‘Stealth,’ said Rebraal. ‘When you have learned what stealth means, Hirad Coldheart, then you can question how we do things. The tracks you have made through the grass could be followed by a blind man.’
The ClawBound communication was dying away to echoes on the wind. Denser looked back and saw the dark trails slashed in the grass.
‘Hardly matters,’ said Hirad. ‘Your ClawBound saw to it that they know we are coming.’
‘They already knew,’ said Thraun, voice a hiss.
‘You keep saying that,’ said Hirad, his voice quieter now the panthers were silent. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They saw the battle,’ said Thraun. ‘They knew we would be coming.’
‘He’s right,’ said Darrick. ‘If their commander’s anything like a tactician, he’ll have seen the change in plans today. Nothing we could do about it. We had to test them. But the mere fact of more guards on the walls tells us all we need to know.’
‘Yeah, but they won’t be expecting us. Only elves,’ said Hirad.
‘I’m counting on it,’ said Denser.
The Raven looked up at the ropes disappearing into the deep shadow under the overhang. While they watched, the ropes stilled momentarily, signalling the Al-Arynaar to begin their ascent. Not hesitating, three elves hauled themselves up the ropes, making a nonsense of the effort, their lithe bodies ideally suited to the task.
Denser frowned, feeling his heart beat a little faster. Beside him, Erienne shuddered.
‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered.
‘Now at the top, there’s a slightly tricky move,’ said Rebraal, as if describing a walk along a beach containing the odd slippery patch of rocks. ‘You’ll have to swing out to grip the decorative ridge then pull yourselves up. There are people waiting to help you so you should be all right.’
‘Should,’ said Erienne.
‘Hmm,’ said Denser. He breathed deeply. It did nothing to calm his nerves and the obvious option was already in his mind. ‘Sure is a long way up.’
‘And down,’ muttered Erienne.
‘Fair enough,’ said The Unknown. ‘Here’s the order. We’ll follow the last of the Al-Arynaar. Hirad, you go with Thraun and me. Darrick, you’ll guard the base of the wall until we’re clear while you two,’ he turned to Denser and Erienne, ‘are flying. We can’t risk you.’
‘You’re saying you don’t trust us to make the climb?’ Denser bridled in spite of the relief he felt at The Unknown agreeing with his thoughts.
‘I’m saying you aren’t sure you can. Tell me if I’m wrong.’
Erienne shook her head. ‘No, you’re not.’
‘Denser, once you’ve carried Erienne, bring up Darrick. He should be light enough, unlike the rest of us.’
‘I can climb,’ said Darrick.
‘That’s not the point,’ said The Unknown. ‘We can’t spare the time.’
‘Whatever you say.’
Denser felt a strong hand clamp around his shoulder.
‘Never mind, Denser,’ said Hirad. ‘We can’t all have the muscle and guts.’
‘Fuck off.’
Hirad chuckled.
‘I’m letting you fall if you slip, Coldheart,’ added Denser.
‘More pull-ups,’ said Hirad. ‘Build your upper body and arms a little.’
‘In fact, I’m going to cut the rope above you.’
‘Just leave him,’ said Erienne. ‘Don’t let him get under your skin.’
‘He’s already there. Has been for years.’
Denser tuned himself to the Xeteskian mana spectrum, pausing to see the multiple points of focus all over the city, from healings to wards to Communion. One more casting wasn’t going to be noticed. He drew in the simple shape for ShadowWings. The basic planar structure, feathered along one edge, was complete in moments.
‘Ready?’
Erienne wrapped her arms around his neck, he swept up her legs and they rose up the wall. Denser found his heart hammering in his chest. He kept looking up and could see elves on the ropes, swinging out into nowhere to grab the narrow ridge. Not for the first time, he was glad to have alternative means at his disposal.
He flew slowly, breasting the battlements at snail’s pace. TaiGethen were waiting there. Erienne unlocked her arms and was helped onto the wall. Denser descended again to watch The Raven climb.
