Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2)

by James A. Hillebrecht

  The creature rolled around the corner and quickly dropped a rope over the side of the castle wall, securing it only very loosely with three loops around one of the battlements. Then after the thing glanced around once more to insure it was not observed, there was a small flash of light, and suddenly Adella stood where the rock goblin had been. The spell was almost over in any case and Adella would need all her nimbleness to navigate the walls, but she paused to look around again. This was still the point of danger, the chance when the defenders might learn both of her deception and the desperate force out in the grasses awaiting the dawn. The sound of killing assured her she had not been observed, and she wasted no more time. Grasping the rope firmly, she threw herself over the rampart. The rope immediately began to come undone, slipping off the stone support even under Adella’s light weight, but the woman was actually running down the side of the building, using the rope’s restraint to take only a portion of speed off her descent. She hit the ground just as the last loop came fully free, dropping the rope at her feet and leaving no trace she had ever been there.

  She spent no time admiring her work. Rock goblins had night eyes that might still spot her and give away the game, so she moved swiftly to the north where the watch would be the weakest. But the sound of battle from overhead assured her that the attention of Nargost Castle was bent inwards this night.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Testings at Nargost

  “I’m coming with you,” Shannon announced in the light of the carefully banked campfire as Adella was preparing for the coming fight. Just over the brink of the dry riverbed, the torches of Nargost Castle still burned brightly, and there was no sign of the dawn, but their hearts could all feel the slow approach of the sun somewhere over the horizon.

  Adella frowned in response. “Don’t be stupid. You’d be caught before we went a dozen feet.”

  “You said yourself that I move quick and light. With the garrison concentrating on the attack, I won’t need exceptional stealth. And your ribs will tell I’ve learned much from you over the last few days.”

  Adella’s frown deepened. “I work alone, girl. I don’t need some bumbler to get in my way.”

  “Suppose there’s another field of force as there was in Llan Praetor,” Shannon interjected, forestalling Adella’s departure. “Isn’t that a real possibility around…an area of such value? Won’t you feel foolish to get so far and find yourself staring like a cat at a bowl of swanfish?”

  The woman stopped, struck more by the inference than the warning. Shannon took a small step closer and dropped her voice. “I’m no fool, Adella. I know you didn’t come here for the redemption of your soul. You want the treasure, and I want the hostages. There’s nothing to say we can’t both get what we want.”

  Adella’s eyebrows rose now, and there was an appreciable, almost approving quality to her glance. But there were still doubts. Finally, she asked slowly, “You know we may not be able to bring out all the hostages. Do you have the strength to choose the ones who can be saved and leave the rest behind?”

  Shannon hesitated, swallowed hard, then said defiantly, “Yes.”

  Adella snorted, turning away. “You’re as bad a liar as you are a thief.”

  “You’ll need someone to keep the hostages quiet,” Shannon said quickly, jumping in front of her. “Even if you wear your Matron’s robes, they won’t trust a rescuer who first stuffs her pockets with treasure. I might even be able to convince them to carry out some of the booty for you.”

  Even a few feet from the carefully covered campfire, they were in near total darkness, but Shannon could feel the woman staring at her with eyes that were not blinded by the night. She set her jaw hard, showing her determination, and Adella reluctantly relented. “Very well, girl. You’ve won yourself a dangerous job. But you heed every word I say.” She took a step closer, her face right up against Shannon’s as she snarled gently, “I’ll decide if any must stay behind. Argue with me, and I’ll kill the straggler on the spot. Then perhaps we’ll truly find out whose ribs smart in the end. You hear me clear?”

  Shannon shuttered, the woman’s hot breath like fire on her cheek, but she held her voice firm as she said, “I hear you clear.”

  *

  Jhan, of course, had a very different opinion of the proposed plan.

  “You can’t go in there alone, and that’s straight,” he snapped. “We go together or not at all.”

  “She’s not going alone,” Adella said evenly. “She’s going with me.”

