Cloak draped behind him, Ancel surveyed the cliffs looming above him. Randane’s walls sprouted from them like rows of teeth, the towers along its length the fangs. He shielded his eyes against the swirling snow.
For this endeavor, he’d opted for his leathers alone and commanded all his men to do the same. Any slight advantage that would not hamper his movements might prove essential in the battle to come. Not to mention the stealth required for his plan to work. He’d had a hard time convincing High Shin Cantor to have the Pathfinders do the same. Apparently, they always wore their armor. When he gave them the ultimatum of changing or relinquishing their guardianship, they gave in. To hide their faces, they had donned hooded cloaks with scarfs over their mouths.
He’d allowed the Svenzar Kendin to lead their small contingent through the Travelshaft from Torandil to the ruins of some great city in the no man’s land between Sendeth and Doster, east of Randane. According to Kendin, thousands of the shafts existed. The World’s Veins, they called them. An apt name Ancel guessed, considering the powerful essences that resided within the Travelshafts. It was as if they made up a swift-flowing underground river whose water was almost as pure as the Mater within the Entosis.
When they arrived at Randane, they found an army of Dagodin and Ashishin led by Jerem’s two Exalted. Trust was not a sentiment he ascribed to when it came to the Tribunal, so he’d used his aura sense to discern that they were indeed human. Undeniably strong in Mater, but human nonetheless. At his command, they waited on the plains, ready to be a diversion as he and the others breached the city.
Randane itself seemed much the same as he had left it the day he escaped. At least from this vantage point next to the Kelvore River. Although he could no longer see them, the spires that stabbed the sky had been as he remembered.
The plains near the castle were a different story. He recalled their appearance the day he and Kachien took their walk, made love in the small tributary, and his ability to see auras had manifested in response to his emotions. What amounted to a small town had thrived outside the city. Beyond the cheaply constructed wood and brick structures, the world was a green ocean interspersed with colorful blooms dotted by trees.
Now, all that remained of the town was rubble and char. Mud covered what were once fields, bleeding brown into what should have been a white sea. Reeking corpses littered the town’s streets, wafting to him even here. He put a hand over his mouth. When he first saw the thousands of bloated corpses the Tribunal’s armies left behind, he’d spilled the contents of his stomach. He couldn’t afford to show any weakness again, regardless of how the sight was forever burned into his memory.
Letting out a deep breath, he focused on the cliff spanning up from the half-frozen river. Voices whispered outside the Eye as he held onto his Matersense. He’d enveloped himself within both once he met Exalted Leukisa and Ordelia. A good decision too. The Eye had saved him from succumbing to the war of emotions he experienced when he saw the massacre outside the city.
The cliff and the filthy water gushing from the sewer exit were his key to breach the city’s walls. The ability to reach the tunnel’s entrance was another dilemma altogether. Layered ice coated the cliff, and although it covered most of the river in a sheet thick enough to hold considerable weight, the constant disturbance from the sewage runoff meant there was no way to reach the wall, much less the tunnel. Not if he didn’t want his men to freeze to death. There was also the matter of the water in the tunnel itself. Imagining himself submerged within its icy grip made him shiver.
Kendin, the musical notes of his voice smooth and rhythmic, was conferring with Exalted Leukisa. The miniature versions of the Svenzar stood silently in the snow along the riverbank near the rest of Ancel’s men with Mirza in command. Comprised of at least a hundred Seifer and Nema accompanied by their pets, three times that number in Dosteri Dagodin, as well as fifty Pathfinders, they amounted to more than a minor threat. Given their proximity to the castle, Ancel still marveled that a warning hadn’t sounded. It made him realize the skill Leukisa possessed to go along with his strength. A strength belied by the Exalted’s leathery skin drawn tight over his face, deep-sunken eyes, and gnarled fingers. Leukisa’s Forging kept their presence hidden both in sight and sound.
As he studied the Forge, he picked out its delicate structure. Whereas he might have forced the essences into a solid, the Exalted had kept them as they were for the most part. They appeared natural, flowing at the correct points. Upon closer inspection, Leukisa had woven transparent bands of light thereby twisting exactly what the area revealed. When he didn’t look at it through his Matersense, it appeared as if the cliff, the castle itself, and the trees along the bank, their trunks frozen until they burst, cast long shadows over mounds of snow.
To keep the noise of their presence from any guards, Leukisa diverted air essences, streaming them in the opposite direction well past the river’s far bank. Ancel’s lip twitched when he considered the confused expression of anyone who happened to pass by the area reached by those sounds. The murmur of any conversation and the occasional grunt, bark, or snarl from a wolf or daggerpaw would certainly spark stories of a vale haunted by troubled spirits.
A low whine from Charra brought his attention back to his immediate surroundings. Kendin approached, his massive feet flattening the snow with each step, leaving imprints to match. He hoped the Svenzar had discovered a way to tackle the issue of the tunnel. Leukisa watched with those piercing eyes of his but kept his distance. If the Exalted had taken exception to Ancel’s displeasure at his presence, he did not show it.
“Leukisa believes he can hide what we plan,” Kendin said.
The Svenzar’s speech was a contrast of high and low pitches with each word. If one didn’t understand Sven, it was little more than odd tinkles and hums. Ancel didn’t know why or how, but the more he’d heard the language, the more his ability to decipher it and eventually speak it, had increased. It was something he’d question Ryne about at some point. At present, he wasn’t concerned. Learn, adapt, and take advantage. A mantra from the Disciplines.
“What do you think?” Ancel asked. Despite the Exalted’s Forge, he’d be damned if he left any final decisions up to him.
“You allow distrust to cloud your judgment.” Kendin gestured around them. “He has made our position invisible to prying eyes. I believe he can do what he promises. As things stand, we do not have much choice if you wish to save the ones captured.”
Melancholy enveloped Ancel for the briefest of moments before he suffused the feeling. He couldn’t afford to let his prejudices cause a delay, and yet a hasty decision and walking into a trap would be just as bad. He sighed. Sometimes a leader had to take risks. This was one of those times. “Do what’s required. We enter either in secret or all-out attack. The end result is all that matters.”
“A wise decision.” Kendin raised his right hand to the air and made a fist. At the same time, his left hand elongated and plunged into the snow. “A protective ward exists all along the walls. Any touch would set it off. The drain you brought us to is unguarded. We will make it possible for your men to reach it and pass through without the water to trouble you.”
Brows furrowed, Ancel tried in vain to think of a Forge strong enough to do what was needed. One that wouldn’t be detected by whatever or whoever controlled the city. He gave up. “Even if you manage this, how will you be able to follow us inside?”
Foot by foot, Kendin’s body shrank. “We will always be close. Ask what you need of us, and we shall give our assistance.” The Svenzar continued to speak as he melded with the earth. “Have your men follow when the steps are built.” With those words, his body dissolved altogether.