by Jack Conner
The wolves approached, and she could smell the stench of death upon them. She backed away, but not too fast. If she bolted they would be on her in an instant. She prepared herself to dredge up her powers, but with Raugst here to counter her she knew she could not win. Soon she would join Lissia.
Suddenly, Raugst interposed himself between the wolves and Niara. Shocked, she stared up at him.
He lowered a hand to her. “Hurry. I cannot contain them once their hunger is roused.”
Hating herself for doing it, she took his hand and swung up behind him. Once more his musk surrounded her, but Lissia’s death had rendered her numb, immune from his power. The wolves growled and snapped at the horse’s hooves, but they made no real move against their master.
“Ra!” Raugst said, giving the charger his spurs.
It bounded off, through the grand trees of the forest, and Niara took one last look at the blood-coated wolves and the torn carcass of Lissia, then turned forward once more. Reluctantly, she wrapped her arms about Raugst. Otherwise she would be bounced off.
For a while they rode in silence. Then, quietly, so quietly she did not know if he could hear, she said, “Why?”
He heard. He was a wolf, after all. But for a time she didn’t realize it, as he said nothing. At last, though, he said, “I’m not done with you yet. And there is nothing you can do to stop me in any case. It’s already done.”
It was then that she remembered what he’d said about Meril. “Dear Omkar, what have you done?” When he did not reply, she pounded her fists angrily against his back. “You bastard, what have you done?”
Chapter 6
In the highest tower of the ruined fortress, Giorn sat on a block of stone and smoked a pipe. The roof of this chamber had collapsed long ago, and so the sun beat down on his bare shoulders and sweated beaded in the hairs of his chest. Between his jaws he clamped a pipe, and he smoked on it contentedly as Hanen, his second-in-command, gave his report.
“The last fifty yards is giving them a time of it, sir,” Hanen said, “but they promise results soon.”
“How is their supply of ropes?”
“Oh, they have plenty, sir. The supplies we’ve been taking from the ‘stogs have proven more than adequate. Though—” He paused, looking sheepish. “The men say they hate to use the Borchstog gear. They say it’s tainted. Evil.”
Giorn nodded, feeling the wind in his hair and his newly-grown beard. The sun was beginning to set behind the peaks to the west. He would miss it. “It is tainted. But it’s all we’ve got. Are the engineers sure the last fifty yards can be overcome?”
“Yes, sir. They’ve had some rockslides further up, and now that they’re close to the water they’ve had some mudslides, as well. It’s set them back, but they still promise to have it done within a few days.”
“Very good.” Giorn was glad to hear it. It had taken him weeks to find a suitable stretch along the Eresine wall for his men to scale. The gorge was steep and treacherous, and the water ran swift and brutal. At last, however, he had found a place that seemed workable. This stretch contained numerous protrusions and ledges and rough surfaces for handholds, and the wall that led a mile and half down to the dark rushing water was not as steep as at other places. It would only need a little work, chiseling and scoring and more, to allow a large number of people to be able to scale down. Of course, once down, they would have to find a away back up the other side. Crossing would not be too difficult. The river was narrow there, and Giorn planned to hurl several tree trunks into the gorge to serve as bridges.
And now, according to Hanen’s report, only a few more days remained. Then Giorn could begin leading his people out of Borchstog-overrun Feslan.
Only a few more days . . .
He sighed, thinking of Niara’s face. He could almost smell her hair.
“What about glarumri?” he asked. “Have there been any more sightings?” He hated the glarumri, the Borchstog riders of the great crow-like birds, the glarums. They scoured the skies, seeking the scattered bands that still resisted Vrulug’s invasion.
“Yes, sir,” said Hanen. “Just yesterday there was a scare. A patrol was coming in from the east, but our watchers caught them and sounded the alarm in time for the engineers to get under cover. Your system is still working, sir.”
“Good.”
“There’s one more thing.” Hanen made a wry face. “She’s asking to see the Moonstone again, sir. She says it belongs with her and her priestesses.”
