The RuneLords (43 page)

"Well, that's where they'd naturally go, isn't it?" Hark asked.

"They're strangers to this land," Orden said. "Their spies may only have marked bridges on their maps."

"You have a surprise in mind?" Hark asked. Orden nodded. "Then I'll tell them."

On that note the innkeeper went back to work. Soon after, the rain let up, and King Orden took his leave of the inn, ready to set back out on the march.

He checked to make certain that the bridge at Hayworth was down, its huge beams and planks all safely stored, then let his men and horses finish their own brief meal.

His captains had purchased grain for the horses, and kegs of ale were opened for his troops. Though his men lost an hour in their ride, they felt much invigorated afterward.

So they set out on the road, much renewed, racing all the faster for Longmont.

They proceeded through the Durkin Hills for the rest of the afternoon, marching near the mountains to reach Longmont before sunset.

Castle Longmont sat on a steep, narrow hill among some downs, and had a cheery little town to its south and west. It was not huge, as castles go, but the walls rose incredibly high. The machicolations atop the walls were sturdily wrought. Archers could shoot through the machicolations or drop oil or stones on attackers from any part of the wall with little fear of reprisal.

The stonework on the walls was phenomenal. Many stones weighed twelve to fourteen tons, yet the stones fit together so cleanly, a man was hard-pressed to find a fingerhold.

Many considered Longmont unscalable. No one had ever achieved a successful escalade of the outer walls. The castle had fallen once, five hundred years earlier, when sappers managed to dig beneath the west wall, so that it collapsed.

Other than that, the castle had never been taken.

So as the troops neared Longmont, King Orden found himself longing for its safety. He felt unprepared for the scene of destruction before him.

The village at the base of the castle had been destroyed--hundreds of homes, barns, and warehouses, all burned to their foundation stones. Smoke curled up from some of the houses. No cattle or sheep grazed the fields. Not an animal was in sight.

The gray banners of Longmont rose on pennants on the castle towers, and had been draped over the castle walls. But the banners were all ripped and torn. Some few dozen soldiers manned the outer walls.

Orden had expected to find the village as it had been when last he saw it. He wondered if some great battle had been fought here, unbeknownst to him.

Then he realized what had befallen this land. The soldiers of Longmont had burned the town to its foundations and had brought in all the herds, expecting a siege by Raj Ahten's occupying forces on the morrow. By burning the city, they robbed the occupying forces of decent shelter. Here in these hills, with winter coming on, shelter would be a valuable commodity.

As Orden's little army rode to the castle gates, he saw relief on the faces of the soldiers stationed on the walls. Someone sounded a war horn, a short riff played only when friendly reinforcements were spotted.

The drawbridge came down.

As King Orden rode through the gates, men cheered from the castle--but so few voices.

He was not prepared for the sight that befell him: all along the walls inside the keep lay dead bodies and wounded townsfolk sitting in the open. Many wore armor--shields and helms robbed from Raj Ahten's defeated troops. Blood smeared the stonework along the outer wall-walks. Windows were broken. Axes, arrows, and spears sat stuck in the beams of buildings. A tower to a lordly manor had burned.

There, outside the Duke's Keep, the Duke himself hung from a window by his own guts, just as Duchess Emmadine Ot Laren had described.

Everywhere was sign of battle, few signs of survivors.

Five thousand people had lived here. Five thousand men, women, and children who fought with tooth and dagger to dislodge Raj Ahten's men.

They'd had no soldiers with heavy endowments and years of training. They'd had no great weapons. They had, perhaps, only an element of surprise, and their great hearts.

They'd won the day, barely. Then the families had fled, fearing retribution from Raj Ahten.

King Orden had anticipated that four or five thousand people would occupy this castle and town, people he could use to aid in his defense, people he could tap for endowments.

Chickens and geese roosted on rooftops inside the keep. Some swine rooted just inside the bailey.

Weak cheers greeted Orden, but they soon faded. One man called down from atop the Dedicates' Keep.

"King Orden, what news have you of Sylvarresta?"

Orden looked up. The man was dressed in a captain's smart attire. This would be Captain Cedrick Tempest, the Duchess's aide-de-camp, in temporary charge of the castle's defenses.

