I searched the hillsides. It seemed I could feel eyes boring holes in my back. I looked everywhere but at that cavern mouth.
The darkness it contained seemed the deepest I had ever known.
Lord Hammer rode directly to it.
"Packs off," Fetch ordered. "Weapons ready." She twitched and scratched nervously. "We're going down. Do exactly as I do."
Bellweather brought the others onto the flat. He searched the mountainsides too. "They're here," he announced.
War howls responded immediately. Here, there, a painted face flashed amongst the rocks.
Arrows and spears wobbled through the air.
There were a lot of them, I reflected as I got myself between my shield and a boulder. The odds didn't look good at all.
Bellweather shouted. His men vanished behind their shields...
All but my baby brother, who just stood there with a stupefied look.
"Chenyth!" I started toward him.
"Will!" Fetch snapped. She grabbed my arm. "Stay here."
Brandy and Russ took care of him. They exploded from behind their shields, tackled the kid, covered him before he got hurt. That got his attention. He started doing the things I had been teaching the past several months.
An arrow hummed close to me, clattered on rock. Then another. I had been chosen somebody's favorite target. Time to worry about me.
The savages concentrated on Lord Hammer. Their luck was poor. Missiles found him repulsive. In fact, they seemed to loath making contact with any of us.
Not so the arrows of Bellweather's Itaskian bows.
The Itaskian bow and bowman are the best in the world. Bellweather's men wasted no arrows. Virtually every shaft brought a cry of pain.
Then Lord Hammer reached up and caught an arrow in flight.
The canyon fell silent in sheer awe.
Lord Hammer extended an arm. A falling spear became a streak of smoke.
The hillmen didn't give up. Instead, they started rolling boulders down the slopes.
"Eyes down!" Fetch screamed. "Stare at the ground."
Lord Hammer swept first his right hand, then his left, round himself. He clapped them together once.
A sheet of fire, of lightning, obscured the sky. Thunder tortured my ears. My hearing recovered only to be tormented anew by the screams of men in pain.
It had been much nastier above. Dozens of savages were staggering around with hands clasped over their eyes or ears. Several fell down the slope.
Bellweather's archers went to work.
"Let's go," Fetch said. "Remember. Do exactly what I do." The little woman was scared pale. She didn't want to enter that cavern. But she took her place beside Lord Hammer, who laid a hand atop her disheveled head.
His touch seemed fond. His fingers toyed with her stringy hair. She shivered, looked at the ground, then stalked into that black crack.
He only touched the rest of us for a second. The feeling was similar to that when he had caught me after my run-in with the siren tree. But this time the tingle coursed through my whole body.
He finished with Foud. Once more he swept hands round the mountainsides, clapped. Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled. Bellweather's archers plied their bows.
The savages were determined not to be intimidated.
Lord Hammer dismounted, strode into the darkness. The red-eyed stallion turned round, backed in after us, stopping only when its bulk nearly blocked the narrow passage. Hammer wound his way through our press, proceeded into darkness.
Fetch followed. Single file, we did the same.
X
"Holy Hagard's Golden Turds!" Sigurd exploded. "They're on fire."
Lord Hammer and Fetch glowed. They shed enough light to reveal the crack's walls.
"So are you," I told him.
"Eh. You too."
I couldn't see it in myself. Sigurd said he couldn't, either. I glanced back. The others glowed too. They became quite bright once they got away from the cavern mouth. It was spooky.
The Harish didn't like it. They were unusually vocal, and what I caught of their gabble made it sound like they were mad because a heresy had been practiced upon them.
The light seemed to come from way down inside the body. I could see Sigurd's bones. And Fetch's, and the others' when I glanced back. But Lord Hammer remained an enigma. An absence. Once more I wondered if he were truly human, or if anything at all inhabited that black clothing.
After a hundred yards the walls became shaped stone set with mortar. That explained the tailings above. The blocks had been shaped in situ.
"Why would they do that?" I asked Sigurd.
He shrugged. "Don't try to understand a man's religion, Kaveliner. Just drive you crazy."
A hundred yards farther along the masons had narrowed the passage to little more than a foot. A man had to go through sideways.
Fetch stopped us. Lord Hammer started doing something with his fingers.
I told Sigurd, "Looks like the dragon god isn't too popular with the people who worship him."
"Eh?"
"The tunnel. It's zig-zagged. And the narrow place looks like it was built to keep the dragon in."
"They don't worship the dragon," Fetch said. "They worship Kammengarn, the Hidden City. Silcroscuar is blocking their path to their shrines. So they blocked him in in hopes he would starve."
"Didn't it work, eh?"
"No. Silcroscuar subsists. On visitors. He has guardians. Descendants of the people who lived in. Kammengarn. They hunt for him."
"What's happening?"
Lord Hammer had a ball of fire in his hands. It was nearly a foot in diameter. He shifted it to his right hand, rolled it along the tunnel floor, through the narrow passage.
"Let's go!" Fetch shrieked. "Will! Sigurd! Get in there!"
I charged ahead without thinking. The passage was twenty feet long. I was halfway through when the screams started.
Such pain and terror I hadn't heard since the wars. I froze.
Sigurd plowed into me. "Go, man."
An instant later we broke into wider tunnel.
A dozen savages awaited us. Half were down, burning like torches. The stench of charred flesh fouled the air. The others flitted about trying to extinguish themselves or their comrades.
We took them before the Harish got through.
Panting, I asked Sigurd, "How did he know?"
Sigurd shrugged. "He always knows. Almost. That first barrow...
"He smelled their torches," Foud said. The Harish elder wore a sarcastic smile.
"You're killing the mystery."
"There is no mystery to Lord Hammer."
"Maybe not to you." I turned to Sigurd. "Hope he's on his toes. We don't need any surprises down here."
Lord Hammer stepped in. He surveyed the carnage. He seemed satisfied.
Several of the savages still burned.
Fetch lost her breakfast.
I think that startled all of us. Perhaps even Lord Hammer. It seemed so out of character. And yet... What did we know about Fetch? Only what we had seen. And most of that had been show. This might be the first time she had witnessed the grim side of her master's profession.