“What a terrible place,” she breathed. “The sooner we’re done with it, the better.”
They rounded the base of the causeway, and threaded their way into the woods that lay south of the great stone massif on which the castle stood. The small stretch of woodland in the heart of Hulburg was wild and dark even in the normal world, but here in the Shadowfell the gloom beneath the branches seemed physically impenetrable. It took a conscious act of will for Geran to force himself to take the narrow path leading into the trees.
The silence and the gloom settled in around them, even thicker than before. He felt Mirya pressing up close behind him, and even Sarth and Hamil hesitated before following after him. A walk of a hundred yards or so brought them around to the south side of the crag, a towering shadow that now loomed menacingly over them. To Geran’s left a wrought-iron fence leaned crookedly, marking off a small space where a flight of stone steps led up to a thick door of iron plate in the side of the crag. He let himself in through the rusting gate and approached the doorway.
“Allow me to examine the door,” Sarth said. He murmured his detection spell, peering closely at the postern gate. After a moment, he nodded to himself. “It is warded, but I believe I can suppress it.”
“Go ahead,” Geran told him. He drew the shadow sword again and waited as Sarth began to incant his spell, weaving his hands in the complicated gestures of his craft. The swordmage sensed his magic gathering, exerting invisible pressure against the magical wardings sealing the portal. With care, Sarth checked his power, keeping his effort as stealthy as possible. Geran waited for the sudden clatter of runehelms closing in from the forest, or the lash of some deadly spell trap … but the moment of tension passed, and the postern gate swung open under the sorcerer’s power. Impermeable darkness waited beyond.
“I cannot guarantee that Rhovann is ignorant of my work here,” Sarth said. “He may have sensed the breaching of his defenses.”
“In that case, we’d better not give him much time to react,” Geran replied. With the shadow sword in hand, he plunged into the darkness of the gate. Inside, a short passage led to a low, barren mustering hall where the castle’s defenders could gather for a sortie or mass to defend against any enemy effort to force the postern gate. Geran half expected to find Rhovann’s servants waiting for them just inside, but the hall was empty-evidently the wizard counted on his magic to protect the door. On the far side of the hall a stairway spiraled up through the living rock of the crag, climbing toward the halls and buildings of the castle proper. He murmured the words of a light spell to dispel the brooding gloom, crossed the hall, and began to climb the steps.
The stairway seemed narrower and longer than Geran remembered, another subtle lie of the Shadowfell. His head grew light and his missing hand throbbed as he hurried up the steps. By the time he reached the top, his heart pounded in his chest, and his legs felt weak and rubbery under him. He paused, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. Mirya peered at him, a taut frown across her face. “Are you in pain?” she asked quietly.
“It’s nothing I have time for,” he answered, and winced. She snorted, seeing through his bravado.
Hamil and Sarth reached the top of the stairs. “Which way?” the halfling asked.
Geran set a hand on the shadow sword’s hilt, and reached out for the touch of magic, dark and strong. They stood in a passage that ran beneath the upper courtyard. To the left it led toward the kitchens and storerooms near the great hall. To the right, it met another short stair that climbed up to the chambers built in the cliffside beneath the Harmach’s Tower and the rest of the castle’s highest ring. The air seemed to shiver with the potency of Rhovann’s wards in that direction. “To the right,” he decided. He hadn’t really expected Rhovann to hide the runehelms’ master stone in the kitchens, after all.
He led the way up to the next level of the castle. Now they were just beneath the library and the tower. Here, on the southern face of Griffonwatch, the crag’s top had been leveled and excavated so that the foundations of the buildings above had rows of windows facing the Moonsea, and served as an intact and inhabited floor in its own right. Geran reached the long hall with its windows peering out on the dark, endless night outside. Ahead of him stairs climbed up to the Harmach’s Tower, but the unseen currents of magic did not draw him any higher. Instead they washed over him from his left, where a large council room and trophy hall stood at the end of the corridor. A pair of runehelms stood guard outside the door; he drew back quickly, hoping they hadn’t seen him.
“The trophy room,” he whispered to his companions. “Rhovann’s device is in the trophy room.”
“I sense it too,” Sarth said. “Is there any other way in?”
“No doors, I’m afraid. There are a number of large windows, but most look out over a sheer drop. You might manage them with your flying spell, but the rest of us would need a rope.”
“It sounds like we’re going through the guards, then,” Hamil breathed. He crouched by the corner, drawing his knives as he prepared himself for his rush-and there came a loud clatter and rustling from the corridor behind them. Half a dozen of Rhovann’s constructs appeared by the postern stair, and charged wordlessly up at Geran and his companions.
“Behind us!” Mirya cried.
Sarth spat an oath in his own tongue and whirled. “Narva saizhal!” he shouted, raising his scepter at the towering monsters. A barrage of deadly icicles took shape in the air before him before sleeting through the corridor. Dozens of the icy missiles skewered the leading runehelms, to little effect-there were no vital organs to pierce, no blood vessels to sever. White patches of frostbite spread from each icicle, stiffening the constructs’ flesh and hindering their movements, but still they came on. The thin glaze of ice coating the floor and walls after Sarth’s spell proved more effective than the hail of deadly icicles; while the runehelms were hard to hurt, they could slip and fall as easily as any human might. Several of the gray guardians briefly tangled up in the hallway, but the two in the lead kept coming.
Geran drew his shadow sword and summoned up the magic for his dragon scales warding. “Theillalagh na drendir,” he breathed, conjuring a shimmering field of lambent force that rippled and flowed around his body like a loose-fitting coat of mail. Then he advanced to meet one of the charging runehelms, as Hamil scurried down the steps to engage the other.
“Geran Hulmaster, have you lost your mind?” Mirya snapped at him. “You’re in no shape for sword play!”
“I’m afraid Rhovann’s monsters think otherwise,” he replied. The creature in front of him launched a powerful thrust with the point of its halberd, trying to run him through. Rather than try to parry with his left hand against the heavy halberd and the runehelm’s terrible physical strength, he concentrated on dodging and tried to stay away from the halberd point until he saw an opening. “Ilyeith sannoghan!” he shouted, invoking a spell of lightning on the sword as he leaped forward past the halberd point. The crackling ribbons of light took on a new hue when Umbrach Nyth wore them; on his Myth Drannan blade they’d always been a bright blue-white, but on the shadow sword’s black steel they were a deep violet color. With a wild backhand slash he sliced the runehelm deeply through its thick neck. Purple lightning flashed around its iron visor and crackled under its breastplate; the construct jerked and twisted nervelessly as the lightning danced in its flesh, and then it toppled to the floor.
Geran smiled grimly. I’m not so helpless after all, he decided. Of course, the runehelms were hardly skillful opponents. They gave all their attention to destroying whatever was in front of them. He turned on the runehelm battling Hamil, and took it to the ground with a forehand cut to its leg. The creature toppled, but it lashed out with the butt of its halberd at Geran as it fell. The wooden haft caught him on his right hip and knocked him spinning to the ground a few feet away. Before the runehelm could draw back for a strike with the greataxe blade or wicked hook at the other end of the weapon, Hamil and Mirya quickly dragged Geran out of its reach.