by Terry Brooks
Slanter gestured toward the slits, then to the far wall of the chamber where a second pair of iron doors stood closed. The others understood. They were within Graymark’s outer walls.
With Slanter in the lead, they passed cautiously into the room. No dust lay upon these floors; no cobwebs draped its crates and barrels. The stench still hung upon the air, stifling and rank, but it now seemed carried as much from without as held by the closure of the walls. Jair wrinkled his nose in distaste. The smell might well kill them before the dark things found them out. It was as bad as…
Something scraped softly in the shadows to one side. Garet Jax whirled, daggers in both hands, crying out in warning to the others.
Too late. Something huge, black, and winged seemed to explode out of the shadows. It rose against the half-light, its leathered body spreading outward like some monstrous bat. Teeth and claws gleamed, a flash of ivory, and a fierce shriek broke from its throat. It was on them so quickly that there was no time to defend against it. It flew at them in a rush, swept past the leaders, and came at Helt. It caromed into the giant Borderman, winged limbs flailing, and its shriek turned to a frightening hiss. Helt staggered back with a howl, then got both hands on the black thing, and thrust it from him violently, flinging it across the room into a pile of stores.
Garet Jax leaped forward, and the daggers flew from his hands, pinning the thing to the wooden crates.
Slanter had reached the far end of the room and wrenched wide one of the iron doors. “Get out!” he howled.
They raced swiftly from the chamber, one after the other, until all were clear. Slanter shoved the open door closed with a grunt and threw the iron bolts into their fastenings. Shaking, he collapsed back against the door.
“What was that?” Foraker gasped, his black-bearded face shiny with sweat and his heavy brows knit fiercely.
The Gnome shook his head. “I don’t know. Something the walkers made of the dark magic—some sentinel, perhaps.”
Helt was down on one knee, his face buried in his hands. Blood seeped through his fingers in small trickles of scarlet.
“Helt!” Jair whispered and started forward. “Helt, you’re hurt …”
The Borderman lifted his head slowly. Angry slashes crisscrossed his face. One eye was swollen and already beginning to close. He dabbed at the wounds with his tunic sleeve and motioned the Valeman back. “No, they’re just scratches. Nothing bad.”
But he was wincing with pain. He came to his feet with an effort, bracing himself against the wall. There was an uneasy look in his eyes.
Slanter had moved away from the door and was glancing about furtively. They were at the center of a narrow corridor that ran to a pair of closed doors at one end and to a stairway opening to daylight at the other.
“This way!” he beckoned, moving quickly toward the light. “Hurry—before something else finds us!”
They started after him, all save Helt, who was still leaning against the passage wall. Jair glanced back and slowed. “Helt?” he called.
“Hurry on, Jair.” The big man was still dabbing blood from his face. Then he pushed himself off the wall and started after. “Go on, now. Stay close to the others.”
Jair did as he was asked, conscious that the Borderman was following and conscious, too, that Helt was having difficulty doing so. There was something very wrong with him.
They reached the end of the corridor and went up the stairs in a rush. The eerie stillness of the fortress was broken by the sound of other feet and voices, jumbled, distant and indistinct. The shriek of the winged thing had given warning that there were intruders within the keep. Jair’s mind raced wildly as he bounded up the long stairway with the others. He must remember that he had the wishsong for protection—that he could use it effectively only if he remembered to keep his head…
Something hissed past his face, and he stumbled and went down. An arrow shattered on the stairway wall. Helt was next to him at once, pulling him up again. Arrows flew all about them as Gnome Hunters appeared in the corridor below and on parapets above. The companions were within Graymark’s walls, but their enemies knew it now and were converging. Scrambling to the top of the stairs, Jair wheeled right after the others along a line of battlements that overlooked a broad inner courtyard and a maze of towers and fortifications. Gnomes appeared from everywhere, weapons in hand, yelling wildly. A handful lay crumpled on the battlements ahead, brought down by Garet Jax as the black-clad Weapons Master cleared the way forward. The six darted along the battlements to a tower stairwell where Slanter brought them to a halt.
