He was watching his feet, trying not to trip, his arm feeling near pulled out of its socket by Gracja's resistance, but he glanced up to see where the slope upward was leading, saw stones and vines through the trees, saw ...
"We've found somewhere," he breathed, holding the ache in his side. "Master Nikolai, there's a gate—"
He could see it clearly in the dawn. He saw Zadny dart into it and out and back again into some courtyard. It looked dreadfully deserted. If he owned a tower in the middle of a forest full of goblins, he would not leave its gates standing open or let its walls grow over with climbable vines like that.
"Master Nikolai," he said quietly. "I think you'd better stay here and let me see what's inside."
"Doesn't look too good," Nikolai murmured. So he was aware of what was going on around him. Yuri patted his shoulder, eased his bow and his arrow case free of Gracja's saddle and said, "I'll be right back."
But he strung the bow and he took out an arrow before he slipped up to the gateway and had a look.
God.
He shut his eyes and looked away, and had to look back, at the poles, and the dreadful skulls. He felt cold all over, and his heart was thumping from the shock.
Goblins, he thought.
And then he realized there were two skulls, besides the animals, and he remembered they were following two people, and his knees began to shiver under him, and his heart to thump harder. He did not want to worry Nikolai until he knew something—he could not think that those grisly bones were his brothers, he refused to believe that could be them. His teeth chattered, he was so scared, so he clenched his jaw, and, shoulders to the wall, eased inside, behind the cover of a bush that should never have been allowed to grow right next to the gate. His father would have such a sorry castelan horsewhipped, his father would say, his father would never let a place get into this condition . . .
Nothing stirred. Zadny was gone, somewhere, and nothing had eaten him, yet, or if it had, it had been quiet about it. He spotted another place to hide and slipped toward it, did not feel comfortable in that one, and went for a second nook, closer still. There he waited for Zadny to come back, waited what felt like a very long time, long enough almost to start thinking again about those awful bones and wanting and not wanting to look at them to see if there was anything familiar in them.
So he moved again, because if Zadny would only come back, so that he could get his hands on him and be sure Zadny was not going to do something stupid, like start barking, he urgently needed to get back to Nikolai, who was waiting alone out there.
More bad yard keeping. Maybe goblins had raided the place, but if they had not broken the house door down, they had probably climbed right up the huge vines that led to that open window . . .
He had a sudden spooky feeling that something might be watching him. He held his breath and wanted out of sight of that window, looked for a place to go, and ran for the side of the tower itself.
Then he heard something like claws on stone, that might be Zadny or might not be. He was furious at the dog. Come out here, he wished Zadny; the faintest whistle might bring him, if he was in the hall—or it might bring something else.
If the place was deserted, he thought, and the goblins were gone, the same as they had left the other tower, then he and Nikolai might be safe here tonight. They might find a bed for Nikolai and doors to shut, maybe not the outer one, that would betray their presence here; but some inner one, maybe the lowest rooms where they would never think to search, and Nikolai could rest—
His brothers might nave thought that. He had followed two horses this far, and if they had seen the same thing in the courtyard that he had seen, they might have ridden out of here on the instant, the way they would if they could—or they could even have done what he proposed to do, and bolted themselves inside.
A dog yipped, and yelped into silence. His heart bounced into his throat and sank again. He thought, I should get out of here. Now.
But if it were not his brothers—if it were not his brothers-why had Zadny led them in here, what would keep Zadny occupied here, when Zadny would hardly quit the trail to eat or sleep?
The goblins were surely gone. The goblins in the tower in the mountains had made no secret of their being there.
He eased forward, then stopped, at the clatter of a horse in the courtyard behind him, saw Gracja, with Nikolai upright in the saddle and holding his sword in his left hand, the god only knew how he had drawn it. Gracja woke echoes in the place, a slow clatter of hooves as he rode in, and Yuri held his place, shivering, thinking, If there's anything here, they'll see him and he can't see me. Father Sun, what's he doing? Is he thinking about that? Nikolai's too clever to ride in here making all that noise . . .
Then he understood what Nikolai was doing. Nikolai had a fool boy overlong inside this place, and Nikolai was making a racket and putting himself right in the middle of the courtyard, to turn up whatever was hiding here, maybe to create havoc enough to let a stupid boy get out of here if he had run into trouble.
There was the scuff of a footstep, inside. Yuri glanced at the door, looked frantically back at Nikolai, stepped out as far as he dared, trying to signal him—but there was a bend of the wall in the way—and whoever was inside was coming out.
Someone was going to get an arrow in his back the moment he went for Nikolai. Yuri lifted the bow and drew in the same motion, taking calm breaths, the way one had to, who expected his hand and eye to be steady, and he did not think about killing—never think about that, Nikolai had said, just aim.
He drew his arm back, full, as a gray-cloaked figure came out the door, only at the last moment remembering goblins were not deer, goblins might wear armor and the back was a hard place to find a target. . .
But Nikolai was looking at the creature, and Nikolai was not even lifting the sword—Nikolai said, "You bastard," and slid down off Gracja's back.
Then the creature said, "Where are the boys?" in master Karoly's voice. . . .
Yuri held the arrow steady. Magical creatures were full of tricks, and they might look like what they were not, so he had heard. But he did not fire, even when master Nikolai fell, the sword clanging to the dirt-covered cobbles.
The might-be master Karoly hurried to him. Yuri saw white hair beneath the hood, and master Karoly's aged hands, even Karoly's frowning face. But he did not believe it until he saw the old man trying to help Nikolai, and then he knew it was Karoly. Then he let the bow down and came to help.
Master Karoly looked around, startled." Damn you! What in he!l are you doing here?"
"A goblin shot him. I think it could have been poisoned."
"It didn't need to be," master Karoly said, and turned his attention back to Nikolai, swearing as he felt over Nikolai's neck and shoulder. Yuri kept quiet, standing there with his bow in his hands while master Karoly unfastened Nikolai's collar and felt of his heart and his head. "The goblins left us damned well nothing," master Karoly said, to him, Yuri supposed, and he waited anxiously for orders. "I don't suppose you've got blankets. Or a pot."
"Yes, sir." He went and got them from Gracja. And the rest of the herbs Krukczy had found. "The troll gave us these. He made tea with them."
"Troll, is it?" Master Karoly's face was drawn and strange as he snatched the things he had brought. "Troll be damned. Lucky if he lives the day."
"Don't say that!"
"Lucky he's alive this long." Master Karoly started pulling at Nikolai's buckles, trying to get the armor off, and he was being too rough about it.
"Let me," Yuri said, and got the ties that held the sleeve on, while Karoly took his knife and cut off the bandage Nikolai had tied around the outside.
"Damn, it's stuck to it. Get that pot, get some water."