“So that is why you made us suffer in these heights,” Vorduthe commented grimly.
“You will not regret it.”
“Then I was right!” Korbar burst out, raising his voice despite himself. “The other route was the right one!”
“No, you were not right,” Octrago responded icily. “You opposed me purely out of enmity. You had no knowledge whatsoever of which was the correct route to follow.”
“But you did lie to us. If it had not been for this plan of yours which you kept secret from us, we could have taken the easy path, which I presume would lead us below the fortress.”
“As to that I cannot say. The forest does extend round the Clear Peaks, as I told you. Whether it yet cuts off the pathway is unknown. No one has gone that way for a long time. How the guardians in the fortress would react is also uncertain. Were we spotted traveling toward the pass we would be stopped by means of rocks and poison fumes poured over the precipice. To be seen proceeding out of the Clear Peaks would no doubt occasion some concern, and puzzlement.”
“Why do you constantly deceive us?” Vorduthe accused. “Why did you not simply tell us why you wished to come this way?”
The putative Peldainian monarch shifted position on the cold rock before answering. “Have I deceived you? I tell you as much as it is good for you to know. Perhaps I should apologize for not being more open—I can only say that I act only as a king of Peldain is accustomed to behave. You are expecting me to alter the royal customs to which I was raised.”
He paused momentarily before continuing. “But to say I have deceived you is to put too much on it. Matters have turned out broadly as I promised. We are in Peldain, an accomplishment men of your nation previously thought impossible.”
A sour look crossed Korbar’s face. He seemed too disgusted to point out that the forest had destroyed a small army. Vorduthe shook his head and could almost have smiled. It was impossible to pin down this enigmatic man.
Just the same, he wondered if he would have been as patient had he not been constantly conscious of Octrago’s supposed royal blood.
“Well, you had better supply reasons now,” he said. “Who holds this fort, and why should we attack it on your behalf?”
“Because it is the key to Peldain.” Octrago’s voice became dreamy. “In that fortress is a much loved man without whom no king of Peldain can hope to rule for long, without whom the land itself may perish. My enemies hold him there. Our first task is to free him.”
“And just who is this man?”
“He is the High Priest of the Lake.”
“Then this is to do with religion?”
“If you like.”
“Tell us of this religion,” Korbar demanded suspiciously. “What is this ‘lake’?”
“It is a lake in the center of the habitable region. It is known as the Eye of Peldain.” Octrago smiled mysteriously. “For now, just take it that if we have the High Priest, Peldain becomes controllable. If not.…” He shrugged.
“We too worship gods, but they do not decide who is king,” Vorduthe ventured. “What gods do you worship, that are of such account?”
“Our god is mighty and must be placated at all cost. Well, are you with me? If you need further incentive, let me add that there is but one way down the rest of the mountain and that is through the stairwell whose head is within the fortress and which passes down the inside of the cliff.”
A familiar note of sly humor entered Octrago’s voice as he made this last remark and Vorduthe knew he did not intend it to be taken seriously. Yet for all the Peldainian monarch’s elusive way of speaking, he felt that matters were at last beginning to be made clear.
“Yes, we are with you,” he said. “How many men are within the fortress, and how are they armed?”
“Probably somewhere between fifty and a hundred,” Octrago said. “Most of the weaponry is aimed at crushing forces below the fort and so need not concern us. Personal arms worn by the soldiery will be broadly similar to your own: lances, bows and above all swords. Of course, we have no lance-men left, and Peldainian swordsmanship differs from your own.”
“Ours can prove itself,” Korbar growled.
“I don’t doubt it.”
“The men are tired, very tired,” Vorduthe said. “And they will be fighting on empty stomachs.”
“We shall rest, and attack after dark. As for food and drink, we have to fight for it.”
“And when we have taken the stronghold, what then?” Korbar demanded.
“We proceed into the heartland of Peldain, to claim our own.”
