by David Keck
“Yes, we have heard of the tourney at the Lindenhall and of the oaths sworn on the Prince’s Ring there.” Durand touched the pouch on his belt, where the ring lay, half-forgotten. “The Sword of Gunderic broken—along with all hope of peace between Lord Leovere and your duke.”
Durand was cowed. “I’d meant to warn him. We have seen a great deal.”
“You will not find your people here. Your Coensar took his company into the pass at dawn; they will be encamped in the high country by now. He had a force with him that was twice what went south.” Durand could imagine them in the towering darkness somewhere, camped in the wind. It would not take long to overtake them.
“You should know what we have seen,” said Durand. “The maragrim are on the move.”
Berchard was nodding along. “Leovere took his horn to the Crowned Bones, near as we can guess. Leerspoole is in ruins. We saw signs of hundreds in the foothills. Thousands.”
“First, the call from Penseval. Now at Crowned Bones. He will have called that devil to parley,” said Maedor.
“It certainly called him. We were on the trail to Leerspoole,” said Berchard. “The maragrim came in battalions. The Hornbearer slew a man who’d been stalking us, and soon there were a multitude. But we heard that horn and we’d seen Leovere’s trail heading off that way. That horn, it drew off the Hornbearer—though a river, and our own stalwart cowardice helped as well.”
“The Hornbearer has been seen near the gate.”
Durand nodded. “It found us on the road to the Lindenhall, but did nothing, watching only and stealing away. And we might have seen something in the high passes before. We heard something like his groaning horn.”
“He was with the force at Leerspoole,” said Berchard. “His company waited for us there at nightfall. We fled with the river at our backs. But I’d guess the maragrim scattered then, fanning out and coming north to meet us tonight.”
The ancient knight bowed his head. “Durand Col. Once more, you have come to Pennons Gate. The dead pursue you, and the signs and portents rise like dust at your step. Now, the Hornbearer seeks you.”
Durand might have spoken, but the knight raised a forestalling hand. “He found you in the mountains, on the Lindenhall Road, and then Leerspoole. Where is coincidence? Where chance? The Hornbearer has you in his eye. You, the haunted man, are more than the broken knight you appear. The Powers have their hands upon you. Where there had been a balance, you leave ruin.”
Durand marked subtle shifts among the Solantines around as the wind battered the flames low in their fire baskets. What did the Greyshield intend?
“You would pass this wall with your portents and your strange dooms and the Hornbearer following? You would carry all of this into Errest the Old?”
“Speak plainly,” said Durand. He clenched his fists. “I can do nothing about the Hornbearer. I am only a man.”
The big knight’s head swiveled. “The Powers have placed you in my hands. They have placed you in my hands, and I will act. Once more will I close the gate. And we shall see. Brother Sigeric, his friends may stay or go and be welcome. Durand will remain here with us.”
The Solantines stepped close, slipping in a moment from saviors to jailors.
The jailer knight, Sigeric it seemed, took Durand and the others up.
* * *
TWO FILES OF Solantines formed their silent escort, and Sigeric led the way.
“It is outrageous,” said Berchard. “You are no more dangerous a man than I. Maedor has more to fear from Heremund and the boy. I don’t sleep well knowing Heremund’s abroad, but I am not Constable of Pennons Gate.”
Heremund nodded a bow to Berchard.
“We must work out what to do next,” said Durand, but the Solantines gave them no time to think or breathe.
They climbed for an hour or more through the wind and dark, passing gate after gate. Finally, the gates of the uppermost fortress stood before them. Durand looked over the Gorge of Pennons and the great dark suggestion of the Fellwood beyond, and was surprised not to see ranked armies standing by bonfires and torches. This was what Leovere had summoned. This was the Host of the Hornbearer. But still, the Fellwood was empty and the forest night uninterrupted by even a single flame.
As the last gate rose, the company clattered into the dark commandery, dismounting in a jingle and scrape that echoed in the silent place. The galleries were largely dark, with so many men far below. Sigeric said, “Your horses will be taken care of,” and accepted a torch from the men on the gate before leading the company into the warrens of the fortress. They penetrated deep, passing the refectory and infirmaries until they entered a passage where the wind piped at a row of arrow loops. Durand remembered Deorwen mocking at these. Arrow loops half a league above the valley floor threatened no one below.
