One possibility was the great room, another was a wall of the social parlor, and a third was the storeroom. All of these abutted the bedrock of the mountainside and could provide cover for a hidden passage.
He started in the great room, holding the light close to the wall, grateful that the furnishings were still spare and that nearly the whole stone surface was bare. He spent a long time going back and forth, probing with his fingers, studying each irregularity, looking for some evidence of a crack, a breach, any kind of opening. After a half hour he was forced to conclude that the surface was solid stone.
Next he moved into the storeroom, pulling the door shut behind him, then turning the lamp wick up to its full height. He repeated the inspection on the two walls of the chamber that allowed possible connection to the city’s mountainous bedrock and once again failed to find any indication of a concealed passage. After refilling his lamp from the barrel in this chamber, he turned to the small parlor.
The parlor had three walls joining other rooms of the apartment but one surface adjacent to the mountain. Once again he pulled the door shut behind him and turned up the lamp to full brightness. The room was unfurnished and-in his estimate-hardly ever used. His attention was immediately drawn to the bearskin hanging on the wall, the only decoration of any kind in here.
As soon as he pulled the pelt aside, he knew he had found his secret panel. The outline of a door was faint, but he could clearly see a deep crack.
The portal seemed securely set in its frame, but he knew there had to be a way to open it. He turned his attention to the small alcoves set in the wall, perches for the lamps that were a feature of every house and every room in this subterranean city. There were two of them here, each with an iron bracket mounted in place. He reached into the alcove closest to the door, took hold of the bracket, and gave it a twist.
Immediately he heard a rumble of grinding stone, and with a touch to the bearskin he felt the wall behind the pelt sliding away from him. After a few seconds the sound, which was too faint-he hoped-to rouse any of the sleepers, ceased. Pulling the skin to the side again, he observed a narrow hallway revealed, extending only a couple of steps before it became a steep, narrow stairway leading up.
Quickly Strongwind adjusted the bearskin then turned the bracket to slide the door closed again. He was certain the route led all the way to the top of Winterheim, to the Royal Level, possibly the king’s own apartments. He didn’t know yet how he would take advantage of his discovery, but he doused his lamp and went to bed on his own pallet feeling that he had learned something very important, something that would prove to be quite useful indeed.
14
Kerrick limped past a row of dead humans, the bodies arranged by the survivors with as much dignity as they could manage. The elf was sore, badly bruised in many places on his body, but he could not ask Dinekki for help. Her precious store of healing magic was expended on those with broken bones or ghastly wounds, and in this way she saved the lives of a score of valiant warriors before she collapsed from utter exhaustion.
“How many more are hurt badly?” asked Kerrick, looking first to Moreen, who shook her head, still trembling from the aftereffects of the fight. Next he turned to Bruni, who was carefully re-wrapping the Axe of Gonnas, handling the artifact with great, even reverent, respect.
“A few bruises,” the big woman said, moving her left arm through a stiff circle. “Nothing’s broken, though.”
Other warriors were moving around, bandaging wounds, collecting scattered arrows. The humans had quickly realized that those who had fallen into the chasm were utterly lost, the bodies beyond retrieval.
The survivors of the war party had all filed into the cavern. All of the ogres had been slain and their bodies dumped into the crevasse, but the cost of victory was dire. Some thirty-five humans had lost their lives in the frantic fight. Three more were terribly wounded, unable to walk, and though it broke their hearts the others knew they could only leave them behind to die. Each of the three had declined the shaman’s healing magic, knowing that it would be better used to restore some wounded fighter to health than to merely allay the suffering of those who were inevitably doomed.
The elf knelt beside Barq One-Tooth, who still lay flat on his back beside the crevasse. The Highlander thane was breathing, but his eyes were closed, and his face and beard were sticky with blood. Kerrick took a bit of water from his canteen and sprinkled it on the man’s face, eliciting a grunt of awareness. Carefully the elf tried to rinse away some of the blood.
“I think his nose might be broken,” he noted. “He took quite a punch to the face.”
He did his best to pull the thane a little farther away from the drop-off. A few minutes later Barq was sitting up, mopping his bloody beard with a rag, shaking his head groggily.
Kerrick grimaced at the sight of the burly Highlander’s face. The thane’s nose was smashed nearly flat, while bruises had extended to black circles around both of his eyes. His lips were puffy and swollen, like two ragged sausages plastered across the gateway to his mouth.
He snorted in reaction to Kerrick’s expression. “Haven’t you ever seen anyone who lost a fight before?” growled Barq.
“We won-and that was a brave charge you made,” the elf remarked.
“Never took a hit like that before,” Barq grunted. Only then did he look around curiously, finally standing up and hobbling to the edge of the precipice, staring down into the shadowy depths. “The big one-he’s down there?”
Kerrick nodded.
“How did you do that?” wondered the thane.
“I needed to use the Axe of Gonnas,” Bruni said. “The flames startled him as much as anything, and he lost his balance.”
“Did you notice the way he stared at it?” Kerrick asked. “It was entrancing to him-as if he loved that axe!”
“Not for long, he didn’t,” Moreen remarked wryly.
Barq nodded again, soaking in the information. “Nice work,” he acknowledged, finally, “all of you.”
“You, too,” Moreen said. “We make a good team.”
Barq didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes widened as he probed his gums with his tongue then reached up to feel inside his mouth with his broad, blunt fingers. He exclaimed something that sounded like “Ai oof!”
“Looking for this?” The chiefwoman leaned down and picked up a golden chip that was lying on the stone floor, holding it. Barq One-Tooth groaned as he saw it, holding it up close to his face and examining it glumly.
“We’ll have to call you Barq No-Tooth for the time being,” Kerrick observed, drawing an angry glower from the hulking Highlander.
Apparently he lacked the spirit to argue, however, for he simply placed the loose gold tooth in a small belt pouch and went about collecting his backpack, which he had cast aside early in the fight.
“Here-spread this across your nose and your cheeks.” Moreen gave him a small jar of the healing ointment Dinekki had brought. They had a small supply of the stuff remaining, which was useful mainly for minor wounds.
The fighters were exhausted from their long climb and the intensity of the brief battle, but they loaded up their gear, re-ignited their torches, and started to follow the cavern that curved and twisted away from Icewall Pass. Bruni led the way, followed by Kerrick and Moreen, with the limping and bruised Highlander joining the rest of the warriors in the shuffling column. Barq cast frequent glances behind them, sharing Kerrick’s irrational dread that perhaps the monstrous ogre guardian might not be dead.
It was a weary and dispirited group that made its way farther into the cavern. Dinekki was carried by Bruni, who supported the elder shaman like a baby, cradled against her chest in both of her brawny arms.