'You want me to imagine Kicker isn't here?' Will asked him.
'That's right,' Horace replied, determined not to be put off by the sarcasm in Will's voice. 'If he wasn't here, could you see me then?'
Will suddenly had the sense that they could be here for hours. He sighed heavily. 'Well, if I imagine Kicker isn't here, then I would find it exceedingly difficult to see you, Horace.'
'Thought so,' Horace said, with a satisfied smile.
'Particularly since you'd appear to be floating two metres in the air,' Will continued in a mutter.
'What was that?' Horace asked suspiciously.
'I said you'd appear to be not anywhere,' Will said, thinking quickly, and Horace nodded, satisfied once more. Will thought it might be a good idea to change the subject.
'Let's push on for a few more hours before we stop for the night,' he suggested. Horace shrugged agreeably.
'Suits me,' he said. Then he added an afterthought, 'Are you sure you won't lose track of me? I could just disappear in the dark…'
'I'll do my best,' Will said.
Just for a moment, he wished his friend would disappear.
They had a cold camp that night and rose at dawn to continue. They were drawing closer to their quarry now – assuming that the cave complex was Tennyson's planned destination. Horace abandoned his light-hearted attempts at concealment and became far more businesslike in his approach.
It occurred to Will, as it had to Halt in recent times, that Horace might well have been engaging in a subtle piece of leg-pulling with all his 'Can you see me now?' antics. Horace had years of leg pulling and practical jokes to make up and Will had the uncomfortable suspicion that the tall warrior had been secretly chuckling to himself the day before.
The ground began to rise now as they found themselves heading for the line of hills. The trees were fewer and farther between and they moved carefully, conscious that there could be hidden watchers observing their approach.
But there was no sign that they had been seen and eventually the ground levelled out into a plateau, leading to the foot of the hills proper. The trees grew more thickly as the ground levelled out and the two friends reined in, concealed by the shadows of a large grove, surveying the open ground that remained before them. Just a few hundred metres distant, the hills rose into the sky, steep and forbidding, a natural barrier. There was no sign of Tennyson or any of his followers.
'Nobody here,' Horace muttered.
'Nobody we can see,' Will amended. He was peering closely at the base of the hills. The sun was sinking in the west and, even though it threw direct light on the hills, the irregular folds of the sandstone created patches of light and shade and several darker patches could well have marked the entrance to caves. Or they could have been just deeper shadows.
Will had a sudden concern that Tennyson hadn't stopped here after all. That he had continued, maybe climbing the hills through some as yet unseen pass and was now heading away on the far side of the ranges.
Yet, reason told him, the Outsider leader could have done that at any time in the past few weeks. He had headed specifically for this range, where, according to the map, there was a large number of caves. If he'd wanted to simply disappear into the east, he could have done so without the difficulty of having to find a way over the hills.
And now that he could see them, Will realised they were closer to cliffs than hills and finding a way across them would be difficult indeed.
Horace nudged him with his elbow. 'Smell that?'
Will raised his head and sniffed the air experimentally. He caught the very slightest scent of woodsmoke on the air. It was faint, but it was definitely there.
'They're here all right. They're starting to get dinner ready,' Horace said.
'But where?' Will asked, scanning the cliff faces once more. Then Horace touched his arm and pointed.
'Look,' he said. 'There's a tree growing at an angle from the face of the cliff – about ten metres up.' He waited until Will nodded that he could see it. Then he held his hand out at arm's length, squinting with one eye closed, and held up first one finger, then two, vertically.
Then he folded the second finger down again. 'To the left of the tree, about one and a half fingers, there's a cleft. In the rock.'
Will mimicked the action of holding the fingers up and sighting down them. It was a simple but effective way of providing directions and he soon saw the cleft Horace had spotted.
A thin grey ribbon of smoke issued from it. The faint breeze grabbed it almost immediately, and dissipated it. But it was there. And so, he realised, was Tennyson.