  “That’s worst than alone,” Jhan shot back defiantly. He turned to Shannon. “We’re a team. We watch each other’s back. We’re about to go into our first full battle, and you want to split us up? Think what you’re doing!”

  “Jhan, there’s no choice,” she replied. “The mirror told us I am the one to free the hostages. You’ll never be able to follow Adella down this path. But I can and must.”

  “But…”

  “We’re not separating, any more than walking around either side of a tree,” she said softly. “Trust me in this.”

  “But…”

  “You’ve your own task to accomplish this morn, boy,” interjected Adella. “You’re the sorcerer, remember? The slayer of Trexler the Black. You’ve the plainsmen to encourage and the Northings to scare, and that will take a measure of courage you may not have.”

  Jhan bristled, right on cue. “What are you talking about?”

  Adella produced the thin wand of light brown wood. “I’m talking about this. There’s real magic in this wand, magic enough for even a half-grown warrior to summon, and I need you to cast it at the main gate. The Northings are expecting an attack on the breached portion of the wall that they’ve tried to patch together with bricks and spit, and we need to draw them away to defend the gate.”

  “What are you talking about?” he cried, looking at the shadowy outline of the wand as if she were offering him a snake. “I can’t cast magic!”

  “The wand will cast the magic,” the woman explained. “I’ll arrange so all you need do is point it and speak. The power will come, no fear there.”

  “But…but…” sputtered Jhan.

  “There’s no choice here, Jhan,” Adella said, her voice just a tinge softer. “The horsemen have little enough chance even with your help, and without it, their deaths won’t even get us inside the outer wall.”

  The youth seemed to deflate in the darkness and Shannon reached out and touched his shoulder gently.

  “Jhan, this is where you can do the most to protect us,” she urged him. “To protect all of us. If the defenders are rushing between the breach and the gate, they’ll have few eyes to spare for us.”

  Jhan looked from Shannon to the wand and back again. Then, reluctantly, he reached out and took the wand.

  “Good. Now mind me close, for your life now hangs on your ears,” Adella said sternly. “To use this wand, you must stand and concentrate in open sight within 500 paces of your target until the full incantation is spoken. The moment the guards see a figure casting at their gates, they’ll unleash every arrow, bolt, and stone they have, but you can take no notice of them. I can buy you a little time with a special protection, and if the fates are merciful, that will be enough. If you haven’t finished the cast by then, you never will.”

  Jhan swallowed, but the look of determination never flickered on his face.

  Adella nodded. “When the spell goes off, no one can tell what the effect will be. Most likely, you’ll only knock loose a stone or two, but that’s all we’ll need. The next moment, Zarif’s cavalry will be roaring past you like mountain thunder, and if you’re not quick, you’ll be naught but bloody mud clinging to their horses’ hooves.”

  “But if I can’t break the gates, what good is the charge?”

  Adella let out a sigh of annoyance, but held back any retort. “They’ll start for the gate to draw off the guards, then break off and make for the breach once the enemy has committed. Horses move faster than rock goblins.�
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  “But won’t the garrison be large enough to man both?” asked Jhan.

  “That is yet to be seen,” Adella answered a little vaguely. “But whatever happens at the walls is no concern of yours. After you cast, take yourself directly away from the fight. Mark that well. Don’t try to skirt around the walls, or you’ll be a pin-cushion for goblin arrows. Directly away until you can’t tell rock goblin from Northing on the battlements, then head due east of the castle until you hit a pile of stone rubble. Those are known as the Gatestones. Either wait there for us or follow the trail you find. We’ll leave one wide enough for a blind ogre to follow.”