"Castle Sylvarresta has fallen, and Raj Ahten's men hold it."

Cold horror showed in Captain Tempest's face. Obviously the man hoped for better news. He could not have had more than a hundred men. He could not really defend this castle, merely hold down the fort in hope that Sylvarresta would send aid.

"Take heart, men of Sylvarresta," Orden called, his Voice making his words ring from the walls. "Sylvarresta has a kingdom still, and we shall win it back for him!"

The guards on the walls cheered, "Orden! Orden! Orden!"

Orden turned to the man riding next to him, Captain Stroecker, and whispered, "Captain, go alone, south to the Bredsfor Manor, and check the turnip garden. Look for sign of fresh digging. You should find some forcibles buried there. If you do, bring me twenty forcibles with the runes of metabolism, then cover the rest. Hide them well."

King Orden smiled and waved to the ragged defenders of Longmont. It would not do to bring all the forcibles back here in the castle--not when Raj Ahten might attack, tear the castle apart in his search for them.

To the best of his knowledge, only three people alive knew where those forcibles lay hidden--himself, Borenson, and now Captain Stroecker.

King Orden wanted to make certain it stayed that way.

Iome had been in the Dunnwood for only an hour when she first heard the war dogs bay, a haunting sound that floated up like mist from the valley floor behind them.

Wet splashes of rain had just begun to fall, and distant thunder shook the mountains. Contrary winds, blowing every which way, made it so that one moment the baying of the dogs came clear, then softened, then blew back to them.

Here, on a rocky, barren ridge, the sound seemed far away, miles distant. Yet Iome knew the distance was deceiving. War dogs with endowments of brawn and metabolism could run miles in a matter of moments. The horses were already growing tired.

"Do you hear them?" Iome shouted to Gaborn. "They're not far behind!"

Gaborn glanced back as his mount leapt through some tall heather and plunged now into the deep woods. Gaborn's face was pale; he frowned in concentration. "I hear," he said. "Hurry."

Hurry they did. Gaborn gripped his horseman's hammer, and instead of weaving among trees, he urged his mount forward and struck down branches so that Iome and her father did not have to dodge them.

Iome feared this was a fool's race. Her father didn't know where he was, didn't know he stood in danger. He simply stared up, watching rain drop toward him. Oblivious.

Her father didn't recall how to sit a horse, yet the men chasing them would be master horsemen.

Gaborn responded to the danger by pushing them faster. When they cleared the large stand of pine, he raced his mount down a saddleback ridge, into deeper woods, heading west.

The sound of hooves pounding, the straining lungs of the horses' breathing, was all swallowed by great dark trees, trees taller than any Iome recalled ever seeing in the Dunnwood.

Here, the force horses ran with renewed speed. Gaborn gave them their heads, so that the beasts nearly flew down the canyon, into deepening gloom. Overhead, the skies boomed with the sound of thunder. The upper boughs of the pine trees swayed in the wind, and the trees creaked down to their roots, but no rain pounded in these woods. To be sure, fat droplets sometimes wove through the pine boughs, but not many.

Because the horses raced so fast through these woods, Iome did not mind that Gaborn followed the canyon, deeper and deeper, so that they twisted around the roots of a mountain and found themselves heading northwest, circling back, somewhat, toward Castle Sylvarresta.

But no, she decided after a bit--not toward the castle, deeper to the west, toward the Westwood. Toward the Seven Standing Stones in the heart of the wood.

The thought unsettled her. No one ever went to the Seven Stones and lived--at least no one had seen them in the past several generations. Her father had told Iome that she need not fear the spirits that haunted the woods there among the stones. "Erden Geboren gave us these woods while he yet lived, and made us rulers of this land," he said. "He was a friend to the duskins, and so we are their friends."

But even her father avoided the stones. Some said that the line of Sylvarresta had grown weak over generations. Others said the spirits of the duskins no longer remembered their oaths, and would not protect those who sought the stones.

