am Wulfgar, son of Beornegar," he repeated firmly, focusing his gaze on Jerek Wolf Slayer. "No enemy of the Sky Ponies. Distant kin to your people and to your ways. I have returned, as I vowed I would, when I saw dead Torlin on the field."
"Dead Torlin?" many voices from warriors and those huddled behind them echoed.
"My friends and I did not come as enemies of the Sky Ponies," Wulfgar went on, using what he expected to be the last few seconds of dialogue. "Indeed we fought beside you against a common foe and won the day."
"You refused us!" Valric screamed. "You insulted my people!"
"What do you know of my son?" Jerek demanded, pushing the shaman aside and stepping forward.
"I know that Valric quested him with the spirit of the Sky Pony to destroy us," Wulfgar said.
"You admit this, and yet you walk openly into our encampment?" Jerek asked.
"I know that your god was not with Torlin on that hunt, for we defeated the creature he had become."
"Kill him!" Valric screamed. "As we destroyed the orcs that came upon us in the dark of night, so shall we destroy the enemy that walks into our camp this day!"
"Hold!" shouted Jerek, throwing his arms out wide. Not a Sky Pony took a step forward, though they seemed eager now, like a pack of hunting dogs straining against their leashes.
Jerek stepped out, walking to stand before Wulfgar.
Wulfgar locked his gaze with the man, but not before he glanced past Jerek to Valric, the shaman fumbling with a leather pouch-a sacred bundle of mystical and magical components-at his side.
"My son is dead?" Jerek, barely a foot from Wulfgar, asked.
"Your god was not with him," Wulfgar replied. "For his cause, Valric's cause, was not just."
He knew before he ever finished that his roundabout manner of telling Jerek had done little to calm the man, that the overriding information, that his son was indeed dead, was too powerful and painful for any explanation or justification. With a roar, the chieftain came at Wulfgar but the younger barbarian was ready, lifting his arm high to raise the intended punch, then snapping his hand down and over Jerek's extended arm, pulling the man off-balance. Wulfgar dropped
Aegis-fang and shoved hard on Jerek's chest, releasing his hold and sending the man stumbling backward into the surprised warriors.
Scooping his warhammer as he went, Wulfgar charged forward, but so did the warriors, and the northern barbarian, to his ultimate frustration, knew that he would get nowhere near to Valric. He hoped for an open throwing path that he might take down the shaman before he, too, was killed, but then Valric surprised him, surprised everybody, by leaping forward through the line, howling a chant and throwing a burst of herbs and powders Wulfgar's way.
Wulfgar felt the magical intrusion. Though the other warriors, Jerek included, backed away a few steps, he felt as if great black walls were closing in on him, stealing his strength, forcing him to hold in place.
Waves and waves of immobilizing magic rolled on, Valric hopping about, throwing more powders, strengthening the spell.
Wulfgar felt himself sinking, felt the ground coming up to swallow him.
He was not unfamiliar with such magics, though. Not at all. In his years in the Abyss, Errtu's minions, particularly the wicked succubi, had used similar spells to render him helpless that they might have their way with him. How many times he had felt such intrusions. He had learned how to defeat them.
He put up a wall of the purest rage, warding every magical suggestion of immobility with ten growls of anger, ten memories of Errtu and the succubi. Outwardly, though, the barbarian took great pains to seem defeated, to hold perfectly still, his warhammer dropping down to his side. He heard the chants of "Valric High Eye" and saw out of the corner of his eye several of the warriors turning in ceremonial dance, giving thanks to their god and to Valric, the human manifestation of that god.
"Of what does he speak?" Jerek said to Valric. "What quest fell upon Torlin?"
"As I told you," the skinny shaman replied, dancing out from the lines to stand before Wulfgar. "A drow elf! This man, seeming so honorable, traveled beside a drow elf! Could any but Torlin have taken the beast magic and defeated this deadly foe?"
"You said that Torlin was on a vision quest," Jerek argued.
"And so I believed," Valric lied. "And perhaps he is. Do not believe the lies of this one! Did you