He thought that if he should decide to go back, he could trace the water uphill at least to the road, but it seemed more and more deceptive: in the way of streams, that met and joined and carved narrow passages the horses could not follow, it wove back and forth and lost itself repeatedly beneath the trees. Leaves brushed his face and blinded him, then gave way to streamside again, the same one, a different, he had no more confidence he knew at all.
5
BARREN ROCK OFFERED FEW HIDING PLACES; BUT THE MOON was over the shoulder of the projecting mountain now and Yuri's heart was thumping like a rabbit's. The hulking shape of the tower rose up to blot out the sky. He had not known the place was so large and so high: that was his most daunting surprise thus far.
Try sneaking up on a watchdog, Nikolai had said, of the goblins. —Do that, and tell me you'll get away with your fingers. This isn't deaf Pavel you're sneaking under the nose of. They'll have guards posted, young fool, they're soldiers; maybe with noses keen as hounds', do you understand that?
Nikolai was angry; Nikolai called him young fool; but only because Nikolai had been sneaking down here with a hole in his arm and half his blood on the mountainside when they had run into each other, and Nikolai could not do it himself, that was what Nikolai was angriest about.
So Nikolai and he had agreed without agreeing; and Nikolai had stuffed his head so full of details and exceptions and instructions between then and moonset, he had to stop now and think it through and through again.
But the outpost that was Krukczy Straz sat directly on the streamside, and the plain fact, as Nikolai said, was that a castle of any use to anyone had to have water: where it got water it had either to sink a well straight down into the ground or build some fortified tunnel out so they could get to the stream, maybe both, the oldest castles tending to grow from small beginnings and be patched together with this and that owner's intention. And this one being set on mountain rock did not make wells a certainty. Nikolai said he had seen a lot of towers like this one in his travels; and Nikolai said he had traveled a lot, had been a boy up in the Rus, before he had come down to Maggiar.
That Nikolai had ever been a boy was a revelation. That he had seen castles more than one certainly was. But Nikolai sounded as if he knew exactly what he was saying, in every particular of the torrent of detail Nikolai had poured into him. Nikolai made him look at the lines of the tower and see how it was laid out, and where they would most likely have guards, and where their blind spots were ...
Where they don't have windows they'll post guards on the roof, Nikolai said. Where they don't have guards they think that face is too strong to worry about; where they don't expect attack they'll have fewer guards than where they do ...
The strongest point of a tower is one direction to come up on, because they may not have guards there; and the water-channel or the drains are easier to get at than windows.
Nikolai added then: But they know that. And they may take precautions. Don't go inside. Just look it over. Remember every window, every hole, every nook that can give cover, to them or to us, and come back and tell me what you see. Then we can decide what to do next.
That last, he knew, was Nikolai trying to get him to be safe. And this back and forth bearing of careful reports made thorough sense, if one's brothers were not in mere being eaten alive, or whatever terrible things goblins did with people they caught. Nikolai had said they had even hauled away the dead horses. And that did not sound good, in his ears, except they might take longer getting around to the men.
He moved very carefully, trying not to rattle the stones, and most of all to keep out of sight—Nikolai had grabbed his head without warning and jerked it down hard, pointing out to him that where he had sat the moonlight was on him, and below the rock shadow was where his head and his body and his arms and his legs all belonged, if he wanted to keep them when he was sneaking up on anybody. He could still feel the bruises of Nikolai's fingers on his neck. So he thought about that while he moved, crawling on his stomach and his elbows—likest, in his experience, to sneaking under orchard fences—and remembering always to take the long and patient way if that was the way with most shadow.
That way turned out to run right up against the wall, following the foundations down to the streamside, a shadow so black he went a great deal by feel. By comparison the water glistened brightly in the starlight, once he reached the water's edge; and by that same starlight he saw a barred iron gate in the stonework, facing the stream, stonework steps mostly awash.
He slipped up to the side, found the gate ever so slightly ajar, so that one would never notice if one did not happen to be pushing at it, hoping it was unlocked. The gate might creak if he pushed it wider. He might have to run if it did. He might have to throw himself in the water and hope it swept him to some handhold downstream, away from Nikolai, where he would not wish to lead pursuers in any account, and he did think he was being commendably thoughtful, to reason that out in advance. He knew exactly what he would do if he were surprised, he had a plan—so he gave the gate only the gentlest effort, ready to stop at the first hint of resistance that might make the hinges creak. It went wide enough for a skinny boy—which was good enough; and he thought, meanwhile, It's dark inside. I can at least see if it goes all the way in without a second gate in there—master Nikolai would need to know that, or we can be coming and going here all night, and every time we come and go is a chance for them to catch us, isn't it?
So he slipped inside, and had the foresight to pull the gate almost shut behind him, so it looked exactly as before.
The air inside was cool and dank the way one would expect next to water, and a little musty, as if someone used the place for storage or refuse. He felt to one side a fair distance before he found the wall; he walked carefully ahead and found no second gate—it felt like a tunnel of some kind, maybe even a natural cave, since he felt no mason-work. So fer he smelled and heard nothing that indicated occupancy, only the odor of old, wet sacks. He debated whether to go back, decided to try just a little further, always keeping to the wall which could guide him back in the dark, and with one hand above him to watch his head, if it was like the cellars at home— because the starlight and water sheen that reflected into the entry rapidly ran out, and he needed to stop now and again and let his eyes grow accustomed to more dark.
This tunnel was certainly something Nikolai would want to know about—and more so if he could report a door or a gate through which the goblins in the tower might get down to the water and by which they might get up into the tower and rescue his brothers and the rest.
There might even be store rooms, as he thought about the probable use of this place: that was what the basement was at home, it did smell like it was used for that—and store rooms, he thought excitedly, were one place the goblins might lock up their prisoners, the way the servants said grandfather had locked up the bandits once upon a time, before he hanged them.
In that thought, he desperately wished he dared call out his brothers' names, and he stopped now and again, held his breath and listened for the faintest sound that might indicate a prisoner locked in this place.
Water dripping was all he heard—plunk, plunk ... plunk. Louder and louder—until he heard another step, back toward the gate.
Lord Sun, he thought, heart in his throat, someone's in the tunnel behind me.
His first desperate thought was to press himself tight against the wall, and he did that, in the hope someone more used to this place might walk down the middle and miss him. But that was no good if they lit a lamp; and if they did not light a lamp it meant they were walking in the dark on purpose, which if they owned it, meant they knew a foolish boy might be in this tunnel. Noses keen as hounds', Nikolai had said, but he had never expected any guard would come in from the water side, from the same way he had, or move in the dark.