Kitiara hesitated just a moment before taking the dagger and walking to the prisoner. The tall dark elf stared at her, his eyes sour. "Don't expect me to beg," he said coldly.
Kit grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head back, and slit him across the throat. He died without another word.
"That's for Cinnamon," she murmured. And for Patric, she added to herself.
She pulled the knife out and wiped it on her leggings, then handed it back to Colo, meeting her eyes. Kit chose one of the two elven steeds, Colo the other. Both were strong black animals. Droopface's mule, which had served them well, was set free.
In spite of the late hour they bounded onto their horses and rode off.
* * * * *
With feverish speed they headed south and east toward one of the seacoast villages north of Vocalion, where Kit would not be recognized. The dark elf's crude map showed them the most direct route back to the deep valley stronghold of the Mantilla family in the Eastwall Mountains. But first they had to make the crossing of the channel to Abanasinia.
Reaching the coast in the morning, they settled in a sleepy town named Conover, whose harbor was filled with vessels of all types. Taking care not to call attention to themselves, Kit and Colo climbed the gangplanks of a dozen ships, trying to book passage for themselves and their horses. But sea travel slowed during cold months, so most of the ships were moored for the season. And no captain was willing to carry them for the amount of money they could spare.
At the end of a frustrating day on the waterfront, Kit spotted a broad-bottomed cargo ship anchored out in the harbor, away from the dock. They rowed out to speak to the captain, a barrel-chested seaman who was in transit with a delivery of furs and wool. He agreed to take them on condition they pitch in as deck hands, for he was short one sailor, and reckoned two females might make up one man.
Colo was ready to grab him by the throat, but Kit acted first. "Done," she agreed, shaking his hand on the bargain.
His ship, the Fleury, left early the next day. The week's sail was an agony to Kit and Colo—not the hard work, which at least used up the time, but the slowness. When not occupied with duties, they paced the desk ceaselessly, saying little, finding it difficult to sleep.
When the Fleury finally reached the coast, the crew lowered them and their mounts into the waves. Rather than wait to be ferried, one by one, on the loading barge, they swam ashore.
They were at the far edge of Abanasinia and knew from the map that they had to travel west and north, around the spur of the Kharolis, before turning south toward the peaks of Eastwall.
For six days and six nights Kit and Colo rode, sleeping for only an hour or two each night, then rising before dawn to take the saddle again. Stopping periodically only to gulp strong tea and gobble down some dried fruit, they made good time, driving their horses hard. Colo set the pace. She was a natural rider and perhaps had the strongest animal at the outset; but Kitiara was never far behind.
On the third afternoon Kit's horse collapsed at full gallop, and by the time Kit had staggered to her feet, the animal was in its death throes. They had to double up for a few miles and then stop to buy another horse from a farmer.
On the fourth morning, Colo's horse was not able to get up, and she had to put the sword to it. Again they doubled up until a few hours later when they stopped at a roadside smithy to buy another steed.
As they made distance the sky turned gray and the cold alternated with drizzle and fog. In the morning, patches of ice dotted the ground and, as they moved away from the coast to higher elevations, a light carpet of snow. At times the snow covered the ice, making treacherous going for the horses.
The weather seemed intent on breaking their speed. When it wasn't snowing or drizzling, it was foggy. The damp seeped into their bones. On top of being exhausted and saddle-sore, almost numb from the exertion, they could not rid themselves of the constant chill, even in the sunlight.
Kit had never been this far north and seen this vantage of the Kharolis. She was in awe of the peaks that stretched on for miles in the distance, filling the horizon—great, jagged ribs of brown and purple clumped with snow.
By the sixth day the landscape had become more familiar as they entered the northwest slopes of the Eastwall range. According to the elven map, they could follow an elusive course here, winding through trails and ravines and small valleys, into the fiefdom that was Mantilla Vale.
