As they got closer, Sarah began to see the imperfections in the stone. It was quite wide at the base where it rested on the granite above the eastern shore of the Moat, but it quickly tapered to only a few feet wide as it rose, and she could see cracks and missing chunks up its sides. Even at the base, pieces were scaling off in large flakes. It looked as though it were quite old, and the freeze/thaw cycle that weathered rock in these mountains had cracked and shattered it.
“That’s your path to your new home,” one of the soldiers said. “Last chance. You two sure you don’t want to just stay here and play with us?” The men all laughed as though this were very clever, all except Stangar, who just growled and ignored the others.
The first bit was very steep, and Stangar and the girls had needed a boost from the other guards to begin the difficult climb up the bridge. Sarah had lashed out at one of them with her bare foot in payment for the rude and indecent way that she had been “boosted”, but the soldier just laughed and made some obscene comment to his friends. As they managed to work their way higher, they could reach both sides of the span and use their arms to help pull themselves up.
Stangar had lead the two young women up the giant arch, tucking the end of their leash loosely in his belt, “So if’n one ‘o ya slips, ya won’t be takin’ me wi’ ya.”
Sarah would have loved to give her vile and dirty captor a little nudge over the side of the crumbly black stone into the dark water far below, but at the beginning of their climb, it took all of her concentration just to make sure that neither she nor Emily slipped and fell themselves. Emily was not nearly as athletic as Sarah, and Sarah often had to help her find the best footing and occasionally provide a backstop for her lest she begin to slip backwards and over the side. As they climbed, the pitch of the arch became less steep and a little wider, but with Emily between her and Stangar she had no opportunity to tip him over.
The huge arch, that had looked massive and solid at the beginning of their climb, narrowed in places with large chunks obviously already broken off and fallen into the mere far below. For the first time since their capture, Sarah was thankful that she was barefoot. She did not believe that she could have kept her shoes from sliding out from under her on this flaky, gritty surface (Stangar had removed his boots and stowed them in his pack before they began the climb). As it was, occasional gusts of cold wind seemed to snatch at the little clothing that she and Emily wore and try to tug them toward the undependable edge of the bridge as if it took pleasure in seeing them tremble from both the cold and the fear of falling.
The deep black water under them seemed untroubled by the capricious winds, but occasionally Sarah thought that she saw a sort of swelling of a small area of the surface pass from side to side under them. It was as if a large body swam submerged just under the surface, watching their progress and fretting impatiently for one of them to fall. Whatever it was, if there really was something there, it never quite broke the surface and revealed itself. Sarah could feel its eyes upon her, though. She had no doubt that the watcher was there and that it was in some way inimical to all life that tried to cross its waters. She assumed that it was the same dark creature that had so effectively killed one of the soldiers the night before with a large stone to his forehead, and she hoped that it would not use the same tactic to knock one of them off of the narrow span.
At the top of the arch, Stangar reeled in the rope between himself and Emily, sunk his fingers deep into her long blond hair, and forced her to bend over backwards, off balance. Then, he ordered Sarah to take the lead on the way down the other side. He watched her closely and with an evil grin as she edged by Emily to get to the front of the line. He was careful to keep Emily between them so that she had no chance to strike out at him, and Sarah knew that if she did manage to knock him off the arch now, he would certainly take the miserably crying and pleading Emily with him, and dragged down by the rope around her own neck, she would just as certainly end up falling to her death as well.
The bridge was wider on this side, which gave them some relief. All three were deeply fatigued from the climb up to the top, both from the physical strain as well as the constant fear of falling. So Sarah still had to tread carefully, picking her path along what looked like the most solid and secure parts of the crumbling stone. She was ever conscious of the thin rope around her neck, and the likely consequences if her feet should slide out from under her.
At about half of the way down the arch, as the pitch began to grow steeper, Stangar called a halt for a brief rest in preparation for their final, difficult climb down to the lands of the Baraduhne. He ordered the girls to lie down on their stomachs, then with each in turn he planted a knee in their back and untied the rope from around their necks. Backing away up the bridge, he pulled out his sword and commanded the girls back up to their feet.
“Just so’s ya won’t be gettin’ any ideas, take a look ahead at t’ foot o’ the bridge. That’s your welcomin’ party,” he said, gesturing toward four men who could just be seen approaching the base of the arch from McDonald’s Break beyond. “Now get movin’ nice an easy. An’ member, that little beastie in the water down below is still hungry for ary little girlies that gets careless.”
The last quarter of the climb passed more quickly, with the three anxious to be finally off of the treacherous span. Their biggest concern was in moving deliberately so as to not begin a slide that would take them off of the edge. As it was, the last bit was mostly a semi-controlled slide down the gritty surface to the waiting soldiers below.
