And often they interrupted their search to stand quietly in the coiling shadows as swart Men or dark Spawn or corpse-white Guula strode past.
They found doorways that led to veering, shadowed, muttering passages within the fortress walls, hallways that seemed to bend unnaturally, turning upon themselves-though there was not room within the bulwarks to do so-twisting corridors made of dark stone and warded with iron doors every ten paces or so, doors that could be slammed and barred ’gainst hostile forces, though all the metal portals stood open, save one: “My feet tell me that this be a door into the dark tower, Princess,” said Thork, his voice hushed. Stealthily, the Dwarf pressed upon the panel, to no avail. “Barred on the inside, I deem.”
“Let us away from here, Thork,” breathed Elyn, “for it is day, and Andrak is not gone, and dwells inside.”
And so they pressed onward through the coiling murk within the angled passages inside the dark battlements, searching for but not finding a starsilver hammer.
They discovered an interior doorway that led into a stable and smithy bordering upon the bailey, and inside the stalls were horses; yet when Elyn pointed out that the mounts gave them another means of escape, could they but get past the gate and bridge, Thork refused, declaring that he would never ride on the back of a horse-a pony, yes, but never a horse-and about it he would say no more.
At the back wall of the stables they found a tunnel leading inward, down into the stone of the spire, where underground, illuminated by torches, past three pairs of closed unguarded wooden doors, they came into the Hèlsteed stables. And the creatures exuded a foetid miasma, a foul stench that made both Elyn’s and Thork’s gorge rise, and they were like to vomit from the smell of it. Yet they endured long enough to search out the place, to no avail.
Too, they passed down the twisting stairs from the great hall, past more sets of shut wooden doors, and found themselves in the Rutchen quarters, delved from stone, safe from sunlight. Rutcha and Drōkha dwelled within, as well as the Corpse Folk, the Guula, so named by Elyn. . though Thork called all three by their Châkka names: Ukhs, Hrōks, and Khōls. And these environs, too, had a foul stench, and it was all the two could do to stay long enough to gauge that the Kammerling was not within.
And they discovered a passage that led from the quarters of the Spawn to the Hèlsteed stables, a passage that they had missed in the murk when they had been in those foul mews earlier.
And elsewhere they found rope, in plentiful supply, and took that which was needed to rappel down from the spire, and stored it in their attic hideaway.
And through it all, the shadows silently muttered and whispered and tittered insanely, and both Elyn and Thork felt as if they were slipping toward the edge of madness from it. They did not rest well and nerves became frayed and tempers short, yet they realized the effect this twisting murk was having upon them and they did their best to compensate.
Thus passed four more days.
It was beyond midnight on the seventh night of their arrival at Andrak’s holt that Elyn was awakened from a restless sleep by Thork.
“Princess, make haste,” urged the Dwarf. “Just now Andrak’s chariot clattered out through the gate and across the bridge. Swift, let us search the tower; if we are successful, we will leave this accursed place tonight, Rage Hammer in hand.”
Elyn scrambled to her knees and sorted through her goods, shoving crue into her kit as well as the small bag of beans. It was their plan to bear their packs and all their weapons into the tower, for should they quickly locate the Kammerling, they would immediately leave over the wall by rope and across the bridge ere Andrak returned, or by rappelling down the spire in the event the bridge was haled back onto this side, the long rope even now coiled and set at the window at the far west end of the attic. Thork, too, assembled his belongings, preparing to go. Their waterskins were full, for each evening they refilled them from one of the water barrels in the shadows of the Men’s quarters, anticipating that they would need to leave in haste. Elyn strapped on her saber and set her sling to her belt. Fastening her bow and quiver to her pack, she stood and shouldered the gear.
“Ready, Thork,” she said, determination in her voice.
Latching a final buckle, Thork shouldered his own pack, the cloth-covered Dragonhide shield affixed thereupon. “Let us be gone from this madness,” he growled, his eyes sweeping across the twisting muttering darkness, and he turned and stepped toward the stairwell, Elyn following.
By the warped route wrenching through the fortress walls, they came to the closed steel door leading into Andrak’s tower. Yet it was still barred on the opposite side, and they could not get through.
“The bailey, Thork,” whispered Elyn. “It is our only way.”
Grimly, Thork nodded. “Aye, the bailey.”
The black tower loomed upward in the night, its ebon sides seeming to suck at the torchlight sputtering across the courtyard, its sloped roof consuming the feeble starlight dimly gleaming down through rents in the gathering clouds. The Hèlsteed chariot was gone and the portcullis was down, closed, and would remain so until Andrak’s return, and a cold swirling wind stirred across the cobbles and spiralled along the walls, wreathing about the tower and up. Two Rutch warders squatted at the foot of the steps leading up to the door, casting knucklebones by the guttering torchlight and cursing one another in Slûk, the slobbering, drooling speech of their kind.
Quietly, Elyn drew her saber; Thork’s axe was already in his hands. “If they detect us,” breathed Elyn, “I’ll take the one on the left.” Thork nodded, and sliding through the shadows at the base of the walls, toward the stairs they went, once again trusting to the power of the silveron nugget.
The quarrelling Rutcha showed no sign of awareness as the two slipped past and glided up the steps, the soft-moaning chill wind eddying about them.
At the top, a short landing led to a door made of planks of a strange black wood. Dark iron bands bound the portal, held in place by metal studs. An iron ring depended from a shaft jutting from the mouth of a grinning casting of a gargoyle’s head, the black metal face leering lasciviously.
Thork examined the loop and stem carefully, then cautiously turned the ring and pulled. With a quiet snick the door came free and could now be swung inward. Yet they paused a moment, readying themselves, for they did not know what might await them within the ebon turret, what might be warding the Kammerling. Even so, saber in hand, her eye on the unheeding Rutcha below, Elyn motioned for Thork to enter. The Dwarf shifted his axe to one hand and eased the dark portal open just wide enough to slip through, and he disappeared inside, closely followed by the Princess. And then Thork softly closed the door behind. Absorbed by their game, the Rutcha did not note that aught was amiss and continued their squabbling over the turn of the dice.
The Lady and the Dwarf stood with their backs to the door, axe and saber ready, expecting attack from within, yet nought came charging at them. They found themselves inside a shadow-wrapped chamber, the twisting darkness tittering insanely, below the threshold of hearing. Silent chanting plucked at their senses, and an unheard obscene muttering filled them with loathing. And into this noiseless gyring, giggling black murk stepped warrior and warrior, eyes alert, Elyn’s seeing only wavering ebon shapes.
Thork led through the shifting whispering darkness, Elyn following behind, her hand touching his shoulder for guidance. Now and again Elyn could see, for fluttering torchlight from the bailey shone in through arrow slits spaced regularly along the perimeter, the feeble light occasionally penetrating the coiling dark, the circulating wind outside moaning softly past the slits, slits with solid wooden shutters on the inside that now stood open. Working their way through the writhing shadows, they determined that this first chamber consisted of an open circular floor; it was a gathering hall of some sort, perhaps sixty feet in diameter; the space was without furniture, empty, but etched into the floor were arcane designs that Thork scrupulously avoided, steering Elyn safely past them as well. All about, the walls of the tower reared upward into the muttering blackness, and an open stairwell of stone steps clung to the side and spiralled up into the deranged gloom.