“You do not know the nature of the evil?”
“No.”
Aram brought Thaniel to a halt and looked around in amazement. The ancient buildings were as impressive in scope and construction as those of Rigar Pyrannis, but unlike that great city, these structures had not been ravaged by an encroaching forest though it was entirely surrounded by the growth of ancient trees. As he gazed about him, he saw, off to the south, toward the city’s center, a tall spire of black stone that soared into the sky, rising at least a hundred feet into the air higher than any other structure in the city.
“Lord Alvern, I see a black spire to my south.”
“It rises from the heart of the city, and is surrounded by a broad courtyard of similar color. I do not know its significance, if any.”
Aram gazed at the thin, dark spire and his chest constricted as it had when he had looked through Kelven’s device and seen the tower of the enemy of the world rising from its dark and smoky plain. All at once, his curiosity became an urgent need to know.
“We are alone in the city, are we not?” He asked Alvern.
“Yes, my lord. The city is deserted as is the countryside all about.”
“I want to see this spire up close.”
“As you wish, my lord. I will watch from above.”
Aram, Thaniel, and Durlrang went carefully southward through the city, along broad streets and through wide intersections. Everything was still and quiet, except for the lonely whisper of the breeze as it found, untended here and there in the abandoned city, an open window or doorway. Everywhere, the facades of grand buildings rose two and three, and sometimes four stories above them. Turning a corner, they came upon the eastern side of an open square, perhaps four hundred feet long on each side. The tiles with which it was paved were black like the single story building that occupied its center and the tall needle-like spire that was founded in the heart of that building.
The various houses or perhaps places of business that fronted the square seemed to have been altered sometime in the distant past. There were no windows or doors and many of them appeared to have had fairly large portions removed in order to enlarge the square. The exterior walls of all the structures bordering the area of black tile were blank, as if their occupants were not allowed – or didn’t wish – to view what happened there.
The building at the center was of a single story, low and windowless, perhaps sixty feet square. The spire, also without windows or even portholes, rose from its center and soared upward for a hundred feet or so before ending in a sharp point. Again, Aram was struck by its similarity to the much taller fang-like tower that rose over that dark plain far to the north. A black steel fence, topped by spikes, encircled the low building equidistant from its exterior walls and the edge of the tiled area. There was a double gate on its northern side, to Aram’s right, and it was hanging open.
Aram dismounted and approached the fence. The steel pickets were spaced very close together, so that not even a very thin person or child could squeeze between them. He studied the building for a moment and then glanced at Thaniel.
“I would say that this is where the evil occurred.”
Thaniel was also gazing at the building and seemed reluctant, as did Durlrang sitting on his haunches beside him, to approach any closer.
“Yes, Aram,” the horse answered, his voice low, as if he was afraid to speak, “I would believe that evil happened here.”
Aram watched his two companions for a moment, noting their unease, and then pivoted slowly, eyed the gate, and then turned back to study the building and its spire once more. The old familiar coldness pervaded him, but this time it did not bring a feeling of imminent danger but rather an immense, lingering, sad awareness of some terrible event that might have been prevented but was not.
After a moment, he nodded to himself and looked skyward. “Still all clear, Lord Alvern?”
“There is no one that I can see near the city or in the countryside round about, Lord Aram.” The eagle answered. “Of course, if there were someone hiding in the thick woods, I might not see them – but all feels normal and the beasts and birds in my view go about their business untroubled.”
Aram looked over at Thaniel and Durlrang. “The gate is open. I’m going to see if I can get inside the building. I won’t be gone long.”
Thaniel shifted uncomfortably. “Is that wise, my lord?”
Aram indicated the building at the center of the square with his hand. “Whose handiwork do you see here, Thaniel?”
“That of the grim lord.” The horse answered.
“Just so.” Aram moved toward the open gate in the northern tangent of the fence. “It may be that I will learn something about him.”
He went around and passed through the gate in the fence. Immediately to his front, a sloping walkway cut into and descended through the black tile and indented the smooth side of the building one story below ground. Here, no door stood open to allow him ingress, but grooves in the smooth, polished, iron-black stonework of the indented portion of the building indicated the presence of an opening.
There was no handle or hinges in sight. The grooves outlining the door began at the floor and allowed only an inch of space at the top and sides of the door between it and the smooth walls and ceiling of the indentation. Because the descending walkway sloped almost to the threshold, Aram knew that the door would have to swing inward.
For lack of a handle, he leaned his weight against the door and heaved inward. It did not move. After two more tries, exerting all his effort, the door had still not moved or made the slightest sound. Perhaps, Aram thought, it could only be opened by someone inside the structure. But if that were true, then whoever was inside became a prisoner of the building’s design, because he did not dare leave unless the door was propped ajar. Perhaps he or she was periodically relieved by another, or had another means of entering and leaving – a hidden entrance.
