The Sealed Citadel

by Edward W. Robertson

  Rowe took the lead, driving them north through the woods as Cally used his damselfly to hunt madly for another stream where they could hide their tracks from the methods of the priests. The soldiers pursuing them on foot fell behind fast, but when the wind was right Cally could hear the snorts and hoofbeats of horses behind them.

  Rowe guided his horse around a rise of cracked black stone. "Not much time left."

  "I can't find any water! I might not have any experience with raids, but have any of you geniuses ever considered the fact that executing them at night means that if you're compelled to make a frantic escape, you won't be able to see where in hell you're going?"

  Rowe snorted. "Water's like thieves and drunks. Always seeks low places. We'll do the same."

  He continued around the loaf of black rock, then veered left down a slope. Now and then, Cally could see glimpses of torches and ether through the trees behind them. In a few minutes, the enemy would be close enough to follow them by sight alone.

  The ground leveled out. Cally had his damselfly high above the trees, which made it hard to make out the finer details in the landscape, but he spotted what appeared to be a cleft a little further to their left. The sort of groove that might be channeling a stream. They broke toward it, mud and leaves flying from their horses' hooves.

  They entered the notch, descending its slope, the land rising steeply above them on both sides.

  "Water ahead!" Cally said. "I can see the moon shining from it!"

  The trees thinned. The canyon bent to the right. Ahead, there was water, just as Cally had seen, but rather than the running course of a stream, it was the slack stillness of a pond. And behind it, the ground rose in a sheer cliff thirty feet high. Boxing them in.

  Rowe scanned the heights for a way forward or a path upward. He shook his head and wheeled his mount about. The horse hadn't even gotten up to speed before he pulled back on the reins, halting.

  Ahead, the flicker of fires and the steady gleam of ether sparkled among the trees.

  "Go hide in the pool," Rowe said. "I'll bluff them as long as I can."

  The night was cold, but sweat broke out across Cally's back and head. "What?"

  "Do as I say!"

  Cally shifted in the saddle, about to hop down and run for the pool, but stopped himself. Rowe turned on him, eyes alight with anger, frustrated beyond words. Fifty feet away, the Lannovians emerged from the trees. Moonlight reflected from the steel of swords and the iron of arrowheads.

  Bows twanged. Arrows swished through the night. Cally lifted his head and thanked Arawn for the life that he had been allowed.

  The Lannovians began to scream. This was very odd, considering that they were the ones doing the shooting—which, if true, made it even odder that the Lannovians were the ones dropping dead with big fat arrows jutting from their chests.

  Rowe started to laugh. Cally followed his gaze to the edge of the cliffs, where a horde of giants stood silhouetted against the night.

  11

  The darkness seemed to do nothing to diminish the norren's accuracy. They shot the Lannovians at the rear of the formation first to ensure those up front would take longer to understand what was happening and have to run further to escape their range. Within a matter of moments, it was all but over.

  Rowe took up his reins. "On my mark, we run from here as fast as we can. Ready—"

  "I wouldn't do that," a deep voice commanded from the heights. "Or is the ground over there so much nicer than where you stand now that you would rather die over there riddled with arrows than stay where you are and remain perfectly alive?"

  Rowe grimaced, dropping his hands to his sides. The norren were done with the Lannovians in another few seconds. They called the all-clear, then most of them shouldered their bows and gathered at the edge of the cliff. Cally halfway expected them to jump down to the floor of the canyon, shattering it beneath their great weight. Instead, they flung down two thick ropes and slid down them. The first wave jogged over to the fallen Lannovians with large knives in their hands. Cally frowned.

  A second group of seven norren strolled over to Rowe and Cally. Though the two of them were mounted, some of the norren stood level with them. Their hair and beards twinkled with bits of glass and metal.

  "Our trespassers are back." They were face to face with Nola, the norren woman who had stopped their group on its way to Tantonnen. Her voice was full of reproach. She looked them up and down. "And they haven't brought enough to pay the toll. Which is now higher because it is their second offense." She beckoned to them. "Your arms and horses. Fast now. Before the rest of your enemies show up."

