Mountain to mountain and beyond, over the heath at the top of the world and deep into the Hidden Realm, hundreds of roadways and bridges scored the land. Some clearly traveled, others forgotten by time, the trails opened up the high country that Nature had never intended to be accessible. The system was an engineering marvel, and looked like the work of mountain dwellers, the Nain of the old land, earth-movers and miners of incomparable skill. Gwylliam’s handiwork, he noted.
As his mind’s eye wandered over the land, he could see them. In the distance of his second sight, tiny figures, black in the morning light, traveled the paths, hiding in the shadows. Kin that he had never known, and planned to one day rule.
“This is the place that Gwylliam called Canrif,” he said to the others. “There are Firbolg scattered throughout the Teeth in roving packs; there seems little, if any, organization.”
“And that’s what you were hoping for, wasn’t it?” Rhapsody asked. “Ripe for the picking, isn’t that what you said?”
Achmed smiled. “Yes.”
For a race of beings that had sprung up from the caves, the Firbolg seemed oddly reluctant to journey outside at night. The four companions watched from half a league away, noting their movements and counting the intrepid ones willing to venture outside the Teeth, looking for food or prey. When twilight came, however, the Bolg became fewer and farther between until finally an hour went by with none in sight.
“Night blindness,” Achmed said; Grunthor nodded in agreement.
“How strange,” Rhapsody murmured, straining to see the mountain passes as darkness took the Teeth. “You would think cave dwellers would be especially good at seeing in the dark.”
“They are, underground, where there’s no light at all, not even the glow we had on the Root. It’s the darkness of the air in the world above that confounds their sight.” Achmed looked around to ensure that Jo had not heard him.
Rhapsody shuddered at the memory of the Axis Mundi, then returned to her watch. “Yellow roots and green-leafed vegetables.”
Grunthor gave her a strange look. “Eh?”
“Two of the cures for night blindness. One of the famous legends you learn when you study lore as a Singer tells of a great Lirin army that became invincible by changing its diet; it gained nightsight by eating certain foods. All its enemies were still night-blind, so the Lirin only attacked in the dark.”
Achmed nodded, making note. “Are there any other remedies beside vegetables?”
“Liver,” Rhapsody said. Jo made a gagging sound.
“Maybe they’re not night-blind after all,” said Grunthor. “The Bolg ought to get enough o’ that just eatin’ their enemies.”
“What enemies?” Rhapsody asked, ignoring the cannibalistic comment. “Bethe Corbair is their nearest neighbor, and it doesn’t look like there’s been a raid there in the lifetime of anyone who lives there.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Achmed agreed. “And from what Grunthor gleaned from his reconnaissance, Sorbold, the kingdom on the other side of that mountain range, is effectively kept out by the Teeth and the rough terrain in between. So there doesn’t seem to be much external raiding. I imagine they prey on each other.”
Rhapsody shuddered again. “Wonderful. Are you sure this is where you want to live?”
Achmed smiled. “It will be.”
Snow had crept into the crevasses in the foothills and hardened, forming frosty stepping-stones on which it was difficult to maintain purchase. Jo had fallen half a dozen times, once almost tragically.
“How much farther?” Rhapsody shouted into the screaming wind. She stared down into the canyon below them, a sheer cliff stretching down several hundred feet to the floor of the steppes.
“Almost there,” Achmed called back. Leaning at the waist on the rockwall, he hoisted himself up onto an rocky outcropping, then crawled onto the ledge above. He lay flat and extended a hand to Rhapsody, hauling her easily over the ledge as well.
Rhapsody cast a glance around to be sure they were unobserved before joining him on the ground to help pull Jo up. She secured the rope while Achmed slid his hands under Jo’s arms, dragging her up to safety. The teenager was trembling with exhaustion and cold. Once she was firmly on the flat surface Rhapsody wrapped her cloak around Jo and concentrated on the fire within herself, trying to impart warmth to her sister.
A few moments later the spike on Grunthor’s helmet appeared, and with a smooth motion he pulled himself onto the ledge.
