The Eye of the Hunter

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Slowly down the grades they fared, the stony ground rough and canted. And off to their left rose the mosque, its ruddy sides and orange dome dark in mountain shadow cast by the rising Sun beyond.

  They passed the plateau and moved on toward the gulch, until at last they came to where the horses could lunge up the bordering slope and onto the surface of the road. Turning back easterly, toward the red walls they climbed, following the road through several switchbacks and up. Leftward at the corner, the minaret spiked upward, its cupola a hundred feet above the wall. In wall center stood the gate, huge ironclad panels. Beyond the gate they could see the upper floors of the mosque and the dome above.

  As they climbed toward the structure, Gwylly took a deep breath and then turned to Riatha. “Riatha, why is my heart racing so? I mean, I’ve trained for this mission, and yet I find that I am not prepared.”

  Riatha smiled at the buccan. “All of our hearts are pounding, Gwylly. No training I know of steels one against a hammering heart. It is a consequence of facing the unknown. Believe me, though, thou art prepared, for when comes the time to act, thou wilt find thy hands and heart, body and mind in total concert, as thou wert trained to do.”

  “I hope you are right, Riatha. I hope you are right.”

  At last they came before the barred gates and dismounted.

  “I will climb the wall and open them,” said Urus, handing the reins of his steed to Aravan, then uncoiling a line and hook.

  Casting the grapnel across the wall and taking up slack and setting the tine, Urus scrambled up and over the barrier, some twenty feet high. Soon they heard the sound of the drawbar being pulled, and moments later, protesting on its axles, the rightmost gate swung wide, Urus pushing it outward on its concealed hinges. Through the opening a hundred feet past they could see part of a portico, and beyond stood a great bronze door set in building center.

  Aravan put a finger to his lips and said softly, “E’en though it is day, when the Foul Folk sleep, still I caution quietness, for inside closed chambers of this fortress, some Spaunen may stand watch during the sunlight hours.”

  Weapons in hand, into the forecourt they went, leading the horses, and all was eerily silent but for the clip-clop of hooves.

  Now they could see the full front of the mosque, a great facade running its width. Bell-shaped openings were spaced evenly across the breadth of this facing, echoed in kind up three tiers one above the other. On each tier ran porches the full width, porches reaching back perhaps fifty feet in depth ere fetching up against the main building. In the center stood the largest opening, fully fifty feet wide and reaching up all three floors, the great bronze door beyond. The remainder of the openings stood but twelve feet high, past which they could see heavily barred windows on each tier, their sills deep in shadow, showing only darkness within.

  They tied their horses to the ring posts embedded in the facade flanking the main opening, and then stepped up through the arch and onto the wide porch, crossing over to come to the bronze door. To either side of the portal were arrow slits, deep and narrow, and Gwylly could see back in the recess, iron shutters on the inside of the building, sealing the slots tight.

  Urus tried the bronze door, pushing and pulling. It would not open. “Barred.”

  “The windows, too,” whispered Aravan. “Metal shutters on the inside as well.”

  Across the width of the porch they went, finding the other windows barred and shuttered, too.

  They found steps leading up to the porches above, yet no entrance did they find open, doors of bronze locked tight, windows barred and shuttered.

  Back down they went and around the building, past the paddock with its camels, though of horses they saw none. But no entry into the mosque did they find, though they tried all doors and peered through all windows and arrow slits, doors and windows barred, iron shutters slammed to and locked.

  And the Sun rose above the mountains, though the fortress mosque yet stood in the shadow of the slope of the mountain directly behind, and would do so until nearly midday.

  Circling on around, toward the front they went, Faeril fretting. “Surely there must be a way in.” As they passed one of the smaller doors, she asked, “What about the Bear? Could he break down one of these?”

  Urus shook his head. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Yet I would rather we find a different way, for it is as Riatha said—stealth and cunning is wanted here, neither of which is a strength of the Bear. I would rather go in as a Man, for as we saw at the citadel during your rescue, the Bear is too unpredictable.

  “Nay, Faeril. Now is not the time for the Bear to come calling upon Baron Stoke.”

  “Something has been nagging at the back of my mind,” said Gwylly, “but I can’t quite—Hoy, now, wait a moment, it just flitted past.

