak snored loudly in a corner of the chamber, and Newt had gone off somewhere to explore the ruins.
"I suppose we'd better wake him when his fur starts to singe," Robyn said with a smile, gesturing at the dog.
Tristan nodded. Weariness flowed through his body as he relaxed for the first time in days. "I never thought I'd be glad to see this place again!"
"Nor I. We were glad enough to get away the first time! I only wish Yazilliclick had turned up. I fear for him."
"Yes." Tristan felt a wave of melancholy. He thought of the good friends he had had, and lost, in the time since they had first discovered this lair and he had gained the Sword of Cymrych Hugh. Keren, the master bard, who had died in the fight against Kazgoroth the Beast. Hugh O'Roarke, bandit lord of CaUidyrr, fallen in the battle against the High King. And of course, Daryth.
"Hey, you guys! Get up! Let's go exploring!" Newt darted into their chamber from one of the side passages. "There's all kinds of tunnels, and a deep well?Oh, and there's a bunch of dead firbolgs that got squished when the place? He stopped suddenly, with a guilty look at Yak, but the giant snored on.
"I don't think we're going anywhere for a while," groaned
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Hobyn. "My feet are finally getting warm and dry again, and I'm keeping them that way for as long as \ can!"
"Awww! You guys are no fun at all! Say, what's for supper? Didn't you say we could eat after we found shelter?"
Newt eagerly dove at a piece of hardtack, seizing the dried biscuit and chewing contentedly. Despite his bluster and humor, his color had faded to a bluish green, and Tristan saw him glance frequently toward the entrance. Even the faerie dragon was worried about Yazilliclick.
"How far is it to the grove of the Great Druid? That's where the druids are now, right?" lavish asked Robyn.
"It used to be two days march or so to Myrloch and along the eastern shore, about halfway up the vale. Now, what with blizzards and gas fissures and tar pits, I don't know how long it will take."
"And what will we do when we get there?"
Tristan had wondered about the same thing for some time.
"I assume that things have gotten worse since last I saw the Moonwell. At that time, the surviving druids of the vale, a score or so of them, had been frozen into stone statues by the power of the goddess. It was either that or face death at the hands of zombies and walking skeletons under the command of the evil cleric.
"Now, with the extent of the corruption through the vale, I can only guess that the Moonwell itself has been desecrated. It is the spiritual heart of the islands, and only through it could enough power be channeled to cause destruction on the scope we're seeing."
"But how do we face something that powerful?" Tristan didn't like the odds.
"I have a single hope, found in the scrolls the northman gave me. Those parchments, the Scrolls of Arcanus, contain secrets of ancient clerical lore. They were scribed by a cleric of another goddess, called Chauntea. But many of the tenets of her faith are very close to those of the Earthmother. Included among them are the mastery of the four elements!"