It was black outside.
“Sigeric,” said Durand, “will it be the storeroom again?”
Sigeric turned, the torch blazing above his face. “The others to the guest halls. But, aye, you’re for the storeroom. We need a strong door, I think, and you found no way out the last time.” There was a door at the man’s side and, without fanfare, he gave the thing a push. “We will make your companions comfortable here and then take you down.”
As Durand hesitated, he saw the darkness move, suddenly full of shadows. Faces surfaced from the gloom: Euric, Baradan, Alwen …
Berchard was speaking, standing tall. “We will wait. We’ll have words with Maedor. He will not shut you up in this place forever. We are all Sons of Atthi.”
One of the Solantines at the doorway put his hand on Berchard’s arm, and Berchard’s sudden twist shot the knight into the doorframe.
“You cannot hold a man,” said Berchard. “You are no king or court!”
And there was a great wrenching mêlée where Solantines seized Berchard and his comrades while Berchard roared against his restraints. Sigeric held the torch, stiff, above the grapplers until, suddenly, the floor trembled.
“What was that?” said Ailric.
The Lost stood at the arrow loops. Every one.
Ailric stepped out of his attackers’ hands and moved to one of the deep, narrow windows, sharing it with Euric and the mad king.
“This is the Errest side. This is the pass,” he said.
“Aye, it is,” said Sigeric.
“Listen,” said Ailric. “There.”
And now they heard what their grunts and snarls had drowned a moment before. Echoing out over the moon-glinting peaks came a long, empty note: the maragrim horn. It groaned in the air, trembling in their lungs, shaking mortar from the ceiling and conjuring an uncanny moan from the hollow mouths the commandery bells.
Durand pushed through the viscous frigidity of the Lost and thrust his eye against the nearest loop. “The devil is in the pass. The Hornbearer,” he said. It was out there with Deorwen and Almora and Abravanal. He had not been imagining the sounds in the mountains all those days ago. “They must be warned.” At any price, he must reach them.
“Brother Constable has made himself plain. I did not mistake his meaning.”
“And I did not bring the fiend into the pass. It has gone before me while you led me to this cell. I am the sworn man of Duke Abravanal. Leovere has summoned this devil, and together they will strike at my liege lord while you hold me here beyond any hope of aiding him.”
The sound ebbed away and the men dusted mortar from their heads. Berchard was the last to his feet.
“The Constable has spoken,” said Sigeric. He looked to the man who’d fought with Berchard, and another man supporting him. “Brothers, take word to Maedor that the Hornbearer is in the pass.” And the men left with hardly a nod.
When their footfalls had left the passage, Sigeric turned to his remaining brothers. “Does anyone else need an errand? I’ve a list if it’s wanted.” A few of the men gave their chins a prideful lift, but none spoke. “Down we go, then. For, after that bit of excitement, I think all of our guests will need
to spend the night below.”
“Send to Maedor, Brother Sigeric,” said Durand. “Get me loose.”
“You have seen Brother Maedor. You have seen him watching from the Forest Gate. He stands watch, fair and foul, forever. He had walked those battlements when the Gorge of the Pennons stood empty. He looked down upon the trees before Aidmar was king in Aubairn. There is little bend in our Maedor. Little bend in any in this cold place, if I’m honest.”
“And you,” he said to Berchard. “If you think to try your tricks again, you will pay a price. You will not fool us twice with your blind dotard game.”
“It’s no game,” said Heremund. “He’s just an ornery old fool.”
“Come a step closer, dear skald. I cannot hear you,” said Berchard.
One of the Solantines growled.
They descended further, finding a spiral stair and following the flame of Sigeric’s torch into utter darkness. The Lost filled the vaulted ceilings in skittering droves that rolled from archway to archway. And every living man raised his collar against the unnatural chill whether they could see the things or not.