  Cally expected Rowe to do a lot of arguing, if not fighting, but if anything he looked less irritated than was his default pose. He passed over his bow, quiver, sword, dagger, and knife. Cally only had a knife, which he surrendered.

  "Very good," Nola said. "This way now."

  "Where are we going?" Cally said.

  "To see what to do with you."

  She strode toward the cliff to their left. Finished with their killing and looting, her warriors jogged over and fell in behind her. She walked up to the cliff wall and vanished.

  Cally stopped in surprise. A massive hand shoved him in the back, stumbling him forward. One of the warriors grabbed him and dragged him effortlessly to the wall. He was certain he was about to be bashed against it like an overripe tomato, but the hand guided him through a gap in the stone that he hadn't been able to see until he was passing through it.

  He found himself in a stone corridor. Two of the norren bore cunning little lamps and a sharp smell of oil joined the damp scent of the passage. The texture of the walls drew Cally's eyes, which informed him that they weren't textured per se, but were actually carved with pictures of norren, hills, deer, battles, hawks, and exploration. The carvings weren't crude, either. If anything, they were as splendid as the facades of the Cathedral of Ivars, the most magnificent building in all of Narashtovik.

  The hand did some more shoving. Cally cleared his throat. "If the rest of the Lannovians come here, they'll be able to track you. Even across bare stone."

  "Then they'll be trespassing, too," said Winn, the man who seemed to be Nola's husband or partner of some kind. "And that means they will have to die."

  Cally frowned. The tunnel carried on for some ways. Nearly all of the walls bore the same masterful carvings, and the floor was neither so smooth as to be slippery nor so rough as to threaten to trip them. Instead, it was lightly cross-hatched, so that one's feet might grip it even if it was damp.

  "You were following us," Rowe said. "All that time."

  "Wrong." Nola had a way of jauntily swinging her elbows as she walked. "We were following them. Didn't like the look of them. Now you should be quiet or you will not enjoy the methods used to make you quiet."

  Cally became quiet. Eventually, a cold wind blew from ahead, implying a way out that Cally couldn't see. The tunnel's exit was just as well-concealed as its entrance, but the norren helped Cally through and into the night, which felt calm and peaceful after the tumult of their escape from the Lannovians. It was almost enough to make him forget they'd been taken captive by dozens of heavily-armed giants.

  They marched on for what the moon gauged to be nearly an hour. At last Nola called for a stop. Without needing to be ordered to do so, a quarter of the norren spread out with bows and spears to patrol the woods around them. The rest of the warriors plunked down, leaving Cally and Rowe alone with Nola and her partner Winn, who turned out in fact to be her husband.

  "Now we are going to learn things," Nola said.

  Winn nodded. "Specifically, we are going to learn things from you."

  "Those humans we killed. Who are they?"

  "Or, more accurately, were they?"

  "Well," Cally said. "They're known as—"

  "Shut up." Rowe emphasized his point with a hard rap of his knuckle against Cally's ribs. He jerked his chin at Nola. "Happy to tell you what we know. In exchange fo
r passage through your lands."

  "Hmm," Nola said. "No."

  "Then you learn nothing."

  "You don't understand what's happening. Let me put it in terms that might reach you. Pretend that what we are doing is a game. The point of the game is to score enough points. Right now, you have zero points. The only way to earn points is to answer our questions."

  "That's very clear," Cally nodded. "What happens if we don't score enough points?"

  "Then you die, because this isn't really a game at all, and if you don't take it seriously, then we will wave you around on the end of a spear."

  Rowe shifted his feet into a wider stance. "Like I said. Happy to talk. But you have to—"

  "Oh, come off it," Cally said. "If not for them, we'd already be dead. They've got us. That's what you're always going on about, isn't it? Might makes right? Well, they've got the might."

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Perhaps that is often true, but right now, that is not true. After what I tell them, I think they will conclude that they need us."

  Rowe raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and took a step back, as if washing his hands of the whole thing.

