“This Zuharrin will assume no one would dare steal upon him,” said Fallarond. “He must feet doubly secure in his stronghold.”
“Let’s not waste any time,” said Zemella. “I’ve had more than enough of skulking. Time to take the fight to them.”
Fallarond sent out runners to study the terrain as the company moved on. The land rose gradually, the jungle unbroken, the light no less dismal. After several days’ travel through the jungle, they reached a place where the creek was nothing more than a spring, dribbling almost soundlessly from a narrow crack in a low wall of stone, the edge of the foothills. The jungle thinned out, but the company kept to its edge under cover.
Higher up the slope above the company, two figures were watching. They were armed men, their heads encased in leather helmets, their keen eyes looking out for the slightest movement below. One of them muttered something under his breath. Down in the narrow valley, at the first of the stunted trees, he had seen something move. Then another.
“Something approaches!” he hissed to his companion, pointing with his short sword. There was no response from the other, who had flattened himself up against the bole of a tree, though his eyes seemed to be fixed on that same spot below.
“D’you see, Karg? How many?”
“Too many to count. What are they? We must report this.” He turned, gripping the arm of his companion, but it was stiff and unresisting. “Hurry! We must—”
The other’s eyes were wide, but they wore a shocked, frozen look of horror. He was dead, pinned through the neck by an arrow to the tree.
With a curse, the warrior sprang back and turned, intending to flee, but as he did so, the ground rose up before him, leaves and earth tossed aside by the frightful apparition. Before he could respond, a sword plunged deep into his vitals. A single gasp escaped his lips as he sank to his knees. The last thing his eyes saw before they closed in death was the skull face of the Deathguard scout. The latter pulled his blade free of the corpse and spent a few minutes searching the surrounding trees.
Behind him another of the scouts waited. “Any more of them?”
“No.” They left together, circling the edge of the jungle, listening for further signs of enemies.
Down in the valley, emerging from the trees, Fallarond and the company moved up and along the declivity of a narrow incline that led into the foothills. The commander had drawn his blade and his warriors had all nocked arrows to their bows as if they knew an attack was imminent. Vaddi, Zemella, and Nyam were kept at the heart of the company, though Zemella complained softly, eager to use her blade on anything that dared show itself.
“And you warned me against unleashing my battle lust,” Vaddi teased her.
She glared at him. “Better a fight than this accursed waiting.”
“Be silent,” said Fallarond.
As he turned back to the trail ahead, the two ridges on either side of them seemed to erupt. Dozens of warriors leaped forward, wielding swords, axes, and spears, a mixed band of men wearing armor that seemed purloined from a dozen battlefields. Their intent was obvious as they bore down upon the Deathguard.
Fallarond’s men were too well trained to panic. They formed ranks in a rough diamond shape and seconds later unleashed a hail of arrows. Vaddi was once again staggered by the speed at which they drew and loosed, drew and loosed, again and again. Each Aereni archer sent half a dozen arrows into the oncoming horde, and with terrifying precision, each arrow found its mark.
The oncoming warriors fell, those who were not pinned by an arrow tumbling into their stricken comrades. What had begun as a tide on two sides turned into instant chaos. There was worse to follow for the attackers. Behind them, on the two ridges that they had quitted, the Aereni scouts appeared, some dozen of them. With no less speed or accuracy than their fellows in the valley, they began picking off any of the assault force that still stood.
Vaddi drew in his breath, sword swinging idly. “Dragon’s teeth! Not one of them left alive. There must be close on a hundred dead. In … how long?”
Zemella grunted, evidently unmoved. “They were poorly organized.”
Nyam grinned through the muck of his disguise. “I’m sure you’ll get a chance to use your sword before too long.”
Fallarond’s eyes flashed within mud-blackface. “None must get away from here and report back to Azzahareb.”
One of the scouts came down from the hill while his companions ensured that there were no survivors. “There were a few sentries up in the hills,” he reported to Fallarond.
“You have dealt with them?”
The scout bowed.
“Well done,” said Fallarond. “Retrieve what arrows you can, then rotate the scouts.”
His orders were carried out at once.
“We must hug the landscape as best we can. There will be few trees to hide us from now on.”
The others fell into place as the company resumed its quick march up into the foothills. Vaddi looked back at the valley below. The sprawled corpses attested to the fact that there had indeed been a battle—or rather a slaughter—yet even as he looked, the corpses seemed to melt before his eyes, becoming part of the terrain, indistinguishable from it. He turned to remark on this to Zemella, but she was murmuring under her breath.
Nyam winked at him. A spell, he mouthed. To cover our tracks.
Vaddi nodded, wondering what else was to emerge on this nightmare journey.
In the more open terrain, they made quicker progress. Through the cloud and vapors that clung to the terrain, they could now see the lower slopes of a mountain range. Its crags and scarps were uniquely shaped, as were the lands spread out below it. Strange structures poked up from the rocks and soil, remnants of the bygone ages. Steel and tangled metal leaned skyward like the bones of huge mechanical beasts, their purpose long forgotten. Black-winged birds flapped around them, squabbling with each other, but none came close to the company. Pools of oil and scummy water dotted the land for mile after mile, and wisps of greenish mist webbed everything.
Overhead, through an occasional break in the clouds, shapes swooped and dipped, some huge and saurian, others smaller, none clearly visible. But the magic that cloaked the company seemed to do its work well.
Ahead of and around them, the scouts remained watchful. They were moving south now, parallel to the mountains, as the pirate guide had told them. Throughout the day, mile upon monotonous mile, they kept up the pace, until the weak sun began its dip to the western skyline. Beyond the company, the low gorge became recognisable as a road, smashed and ruinous, apparently a one-time route to the fallen piles of an ancient settlement.
“Is this Azzahareb?” said Zemella.
“An outpost, I think,” said Nyam. “The pirate told us we have to climb up through the passes to the city itself.”
Fallarond joined them. “The scouts report that the way is clear. We can rest at the edge of these ruins. There is a pass near at hand, steep and treacherous, but it will take us to the city. Once we have eaten, night will be upon us.”
“A good time to go up,” said Vaddi.
“I agree,” said Fallarond.
Moving on, they soon found themselves surrounded by what seemed to have been a city built by giants. It had been totally wrecked by some ancient and dreadful conflict that must have pre-dated the Last War by centuries. It was as though giant engines had mashed their way through it, heaping up whole rows of buildings, burning and melting the structures, fusing their steel into fantastic shapes, their mutated spars poking up at the night sky. Among that colossal debris, pallid light flickered, sizzling with magical currents, though purposeless, lashing out mindlessly at anything that moved. It would be far too dangerous to enter such streets. The city was not alive, but there were warped powers within it, energized like the mind of a madman.