“They say you wear a ring into battle,” said the Highlander with forced casualness. “That it brings a madness of war upon you. I have seen the madness but confess to wondering about the ring.”

Kerrick shrugged. He had not talked of his ring with anyone but Moreen. Still, the humans knew of it, certainly. He thought about how to reply.

“Not a madness of war. More of a madness of need or desire, I would say. I know that when I take the ring off, there are times when I would almost kill someone just to be able to put it on again. I don’t use the ring very often. I can’t let myself. It has too much power.”

“I know that feeling,” said the berserker. “When the spell of war and fighting comes upon me, it’s as though I then-and only then-truly come to life. All the rest of existence is just some pale charade.”

“But you enjoy the peaceful side of life too, don’t you?” pressed the elf, disturbed by the conversation. Randall had always struck him as one of the most serenely contented people he knew-a boon companion around a campfire-eerily transformed by the battle madness.

“Endure more than enjoy,” said the Highlander frankly. “I know that when I die, I want to die with the madness upon me, in my eyes, ruling my mind.”

The elf nodded, acutely conscious of the ring in his sea chest, feeling the desire to get it and put it on right now. Despite the longing, he stayed where he was, fighting off the almost physical urge of temptation. “May the gods see that day a long way off,” he said.

“Aye. Or perhaps it will be soon,” Randall replied, with apparent good cheer. Again he leaned back and started to whistle, forgetting all about Kerrick.

The cabin door opened, and Moreen emerged to stretch in the small cockpit. “I’ll go forward and have a look around,” she offered. With lithe grace she scrambled up the ladder to the cabin roof, flexing her knees to keep her balance as the sailboat coursed over the rough water.

“What’s that?” the chiefwoman asked suddenly, pointing.

“What?” asked the elf, seeing nothing unusual.

“Something floating on the top of a waves… like a boat. At least, I don’t think it was a rock, or an island.”

“What direction?” Kerrick queried, standing and looking past the cabin as they came over the next crest.

“Just to port,” Moreen said. “I don’t see it now.”

“That doesn’t mean there’s nothing there,” Kerrick replied, alertly. “In a sea like this, you’ll only see another boat when you’re both on top of the waves at the same time. Keep looking.”

He took the tiller and used it to slowly adjust the course, bringing them directly into line with Moreen’s sighting. A minute later she cried out. “There it is again-it’s something, for sure. Not a boat, though… wait, it’s a ship! The ogre galley, and it’s heading straight toward us!”

* * * * *

“Close on them-crush them!” Grimwar howled, in a frenzy of exultation. He gestured madly, exhorting more strength from the muscles of his oarsmen. “Row like the wind, you dogs!”

He paced back and forth on the observation platform, clapping one fist into his other palm. He gazed forward, saw the elf’s sailboat bobbing plainly several miles ahead among the tossing waves.

Already the cursed elf was turning, using the full sail to catch the wind, propelling the little boat into birdlike speed.

“Gonnas curse him and all his children-he’s getting away!” roared the monarch.

“Have faith, Husband,” chided Stariz, scrambling awkwardly up the ladder to the platform. She took a magisterial stance beside the king, glaring into the distance as Grimwar stalked impotently back and forth.

“Now-may the power of Gonnas strike this wind from the sky!” This was Stariz the high priestess speaking, booming out a full-throated prayer that resounded over the wave-lashed sea. Her arms were spread wide. “Smite the very air, O Willful One, and cripple the flight of your enemies!”

As Grimwar watched her dubiously, Stariz whipped her arms upward and swirled them over her head. The ogre king felt a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the weather. He heard an ominous muffling of noise, as if the very hand of Gonnas had come down to cup them, to cover the whole of the sea under its protective dome.

Within that invisible and immortal shelter, to Grimwar’s astonishment, the wind died away to nothing.

* * * * *

“They must be coming from Dracoheim-I’d bet my gold on it!” Kerrick said excitedly. “We must outrun them, then backtrack their course-that should lead us directly to the island. In this wind, we can escape without a problem.”

The great ogre ship, maybe five miles away now, came on steadily but was clearly no match for the sailboat’s nimble fleetness. Randall and Strongwind had gone to the high gunwale, where they added their weight as ballast, leaning outward to keep the sailboat racing through the choppy seas, countering the straining sails as the boat pulled along sharply with the powerful force of air.

All of a sudden the boat heeled violently, almost throwing the two men into the water. They scrambled onto the deck, pulled themselves up as Cutter lurched and slowed. In seconds the boat was rocking listlessly. The frothy whitecaps had vanished, and the sails now hung limply, like so many useless sheets drying on a line.

“What happened?” asked the amazed Highlander king.

“The wind has died!” Kerrick declared. He glanced around, saw that waves were still rolling, but that the air had grown utterly still. “But how-it’s not possible!”

“No, not possible,” Moreen agreed worriedly, making her way to the top of the cabin and gazing at the galley bearing in on them. “Unless it is magic of some kind.”

Kerrick’s heart pounded in his chest as he peered at the sky. “Well, we’d better hope the magic wanes and the wind starts up again, or we’re doomed,” he said hoarsely, holding up a hand, groping for the touch of even a faint gust.

But there was no wind.

19

Shrouds

“At last that blasted elf they call the Messenger is mine!” cried the ogre king, exultant as he saw that his oar-powered galley was closing upon the wind-powered craft. “Row faster!” he called to his oarsmen, even as the wooden blades slapped the water with increasing speed. “Give them all your strength, my brutes, and victory will be ours!”

Goldwing surged like a great, water-borne predator, closing on helpless prey. It seemed as though the ship reflected the ogre impulse in its hull, keel, and deck and leaped ahead in response to the eagerness of her master. “Yes, Sire-we will crush them!” cried Stariz enthusiastically, still standing with her arms outspread. Her eyes were open and glazed in a religious trance. Near the stern Argus Darkand shouted out a frenzied cadence, and the drummer pounded his drum. The ogres pulling the oars maintained their impressive pace with strong strokes, the hull sliding even faster through the smooth and windless waves.

“Straight ahead!” Grimwar ordered. He stared at the sailboat, every feature of which he hated-the teak deck, the smooth hull, the low cabin and the vast sheets of white canvas. He was thrilled to see those sails hanging utterly limp, useless. The boat looked crippled, like a duck that had fallen, broken-winged, into a pond.

“Full speed! Make for the middle of the hull-we’ll smash the boat to kindling and haul the elf aboard as a captive of the crown!”

The king’s mind whirled, savoring the tortures and torments he could inflict upon this prisoner, the troublesome outlander who had made himself an enemy of the throne. There would be pokers to heat, barbed hooks to sharpen that would, very slowly, rend the elven flesh.