The way was quite treacherous, slicing up rocky country around big, toothy peaks and steep gorges, through hewn foot trails and barely passable areas, at times doubling back and rounding on itself. The horses had to pick their way slowly at times. Other times, Kit and Colo had to dismount and walk alongside their jittery steeds. Still, the map was precise, and they ate up ground.
Eventually the twisting rocky ground took its toll on one of their horses, which stumbled and ruined a foreleg. They had no choice but to finish off the suffering animal and share a single horse again. Kit and Colo were close enough to their destination now that, if necessary, they could travel the final miles down into Mantilla Vale on foot.
On the afternoon of the seventh day, they came to a snowy crest with a ribbonlike waterfall. The crest overlooked a deep, irregular valley that, from the distance, was obscured by a thick, yellow mist. Charted on the map was a narrow trail down the gentle slope.
Kit had never felt more drained. Every bone ached, her eyes were bleary, her clothes torn and dirty. Colo, standing beside her, gazing out over Mantilla Vale, looked no stronger. Indeed, as they stood there, without making a move toward their destination, Colo slumped to her knees.
Realizing they needed to rest and regain some of their strength, Kit and Colo decided to camp for the night on the ledge. As it was not yet dark, they had a leisurely amount of time in which to tether their horse and make camp. They oiled and dried and laid out their weapons. With melted ice and snow, they managed to clean up a little, which helped them to feel refreshed.
Colo built a small fire behind some rocks so that its glow could not be seen even from the valley. When night fell, they could glimpse nothing in the valley below and, even stranger, nothing in the sky above. It was a night for neither moons nor stars. Only empty darkness.
At first the two companions spoke little to each other. Weary but thoughtful, they sensed they were on the verge of something—something that they might or might not live through. With food cadged along the trail, Kit prepared a meal, but hungry as they were, they were too wrought up to eat much.
After a long time Colo began to speak. What she told Kitiara was how she had met Ursa. It was only nine months before. He was traveling with Cleverdon alone, through Southern Ergoth, at a particularly low point in his adventures. According to Colo, Ursa was dressed shabbily and scrounging for any kind of work.
At an inn on a highway where Colo had stopped for the night, she was accused of cheating at cards—which, indeed, she had been. Ursa, too, was in the game, saying very little and playing very well, although he was losing steadily, mostly to Colo herself. Yet he took her side in the argument, and when a yokel drew a knife on Colo, Ursa responded in kind, at some risk to himself. The two of them, with Droop-face, backed out the door and got out of town one step ahead of a mob.
Once safely away, Ursa told Colo that he knew all along she was cheating and demanded half of her earnings. They had been traveling together ever since.
"I didn't know he was much for playing cards," mused Kit. What she really meant was that she didn't realize Ursa would stoop to such a tame way of conniving some money.
"I think he can do a little bit of everything," said Colo admiringly.
After that, Colo lost energy and, before long, fell asleep.
Feeling restless, Kitiara walked to the edge and looked out over Mantilla Vale. The map said the family manor was in the center of the small, oval valley, roughly five miles down and another five to the west. She stared hard in that direction. The dire blackness gave up no clues. No light pierced the valley.
For the first time in many weeks Kit found herself wondering about Caramon and Raistlin, too, about how they were faring. Caramon would be growing bigger and stronger and bragging about his skills. Raistlin was probably growing more inward, silent, and clever. Kit felt certain he was every bit Caramon's equal, but that his abilities would show themselves in a different way.
She hoped she would see her twin brothers again sometime. But tonight, she was not so sure that hope would ever be fulfilled.
As for herself, Kit felt that she was finally living a life her father would understand. Looking out over the valley, thinking ahead to the next day, she silently mouthed the maxim she had heard Gregor Uth Matar repeat many times: The sword is truth.
* * * * *
Beneath the thick, yellow mist, the road leading to the Mantilla castle bore evidence of waste and apocalyptic calamity. Carts and wagons lay abandoned with broken wheels. Farms were half-burned, the fields charred. Tools, equipment, clothing, furniture, and household objects were scattered along the road.
