Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2) (16 page)

CHAPTER 14

Nargost Castle

Nargost Castle rose out of the Plains of Alencia like a giant among ants, a breathtaking group of towers around a massive central keep surrounded by solid walls that rose to the height of at least ten men. A double gate was the only access point, and the black iron appeared impenetrable to a blow from any conceivable battering ram. The sheer amount of stone used in the construction of the fortress was in staggering contrast to the gentle grasslands that surrounded it, an alien armored mountain in a quiet pastoral setting. We’ve come to break people free from that? wondered Shannon, the first real chill of doubt touching her heart.

After two days’ hard travel across the empty grasslands, they had come upon a dry river bed with steep sides, clearly carved by flash floods from the fierce storms that sometimes struck the plains. Zarif had left the 400 men of his company behind, and with only a handful of troopers and Shannon, Jhan, and Adella, he had started up the river bed at a slow trot. Shannon had looked nervously up at the edges of the riverbed, trying not to think what would happen if even a dozen of the Northings would attack from ambush, but she quickly realized their strongest defense was their speed and sheer audacity. Even if a scout were to spot them, they would be passed any potential ambush sight before the alarm could be given.

After nearly an hour’s travel, Zarif had brought them to a halt, dismounted, and carefully climbed the bank to peer over the edge of the gully.

There now, less than a mile off, was the daunting fortress of black and grey stone. Looking more closely now, Shannon saw that while the gates were intact and tightly closed and the walls manned by watchful sentinels, one of the corners of the castle had been battered into rubble. Efforts had clearly been made to close the breach with broken stone, but even her inexperienced eyes lit at the inviting tumble of rock. At the top of the breach, of course, at least a dozen guards already stood in position to challenge any who might try to exploit the weakness, but it was by far the most promising route offered.

“A grim sight,” Adella said, and Shannon’s eyebrows rose slightly at the odd touch of sympathy in her voice. Compassion was not normally one of the woman’s strengths.

Zarif merely shrugged. “No more than any other unburied corpse in the grass, Matron. This one is made of stone and just takes longer to rot.”

Adella paused, and then said softly, “We do not need to take this fortress, Warrior, in order to free the hostages. We need no more than a distraction.”

Zarif studied her before asking, “How long?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“To get in, rescue the prisoners, and get out again?” the man asked skeptically. “I think you trust too much in your god, Matron.”

“Getting in unseen will be the hard part. As for the escape, there is a tunnel that leads from the dungeon out to the Gatestones.”

“You speak of the Lord’s Way?” Zarif asked in amazement. “That secret was held only by the Lord’s family and his closest advisers. You know its exact location?”

“Close enough. We can only hope the Northings have not yet discovered it.”

“The Gatestones are out of arrow range of the walls,” Zarif answered. “But not entirely out of sight. I think we must keep the garrison entertained for more than twenty minutes.”

“It would be a help,” Adella acknowledged. “For after that, the real race will begin.”

The man nodded slowly, then with a single gesture, he called his men away from the sight of the castle and gathered them in the ravine.

“So, what think you, Exelar?” Zarif asked of the tall Captain dressed in green rags that had once been the uniform of Kargos.

“A wasted visit,” Exelar answered with a shrug. “I had hoped the black titan did far greater damage when it broke the castle, but it breached only a corner of the outer wall, and even that has been largely rebuilt. The best cavalry can still do nothing against a well-defended fortress.”

“Our goal is not to re-take the fortress but merely to make enough of a diversion to allow a party to rescue the prisoners,” Zarif reminded him.

“But we must make more of a threat than simply riding around the walls,” countered Exelar.

“The breach is still the weakest point,” said Zarif. “Even without ropes and grapples, we could gain the battlements by climbing the tumble of rocks.”

“With the entire garrison awaiting us at the top.”

“What of a night attack?” asked one of the troopers. “We could reach the walls before the first alarm is given and use grapples to climb the battlements.”