“The drop-gate—there!” He pointed across the courtyard to an iron-barred portcullis that stood raised over an arched entry leading through a massive, stone block wall. “Quickest way for us to reach the Croagh!” His yellow face grimaced as he fought for breath. “Gnomes will realize what we’re about in a moment. When they do, they’ll bring down the gate to trap us. But if we can get there first, we can use the gate to cut them off instead!”
Garet Jax nodded, oddly calm in the midst of the moment’s fury. “Where is the wheelhouse and winch?”
Slanter pointed again. “Beneath the gates—this side. We’ll have to jam the wheel!”
Shouts and cries broke from all about them. In the courtyard below the Gnomes began to come together.
Garet Jax straightened. “Quick, then—before they are too many for us.”
The little company raced down the tower stairwell, Slanter leading. At the lower end, they crossed through an anteway, dark and closed, to a single door that opened into the courtyard. All across the yard, Gnome Hunters turned to face them.
“Shades!” Slanter gasped.
They broke for the gate in a rush.
Brin Ohmsford climbed slowly to her feet, one hand resting lightly on Whisper’s massive head. The cavern was still again, empty of life. She stood for a moment at the center of the stone bridge and looked across the chasm to where daylight brightened the tall, arched alcove leading out. She rubbed Whisper’s head gently, conscious of the welts and angry furrows left from his terrible battle with the black things, feeling the hurt that he had suffered.
“No more,” she whispered softly.
Then she turned forward. She left the bridge quickly, without looking back, and began to cross the cavern floor toward the alcove. Whisper went with her, padding silently behind, saucer blue eyes gleaming. Without turning, she knew that he was there. Cautiously, she scanned the creviced rock for signs of the black things or other horrors wrought by the dark magic, but there were none. Only she and the cat remained.
Minutes later she reached the alcove with its high, smooth walls sculpted from the stone and carved with the intricate designs she had seen earlier. She paid them little heed, moving at once to the opening and to the daylight beyond. She had only one objective now.
The opening passed away behind her and she stood once more in sunlight. It was midafternoon, the sun gone westward toward the treeline, its brightness dimmed by mist and clouds that floated shroudlike across the whole of the sky above. She was on a ledge overlooking a deep valley surrounded by a cluster of barren, ragged peaks. There was an odd, dreamlike tone to the setting of mountains, clouds, and mist. The whole of the valley was bathed in a shimmering, leaden cast. She looked slowly about and then upward behind her. There, balanced upon the rock above, was a solitary, dismal fortress. Graymark. Winding down from its heights and from far above that, beyond where she could see, was the stone stairway of the Croagh. It wound past her ledge, touched briefly, then spiraled down into the valley.
It was upon the valley that her gaze at last came to rest. A deep, shadowed bowl, it fell away from the light until its lower depths were lost in misted gloom. The Croagh wound down into this darkness, into a mass of trees, vines, scrub, and choking brush, grown so thick that the light could not penetrate. This forest was a twisted and knotted wilderness and it seemed to have neither beginning nor end, but to be contained in its rampant growth only
by the rock walls of the peaks.
Brin stared. It was from here that the hissing sound came, the one that she had heard earlier in the sewers. It was like a breathing. She squinted against the glare of the gray half-light. Had she seen …?
In the bowl of the valley, the forest moved.
“You are alive!” she said softly and hardened herself against what that realization made her feel.
She stepped far out onto the ledge, to the very edge where the stem of the Croagh joined to it. Crude stairs had been cut into the rock, and she stared down their length to where they disappeared at a bend in the stone. Then she looked past again to the valley below.
“Maelmord, I am come to you,” she whispered.
Then she turned back to Whisper. She knelt beside him and rubbed his ears tenderly. Her smile was sad and gentle. “You must go no further with me, Whisper. Even though your mistress sent you to keep me safe, you must go no further. You must stay here and wait for her to come to you. Do you understand?”