Lord Korbar turned to Vorduthe. “My lord, have you considered what our own position may be? I remind you of our purpose in coming here—to gain this land for the crown of King Krassos. Is this still to be done? We shall be pitifully small in number. Why should King Askon here honor his vow? The men of Peldain are not totally without fighting skills, that is evident. Perhaps we shall become King Askon’s prisoners—or slain at the earliest opportunity.”
Octrago, unperturbed by Korbar’s impudence, answered for Vorduthe. “A possibility, from your point of view. But I ask you to remember that you will have Mistirea, High Priest of the Lake, in your possession. You do not as yet realize what an asset that is.”
Vorduthe grunted. “Having let King Askon lead us this far, it would be foolish not to trust him now. He is a sworn vassal of King Krassos and knows, I am sure, how we would view treachery. Now let us rest—until nightfall.…”
With sore and weary limbs, they edged away from the cover of the rock, to give the news to the curiously watching, waiting men.
Chapter Nine
The pale light from Thelessa’s sky of massed stars threw the craggy stronghold in sharp relief. The men from the Hundred Islands crept down the slope, the hunger that gnawed at their bellies sharpening the tension they felt, while they hoped that with the mountain at their backs they would be no more noticeable than shadows.
Vorduthe had spoken to each man personally, asking him his name. As he answered each man had smiled with pride—pride at having come so far, at being able to grapple with the enemy at last. The fortress jutted out ahead; now Vorduthe could see where the slope fell steeply away to become a virtual precipice.
The starlight picked out silvery traceries in the roughly cut stone. Deftly Vorduthe stepped onto a walkway that was, in fact, no more than a path cut between the mountainside and a blockhouse. Octrago accompanied him; about half the force followed close behind. Korbar, leading the remainder, had descended on the far side.
Sandals falling noiselessly on stone, they sidled to a lumpish corner and edged around. The ground fell away here and the walkway projected out into the air, protected by a parapet. Peering over, Vorduthe saw an abyss, with starlight falling on an indistinct landscape.
Octrago nudged him, and they passed on. In the wall to the left was a broad timber door. Octrago lifted a latch and gently pushed it open.
Within was darkness. A faint murmur of voices came from somewhere below. Octrago moved past Vorduthe; he could be heard moving about, then there was the click of another latch as he found a second door, and a chink of faint light appeared. Vorduthe’s eyes made out the shape of the room they were in: it was a storeroom, containing stacks of barrels.
Octrago closed the inner door again and returned, ushering Vorduthe outside.
“First we deal with the sentinels,” he whispered.
The walkway widened as they approached the square fortress’s forward corner. Letting his head slide slowly around it, Vorduthe met an unexpected scene.
In the front of the stronghold, the walkway became a spacious terrace, on which defensive engines made of timber and metal were mounted. The frontage of the blockhouse was peculiar: it was shaped like a funnel, in which was caught a mass of boulders. The arrangement suggested that they could either be avalanched directly down the precipice or hurled some distance by the engines. Similar catapults had sometimes been used in the Hundred Island
s.
In addition, a series of pipes ran across the courtyard and projected through the parapet. Their beginnings were in squat vat-like vessels fitted with lids. Octrago had spoken of the fortress being able to deploy poisonous vapors. The pipes, Vorduthe thought, were probably the means.
He counted those men on watch he could see. There were no more than half a dozen of them, spaced out along the parapet, and their eyes were fixed on the night terrain below. Constantly to survey the pass at the foot of the mountain was, of course, the most essential duty in the life of the stronghold.
The Peldainians wore thick clothing to protect them against the cold. They carried swords in what was known in the Hundred Islands as the barbaric fashion—slung from belts around the waist, the sword-points trailing, as had once been the habit in some of the more primitive islands. Vorduthe smiled. An Arelian warrior could not help but feel superior to any swordsman who wore his weapon that way.
He looked to the far end of the terrace, and was rewarded by a slight movement. Korbar was there. He signaled to him, then beckoned to those behind him.