Zarif and Exelar exchanged glances before Zarif said simply, “The goblins see clearly in the night, and they would have the advantage of us. Too few of us know Nargost, so even if we gained the walls, you would be floundering around in an unfamiliar castle in the dark. No, we need daylight to have any chance.”

“What if the main gate were thrown down?”

Everyone stopped and stared at Adella, but even a single glance assured them the question was more than merely academic.

“Then we could storm the main courtyard before any defenses could be prepared,” said Zarif. “The Northings would fear for their lives as well as their citadel, and you would have the distraction you desire. But I trust you have some method other than prayer to achieve such a miracle.”

“Certainly,” she said, looking over at Jhan. “We have our sorcerer’s apprentice.”

Zarif spun to look at Jhan who was caring for his horse and oblivious to the conversation. Shannon’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Adella put a hand on her knee and dug in with her fingernails. Shannon shut her mouth again with a gasp and a snap. Zarif turned back to them and asked carefully, “Does the boy possess such power?”

“Perhaps,” Adella answered, though the shrug of her shoulders said much more. “But he most certainly can make a grand display. What will be the reaction of the defenders when they see magics being cast against their gates?”

“They’ll send ever man and monster to guard it.”

“And leave the breach exposed.”

The group tensed with excitement as they examined the plan in their minds, picturing the charge across the open ground to the walls, the confusion of the garrison, the numbers they might be forced to face.

“Perhaps,” said Exelar tightly. “Just perhaps we might gain the battlements.”

“Great Mirna, then the fighting will begin!” growled a trooper savagely.

“We’ll cut a swath through Northing and goblin alike!”

There was a low roar of intensity, as men seized weapons as if ready to storm the castle that very moment.

“What say you, Dead Zarif?” Exelar asked, and then men quieted, waiting for their leader to speak.

The tall Captain got slowly to his feet, staring at the intense, watchful faces of his men. “What better death can we want than trying to retake our home from the invaders? And even if we fail, we shall so rouse the garrison that they will have naught a thought for the hostages. You ask what I say? I say we ride at dawn!”

* * * * *

The mirror of Llan Praetor was thick with his rage. The image of the room was obliterated by white mist, and only Malcolm himself was clearly visible, his light blue cloak like a slash of sky through the cloud of smoke. Malcolm was attempting to take control of the Eye of Llan Praetor and force it to reveal events of the past. Not events of his own past; that was a relatively simple task. No. He was seeking to find the pasts of the thieves who had raided the castle and stolen his possessions during his absence.

The image in the mirror showed him seething with cold anger, his eyes dangerously bright, his teeth barred, even though his actual countenance was composed and disciplined as he completed the magic. The mirror was responding to his power and was adjusting the image gradually, and it had paused for a moment to reveal the true picture of emotions burning within him.

The angry image before him was not at all inappropriate given the circumstances. Outmaneuvered by dragons and imprisoned within his own home, the castle violated and one of the great stone guardians of the threshold destroyed, and the thieves had penetrated even to his personal sanctums, pawed over his possessions, and stolen the wand of power and the flying boat that had been a valuable if outdated means of transport. And far, far worse was the burning knowledge that the thieves had escaped unharmed and therefore might very well return at will. No. The angry image was quite in line with events and easily explained why he was seeking a means to visit his rage upon the offenders.

“To the Winds of the Ether, to the Winds of the World,” he spoke slowly, deliberately, raising first one hand and then the other. “Darkness to Light, let Truth be Unfurled.”

The words were a personal invocation that helped his mind to focus rather than part of the actual casting, and as he concentrated, the sky blue cloak began to fade into the white mists to be replaced by three other figures, at first indistinct but gradually taking sharper form.

The thieves, thought Malcolm grimly and had to take a tighter grip on his emotions.

They weren’t at all what he expected. The woman was sharp-eyed and quick, and she carried herself with a steady confidence that spoke of long experience. But the girl and boy with her could not even be out of their teens and looked as if this were their first time away from home. The two carried only a few knives as weapons, though Malcolm stared long and hard at the scabbarded sword carried by the woman. His eyes widened, however, when he saw the way the girl simply walked right through the barrier of force around the castle, bringing her two companions with her.

