Garet Jax scattered the Gnomes who remained before the gate, and Slanter and Jair stumbled through into a shadowed court beyond. For the moment, at least, the court was empty. Jair collapsed to one knee, feeling the searing pain from his wound flare outward with the movement. Then Slanter was in front of him.
“Sorry boy, but I’ve got to do this.”
One gnarled hand fixed on his shoulder and the other on the dart. With a wrench, the Gnome pulled the dart free. Jair screamed and almost lost consciousness, but Slanter held him upright, jamming a wad of cloth down into his tunic front and binding it fast against the wound with his belt.
Beneath the drop-gate, Garet Jax, Foraker and Edain Elessedil stood in a line against the advancing Gnomes. A dozen paces beyond, still within the blockhouse, Helt pulled free the winch levers once more. Again, the drop-gate started down.
Jair blinked through the tears brought by the pain. Something was wrong. The Borderman was making no attempt to come after them. He was leaning heavily against the machinery, watching as the gate descended.
“Helt… ?” Jair whispered weakly.
He realized then the Borderman’s intent. Helt meant to bring down the drop-gate and jam it from the other side. If he did so, it would leave him trapped there. It would mean his certain death.
“Helt, no!” he screamed and jerked to his feet.
But it was already done. The gate came down, slamming into the earth with the force of its release. The Gnome defenders howled with rage and turned on the man within the blockhouse. Bracing himself, Helt threw the whole of his great strength against the winch levers and wrenched them from their fastenings, wrecking the machine.
“Helt!” Jair screamed again, trying to pull free of Slanter.
The Borderman staggered to the blockhouse door, long pike held before him. Gnomes came at him from everywhere. He bent and swayed against their rush, but for an instant he withstood them. They swarmed over him and he was gone.
Jair stood frozen behind the gates as Garet Jax came back to him. Roughly, the Weapons Master turned him about and pushed him away. “Go!” he snapped. “Quickly, Jair Ohmsford, go now!”
The Valeman stumbled from the gate, still stunned. The Weapons Master kept pace at his side. “He was dying already;” Garet Jax said. Jair’s head jerked about, and the gray eyes fixed on him. “The winged thing in the storeroom poisoned him. It was in his eyes, Valeman.”
Jair nodded dumbly, remembering the look the Borderman had given him. “But we… we might have…”
“We might have done many things were we not where we are,” Garet Jax cut him short, his voice calm and icy. “The poison was lethal. He knew he was dying. He chose this way to finish it. Now, run!”
Giant Helt! Jair remembered the big man’s kindness to him during the long journey north. He remembered his gentle eyes. Helt, about whom he had known so very little…
Head lowered to shield his tears, he ran on.
At the edge of the Croagh, midway down its length where it joined to the rock shelf on the cliffs below Graymark, Whisper listened as the sounds of the battle being fought above him grew more fierce. Stretched full-length upon the shadowed stone, he kept watch for the return of Brin or the coming of his mistress. His hearing was keener than that of any human, and he had caught the sounds long ago. But the sounds did not threaten him, and so he kept his vigil and did not move.
But then a new sound reached his ears, a sound not from the battle being fought within Graymark, but from something close at hand. Footfalls sounded on the stone steps of the Croagh—soft and furtive. The moor cat’s head lifted. Something was coming down. Claws scraped against the rock. Whisper’s head dropped down again, and he seemed to disappear into the stone.
The seconds slipped past, and then a shadow appeared. Whisper’s-narrowed eyes caught the movement, and the big cat stayed frozen. One of the black things crept down the stairs of the Croagh—one like the things that he had fought within the caves of the mountain. Down the stone walkway it slipped, dead eyes staring as if sightless. It did not see Whisper. The moor cat waited.
When the monster was less than half a dozen steps from where he crouched, Whisper sprang. He hurtled into the black thing before it even knew he was there, a silent blur of motion. Arms flailing, the creature flew from the Croagh to drop like a stone into the valley below. Balanced at the edge of the stairway’s long spiral, Whisper watched the thing fall. When it struck, the entire forest about it convulsed in a frenzy of limbs and leafy trailers. It had the unpleasant look of a throat swallowing. Finally, it went still.
Whisper backed from the Croagh, ears flattened in a mixture of fear and hatred. The smell of the steamy jungle rose to assail the cat’s nostril’s, and he coughed and spit in distaste. He padded back upon the rock shelf.
Then a new sound brought him about with a low snarl. Other dark forms stood upon the Croagh above him—two more of the black things and behind them a robed figure, tall and hooded. Whisper’s saucer blue eyes blinked and narrowed. It was too late to hide. They had already seen him.
Soundlessly he turned to meet them, dark muzzle drawing back.
Jair Ohmsford and his companions raced through shadows and half-light deep within the fortress of Graymark now. They ran down hallways thick with the stench of must and sewage, corridors of rusted iron doors and crumbling stone, chambers that echoed with their footfalls, and stairways worn and broken. The castle of Graymark was a dying place, sick with age and disuse and rotten with decay. Nothing that lived here gave tolerance to life; those within found comfort only in death.
And it seeks my death, Jair thought as he ran, his wound throbbing painfully. It seeks to swallow me and make me a part of it.
Ahead, the dark form of Garet Jax darted swiftly on, a wraith that beckoned. The gloom about them lay empty, silent and waiting. The Gnomes had been left behind; the Mord Wraiths had not appeared. The Valeman fought back against the fear that coursed through him. Where were the Wraiths? Why hadn’t they seen them yet? They were here within the keep, hidden somewhere within its walls, the things that could destroy minds and bodies. They were here and they must surely come.
But where were they?
He stumbled, fell against Slanter, and almost went down. But the Gnome held him up, one stout arm coming quickly about him. “Watch where you step!” Slanter cried.
Jair gritted his teeth as pain flooded outward from his shoulder. “It hurts, Slanter. Every step…”
The Gnome’s blocky face turned from his own. “The pain tells you that you’re still alive, boy. Now run!”
Jair Ohmsford ran. They raced down a curving hall, and ahead there was the sound of other feet running and voices calling out. Gnomes had come another way and were searching for them.
“Weapons Master!” Slanter warned urgently, and Garet Jax skidded to a halt. The Gnome beckoned them into an alcove where a small door opened onto a narrow stairway that disappeared upward into blackness.
“We can slip above them this way,” Slanter panted, leaning wearily against the stone block walls. “But a moment for the boy, first.”
Quickly, he pulled the cork from his ale pouch and lifted the spout to the Valeman’s lips. Jair drank gratefully in a series of deep swallows. The bitter liquid burned through him; almost at once, it seemed to ease the pain. Leaning back against the wall with the Gnome, he watched as Garet Jax slipped ahead along the stairway, searching the darkness above. Behind them, Foraker and Edain Elessedil stood, guard at the stairway entrance, crouched down within the shadows.