“She would.” The High Priestess Ystrissa had been demanding custody of the Moonstone ever since Giorn brought it out of Hielsly. Normally he would have let her have it, but these were not normal times, and he had rescued several refugee women over the last few weeks who claimed to be priestesses of Illiana. Accordingly, they had joined Ystrissa’s sisterhood. Thus, remembering that Vrulug’s agents could appear like anyone else, Giorn trusted no one, not even these supposed priestesses. He had hidden the Moonstone away in this very tower and did not mean to relinquish it until it was time for his band to move on. “Tell her to wait.”
“She is tired of waiting.”
“Nevertheless. Is there anything more?”
“No. Cook said to tell you supper is almost ready.”
“Have it served, then. I’ll be down directly.”
Hanen nodded and withdrew down the narrow steps.
Giorn cast his eyes upon the broken, thrusting towers of the keep and admitted to himself that he would miss this place when he was gone. It had provided him and his men a perfect refuge for the past two months, even as Vrulug sent out his bands to scour Feslan for the Moonstone. Vrulug wanted it desperately, though Giorn still did not know why. Neither did Ystrissa. All she could theorize was that Vrulug meant to destroy it to prevent them from using it against him. In any event, the Borchstogs had not thought to hunt for the Stone here, and the ruin was well off the beaten track.
This was Balad’s Folly, notorious throughout Felgrad. Long ago it had been the great keep of Baron Balad, lord of Fenmarth, the precursor to Feslan. Lord Balad came from old stock, long accustomed to fighting Vrulug and his thralls, and he had built this keep with that in mind. He had located the grand castle at the end of a series of switchback streams, deep into the jagged canyons of the mountain. There he had built Balad’s Folly—at the time called Fengard—flush against the canyon wall at the end of the stream. The stream actually bubbled up from springs in the mountain, which was riddled with natural caverns, to flow through a channel in the castle itself, through its courtyard and out from under its walls.
Baron Balad had built his great fortress with thick, high walls that would take tens of thousands of Borchstogs to storm. Added to that, they would have to approach the fortress along the narrow defile of the canyon, where his archers could pick them off leisurely from the cliffs and towers. It was an impregnable bastion, or so the Baron thought.
Thus when Vrulug launched his next assault on Fenmarth, Lord Balad withdrew his forces here, where they could outlast any siege. Borchstogs came through the passes, and the Baron’s archers picked them off and tumbled boulders down from the cliffs to crush them. Many Borchstogs died. But then, unexpectedly, Vrulug drew his forces to a halt. Within spitting distance of Fengard’s walls, he stopped his march. The Baron was puzzled, at least until the Borchstogs came pouring out of the caves at his back and directly into his castle. There had followed one of the bloodiest massacres in Felgrad history. Over a hundred thousand people had gathered at Fengard, and over a hundred thousand died. In desperation, the Baron had led his forces out from the gates and along the defile, trying to break through Vrulug’s lines. But Vrulug’s force had planned for this, and their lines could not be breached. The Baron was caught between Vrulug to the fore and a tide of blood-coated Borchstogs to the rear, and he was crushed between them.
Legend said Vrulug had let him live. According to the story, the wolf-lord had captured the Baron after a duel. The Baron had lost, and Vrulug had placed
him in custody and forced him to watch the butchering and torturing of his men and the raping and mutilation of his women. Afterwards, Vrulug had stripped the Baron of his clothes and sent him into the hills, there to live in shame for the rest of his days. Some said it was the cruelest torture Vrulug had ever devised.
Giorn did not know how much of the story was true, but, surrounded by the high walls of the canyon and staring at the blasted towers, crumbling with time, and sweeping his gaze at the avalanche-choked approaches, he could believe it. He could almost hear the screaming of tens of thousands of men and women as they were tormented by Vrulug and his thralls. The wind howled through the peaks of the mountain, whistled through the towers, and Giorn shuddered. Time for supper.