  * * *

  Taking a deep breath, Jhan climbed out of the dry river bed and walked grimly towards the dark walls of the Castle, his heart in his throat and actually cursing the watery dawn that was peering through the green overcast on the eastern horizon. He knew the rock goblin guards could see even better in the dark than most humans could see in the day, but he couldn’t repress the feeling of naked exposure as he strode openly across the ankle deep grass that surrounded the castle. He knew his best hope was the sheer audacity of what he was doing, that guards were seldom going to notice a single figure still a long distance from the walls, but he also knew that even the sleepiest of guards would glance out occasionally if only as an escape from boredom.

  He had gotten to his feet some 1000 paces from the walls when the dawn was nothing but a vague smear of light on the horizon, and by the time he had passed 900 paces, the smear had grown to a luminescence that took the black out of the night and left it a deep blue. At 800 paces, the night had fled, leaving only residual shadows behind and Jhan waiting for the first whistling arrow to test the range. At 700 paces, the horizon was bright green through the canopy, and Jhan could make out the details of the castle gate and that the guards on the battlements above all appeared to be humans. At 600 paces, he simply could not believe that he had not yet been spotted, and he spent the final distance convinced the castle was holding fire just to draw him closer and closer, to the point where the first volley would be the only one required.

  He reached the point where he actually had to turn his head slightly to see from one corner of the wall to the other, the point Adella had assured him was 500 paces, and he was stunned to see how steady his hand was as he lifted the wand to point at the walls. Guess I’ve already given myself up for dead, he decided. The sky brightened, the sun made its present felt, and it was full dawn.

  “Eran du Braughna kay,” he said aloud, and at last there came a challenge from the walls, a question by the sound, though in some hideous unknown tongue. There was the tiniest puff of power from somewhere around him, and it seemed as if some kind of film had imposed itself between him and the castle, but he had been told to ignored it and did so.

  “Dahnor du Abrox kay,” he continued, the words distinct and clear as Adella had instructed, though she had said nothing about the danger of stuttering when his heart was hammering and his breath was coming in gulps. There was a sound behind him, a sound like distant thunder, and an answering cry from the walls warned him Zarif and his horsemen had struggled out of the riverbed and were already charging the castle.

  “Zema al Abrox kay,” he said, almost stumbling over the first word, and his eyes widened as a dozen slender arrows arched upwards from the walls, heading directly for him. He had to continue, had to finish the incantation, but his eyes were following those feathered shafts coming towards him with diabolical accuracy. He opened his mouth to utter the final phrase, but his eyes widened, two of the arrows headed directly…for him!

  Both struck home. But the haziness in front of him was something clear and solid, something the first words of the incantation had conjured, and both arrows hung in the air, motionless, scant inches from his chest.

  “Zara enoth Parm Evol!” he cried, the words released as a shout of relief, and suddenly the entire world exploded. A dozen lightning bolts seemed to descend down upon him, all of them striking the earth only inches away and scorching him with electricity. He was blind and deaf, the power taking all his senses, and he was completely unaware of the growing thunder behind him, the mad roar of a cavalry charge.

  The next moment, horses were flashing by him like solid wind, and he blinked, his eyes just beginning to regain their sight. The horses were past, his hearing was coming back as well, but he shook his head in an attempt to clear it, certain something must be wrong. The horses weren’t breaking off towards the breach as they were supposed to and were still charging for the gate.

  He rubbed his eyes, blinked again as he was unable to recognize what he was seeing. The lightning must have disrupted his vision. For 500 paces away, half of the massive gate of Nargost Castle had been thrown completely down and the other was barely hanging on a single hinge.

  The gates of Nargost were breached.

  *

  Half a mile away on the opposite side of the castle, two horses were trotting across the plain, their saddles empty, perhaps having escaped from the holding pen of the attackers and no possible threat to the castle. The horses were running close to the castle, apparently bent on some goal of their own, but when they were at their closest point to the walls, two dark bundles dropped from their far side, rolled to a stop, and then bolted for the walls.