Called the Grand Palace of the Baraduhne, it was really a vast mountain fortress set high in the western entrance to The Outlet—a narrow pass through the great mountain range to the east (known as McDonald’s Break to Sarah). Its history stretched back through the millennia, originally established as a defensive outpost guarding the pass against the perennial influx of marauding barbarians who would use it to invade the lands of the Baraduhne. A barren location, the small guard force endured long months of freezing inactivity during the winters interspersed with long months of frequent and bloody fighting against waves of migrating horsemen out of the rolling steppes to the east, now sparsely inhabited and known as the Trackless Hills.
Overrun several times in its history, the outpost expanded in fits and spurts, but was never considered of sufficient importance to warrant a commanding officer above the rank of Guard Captain. Or rather, while perhaps marginally important, who above of the rank of Guard Captain would be willing to accept such a remote posting?
With each increase in the size of the guard force, generations of guard captains had built more extensive fortifications and burrowed ever deeper into the bones of the mountain for building materials. These excavations also provided dry and protected shelter from the harsh alpine conditions. As the guard force grew, so also did the motley collection of family members and camp followers until a small settlement existed behind the granite walls.
Interest did not develop in this corner of the then extensive holdings of the Baraduhne, however, until a long forgotten soldier, resenting the fact that he had been stationed at this remote and dangerous outpost and bored with the long winter months of inactivity, had discovered a large vein of crystalline quartz while expanding one of the tunnels carved out of the mountain. Layered next to the quartz gleamed a wide ribbon of purest gold. The Guard Captain at the time, a fat little mean fellow whose name is long forgotten and who was much disliked by his subordinates, attempted as Post Commander to lay sole claim to the find. His actions were supported by his lady who, as skinny as he was fat, was more than his match in meanness of spirit. She saw this as their opportunity to become wealthy and to buy their way out of this forsaken hinterland and back into polite society.
As the size of the truly impressive gold strike became more apparent, a large and bloody mutiny developed that by spring left the outpost too weakened to resist the resurgent tide of barbarians that came streaming through the pass. The outpost was overrun, with c
onsiderable loss of life, and remained in barbarian hands for several years thereafter. Gold, quartz, and later copper and tin streamed back through the mountains to the steppes to the east, and the outpost, valued by its new inhabitants as it had never been by the Baraduhne, became a stronghold of invasion pricking annoyingly at the side of that vast kingdom.
Several half-hearted expeditions were mounted by the Baraduhne over the years to reclaim and seal the pass, but none were successful until reports of the impressive wealth being stolen out from under their very noses reached the ears of the Lord High Sorcerer of the time, Barrach al Wazeere (Barrach the Impotent). The lands of the Baraduhne had been shrinking for years under the leadership of this powerful but inept sorcerer as the appetites of neighboring kingdoms grew, and Barrach saw in the nomads of the steppes a foe that he could possibly master. On his third attempt, he assembled such overwhelming force that the eastern barbarians were finally routed and driven back through the mountains.
Upon reclaiming the guard town in the entrance to the pass, Barrach’s armies were astounded at the sight of the excavations there. The recent inhabitants, barbarians by many measures, had an eye for beauty, and in their quest for wealth from the mountain they had nonetheless carefully opened up caverns and carved out halls of breathtaking splendor. A sorcerer of high standing was appointed by Barrach to rebuild this outpost and to oversee the mining of gold and other metals from its mountain, and this man, wiser than most, appreciated the works that had been done and assayed to fashion himself a palace from the living rock.
Over the centuries the fame and beauty of this mountain fortress continued to spread, as the power of Baraduhne itself dwindled and its lands continued to fall to its rapacious neighbors to the north and west.
As the pressures from the bordering kingdoms grew, the Baraduhne expanded through the Outlet into the pleasant river valley on the other side, and up into the low hills as far as the deep river gorge that they named the Akuaanguis.
To the east, the nomads were gradually supplanted by a sturdy and valiant people who built the castle of Carraghlaoch on an outcropping of granite overlooking the gorge of the Akuaanguis, the river they called the Blackrock, at its narrowest point. Along this natural barrier the expansion of the Baraduhne was halted, and they found themselves with a new foe contesting against them for the lands between the river gorge and the mountain pass.
An order of wizards arose among the eastern men to oppose the sorcerers of the Baraduhne, and countless raids and many major campaigns were conducted by the opposing forces of fighting men of the east and the west. And in this way, the struggle continued for centuries that saw the rise and fall of many forgotten heroes on both sides until the great wizard Gilladhe brought down a mountain to create the vast pool that sealed the eastern entrance to the pass and invested the deep waters with a trigitch from another age.
While this unprecedented feat of magic ultimately lead to the passing of the glory of Carraghlaoch, so that in time it became little more than a legend, the glory and importance of the Grand Palace of the Baraduhne was not diminished.
It was Laman al Laman who as Lord High Sorcerer moved the Imperial Seat of the Baraduhne to the Outlet palace, renaming it Laman’s Grand Palace of the Baraduhne. He took personal interest and control of the workings there, and began the fashioning of the Great Hall with its highly vaulted ceilings and twenty-six gilded columns. He it was who personally fashioned the silver rune of warding in the marble floor of that hall. It was not until later, during less trusting times, that the hidden alcoves and back passages were added to accommodate the secret comings and goings of the Watchers.
