The trail became more and more narrow until they were forced to proceed single file. Walls of stone closed in on either side. The clop of the horses’ iron shoes echoed loudly against the stark stone surroundings.
The path ended at stairs cut into the living rock. Wide, shallow steps ascended, curving to the left and disappearing into a cleft in the escarpment.
There was nothing on which to tether their horses, and Tol wondered how they could be certain the animals would remain, in case they needed to make a fast departure.
Possessed by Felryn’s soul or no, Early shrugged in typical kender fashion and plucked the paper talismans from both animals’ necks. Immediately stricken by the blinding mist, Tetchy and Longhound stood rooted to the spot. Unless led away, they would be there when Tol and Early returned.
Tol drew his saber. The hiss of steel against the scabbard’s brass throat seemed terribly loud in the silence. Early didn’t draw his weapon but started, unconcerned, up the steps. Was it Felryn’s courage or kender impetuosity that was guiding him?
Mist flowed down the steps, curling around their ankles. They ignored it until Tol noticed the kender was flagging. A few steps more, and Early sat down hard on a stair.
“Sleepy,” he muttered. “Need sleep-”
This new mist must be some of Mandes’s sleeping fog. Tol grabbed the front of Early’s vest and dragged him to his feet, trying to rouse him with the nullstone’s influence. The kender began to snore.
Tol cursed silently. Sighing, he boosted the limp Early over his shoulder. It was an absurd way to enter a hostile fortress, but he wouldn’t abandon a comrade. He started up the steps again.
The staircase seemed endless. There seemed to be thousands of steps. Valaran could probably tell him the exact number. As a girl she’d calculated the number of stone blocks in the Inner City wall. Her computations had filled a scroll five paces long.
Thoughts of Valaran ignited a shameful notion in his mind: with the emperor stricken, perhaps dying, would Val be free to marry him? Could they at last live honorably as husband and wife?
The selfish dream helped him ignore the fatigue in his burning limbs. For all his small size, Early was surprisingly heavy.
Unexpectedly, it grew brighter as he climbed. Warmer, too. By the time he reached a broad landing, Tol was sweating inside his furs. Above him, the ancient castle appeared clearly for the first time.
Made of the same brown granite as the mountain, the fortress looked as though it had been carved from the living rock. It was terraced in three levels, one above the other, the sides merging into the face of Mount Axas. The style was unfamiliar to Tol, and judging by the weathering, the castle was very old. No curtain wall encircled it, but the citadel was studded with towers and turrets. Recent work by Mandes was evident-new battens on the tower windows, a freshly painted gate.
Tol lowered Early to the ground and removed his own furs and the kender’s. Sweat was beaded on the slumbering kender’s face.
The landing was fifty paces square, paved with alternating slabs of obsidian and white granite. Many were cracked with age, and tufts of stiff, brown grass sprouted through the gaps. A path had been worn across the landing; it led from where Tol stood to another set of ascending stairs. Another pair of eroded statues flanked the path. Winged creatures of indistinct form, they reminded Tol of the griffins Mandes had used to flee Daltigoth. The bluestone colossi were of an age with the lions he’d seen earlier. It was clear the ancient Irda had walked this way.
Hoisting Early to his shoulder again, he followed the well-worn path across the landing. He’d made it only halfway before a rapid flicker of heat on his face warned him that magic was at work. Fearing an ambush, he spun in half-circle, searching for the source.
A blur at the edge of his vision caught his eye. Tremors echoed through the ancient stone pavement. Something was moving around him-something big.
Unceremoniously, he dropped Early, and drew Number Six. There were two blurs, moving fast on his extreme left and right. Rather than attempt to follow their preternaturally quick movements, Tol stood still, both hands on his sword, facing forward. What horrors had Mandes conjured for him now?
— and then he saw it, huge and powerful, on his left. An ogre! Moving so quickly, it was invisible until just before attacking. Tol brought his sword up and received a crushing blow from the creature’s stone mace. He staggered backward.
The blur on his right resolved into a second ogre, armed with a saw-toothed sword as long as Tol was tall. Tol ducked the wicked blade and swung low. His saber caught the creature at the elbow. A man would have lost his arm, but the ogre wore slabs of nephrite sewn onto a crude leather jerkin. The pale green stone turned aside the dwarf-forged steel. Alarmed, Tol leaped back, dodging another blow from the first ogre’s mace. His massive opponents blurred into motion and disappeared.
No ogre was so fast! Mandes must have cast a spell on them.
Tol swept the air with his blade, backing rapidly away from the center of the open square. He was too slow. The sword-wielding ogre flashed into sight just behind him. His saw-toothed weapon raked down Tol’s back, tearing open his tunic. The mail shirt he wore underneath saved his life, but his right shoulder was badly cut. He staggered and fell.
The second ogre’s mace passed through the space Tol’s head had just occupied. Tol felt the wind of its passing tug at his hair.
He rolled, thrusting awkwardly at the mace-bearer. The saber found a gap in the ogre’s stone armor, below his waist, and plunged in deep. The ogre bellowed and swatted at his tormentor.
Blood running down his shoulder, Tol recovered and got to his feet in one motion. He held his sword, stained with blood, straight out in front of him.
The mace-wielder howled in fury and launched himself at his smaller foe. The wound in his gut scarcely slowed him as he blurred to a gray shadow. Tol moved to meet him. They collided, and Tol found his face buried in stinking ogre hide. He gasped with the impact. The hulk grunted as well, in astonishment. Number Six had penetrated his torso front to back, piercing his heart along the way. The ogre teetered, then collapsed, taking Tol down with it.
He levered the enormous corpse off even as the second monster attacked. Tol rolled left and right as the saw-toothed sword came down again and again, gouging chips from the paving with every blow. Tol slashed hard at the creature’s blunt, hideous face, destroying an eye and laying open the flesh to the bone.
The ogre screamed with pain and fury. He thrust his weapon at Tol. It had a blunt tip, but backed by the muscle of the enraged ogre, made a powerful bludgeon. The thrust caught Tol square in the chest. The impact was terrific. He flew backward several paces, landed flat on his back, and slid across the pavers.
Tol tried to rise but couldn’t. Nor could he breathe; the blow had driven all the breath from his body. Gasping frantically, he heard the heavy tread of the ogre’s approach.
Get up, get up! Do you want to die?
In his mind Tol heard the disgusted voice of Egrin exhorting him, back when he was a raw recruit. He managed to roll onto his side, but that was all he could do. The dark bulk of the ogre blotted out the weird white light of the cloud-veiled sky-Instead of delivering the killing blow, the creature let out a surprisingly high-pitched shriek and reeled away, clawing at its back. It spun wildly in a circle, howling like a demon.
Clinging to the ogre’s back was Early Stumpwater, who had awoken with a vengeance. The kender gripped the ogre’s stiff gray hair with one hand; with the other, he drove his short saber repeatedly into the monster’s neck.
Tol recovered his sword and charged, roaring defiance. He had to parry several ferocious swipes of the saw-toothed sword, but succeeded in getting on the ogre’s blind side, and thrust home. His point took the monster under the arm. The ogre shuddered violently and collapsed face down on the ancient pavement.