Finally, Sigeric found an iron handle in the dark. “Here we are then,” he said, and yanked the door open.
Durand thought hard of breaking away. Ailric would back him and the Solantines would likely avoid blades. But the knights were many and powerful, and he was deep in their stronghold with no means of escape. Still, he thought hard, and the bridled fury had his fingers curling when Sigeric bowed at the door.
Durand ducked through, feeling like some chained and toothless bear, ready to round on the Solantines, to see how they fared against a Champion of Gireth in the blackness of his fury.
But he was in no cell, and the hinges echoed in clear air.
A thousand peaks glowered at Durand from a vast mountain night, sullen giants crowding the horizon. Sigeric had led them to the rearmost hall of the fortress where men and goods were lifted from the valley below. Here, they had arrived with Abravanal, as the old man fought the lung fever. Huge landing stages stood against the abyss, and cranes hulked under the dark vaults, stooped over the brink like squat shorebirds of iron and timber.
“We’ll take you down,” Sigeric said.
Durand turned. He felt almost dizzy as the spent rage tumbled in his blood. This was what he’d wanted.
“What does this mean?” he said. “Do you go against Maedor in this?”
“Let’s not give anyone time to find sense,” said Sigeric. “Come.”
What ancient and terrible oaths were breaking now? And with hardly a word spoken?
Sigeric led them under the jib arm of a crane like a siege engine and aboard one of the heavy wooden platforms. The thing shifted like a ship’s deck under the creak of its heavy cable.
Heremund must have looked dismayed.
“Fear not, skald,” Sigeric was saying. “We dump one now and again, but with six hundred fathoms to fall, a man does not suffer long.”
Ailric put Berchard’s hand on one of the lines that skirted the deck while a pair of the Solantines picked up long gaffs with hooks and points. Another grinned as he casually kicked away the locks and lines that held the platform. With a hop, he left the deck and took hold of a worn wooden lever as long as a ship’s tiller. They could feel the platform slew and drift underfoot. Durand saw the Lost spilling into the room, questing after him. Seeking this way and that, and always coming nearer.
“What Brother Sigeric says is true. Them what don’t hold on don’t suffer,” the grinning man said. “But they do bounce. It’s a sight. The truth.” He winked as he wrenched the long lever—and the platform dropped away, leaving him behind.
Pulleys shrieked as the man grinned down and the rope spooled out.
“Devil!” shouted Heremund.
The man upstairs put a little more weight into his brake lever and the plunge slowed to a steadier descent. The cavernous space opened above them as they plunged toward the next landing. Somewhere, a counterweight was rushing upward.
“I’ll be sick before long,” said Berchard, through clenched jaws.
“You’ll have a moment to catch your breath,” Sigeric was saying. “There is a limit to ropes and to men. The descent must be done in stages, or there is no rope long or strong enough. Before a load rises, our men on the cranes must walk and walk the treadwheels while the cables moan and tighten. Unloading can be a problem. Think what it’s like to snap a bowstring. Lively. And the ropes will weep if there’s been rain.”
“Oh, you are a comfort, Brother Sigeric,” declared Berchard.
The other Iron Knight on the deck laughed. He held a long gaff, quite idly, as though no one had broken oaths, and no one was spinning hundreds of fathoms high.
Sigeric peered down where the next landing stage jutted into the gulf. And, despite a slow rotation, the Solantines brought the platform neatly home with a few practiced thrusts of their gaffs.
“A moment now,” said Sigeric, and the knights were moving as deftly as sailors or builders, locking off the platform, swinging out the next jib arm, and shackling on the next hemp cable. The cavern groaned and creaked with the work of the ropes and pulleys. “This they call the King’s Seat, for once it carried a King of Errest the Old.” And, with another man left behind on the brake lever, down they went.
After the third such stop, they had dropped the height of many towers. Durand looked off into the faintly moonlit valley below, thinking of Leovere and Abravanal and Deorwen and the Hornbearer all together in the high passes. Here he was with a blind man, a minstrel, and a boy, coming to save them all.
He said to Sigeric, “Sigeric, do the thralls often pass your gate?”
