As the warrior apprentice stood straight with Glendyss cradled in his arms, Will motioned for him to wait. He sensed that once Glendyss was in the peace of the dark tunnel, he would let go of the faint thread that held him to life. And there was still one more question Will needed answered.
"Glendyss," he said softly. "How long do we have?"
The miner looked at him wearily, uncomprehending. Will tried again.
"How long before they finish the bridge?" he asked. This time, he could see a light of understanding in the Celt's eyes. Glendyss thought for a second or two.
"Five days," he replied. "Maybe four. More workers came today:so maybe four."
Then his eyes closed, as if the effort had been too much. For a second, they thought he had died. But then his chest heaved with a massive shudder and he continued to breathe.
"Let's get him into the tunnel," Will said.
They squeezed through the narrow opening. For the first ten meters, the walls of the tunnel were close enough to touch. Then they began to widen, as the results of the Celts' labor became evident. It was a dark, confined place, lit only by the dim flames of torches set in brackets every ten to twelve meters. Some of these were guttering now, and provided only a fitful, uncertain light. Horace looked around uneasily. He didn't like heights and he definitely didn't like confined spaces.
"Here's the answer," Will said. "Morgarath needed those first fifty miners to do this work. Now that the tunnel is nearly finished, he needs more men to get the bridge built as quickly as possible."
Horace nodded. "You're right," he agreed. "The tunneling would take months, but nobody would see it was going on. Once they started building the bridge, the risk of discovery would be much higher."
In the wider reaches of the tunnel, they found a small sandy patch, almost a grotto, off to one side. They laid Glendyss in it. Will realized that this must have been what the two Celts had been trying to do for their countryman when the stop-work horn had sounded.
He hesitated. "I wonder what the Wargals will think when they find him here tomorrow?"
Horace merely shrugged. "Maybe they'll think he crawled in here by himself," he suggested. Will thought about it doubtfully. But then he looked at the peaceful expression on the dying miner's face in the gloomy light and he couldn't bring himself to take the man back outside once more.
"Just put him a little farther in, as far out of sight as you can," he said.
There was a small elbow of rock and Horace gently placed the miner behind it. He was now visible only if you looked carefully and Will decided that was good enough. Horace stepped back into the main tunnel. Will noticed that he was still glancing uneasily around.
"What do we do now?" Horace asked. Will came to a decision.
"You can wait here for me," he said. "I'm going to see where this leads."
Horace didn't argue. The thought of going farther into that dark, winding tunnel didn't appeal to him at all. He found a place to sit, close to one of the brighter torches.
"Just make sure you come back," he said. "I don't want to have to come looking for you."
20
T HE TUNNEL, LEVEL AT FIRST, BEGAN TO ANGLE STEEPLY UPWARD as Will went on, leaving Horace behind him. The walls and floor showed evidence of the Celts' picks and drills as they had torn and gouged at the rock to widen the path.
Will guessed that the original narrow tunnel had been nothing more than a natural fault in the rock-a mere crevice. But as he went on, he saw how much it had been widened, until there was room for four or five men to walk abreast. And still it climbed up into the heart of the mountains.
A circle of light showed the end of the tunnel. He estimated that he'd traveled maybe three hundred meters in total and the end was another forty away. The light that he could see seemed to be stronger than simple moonlight and, as he carefully emerged from the tunnel, he saw why.
Here, the hills separated, forming a large valley about two hundred meters across and half a kilometer long. To one side, the moonlight showed him massive wooden structures leading up to the higher reaches of the plateau. Staircases, he realized after a few moments' study. The floor of the valley was lit with campfires and there were hundreds of figures moving in the flickering orange light. Will guessed that this would be the assembly area for Morgarath's army. At the moment, it was where the Wargals kept their Celt prisoners at night.
He paused, trying to form a picture of the overall situation. The plateau that formed the greater part of Morgarath's domain was still at least fifty meters above this point. But the staircases and the less formidable slope of the surrounding hills would provide relatively easy access down to this valley. The valley itself must be some thirty meters above the level where the bridge stood. The sloping tunnel would take troops down to the bridge from here. Once again, Halt's words echoed in his ear: nowhere is really impassable.
He moved to the left of the tunnel mouth and found cover in a jumble of rocks and boulders while he took stock of the situation. There was a rough stockade in the center of the valley. Inside the wooden fencing, he could see a large number of small fires, each with a group of figures seated or sprawled around it. This was the prisoners' compound, he guessed.
Large fires outside the compound marked the places where the Wargals were camped. He could see the hulking, shambling forms clearly against the firelight as they moved around. Yet there was one fire close to him that seemed different. The figures seemed more upright, more humanoid in the way they stood and carried themselves.
Curiously, he worked his way closer to it, sliding through the night with barely a sound, moving quickly from one patch of cover to the next, until he was just at the outer ring of light thrown by the fire-a spot where he knew the darkness, by contrast, would seem more intense to those sitting around the fire.
There was a haunch of some kind of meat roasting slowly over the fire and the smell of it set his mouth watering. He'd been traveling for days on cold rations and the meat filled the air with a delicious fragrance. He felt his stomach begin to rumble and fear stabbed through him. It would be unthinkably bad luck to be betrayed by a rumbling stomach, he thought.
The fear did the trick, killing his appetite. His digestion more or less under control, he edged his face around a boulder, low to the ground, to get a better look at the figures eating by the fire.
As he did so, one of them leaned forward to slice off a chunk of the meat, juggling the hot, greasy food in his hand as he took it. The movement let the firelight shine clearly on him and Will could see that these were not Wargals. From their rough sheepskin vests, woolen leggings bound with tapes and heavy seal-fur boots, he recognized them as Skandians.
Further study showed him their horned helmets, round wooden shields and battleaxes piled to one side of the campsite. He wondered what they were doing here, so far from the ocean.
The man who had moved finished his meat and wiped his hands on his sheepskin vest. He belched, then settled himself in a more comfortable spot by the fire.
"Be damned glad when Olvak's men get here," he said in the thick, almost indecipherable accent of Skandia. Will knew that Skandians spoke the same tongue as the kingdom. Hearing it now for the first time, though, he barely recognized it.
The other sea wolves growled their agreement. There were four of them around the fire. Will edged forward a little to hear them more clearly, then froze, horrified, as he saw the unmistakable shambling form of a Wargal moving directly toward him from the other side of the fire.
The Skandians heard him coming and looked up warily. With an immense feeling of relief, Will realized that the creature was not coming toward him but was approaching the Skandians' fire.