Of course it was possible that many people had regularly used this structure, and at any given time several people had been inside, always making certain that the building’s interior was never left unattended and there was always someone to allow others entrance. Aram dismissed that thought, however. This felt to him like a structure meant for the use of just one person, and he felt uneasily certain that he knew who that one had been.
He gave the door one last mighty push, still accomplishing nothing, not even the tiniest creaking sound of movement, and then he re-climbed the sloping walkway and slowly toured the exterior of the structure. There was nothing but smooth, impervious surface on all sides. After gazing up at the spire for a long moment, he passed back through the gates, leaving them open.
“Did you learn anything, my lord?” Thaniel asked.
“No. I couldn’t get inside.” He studied the building for a moment longer and then turned and looked toward the canopy of the tall forest visible above the eastern ramparts of the city.
“We might as well get on.” He said.
They passed on through the town into the gently rolling lands where the forest again grew thick, the hardwoods ancient, tall, and massive.
“How broad is this wood, Lord Alvern?”
“I am afraid that you will travel through it for most of the day, my lord. The open plain lies beyond it, across the river Stell.”
Aram glanced up through the leaves but the sky was shuttered by the limbs of massive trees. “River Stell – like the city?”
“The ancient city of Stell lies at the juncture of the river Stell and Broad River. Three days will bring you there.”
“Are there many people in Stell, Lord Alvern?”
“Yes, many, but they are in subjection to the enemy. There are lashers there and a company of gray men.”
“How many lashers?”
“I will go there tomorrow if the way before you is clear and see, my lord. But I will need to look upon the road first. It is often traveled by the servants of Manon.”
“What road?”
> “Just to the east of where you crossed the flats near the dry lake, the ancient road that you saw there turns away from the valley that leads toward Burning Mountain and goes through the hills. That road goes to Stell. There are many villages in this land, Lord Aram, all of them important to the enemy and governed by his servants. You will need to be careful.”
“Why was this land conquered and not Elam?”
“Because, my lord, it is closer to his strongholds on the great plains, and was ever more lightly populated than Elam. Besides, Elam is vast, with many people. Until he grows stronger, Manon must move carefully.” The eagle’s voice took on an undertone of contempt. “Although I think he has little to fear from the people of Elam. Though they are many, they will not fight.”
They camped in the woods that night with Alvern resting in the tall trees nearby. On the next day when Alvern had warned Aram of the road and the villages that lay to his front as they came clear of the woods, the eagle flew eastward to gather information about Stell. After another day, in which they went carefully along the southern banks of the river Stell, avoiding small, scattered villages – though the majority of them lay across the river to the north – they came completely clear of the thick woods to where the river Stell flowed southeastward through broad, open, grassy plains, with only widely scattered copses of trees.
At evening, they could see a small village a mile or so away to the northeast across the river, so they went south over the rolling country until they could camp unseen in a small grove of hardwoods. The next day they trended southeast, staying a mile south of the river as they followed its course. Across the river to the north, the land opened up and the line of wooded hills that had defined the northern side of the river valley gradually diminished and finally faded into the rolling plains. Aram gazed northward across the flat land but could not see Burning Mountain. They were too far south.
On the third day since leaving the forests east of Panax, late in the afternoon, they came to the top of a low rise and saw before them the confluence of two mighty rivers, the Stell that came out of the west and the wide stream of the Broad River sweeping down out of the north. Just below the confluence, lying on both sides of the river but with most of its bulk on the eastern bank, there was a large town with a few people visible in its streets, surrounded by vast fields of farmland. The city was quite large but much of it had been damaged by fire, many of its buildings partially or utterly destroyed. Across the drab expanse of once fine buildings, the ruined spires of ancient structures jutted forlornly into the sky.
Stell.
The ancient capitol of the people of Wallensia, a people reduced by the viciousness of Manon to a portion of their original number, and whose current prince, a man no doubt unknown to anyone here, lived far to the north, in the small town of Derosa.
As Aram gazed upon the ruins of the town, it occurred to him that it would also be his capitol – at the minute he and Ka’en became man and wife. In that moment, gazing out across the wrecked remains of the city that should have been a magnificent capitol for the people of the woman he loved – Ka’en’s people, he determined to set it free. This town would mark the turning point in the war with Manon. Here, he and his fledgling army would strike their first blow for the freedom of the people of the world.
Twenty Seven
Aram looked skyward. “How many lashers are there in the town, Lord Alvern?”
“More than ten, less than a hundred.”
“Gray men?”
“A few more than that.” The eagle answered from his unseen vantage point far above the earth.
“Villagers?”
“Many hundreds.”
Aram lay on his stomach atop the small rise and looked out over the countryside. There were fields spread all around the town, in places extending out from it for more than a mile. Each field was larger than those around the village of his youth and had several people working in its confines. Lashers patrolled the perimeters, with one of the great beasts stationed each halfmile or so around the area of farm land.