“Well, that was fun,” he said. “Ya all right, Duchess? Lit’le miss?”
“We need to get her to shelter, out of the wind,” Rhapsody answered, her own teeth chattering. She could no longer feel her fingers or the tip of her nose.
Achmed was bending down near them both, and nodded. “Take just a moment, Rhapsody, and look up. See what our fellow Seren have wrought, and destroyed.”
She turned and gazed around her. Rising out of the whirling snow was a mammoth stone edifice, carved into the very face of the mountain before them. It stood, black against the sky and nestled within the crags of the whole of the mountain range. Giant walls, hewn smooth and camouflaged to blend into the rock, led up to dark openings that appeared to be towers and ramparts, though of a size that was incomprehensible to her. Anything else they had seen since arriving in this land, the basilicas and cities, the keeps and castles, were dwarfed by comparison.
No wonder the populace thought of Gwylliam as a godlike figure, she thought, her eyes unable to take in all of the structure from her vantage point on the cliff. It was as though the hand of the Creator Himself had carved this out of the mountainside, this seemingly endless series of walls and crumbling bridges, barricades and roadways, tunnels and bulwarks stretching across the center of the mountain range and over the vast heath beyond. A city for giants, not men of Grunthor’s size, but of titanic proportions, hidden from sight among the Teeth. Canrif.
“Is there a tunnel you think might be safe?” she shouted over the whine of the wind. “Jo’s freezing.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“All right, let Grunthor carry Jo, and you come with me. There’s a cave not too far from here, blocked by a boulder I’m sure Grunthor and I can force out of the way. The Bolg won’t go there. Take hold of my cloak so you don’t get lost if the visibility gets worse.”
Rhapsody nodded and grasped the edge of his cape, tucking her free hand inside her cloak, and grimly followed him out of the storm.
Once inside the tunnel, the howling wind diminished, leaving their stinging ears pulsing. Shards of falling rock and dust covered them, filling their eyes and nostrils, as Grunthor shoved the boulder back in place, leaving only the smallest of openings, so the Bolg would not detect their hiding place.
Rhapsody coughed and brushed the grit off her head and shoulders, then helped Jo do the same. The teenager was still bleary-eyed but coming around from the trauma of the climb.
“Where is this place, do you think?” she asked.
Achmed looked into the darkness of the huge tunnel. Smooth tiles lined the walls around and above, rectangles of ancient stone honed into perfect symmetry. Long trenches, probably gutters, scored each side of the tunnel, while a series of drainage holes were visible in the ceiling overhead, clogged now with centuries-old rust and debris.
“I’d guess it’s part of the aqueduct, probably a drainage tunnel. There were dozens of them within Canrif itself, diverting the rainwater and runoff from the mountain springs through the general water system, and carrying off whatever excess remained into the canyon below. Since wells would have been impossible this far up in the mountain, it provided a ready supply of water for drinking and other uses, while preventing flooding. The sketches in the Cymrian museum were very detailed.”
Rhapsody fumbled in her pack and pulled out the journal they had found in the House of Remembrance.
“This isn’t much help,” she said after a quick examination. “I wish I had paid more attention
to what you were looking at in the museum.”
Achmed chuckled. “You underestimate the scope of this place, Rhapsody. Canrif wasn’t a mere citadel, or even a city in the mountains. It was a nation unto itself. The fortress within the Teeth is only a very small part of it. Beyond the canyon and the Blasted Heath is the bulk of it, forests and vineyards and mines and villages, cities and temples and universities, or at least that was what composed Canrif in the Cymrian days. I doubt the Bolg have kept it up, however.
“I wasn’t able to see but a fraction of the plans. I could see there was a water system, and ventilation units to bring fresh air into the mountain, and great forges in the belly of the rock, whose residual heat they used for warmth. Whatever else Gwylliam was, he was a visionary, someone who could design and execute the building of a living, functioning world from nothing but solid rock and ingenuity. We could never have committed it all to memory if we had studied it for a month.”
