by David Weber
“What brings you to South Keep, Wencit?”
“Many matters, Earl Bostik,” Wencit said formally.
“And none of ’em any of my damned business, hey?” Bostik gave a bark of laughter at Wencit’s quick demur. “No, no! Damn me, man, you hold an imperial warrant to go where you will, do as you would. Not prying. But your trip coincides with more worry than I like.”
“Worry over what, My Lord?”
“Tomanāk! Wish I knew!”
“Come, Bostik. Unless you had some idea, you wouldn’t worry.”
“True enough.” Bostik gave another crack of laughter, although there seemed to be little humor in it, and waved one hand. “Look around. How many merchants d’you see?”
“None,” Wencit replied. “But surely it’s early in the year yet?”
“East Road’s clear. Been a caravan a week from Kolvania for a month.”
“Then what seems to be the problem?”
“Night before last—” Bostik leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees, and his voice turned grim “—what was left of a caravan came in.”
“It was attacked?” Wencit’s face was still, his wildfire eyes on Bostik’s.
“It was,” the Governor said bleakly. “Thirty merchants. Sixty wagons. Eighty, ninety drovers. Maybe a hundred guards. Four merchants and eighteen guards got here. No one else reached the gate.”
Bahzell laid his fork aside carefully and wiped his lips with a napkin. His ears stirred gently, and he watched the Governor closely.
“My Lord,” he said, “there’s never a brigand born as would work so close to South Keep, and no caravan as strong as that’s such as anyone would be attacking lightly. And you’d not be speaking so to Wencit if you were after knowing what it was had happened, now would you?
“No. It was dark as the pits of Krahana. Wind and rain right up the pass. Nobody’s sure what happened. Survivors are those who took to their heels at the first screams and had the best horses under ’em when they did. All they know is the attack came out of nowhere. One swears it was some sort of creature, but he’s a Purple Lord.”
Even a Purple Lord can be accurate, My Lord…where his money’s involved,” Wencit said slowly.
“Maybe.” Bostik hawked and spat neatly into a burnished spittoon. “But what eats two hundred men and twice that many horses, mules, and oxen?”
“I can think of one or two creatures which could do the damage,” Wencit said softly. “But none of them belong in the East Walls.”
“My thought, too,” Bostik said grimly. “I sent out a dawn patrol to look for survivors. See if they could figure out what happened.”
“And their report explained naught?” Bahzell asked sharply.
“What report?” Bostik thumped his chair arm and frustration. “Should have been back this afternoon at latest, but neither man nor horse have I seen!”
“And what strength would the patrol have been, My Lord?”
“After those stories?” Bostik snorted. “They went in strength. Three companies of the Axe and two troops of mounted infantry.”
“And its naught at all you’ve heard?” Champion of Tomanāk or no, Bahzell sounded shaken, and well he might. Bostik’s “patrol” had been over five hundred men strong.
“Not a word,” Bostik said harshly. “They had experienced officers, too. I’d’ve taken sword oath at least one messenger would reach me even if they’d run into the whole damned Spearmen army!”
“And I’d not’ve disagreed, Bahzell said. “But it seems as how we’d both’ve guessed wrong, My Lord.”
“True.” Bostik frowned gloomily. “That’s why I’m pleased to see you. Most things I can deal with—from brigands to a bloody invasion! But I know my limits. Anything can do this is beyond me. D’you have any ideas?”
“Most natural possibilities can be rejected at once,” Wencit replied. “And that, I’m very much afraid, means you may owe your losses to our journey, My Lord. We’ve been attacked several times, and not always by natural means.”
“Sorcery?!” Bostik half-rose as he spat out the word.
“Perhaps. For that matter, probably, truth be told.” Wencit shrugged, his expression grim. “There are some—including, let’s say, a certain noblewoman of Angthyr—” Bahzell snorted an angry endorsement “—who’d use any means to stop me. They’ve used the art recklessly from the start.”
