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They skirted the great hall by following a passage that ran near the castle’s outer walls, past a long gallery of low stone arches filled with foodstuffs, water, and arms. Upon entering the keep’s lower floors, they turned into one of the tower’s turrets and followed a winding stair up.
At the next floor, they came to an ironbound wooden door that led into the keep’s outermost passages. This floor of the tower was one level beneath the royal quarters, and contained chambers used by advisors and courtiers in times of peace. Across the hall stood a door leading into a unused archer’s gallery. “Into the gallery,” Daeric instructed Caede.
At that moment, one of the doors opened in the hall behind them, and a battle-scarred old captain emerged. He took one glance at the Mhoriens and immediately backpedalled.
“Guards! Guards! To the keep!” he bellowed.
Hans rushed forward, swinging a small hand axe, but the fellow twisted out of the way and caught Hans’s weapon hand. The fletcher and the captain struggled over the axe, while the captain continued to shout for help.
“Damn the luck!” swore Daeric. “Caede, help Hans! Tiery and Thendiere, follow me!” He stepped forward and threw open the door, racing into the arc her’s gallery. Behind him, he heard the captain’s cries suddenly cut short as Caede ran him through while his arms were pi
The gallery was a long, narrow room with four wide, shuttered embrasures overlooking the fortress’s outer walls. It served as a simple storeroom in times of peace. The Mhor ran forward, looking for the concealed stair. If he remembered correctly, there was a trapdoor hidden in the floor of an archer’s perch. He searched quickly, conscious of the fortress waking around him. Behind him, the two servants slammed the door of the room shut and set their shoulders against it.
“Hurry, my lord!” called Caede. “There’s a squad of guards right behind us!”
Thendiere looked ahead, toward the gallery’s opposite door. “They’ll be around to try the other door in a moment. Whatever you’re looking for, you’d better find it soon.”
Daeric dropped to his knees, searching for the hidden iron ring that he knew was there. He groped in the darkness for an agonizing eternity before he felt the cold metal. “I’ve got it!”
He started to lift the trapdoor, but a voice spoke in the shadows: “My apologies, my lord Mhor, but I ca
The Mhor slowly stood, raising the sword he’d taken fro m the guard. “Ba
In a matter of minutes they’d force the doors open. Daeric had to neutralize the wizard, and quickly, or they were all lost.
Ba
At the other end of the hall, the door flew open, and Ghoerans poured into the room, swarming over Caede and Hans.
The two servants valiantly held their ground for a moment before they were overcome. With a mighty effort, Daeric heaved the trapdoor open, revealing a dark shaft leading straight down into the wall. Rusted iron rungs marked the ladder to the hidden door. Daeric barked at Thendiere.
“Come on! We’ve not a moment to lose!”
The prince was still struggling with the wizard. Even as Daeric watched, Ba
“Not again, you bastard,” Daeric breathed. He rose to his feet. Behind him, the Ghoeran guardsmen closed in carefully, but Daeric didn’t spare them a glance. Hot tears of rage flowed down his cheeks, as his mind dissolved in white-hot fury. “Not again!”
Screaming like an animal, he threw himself at Ba
With all the strength he had left, Daeric kicked and turned, deliberately hurling himself over the edge. With his hands locked around Ba
Aesele, I’m here – and the darkness came for him, too.
At that moment, Gaelin was standing by the banks of the Stonebyrn, gazing over the river. He peered through the fog, trying to make out what was happening on the other side by the landing of Norbank, but the Stonebyrn was a good four or five hundred yards wide at this point, and even Erin’s elven-sight couldn’t pierce the gray mists. The guards nervously talked and jested in low voices as they tended to their mounts or oiled their arms and armor. Something in the set of Gaelin’s shoulders must have warned everyone he desired privacy, for his companions stayed clear of him.
He was surprised to discover his thoughts were turning to his childhood and upbringing in the court of Shieldhaven. The darkness and the cold, clinging river mists brought him to somber introspection, a sense of melancholy. He thought of the day his mother had died, the stern and unyielding face of his father as the Mhor broke the news to his young sons. The spark in his father’s eye left and never returned. The only comfort Mhor Daeric took from that day forward was in cold, harsh duty.
“Gaelin.”
He looked up, startled. No one was nearby; the soldiers had a small fire going about thirty yards away, and Erin was softly strumming her lute over there, but the voice had been very close. “Who’s there?” he called in a low voice.
“Gaelin, it is your father.” A shape was forming in the fog, a spectral image. It was coming nearer, striding over the waters and the mists, and now he saw a pearly, opalescent light playing in the fog. The figure that stood before him was the Mhor, but Daeric was a silver apparition of mist and moonlight, somehow brighter than the surrounding night, and yet more faint and distant than he could imagine.