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Bolton nodded and stood up. ‘Best we go at sunset tonight.’
Bethany’s expression revealed she was not happy, but she said nothing.
Martin said, ‘It was suggested we bribe the Keshians to slip past their lines, but I’d rather as few people as possible know what we’re doing. That bolt-hole from the old keep is on the other side of the line.’
Bolton said, ‘That side, but barely.’
‘And if we come out after their last patrol heads back to the camp by the road …?’
‘That assumes they’re being sloppy and not leaving pickets out along the line, Highness,’ said Sergeant Oaks.
Captain Bolton said, ‘They’ve grown lax. My best appraisal is that they’re bored and waiting for orders.’
‘To do what?’ wondered Martin aloud.
Bolton shrugged. ‘Gods know, Highness. I don’t. None of this makes sense.’
Martin explained in brief what Lord James had told the brothers about the pointlessness of the war.
When he finished, Bolton nodded. ‘Well, if the object of the exercise was to throw the region into total chaos, they’ve succeeded. From Yabon City to LaMut, we’ve barely got five hundred of what could reasonably be called fighting men. Mostly old veterans and boys, some town militia who didn’t go marching off under the Duke of Yabon’s banner, and our little garrison here; and, as I’ve said, I’ve barely enough here to mount a decent patrol. Our lads are either watching the Keshians, or getting ready to escort farmers to the city when the mayor says it’s time. The Keshians have also withdrawn the heart of their forces. After that Premier fellow, the highest-ranking soldier I’ve seen up on that barricade when I’ve ridden close, appears to be some sort of sergeant of militia.’ Bolton let out a slow breath. ‘I hope you don’t think me presumptuous, Highness, but I think with your own detachment and the garrison here, we could probably roll over that line up on the ridge.’
Martin nodded. ‘No doubt, but to what end?’ He looked at the map as if trying to see something he’d missed and spoke almost to himself. ‘We might be able to retake Crydee if we hit them hard and fast and they haven’t rebuilt what I destroyed on the way out. But …’ He looked at the others. ‘Our countryside is now populated with Keshians, most of whom I suspect do not speak the King’s Tongue. Shall we ride out, greet them as new subjects and inform them of when the tax roll will be posted and where to gather to give their due to their new lords? If we get true peace with Kesh, it will be years before we hold anything, truly, north of Carse. We can repopulate Crydee Keep and Jonril’s garrison, but beyond that … My grandfather never got around to rebuilding the old garrison at Barran.’ He slowly shook his head. ‘Even if we could hold Crydee and Jonril, everything north of Carse will be as wild as the Northlands, I fear, for years to come.’
He glanced at the faces around him, and smiled. ‘We’ll worry about retaking old territories some other time. Right now we’ve got to find out what’s going on up in those mountains, and I think our best chance to get up there quickly will be to come out of the old keep and straight across the road behind the Keshian line and take the old West Rim game trail.’
He stood up. ‘We’ll head up to the old fortress and rest. After their last evening patrol we’ll head out of the bolt-hole, make straight across the western road and up into the hills. By midnight we’ll be high enough above their position that they’ll never know we passed by.’
Bethany looked at Martin and said, ‘And …?’
Martin smiled and said, ‘Oaks, I’m leaving you here as second to Captain Bolton. George, find those lads I need and have them meet me at the old keep in an hour.’
Bethany smiled, turned and walked towards the stairs without further comment. Martin attempted to look oblivious as he waited for what he hoped would be an appropriate moment to pass; then Bolton said, ‘Sorry, Highness, but it’s probably going to take two hours to organize the scouting party.’
‘Well,’ said Martin, following Bethany. ‘Two hours, then.’
He hurried up the back stairs while Bolton and Oaks stifled their laughter.
• CHAPTER FIVE •
E’bar
MARTIN SIGNALLED.
The four hunters behind him halted. They were two hours past the Keshian roadblock on the highway between Ylith and Crydee. They had easily passed to the west of that position and moved quickly into the foothills of the Grey Towers mountains. They had executed Martin’s plan without a hitch, crossing the King’s Road from Ylith to Crydee and getting high into the mountains. They made a cold camp there and rested until sunrise. Now they’d been hiking for several hours and Martin sensed something was amiss.
He listened to a faint sound from behind them and indicated that the four hunters from Ylith should move to either side of the trail, out of sight. He moved as quietly as he could back the way they had just come. It was nearing noon, so there were few hiding places around the trail. The trees were not particularly dense here, but a few clumps of brush and some tightly packed large boles provided him with cover.
Martin was perhaps half a dozen yards down the trail when a familiar voice said, ‘If I were a Keshian assassin, you’d be dead, my love.’
Slowly turning, his expression one of exasperation, he said, ‘Beth?’