A pall hung over the land. No familiar babble of birds or animals, no sounds of people broke the eerie silence. No wind disturbed the unearthly mist that did not lift or waver.
They rode. Kit behind Colo, on their only horse, fidgeting with their weapons. At first they rode cautiously, but seeing no one, they picked up speed.
As Kit and Colo drew closer to the castle, the first bodies began to appear. People hanging from blackened trees. Skeletons in the field. Scorched bodies, as well as pieces of bodies, lying where they had fallen, in gullies and on top of each other. Some were obviously months dead, others relatively fresh and putrid.
"Look!" cried Colo, pointing to one dangling from a tree.
Kit nodded as she recognized a soldier in the full armor of the unit that had surrounded them two weeks earlier. It was one of that troop, or certainly one who had belonged to that troop at one time. And he was only the first of many from that armored militia, brutally slain, whom Kit counted as they passed.
The spectacle was more terrible than either of them could have anticipated. Kit had never dreamed such unspeakable horror, and she had to steel herself to endure it. Colo's eyes looked straight ahead, but she too was reeling with disgust.
They passed a section of land that was sprinkled with upright corpses hanging on poles like scarecrows. Their faces suggested gargoyles, distorted grotesquely; some of them were ancient and rotting, some of them newly slain. These were all mages, and some had signs hung on their bodies. One of them, covered with cruel wounds, had a board slung around his neck:
This mage failed my purpose and paid the price—Luz Mantilla
"The mage," whispered Colo, pointing.
"Yes," said Kit, recognizing the robes of the one who had performed the magic cyclone that had whisked Ursa away only two weeks before.
Still they spied no living soul.
Now they caught sight of the towers of the castle. But something was wrong. The towers were crooked, distorted, some parts smashed to the ground. Only a needle spire in the center of the mass rose high into the sky above the yellow mist. This one tower seemed separated from the rest, an island adrift in a sea of rubble.
It was as if the fist of a god had smote the castle down, shattering it and driving it underground in several directions.
Closer on, the yellow mist became even more oppressive and it was impossible to see very clearly things more than a few yards away. All of a sudden a monolith of brick and rubble jutted up before them, ending the road and making a blockade. In the middle of the jumble of stone was a maw framed by timber that showed descending steps. They could ride no farther.
Except down. The stone steps led into a passageway. No sentries barred their way. Light flickered ahead.
"This way?" questioned Colo.
"Either that or turn back," said Kit.
"We've come too far already."
Kit nodded, but took a moment to check her weapons. In one hand she wielded Beck's sword and in the other she carried a copper dagger that she had taken from one of the dark elves. She glanced over at Colo.
The tracker had two swords taken from the elves, a short blade, and a coil of rope. Kit's companion had risen at first light, painted her face and braided her long, sandy tresses with feathers. Now Colo tied up the horse and turned to lead.
Kit felt a rush of warmth for the diminutive female, who was the very opposite of a homebody such as her mother. Colo was one of the most truly admirable women she had ever encountered.
Without speaking to each other, Kit and Colo began to inch down the stairs and through a long stone corridor that stretched endlessly in front of them. Torches set high along the walls gave what little illumination there was. The women stuck close to the walls, staying clear of the center in case of traps. They scuttled a few feet at a time, weapons alert, feeling for side passages.
At times the stone corridor eased downward, other times it buckled and elevated slightly. Unseen creatures scurried out of their path. The tunnel was damp; water trickled somewhere. Unpleasant fumes hissed through cracks in the walls. At times the way was so dark that Kit and Colo could see very little, except the outline of the other against the opposite wall.
After a time they came to a large, high-ceilinged chamber that was better lit, but seemed half caved in at one end. There were four exits—five, counting the one from which Kit and Colo had entered. They branched off in four forward directions that, with the entrance, made up a star shape.
In the center of the room was a high mound of bodies, heaped on each other like firewood. Some were propped up whole, seemingly alive, frozen in mid-gesture; others were mere skeleton parts. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of corpses, with skulls white and rotting, clothes in tatters, body organs everywhere, and rats darting in and out of openings.