Rhapsody crouched near a pile of crumbled stone, recently fallen. She laid her hands on the rocks and felt the fire within her swell, then directed the heat into the stone. “So what’s next?” she asked as the rocks began to glow red.
Achmed was dragging food supplies out of his pack. “After we’ve had something to eat, I’m going on a bit of a scouting expedition. Grunthor, you stay with them, and if I’m not back in a few days, take them back to Bethe Corbair.”
“Had it occurred to you that we might actually deserve a say in where we go, especially in your absence?” Rhapsody asked angrily.
Achmed blinked. “All right; if I don’t come back, where do you want be taken?”
Rhapsody and Jo looked at each other. “Probably Bethe Corbair.”
The Dhracian laughed. “And they say Bolg are unnecessarily contentious. Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I just want to pay a little visit to my future subjects.”
44
Contrary to the timetable in Cymrian legends, the Bolg had actually inhabited parts of the mountains long before Gwylliam’s war ended. The Lord Cymrian had been too engaged to care that a ratty population of cave dwellers found its way across the eastern steppes and into some of the older sections of his vast labyrinth. The Bolg were aware of him, however, and quietly opened a hidden front inside Gwylliam’s realm. Minor reports of lost Cymrian patrols or stores unaccounted for were hidden in the greater and bloodier balance sheets of the battles against Anwyn.
The Bolg were not heroes, or soldiers; they were cruel and considered anything they could catch worth eating. They had stolen fire and the concept of war, and they could live in any climate or terrain, though they were poor builders.
Centuries before, some distant warlord had enslaved several tribes of them and found them tractable when well fed, but upon his death, they destroyed his estate, stayed for a short time, then wandered somewhere else. His survivors theorized that, not unlike wolves, they obeyed him because they felt he was one of their own. That was a unique situation; most of mankind they viewed as prey, not partners.
The groups that inhabited Gwylliam’s mountains were an unmatched lot of refugees and savages fleeing bad weather or poor hunting. Some had been chased out of their previous homes by greater strength. This faction of Bolg brought with them in retreat the weapons and harsh view they had of the world; encounters with them were uniformly unpleasant.
After Gwylliam discovered the Bolg, he made halfhearted attempts to exterminate them. He set traps, sent contingents into their lairs, but that only served to weed out the stupid and the weak. It was Grunthor’s observation that Gwylliam had perfected the Bolg. They had come to his forges flawed and he had made them sharp and hard. They were a weapon he never had a chance to use against Anwyn.
The day after the companions took up residence in a sealed-off drainpipe of the Canrif aqueduct, a party of ragged Bolg hunters cornered a subterranean wolf in the Killing Hall deep within the Teeth. The hall was the traditional spot to which game was lured, a killing ground for the larger animals or hominid intruders that were unfortunate enough to be chosen by the Firbolg for slaughter.
The Bolg had found the ancient corridor after the Cymrians had been routed and fled. It was massively long and twisting, with a heavy stone door at the end that they had been unable to unlock or pry open. So instead they trapped their victims there, though it was not always in their favor to do so.
It appeared to have been a mistake this time; the wolf was winning. Prehistoric mammals the size of a large bear, the subterranean variety of the species were ferocious creatures, solitary and vicious, with the musculature of an animal that survived and hunted in underground tunnels with the eyesight to match.
This one had already taken out one of its Firbolg predators and was chewing on an unfortunate second when the dark man came. He arrived without being noticed, managing to appear at the precise moment when the hunting party had determined itself outweighed and were tottering on the edge of flight.
At first they did not see him, his flowing black garments blending into the inky darkness around him. Instead, it was the voice they heard, sandy and full of snarling spit, speaking in a tongue that they recognized as an older version of their own.
“Down.” The word bounced up and down the corridor like the green wood of the hunters’ crude arrows against the stone.
The Bolg reacted as if they were travelers turning into a strong wind. One folded himself against the floor, others turned slowly toward the source of the word. What they saw froze them where they stood, making it impossible to obey the growled command.
