The Pirate King

CHAPTER 23

 

  BECOMING ONE

  H e stood against the snow.

  It was not a gentle tumble of flakes, as with the previous storm, but a wind-whipped blizzard of stinging ice and bitter cold.

  He didn't fight it. He accepted it. He took it into himself, into his very being, as if becoming one with the brutal surroundings. His muscles tensed and clenched, forcing blood into whitened limbs. He squinted, but refused to shut his eyes against the blow, refused to turn any of his senses off to the truth of Icewind Dale and the deadly elements - deadly to strangers, to foreigners, to weak southerners, to those who could not become one with the tundra, one with the frozen north wind.

  He had defeated the spring, the muddy melt, when a man could disappear into a bog without a trace.

  He had defeated the summer, the gentlest weather, but the time when the beasts of Icewind Dale came out in force, seeking food - and human flesh was a delicacy to most - to feed their young.

  His defeat of autumn neared completion, with the first cold winds and first brutal blizzards. He had survived the brown bears, seeking to fatten their bellies before settling into their caves. He had survived the goblins, orcs, and orogs that challenged him for the meager pickings on the last hunt of the caribou.

  And he would defeat the blizzard, the wind that could freeze a man's blood solid in his limbs.

  But not this man. His heritage wouldn't allow it. His strength and determination wouldn't allow it. Like his father's father's father's father before him, he was of Icewind Dale.

  He didn't fight the northwestern wind. He didn't deny the ice and the snow. He took them in as a part of himself, for he was greater than a man. He was a son of the tundra.

  For hours he stood unmoving on a high rock, muscles braced against the wind, snow piling around his feet, then his ankles, then his long legs. The whole world became a dreamlike haze as ice covered his eyes. His hair and beard glistened with icicles, his heavy breath filled the air before him with fog, the cloud fast smashed apart by the driving pellets of ice and snow.

  When he at last moved, even the howl of the wind could not muffle the sound of crunching and cracking. A deep, deep breath broke him free of the frozen natural shirt of ice, and he extended his arms out to his sides, hands clenching powerfully as if he were grasping and crushing the storm around him.

  He threw his head back, staring up into the gray ceiling of heavy clouds, and let out a long, low roar, a primal grumble that came from his belly and denied Icewind Dale its prize.

  He was alive. He had beaten the storm. He had beaten three seasons and knew that he was ready for the fourth and most trying.

  Though piled to his thighs, the snow slowed him hardly at all as his powerful muscles drove him along. He stalked down the trails of the rocky hill, stepping sure-footed across patches bare of snow but thick with ice, and pounding right through the drifts, some taller than his nearly seven foot frame, as easily as a sword slashing a sheet of dried old parchment.

  He came to the ledge above the entrance to a cave he had entered once, long, long ago. He knew it was inhabited again, for he had seen goblins, and the greater beast they named as their chieftain.

  But still the cave was to be his winter home.

  He dropped down lightly to a large stone that had been placed to partially cover the entrance. A dozen creatures with levers had moved it into place, but he alone, using nothing but his muscles - muscles made hard by the wind and the cold - braced himself and easily shoved the rock aside.

  A pair of goblins began to whoop and holler at the intrusion, their cries of warning turning fast to terror as the icy giant stepped into their doorway, blocking the meager daylight.

  Like a beast out of nightmares, he strode in, slapping aside their small and insignificant spears. He caught one goblin by the face and easily hoisted it from the ground with one arm. He shook it violently, all the while fending off the pathetic stabs of its companion, and when it at last stopped resisting, he smashed it hard into the wall of rock.

  The second creature squealed and fled, but he threw the first into it, taking it down in a heap.

  He stalked past, crushing the life out of the second goblin with a single heavy stomp to the back of its skinny neck.

  Several of the creatures, females, too, presented themselves in the next room, some cowering, but they would find no mercy from the giant. A trio of small spears flew at him, only one connecting, striking him right in the chest, right in the thick of the curious gray fur cape he wore. The spear hit bone - the skull of the creature from which the cape had been fashioned, an unrecognizable thing under a layer of ice and snow. The spear had not the weight, nor the weight behind the throw, to penetrate, and it hung there, stuck in the folds and slowing the enraged giant not at all.