  “Look, when we saw Stoke in the minaret, he disappeared downward—”

  Faeril clapped her hands. “And didn’t cross the courtyard! Oh Gwylly, you are a marvel!” She grabbed her buccaran and kissed him.

  “There’s got to be an underground passage,” said Gwylly, grinning over his dammia’s shoulder. “And if it is open…”

  They crossed the yard to the minaret. A small bronze door stood at the base…barred. “If we choose to break down any door,” said Urus, “this will be the one.”

  The Baeran eyed up the sides of the spire. Two ring balconies were evenly spaced up its height, two balconies between the courtyard at the bottom and the cupola at the top. “Five spans to the first, five to the second, five more to the top.”

  “Spans?” said Gwylly.

  “Fathoms,” answered Aravan. “Six feet to a span.”

  “Oh.”

  Again Urus uncoiled his rope and grapnel. “Stand back. I might miss.”

  He did not, and up he clambered, coming to the first balcony and over. There he found another barred door.

  Casting the grapnel again, up he went to the second ring balcony, and the door there was barred as well.

  When he reached the top, he disappeared a moment, then leaned back over the railing and waved.

  Long moments passed, and of a sudden they heard the bar on the door being set aside, and it swung open, Urus grinning. “There was only an unbarred trapdoor at the top,” he said, then gestured in and downward, “and we will need lanterns, for there is a way below.”

  Aravan and Faeril went to the horses and took three tiny hooded lanterns from the saddlebags. When they returned, Aravan said, “I suggest that Faeril, Riatha, and Urus bear the lamps. Gwylly and I need two hands for our weaponry.”

  Riatha nodded and took a lantern, lighting it with the spark igniter on the side. “To avoid discovery, keep the hoods shielded. Enough light will seep Out to show the way.”

  Into the minaret they went. A spiral stair wound upward to the cupola above, daylight shining down from the open trapdoor aloft. Before them a dark opening gaped, and they could see a straight set of stairs angling down and under the courtyard in the direction of the mosque.

  Through the opening and down the stairwell they went, Urus in the lead, Riatha coming after, then Gwylly and Faeril side by side, Aravan last.

  Again Gwylly’s heart hammered, and to distract himself he began counting his footsteps, measuring how far they had gone.

  Thirty steps they descended, coming to a landing where a portcullis barred the way, the sharp teeth of the grille bottomed out in sockets, holes drilled in the stone. Beyond the grate a narrow corridor stretched out before them, running straight, continuing toward the mosque. Along one wall a distance away stood the barway windlass. Urus and Aravan tried lifting the portcullis, to no avail. “Down and locked,” Urus said softly.

  “How can we open it?” asked Faeril. “I mean, is there a key or some such?”

  Riatha pointed at the winch beyond. “See that lever behind the windlass? That is the key. Throw the lever, and the barway can then be lifted.”

  Faeril pressed her head against the bars and looked.

  “I say
,” said Gwylly, “if those rods were set just a bit farther apart, or even bowed a bit, I believe Faeril and I could slip through.”

  Aravan looked at the bars. “Too heavy to bend by hand, even for someone such as Urus, but if we had a large enough lever…”

  “How about the bar from the door above?” asked Faeril.

  Aravan shook his head. “Too short.”

  “Then a heavy rail from the paddock fence,” suggested Faeril.

  Several minutes later, Urus and Aravan carried the post rail down the steps and to the portcullis. They slipped it between the bars at the midpoint between floor and ceiling, where the give would be the greatest. Then together, Urus on the end, Aravan next, then Riatha, they threw their weight and strength against the lever, straining mightily. Slowly the bars gave, but then the end of the rail fetched up against the wall.

  “Try it now,” said Urus, lifting Gwylly to the bend in the bars. But the Warrow could not get his head through. “It needs more widening,” said the buccan.

  “Here, let me try,” said Faeril, slipping out of her bandoliers and doffing her cloak, unbuckling her long-knife and dagger.

  With Urus holding her, Faeril, hissing at the pain as she scraped against bars, managed to force her head through the gap. Then contorting her body and wriggling, she pressed on past, alighting at last on the floor beyond the barrier.