Laman is also credited with beginning the tunneling of the deep shafts into the hot heart of the mountain, which, completed by his successors decades later, brought geothermal heat and natural gas for cooking and lighting up from the depths, and turned the grand but perpetually cold halls into comfortably lavish living spaces.
Sarah knew none of this remarkable history, of course, when she and Emily halted in awe after turning the final bend of the tight, twisting pass and beheld the high city walls that rose thirty feet into the air and spanned from north to south across the narrow mouth of the Outlet. As with Carraghlaoch, armies had broken themselves against those smooth stone walls, and since the reign of Barrach al Wazeere, no barbarian horde or wizard led army from the east had passed beyond them.
Sarah, Emily and Stangar had been met at the completion of their perilous traverse of the stone arch by four soldiers of the Baraduhne.
“The assassin witch of the Lord Kadeen said that you would be coming today with these two pretties in tow,” their sergeant said to Stangar.
“Maston, get them covered up so that we can be on our way out of here. Orders are to spend as little time in the open as possible. Kadeen wants these two to arrive unnoticed.”
Sarah and Emily were given long hooded cloaks of coarse brown wool and leather sandals for their feet, making them look from a distance like acolytes of the Paths of Truth, an obscure sect of wandering priests and nuns who survived on the generosity of their fellow believers. They were then hurried the short distance up toward the mouth of the mountain pass. The soldiers kept a disorganized looking grouping around the two women, so that they were prevented from trying to escape, while still appearing to be walking with them rather than guarding them.
The women were already tired from their harrowing struggle over the arch—Sarah was just plain tired of constantly being afraid—but they were given no time to rest as they were hurried along. Complaints were met with a stern: “Silence” and a bruising jab with a cudgel, so the journey was made in silence. Silence other than Stangar’s muttered complaints about the unfairness of having to rush along on an empty stomach, and the command delivered by the guard sergeant to report immediately to Kadeen without even a chance to stop briefly at a tavern along the way to wash some of the acrid tasting dust and grit of burned rock out of his mouth.
There was a low wall at the entrance to the pass that was only lightly and occasionally guarded. This day, Kadeen had made sure that men loyal to him had this duty, and they had been severely warned that they would see no strangers, and certainly no young women, passing through their gates, despite what their eyes might tell them.
The pass itself was a narrow defile between tall peaks that broadened out somewhat from place to place along its length, but was mostly closely constricted by steeply rising granite walls on either side. Occasionally along the steadily climbing path, exploratory holes and a few active mines could be seen boring into the mountain walls, where men had sought, and sometimes found deposits of precious, though more often merely useful, metals and other minerals. Formed over the eons by wind and water, the pass seemed more like a pressure relief portal for the lands confined beyond the high mountain barrier.
As they approached the large gates in the high city walls, Sarah observed that they not only stood wide open, but there was no sign that they had ever been closed, at least not in recent times. Since the creation of the Wizards Moat, she guessed this made perfect sense. There was no threat of invasion from this direction after all, and occasional wagon traffic to and from the mines in the pass would have made the opening and closing of such massive gates a needless burden.
Two obviously bored guards with leather armor and short swords at their hips lounged at the opening, completely uninterested in their small party. These men had no purpose from a security perspective, but rather were responsible for ensuring that the tax men were called when loads of ore were brought in from the mines. The current real threat and struggle was along the northern border with Maragong. Soldiers who drew duty at this back gate were usually drawn from those broken men who were convalescing from the physical and psychological trauma suffered there. Knowledge that these men were deemed on the road to recovery, and therefore soon to be on their way back to the north, could often be seen in their eyes, either as a haunted, hunted look, or as in the case of these two, a ho
peless indifference.
Passing through the broad gates, Sarah realized that the city behind this wall had spread to completely fill the area from side to side of the pass, which widened out considerably at this point. Both Sarah and Emily were tempted to stop and stare at the sight, but with low throated admonishments of “keep moving” and “keep your heads down” the guards crowded closer to their captives and ushered them into the city.
From what she could see from under her deep cowl, Sarah was amazed at this, her first look at a real, living city. It was like Carraghlaoch with its use of stone building materials and narrow cobbled streets, but so unlike that fortress in three major respects: it was much larger; the architecture made greater use of arches and domed rooftops, and it was filled to bursting, in Sarah’s opinion, with people.
Wealthy looking merchants and professionals of unknown classification strode purposefully down the streets, or were carried along in colorful palanquins born by bulky, partially clothed men who reminded Sarah of gorn with their broad shoulders and powerful arms, but without the long body hair. Mixed with them were a larger number of men and women of less apparent importance and wealth, as well as an occasional dirty and ragged individual begging charity from any who came within reach. These most often openly displayed some injury or deformity as an apparent sign of their calling. Around and thru this traffic ran barking dogs and yelling children, most of the latter appearing both dirty and ragged to Sarah.
The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) Page 21