Indeed, it wasn’t more than a minute before the orange glow of the fires made itself known through the Woods once more. Together Raz and Carro carved a careful route, aiming to get as close as they could while keeping to the very edges of the eastern side of the encampment. A majority of the activity they had been able to make out from the top of the hill seemed to have been limited to the center, south, west, and north. The east side, along which they aimed to trail, had looked to be where the Kayle’s men stored their supplies, equipment, foodstuffs, and other such materials. There were a couple of tents, but Raz hadn't seen much activity going in and out of them, and he thought it likely they were just more storage areas.
If they could keep out of the light, they might just be able to make it all the way around without getting spotted.
They had debated taking a wide route and making for the base of the stairs at an angle, avoiding the mountain men altogether. Raz had nixed this, though, arguing that approaching the path indirectly would only be more suspicious, and give whatever guard had been posted there further time to make out the inconsistencies in their—and especially Raz’s—disguise. He’d also vetoed avoiding the base of the path altogether and climbing the mountain from a different angle, or at least meeting with the stairs at another point. He’d pointed out that, if it were possible to manage the mountain face without taking the stairs, the Laorin would have very likely done so a long time ago. The sides of the Saragrias Ranges were simply too steep and too rocky for Carro to handle, and Raz didn’t know how much he trusted Gale’s footing in the depths of the snow already, injured as he was…
In the end, the direct route was their only option, and so Raz and Carro found themselves creeping along the edge of the camp, doing their utmost to stay out of the light and away from the eyes of the more active areas to their left.
For what seemed like an eternity they moved along, Carro doing his best to sit tall and proud in the saddle, trying to look the victorious warrior, and Raz working hard on seeming the cowering prisoner of war, stumbling along beside the horse. Neither were very convincing, but it proved an irrelevant concern for the time being. Not a soul moved among the stacked storage and narrow tents they crept along. They seemed to have punched a hole in the sentry line when Raz had knocked the two men they’d left back along the path unconscious, and were now reaping their reward. The majority of sound and voices Raz could make out were at least fifty or so yards away, well into the ranks of the camp.
And praise the Sun for that, he thought, giving silent thanks. He had thought the dark and his boots might hide his feet well enough—the only part of him there was nothing he could do to disguise—but the light of the cooking fire was bright, to the point where anyone passing by would likely not have been fooled. All they had to do was get through the trees and into the snow, and he would be much less likely to be—
Raz froze. A sound had reached his ears, muffled and horrifying. He stood in the semi-darkness, eyes scanning the boxes and barrels alongside him through the fur that hung over his face. After a moment they fell on a wide, patched canvas tent some thirty feet ahead, and the sound seemed to grow more distinct as he realized the source.
He heard, in a furious, billowing thrall of rage, the unmistakable grunts and heavy breathing of a man in pleasure. This would have been unremarkable, perhaps, except for the fact that there seemed to be more than one male voice coming from within. At least another, maybe two, were present, laughing and talking in the strange, guttural speech of the mountains.
And underlying it all, limited and muted behind the noise of the man’s exertion and his companion’s voiced amusement, were the distinct, pitiful whimpers of a woman, gagged and held against her will, struggling and fighting to be free of the hands and gazes that undoubtedly held her firm.
“Raz!”
Raz’s conscience ripped back into place so abruptly it left him reeling. He realized that he had stopped moving, transfixed by the sounds. Carro and Gale, unaware that he had let go of the saddle straps, had continued on a dozen feet, ambling slowly across the uneven ground. The Priest was looking around him in alarm, turned about in the saddle.
“What are you doing?” the man demanded in an urgent whisper.
Raz, in answer, put a finger to his lips with one hand, then pointed towards the tent with another. Carro whirled about as though expecting to see a patrol closing in on them, or perhaps some solitary drunkard who had wandered off to relieve himself in the trees.
Then Raz saw the Priest stiffen, and he knew the man could make out the sounds of the woman’s struggles as well.
Raz crept forward, doubly careful to stay quiet now, until he caught up with Carro and the horse. He paused for a moment, struggling with himself, the anger flaring in him as he continued to listen.
Losing the battle, he reached up and began drawing the gladius from its sheath, steel scraping quietly like cold vengeance.
He was taken completely by surprise when Carro stopped him, one big hand reaching back to close around his wrist.
Raz snarled his frustration at the act, but the Priest ignored him. He hadn't even looked away from the tent, and had reacted only to the sound of the sword being drawn. For a long time he stared at the leather canvas that only partially muffled the assault, and Raz could feel the tension in Carro’s body as thick fingers twitched about his gauntlet.
Finally, the man turned around, his face sad and tense.
“Can you stop them?” he asked, his voice chokingly hoarse.
Raz nodded.
“Without alerting the others?”