He found them a little under halfway up. They were all very strong men. Thraun looked like he was born to it, Hirad’s teeth were bared as he surged up, hand over hand, and The Unknown, typically organised, used his feet as a brake on the rope while his hands found new grips.
Denser smiled to himself and twitched his position to fly next to the barbarian.
‘All right, muscleman?’
Hirad glared at him. He was forty feet from the ground now and the exertion was beginning to show.
‘Absolutely fine,’ said Hirad between gasps for air.
‘I had every confidence.’
‘I know,’ Hirad grinned. ‘I’m me.’
‘Yes you are,’ muttered Denser. ‘The Gods save us all.’
There were no alarms. Denser plucked Darrick from his unnecessary guard duty and deposited him on the wall next to Erienne before watching his friends swing out to the ledge, elven hands helping them as they pulled themselves up.
He landed next to The Raven on the walkway. It was darkened and almost empty of elves. Auum and Rebraal were seeing the last of the Al-Arynaar down the ropes to the muster point. The TaiGethen leader looked over to them and nodded.
‘Quickly,’ he said. ‘There is an alarm further along the wall.’
Denser took one look at the panorama of his city. A place he had loved, still loved, but now he had to class it as an enemy. He shook his head, picked up Erienne and stepped over the wall, dropping steadily. Slowly, the sights were lost to him. The market square, dark and silent; the Park of Remembrance, lawns now surely turned over to crops or grazed by livestock; the iron foundry, still belching smoke and flame; the grain stores, huge and solid and the reason Xetesk could survive famine and now siege. And finally, the seven towers of the college, their target for the night. They could not have chosen one more difficult.
At the base of the ropes, Rebraal was waiting with a TaiGethen elf. Denser was directed to the muster point, floating quietly past the bakery, cold and lifeless, a victim of the war.
Inside the empty house, the raiding party gathered. Denser dismissed his Wings and set Erienne down, moving slowly while his sight adjusted, the assembled elves resolving gradually from the gloom. Twelve TaiGethen warriors, six Al-Arynaar mages, Rebraal and The Raven. About to take on the Dark College.
‘Dear Gods preserve us,’ he whispered.
‘What was that?’ Erienne’s voice too was barely audible.
‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘I’m just imagining what we could face in there.’
If anything, the quiet in the house deepened still further as Auum walked in. He spoke briefly with Rebraal, translating for The Raven.
‘One final time, here is what we know from our nights of scouting. The Protectors are outside the gates. Most of the college and city forces are stationed outside the walls of the college. We expect those walls to be heavily defended, leaving little sword strength but much mage strength on the ground. Secrecy for the maximum time is therefore critical.
‘But, my brothers and sisters, never forget that we face a powerful adversary. Keep within the Al-Arynaar shield whenever you can. Let Tual guide your senses. We know what we must do and what we must find. Keep your Tais close. This is a jungle like our own; it will show you no mercy.’
While Auum led the prayers before battle, The Raven gathered together.
‘Think we’ll die in there?’ asked Darrick.
‘If we pretend we are up against anything less than we are, I think there’s every chance.’ said Denser. ‘And if the Julatsan mana flow fails again while we’re inside, the TaiGethen will be defenceless.’
‘Not sure you can ever call them
defenceless,’ said Hirad.
‘You know what I mean.’
Around the house, the elven prayers finished. Denser looked into Auum’s eyes and nodded.
‘You know where to go,’ he said.
The TaiGethen led them out into the Xeteskian night.
Chapter 15
Denser thought he knew his city like the proverbial back of his hand. Gods falling, but the walls had prevented much new building for centuries. He was shown alleys he’d never seen before, walkways he’d thought too narrow to travel, and ways across the city he hadn’t known existed.
The playhouse had tunnels beneath it. There was a network of accessways built around the edge of the central market. The north grain store had an outer skin providing gap enough to inch along. And the fact that the city was under curfew proved a gift because the TaiGethen were so quiet. Patrols might have littered the streets but the sound of their passage was like a klaxon from three streets’ distance.