Finishing his pipe, he descended through the tower, making his way through the courtyard, over the small bridge that spanned the spring-fed creek and into the main keep. Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs and tumbled stones, and his men had only made small improvements—lumping stones together to form tables, sweeping out corners for places to sleep, finding an old brazier and stuffing it full of hot coals to drive away the chill of Feslan nights.
Two-score of Giorn’s men were here, playing cards and telling each other lies about their exploits, and he rounded them up. They smiled and laughed and clapped him on the back.
“Only a few more days,” said Mikel.
“That’s what Captain Hanen says,” added Thergin. “Just a few more days and we can cross the Eresine.”
“Is that true, my lord?” asked young Hallys. She was a comely blond-haired girl he had found wandering the woods—one of many—and she had taken a liking to Mikel. Giorn had found many refugees from Vrulug’s latest campaign, and he had taken in one and all.
“That’s the plan,” he said, happy to give them some good news at last.
He took them down through the fortress, past the catacombs and dungeons, which he shuddered every time he went by. When he had first set out to occupy the Folly, he had found a handful of Borchstog squatters. Likely they had gotten cut off from their band, or else they were all that was left of it. Either way, they had been camping in the ruins for what looked like a few weeks, and they had brought prisoners with them. After Giorn and his men slew the Borchstogs, they found the captives in the dungeons—mostly young and comely women, but a few boys and men, too. They were not so comely anymore. Borchstogs had cut off their noses, gouged out their eyes, amputated their limbs and reattached them elsewhere. Most of the captives begged for death from tongue-less mouths, and Giorn, trembling, had obliged.
He tried not to think about it as he led his men down into the caves that had caused Baron Balad’s downfall. Giorn would not make the same mistake. He had placed many sentries down as many of the caves as he could; he would not be taken by surprise.
The cook had been roasting goats caught in the highlands, and the smell made Giorn’s stomach rumble. He had prohibited any fires in the fortress proper during daytime, as the smoke could be seen far and wide, but down here the smoke could find no escape and merely wreathed the ceiling, slithering between drooping stalactites. There were more braziers down here, some shaped like dragons’ heads, or fish heads, or the heads of goats. The Bronze Ram had been Baron Balad’s family symbol, and there were goats everywhere in Balad’s Folly—carved into the walls, inlaid in the scrollwork along the columns, fashioned into braziers.
Stalagmites reared up from the floor, and Giorn had to navigate around them as he came upon the feasting table, a long stone slab set on chiseled stalagmites. The slab had been joined together out of six of the tomb coverings in the catacombs above. Baron Balad had relocated some of his ancestors’ remains here to watch over the fortress in his absence, and though it had not done him any favors Giorn appreciated a place to eat.
At Giorn’s arrival, the various soldiers and refugees gathered around the table. There were smiles on the faces of some, and nervous laughter escaped the mouths of others. Most looked tired and haggard, but at least hope now glimmered in their eyes.
Giorn sat at the head of the table and Lady Ystrissa its foot. When Cook laid the food down and his helpers passed around the mismatched plates, Ystrissa bowed her head and led the men and women in prayer. Giorn was not particularly religious, but he tolerated it and finished by murmuring with the rest, “May the Light guide us home.” That at least was something he could support.
He dug into his meal, and nothing had ever tasted so good as that soot-seared goat. Bitter turnips had been found growing along the slopes, and they served as a side dish.
“Is it true we’re going home?” someone asked, and Giorn had to endure another round of eager questions.
He assured them that things looked well in hand, but he did not want their hopes raised too high and so did not make his answers as affirmative as the men and women around the table were obviously hoping for.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll get out of here. I don’t know if it will be tomorrow, or next week, but it will happen.”
That disappointed them, and they sank back in their chairs a bit glummer than before. Better than raising their hopes and then dashing them. Giorn looked to Ystrissa and she offered him a smile. At least she understood, their squabble over the Moonstone notwithstanding.