The cat’s luminous eyes blinked and he rubbed against her. “Protect my way back again, if you would protect me at all,” she told him. “Perhaps it will not be as the Grimpond has foretold—that I shall die here. Perhaps I will come back again. Keep the way safe for me, Whisper. Keep your mistress and my friends safe. Do not let them follow. Wait, and when I have done what I must, I will come back to you if I am able. I promise you that I will.”
Then she sang to the cat, using the wishsong not to persuade or to deceive this time, but to explain. In images that would carry to the moor cat’s mind, she let him feel what she wished and made him understand what it was that she must do. When she was done, she leaned forward and hugged the big cat close for a moment, nestling her face in the coarse fur and feeling the warmth of the beast seep through her, taking from that warmth a measure of new strength.
She rose and stepped back. Slowly Whisper sank down on his haunches and forepaws until he was stretched out facing her. She nodded and smiled. He was taking up guard of her path down. He would do as she wished.
“Good-bye, Whisper,” she told him and stepped upon the Croagh.
The stench that had risen from the chasm behind her rose anew from the steamy depths of the valley below. She ignored it, gazing out momentarily over the cliffs to where the light of the sun brightened above the horizon. She thought of Allanon then and wondered if he could see her—if perhaps he might in some way be with her.
Then she took a deep breath to steady herself and started down.
41
As one, the six who had come from Culhaven broke from the shelter of the tower door and raced into the courtyard beyond. Screams of warning rose up about them, and the Gnomes converged from every quarter.
At the center of the maelstrom, Jair watched the battle unfold with curious detachment. Time fragmented, and his sense of being slipped from him. Hemmed close about by the friends who sought to protect him, he floated in their midst, voiceless and ephemeral, a ghost that none could see. Earth, sky, and the whole of the world beyond these walls were lost, along with all else that had ever been or would ever be. There was only now and the faces and the forms of those who fought and died in that yard.
Garet Jax led the charge, darting through the Gnomes that rushed to bar his passage, swift and fluid as he killed them. He was like a black-clad dancer, all grace, power, and seemingly effortless motion. Gnome Hunters, gnarled and worn from countless battles, threw themselves in front of him with frenzied determination, their weapons hacking and cutting with lethal force. They might as well have been trying to contain quicksilver. None could touch the Weapons Master, and those who came close enough to try found in him the black shadow of death come to claim their lives.
The others of the company fought beside him, no less driven in their purpose and only a shade less deadly. Foraker flanked him on one side, the Dwarf’s black-bearded face ferocious as he swung the great double-edged axe and attackers scattered with howls of dismay. Edain Elessedil flanked him on the other, a slender sword flicking snakelike and a long knife parrying counterblows. Slanter stayed close behind them all, long knives in both hands, a hunted look in his black eyes. Helt brought up the rear, a giant shield, his wounded face bleeding again and frightening to look at, a great pike snatched from an attacker thrusting and cutting all who tried to slip past his guard.
A strange sense of exhilaration flooded through Jair. It was as if nothing could stop them.
Weapons flew past from every direction, and the screams of the wounded and dying filled the gray afternoon. They were in the center of the courtyard now, the castle wall rising up before them. Then a sudden blow struck the Valeman, staggering him with its force. Stunned, he looked down and found the tip of a dart protruding from his shoulder like a peg hook. Pain lanced from the wound through his body, and he went rigid with shock. Slanter saw him stumble and was next to him in an instant, arms wrapping about him to hold him up, pulling him after the others. Helt roared with fury and used the long pike to hammer back the Gnomes that sought to rush forward to seize them. Jair squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He was hurt, he thought in disbelief as he staggered forward under Slanter’s guidance.
The drop-gate loomed ahead. There were Gnomes in its shadow now, rushing about wildly and calling out in warning. The doors to the blockhouse slammed shut and iron winches began to turn. Slowly, the drop-gate started down.
Garet Jax leaped forward, so quickly that the others could barely follow. He reached the gate in seconds, thrusting into the Gnomes who held there. But the winches continued to turn in the blockhouse, iron chains unwrapping. The drop-gate was still coming down.