There were no defensive walls surrounding the town, either of wood or stone. He glanced sideways at Durlrang. “Can you swim, Durlrang?”
“Yes, easily.”
“Will you make a circuit of this town for me during the night, my friend? See about its defenses?”
The wolf inclined his head. “I will.”
Aram addressed Alvern again. “Are there any villages outside the town across the river to the east, toward Derosa?”
“Some, yes, but villages are much more numerous to the west of Broad River, and to the north of the Stell.”
“How shall we go around, on the morrow? Can we go south?”
“That way is difficult.” The eagle answered. “There is a great marshland a few miles to the south, where the river enters the sea. The stream of the river broadens out there and the river itself grows shallow but the land around it, to either side, is treacherous.”
“How is it treacherous?”
“It is a vast swamp, the ground is not trustworthy. I have seen animals become mired in its marshes and die.”
“North?”
The eagle was silent a few moments before answering. “Many villages lie that way and there are often lashers in them, my lord. There is a ford a few miles north of the town, unguarded, used very little, for it is also treacherous. It may be that you can cross there. But it will be difficult to reach that ford unseen.”
Aram lay silently for a while, considering this information. “How far away is the sea?”
“A day – no more.”
“Can we go around the marsh and cross at the mouth of the river?”
“I think not, Lord Aram. The marshland of the Broad River extends into the very waters of the sea itself. That way is treacherous, impassable.”
“Are there villages all the way along the river southward to the marsh?”
“Yes.”
“Lashers?”
“Some.”
Aram dropped his chin onto his hands as he lay stretched out on the hill and gazed with dismay across the river to the rolling plains beyond. He hadn’t expected this kind of complication. And he didn’t want to backtrack all the way around Burning Mountain. It would take at least three weeks going back that way to get home, even if they remained undetected. He looked at the wide, slow-moving river that bisected the town. “Perhaps we should swim across – at night – while they sleep.”
“The river is wide and deep, and the current is strong, my lord. I would not advise it.” Alvern said.
“I do not want to go the long way around.” Aram grumbled.
“I can only describe the world below as it is, my lord; I cannot alter it.” Alvern said.
Aram sighed and nodded. “I know, my friend. This is my doing.” He looked at the town for a while. “How many bridges cross the river?”
“Three.”
“And they are all guarded, of course.”
“Yes.”
“If only I had my armor – and Thaniel’s,” Aram said quietly, “then we could fight our way through.”
Thaniel had come up behind them and was standing below the brow of the rise. “Alvern is right, my lord – there are too many lashers even for that.”
Aram glanced around at him. “What do you suggest?”
“That we go back to the north.”
“Three weeks or more going that way – I want to be home in one.”
“Then we must go through the marsh by the sea.”
“It is too dangerous that way.” Alvern interjected.
“How far is it straight across the plains north to Burning Mountain?” Aram asked the eagle.
“Three days, perhaps four. But it is open country with villages and roads. There are several villages on the plains to the west of Broad River, watched by the servants of the grim lord, and there is an army at Flat Butte.”
Aram flipped over on his back and stared up into the sky. He did not want to risk their
lives needlessly but he did not want to lose three more weeks of the summer. It was time for war, and his army had not yet been blooded. Giving an army battlefield experience needed to be an incremental thing, small skirmishes first, larger engagements later. And to begin that process he needed time – as much of the summer as he could salvage. He closed his eyes and thought for several long minutes while his companions waited on his decision. Then, Aram opened his eyes and glanced to the west along the way they’d come. A few miles back the forest came down to the banks of the Stell – which was a substantial river, but nothing like the Broad.
“Lord Alvern?”
“I am here, Lord Aram.”
“Is there a village near the ford of the River Broad to the north of Stell?”
“Yes, to the south of the ford, on the river.”
“I know that the numbers of men are not easy for you to use, my lord, but how many villages are there between the town and the ford, including the one near the ford?”
The eagle laughed. “It is a number that I am familiar with, Lord Aram. There are four.”
Trusting the eagle’s eyes though the lord of the air was high overhead, Aram pointed back to the northwest. “Is there a ford in the Stell, near where those trees touch its banks?”
“There is a gravel bar in the stream, a mile on this side of the forest.”
“How many villages are there along the Stell, between that gravel bar and the town?”
“Several.”
“Fields all around?”
“Yes.”
Aram looked at Durlrang. “You told me once, my friend, that night meant nothing to a wolf.”
“It is true, master – I see as well in starlight as in the light of the sun.”
He glanced behind him. “Thaniel?”
Thaniel looked at him and Aram saw understanding come into the horse’s large eyes. “I am not blind at night, my lord.”
Kelven's Riddle Book Two Page 44