During the days Giorn frequently led a band of men out from Balad’s Folly to harass the Borchstogs that roved the mountains. Sometimes he came across a Borchstog encampment, and when they were gathered in their tents to hide from the sun he would bring his men in raids against them. He’d slaughtered many and rescued a number of their prisoners, though he was always careful never to attack Borchstogs too close to Balad’s Folly. He did not want the enemy to know his whereabouts. Along with rope and women and boys, he had liberated several casks of Oslogon wine, and as the people ate the black bottles were passed around.
Giorn filled an ancient, bejeweled goblet, perhaps one used by Baron Balad himself, and drank the foul stuff down. It was bitter and rancid, but underneath that was a strangely sweet flavor. It sent a pleasant cloud to fog his mind.
“I hate this stuff,” said Captain Hanen, sitting at Giorn’s right hand, “but I can’t stop drinking it.” He laughed and took a swig.
“I understand,” Giorn said, taking a sip himself. “I didn’t even know grapes could grow in Oslog.”
“Who says they can? Who knows what this poison is made from?”
That was an unpleasant thought, and it almost slowed Giorn’s drinking of it. Almost.
Easy, he told himself. I cannot allow the men to see me drunk. On the other hand, being drunk made him happy, and his happiness cheered them. It was a weak rationalization, but it was enough to keep him refilling his goblet.
After the feast, tipsy from the wine, he staggered from the dinner table and lurched up the stairs to his tower. Wind howled through the gaping windows and the fissures in the walls, and the mountains rose into purple heights all around. If he strained his ears, he could just hear the gurgling of the spring-fed creek that washed away down the valley. He had convinced himself that this was Balad’s tower, and he indulged himself by nesting in it. And nest it was. His bed was made of rags and hay and grass, and he crawled into it gratefully. Another day gone.
Only a few more days . . .
Niara, I’m coming.
He was hardly aware of the noise when it came, and for a moment he was not sure what had jerked him out of his sleep. Then it came again, a slight scrabbling sound. Then a feminine giggle. He frowned, smacked his lips. His mouth was very dry. Why hadn’t he taken a bottle with him?
A slender form appeared from the top of the stairway, and a giggling girl clad in the wind tiptoed up to his nest. She was young. Too young. Moonlight gleamed off the blond hair on her head and the blond mound between her long legs. Her breasts were small and high, and they jutted out from her chest, tipped by small dark nipples.
“Who . . . ?”
She knelt beside him, and for the first time h
e noticed she held a goblet. When she knelt down, some of its contents sloshed over, and he smelled the bittersweet odor of Borchstog wine.
“My lord,” she said, leaning over. He could smell the wine on her breath.
Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed a breast. Instantly he drew his hand back. Suddenly sober, he sat up and backed away from her.
“Who are you?”
“Why, don’t you recognize me, my lord?”
It was Hallys, he saw, the girl who had fallen for Mikel. “Hallys. Why are you up here? You should be downstairs, with Mikel . . .”
She giggled and sipped her wine. Some of it trickled down from her lower lip and over her right breast. Niara, he thought. Think of Niara.
“I should,” she agreed happily, “but instead I’m with you. I decided Mikel was too young.” Her shoulders sagged. “Besides, he took up with that slut, Santha. Anyway, he isn’t a lord. He’s just some foolish boy who can barely hold a sword. You’re a baron.” In a smaller voice, she added, “A hero . . .”
She edged closer to him and draped herself along his side. Casually he took her goblet from her and downed a sip. The bittersweet liquid parched his thirst, stung his throat. “Hallys,” he said. “You must go.”
“Why?” She stroked his bare chest with her light, small fingers, running them through the hair that covered his belly. “Do you like it all alone up here, all alone in the Roost?” She giggled again. “That’s what people are calling it, you know. The Roost.”
He shoved her hand away, setting the goblet down. “Yes,” he said. “I do. Now, if you’ll go.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. Despite himself, it felt good there. Her hair smelled clean. “You don’t really mean that,” she said.
He did not immediately push her away. Wind whispered over the edges of the crumbled wall, and clouds streamed across the jewel-laden sky.
“Hallys,” he said.