  Adella got to the wall first and was already swinging a small grapple with a rope attached when Shannon arrived. With one deft throw, she sent the hook sailing upwards to disappear over the wall, and she pulled it back slowly, as if fishing. The hook caught, the rope going tight, and without a word, Adella was climbing the wall the next second. Shannon grabbed hold and began climbing as well, but young and strong as she was, she couldn’t keep up with Adella. The woman was over the top before she was even half way up.

  Desperately, she dug in and dragged herself upwards until she too was over the brink. The central keep of the castle prevented her from seeing the front wall and the main gate, but the cries and shouts from a hundred throats assured her the battle had now been joined. Even though there was no one on this part of the wall, the noise set her heart to pounding fear telling her the tumult was an alarm directed entirely at her. A small hiss pulled her attention to a stairway leading down, and she hurried over to where Adella was waiting.

  The woman grabbed her arm and dragged her close to whisper softly in her ear, “Jhan did better than we dared to hope. I think the main gate is breached. But if the castle is truly in danger of being lost, they’ll send men rushing to the hostages. We must be quick!”

  Then she was gone, slipping down the steps like a shadow, and Shannon could only hurry after her. The sheath of her sword was strapped to her thigh to keep it from swinging, but Shannon quickly learned she had to go down the stairs almost sideways to keep the point from striking stone. She reached the main level of the castle, hesitated for only a moment, then ran across the short distance to where a door hung open, another set of stairs beyond. Inside, Adella was waiting.

  “How did you…?” she began to whisper, but the woman’s hand struck backwards like an angry snake and seized her mouth, killing the words. Then she held up a single finger, beat the air with it three deliberate times, then pointed down the stairs, not waiting for any acknowledgement. Shannon obediently waited for three slow beats to pass, and then she followed down into the semi-darkness.

  There was a foul taint to the air, a mixture of decay, excrement, and sour sweat that got stronger the farther down the stairs she went, but she wasted no time or effort covering her mouth or nose. She focused on the winding stair, and though she tried not to make the slightest sound, there were inevitable small bumps and noises that made her grit her teeth.

  At the bottom of the stair, a dead man awaited her, a Northing guard lying face down with one hand still holding his spear, and a spreading red stain on the back of his fur jerkin showed where he had suffered his mortal wound. The body twitched once, the last throes of its death agony, but Shannon forced herself to walk past
and pay it no heed. Up ahead, there was another body sprawled across the corridor, and Shannon’s eyes widened. She had never had the slightest doubt Adella could kill, but to slay two alert guards within sight of each other without making the slightest noise…

  No sooner had these thoughts passed through her mind then there came the sound of sword on sword and a warning shout from somewhere ahead. Shannon charged forward, drawing her sword as she went, but she still ran on the balls of her feet even though the alarm had gone forth. Adella had stressed never to announce her approach, and the value of the advice became instantly clear as she rounded the corner.

  Up ahead, Adella was in mortal combat with three Northing guards, two before her and one to the rear, with two more of their fallen comrades already slumped to the ground. The woman had a dagger in one hand and a gleaming silver sword of power in the other, and it was clear that if she were not caught between two groups, she would have the advantage in the narrow corridor.

  Shannon did not hesitate. The third guard that Adella was fending off with the dagger had his back to Shannon, and she moved forward swiftly, sword at the ready, staying low. One of the other guards caught sight of her and gave a warning shout that gave her adversary just time to swing his battle ax blindly behind him in a deadly sweep that would have cleaved most assailants in two at the waist. But it was exactly the sort of move Adella had taught her to counter night after night, and she instinctively threw herself down and into the direction of the blow. The ax passed harmlessly above her, the belly of the enemy now fully exposed, and she rammed the sword home. The man buckled forward, his face barely an inch away for hers, his features contorted in a final snarl, and then he fell with a grunt. Shannon wrenched her sword free and leaped to her feet to face the other opponents, only to find there was no need.

  The second guard was already dead, a massive wound extending from the middle of his side upwards into his chest, the body slumped against the wall, the face stunned as if in disbelief of the blow that had killed him.