  He caught a goblin in his huge hand, lifted it easily, and flung it across the chamber. It smashed into stone and fell still.

  Others tried to run away, and he caught one and threw it. Then another went flying. With their backs to the wall, a pair of goblins found courage and turned to meet him, thrusting their spears to fend him off.

  The giant tugged the spear from his cape, brought it up and bit it mid-shaft, tearing it in two, and advanced. With his batons, he slapped aside the spears, furiously, wildly, with speed and agility that seemed out of place in a man of his size and strength.

  Again and again, he pushed the spears aside and closed, and he moved suddenly, swiftly, bashing the spears out wide and reversing his hands as he lurched forward, stabbing the batons into the chest of the respective goblins. He rolled his hands under and lifted the squealing creatures on the end of those batons, and slammed them together once and again, as one fell squirming and shrieking to the floor.

  The other, stabbed by the sharp end of the spear, hung there in agony and the giant dropped it low and suddenly reversed, shoving it straight up as the spear slid deeper into its chest. He tossed the dying thing aside and stomped down on its fallen companion.

  He stalked off in pursuit of the chieftain, the champion.

  It was larger than he, a verbeeg, a true giant and not a man. It carried a heavy, spiked club and he held nothing in his hands.

  But he didn't hesitate. He barreled right in, lowering his shoulder, accepting the hit of the club with the confidence that his charge would steal the energy from the swing.

  His powerful legs drove on with fury, with the rage of the storm, the strength of Icewind Dale. He drove the verbeeg backward several strides and only the wall stopped his progress.

  The spiked club fell aside and the verbeeg began slamming him with its mighty fists. One blew the air from his lungs, but he ignored the pain as he had ignored the bite of the cold wind.

  The man leaped back and straightened, his balled fists exploding upward before him, slamming the verbeeg hard and breaking the grapple.

  Giant and man reset immediately and crashed together like rutting caribou. The crack of bone against bone echoed through the cave and the few goblins who stayed around to watch, perplexed by the titanic battle, gasped to realize that had any of them been caught between those crashing behemoths, it would surely have been crushed to death.

  Chins on shoulders, giant and man each clasped the other around the back and pressed with all his might. No punches or kicks mattered anymore. It was no contest of agility, but of sheer strength. And in that, the goblins took heart, and believed that their verbeeg leader could not be beaten.

  Indeed, the giant, two feet taller, hundreds of pounds heavier, seemed to gain an advantage, and the man started to bend under the press, his legs began to tremble.

  On the giant pushed, the timbre of its growl going from determination to victory as the mighty man bent.

  But he was of the tundra, he was Icewind Dale. By birth and by heritage, he was Icewind Dale - indomitable, indefatigable, timeless, and unbending. His legs locked, as sturdy as young oaks, and the verbeeg could press no more.
br />   "I. . . am. . . the. . . son. . . of. . . " he began, driving the giant back to even, and after a grunt and a renewed push that had him gaining more ground, he finished, ". . . Icewind. . . Dale!"

  He roared and drove on. "I am the son of Icewind Dale!" he cried, and roared and roared and forced his arms downward, bending the stubborn verbeeg to a more upright, less powerful stance.

  "I am the son of Icewind Dale!" he yelled again, and the goblins yelped and fled, and the verbeeg groaned.

  He growled and pushed on with more fury and stunning strength. He bent the verbeeg awkwardly and it tried to twist away, but he had it and he pressed relentlessly. Bones started to crack.

  "I am the son of Icewind Dale!" he cried, and his legs churned as he twisted and bent the giant. He had it down to its knees, bending it backward, shoulders leaning. A sudden and violent thrust and roar ended the resistance, shattering the verbeeg's spine.

  Still the man drove on. "I am the son of Icewind Dale!" he proclaimed again.

  He stepped back and grabbed the groaning, dying giant by the throat and the crotch and lifted it above him as he stood, as easily as if it weighed no more than one of its goblin minions.

  "I am the son of Beornegar!" the victor cried, and he threw the verbeeg against the wall.