'They're in the caves,' he said, and Horace nodded.
'We're going to have to get closer to take a look,' Will said, scanning the ground in front of them. There was plenty of low cover, but not enough to conceal Tug and Kicker. 'We'll have to leave the horses here and push forward.'
'You're planning to go into the caves?' Horace said, his voice very level. Will glanced at him. Since they had been small children, Horace had disliked confined spaces. It was one of the reasons that he never wore a full face helmet, preferring the simple cone-shaped cap. When they were younger, Will had used the fact to escape him on numerous occasions.
'I'll need you to keep an eye on things outside,' he said and saw Horace's shoulder slump in relief.
'You're sure?' he asked. 'I'll come with you if you really need me.'
Will reached over and squeezed his shoulder. 'I appreciate the offer,' he said. 'But it'll be easier for me to move around inside without being seen.'
'All right then,' Horace said. 'I can't say I'm disappointed.'
'Besides,' Will couldn't resist saying. 'With your newfound camouflage skills, I'd probably lose you in there.' Forty-five They waited until late afternoon. Will knew the light was more uncertain and deceptive at that time. Then, leaving Tug and Kicker in the grove of trees, they stole forward. Horace was wearing the camouflage cloak but this was no time for joking and he listened intently as Will gave him some last-minute instructions.
'Keep the cowl up so your face is shaded,' he said. 'When we stop, lie perfectly still, keeping the cloak around you. Halt's old saying used to be trust the cloak. It'll conceal you.'
'What about my legs and feet?' Horace asked. As he was a good deal taller than Halt, more of his legs were exposed below the cloak. Will shook his head in a dismissive gesture.
'Don't worry about them. The cloak will conceal your body and people don't expect to see disembodied legs lying around. They see what they expect to see.'
Horace grinned. 'Is that more of Halt's wisdom?'
Will grinned in return, nodding his head.
'One other thing,' Will reminded him. It was something the tall warrior had heard before but it always bore repeating. 'If we're moving and someone appears, just freeze. Stand perfectly still. It's the movement -'
'That attracts attention and gets you seen.' Horace finished the statement. 'I know.'
'So long as you do. The temptation to try to hide is almost irresistible in that situation.'
They moved forward, Will taking the lead and slipping silently and almost invisibly through the uncertain light. He dropped behind an outcrop of rocks some thirty metres away from the trees and signalled Horace to follow. He watched the warrior for a few metres, then turned his attention to the hills ahead. Tennyson didn't seem to have any guards in place. But that didn't mean they weren't concealed somewhere. A part of his mind was impressed with the progress that Horace was making with his silent movement. He still made a certain amount of noise, of course. It took years of training to achieve the level of silence with which a Ranger could move. But he was surprisingly quiet and Will doubted that any casual listener in the vicinity would have realised that someone was moving through the grass. Horace slowly lowered himself into cover beside him. Will glanced at the face inside the folds of the cowl. He could feel the tension in Horace's body. The young warrior was concentrating fiercely on moving with minimal nois
e and visibility. Too fiercely, in fact.
'Relax a little. There's a tendency to make more noise if you're all tensed up,' Will told him in a lowered voice. 'You're doing fine. You're definitely getting the hang of this.'
He saw the brief flash of Horace's teeth, bared in a grin of pleasure.
'Think I'd make a Ranger?' he asked.
Will snorted derisively. 'Don't get ahead of yourself,' he said. Then he gestured towards the hills ahead of them. 'Come on.'
Moving carefully, in short increments, it took them over half an hour to reach the base of the hills. There, they found a jumble of rocks – sandstone mainly – which had fallen from higher up the slopes. There was plenty of cover and they settled in a cleft between two boulders, looking around to spot the entrance to one of the caves.
'See anything?' Will asked.
Horace shook his head. 'No. But I can still smell that smoke.'