“Then that’s their error,” Bostik grated. “The Empire’s roads are open to all, and it’s flat my job to keep ’em so. I’ll tell you this here and now—if someone’s killed five hundred of the King Emperor’s men, I’ll not rest till his head’s over East Gate. Whoever he—or she—is!”
“With my blessings,” Wencit said. “But that still leaves us the question of how to solve your present problem before anyone else is killed.”
“And do you have an answer?”
“Yes. Or, at least, an idea how to begin.”
“Well, spit it out! Don’t sit chewing your beard at me!”
“Your pardon, My Lord. I think my companions and I stand the best chance of learning the truth of this matter.”
“Alone?!” Bostik shot to his feet and planted his fists on his hips. “Fiendark’s Furies, man! Think I’m daft? What d’you think the King Emperor’ll do if you get killed over my problems? Tell you what he’ll do—and rightly so! Be up to my arse in snow in some hole in Windfel or Vonderland before I broke wind twice! And I’d stay there, too!”
“If my enemies have anything to do with it,” Wencit said calmly, “then it’s clearly my job to deal with it. For that matter, as you pointed out a few minutes ago, I do hold the King Emperor’s warrant and authority to deal with problems exactly like this one. And I might point out that whatever it is has apparently already attacked two large forces successfully. Do you have another five hundred men you can afford to lose, My Lord?”
“I’ll lose five thousand rather than you,” Bostik said flatly.
“I’m flattered, but it would gain nothing, whereas risking us may accomplish all you require. And I really hate to point this out, but when you have a white wizard and two champions of Tomanāk ready to hand, sending anyone else would probably strike the King Emperor as…questionable tactics.”
“Hah!” Bostik snorted and draped himself back over his chair, narrowing his eyes. “Not fooling me, y’know,” he said finally.
“My Lord?”
“Oh, forget the innocent tone! Don’t want me meddling in your affairs, is what it is. I suppose—” his high-pitched voice was edged with irony “—my patrol already did?”
“I’d probably have advised against sending them,” Wencit murmured.
“Smooth an evasion as I’ve heard in months,” Bostik grunted. He eyed the wizard smolderingly. “All right! Must’ve lost what little wit the winter left me, but I’ll go along. I’ll send no one else down pass till I hear from you—or for forty-eight hours. After that, I’ll take out a full field force, and neither you nor whatever’s out there will stop me. Clear?”
“In that case,” Wencit pushed back his chair, rose, and bowed, “we’d best leave at dawn. Which means we’d better get a good night’s sleep, first.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Death in the Pass
Anxious faces lined the streets as Wencit and his companions rode past them into the dawn, for word of their trip had filtered through the city. South Keep was a fortress, its people accustomed to thoughts of war, but the mystery in the pass was something else, something far more frightening that brought those faces to watch them depart, and the crowd was eerily silent. The only sound was the east wind, cracking the banners like whips.
Kenhodan tried to divert his thoughts from whatever had bested five hundred troopers by studying the fortifications. East Gate’s tunnel was twice as long as that to the west, cut into easily defended segments by additional portcullises. The tunnel was wider, too; it had to be, for it was the sole opening in the outermost eastern wall. The sharply angled
towers and bastions defending the gate reared high, and the quarried gorge was both wider and deeper than that to the west. Wind howled in its depths, and Kenhodan shivered as he looked once more on the grimmer face of the fortress.
They crossed the drawbridge, and Wencit gestured them close. Their mounts shouldered together as if to seek the comfort of the herd, coursers on the outside, and wind whipped their ponchos. Cliffs thrust up on either side, fissured and cracked, and the entire pass—much narrower on this side of the fortress—broke sharply downward to the east. It twisted and wove its way away from South Keep, its floor a torment of crevices crossed by the high road, and dove over a sudden, sheer drop—as if in axe had chopped away the side of a mountain across their path—three hundred yards ahead.
“Once we start down,” Wencit said, mainly for Kenhodan’s sake, the red-haired man realized, “the road is steep—very steep—for about a league. Then it starts to level and the pass becomes very narrow. The merchants were attacked near the foot of the escarpment—they’d stopped to rest their animals overnight before making the climb the next morning. I’m certain the patrol went beyond the point of the first attack even though there have been no reports. At any rate, we need to go at least that far.”