  And suddenly Gwylly’s heart was hammering again, for his dammia was there and he was here, and should Foul Folk come at this very moment—Gwylly shook his head to clear it of these dire thoughts, but still his heart raced in his breast.

  “Here,” said Riatha, passing the bandoliers through the bars.

  Taking the belts of knives in hand, the damman ran lightly to the lever beyond the windlass, and struggling, managed to throw it, unlocking the portal.

  Urus now slid the fence rail under the grille and lifted, iron protesting as it squealed up the track. Gwylly was the first to slide through the gap below the exposed iron fangs, embracing Faeril the moment he gained his feet. Riatha quickly followed, with Aravan immediately after. Aravan tested the use of the windlass to raise the portcullis, but even with a slight turn they knew that the clacking of the ratchet and squealing of the iron grate along its tracks would make entirely too much noise. And so, as Aravan, Riatha, Gwylly, and Faeril used the rail to lever the complaining portcullis upward, Urus slid under.

  Faeril donned her weaponry and cloak and nodded to the others.

  Along the narrow stone hall they trod, stepping softly, the daylight that seeped down the stairwell behind them fading as they went. And Gwylly thought that he could hear muttering in the distance.

  “Riatha,” he whispered, “do you hear murmurings?”

  “Aye,” she replied. “Echoes of distant voices.”

  Soon they were treading through a blackness pressed back only by the dim gleams leaking from the hooded lanterns they bore. But then, far ahead they heard the tramp of feet and a grumble of voices, and saw a growing glimmer of light. Shielding their lanterns under their cloaks, they flattened themselves against the walls.

  In the distance a band of torch-bearing Foul Folk marching along a cross hall shuttered past the corridor, voices and light piercing the shadows. And Gwylly turned his eyes aside, not wanting their reflection to reveal the presence of the five.

  Swiftly all the band passed ’cross, the light and sound fading as they tramped onward.

  Gwylly exhaled, and only then realized that he had been holding his breath.

  “Let’s go,” hissed Urus, and forward they slipped through the gloom, their lanterns leaking tiny beams past the metal hoods.

  Soon they came to a junction, perhaps two hundred and fifty feet from the minaret by Gwylly’s reckoning, though he wasn’t certain at all, having lost count when the Spawn had marched past in the distance. Corridors angled off to left and right, doorways and archways opening into these halls. Voices could still be heard in the distance, and some archways dimly glowed with faint light, as if torches lay somewhere beyond.

  Across the junction, the narrow passage continued straight ahead, silent and dark. “I deem we are in the basement of the mosque,” breathed Riatha, “below the outer cloisters. Angling to the right is a passage under the front of the mosque; to the left, the north side of the temple. Ahead should lie the main chamber beneath the dome.”

  “If there is a chamber under the dome,” whispered Urus, “then that is where Stoke will be—in the center of things, surrounded by his lackeys.”

  Riatha nodded, agreeing.

  Peering left and right, seeing no torch-lit marchers, one at a time across the intersection they silently flitted.

  They continued onward, travelling but another twenty feet or so ere coming to the bottom of a set of stairs rising upward to a closed door. Up these steps—thirty-two in all—went Urus…Riatha, Gwylly, Faeril, and Aravan following.

  Behind them again sounded voices and the tread of ironshod boot. Shielding their lanterns once more, they stood silently in the dark at the top of the stairs. Another squad marched past in the corridor below.

  When it was gone, Urus at the doorway looked back at the others, receiving a nod from each and every one. Slowly the Baeran turned the ring post. With a soft snick the latch opened, and pushing gently, Urus gradually swung the door wide, the hinges squealing faintly.

  From beyond, torch-light shone in and down the stairs, accompanied by a mutter of echoing voices. Urus peered outward and then stepped through, Riatha on his heels, Gwylly and Faeril and Aravan coming after.

  They entered the main chamber of the mosque, the hollow dome high in the shadows overhead. Torches burned in room center, at the corners of a dais there, casting wavering light into the gloom. The hall was empty of Spawn, though their voices murmured throughout. The room was huge and square, a hundred and fifty feet along a side. But for the torch-lit dais and altar in mid room, centered under the dome, the chamber was completely barren of all furnishings. Midway along the front wall stood an archway, and archways yawned at the midpoints of the side walls as well.

