"Her timing was good." Emilo made the more practical observation.
Foryth Teel was looking at the map in his book again. "And it seems that Red is running away from Loreloch. I don't suppose he'll be in a hurry to go home after abandoning his post."
"And Nightmare's going toward Loreloch. Maybe we'll catch up to her," Dan said, without a lot of hope.
They settled upon the direction, following the vague map in the book that only the historian seemed able to comprehend. With grim determination, the trio of would-be rescuers set out across the mountainside, staying uphill from the rutted mountain road. Alert to danger, they tried to move swiftly without exposing themselves unnecessarily to observation.
Now the three of them actually presented a rough approximation of a fierce and dangerous band. Danyal still had the big knife, and he had taken the short bow and a quiver of arrows from the man he had stabbed. He had been no slouch at shooting rabbits in the woods around Waterton, and he felt quite certain that he could deliver an arrow with accuracy at a far more dangerous target.
Foryth Teel had claimed the short sword from the bandit who no longer had need of such practical tools. Slinging the weapon at his waist, he had at first tripped over the scabbard frequently. By the second day, however, he had at least learned to walk with the blade handy, and he could draw it in a maneuver that was terribly impressive to look at, even if it might have been of questionable use in an actual fight.
They kept to the rocky ridges above the roadway instead of taking the smooth but easily observed track. Twice they camped on windswept slopes, not daring to build a fire that would have left them vulnerable to discovery.
At the first of these camps, Emilo shared the rest of Mirabeth's story-at least, as much of it as she had told the kender and that he could remember.
She had been the daughter of the bold Knight of Solamnia, Sir Harold the White. This was a man who had made peace in this portion of Kharolis his personal business. Eventually he had become too great a thorn in the side of Kelryn Darewind, and the bandit lord had exacted revenge in a brutal and murderous attack against the knight's house.
"I should have guessed it!" Danyal said. "Kelryn Darewind's men were coming back from those murders when we first ran into them!"
After slaughtering her family, Kelryn had made it clear that he was determined to find and kill the lone surviving daughter of the family. She had been found, by Emilo, as she had said: miserable and alone in the wilderness. Knowing the bandits were about, they had seized on the idea of the disguise, and together they had made the wax ear tips. Emilo had helped her to fashion her long hair into the topknots favored by kender, and Mirabeth herself had known enough about makeup to trace the thin age lines around her eyes and mouth.
The knowledge that her life was forfeit if Kelryn should discover the girl's identity was further incentive to their rescue attempt. This awareness caused Danyal to toss and turn miserably through each interminable night, terrified that Mirabeth's disguise would be penetrated by the shrewd villain. He could only hope that she had been able to use her hair or some other means to disguise the real shape of her ear.
On the second night of their pursuit, Emilo suffered from another attack, a seizure like the one that had claimed him on the night of their rescue on the road. Dan and Foryth tried to keep the kender comfortable as he thrashed on the ground and finally went rigid. Again he had awakened with little memory of their surroundings, though during the course of this last day, Emilo's awareness had slowly returned.
Finally their cautious approach brought them into sight of their goal.
The manor house rose like a small peak from the crest of what was, in fact, a full-sized mountain. A single tower of stone thrust high above the walls, and several peaked roofs were visible over the ramparts. Still, most of the structure was lost behind the steep barriers that enclosed the major portion of the mountaintop, giving the place the look of a small but formidable castle.
Danyal and his two companions looked up at the place from a neighboring ridge, and they immediately started to look for the best way to approach the place.
Only as they were discarding options and proposing others did the lad realize that a week earlier he would have been filled with despair at the prospect of approaching-not to mention entering!-such a fortress. Yet now the challenge simply reinforced his sense of grim determination, fanning the embers of hate that now burned steadily just below the surface of his awareness.
"That bridge looks like the only way to get up to the place," Danyal said, pointing to an arched span that crossed a steep-sided gully separating Loreloch's summit from a neighboring elevation.
The manor itself was a surrounded by smooth walls, though many small, rude cottages were clustered on the outside of the compound. Some of these were perched at the very edge of the precipitous slope, while others lined the narrow lane that led from the bridge to the front gates, currently shut, of the imposing edifice.
"Once we're across, we'll have to find some way other than the front gate to get inside there," Emilo noted.
"Maybe they left the scullery door open," Foryth suggested. When Danyal looked skeptical, he added an explanation. "It happened in the monastery all the time, even though the place was supposed to be locked up tight. A cook who's throwing out a full pot of scraps and garbage doesn't like to fuss with a lot of locks and latches."
"I guess that makes sense," Danyal admitted. "It'll be dark in an hour. Why don't we rest here awhile, then move in after sunset?"
The others agreed, and they waited for the seemingly interminable interval as the sun vanished over the horizon and the sky slowly faded toward black. Danyal's suggestion of rest, he realized, was wishful thinking; instead, he studied the mountaintop stronghold, looking for some weakness in what had clearly been designed to act as a small fortress. There were many windows, but they were all high in the stone walls. The only hopeful sign was that there seemed to be no guard posted at the bridge.
By the time full night had descended, Dan hadn't found anything else even remotely hopeful, but neither did he want to delay any longer. The trio started out by descending to the road, then held to the uphill edge of the narrow track, close beside a shallow ditch that just might offer them shelter if they needed to suddenly dive for cover. Still, they all knew their best chance lay in remaining undiscovered, so they concentrated on moving with stealth as well as speed.
It took a surprisingly long time to reach the bridge, and when they did, Danyal saw that the edifice of Lore-loch was even larger than it had appeared from across the valley. At least there was still no guard posted at the terminus of the span, nor had anyone bothered to plant any torches or lanterns outside the cluster of hovels and small, enclosed pens that huddled around the stonewalled manor.
Crouching beside one of the low walls flanking the bridge, the three companions moved cautiously onto the narrow, low-walled crossing. Danyal had never been so high above the ground as he was at the middle of the bridge, and he had to suppress a wave of dizziness when he looked over the rampart into the ravine below.
But then they were across, with the first of the rude shacks just a dash away and the bulk of the manor rising beyond. Most of the smaller buildings were dark and silent, though candles flickered in a few windows. Lights flared from many high windows on the manor wall, and sounds of shouting or raucous laughter occasionally wafted through the still air.