The main gates to the city faced to the west, and were approached by a natural ramp that had been shaped to support a wide road. A swift flowing river had carved a wide rock-walled canyon down the valley from the north and along the western side of the granite outcropping through a deep cut between the western approach ramp and the main gate. The cut narrowed to about twelve feet at this point, and the river boiled angrily through this gap some twenty feet below—the Blackrock Waters, named for the color of the wet granite cliffs that formed its channel, and referred to in legend as the last barrier before the city walls themselves.
Another long ramp had been built along the northern face of the outcropping, close under the fortress walls, to allow traffic from the eastern side of the river access to the main gate and to reach and pass across the bridge to the opposite side of the river gorge. An ancient portcullis could be lowered to block this approach to the fortress, and the bridge itself, though built of massive wooden beams and wide enough for four mounted knights to ride abreast, could be raised by great iron chains anchored in the bedrock of the outcropping to prevent approach from the west. When McDonald’s Break had been open, the river gorge had made this site a place of vital strategic importance. Originating as it did in the West Wall well to the north of the city, the river wended its way through a string of valleys as it worked its way far to the south, and provided a natural barrier between the Break and the fertile lands to the east.
Carraghlaoch had been built in ancient times to control this strategic narrows, and had long stood in defiance of invaders from the other side of the West Wall. On only three occasions over the centuries had the invaders occupied the land between the West Wall and the river in force and launched their desperate assaults against the fortress itself. On all three, the valiant defenders of Carraghlaoch had rebuffed their attacks, and eventually driven the enemy back through to the other side of the Break. Only once in its history had the outer walls to the fortress been passed, bringing warfare to the inner defenses, and that had been achieved through treachery and betrayal. Never had the walls fallen to force of arms.
The Old Wizard had told many tales of those times of war and heroism to Owen and Aaron while sitting on the floor before the fire in his dark and cluttered study; tales of the gorn, bred by sorcerers of old to wield a heavy war hammer with power far surpassing that of ordinary men, power to break the strongest shield wall; tales of powerful sorcerers weaving terrible storms of destruction and impenetrable shields of defense. He told them of the valiant King Haladran and the fair Queen Eleanor who, fatally poisoned by a trusted counselor, had risen from their deathbed to lead their people in a desperate fight against a large company of gorn that had been treacherously allowed entry through a sally gate in the outer wall in the middle of a moonless night, had murdered their way to the gate house and were lowering the drawbridge to allow invasion of the fortress by a mighty horde waiting across the river.
At the prompting of the wizard’s voice, the boys had seen the valley floor across the gorge covered with the soldiers of the enemy forming up for attack behind great siege engines built to provide a platform for archers to shoot down at the defenders on the wall, and to bridge the chasm to bring an assault against the gates. They heard the snap and flutter of battle pennants waiving in the icy winds blowing down from the glacial crags of the West Wall, and the scream of men and warhorses under a hail of steel-tipped arrows raining down out of the sun. They smelled the charged air of great magics woven to rend and destroy, the smoke of burning buildings, tents and other structures of war, and the carnage of countless dead under the claws and talons of the carrion eaters. He told them of deeds of great courage and appalling treachery, of bold heroes and heroines and vile villains.
Carraghlaoch had survived and at times prospered during those ages of conflict and peril, but it had not survived the peace that followed the closure of McDonald’s Break by the Old Wizard. With the pass sealed and guarded by the magical denizen in the Wizard’s Moat, the valiant knights and mighty warriors had marched north to seek adventure in other wars along the West Wall where the passes remained open and where a man or woman of valor might still strive for acclaim. Most of the farriers, fletchers, armorers, squires, prostitutes, gamblers and hangers-on followed in their wake. The innkeepers, shopkeepers, stonemasons, carpenters and merchants that had supported the men at arms, and who had profited from their presence followed within a few months.
Some remained for a time to farm the fertile lands of the valley, but located as it was at the southern end of habitation along the West Wall, few traders visited this remote corner, and simple luxuries that could not be easily made locally became scarce. The more adventurous among the young men and women raised on these farms became restless in this forgotten corner of the world and left their homes to seek excitement and their fortunes elsewhere. Over the years, the shadow of the abandoned fortress seemed to weigh heavily upon the spirits of the remaining few, and they eventually migrated north leaving the valley and its once great castle to the ghosts and their memories of past glorious times.
Concealed at the edge of a forest of birch and scrub oak, not far from the river gorge, Owen gazed south across the valley at the old fortress perched upon its granite throne. Here and there on the valley floor stood a small cluster of trees, a remnant of a stone chimney, or the wooden bones of a dwelling sticking out of a mound of wild raspberry bushes to mark the site where a farm had once been. Traces of fallen structures, now overgrown with aspen and spruce, marked the former location of a town somewhat larger than South Corner that had squated at the base of the ramp leading up to the entrance to the walled city.
In the far distance to the south, Owen could just make out a watchtower similar to the one where they had slain the gorn. It was located on a small rise near the east edge of the river gorge. It seemed reasonable that the men of Carraghlaoch would have constructed such towers all along this side of that natural barrier in case their ancient enemy had tried to ford the wild river or to bridge the chasm somewhere along its wider lengths, no matter how impossible that appeared to be.