They both looked up to the spot where they had seen smoke issuing from a cleft in the rocks. Now they could see nothing. But Horace was right. The smell of woodsmoke was still strong on the evening air.
Will surveyed the rocks and open ground around them. There was no sign of any human habitation. Finally, he leaned closer to Horace and whispered, 'You stay here and keep an eye on things. I'll see if I can find a way in.'
Horace nodded. He settled himself between two large boulders, placing himself so that he had a good field of vision yet stayed relatively concealed himself. His hand went to the sword at his side but he left it undrawn. If he needed it, he could have it out and ready in a heartbeat. Yet if he drew it now, the gleaming blade might reflect the dull light and give his position away.
Will ghosted forward until he reached the base of the cliffs. Flattening himself against the almost sheer rock, he edged along laterally. A large buttress of sandstone jutted out and he slid round it, disappearing from view for a few seconds. Then he reappeared, signalling to Horace, pointing to the rock face on the other side of the outcrop. His meaning was clear. He had found an opening. He was going inside.
Horace waved that he understood and Will disappeared again, walking soft-footed around the sandstone outcrop.
The opening was well concealed, all but invisible until you were almost upon it. It was barely a body width wide, nothing more than a slit in the rock, but on closer inspection, Will saw that it ran deeper.
He turned side on and slipped through the cleft. His quiver snagged momentarily on the rough rock at his back and he had to wriggle it free. Then he continued.
Horace would have loved this, he thought. It was pitch dark and the narrow, constricting passage twisted like a snake so that the walls seemed to bear down upon him. He fought back a moment of panic, understanding for the first time in his life how such a place could unnerve his friend. He inched forward, beginning to fear that this was a false trail and the narrow gap would eventually peter out, leading nowhere. Then, rounding a final right angle, he found himself in a larger open space – about the size of a bedchamber. The ceiling of the cave was high, and light came through several clefts high in the wall. It was the last light of day and only faint, yet after the total darkness of the passage he had just traversed, it was a welcome change.
He hesitated at the entrance, taking stock of his surroundings. There was no sign of anyone here and the light was too dim for him to inspect the sandy floor for footprints. He toyed with the idea of lighting a torch, but decided against it. The darkness was his protection, his friend, his shield. In these stygian conditions, the sudden bright flare of a flint on steel might well be noticeable for hundreds of metres.
He stepped out into the open space. His eyes were of little use in this dimness, so he reached out around him with his other senses: his hearing, his sense of smell and that peculiar sixth sense that he had been trained to develop and listen to – an instinctive awareness of the space around him, and the possible presence of other people in it, that had alerted him so many times in the past to potential danger.
The air was surprisingly fresh. He had expected it to be dank and earthy here inside the rocks. But then, of course, the clefts that provided light would also ensure that the cave was well ventilated. He turned around, slowly, describing a full circle. His eyes were closed as he sought to concentrate on his other senses. He reached out with them.
He heard voices.
Many voices, in a low rising and falling pattern that could only be one thing. Chanting. They came from the far wall of the cavern and he crossed quickly to it, feeling his way along until his fingers discovered another cleft. This one was lower, barely a metre and a half in height. He bent and slipped through it, once again in darkness, reaching ahead and upward and crabbing forward in a half crouch. Gradually, the ceiling became higher and he could walk upright – his outstretched hand above him touching only empty air.
This tunnel ran relatively straight, without the twists and turns of the first. And after the first few metres, it widened out into a comfortable thoroughfare.
At least, he assumed it did. He stayed touching the wall of rock and stretched his hand out into the darkness, searching for the far wall. He encountered nothing.
The muffled sound of chanting, which had continued as he progressed through the darkness, gradually became stronger and louder, then suddenly stopped. Instinctively, he stopped as well. Had he made some noise? Had he alerted the chanters? Did they suddenly realise that he was here?
Then a single voice began to speak. He couldn't make out the words; they were muffled and distorted by the rock. But he could hear the timbre and the pitch and the cadence of the voice. It was the voice of a trained speaker, an orator accustomed to swaying his listeners to his own point of view.