  "Well," Cally said, rolling his eyes in thought and immediately regretting that, for it was the sort of gesture they might take as an insult, but really all he'd been doing was trying to think about how and where to start. "The people you just turned into your enemies are called—"

  "Wrong," Nola said. "We killed all of the ones that saw who we are. So the others of them will only become our enemies if we decide to make them our enemies."

  "Lannovians. My people, the Order of Healing Shadows, were supposed to meet them at the Bowl of Seasons. Actually, we did meet them. But then they betrayed us, which they were not supposed to do. They killed my…" Cally blinked. "They killed everyone. The two of us were the only ones who got out."

  He cleared his throat and composed himself. "As best as we can tell, the Lannovians didn't come to the meeting planning to attack us. They only did that after Master Tarriman told them we'd discovered a manuscript which described how to create and destroy the wights infesting the heart of our city."

  Winn frowned. "What is a wight?"

  "A monster. A terrible one. That even sorcery has a hard time killing. At first we weren't sure why the Lannovians attacked our people, but I heard them talking about it tonight. I believe the reason they wanted the book so badly is so that they can learn to create the wights for themselves."

  "If these humans are the type of people who wish to create monsters, then it is a good thing that we have killed some of them."

  "Unless they are able to make their monsters, and then come looking for revenge."

  "I suppose that is always a risk when you're fighting monster-makers."

  "Yes," Cally said, somewhat thrown by the fact that the norren looked like they ought to be harsh and laconic but seemed to like to talk a lot instead. "Their current plan is to travel to the northwest and find somewhere isolated. Then they'll work in secret to learn to create and control the wights."

  "Northwest," Winn muttered. "Isolated. Sounds to me like they mean to assault norren lands."

  Nola nodded. "Which means more land open for us, if they kill our enemies."

  "But no land for us at all if they kill us too." He turned on Cally. "Do they mean to kill norren?"

  "I don't know." Cally found himself blushing for some reason. "It sounded to me like they wanted to take part of Gask. That's all I know. That, and they mean to start at once."

  "It sounds to me," Nola said after a pause, "that the reason these Lannovians are here is because of you."

  "I would argue they're here because of a great moral failing within themselves. One that caused them to fall to depths unknown to all but—"

  "Your people came to this place. If you hadn't come to our lands, bringing your enemies with you, we wouldn't have the monster-makers threatening us. This is proven."

  "Killing the two of us won't undo what's happened!"

  "No," Nola considered. "But it might discourage others like you in the future."

  Winn loomed closer. Within the shagginess of his hair and beard, his eyes gleamed like lost gems at the bottom of a pool. "This book they wanted from you, where is it now?"

  "Ah," Cally said happily. "As it so happens—"

  "Lannovians still have it," Rowe said. "You want to kill us, go ahead. You'll be killing yourselves at the same time. Or you can help us end this before it turns into something none of us wants to see."

  Nola drew herself up to better frown down on them. "You violate our sacred laws, then demand our help? What did your kind do for your gods to curse you with such small heads?"

  "The Lannovians are dangerous. More than anything you've ever known. If you want to save your land—and your people—you'll bring us to one of your sorcerers."

  Both norren burst into laughter, gesturing to each other as if insisting that the other one go first.

  Nola wiped her right eye. "You want to meet a norren sorcerer? Do you want to meet a norren unicorn as well?"

  "Or perhaps also a norren talking tree!" Winn whooped.

  Rowe regarded them flatly. "I know. You people wouldn't know anything of sorcery. Nothing the Gaskan Emperor might be interested in—or threatened by. But I'll see your nethermancer anyway."

  "This is getting tiresome. I say we bash in their heads. Or turn them over to the Lannovians to earn the monster-makers' favor."

  "You won't be doing that for the same reason I know you're lying about the nether. Because I know of Larrimore of Narashtovik."

  Nola looked unimpressed. "If you are trying to speak a name that means something to us, you chose the wrong one, because it doesn't."

  "Don't tell me you haven't heard of Larrimore's Boon. You norren gossip like fish swim."