Yes, I thought I recognized her, Malcolm said to himself.

His eyes widened again as he watched the swift and agile moves of the woman that caused the first guardian to inadvertently destroy the second, and he paid closer attention still as the woman puzzled over the markings on the floor and compared them to the constellations displayed on the ceiling. The transport floor was the trap that Malcolm himself had barely survived on his first venture into the castle, and just as he expected, the woman was caught up in the swirling vortex of the floor and carried blindly through a long series of empty rooms. They were being drawn deeper and deeper into the mountain, and the floor would eventually deposit her in the dark spaces deep within the mountain, the cold belly of Llan Praetor, from which there was no escape. Then the girl took a hand, and with a single stroke of the dagger, brought all three of them directly to the throne room.

Malcolm almost smiled at the symmetry. The girl had focused on the dagger, almost as if it had the power to find the throne room, just as the Paladin had thought it was his great sword that led him here.

The wall showed the looting of the wand and the boat by the woman, but oddly, it did not show him the images the mirror had displayed for the girl, leaving him to guess their nature from their expressions and the half dozens words he could make out from their conversation. There was no mistaking their actions, however. Malcolm’s heart almost came up through his throat as the images showed the mad, uncontrolled ride in the wind boat, for he knew, none better, the threats posed by the mountain winds on even an experienced rider. He nodded his head when he saw the girl taking a hand, pulling the nose up at the last minute, for there had been more than luck and more than fate at play in that boat.

The flight over the plains, the meeting with the horsemen, the ride to Nargost Castle, even the council within the gully where brave souls sealed their doom, all these images played over the mirror, none of their significance lost on the Wizard. Even after the wall had returned to simple reflection, Malcolm continued to stare into it as his mind explored all he had seen, pieces of an intricate puzzle slowly joined, pictures and possibilities. And modifications on existing plans.

“The same road as before,” the Wizard mused softly, surprised by the conclusion. “Only with a few additional twists and turns.”

* * * * *

There was a crack and a snap that roused Darius from his meditations, and he blinked a little as he stared around at his surroundings: a windowless cell illuminated by a lonely candle on a rickety table with a single chair. He was sitting in one corner on a blanket covering a mass of hay, and in the other corner was a slop bucket to act as a latrine. It was hardly more than a day since the death of Lord Boltran, and no more than twelve hours since he had been transported to this dreary castle of Ringimore, the northernmost of the citadels of the principality of Maganhall, the nearest jurisdiction of the dead Duke.

The cell door swung open, and he realized it was the sound of it being unlocked that had roused him. Darius smiled in surprise as two men entered, Father Joshua in a travel-stained cloak and an older man with thinning hair and a sizable paunch who was wearing the robes of a Prefect of the Church. Prefects had the same rank as Bishops in the Church, but whereas Bishops held sway over a particular geographical area, the Prefects held sway over particular people, such as an order of monks or a clerical arm of the Church.

Darius got to his feet and shook Joshua’s hand warmly, but the young man was looking instead at the grim contents of the dank cell. He shook his head in disbelief, his expression one of vague horror.

“It is good to see you, Joshua,” Darius said, grabbing the man’s shoulder and giving it a short, reassuring shake. “Thank you for coming.”

The young Priest blinked, the greeting calling him back to himself, and he managed a small smile in answer.

“This is Adrian Arturo, the Prefect of the monasteries of Corland,” said Joshua, but there was a small restraint in his voice that was not lost on Darius. “He has agreed to act as your defender before the Inquest.”

Darius offered his hand which the older man shook perfunctorily as he took the one seat and promptly began unwrapping his bundle to reveal two books, several sheets of parchment, and a quill and ink bottle. He began to arrange these into an order, and Darius glanced a question at Joshua who gave the tiniest of shrugs. As the man put a pair of reading glasses on his nose, Darius said, “A prefect of the Church offering to act as defender. I am certainly grateful, but I hope you will forgive me for asking why a man of your stature has elected to help a stranger?”