Kitiara gave a gasp and brought a hand to her mouth, while Colo involuntarily stepped closer to her, gaping at the sight.
"What?" Kit shuddered.
"Breathe shallow," said Colo firmly, steadying Kit with a hand on her shoulder.
They shuffled closer to better see the gruesome death heap, to look for any evidence that Ursa was among the dead. Suddenly a ghost of a man sprang up from the middle of the pile, all yellow skin and bones and leer, wispy white hair and goatee, dressed in fetid, flapping rags.
Colo and Kit separated in an instant, their weapons up and flashing. But there was no other movement in the room, and the old coot seemed more daft than dangerous. He was leaping from foot to foot, chattering to himself. In his hand was an iron ring of rusty keys.
"She has come! I be free! Which one is she? Maybe I be seeing double. After all this time, I be free!" babbled the old fellow.
"Stand still," ordered Colo. "What are you saying, grandfather?"
"Here! Here!" The man proffered the hoop of keys.
Kit gingerly outstretched a hand and took the ring. The metal was lime-encrusted.
"1 think he's dotty," said Kit acidly, still looking around warily.
"Who are you old man? What's happening here?" Colo demanded again. She sheathed her sword and belted her knife, perhaps to reassure the codger.
The old man had leaped close to Kit and Colo, and now pranced in a circle around them, conversing merrily with himself. His long, white hair shimmered like cobwebs. He kept pointing off in various directions.
"The Great Lady, she says I can go when you come. I been loyal. Last of the loyal, that's me. I been keeping the jails for many years. Many, many years. I'm all that's left. Except—" he bit his tongue and lolled his eyes "—except the Iron Guard." He halted his dancing nervously and said loudly, "Except the Iron Guard. I don't forget thee, no sirree. I pay homage to thee." He bobbed his head spasmodically.
"Take," he said, indicating the keys. "Yours now. I go! She promised.
" He gave a little wave and started off.
"Wait!" cried Kit fiercely, grabbing his arm and gesturing threateningly with her dagger. "Where is the lady you speak of?"
He turned to regard her, stroking his goatee. "Five tunnels there be," the old man said thoughtfully. "You will find her by traveling the right one, I do believe. Which one? I do not speculate. Myself—" he looked fretful "—I have not laid eyes on the Great Lady for many months now. She leaves me alone. That is my reward. Others not so lucky. Advise extreme carefulness."
He bent and whispered conspiratorially. "I seen the Iron Guard, though. They come and go. Go get visitors. My job," he said with a proud chuckle, "is to take care of the visitors. Only," he beckoned Kit closer with one thin, yellow finger, "two left. Tch-tch."
He put the finger to his lips. "The Great Lady is very angry," he added knowingly. "Shush," he said, swiveling to cut off Colo's question. "I risk my life telling you this."
The old man swaggered around, his chest puffed out. "She up in tower somewhere, very angry. Everyone fail, everyone disloyal. Big killing." He tilted his head toward the death pile in distaste. "Not me. I'm very trustworthy. I keep the keys! I be loyal!" he bragged.
"Which way?" demanded Colo in exasperation.
He stroked his goatee. "Yes. That is the question. I used to know the answer—" he gave a shudder "—before. Before." He wheeled slowly, seeming to ponder each of the exits, his eyes rheumy. "I forget," he said plaintively. "Which way is out?"
Colo jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the stone corridor where they had entered.
In a blur the gibbering old man pushed past her and darted into the tunnel. "Gods bless you!" he shot over his shoulder as he disappeared out of sight. "I be free! Free!" For several minutes they could hear the echo of his footsteps, trailed by his chortling.
Kit held Colo's arm. "Let him go," she said. "He's harmless."
"Maybe he's a spy," said Colo.
"No doubt," said Kit. "But Lady Mantilla knows we're here by now. We're stuck with the problem of fighting her, one way or another. He's nothing to us."
[Meetings 03] - Dark Heart Page 27