She stepped out from behind a nearby tree trunk. ‘Congratulations on hearing me. I didn’t think you would after I caught up with you, two hours after you passed the roadblock.’
Martin was still tired and already feeling the pressure of leadership. Now he felt close to rage at being disobeyed by the woman he loved. As if reading his mind, she said quietly, ‘Before you make a fool of yourself, listen. You don’t want these lads from Ylith thinking you can’t control a woman. Especially when them obeying you might be the difference between the success of this mission and death. I know you take your duties very seriously, Martin, but there are going to be times you’ll need to listen to me. I really didn’t mean to embarrass you.’
Whispering through clenched teeth, he said, ‘Then why did you put me in this position, Beth?’
‘Because I love you, even though you’re an idiot at times.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Of the five of you, you’re the only one who’s spent time on the west side of the Grey Towers. These men may be able hunters and trackers, but this is new territory for them. Odds are almost certain you’re the worst bowman and hunter in the band. You don’t have a tenth of my skill and knowledge. While you were studying history and language, my father and I were hunting from the Straits of Darkness to Elvandar.’
Martin knew the last to be an exaggeration, but not by much, so he said nothing.
She moved closer. ‘Martin, I love you with all my heart, but if I can keep you safe, I will do just that, no matter what orders you think I must follow. Now, do we understand each other?’
‘Beth—’ His tone left no doubt that at that moment there was no understanding, just a young man feeling betrayed and embarrassed.
She cut him off. ‘Look, why are you following this trail?’
He blinked, as if he didn’t understand the question. ‘Because it’s leading us up into the peaks, towards where the Star Elves have built their city.’
‘And you call yourself a student of history,’ she said softly.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘The Tsurani invasion. Surely you studied the maps.’
‘Of course I did …’ He let his voice fall off and his anger drained away as he realized what she was saying. ‘This is the crest trail, the false trail, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘This trail ends five miles ahead at an impassable ravine. It’s why both the Kingdom nobles and the Natalese Rangers left it unguarded. You want the trail a half-mile downslope.’
Feeling foolish, he said, ‘Thank you, but you could have reminded me back in Ylith.’
‘You’d just get lost somewhere else. We have many days of travel ahead, my love, and who knows what will be waiting for us the closer we get to those elves? Either Brendan or I would double your chances to survive, and admit it, I’m a better choice than Brendan; I’ve travelled these trails more and I’m a better archer.’
Finally Martin turned, motioning for her to follow. He whistled and the four hunters from Ylith appeared from cover. ‘Tom, Jack, Will, and Edgar; Lady Bethany of Carse.’
Tom and Jack were brothers, fourteen and fifteen years of age. They had been too young to fight when the Keshians had first arrived in Yabon, but were now keen to do their bit. Will looked to be in his fifties, with his grey hair and a sallow complexion, but his eyes were sharp and focused. Edgar was a slightly stout man with a bald pate, grey beard, dark eyes and the shoulders of a brawler. All held bows and moved like experienced hunters. Tom and Jack exchanged glances, but neither of them spoke.
‘She’ll be taking point,’ Martin told them. ‘Let’s go.’
Beth said, ‘If memory serves, there’s a dry streambed ahead we can use to get downslope to the next trail.’ She spoke as if this was the expected route and no one said a word. The four hunters from Yabon might not know the young prince well enough to say for certain, but all of them were convinced he was in no mood for questions.
Beth set off at a slow trot and the others followed in line.
Days passed quietly. The forest above was thin as they followed the upper game trails. This part of the Grey Towers was below the timberline at the peaks, but still high enough that the foliage was less dense, hence less difficult to pass. It also made it easier to be seen if they weren’t careful, but Bethany was proving to be a skilled trail-breaker.
Martin was still nursing his injured pride five days into the march, but it was fading as he was forced to admit her reasoning was borne out by the ease with which she led the party. Several times she negotiated them around difficult spots that would have confounded him, forcing him to double back and find another path.
They ate trail rations, avoiding campfires at night, so this foray lacked any sense of the fun Martin and Bethany had known hunting with their fathers. There was a quiet urgency and earnestness about the mission that was more sobering than any admonition Martin could have made. Everyone knew lives were at stake, their own and others’.
Bethany would rise at dawn and move off at a distance to relieve herself. She had instructed Martin and the four hunters in ways to relieve themselves leaving as little evidence as possible. At first Martin thought she was showing off her trail skills, but after a few days he realized that their body odour could betray their whereabouts. Bethany had taught them how to bathe in a cold stream and rid their garments of stench, using rocks and some oil pressed out of pine bark. Martin had stood guard while she bathed and the five men had rotated guard duty while cleaning themselves.
On the fifth day of their journey the rains came.