  Gwylly pointed. “There I think is the way to the front entrance, but these others, I cannot say where they might lead…to the cloisters, I suppose.”

  “Where to now?” asked Faeril.

  Urus looked toward the far back of the chamber. There a fourth archway stood. “In the monastery above the glacier, the sacristy was behind the main chamber. Beyond it and down, we found Stoke.”

  “Let us go,” whispered Riatha.

  Along the wall they scurried, the tramp of Rūcken feet and mutter of Spaunen voices rising and falling as the five slipped through the shadows. Just as they reached the side archway, suddenly, looming through came a monstrous figure. Huge it was, hulking, fourteen feet high, looking like a giant Rūck but no Rūck this; instead it was an Ogru.

  “Troll!” shouted Riatha.

  And right behind came a squad of Rūcks and Hlōks.

  Surprise flashed on the Ogru’s features, then rage. “RRRAAAWWW!” the monster leapt at Urus, its massive hands outstretched to crush this intruder.

  Urus sprang aside and swung his morning star with all his strength, and the spiked iron ball crashed into the Ogru’s stonelike hide, jarring the creature back, the Troll roaring in pain and rage.

  Boiling inward came yawling the Rūcks and Hlōks, cudgels and scimitars in hand, their charge bearing Riatha and the Warrows backwards into Aravan.

  “Krystallopýr,” whispered Aravan, Truenaming his spear, leaping forward, attempting to win through the press to aid Urus, but a tulwar-bearing Hlōk came between the Elf and the Troll. Aravan parried the Hlōk’s edge with the haft of his spear, then cut sideways with the crystal blade, the burning point searing through the foe’s abdomen, entrails spilling forth. The Hlōk shrieked and fell dying, but two others took his place, charging at Aravan, their weapons raised for slaughter.

  Gwylly let fly with a sling bullet, the missile crashing into the skull of a
charging Rūck, and Faeril threw steel to bring down another. Yet the remaining Rūcks overbore Faeril and Gwylly, but Riatha hurled them back, Dúhamis singing of death.

  Somewhere a horn blatted, its raucous call summoning aid.

  Again Urus leapt aside and hammered the Troll with the morning star, a bone breaking in the monster’s rib cage, the Ogru bellowing in pain. Risking a glance at his companions, Urus yelled, “Get to a place of safety!” But in that same moment the Troll swept up Urus and clasped the Man to him and squeezed, the creature’s huge arms bulging with effort, Urus attempting to hammer at the Ogru, but he was unable to bring his weapon to bear. Perhaps as the Bear he could have resisted the Troll, even slain it, yet there had been no time for the transformation, for the Ogru was upon them ere any choice could be made. And now Urus dangled in the monster’s awful grasp as would a child dangle in the grasp of a grown-up, his struggles futile, feeble.

  “Urus!” shrieked Riatha, and started forward. But once more the Rūcks charged the Waerlinga, and again Riatha leapt to their defense.

  Gwylly hurled a bullet at the Ogru, and it cracked against the Troll’s skull, only to glance away from the granite-like bone. And then a yowling Rūck was upon the buccan, cudgel whistling down. A steel knife sprang full blown in the Rūck’s throat, driving him back, yet even as the foe fell dead the bludgeon struck with force, knocking Gwylly from his feet, stunning him.

  In that same moment there came a horrid cracking sound, the Ogru crushing Urus’s bones, the Man slack, lifeless, blood bubbling from his mouth. Then the Ogru hurled the Baeran against the wall; Urus’s broken body smashing into the stone and falling with a sodden thud, the Troll leaping after and pawing at Urus’s frame, making certain the Man was dead.

  Faeril stood above her fallen buccaran, a knife in either hand, shrieking a warcry in Twyll: “Blūt vor blūt!”

  Aravan yanked Krystallopŷr from the chest of a Hlōk and closed ranks with Riatha, his crystal spear ready to pierce the foe she battled, but Riatha’s starsilver blade, slashed through the enemy’s throat, the Ruch staggering hindward clutching his neck, then crashing to the stone.