Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [96]
Finally she began to understand the neighbors of her people, and in that knowledge, there was no fear, but rather an exciting kind of anticipation.
* * * * *
Yak, Beaknod, and Loinwrap made their gruff farewells to the rest of the tribe and then started for the shore. The great war chief, resplendent in his cat's-head cape with its grinning, fanged helm, desired to depart with little formality.
"Where do we go once we get in the boat?" asked granite-faced Loinwrap, none too enthusiastic about the impending voyage. Yet, as the strongest giant in the band, Loinwrap was indispensable to Yak's mission should they be received with other than open arms.
"To a place where men live," Yak replied. "There we tell them what has happened, so that they know it is not firbolgs who make war upon them!"
Earlier, Yildegarde had found a fishing boat of the northmen stored between concealing rocks. It had escaped the notice of the sahuagin, and thus the hull remained intact. Now the trio of males made their way to the little craft.
"This will carry us? In those waves?" inquired Beaknod, with an anxious look at the gray swells beyond the shore.
"Quit whining. You two come in case we fight, not so I have conversation, just like at my own hearth. Now let's go."
Awed by the leering skull of the beast and also by the knotting muscles in Yak's shoulders, the other two firbolgs complied. In moments, they cast the boat away from shore, and it was immediately seized by the wind.
Perhaps the goddess smiled slightly from the depths of her long sleep, for though the gales and storms raged around them, with swells rising like mountains on all sides, the three land-dwelling giants ran before the wind, riding a following sea to the southwest.
* * * * *
"I'm off to Callidyrr," announced the Earl of Fairheight as he broke his fast with his sons. "I depart before noon."
Hanrald, though he had overheard his father's plans the previous night, feigned surprise. "You'll carry word about the northmen, I presume?"
"What? Oh, of course," said his father, avoiding the knight's eyes. "Also I'll have a word with the queen regarding the excavations of Granite Ridge."
Hanrald wanted to shout his accusations, his suspicions, at his paternal lord, but he forced himself to hold his tongue. In the first place, he didn't know what accusations to make, and secondly he judged that the time was not yet right.
"I leave the tending of the estates in Gwyeth's care," continued Blackstone. "See that the dwarves don't slack off. They've been grumbling about the hours and the wages again! Enough of this and I'll send the whole bunch back to the Sword Coast and hire myself a new batch of engineers!"
Hanrald knew this to be an empty boast, for the Blackstone mines employed the most skilled tunnel-working dwarves found anywhere along the coast, or a thousand miles inland, for that matter. The trouble, in any event, was that the dwarves realized their worth and insisted on being compensated accordingly.
"And the Moonwell," said Blackstone, turning to address Gwyeth. "Send a squad of men up to that accursed pond. Have them log the cedars and burn the brush. I want these rumors of a miracle stopped!"
"Aye, Father," Gwyeth agreed, his eyes flashing.
"And you, Hanrald-the cooks tell me we have no venison. Go and slay us a stag."
"Certainly." The knight admired his father's ruse. Because of the disappearance of the cantrev's hounds, the hunt for deer would be a challenging and time-consuming one. The request would have kept him from Blackstone for some time-if he had had any intention of making it.
Hanrald found the discussion an interesting