“I did save your life.”
“From the thugs, not the head injury.” He felt it carefully, wincing.
“So if you’re right, I still have the option,” she said quietly. It came as a great relief, though she could not have said why.
“Perhaps it’s just as well,” said Holm, “since you’re the one. Lyf’s your great enemy, and you’re his. If he’s to restore the ancient realm of Cythe, or if you’re to rescue the Pale, sooner or later the battle has to be fought.”
“The later the better, as far as I’m concerned,” said Tali.
“And the sooner the better for him. He’ll be planning to take you on the moment he finds you, so you’ve got to be ready.”
“Um,” said Tali, “he may already have found me. Or at least, seen me.”
“What have you done now?”
She told him about her spying mission, and what she had seen and heard.
“He had the mage put to death at once, you say?”
“Yes,” said Tali.
“So the secret of the lost key is so vital that he couldn’t allow anyone to discover what questions he’d asked.” Holm picked up his stew bowl and scraped the sides. “I wish you’d waited until I was awake.”
“Sorry.”
“But it has told us one thing,” said Holm.
“What’s that?”
“The key he’s looking for is the key to king-magery. But what is it? Is it a physical key? A talisman? A document? A spell?”
“Judging by Lyf’s reaction to the word it wasn’t a talisman. And whatever it was, Grandys probably took it.”
“Though if he did, presumably he couldn’t get it to work — or didn’t recognise it as the key.”
“Since we don’t know where it is now, or even if it still exists, it doesn’t help us.”
“I have an idea about that,” said Holm.
“Really?”
“I was fascinated by Grandys at one stage, when I was young and proud and arrogant. I spent a couple of months reading his papers and studying his artefacts, and after that I didn’t want to be like him at all. Not long afterwards I discovered… that I didn’t want to be like me, either.”
What could he mean? His eyes gave nothing away. “Do you want to tell — ?”
“No, thanks.”
After another pause she said, “Where is all Grandys’ stuff?”
“Lost, mostly, or scattered. Some of it’s at Tirnan Twil.”
“Where’s that?”
“In the Nandeloch Mountains.”
“Everything seems to be in the Nandelochs.”
“They’ve always been a Herovian stronghold. I think the rugged land and the wild weather was much akin to their racial dream of the Promised Realm.”
She sighed. “About Tirnan Twil?”
“It’s a homage to eternity.”
“That may be poetic, but it doesn’t give me the clearest picture.”
“It’s a library and museum, and, for some, a place of worship.”
“What for?”
“The Five Heroes began it to glorify their achievements and maintain their heritage. The expense was staggering. It almost bankrupted the young nation — and Hightspall almost lost the war because of it. But that’s ancient history.”
“I take it, then, that we’re going to Tirnan Twil?”
“If this key still exists, it’s the first place I’d look.”
CHAPTER 42
“What’s the matter with them?” said Rix, punching the steel gauntlet on his dead hand into the palm of his other hand. He wore it all the time now, because it made his dead hand into a formidable weapon. “Why don’t they attack?”
“Perhaps they’re waiting for reinforcements,” said Droag, idly polishing his sword.
“Any sign of the healers?” said Rix.
“No,” said Nuddell gloomily. “Must’ve gone into hiding. No way they can reach us now.”
Or else the enemy had caught or killed them.
They were up on the tower behind the gates again. The Cythonians had been outside for two days now, camped in the snow in a semicircle, several hundred yards out of arrow range. They had not fired at the fortress, nor used any of the chymical terror weapons they had employed to such devastating effect in the early days of the war.
From time to time they sent raiding parties across the plateau. The sentries on the walls would see smoke rising and know that another manor or village had been burned, along with anyone who had missed the call to take refuge in the fortress. The raiding party would return, driving cattle, sheep or goats before them, which they butchered and roasted over spits. Then the waiting resumed.
“They’re doing it to wear us down,” said Swelt, rubbing his depleted belly.
Now that the fortress was at war, everyone had to make do on reduced rations, even the castellan.
“They did the same thing at Caulderon,” said Glynnie. “After they blasted the gates, they didn’t attack for several days, and our armies couldn’t touch them. By the time they stormed the walls, morale was in tatters.”
“If they don’t attack today, it’ll be their last chance for a week,” said Nuddell, who was studying the sky. “There’s a blizzard coming, a big one.”
Away in the south-west, a black cloud-bank had been developing for ages, thickening and spreading until it covered the southern sky.
“Those clouds haven’t moved in days,” scoffed Droag. “If it gets any warmer the daffodils will come out.”
“Nor’westerlies are holding the blizzard back,” said Nuddell, “but they can’t last much longer. And once they break,” he said with dire relish, “the coming blizzard will tear the hairs right out of your nose.”
Droag plucked a clump of his luxuriant nose hairs, studied them incuriously, then let them fall. “Ain’t a breath of wind, Nuddell.”
“Mark my words, boy. It’ll be howling by dinner time.”
“Our biggest weakness is the length of the wall,” said Rix to his officers. “Ignoring the escarpment side, which is too steep for anyone to attack, we’ve got over half a mile of wall to defend. And only three hundred and ninety men, counting the reserves.”
“Surely they’ll attack the gates,” said Noys. “They’re always the weakest point.”
“But ours are strongly defended. And if they attack somewhere else under cover of darkness, they might get up onto the wall before we realise what they’re doing.”
“If you reinforce all the places they’re likely to attack — ”
“We don’t have enough men,” said Rix. “We’d need another two hundred, at least.”
By noon the black cloud-bank was perceptibly closer and the towering storms at its front were illuminated by continuous flashes of lightning. By three in the afternoon, odd little puffs of warm air kept breaking the eerie calm. The high clouds ahead of the front had spread to cover all but a lens of sky in the north-west, through which were focused the slanting, blood-red rays of the descending sun.
At twenty to four, the storm struck with a flurry of heavy raindrops, followed by a fusillade of hail. Rix clapped on his helmet. At the same moment, the lens of bright sky vanished and it became almost as dark as night.
Nuddell, grinning, said something Rix could not make out over the hammering of hailstones on his helmet.
“What did you say?” said Rix.
“You can stand down the extra men,” Nuddell yelled. “There won’t be an attack today.”
“Why not?” said Droag.
“If they try to fight in a blizzard,” said Rix, “half their troops are liable to die of exposure.”
A red flash from the enemy’s position was followed by a smashing thud below.
“What the hell was that?” said Nuddell, the whites of his eyes shining in the gloom.
“Bombast,” said Rix.
He looked down. The exploding projectile must have been enormous, for it had blasted a ragged, cart-sized hole through the top of the great gates. Half a dozen guards on the right-hand wall lay dead or wounded, cut down by jagged, flying timber.