It was a man's answer, a prince's reply. Lindenlea stood a long moment looking at him, and in the end she didn't say anything. She bade him goodnight, and he wished her good luck on her ride across the stony plain.
"I'll see you at the gates of Pax Tharkas," he said, "and all the gods go with you till then."
With her warriors, Lindenlea rode away in the night, the whole strength of her troops shining silver and red under the light of the moons. She drove her warriors hard, demanding of them the kind of speed that would take them the rest of the way to Pax Tharkas and put them outside the gates before dawn. Theirs was a grueling ride, a mad dash, and all her soldiers sped like quicksilver. She could not imagine that they had any wit for hard thinking on that ride. She could not imagine they had wit to do more than concentrate on getting the best from their mounts.
She, however, did more thinking than she would have liked, and all her thought was for the secret blasphemy she held in her heart, perhaps the one every elf woman held but dared not acknowledge. Lindenlea would not choose death over life, no matter if she must make herself an outlaw’s whore to see another day.
She did not doubt that Elansa Sungold felt the same way, and she wondered how it was that a man could share a woman's bed for as many years as Keth had shared Elansa’s and not know that.
Ithk thought he was the most wronged of all goblins who lived. His good plan had gone awry in three directions at once. The scurvy miserable excuses for goblins who were supposed to meet him on the high road behind the Fortress of Ghosts had all deserted but one. That one was Velg, and he was not the sort Ithk would have chosen to find waiting for him. Velg was not known for keenness of wit, and his whining could get on even a goblin's nerves.
"Gone to Gnash," Velg whined when Ithk demanded to know where the others had vanished to. "Saw him out on the plains and figgered it would be better to be with him killing elves than here." Velg ducked a blow and claimed he didn't understand it himself. "But I'm here, and we can still get in easier than you thought."
Ithk stopped him.
"How easy?"
Velg shrugged, and he cringed when Ithk aimed another blow. "Come with me," the goblin whined. "I’ll show you."
Ithk followed. He was in no mood to have anyone at his back. They went carefully, silent on the road. Shadows gathered at the end of day, and they kept to these. Long deserted, years in the unkind hands of the weather, the road was cracked and the stone heaved in places. It was not, however, unpassable and a better road than Ithk had traveled in all the winter. The road turned round a tall peak, winding in broad easy curves right down to a vast courtyard bounded on all sides by mountain stone. Velg took him round the peak and warned him to keep to the shadows. There before them, the Fortress of Ghosts brooded in the dying light.
"Look," Velg whispered, pointing.
Lights gleamed in the East Tower, a golden glow of torches. The West Tower stood dark, like a blind eye. Between ran a great span of wall. Ithk’s breath hissed in, sudden and sharp. Upon the wall three figures walked, passing before the flames of ensconced torches. They looked at the valley beyond, down toward the great stoneland.
"Brand," said Velg. "There he is."
Was it Brand? Ithk couldn't tell. The watchers on the wall were too far away.
"Is he in there?" Ithk asked. "You saw him?"
Velg nodded. "Saw him. Saw the others." He grinned, a toothy leer. "Saw that elf girl, too. They still got her. Better than that, Ithk. I saw a way in."
Ithk looked down the road, the winding stretch. "What way? They'd see us and fill us full of arrows before we got halfway down the road."
Idiot.
Velg shook his head. "Wait. Wait till dark. You'll see." Shivering in the cold, eye on the light and what he imagined must indeed be warmer quarters, Ithk decided he had little choice. He hunkered down, back to the stone until night came to cover. In time, he did see, for night came down upon the mountain like a shroud. The moons were slim, the stars shone, but their light didn't reach. On the wall, the watch changed, and if they turned to look into the courtyard they wouldn't have seen even a horde of goblins, let alone two.
Still, Ithk and Velg were careful when they left the road. The goblins drifted like shadows along the dark edge of the flanks of the mountain. They made no more noise than wind slipping over the stone of the courtyard. They kept to the shadow of the Tharkadan and the mountain itself until they came to the great wall. There they flattened themselves against the rising face of granite and edged along the perimeter. Above, outlaws walked on the heights, watching over the plains. None looked down. None thought to consider that enemies lurked so near as to be but a few paces from entering the Fortress of Ghosts through the gap in the sprung gates.
Through the opening they went, and it was their luck that the watchers on the wall didn't look down into the interior of the fortress. Why do that? They believed all their enemies were without, trying to get in. First Ithk, then Velg slipped inside, keeping to shadows and seeking the darkest places. Because they were goblins, they found at once the way to the lowest levels, the places humans and elves would not naturally seek. All up in the air, those outlaws.
No matter, no matter. Let goblins take the lowest levels, in safety to plot and plan, perhaps to see what weapons remained in this pile of dwarf-built stone. Then they would sneak up on the outlaws when the time seemed best. They picked up two stout branches on the way, blown in by storm. Wood for fire, for light and warmth.
Maybe, Ithk thought, he'd go back to Gnash with Brand's head in a sack and fling it at his feet. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd just carry it around for a while till he got tired of smelling it and then boil it long to get rid of the hair and flesh, scoop it clean, and use it for an ale mug to drink to a good end to a long feud. He enjoyed this picture very much, and he fell asleep embellishing the grinning skull with chasing of silver, perhaps a polished bronze stand on which to set it.
In the chamber the outlaws had taken for their own, out of the wind and the cold, Elansa walked carefully around sleepers, disturbing only one: Arawn, who leaned up on his elbow to watch her pass, following after with his narrow glance. She heard his breathing among all those sleeping, the rasp in his throat like hunger. Careful not to look at him, she crossed the floor, noiseless in broken boots. She'd felt Brand leave her a while ago and knew he'd gone to take his turn on the wall. Restless, she'd been unable to sleep. Thinking of the air outside, imagining it crisp and clean and cold, she'd wrapped herself in her ragged cloak and risen. She longed to see the outside of the tower, to feel the cleaner air. On silent feet, she slipped out the door and into the stairwell leading up to the wall. Maybe he would send her back, bully her away and into the darkness of the tower again. Maybe he wouldn't, and it seemed to her that the risk was worth the chance.
Light drifted down from above. A door stood open, and torches flared and hissed. Elansa climbed up, taking the unfamiliar stairs slowly, eyes on the golden glow. At the top, she stopped and sighed as the first breeze touched her cheek. Brand stood at the far end of the Tharkadan, head low and talking to Char. They leaned against the wall, Brand with his elbow on the parapet, Char with his back to it. It was the dwarf who heard her first. He looked up, his face pale in the light of his torch, rough and white with his thirst, unable to ease it. He jerked his head in her direction, Brand turned to look, then looked away.
They left her alone, kept the distance of the wall between while she stood at the parapet, looking out over the valley. She tasted the breeze and listened to the profound silence of the heights. Dawn had broken perhaps an hour before, and new light spilled down the valley. Elansa filled herself up with it, and in that silence she prayed. She did not pray for rescue. It startled her to realize she'd stopped doing that-she couldn't remember when she had. She prayed only to be seen, to be known to gods who were so very far away.