At that, Raz hesitated. He turned his attention back on the tent, listening again. He was sure, now, that there were at least three men within. More might even be outside, waiting their turn. Pushing aside the violent emotions that welled up within him at that thought, Raz forced himself to consider the surroundings, assessing all the elements. There were three, maybe more. The rest of the Kayle’s men seemed to be congregated closer to the center of the camp, but it was doubtful they were all there. Someone was bound to hear a scuffle, and Raz couldn’t guarantee no one would have time to shout an alarm before he got to them. Even the woman, whoever she was, was a risk, as it wouldn’t have been the first time a girl had screamed at the sight of his face…
Slowly, feeling as though every muscle in his body were fighting the motion, Raz shook his head.
Carro’s grip tightened, and it was a few seconds before he spoke.
“‘The lesser of the evils,’” he quoted, his voice breaking. “Getting ourselves killed serves no one. Not even that poor girl.”
For a long time Raz didn’t move, the gladius still half drawn from where it hung behind Carro’s thigh.
Then, slowly, he sheathed it again, releasing the hilt with a massive effort. He didn’t say a word as he wrapped his hands around the saddle straps again, and he didn’t look away from the tent until they had long passed it, Carro heeling Gale into a slow trot northward, keeping to the camp’s edge all the while.
The muffled sounds of the woman’s plaintive, wretched wailing dogged Raz unforgivingly.
It wasn’t more than two minutes before they traded the last of the tents for the shadows again, and another couple before the trees began to thin, snow starting to pile thicker and thicker along the forest floor once more. They’d managed to sneak in and out of the encampment without running into so much as a soul, and Raz breathed a tiny bit easier as his booted feet became lost in the piling white. He offered up another brief thanks to the Sun, squinting up at its pale outline against the overcast sky as the canopy gapped and thinned.
Then he turned his gaze earthward again, keeping his face well shaded beneath his hood, eyes skimming the rapidly brightening edge of the Woods that opened up before them, marking the end of the trees.
As they stepped out into the open air for what Raz hoped would be the last time in a good long while, he forced himself not to look up and gape at the harsh angles of the Saragrias again.
He kept his head resolutely tucked in mock defeat, no longer struggling to fake a stumbling gait as his shorter legs slipped and caught in the snows that Gale’s long limbs made easy work of. He studied the scene before him carefully, peering once more from between the long hairs of the furs that hid his face. He couldn’t see much at first, most everything being a distorted jumble of white and grey of snow and earth and granite, but with patient study he eventually made out what he assumed to be their goal. Straight ahead of them a gap existed in the boulders and trees of the rapidly inclining mountain face. It wasn’t a massive space—probably about a dozen feet wide—but it was distinct against the otherwise rough-hewn rock that marked the ranges. Past this opening, Raz was barely able to make out staggered shelvings in the heavy snow, rising and twisting up and off to the left.
The stairs, he realized with amazement, unable to help himself and tilting his chin up just a fraction, trying to follow the path as high as it went. The steps curved around themselves several times within his limited vision, then were lost in the slope of the earth and the scattered patches of stunted, bent spruces and firs that dotted the peaks.
It took Carro’s sharp inhale of alarm to bring Raz’s attention back to their base, and he cursed silently.
Damn…
Scattered about the bottom of the stairway, lounging in a wide space that seemed to have been periodically cleared of snow, the dark outlines of no less than a full score of armed men contrasted sharply with the white and grey of the scene. Raz sized them all up, watching the group take note of the horse, its rider, and the apparently unfortunate soul being dragged along towards them. He wasn't surprised, of course. He had hoped whoever was in command of the Kayle’s men now laying siege to the Citadel might have been fool enough to leave only a light guard on the stairs, but it had been a dubious wish. It made sense to secure the one avenue by which the Laorin could possibly escape. While twenty men weren’t enough to hold back an onslaught from above if the Priests and Priestesses decided to make a play for their freedom, it was more than sufficient to secure the path long enough for the rest of the advance guard to be summoned. The outcroppings and boulders on either side of the stairs provided plenty of cover from whatever magic or weaponry the Laorin might have been able to hurl from higher up, and as several of the men got to their feet Raz saw more than one bow slung behind backs and over shoulders. They were crude looking weapons, worn and well used, but the slim men who carried them—bedecked in thin leathers and dark furs adorned with what seemed to be at least one animal skull of some kind or another—looked well versed in their use.
They came ready, Raz thought, impressed as he watched the rest of the sentries stand up and turn to face him and Carro. They could easily defend the path long enough to keep the Laorin from getting too far down and—
Raz’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, alarming notion. They were more than halfway to the base of the stairs now, less than thirty feet from the first steps. The plan had been for Carro to hail whoever guarded the path with a raised hand, then tell them Raz was a deserter dragged along for their entertainment—a phrase Carro had been practicing under his breath in the mountain tongue over and over the last few minutes. The hope was that he would be able to “kick” Raz into the middle of them, and from there the Monster of Karth would be allowed to wreak all the havoc of his profession while Carro cleared a path through on Gale. The bows posed an issue to this, obviously, as the Priest would be a large, slow target atop the horse as they struggled up the first curve in the snowy path.
