'That attracts attention and gets you seen.' Horace finished the statement. 'I know.'
'So long as you do. The temptation to try to hide is almost irresistible in that situation.'
They moved forward, Will taking the lead and slipping silently and almost invisibly through the uncertain light. He dropped behind an outcrop of rocks some thirty metres away from the trees and signalled Horace to follow. He watched the warrior for a few metres, then turned his attention to the hills ahead. Tennyson didn't seem to have any guards in place. But that didn't mean they weren't concealed somewhere. A part of his mind was impressed with the progress that Horace was making with his silent movement. He still made a certain amount of noise, of course. It took years of training to achieve the level of silence with which a Ranger could move. But he was surprisingly quiet and Will doubted that any casual listener in the vicinity would have realised that someone was moving through the grass. Horace slowly lowered himself into cover beside him. Will glanced at the face inside the folds of the cowl. He could feel the tension in Horace's body. The young warrior was concentrating fiercely on moving with minimal noise and visibility. Too fiercely, in fact.
'Relax a little. There's a tendency to make more noise if you're all tensed up,' Will told him in a lowered voice. 'You're doing fine. You're definitely getting the hang of this.'
He saw the brief flash of Horace's teeth, bared in a grin of pleasure.
'Think I'd make a Ranger?' he asked.
Will snorted derisively. 'Don't get ahead of yourself,' he said. Then he gestured towards the hills ahead of them. 'Come on.'
Moving carefully, in short increments, it took them over half an hour to reach the base of the hills. There, they found a jumble of rocks – sandstone mainly – which had fallen from higher up the slopes. There was plenty of cover and they settled in a cleft between two boulders, looking around to spot the entrance to one of the caves.
'See anything?' Will asked.
Horace shook his head. 'No. But I can still smell that smoke.'
They both looked up to the spot where they had seen smoke issuing from a cleft in the rocks. Now they could see nothing. But Horace was right. The smell of woodsmoke was still strong on the evening air.
Will surveyed the rocks and open ground around them. There was no sign of any human habitation. Finally, he leaned closer to Horace and whispered, 'You stay here and keep an eye on things. I'll see if I can find a way in.'
Horace nodded. He settled himself between two large boulders, placing himself so that he had a good field of vision yet stayed relatively concealed himself. His hand went to the sword at his side but he left it undrawn. If he needed it, he could have it out and ready in a heartbeat. Yet if he drew it now, the gleaming blade might reflect the dull light and give his position away.
Will ghosted forward until he reached the base of the cliffs. Flattening himself against the almost sheer rock, he edged along laterally. A large buttress of sandstone jutted out and he slid round it, disappearing from view for a few seconds. Then he reappeared, signalling to Horace, pointing to the rock face on the other side of the outcrop. His meaning was clear. He had found an opening. He was going inside.
Horace waved that he understood and Will disappeared again, walking soft-footed around the sandstone outcrop.
The opening was well concealed, all but invisible until you were almost upon it. It was barely a body width wide, nothing more than a slit in the rock, but on closer inspection, Will saw that it ran deeper.
He turned side on and slipped through the cleft. His quiver snagged momentarily on the rough rock at his back and he had to wriggle it free. Then he continued.
Horace would have loved this, he thought. It was pitch dark and the narrow, constricting passage twisted like a snake so that the walls seemed to bear down upon him. He fought back a moment of panic, understanding for the first time in his life how such a place could unnerve his friend. He inched forward, beginning to fear that this was a false trail and the narrow gap would eventually peter out, leading nowhere. Then, rounding a final right angle, he found himself in a larger open space – about the size of a bedchamber. The ceiling of the cave was high, and light came through several clefts high in the wall. It was the last light of day and only faint, yet after the total darkness of the passage he had just traversed, it was a welcome change.
He hesitated at the entrance, taking stock of his surroundings. There was no sign of anyone here and the light was too dim for him to inspect the sandy floor for footprints. He toyed with the idea of lighting a torch, but decided against it. The darkness was his protection, his friend, his shield. In these stygian conditions, the sudden bright flare of a flint on steel might well be noticeable for hundreds of metres.
He stepped out into the open space. His eyes were of little use in this dimness, so he reached out around him with his other senses: his hearing, his sense of smell and that peculiar sixth sense that he had been trained to develop and listen to – an instinctive awareness of the space around him, and the possible presence of other people in it, that had alerted him so many times in the past to potential danger.
The air was surprisingly fresh. He had expected it to be dank and earthy here inside the rocks. But then, of course, the clefts that provided light would also ensure that the cave was well ventilated. He turned around, slowly, describing a full circle. His eyes were closed as he sought to concentrate on his other senses. He reached out with them.
He heard voices.
Many voices, in a low rising and falling pattern that could only be one thing. Chanting. They came from the far wall of the cavern and he crossed quickly to it, feeling his way along until his fingers discovered another cleft. This one was lower, barely a metre and a half in height. He bent and slipped through it, once again in darkness, reaching ahead and upward and crabbing forward in a half crouch. Gradually, the ceiling became higher and he could walk upright – his outstretched hand above him touching only empty air.
This tunnel ran relatively straight, without the twists and turns of the first. And after the first few metres, it widened out into a comfortable thoroughfare.
At least, he assumed it did. He stayed touching the wall of rock and stretched his hand out into the darkness, searching for the far wall. He encountered nothing.
The muffled sound of chanting, which had continued as he progressed through the darkness, gradually became stronger and louder, then suddenly stopped. Instinctively, he stopped as well. Had he made some noise? Had he alerted the chanters? Did they suddenly realise that he was here?
Then a single voice began to speak. He couldn't make out the words; they were muffled and distorted by the rock. But he could hear the timbre and the pitch and the cadence of the voice. It was the voice of a trained speaker, an orator accustomed to swaying his listeners to his own point of view.
He'd heard the voice before. It was Tennyson.
He sighed with relief.
'So you're here after all,' he said softly, into the darkness.
He edged forward again and the voice became more distinct. Now he was able to make out individual words. One in particular he heard repeated over and over again: Alseiass.
Alseiass, the false golden god of the Outsiders.
Now Tennyson seemed to be asking the crowd questions. His voice would rise in an interrogative tone and there would be a pause, then an answering roar from the crowd. And while Tennyson's questions weren't yet decipherable, the answering roar from the crowd definitely was.
'Alseiass!' they cried, in answer to his every question.
The tunnel Will was following veered slightly to the right and as he rounded an elbow in the wall, he saw something ahead.