Iome considered these things for an hour as Gaborn raced west, through woods growing more dark and hoary by the minute, until at last they reached a certain level hilltop, and under the dark oaks she could see small holes all around, down in the forest floor, and from the holes she could hear distant cries and armor clanking, the whinny of horses, and the sounds of ancient battles.

She knew this place: the Killing Field of Alnor. The holes were places where wights hid from the daylight. She shouted, "Gaborn, Gaborn: Turn south!"

He looked back at her; his eyes were unfocused, like one lost in a dream. She pointed south, shouted, "That way!"

To her relief, Gaborn turned south, spurred his horse up a long hill. In five minutes they reached the top of a mountain, came back out into a low wood of birch and oak, where the sun shone brightly. But with these trees, the limbs often came low to the ground, and gorse grew thick beneath them, so the horses slowed.

Suddenly they leapt over a small ridge, into a wallow where a sounder of great boars lay resting beneath the shade of oaks. The ground here looked as if it were plowed, the pigs had rooted for acorns and worms so much.

The boars squealed in rage to find the horses among them. A huge boar, its back coming even with the shoulder of Iome's mount, stood and grunted, swinging its great curved tusks menacingly.

One moment her horse charged the boar, then the horse turned nimbly, almost throwing Iome from her saddle as she raced past the swine, headed downhill.

Iome turned to see if the boar would give chase.

But the force horses ran so swiftly, the pigs only grunted in surprise, then watched Iome depart from dark, beady eyes.

Gaborn rode down a ridge through the birches, to a small river, perhaps forty feet wide. The river had a shallow, gravelly bottom.

On seeing this river, Iome knew she was totally lost. She'd often ridden in the Dunnwood, but had kept to the eastern edge of the woods. She'd never seen this river. Was it the headwaters of the River Wye, or Fro Creek? If it was Fro Creek, it should have been dry this time of year. If it was the Wye, then they had wandered farther west over the past hour than even she'd imagined.

Gaborn urged the mounts into the water, let them stand for a moment to drink. The horses sweated furiously, wheezing. The runes branded on their necks showed that each mount had four endowments of metabolism, and others of brawn and stamina. Iome did some quick mental calculations. She guessed they had been running the horses for nearly two hours without food or water, but that was the equivalent of running a common horse for eight. A common horse would have died three times over at such a furious pace. From the way these mounts gasped and sweated, she wasn't sure they'd live through the ordeal.

"We have to rest the horses," Iome whispered to Gaborn.

"Will our pursuers stop, do you think?" Gaborn asked.

Iome knew they wouldn't. "But our horses will die."

"They're strong mounts," Gaborn said, stating the obvious. "Those who hunt us will find that their horses will die first."

"Can you be so sure?"

Gaborn shook his head, uncertainly. "I only hope. I'm wearing light chain, the armor of my father's cavalry. But Raj Ahten's Invincibles have iron breastplates--with heavier gauntlets and greaves, and ring mail underneath. Each of their horses must carry a hundred pounds more than the most heavily laden of our beasts. Their mounts are fine animals for the desert, with wide hooves--but narrow shoes."

"So you think they will go lame?"

"I've chosen the rockiest ridges to jump our horses over. I can't imagine their mounts will stay shod long. Your horse has already lost a shoe. If I'm any judge, half their animals are lame already."

Iome stared at Gaborn in fascination. She hadn't noticed that her mount had lost a shoe, but now stared down into the water, saw that her mount favored its left front hoof.

"You have a devious mind, even for an Orden," she told Gaborn. She meant it as a compliment, but feared it came out sounding like an insult.

He seemed to take no offense. "Battles such as ours are seldom won with arms," he said. "They're won on a broken hoof or a rider's fall." He looked down at his warhammer, resting across the pommel of his saddle like a rider's crop. Then added huskily, "If our pursuers catch us, I'll turn to fight, try to let you escape. But I tell you, I don't have either the weapons or the endowments to beat Raj Ahten's men."

She understood. She desperately wanted to change the subject. "Where are you heading?"

"Heading?" he asked. "To Boar's Ford, then to Longmont."

She studied his eyes, half-hidden beneath his overlarge helm, to see if he lied or was merely mad. "Boar's Ford is southeast. You've been heading northwest most of the past two hours."