“I noticed that you were…a bit vague last night,” Kenhodan said. “If you have any clearer ideas that you could share with us now that we’re alone, I’d really like to know what we’re riding into.”
“It might be several things,” Wencit said slowly, “but it should be impossible for Wulfra to control anything capable of this. Under the circumstances, I’d rather not guess until we know more. Just expect something big and nasty. Anyway, no one in South Keep’s seen anything, so I don’t expect we will until we’re out of sight of the walls, anyway. So why worry? You’ve got time to learn the worst.”
“Oh, thank you ever so much.” Kenhodan shook his head resignedly. “But you’re pretty sure Wulfra’s behind it?” he added after a moment.
“Who else? The only question’s how she managed it, so from this moment I’m holding a glamour no one can break, even with a trap link. No point letting her steer anything—or anything else, at least—after us, Kenhodan.”
“I can agree with that,” Kenhodan agreed, and Wencit glanced at Bahzell.
“You and Walsharno are the champions of Tomanāk around here,” he said, “and I suspect this is probably going to end up being at least as much a matter for the War God as it is for sorcery. Is there anything you’d like to add or suggest?”
“Naught until I’ve been seeing more. I’ve my own suspicions, but no mind to be speaking before I must. I’m thinking as it might be best for me and Elrytha to be taking point, though.”
Bahzell’s face was grim, and unlike his companions, he wore no poncho. The green surcoat of his order fluttered in the stiff breeze, the golden embroidery of mace and sword glittered in the early light, he’d donned his burnished steel helm, and he’d added a long, heavy lance from South Keep’s armories to his usual equipment. Now he glanced down at Walsharno’s ears, as if silently seeking the courser’s input, and the big roan snorted in what could almost have been amusement.
“And Walsharno’s after suggesting that since there’s not a one of us knows the least thing at all, at all, he’s thinking as it’s past time we were after going and taking a look.”
“Then I suppose that covers all we can cover at this point,” Wencit said philosophically, and Bahzell—and Walsharno—flipped their ears in agreement.
“Aye, it does that. Border Warden?”
Chernion nodded back to him, the wind whipping the feather of her beret and blowing her hair in a black cloud. Her cheeks stung with cold as she urged her mare into a slow trot, and Kenhodan and Wencit let her and Bahzell draw several lengths ahead before they followed.
Kenhodan whistled through his teeth when he reached the knife edged slash across the pass. Some cataclysm had rent the earth, as if a mountain flank had shattered and sunk into the depths. Raw granite glittered, the road stabbed downward, winding back and forth in corkscrew terraces, and his stomach shifted as he stared down into a gulf almost a mile deep.
The defensive possibilities of the road’s twisting descent hadn’t been lost on South Keep’s designers. As he stared downward, he saw slots in the cliff faces above the uppermost two of the road’s bends. He glanced at Wencit.
“Arrow slits,” Wencit confirmed. “Some for banefire, too. The only access to the galleries is by tunnel from the main fortress.”
“Is all this—” Kenhodan waved at the defenses “—really necessary?”
“Experience is a hard teacher,” Wencit replied. “The Empire once thought a small field force could hold the pass against just about any conceivable threat, given the terrain. That was before Sorfan the First threw the better part of a hundred thousand men up the road in a surprise attack and took the top of the escarpment, though. The Royal and Imperial Army took it back, but the price was steep, and the King Emperor sent in two thousand dwarvish engineers, two hundred sarthnaisks, five hundred magi, and a quarter of a million laborers to make sure it never happened again.”
The wizard gazed downward for another handful of seconds, then touched Byrchalka gently on the shoulder, and the courser started down the slope.
Kenhodan followed, his head turning constantly as he surveyed the grim, competent fortifications. Each tier of the winding descent was hacked into the cliff face, its rubble cascading down to form part of the next lower section of road, and the weapon slits above them grinned down as they trotted past, iron shod hooves ringing in the wind. The croaks of ravens carried mournfully in the cold air, and Kenhodan leaned back against the pull of gravity, trying to imagine the labor the road’s construction had required.