Several thin tendrils of gray smoke rose in the still air above the stone walls from an area inside the city near the main gate. It was late afternoon, and the sun was approaching the peaks of the West Wall that loomed nearby. A pair of red tailed hawks soared over the fields just across the river from the old fortress searching for rodents. Other than that, the trio could see no movement.
It had taken Owen and his companions most of the rest of the day to reach this vantage point. Traveling in a direct line, it would have probably taken half that, but they had had to be very cautious to avoid detection in this final leg of their quest. They had stayed to the trees as much as possible and moved with caution lest they be spotted from the castle or by roving enemy patrols. They had seen no patrols, perhaps indicating that the enemy had brought insufficient numbers, or that distrust among the enemy forces precluded allowing small units to operate on their own. Along the way, they had kept an eye on the trail between the watchtower and the old fortress when they could. They had not spotted any soldiers or gorn going back to check on their now dead comrades at the tower.
“It’s huge,” sighed Marian for the fourth time, echoing the thoughts of the other two. “No army that ever existed could have taken those walls if they were manned by a determined defense.”
“Probably not,” responded Jack, rousing himself from his own awed reverie, “and no bunch of farmers is likely to be able to take it back now that the gorn are in it, either. Unless there is an unguarded entrance on the other side that we cannot see from here, the only way in would be up that ramp that leads to the main gate. I’d hate to have to make that climb while a party of bowmen looked down at me from the walls above. For that matter, a half-dozen small girls with a basket of rocks could make it bloody uncomfortable.
“Do you figure that smoke indicates that our friends are being held in the fortress?”
“I t
hink it’s likely,” Owen answered. “I don’t see anybody moving on the other side of the gorge, and if you look closely towards the cleft that marks McDonald’s Break you can just see a thin black line that seems to stick up above the trees. I’m pretty sure that is the bridge over the Wizard’s Moat. I’ve been watching it off and on since we got here, and I haven’t seen anybody on it. I don’t think that it’s possible that they could have taken everybody over it before we got here. So, either they are in those trees just this side of the Moat, or they’re in the castle. If I was guarding a bunch of hostages, I’d choose the castle, where I could more easily keep them penned in.”
“So how do you figure we can get them out?” Marian asked. To which Jack just snorted. “I’m serious. We can’t just leave them there.”
“I’m afraid Jack is right. It’s going to take a lot more than the three of us to free anyone from that place. I counted about twenty soldiers and maybe forty gorn the night before last. They’re probably going to have at least ten or so on guard all the time. It wouldn’t be like the watchtower, where we could sneak up on two of them while they slept and only have to deal with one in a real fight. It’s going to take a lot of luck and all of the men of the parish to even have a chance at winning this battle.”
“Well, we’ve followed them about as far as we can, and thanks to your nightly sorties we know something about their strength,” said Jack. “It’ll get dark fast once the sun goes behind the Wall. I vote for heading back in the morning to make our report and decide what to do next.”
“I agree. There’s not much else we can do. Even if they decided to move everybody across the river, we couldn’t follow. The chances of the three of us making it up that ramp and over the drawbridge without being spotted are about zero.”
“I still think that I could sneak in there once it gets dark enough,” Marian complained.
“Not likely. By all the stories, the gorn see much better than you do in the dark. It’s likely they’ll be standing the night watch. You’d never make it to the gate. Let’s see to the horses and get something to eat.”
Commander Furstiv al Bardon was a hero of the Baraduhne. Veteran of the wars with the Maragong to the north, he had never lost a battle. A huge man, and powerfully built, he had the reflexes and agility of a cat. In even the direst circumstances in battle, he was completely without fear. Fear was the enemy’s problem when they learned that Furstiv al Bardon led the army that they faced.
Fear came as an uninvited stranger to al Bardon this day. He was crossing the sorcerer’s bridge with the Deep lying black and smooth far below. From his perspective, the mountains and forests that bordered on that expanse of still water and should have been reflected in it seemed to get swallowed in its depths. The Commander had watched the initial expeditionary force cross this same bridge a little over a week ago. Fully a third of that force had fallen from this bridge into the dark mere and the waiting tentacles of the trigitch before reaching the other side. He had observed that the gorn, with their bare feet gripping the gritty surface, had faired better than the soldiers in their leather boots, so he had worn his iron studded field boots to give him better purchase.
The bridge consisted of stone torn by a sorcerer’s ring led by the High Sorcerer Adham al Dharr from the mountain behind him and cast in a steeply arching span across the deep. Though made with magic, it contained no magic and was not sustained by magic. The trigitch would not have allowed its continued presence over the Deep if it were. Rather, it was one continuous extrusion of burned and tortured rock that crumbled and flaked under the weight of the men who crossed it.
Wide enough for four men to walk abreast onto its western end, the bridge narrowed as it climbed so that it was only wide enough for one man as it approached its zenith. From there it arched down to the eastern side, becoming gradually steeper and steeper as it descended towards the shore, at which point it was less than a foot wide.