Pale ghosts, a dozen seaborne warriors spread across the terrace, picking their targets. The first Peldainians to die did so silently, scarcely knowing it. The next gave a muffled yell. Alerted, the remainder turned, looked startled, gasped, drew their swords—Vorduthe was surprised to see it took them little longer than if they had worn shoulder-scabbards—and made shift to defend themselves.
One did not even get his blade free before he was cut down. The others got barely any better chance to show their worth. In seconds no watchman was left alive.
Vorduthe moved to the parapet. These were the first Peldainians he had seen apart from Octrago, and one after the other he studied the dead faces intently. The racial resemblance was clear for the most part: skin white as limestone, high cheekbones. He pulled back a cowl and saw pale hair which in sunlight might well have been as yellow as Octrago’s own.
Grinning in triumph, a trooper pawed at the jerkin of the man he had just killed. “I could do with some of this warm clothing!” he announced. “Hm. It’s not cloth. Some animal’s skin, I’ll be bound.”
Vorduthe touched the material worn by the man he was examining and rubbed it between his fingers. It had a velvety feel, but somehow it was unlike either cloth or any animal pelt he knew of. It was hard to say what it was.
The Peldainian’s unblooded sword lay nearby. Picking it up, he ran his eye along its edge. The workmanship was fair, but not impressive by Arelian standards.
The hilt, though… it fitted his hand snugly, but had a grained feel, like tree bark. He inspected it, and could have sworn its surface was tree bark, had it not been so perfectly formed.…
Laying it down, he cuffed the trooper who was now in the act of pulling the jerkin from his victim. “Later. You can’t loot and fight at the same time.”
Lord Korbar reported seeing a timber door on his side of the stronghold too. “Good,” Vorduthe said. “Most likely it also gives access to the interior. Take your contingent and attack from that quarter, Korbar—if you find no way through then return to aid us. King Askon, perhaps you would be good enough to accompany Lord Korbar.” If they should fail to meet up within the fortress he would worry less about the stolid Korbar with Octrago along to advise him.
Stealthily Vorduthe led his own party through the timber door, then groped his way to the inner door and opened it a chink. Through the crack he saw only what appeared to be a stone-walled passage lit by a guttering bracket torch. But voices and subdued laughter floated up from somewhere.
For a few moments he waited, to allow Korbar and his group to get into position should the room opposite have a different layout. Behind him the warriors were stumbling, cursing and jostling in the darkness; he opened the door a trifle wider to give them light.
At his elbow was one of the four surviving troop leaders, a man named Wirro Kana-Kem. “Be ready, Kana-Kem,” Vorduthe whispered. “We go through now.”
The troop leader hissed instructions to those behind him. Vorduthe pushed the door open and stepped through.
To his left the stone passage proceeded to what he guessed was the rear of the blockhouse, where it turned through a right angle. To the right, one wall ended a few paces along and the corridor became a gallery.
Striding cautiously to the start of this gallery, Vorduthe saw what it overlooked: a large common room. At a broad but curiously gnarled table, laden with platters of food and jugs of drink, some fifty men were seated, eating and talking. They all wore garments of the same design: hip-length white surplices on the chests of which were stitched an emblem he could not make out from this distance, and sleek green knee-britches. Piled against the farther wall of the common room, nearest the front of the fortress, were weapons, helmets, and other fighting garb.
The air was stale and smelled strongly of the smoky torches used for lighting. Vorduthe tried to estimate what the chances might be of cutting off the weapons stack before the Peldainians could get to it—it would save a lot of bloodshed and he could not afford to lose many men. Only one stairway connected the gallery with the floor and that was at the nearer end. Men might run the gallery’s length and lower themselves or even leap to the floor, but it was a fair drop.
Then Korbar appeared on the parallel gallery that overlooked the other side of the hall, and almost at the same instant someone down below glanced up and spotted the intruders. The Peldainian looked incredulous, then gave a shout of alarm.
