Страница 35 из 48
Wolff gestured at funem Laksfalk to join them. Together, the three pretended to stagger off to the toilet. Once out of sight of those in the dining-hall, they hurried down a hall away from their supposed destination. Unhindered, they climbed four flights of steps. They were armed only with daggers, for it would have been an insult to wear armor or swords to di
The Yidshe knight said, "I overheard Abiru talk with his lieutenant, Rhamnish. They spoke in the trade language of H'vaizhum, little knowing that I have traveled on the Guzirit River in the jungle area. Abiru asked Rhamnish if he had found out yet where von Elgers had taken Chryseis. Rhamnish said that he had spent some gold and time in talking to servants and guards. All he could find out was that she is on the east side of the castle. The gworl, by the way, are in the dungeon."
"Why should von Elgers keep Chryseis from Abiru?" Wolff said. "Isn't she Abiru's property?"
"Maybe the baron has some designs on her," Kickaha said. "If she's as extraordinary and beautiful as you say..."
"We've got to find her!"
"Don't get your neck hot. We will. Oh, oh, there's a guard at the end of the hall. Keep walking toward him—stagger a little more."
The guard raised his spear as they reeled in front of him. In a polite but firm voice, he told them they must go back. The baron had forbidden anybody, under pain of death, to proceed further.
"All right," Wolff said, slurring the words. He started to turn, then suddenly leaped and grabbed the spear. Before the startled sentry could loose the yell from his open mouth, he was slammed against the door and the shaft of the spear was brought up hard against his throat. Wolff continued to press it. The sentry's eyes goggled, his face became red, then blue. A minute later, he slumped forward, dead.
The Yidshe dragged the body down the hall and into a side-room. When he returned, he reported that he had hidden the corpse behind a large chest.
"Too bad," Kickaha said cheerfully. "He may have been a nice kid. But if we have to fight our way out, we'll have one less in our way."
However, the dead man had had no key to unlock the door.
"Von Elgers is probably the only man who has one, and we'd play hell getting it off him," Kickaha said. "Okay. We'll go around."
He led them back down the hall to another room. They climbed through its tall pointed window. Beyond its ledge was a series of projections, stones carved in the shape of dragon heads, fiends, boars. The adornments had not been spaced to provide for easy Climbing, but a brave or desperate man could ascend them. Fifty feet below them, the surface of the moat glittered dully in the light of torches on the drawbridge. Fortunately, thick black clouds covered the moon and would prevent those below from seeing the climbers.
Kickaha looked down at Wolff, who was clinging to a stone gargoyle, one foot on a snake-head. "Hey, did I forget to tell you that the baron keeps the moat stocked with water-dragons? They're not very big, only about twenty feet long, and they don't have any legs. But they're usually underfed."
"There are times when I find your humor in bad taste," Wolff said fiercely. "Get going."
Kickaha gave a low laugh and continued climbing. Wolff followed, after glancing down to make sure that the Yidshe was doing all right. Kickaha stopped and said, "There's a window here, but it's barred. I don't think there's anyone inside. It's dark."
Kickaha continued climbing. Wolff paused to look inside the window. It was black as the inside of a cave fish's eye. He reached through the bars and groped around until his fingers closed on a candle. Lifting it carefully so that it would come out of its holder, he passed it through the bars. With one arm hooked around a steel rod, he hung while he fished a match from the little bag on his belt with the other hand.
From above, Kickaha said, "What are you doing?"
Wolff told him, and Kickaha said, "I spoke Chryseis' name a couple of times. There's no one in there. Quit wasting time."
"I want to make sure."
"You're too thorough; you pay too much attention to detail. You got to take big cuts if you want to chop down a tree. Come on."
Not bothering to reply, Wolff struck the match. It flared up and almost went out in the breeze, but he managed to stick it inside the window quickly enough. The flare of light showed a bedroom with no occupant.
"You satisfied?" Kickaha's voice came, weaker because he was climbing upward. "We got one more chance, the bartizan. If there's no one... Anyway, I don't know how—ugh!"
Afterwards, Wolff was thankful that he had been so reluctant to give up his hopes that Chryseis would be in the room. He had let the match burn out until it threatened his fingers and only then let go of it. Immediately after that and Kickaha's muffled exclamation, he was struck by a falling body. The impact felt as if it had almost torn his arm loose from its socket. He gave a grunt that echoed the one from above and hung on with one arm. Kickaha clung to him for several seconds, shivered, then breathed deeply and resumed his climb. Neither said a word about it, but both knew that if it had not been for Wolff's stubbor
The bartizan was a large one. It was about one third of the way up the wall, projected far outward from the wall, and a light fell from its cross-shaped window. The wall a little distance above it was bare of decoration.
An uproar broke loose below and a fainter one within the castle. Wolff stopped to look down toward the drawbridge, thinking that they must have been seen. However, although there were a number of men-at-arms and guests on the drawbridge and the grounds outside, many with torches, not a single one was looking up toward the climbers. They seemed to be searching for someone in the bushes and trees.
He thought that their absence and the body of the guard had been noted. They would have to fight their way out. But let them find Chryseis first and get her loose; then would be time to think of battle.
Kickaha, ahead of him, said, "Come on, Bob!" His voice was so excited that Wolff knew he must have located Chryseis. He climbed swiftly, more swiftly than good sense permitted. It was necessary to climb to one side of the projection, for its underside angled outward. Kickaha was lying on the flat top of the bartizan and just in the act of pulling himself back from its edge. "You have to hang upside down to look in the window, Bob. She's there, and she's alone. But the window's too narrow for either of you to go through."
Wolff slid out over the edge of the projection while Kickaha grabbed his legs. He went out and over, the black moat below, and bent down until he would have fallen if his legs had not been held. The slit in the stone showed him the face of Chryseis, inverted. She was smiling but tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Afterward, he did not exactly remember what they said to each other, for he was in a fever of exaltation, succeeded by a chill of frustration and despair, then followed by another fever. He felt as if he could talk forever, and he reached his hand out to touch hers. She strained against the opening in the rock in vain to reach him.
"Never mind, Chryseis," he said. "You know we're here. We're not going to leave until we take you away, I swear it."
"Ask her where the horn is!" Kickaha said.
Hearing him, Chryseis said, "I do not know, but I think that von Elgers has it."
"Has he bothered you?" Wolff asked savagely.
"Not so far, but I do not know how long it will be before he takes me to bed," she replied. "He's restrained himself only because he does not want to lower the price he'll get for me. He says he's never seen a woman like me."