Commander al Bardon had read reports that it required twelve Sorcerers and senior mages, linked together with High Sorcerer Adham al Dharr to create the bridge. It had to be done all in one working, in order to anchor the far end before the entire thing collapsed into the mere, and as al Bardon heard it, three of the mages had died—their desiccated bodies sucked completely of their life essence—the rest had collapsed near to death, and even the Great Sorcerer himself had to be carried from the scene. It was unlikely that the work could be repeated. Most had thought the building of it impossible before it was done.
The span was not flat on top, but rounded noticeably downward towards the sides. In places along its edges, chunks had fractured off and plummeted to the waters below, taking with them the incautious soldier who had slid or stepped too close to the edge, and making the top that much narrower for those who followed.
Honeycombed with small air pockets, the stone material was surprisingly light. That along with its thickness of nearly eight feet at its smallest end and its high arch made it reasonably stable, but with the way the substance had degraded under the tread of the soldiers, al Bardon doubted whether many more could be brought across in this manner before the entire structure collapsed, or until enough of the edges flaked off to make the top surface too narrow to be used.
The Commander started across this singular working at first light with two of his aides. On the upward climb, his men had followed behind him, but before the span narrowed near the top, he had given them the lead. He did not intend to be taken off the bridge if one of his men should lose his footing on the treacherously eroding surface.
“Curse Kadeen. Curse all sorcerers!” he muttered repeatedly under his breath. He was taking short steps, his knees bent, his arms spread slightly, keeping the studded soles of his boots as flat on the surface as possible as he worked his way slowly down the terrifyingly narrow and ever steepening span. The three men were maintaining adequate separation so that the sliding feet of one would not kick the feet out from under the next person in line.
Suddenly the inevitable happened, and Lt. Toriguerre, who was midway between his Commander and Lt. Basnard began to slide uncontrollably down the span and towards the eastern edge. A long low wail of dismay escaped his lips as he fought to regain traction on the gritty surface, but the more he struggled, the more material broke up under his boots acting like small marbles, expediting his progress down and off the side of the span. In a last desperate attempt to save himself, Toriguerre lunged forward and grabbed Basnard’s right ankle as he went over the side. Realizing what was happening, Basnard dropped to the bridge, managing to hook his left leg and his left arm over the other side.
“Let go, you fool!” yelled Basnard at his associate, kicking at his head to try to dislodge him. “You’ll take us both off.”
“Pull me up! Pull me up!!” screamed Toriguerre, trying desperately to pull himself up Basnard’s pant leg.
Leaning as far to his left as he could, Basnard freed up his right hand, drew his sword, and with a curse hacked at Toriguerre’s face.
Shrieking with pain and fear, Toriguerre let go of Basnard’s leg to cover the wild slash that tore open his left cheek, and fell eighty feet toward the waiting Deep below. Just as he struck, the water boiled around him, alive with the sickly gray tentacles of the trigitch. Toriguerre did not even have time to repeat his scream before he was torn to pieces by the denizen of the Deep. His field pack and a spreading stain of blood were all that remained visible on the surface of the black pool, and even the pack gradually absorbed water and sank out of site.
Managing to retain his balance on the bridge, Basnard lay face down with the gritty surface hard against his cheek, desperately hugging both sides with his arms and legs while he gasped for air and his heart beat wildly in his breast. Dust from the fracturing rock billowed out with each exhalation.
When Toriguerre began his slide, al Bardon had planted himself firmly and remained stationary throughout the crisis. He had made no attempt to intervene, lest he end up contributing to the disaster.
Now he waited impatiently for his junior aid to regain his self-control and continue his descent. If he did not move soon, the Commander had every intention of planting his studded boot in the man’s backside to move him along, either on down the bridge or over the side. He had no desire to remain in his current exposed position any longer than was absolutely required.
“Lieutenant! Do you plan to set up camp there, or are you going to get moving before I come down and walk over the top of you?”
“No sir, I mean yes sir,” Basnard answered weekly. For a long moment, he remained flat on the bridge, his arms and legs clinging to the sides of the porous rock arch, his head pointing down the slope. Finally, he slowly worked his way to a sitting position, and turning around to face up the slope he managed to get back to his feet. Trembling noticeably, he turned back to the east and once again resumed his trek down the treacherous slope, but slower and much more carefully than before the fall of his hapless comrade.
The two men finally reached the ground, sliding for much of the final twenty feet, but without further incident.
Commander al Bardon and Lt. Basnard crossed the old, weathered, wooden drawbridge over the river gorge and entered Carraghlaoch just as the sun disappeared behind the snow covered peaks of the West Wall. They had pushed hard to complete the trek before nightfall. Captain Saglam met them at the gate, with a salute to the Commander.
“Report, Captain, and give me the brief version for now.”
“Sir. We lost thirty-two men and eleven gorn coming over the bridge. As briefed, we found all of the fortifications on this side abandoned and in disrepair. We marched to the northeast in good order and discovered the target village on the evening of the third day. Just after midnight we entered unopposed and took the villagers captive. There were no casualties.
The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) Page 11