He'd heard the voice before. It was Tennyson.
He sighed with relief.
'So you're here after all,' he said softly, into the darkness.
He edged forward again and the voice became more distinct. Now he was able to make out individual words. One in particular he heard repeated over and over again: Alseiass.
Alseiass, the false golden god of the Outsiders.
Now Tennyson seemed to be asking the crowd questions. His voice would rise in an interrogative tone and there would be a pause, then an answering roar from the crowd. And while Tennyson's questions weren't yet decipherable, the answering roar from the crowd definitely was.
'Alseiass!' they cried, in answer to his every question.
The tunnel Will was following veered slightly to the right and as he rounded an elbow in the wall, he saw something ahead.
A glimmer of light.
He moved forward more quickly, his soft boots making no sound on the sand underfoot. Ten more metres and the light was stronger with each pace.
Then he reached the opening. And before him, in the light of fifty or more torches, he saw the man they had been pursuing for the past month. White robed, burly and with long, grey hair, he stood on a natural rock platform in the massive cavern that had opened out from the narrow tunnel. Around him were grouped about twenty followers, also dressed in white. And beyond them were close to a hundred people – men, women and children, mostly dressed in rough homespun country clothing, all listening with rapt attention to the words that came from the prophet's mouth. And as Will watched, he heard, and this time understood, the question that the fake prophet was posing to his new followers.
'Who will lead us out of the darkness? Who will take us to a new golden age of friendship and prosperity? Tell me his name?'
And the reply came from over a hundred voices, young and old.
'Alseiass!'
Will shook his head sadly. The same old rigmarole. The same old mumbo jumbo. But people were just as willing to buy it here as they had been in Hibernia. People were gullible, he thought, particularly when they were told they could buy their way to happiness.
'You know, my friends, that times were bad before Alseiass came among you.'
There was a murmur of agreement from the cr
owd.
'Your stock were dying or disappearing. Your homesteads were burnt and levelled. Isn't that true?'
The crowd called out their confirmation of his words. So, thought Will, the Outsiders have had their armed brigands operating in this area as well – no doubt long before Tennyson arrived.
'But since you have taken Alseiass as your god, have these attacks stopped?'
'Yes!' cried the crowd. Some embellished the shout with cries of 'Bless Alseiass!' and 'Praise the golden god!'.
'And is it time we gave thanks to Alseiass? Is it time we built him the golden, jewelled altar that he desires – an altar that you can worship at for generations to come?'
'Yes!' cried the crowd. This time, at the prospect of donating gold and other valuables, there was a little less enthusiasm. But the white robes around Tennyson added their voices to the cry.
Except, Will thought to himself, that altar will be covered with a thin veneer of gold and when you move on, the rest of it will go with you.
But Tennyson's congregation didn't seem aware of that fact. Spurred on by the white robes, and by Tennyson himself, they continued to raise their voices until the massive cavern rang with their cries of praise for Alseiass and his priest, Tennyson.
Time to leave, Will thought. He'd seen all this before. Forty-six 'The entrance is hard to find,' Will said. 'That's why they don't need guards outside.'
He sketched with a pointed stick in the dirt beside the fireplace. Halt, Horace and Malcolm were gathered around him, watching carefully as he explained the layout of Tennyson's new headquarters.
'That first entry tunnel leads to this. A cavern about the size of a small room. High ceilinged, well lit and ventilated. But completely bare.'
'So, even if someone finds that entrance, they can still get this far and think this is all there is to it?' Malcolm put in.
Will nodded. 'That's why there are no guards. The entrance to the second tunnel is well hidden – and it's barely more than waist high.'
'More fun for me,' Horace said heavily.
Will flashed him a smile. 'It's not so bad. It stays low for a few metres then it widens out and the ceiling gets higher. Plenty of room in this tunnel, once you're past the first few metres.'
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