It was eerie, Denser decided. Not real somehow. Xetesk was dying. Slowly, but it was dying. Yet beneath the apparent quiet acceptance of that fate, there would be barely suppressed energy. Neither the college nor the city would go down without a fight. The question was, when would that energy erupt?
The raiding party moved carefully, placing quietness above speed. There had been no further alarm from the walls and they could only conclude that the shouts they had heard pertained to something other than their incursion. That was not a state that would last very long. Soon, the guard would change, or someone would open the doors of the guard towers and find the darkness, the blood on the stone, and the disappearance of seven men. If they were lucky, that discovery would not be made until they were inside the college itself.
Denser glanced round at The Raven while they travelled, seeing care and determination on every face and in every step. They studied the ground before every pace, moving in the footfalls of the TaiGethen wherever they could. They walked across mud and weeds rather than stone and gravel, hugged the shadows of every alley and held their collective breath when forced to cross a major thoroughfare. Not even the TaiGethen had a way around every obstacle.
They almost made it undiscovered too. Auum had led the raiding party to the warehousing that bordered the artisans’ quarter he knew so well. Despite himself, he’d been impressed with The Raven’s ability to move silently. Moving up the alley where they’d killed the guards the night before, he saw that their bodies had gone, though the thieves’ corpses remained.
‘They know we were here,’ he said to Duele at his shoulder.
‘It was inevitable,’ said Duele.
‘Unfortunate, nevertheless. Pass the word.’
He crept up to the mouth of the alley and looked over at the college. The effect of the discovery of the guards’ bodies was clear. On the cobblestones in front of the college, patrols marched with purpose. Auum watched them long enough to know that the density of men meant that one patrol could always see their comrades ahead. It was the same up on the walls themselves. Lanterns and torches lit the entire length in front of him. Guards moved in pairs, lookouts stared out into the city and archers stood by them, ready and waiting.
He was beginning to back away when the alarm went up. Light bloomed away to the south as a warning fire was lit. Men started running along the walls. Shouts rang around the college. The south gates swung open and a detachment of soldiers trotted out and disappeared into the streets ahead of them. On the cobblestones, the patrols ceased their circular walks and fanned out, heading across the apron, some directly for them.
Auum fell back faster, seeing shapes flitting into the sky from inside the college. Like large birds but without the grace. His eyes tracked them as they flew. Wings like bats, heads like bald monkeys, their calls like diabolical laughter mixed with broken speech. He shivered, turned and trotted back to where the raiding party were waiting.
‘They are coming,’ he said, hearing Rebraal translate for The Raven. ‘We must move. Denser will lead us now.’
There was no debate. Denser, surrounded by his friends, turned and moved quickly but quietly away along the back of the warehouse. Auum signalled Evunn and Duele to hang back, keep any guards from their backs. At the far edge of the squat, low building, Denser paused and The Unknown Warrior checked left and right before leading them across a narrow path and into the passage the other side, along between another two warehouses. The sounds of alarm and search rang out to their left, closing but not too fast.
The second set of warehouses was different in character. Made of stone and slate rather than wood, they soared three times as high and had identical heavy, iron-bound wooden sliding gates facing each other. Denser stopped at a low, flat-roofed building just beyond, attached to the warehouse facing the college walls. Beyond it, the landscape of the district changed, becoming less uniform, studded with chimneyed workshops, dwellings and fenced yards.
Auum breasted through the TaiGethen for a closer look. Denser was standing square in front of a padlocked door set into a featureless wall.
‘This is it,’ he was saying. Auum looked to Rebraal for confirmation he had understood. ‘Give me room. If this goes off, I don’t want anyone hurt.’
At a gesture from Rebraal, the TaiGethen and Al-Arynaar fell back a few paces.
‘Marack,’ said Auum, getting the attention of a cell leader. She was a Tai that Auum respected as much for her strength of mind as her warrior’s abilities. Her original cell had been taken from her by the Elfsorrow but still she kept faith with the Gods and her new cell already admired and trusted her. She was an example to them all. ‘Take your cell, secure the next crossway. Porrak, your cell behind us. Strengthen mine. Wait for my call. If you have to kill, kill silently.’