Even in midsummer, the weather on the west side of the Grey Towers could turn suddenly. Driving rain, even hail, was not uncommon. They were on the ‘wet’ side of the mountains, as the trail they followed from the road looped to the west of the peaks; storms off the Endless Sea would drench the west face of the peaks, leaving the east side of the mountains dry. Enough rain got over the peaks that the east faces were replete with rivers and streams, rendering the mountain pastures and lower meadows fertile farm land, providing many of the cash crops shipping from the ports of the Free Cities, but they were less plagued with marsh-like depressions, stagnant pools and mosquitoes. Martin decided that in addition to what the history books said about the Keshian colonization of Bosania, the simple truth was that the east side of the Grey Towers was just a nicer place to live than the west side, which is why it was more densely populated.
The troop was less troubled by the terrain than by keeping dry: for much of that fifth day they all huddled under a granite overhang that provided some shelter. In the last hours of the afternoon the storm blew out, and the late sun found the six members of Martin’s scouting party standing, arms outstretched, catching as much of the sun as they could to accelerate drying out, looking like nothing so much as a group of turkey buzzards trying to warm themselves in the sun.
Martin was concerned, not about the discomforts of the trail, but because so far they had encountered no sign of the elves. From what he had been told, these so-called Star Elves were a city race, unlike their cousins in Elvandar. Their trail-craft and wood-lore was no better than that of most humans, and inferior to that of the Rangers of Natal and the Pathfinders of Krondor. Still, if Martin’s estimation was correct, they were less than two days from their city of E’bar, and should be seeing signs of patrols or sentries.
But there had been nothing.
The dawn of the sixth day saw six tired, hungry, miserable scouts moving up a small draw, which should have emptied out into a woodland meadow just north of the Great Rift Valley, as it had come to be known. Here was where the Tsurani had breached space to invade Midkemia through a magic rift. To the south of that spot the taredhel were reputed to have constructed a remarkable city. Little was known about it, for few humans were known to have survived seeing it. The only reason Martin knew where to look was because of information provided him by Jim Dasher before leaving Rillanon. Apparently those who had visited and survived were members of the mysterious Conclave of Shadows.
Martin knew there were still many things he didn’t know; and having to proceed without a clear plan was bringing him to the limits of frustration. ‘Go there and look around,’ Lord James and Jim Dasher had said. Martin had no idea what it was he was looking for, or even if he’d recognize something important if he blundered across it. More than he would ever admit, he was relieved that Bethany was with him. She possessed an innate sense of how things should be organized and saw details where Martin saw patterns: between the two of them they stood a fair chance of the mission succeeding. What Martin didn’t like was the possibility of failure, especially where she was involved.
Bethany raised her hand.
Martin and the others stopped.
A voice cried out in a language none of them understood, and suddenly they were surrounded by very tall, angry elves. Martin’s sword had barely cleared its scabbard before he was struck by a balled fist across the cheek, and swallowed up by darkness.
Martin awoke with a groan. His head throbbed and he had trouble focusing his eyes for a moment. He found himself a short distance away from a fire, and reckoned he must have been unconscious for at least three hours, for it was clearly just after sunset. Along with Bethany and the others, he lay under a lean-to shelter. Like the others, his hands were tied behind his back, so contriving to sit upright took a little effort and each exertion caused his head to pound, and then he sat up with a grunt. Once he had exchanged silent nods confirming that everyone was more or less intact, Martin took a good look around.
Surrounding them was an encampment of elves, but they looked nothing like those elves who had visited Crydee from Elvandar over the years. These were unusually tall and most were blonde, though there were a few with darker tresses or red hair. At least half seemed to be wearing a uniform of some fashion: a blue tunic over which a cuirass of polished steel was fitted. A few were wearing white lacquered armour and matching helms. All appeared to be sporting injuries of some fashion.
Bethany whispered, ‘Are you all right?’
‘I was about to ask that of you,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘Except for a throbbing head, I’m all right.’ He glanced around. ‘Where are we?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘We were ambushed and taken without injury. They seem to want us alive.’ She nodded towards the four hunters who all sat silently. ‘We were bound and blindfolded. I think we’re maybe an hour or less from E’bar, if it’s where we think it is. We’re in the valley.’ With her chin she pointed and Martin could make out a faint glimmer from the setting sun playing off peaks opposite where they rested. The eastern rim of the valley was higher than the rest so while they were quickly entering shadows, there was some illumination still.
‘Has anyone talked to you?’ asked Martin.
‘They seem rather too busy.’
Martin watched the camp and noted that while no one was moving frantically, there was a sense of urgency about these elves. The economy of motion that blessed their race masked an intensity that betrayed itself by glimpses and hints. ‘There’s something going on.’
Bethany nodded towards the south. ‘See anything?’
Martin craned his neck. In the falling twilight he could make out a faint red glow coming from the south. ‘What is that?’ he asked.