But that wasn’t the concern that had blared so loudly across Raz’s concentration. Rather, what made him uneasy was not what the bowmen would do once the Priest broke through, but rather what they were doing now. Instead of regarding Carro with enthusiasm—or at the very least watching him with curiosity, as Raz had assumed they would—the sentries’ faces were rapidly shifting from surprise to suspicion, and then on to alarm. As he watched, Raz saw bows being unslung, along with swords and axes drawn from the sheaths and belt loops of the larger men all about the archers. For a moment Raz was confused, wondering what about Carro’s disguise was causing such disquiet.
Then, as he followed the men’s eyes, he realized the mistake he and the Priest had made. The massive, seventeen-hands mistake they had made.
When they’d been spying on the camp, Raz had heard many things. Voices, laughter, clinking tankards, shouted orders, arguments, the hammering of metal, the shuffling of boots, the crunching break of wood and the crackle of flames. He had been so focused on making out what he could hear, in fact, that he hadn't bother at all to pause and consider what he couldn’t hear.
Like the whinnying and neighs that usually accompanied any larger force of men.
“Horses,” he hissed in horrified shock.
Above, Carro—who had been doing his best to maintain the pose of a proud warrior—jumped and looked down.
“What?” he gasped.
Raz had already given himself away, letting go of the saddle straps and tearing his gladius and war-ax free of their loops, when he answered.
“Horses, Carro!” he yelled, already sprinting forward, plowing as fast as he could in great leaps through the heavy snow. “They don’t have horses!”
CHAPTER 24
They’d been less than fifteen feet away when Raz started his mad dash for the stairs. Their plan was shit now, he knew, and as he ran he heard the mountain men begin to shout, rattled by his sudden charge. He watched as the quickest of the bowmen raised his weapon, arrow drawn and nocked in rapid succession. As Gale screamed in sudden fear behind him, Raz cocked his left arm back and hurled the war ax.
It was a throw made more out of desperation than anything else, and the weapon went wide of its mark, hitting stone and clattering harmlessly away. Still, it was enough to shake the mountain man’s concentration, and he yelled some curse as he leapt sideways, his own arrow disappearing into the snow somewhere off to Raz’s right.
He might have only his gladius, now, but the move had given Raz the seconds he needed to close the distance, hurtling through the ice and slush before blowing out of the bank onto the cleared ground of the path’s base. With a snarling roar he barreled forward, going for the second of what looked to be four archers. The sound seemed to strike pure terror into the men, and for three shocking seconds a majority of them appeared paralyzed, blue eyes gaping at Raz’s massive form as he descended on them. In the blink it took him to reach the first of his victims, Raz couldn’t understand what had gripped them so suddenly.
The gladius had long fallen, in fact, hacking a diagonal slash through the man’s bow, leather, and breastbone, when Raz heard the word once again.
“Dahgün…” came the terrified whisper.
This time, the name registered. It hadn't made an impression the first time, when the scarred mountain man he’d knocked unconscious had gasped it in shock at the sight of his face. Now, though, as Raz turned and crashed right into the middle of the tribesmen, gladius sweeping left and right as he howled like some demon born of the winter storms, Raz recalled.
Dahgün, he remembered.
Dragon.
In his desperate rush to keep from being pinned down in the snow between the trees and the stairway, Raz had forgotten all about keeping his wings tight to his back and his tail hidden. As he careened around the shocked group—sword cutting into armor and flesh wherever it found an opening—they whipped and snapped around him, crunching into bodies and throwing men off their feet. Black, scaled muscle collided with iron and fur. Leathery sunset membrane buffeted heads and faces, blinding men and sending them screaming back in fear. Against twenty Raz should have been overwhelmed, and he knew it. His goal had been to push through, not into, to draw attention so that Carro could drive Gale at any opening that made itself available between the sentries. When the mountain men had frozen, though, struck still by the terrifying apparition of his winged form, Raz had adapted.
And now, as blood strea
ked the frosted stone beneath his clawed feet, he realized with sudden astounding elation that he was winning.
By the time the men shook off their fear, it was too late. Four lay dead—including two bowmen—and another two were screaming their life away as they writhed about on the ground, clutching at a punctured abdomen and a mangled leg. Fourteen still stood, but even as he threw himself backward, avoiding the horizontal slash of a heavy claymore, Raz saw the horror reflected in their eyes. He had seen fear in his life. He’d seen it pooled in the gaze of every man and woman he had ever killed, drowning them in the moments before death. Fear of him, fear of death, fear of pain and the unknown.
But the terror that held the mountain men, it seemed, was of a different order altogether. Raz couldn’t quite grasp it, as he lunged between two larger men to impale a third bowman through the gut, the thinner man’s bear-skull helm leering ironically as he died. This was a different dread than anything he had yet come across.
They fear the dragon, he mused, darting back out of the ring he’d dived into, dealing one man a great, hacking slash across the face as he retreated.
The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1 Page 100