The dark man’s hood had fallen back as he drew his long, straight sword over his shoulder. The face was frightening, even to the Bolg, and unknown to them, but it held a kinship as well, a familiarity that made them realize that this was, in a very disturbing way, one of them.
The figure made a blurred movement and light whistled through the dark corridor. The slender sword spun end over end and pierced the throat of the rampant monster that had risen over the body of one of its victims. The fire was still in the wolf’s eyes as its deep growl choked off and the beast fell.
The dark man was there as it did, moving to retrieve his sword with speed akin to that of the weapon’s deadly flight. He stood in the midst of the hunting party; all were armed, but none made a move until he reached to pull his sword from the neck of the wolf.
As he touched the fur in which it was buried, the Bolg hunter who had fallen to the floor slashed at his legs with a wicked-looking hook that had been honed on the inside edge. The dark man broke the hunter’s wrist with the first stamp of his heel, and then his neck with a fierce kick. He stood for a moment and met the gaze of each of the remaining hunters before reaching down again. This time there was only the feathery sound of the blade’s exit from the tangled fur.
“Good hunting.” The black-cloaked man turned and melted into the darkness.
Frint’s pallid eyes glittered in the reflection from the embers of the small fire. He had barely touched the belly meat and shank of the wolf, accorded to him as the one who had brought the kill back to the clan.
“Man was like the night,” he whispered to the others. The children, watching from behind their mothers with great interest, were pushed back, only to wriggle forward again to better hear the tale the great hunter was telling. “Did not see him come.”
“What wanted he?” demanded Nug-Claw, the clan chieftain.
Frint shook his head. “Nothing. Killed wolf, and Ranik. Ranik tried to hook him. Man stamped him out like a fire-spark.” He shuddered, and the children retreated a little.
“Took no meat?” Nug asked. Frint shook his head. “Said nothing?”
Frint thought for a moment. “Blessed the hunt.”
Nug’s eyes widened. “And?”
“After we left Killing Hall, found two goats and rat. Got all.”
A murmur of fearful excitement swept through the clan. Nug’s woman spoke.
“Maybe Night Man is god.” Nug aimed a blow at her, but sh
e dodged out of the way.
“Not god. Nug is clan-god. But we beware Night Man. Must warn all of Ylorc.”
Frint blinked rapidly. “Maybe Night Man is all-Bolg-god.”
In the shadows behind Nug, Achmed smiled and slipped away into the darkness.
The walls of Canrif’s labyrinthine tunnels had crumbled somewhat over time, leaving uneven roadways where the detritus had eventually hardened into mounds and pits. The obstacles meant nothing to Achmed’s ease of passage and silence, but left him feeling strangely sad at the neglect of what had once been a majestic fortress.
In Canrif’s heyday the tunnels had each been wider than a city street and smooth, carved and polished painstakingly from the basalt of the mountain’s interior, laid out with mathematical precision. Formidable and confusing from the exterior to thwart attackers, they were systematic and easy to predict from the inside. At one time they had been lined with sconces that had illuminated the great underground complex. Now all that remained were the broken bases, still attached to the walls, or holes where the sconces had been.
The enthusiastic pulsing of his own heart brought an awareness to Achmed of the secret delight he was taking in his mission. This sort of work brought him back to the old days, the era of his training, the time when the race of F’dor was engaging in a campaign of extermination against the Dhracians.
He had reveled in those journeyman days, before his invention of the cwellan, before his ascension to the rank of the world’s foremost assassin, when he still had to make his reputation one killing at a time, letting his name slip on the wind ahead of him, leaving it behind like his signet.
He slid through the shadows now as the tunnel emptied into a wide, cavernlike room, something he recognized as a guard barracks by the contours of the floor and the stairs that had once been wall-mounted beams, the actual weapons racks and bunks long gone or decayed. Even the soldiers’ quarters had at one time been beautifully appointed, with an elongated domed ceiling on which peeling frescoes of historic battle scenes could still be faintly seen, the paint cracked and marred with time.
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