Vorduthe grabbed Troop Leader Kana-Kem and thrust him forward. “Four men to the far end, down onto the floor and stop them getting those weapons—quick!”
Kana-Kem in turn grabbed behind him, snapping orders. As he and the men he had detailed raced along the gallery Vorduthe flourished to Korbar and rushed with a howl down the stairs.
From both sides the Arelians poured into the common-room, drawing shrieks of fright and hoarse, confused cries from the diners. But the Peldainians were not long in recovering their wits. They leaped to their feet and fled the table, making for their arms.
Kana-Kem and his warriors had only just reached the far end of the gallery. A serpent harrier leaped, aiming to land on the tabletop. A Peldainian had already snatched up a lance, however. It caught the unfortunate Arelian in midair, its barbed point transfixing him in the chest. For a moment he swayed on the end of the lance, screaming. Then it and he dropped together, and he died.
Undeterred, Kana-Kem and the others came hurtling down from the gallery. Vorduthe vaulted onto the table, loped its length, then jumped down to swathe his way through the press of Peldainians, on whom the entire force of seaborne warriors was now falling.
But the Peldainians fought—by the gods, how they fought! Even when armed with nothing but eating knives they fought, and Vorduthe saw one of his men go down gurgling with such a blade in his throat, thrown from a fair distance.
He reached the far wall to find Kana-Kem by his side. For the first time he was having to deal with Peldainian swordsmanship, and it was disconcerting—but so, he imagined, was his to them. Two and three at a time they came at him, but in a sudden flash of insight he saw how to deal with their characteristic parries, lunges and twists.
One he took through the heart, another fell clutching his midriff. All was bloody confusion. Only a few of the Peldainians had managed to reach their weapons. For others the slaughter was terrible—the Arelians were in blood-lust now, after seeing their comrades slain, and waded savagely, even gleefully, through their new foe.
The unarmed Peldainians still alive panicked, tried to run for the stairways, were blocked by the guards stationed there, and then cowered quailing under the galleries. Suddenly Vorduthe realized it was over. He bellowed an order to stop.
About half the Peldainians had been struck down, for only two Arelians lost. The smell of blood was in the air, mingling with the oily smell of the torch-smoke. The prisoners were herded together and searched swiftly for hidden weapons. There w
as a movement on the floor. A young Peldainian, chest smeared with blood, raised himself on one elbow. He stared at Askon Octrago, whom he seemed to recognize, and pointed at him with shaking fingers.
“Octrago! You have spilled the blood of the Lake! A curse on you, Octrago!”
At this a thin, bitter smile came to Octrago’s lips. He turned away, as his accuser slumped and was still.
Now Vorduthe found a moment to look closely at the emblem all the Peldainians wore on their surplices. It was a stylized representation of a green tree overhanging what appeared to be a pool. Or lake?
“Yes, they are all acolytes of the cult,” Octrago said, noticing his interest. “All the garrison are.”
Vorduthe frowned at him. “Am I to believe that the High Priest is a prisoner of his own followers?”
“No time for discussion,” Octrago replied. “We are not in possession of the stronghold yet—we may still have half the garrison to deal with, and we had best move quickly.”
He stepped to the huddle of prisoners. “Where is Mistirea, your master?” he demanded of them.
There was no answer. They only glared at him.
Octrago pointed a jabbing finger and picked out an acolyte at random. He gestured to Kana-Kem. “Troop Leader, kill that man.”
Sword in hand, Kana-Kem looked dubiously to Vorduthe for guidance. Vorduthe shook his head grimly and strode forward.
“We are warriors, not murderers,” he said.
Octrago flushed slightly—the first time Vorduthe had ever seen him do so.
Then he shrugged and nodded to a door set in the rear of the common-room between the two stairways. “No doubt that is the way below and deeper into the keep. Well, I have no further information. So lead on, my lord.”
The Forest of Peldain Page 10