The roadbed didn’t plunge downward; it was the descent’s length rather than its sharpness which dragged at minds and muscles. Here and there, the engineers had provided flat spaces where wearied teams or blown pack animals could rest, and each such stop was neatly covered by its own firing slits.
There was little need to stop on the way down, but Bahzell and Chernion drew up to await them at the last rest station. The hradani had dismounted, and Walsharno stood beside him while he propped a boot on the top of the low parapet along its outer edge and considered the floor of the pass, still some two hundred feet below.
“Whatever it might be we’re looking for seems smart enough to be staying away from the keep, Wencit.”
“Or else it was ordered to, Bahzell.”
“Aye, there’s that. But whatever its reason, we’ve no choice but to go find it. I’ll not pretend I’m wild with enthusiasm.”
“I don’t blame you. Have you had any further thoughts?”
“Not further, so much as more of the same.” The hradani turned to look at the wizard, his expression grim and his ears half flattened. “Whatever it is, it’s after being big. Like you, I’ve a thought or three about that, and none of them are things as I’d care to be taking home. When we meet, Walsharno and I are thinking it’ll likely be fast and sudden. D’you agree?”
“So far.”
“Then I’ve no mind to spread out so far someone—like myself—is after getting too far ahead. The pass twists like a Carnadosan’s mind, so I’m thinking it’s best we be staying on the same sides of the turns as we go. And, Kenhodan, I’m thinking you’d best be keeping an arrow on the string.”
“An arrow.” Kenhodan looked at him with the expression of a man who doubted his own hearing. “It kills two hundred merchants, then polishes off that patrol, and you want me to keep an arrow ready?”
“That I do. The biggest creature in all the world’s after being mortal. For that matter, I’ve a mite of experience with things as aren’t mortal, in a manner of speaking, and this I’ve found—if it can be after hurting you, then you can be after hurting it. I’ve yet to meet anything as can’t be killed, assuming as how someone’s after hitting it in the right spot with the right weapon. And,
truth be told, it’s in my mind as how it might not be so very bad an idea to be hitting it from as far away as we can.”
“All right.” Kenhodan shrugged his shoulders and dismounted to bend his bow, then remounted. “Just remember this is a longbow; I can’t use it mounted. If we meet something nasty, you’ll have to hold it long enough for me to get down.”
“I’ll be doing that little thing,” Bahzell replied with a grin. “And just you be remembering whose hide it is as’ll be keeping it busy!”
“Oh, I will. I will!”
“Then let’s get to it,” Wencit said dryly.
They clattered down to the floor of the pass, and Kenhodan glanced back almost wistfully as the high road’s steep angle of descent eased at last. South Keep looked back down at him from its high, towering perch, and he found himself wishing that whatever stalked the pass had tried its luck on the fortress. He had no doubt what would have happened to any attacker foolish enough to do that.
He put the thought aside and followed Wencit, and South Keep quickly disappeared behind them. The gorge was only eighty to a hundred twisting yards wide at this point, making it impossible to see more than a few hundred yards in any direction, and Chernion and Bahzell spread fifty yards apart in front of the wizard. That allowed Bahzell to sweep its right wall while Chernion swept its left, letting one of them to see past each bend as they came to it.
Wencit rode in the center of the pass, eyes slitted in concentration, and Kenhodan followed him, watching their back trail. He felt both empty and tense, and none too confident of stopping whatever could wreak such havoc with a mere longbow. Unless Wencit or Bahzell pointed out some vital spot, he suspected his arrows might just prove a tiny bit less effective than five hundred crack troops.
Chernion’s mind was awash with surmise and careful thought of her own, and not all of it was focused solely on her surroundings. She had no idea what awaited them, but she’d deduced a few things. It was fast and powerful, or there’d have been more survivors. Worse, it didn’t discriminate between targets.