He focused his attention on Denser and watched the mage at work, attempting to circumvent what he assumed were magical traps of some kind. He could hear Erienne talking to him and edged closer to Rebraal who began translating.
‘It’s not a trap,’ said Denser. ‘The entire door is an illusion and a particularly good one at that. You can touch the padlock if you like but it isn’t actually there. It’s a piece of shaped rock fused into a sheet of solid metal. Even a good thief can’t pick stone. The locks are all set into the door. There are three of them and all are operated by magic. I need to work out if they have changed since I was apprised of their key constructs.’
‘Why isn’t the illusion just one of flat wall?’ asked Erienne.
‘Because it has to reflect all the other workshop entrances around here. The people who constructed it maintain this work on the basis that hiding a door in plain sight is part of the art of illusion. It’s worked for years.’
‘What happens if you don’t divine the key constructs?’
‘A very loud noise and my death,’ replied Denser. ‘You should stand aside.’
But none of The Raven moved. Auum smiled inwardly.
‘Just describe what you’re seeing,’ said Erienne. ‘I might be able to help you.’
Denser relaxed his body and reached out his hands towards the door, touching various parts of its surface. Auum looked hard for the break between reality and illusion but couldn’t see it.
‘The three locks engage a single WardLock casting that covers the entire doorframe. It’s well maintained and skilfully cast. No chance of setting off the traps by accident which I would say was unusually thoughtful if it weren’t for the fact that this entrance is meant to be a secret from almost everyone and to stay that way. Each lock has a different construct code linked to an explosive and alarm-ward combination.
‘I have to form the three key constructs that temporarily block the lock and alarm mechanisms, so disengaging the WardLock.’
‘And these are constructs you have been taught, are they?’ asked The Unknown from behind Denser.
‘Yes. There is no clue in the lock constructs, which are just flat squares of mana each about the size of my hand. Each square has a keyhole described in it, for
aesthetic purposes, I assume, because the key constructs have to cover the entire lock to unlock it, and don’t penetrate it as such. All very pretty.’
‘So, can you sort it?’ Hirad’s whisper was gruff. ‘Our elven friends are getting nervous about rapidly closing patrolmen and I’m getting old.’
‘It’ll take as long as it takes,’ said Denser. ‘I have to assume the key constructs are unchanged. And you have to hope so too or this’ll be the briefest raid in the history of Xetesk. Now let me be. Erienne, there’s nothing you can do for me except to stand away from any blast area. Please.’
Watching on, Auum felt the unusual desire to be able to see what Denser was seeing. But he could watch the mage’s intricate hand and finger movements as they teased mana into the shapes he wanted, the silent mouthing of words as commands augmented the structure formation, and the tiny beads of sweat on his brow as the effort gained momentum. That there was an element he could neither feel nor see that could affect them all so profoundly was a source of eternal discomfort to Auum. For him, it was an omission that Yniss had made when the world was created. He took it as a challenge to be overcome. To be quicker than cast magic. For the TaiGethen, it was the only way.
At the mating call of a motmot, faint and carried on the breeze, Auum turned. Evunn drew fingers across his eyes, pointed down an alley towards the college and held up three fingers.
‘Get him to hurry.’ Auum told Rebraal. ‘We have company.’
He ran to his Tai. The search net was expanding. He could hear men to their left and right now, some carrying lights, some moving without. He edged his head around the corner of the warehouse and saw them coming. Two were soldiers, one a mage by the look of him.
‘We don’t want blood or noise near here. Not now,’ whispered Auum. ‘Why didn’t you see them earlier?’
The patrol was only about twenty yards distant, approaching with exaggerated care and holding a lantern ahead of them.
‘They came from a side path,’ said Evunn. ‘I am sorry.’
‘You cannot know this place like them,’ said Auum. ‘Porrak, your Tai watch ahead. Bows ready. We will take the mage alive if we can.’
The Raven Collection Page 228