“Garet!” Foraker screamed in warning, nearly buried in a rush of Gnome attackers who came at him.
But it was Helt who acted. He charged through the Gnome Hunters, pike lowered, sweeping them aside like leaves scattered in a fall wind. Blows rained down upon him, but he shrugged them aside as if they were not felt and went on. Gnome archers trained their fire on the giant Borderman from the walls behind. Twice he was struck; the second time, he staggered to his knees. Still he went on.
Then he was before the blockhouse, his giant frame slamming into the closed doors. The doors buckled with a crunch and flew apart, and the Borderman was within. He hurtled into a knot of defenders, flinging them from the machinery like dolls, his massive hands closing about the winch levers to pull them tight again. The drop-gate slowed and stopped in a grinding of chains and gears, its teeth barely ten feet from the ground.
Garet Jax scattered the Gnomes who remained before the gate, and Slanter and Jair stumbled through into a shadowed court beyond. For the moment, at least, the court was empty. Jair collapsed to one knee, feeling the searing pain from his wound flare outward with the movement. Then Slanter was in front of him.
“Sorry boy, but I’ve got to do this.”
One gnarled hand fixed on his shoulder and the other on the dart. With a wrench, the Gnome pulled the dart free. Jair screamed and almost lost consciousness, but Slanter held him upright, jamming a wad of cloth down into his tunic front and binding it fast against the wound with his belt.
Beneath the drop-gate, Garet Jax, Foraker and Edain Elessedil stood in a line against the advancing Gnomes. A dozen paces beyond, still within the blockhouse, Helt pulled free the winch levers once more. Again, the drop-gate started down.
Jair blinked through the tears brought by the pain. Something was wrong. The Borderman was making no attempt to come after them. He was leaning heavily against the machinery, watching as the gate descended.
“Helt …?” Jair whispered weakly.
He realized then the Borderman’s intent. Helt meant to bring down the drop-gate and jam it from the other side. If he did so, it would leave him trapped there. It would mean his certain death.
“Helt, no!” he screamed and jerked to his feet.
But it was already done. The gate came down, slamming into the earth with the force of its release. Th
e Gnome defenders howled with rage and turned on the man within the blockhouse. Bracing himself, Helt threw the whole of his great strength against the winch levers and wrenched them from their fastenings, wrecking the machine.
“Helt!” Jair screamed again, trying to pull free of Slanter.
The Borderman staggered to the blockhouse door, long pike held before him. Gnomes came at him from everywhere. He bent and swayed against their rush, but for an instant he withstood them. They they swarmed over him and he was gone.
Jair stood frozen behind the gates as Garet Jax came back to him. Roughly, the Weapons Master turned him about and pushed him away. “Go!” he snapped. “Quickly, Jair Ohmsford, go now!”
The Valeman stumbled from the gate, still stunned. The Weapons Master kept pace at his side. “He was dying already,” Garet Jax said. Jair’s head jerked about, and the gray eyes fixed on him. “The winged thing in the storeroom poisoned him. It was in his eyes, Valeman.”
Jair nodded dumbly, remembering the look the Borderman had given him. “But we … we might have …”
“We might have done many things were we not where we are,” Garet Jax cut him short, his voice calm and icy. “The poison was lethal. He knew he was dying. He chose this way to finish it. Now, run!”
Giant Helt! Jair remembered the big man’s kindness to him during the long journey north. He remembered his gentle eyes. Helt, about whom he had known so very little…
Head lowered to shield his tears, he ran on.
At the edge of the Croagh, midway down its length where it joined to the rock shelf on the cliffs below Graymark, Whisper listened as the sounds of the battle being fought above him grew more fierce. Stretched full-length upon the shadowed stone, he kept watch for the return of Brin or the coming of his mistress. His hearing was keener than that of any human, and he had caught the sounds long ago. But the sounds did not threaten him, and so he kept his vigil and did not move.