“Aye, yes, Durand Col. But not in numbers. One or two, only. Now and again. The Blackroots are a devilish haunted place, and have been since long before there were knights in Pennons Gate. But you will find maragrim here and there, mad in blind ravines, and a thing like the Hornbearer is long-limbed and strong. You cannot bar the high wastes to them completely. For such reasons, the ancients set shrines and wards upon the pass. And countless more shrines and wards and sanctuaries knotting tight the lands beyond. The maragrim are sorely bound in Errest the Old. They keep to the wilds. They steal along borders and crossroads.”
“I have not seen them.”
“Yet they are there, traveling crabwise where the wards are weakest—bound as the Strangers are, but there nonetheless, like vermin in the walls.”
“It is so, Durand,” said Heremund. “They are there in their odd corners. It has long been so.”
In Durand’s eyes, all the distant stones in the world beyond the fortress could now harbor watching shapes. Things like the wolf spider in its snug cauldron or the Hornbearer striding the ravines. The mountains could be teeming.
Just then, the Hornbearer’s Horn stabbed across the mountains, moaning with all the force of that mad thing’s lungs till the great cables buzzed with the sound. The Iron Knights caught hold of the rigging. The deck throbbed like the belly of a skald’s viol. Durand felt every inch of the three hundred fathoms below them.
Debris sleeted past, shaken loose by the sound.
Sigeric began: “It is not good. The hoists are not built for such a pounding. Not since the wars have we heard such—”
Then something struck from the dark. Durand smacked the deck, but the platform dropped beneath him like a trapdoor. Smashed. They were sliding. Durand plunged till his fingers snagged a line. Only at the last possible instant did he see Berchard rolling past and catch the man’s collar.
A block of masonry tumbled into the abyss with one of the Iron Knights falling after, end over end. All of the others hung on.
The platform hung in two halves, the stone having snapped it neatly in two. The main cable still held and the men hung wherever they found a stray line. With one fist locked on a line and the other in Berchard’s collar, Durand’s arms were wrenched wide. He could scarcely draw breath. He felt the rope squirming in his fist.
Sigeric swung close, spattered with blood. “Brother Hulstan,” he said. “The stone struck him.” It must have been Hulstan who fell. “Here.” He stretched to get hold of Berchard’s forearm. Heremund and Ailric were reaching down. Together, Durand and the Solantine hauled Berchard to the relative safety of his friends on the dangling wreck.
A second stone. The thing missed by moments as the platform made a slow revolution, and the slim light of the Farrow Moon revealed little of the fortress above. But two or three more blocks shot past like a giant’s fistful of stones.
“This is no good,” said Sigeric, spidering round. “We must—”
Another huge block plunged by. “It will take out a landing stage! Ours, maybe!”
The cable jerked, nearly shaking the clinging men. And, sixty fathoms over their heads, the brakeman knight let go. Durand felt them plunge, but he held on, not even able to shout. The limb-thick cable wailed through its block.
They were falling toward the landing stage below. Its crane jutted into their path. But, before the stricken platform could crash down on it all, something snagged in the works. The platform slewed and then jolted to a halt two fathoms below the landing. The counterweight must have struck the crane or landing stage above.
“Get clear. For your lives!” snarled Sigeric, and so, with shouts and clutching hands, they fled, scrambling over wreckage and onto the stone landing just as the stage above finally let go. Durand watched, for an instant, as the cable whistled by, then a tower’s worth of masonry and timber exploded before his eyes.
As quick as blinking, a centuries-old crane vanished.
“Here,” roared Sigeric. And he shepherded the survivors through a door cut in the mountainside.
* * *
THREE THOUSAND STEPS awaited them, all as black as a mine. Every shuffling moment in the long twisted chimney of the stairs, Durand’s head flashed with visions of Leovere and his Hornbearer falling on Coensar’s defenses. He felt the clammy walls with his hands.
“Have a care when you touch the walls,” Sigeric cautioned. “The old ones have writ a thousand prayers thereon. A hiss of skin over the glyphs is as good as whispering.”