  "That is not true. We don't need to gossip, especially to get somewhere else, which is the reason fish swim. It is more true to say we gossip like you people sing to each other—or lie to yourselves."

  "Have you heard of Larrimore's Boon or not?"

  "If we haven't, then you can educate us. And if we have, then we can compare what we know to the version you tell, and know if you are trying to lie to us."

  Rowe looked perfectly unfazed by this threat. "This is a story from before the coming of the Order. Before the loss of the Citadel. In those years, Larrimore was an officer of the Arm of Taim. People chosen to adjudicate disputes and enforce the law. Most people called them the Warden's Dozen.

  "Larrimore was among the newest of them. This got him assigned to the southern frontiers. Norren borders. Not very well-thought-of. And a lot bigger pain in the ass than the other assignments. Was almost always trouble of some kind down here. Still is. Imagine that."

  "Yes," Nola said. "Because humans like you can't seem to stop bringing your troubles to us."

  "Could be. Anyway. No more than a few weeks into Larrimore's post, he starts hearing about a fresh set of troubles. Raids. Killings. Skirmishes. He sends more wardens down, but the chaos keeps getting worse. After a while of this, Lord Ossodale comes to him with an ultimatum. Pacify the norren and push them back across the border, or be replaced with someone who could.

  "Larrimore and his men rode south. Reached the settlements. Some had been burned, others ringed in with ditches and palisades. The people he spoke to confirmed what Ossodale had told him. It had started with a few raids, nothing too unusual, but now the norren seemed to be trying to push them off the border entirely.

  "Larrimore was more thorough than most. Some called him fastidious and they didn't mean it as a virtue. He rode out to meet the norren chieftain. Took a while. You people aren't very cooperative. But he found the chieftain, man named Gard, head of the Clan of Lost Bears. Warned Gard that if the raids and attacks kept up, the norren would be removed with all force necessary.

  "'If you knew justice, you'd remove yourselves and not come back,' Gard said. 'These are our lan
ds. Have always been our lands. And we will not give them up.'

  "Larrimore returned to the settlement. Even though everyone knows that the norren are liars, Larrimore checked the writs and deeds. Fastidious, remember. Records confirmed what the people had told him. The norren had lied. So Larrimore gathered up his men, along with some locals, and struck back. It was a brutal fight. Norren wouldn't give an inch, and even against Narashtovik's best, they killed three for every one they lost.

  "But Larrimore wouldn't back down, either. In the end, it was the norren who broke. Larrimore might have rode them all down if not for Gard, who made his last stand to let the others retreat. Larrimore cut him down. As Gard lay bleeding, he reached into the pouch around his neck and threw something at Larrimore's feet. 'There!' he said. 'If you want this so badly, then you carry it with you. You carry it with you and you remember all the blood you spilled to take it.'

  "Larrimore reached down to pick it up. It was a piece of silver marbled with pink. Before he could ask what it was, Gard was dead.

  "On the ride back to Narashtovik, Larrimore thought about what he'd seen. Back home, he started asking around. Jewelers. Other nobles. Turned out he wasn't the only one who had a piece of pink-veined silver. It had only started showing up in the city recently, and people were paying as much for it as they would for gold.

  "He already had his fears, but when he dug into the old records, his suspicions were confirmed. The borders claimed by the settlements had been altered from their original position. The settlements were on norren lands. All so Lord Ossodale could take possession of the source of pink silver—using Larrimore as the tool to enforce his claim.

  "Before Larrimore could bring his accusation to the priests, the city's warden came for him. Locked him up. False charges. From his cell in the tower, Larrimore watched as Ossodale led his men south from the city. Toward the border. He knew it was over.

  "But it turned out the work he'd done on the border and back at Narashtovik had earned him some admirers in the Warden's Dozen. They stormed the tower. Turned Larrimore loose. Larrimore mustered his men and rode south. Ossodale had a two-day head start and by the time Larrimore came to the border dark smoke was already rising from the norren camps. Larrimore rode up on Ossodale just as the lord was about to drive his cavalry into the last stand of the Lost Bears and their allies. Larrimore took his men to stand with the norren.