‘I have no idea,’ she responded. ‘At first I thought it might be a trick of the light, some reflection of the sunset off a cloud, but as it got darker that glow continued.’
They both looked on in silence, wondering what was in store next.
Time seemed to drag, as none of the elves seemed aware of their presence, let alone concerned with their comfort. Finally, the burly, bald-headed hunter, Edgar, said, ‘If they don’t cut me loose soon, Highness, I’m going to be sitting here in a pool of my own piss.’
One of the elves who was sitting near a fire a dozen yards away turned and looked at the captives. He stood up and slowly walked over to the lean-to and knelt on one knee before Edgar. Pulling out his large belt knife, he cut his bonds and in a slightly accented Common Tongue – the trading language around the Bitter Sea – he said, ‘Go over there.’ He pointed with the dagger and indicated a spot some distance from the camp. ‘We’ve dug a trench.’
Edgar said, ‘Ah … thank you.’ He got up on what were obviously stiff knees after having sat on the ground for hours and hobbled off.
‘Come back when you’re finished, human,’ said the Star Elf. ‘You do not want to be out there in the dark alone and unarmed.’
The elf then looked at Martin. ‘Highness?’
Martin hesitated, then said, ‘I’m Martin conDoin, brother to Duke Henry, cousin to the late King Gregory.’
The elf was silent, then nodded once, stood and walked away. He walked past the spot where he had been sitting, circled around the large campfire and vanished into the gloom in the trees beyond the clearing.
‘What was that?’ asked Bethany.
‘I do not know,’ said Martin.
Edgar returned a little while later and seeing the elves unconcerned with his coming and going, he knelt behind Martin and untied him. Martin’s arms felt as if they were shot through with needles as he moved them slowly, getting his circulation back. Bethany and the others were quickly freed, and when they had all moved enough to regain some sense of comfort, Bethany said, ‘What now?’
Martin said, ‘I don’t know. Look.’ He indicated the large contingent of elves a short way off. ‘No one seems to care we’re unbound.’
Edgar said, ‘I think it’s what that elf said, about being out there unarmed.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Martin.
Edgar said, ‘I’ve been a hunter all my life, Highness. I know when something unseen is nearby; you can hear things, sense things. There are … things out in those woods and I think we don’t want to go there.’
‘So what?’ asked Tom. ‘We wait?’
Martin nodded. ‘We wait. If these elves wanted to harm us, they would have done so by now. I’m getting the distinct impression they see us as something of a nuisance. They’re preoccupied with other matters.’
‘Looks like they’ve come though a pretty nasty fight, Highness,’ said Will.
Occasionally a wounded warrior would appear, either staggering in alone or being helped by another, who would turn and trot back into the forest to the south towards the faint red glow. The elves in the camp attended the wounded, dressing injuries, providing food and water, or simply letting them rest. Once an elf with a bandaged leg rose from his rest, picked up his weapons and hobbled off down the trail leading to the south.
Time passed and suddenly three elves walked purposefully toward them. Martin stood up. The two flanking elves were obviously warriors, bedecked in the white-and-pale-blue uniforms he had seen mixed in with the other warriors, and the one in the centre wore an ornate blue robe, but one now stained with mud and blood. He sported a large bruise on the left cheek as well as a heavily bandaged right arm.
‘You’re a prince of Kesh or the Kingdom?’ he asked Martin.
Fighting back the need to explain, Martin simply said, ‘Kingdom. Yes.’
If the elf had reservations, he kept them to himself. Instead he just said, ‘Come,’ and turned to walk away.
Martin nodded to the others to accompany him and they all followed the elf, who glanced back at them. ‘I am named Tanderae. I am by rank Loremaster of the Clans of the Seven Stars. There is something you must see.’
They followed him into the woods, along a dark path through the boles. There was just enough light from the fires behind and the red glow ahead that they could make their way.
Abruptly the path widened and deepened and they found themselves in a broad down-sloping ramp, hastily cut into the soil to allow quick escape to what Martin decided could only be called a rear-echelon rest area, a place where the wounded could be tended to and exhausted soldiers could eat and sleep as much as circumstances permitted. This route was not hollowed out by tools wielded by hand, driven by muscle and sweat. It was perfectly cut as if by some giant gardener’s trowel, then smoothed by a sculptor. In the alien light it was without seam or flaw, almost as if the rock had been made liquid and fashioned like soft clay, then made hard again.
A soft glow came from a series of stones set upright along the pathway every ten feet or so, a pale-blue light that made travelling up and down the slope easy at night. The distant red light was becoming brighter as they walked down the ramp to a flat terrace, bordering on what had been a ridge line before the magical excavation behind them had moved tons of soil, trees, and boulders.
Suddenly they were out in the open, and they all stopped and gaped.
