Silver lamps lit every step, making this one of the brightest areas of the city, but if he stuck by the wall, he could move in relative darkness. Skirting past the elaborately carved and highly textured wall, moving slowly, he circumnavigated the courtyard and made it to the inner wall’s gate.
He paused a moment to catch his breath; he was already panting anxiously. From this angle, the debris pile in the courtyard didn’t seem as haphazard as it had from the window above. There were two lines of silver lamps that bisected it from the top, the ridges of what could have been stairs, and the outline of a large chair on top of it. That must be the hero’s throne.
There were no yfelgopes in view, but he knew that a group of them were lounging on the rooftop above the building opposite the gates. Unfortunately, there were no buildings closer than thirty feet to the inner wall to provide cover. And the dark buildings might contain any number of hidden eyes. To his advantage, however, there was plenty of rubble and detritus in piles against the wall; he wouldn’t be a stark shape against a plain background, at least.
He made his way quickly through the pile of dry corpses that lay across the gateway, trying not to think too much about what was beneath his feet, and began following his route along the outside of the Langtorr wall. He kept his back hunched, head up, and body tense and poised, trying vaguely to emulate the yfelgop stance.
He encountered his first yfelgop after only a dozen or so paces. It was sleeping with its back against the wall, and Daniel found it very easy to thrust his sword through its throat and upward into the brain stem. Its eyes flicked open briefly and Daniel wondered if it was looking at him or if it was just an autonomic response. Then the eyes clouded, and the moment was gone. Not having time to wipe his blade, Daniel just gave it a few good shakes to get most of the blood off and continued his prowl.
There were no other yfelgopes along his path, and it wasn’t until he started navigating the streets of Ni?ergeard that he saw any more of them-and luckily they were just forms and silhouettes glimpsed in side streets or chattering in buildings. A group of them passed twenty feet ahead of him, but he simply staggered slowly to a pile of rubble and hunkered down until they moved on.
Daniel was getting close to the hut now-he could see the cluster of listless guards sitting in front of it. They didn’t worry him too much, since he had already figured out a way to get past them. He knew from looking down on it from the tower that there was a hole in the roof that could not be seen from the street. The rubble on the far side of the building was high enough, he had judged, to allow him entry to the roof. If he was quiet, no one would hear him, and if he was quick, the yfelgopes on the other rooftops wouldn’t see him either.
Now was the time. He sheathed his sword and, darting forward, hurried around the side of the building to scrabble up the fallen masonry. He moved on all fours, trying to spread his weight evenly, anchoring himself on the largest chunks to support himself. Providence favoured him, and he made it up the single story without anything beneath him shifting so much as a centimeter.
The roof was completely flat, with a slight ridge around it at the wall’s edge. A dark, shifting shadow floated above the hole in the opposite corner. In the low light it took Daniel a few moments to recognise it as smoke. Crouching, he stayed near the wall to avoid causing more of the roof to cave in, and reached the hole.
The floor below was almost completely dark and still except for an orange glow emanating from one corner of the room and a brown, peaty smoke wafting through the hole-a makeshift chimney. He couldn’t see Kelm. If he was down there, it’d be over quickly. If he wasn’t, then Daniel would wait for him to return and ambush him from the shadows.
There was a large boulder directly beneath him and it came up nearly halfway to the ceiling. It was the work of a moment to hop down from the roof directly onto it and then slide down into the corner, out of sight of the rest of the room.
Daniel had been completely silent and was therefore hopefully undetected, but he sat behind the boulder for a few long moments, just listening. He could hear no sound except for the hiss of the fire and the distant bickering of some passing yfelgopes.
Drawing his sword, he moved around the large, lumpy rock, pressing himself into it to lighten his footfalls. He crouched behind a low outcropping that afforded him a view of the rest of the room. There was indeed a coal fire burning on the other side of the room and near that, an elaborate, wrought iron chair, currently unoccupied. Daniel released his breath in a sigh. He would just have to sit tight and await Kelm’s return, however long that would be.
He rounded back into the dark area between the boulder and the wall and slouched down to wait. As he focused on stilling his breathing, there was some part of his brain that was buzzing at him, trying to get his attention, telling him that something didn’t quite make sense, something was out of place.
What was it, exactly? The boulder, that was it-it was out of place. What was it doing here? It was too large to have come through the hole in the roof. It might have been rolled through the door, but why? It might always have been here, but again, why? That was a puzzle. And why did it feel like it moved just then?
A terrifying idea eclipsed Daniel’s mind like a storm cloud. He turned and looked at the rounded outcropping he had crouched behind.
It had a face-a bulbous, exaggerated face with rock-like features, but a face nonetheless, with a nose, mouth, ears, and eyes that were looking directly at him.
Daniel very nearly had time to panic. He brought his sword up and was still in the process of taking a step back when the boulder shifted into a blur of motion and the world went completely dark.
IV
“You found the gap in my inner perimeter. Well done. In my defense, however, I didn’t seriously expect anyone to hop onto a troll’s head in order to exploit it. That was an exceptionally impressive display of stupidity-I truly wish I had been there to see it.”
The words were deep and thick and came to Daniel from a long way off. Somehow they managed to find their way through the whistling tumult around his head and into his ears. He was falling-falling fast, and it was this, more than the voice, that brought him out of his stupor. He blinked, brought up his head, and looked straight into light blue, sympathetic eyes.
His arms were twisted behind and above him, bound by what, he couldn’t tell yet. His left side was mostly numb and throbbed ominously in the places that he could still feel. That side of his face felt swollen and his teeth tingled. What had happened? Had the building fallen on him?
Then he remembered the face and he blinked but felt only one eye move. He tried to move his hand to feel it, but a metallic rattling reminded him that he was chained.
That was that, then. He tried to curse, but no words came out of his mouth; it was plugged up for some reason.
Daniel raised his eyes, making the world rock like a boat. He had to tilt his head upwards, for the person in front of him was at least six and a half feet tall, and huge-bulky like a wrestler or those men on the world’s strongest man shows. He had the untoned physique of someone who carried immense, raw strength in his limbs. His chest was thick and barrel-like, but his stomach bulged out so far that it made his torso pear shaped. He was dressed in black leather that was studded in some places and covered with interlocking chains in others. His skin was dark grey. Behind him was the raised, altar-like pile of ruined stone, with the rough-hewn throne sitting atop it.