A slow, self-satisfied grimace, which may have passed for a smile, crept across the King’s face. It had taken longer to break through than Grull had anticipated, but he was satisfied that they had managed it before nightfall.
The massive Tarzark turned; his jewel encrusted cape swinging heavily around him as he moved. He signaled to his phalanx of sorcerers and they charged forward, following the surge of warriors towards the outer wall where more ladders were being erected.
Grull became still as he watched the Tarzark scale the wall. He adored battle. Nothing pleased him better than sticking a pike in an enemy and hearing his death squeals. Nothing compared to the smell of his adversary’s fear and the feel of battle adrenalin pulsing through his veins. The battlefield was what the Tarzark lived for. Many long centuries had passed since the last time Orinians and Tarzark had last locked swords and Grull was savoring every moment while his troops inexorably fought their way towards victory.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE HIDDEN STAIRS
Taz knew they were nearing the exit to Serranguard’s labyrinthine dungeons when he caught a whiff of cooler, fresher air. His sensitive, beak-like nose twitched and he longed, not for the first time, to be in the cool, fragrant depths of the Forests of Gremul, far from the City States of Orin and their bleak stone citadels.
The hairy Gremul moved noiselessly through the gloom. He could hear the footfalls of the others behind him and wished they had a lighter tread. In their natural habitat, the Gremul were forest hunters. Faster than they looked, they flitted like light and shadow through the undergrowth when stalking deer, wild boar, hares and, occasionally, men. The Ennadil walked with a light enough step—Adelyis wore light, slipper-like shoes while her brother, Lassendil, dressed and carried himself like a hunter—but the Orinians made so much noise Taz was surprised the Morg had not already heard them two levels up.
They reached the narrow entrance to the dungeons and found their first Morg sentry. He stood shivering in the darkness, huddled deep inside the folds of his thick cape. There was a perceptible chill down at this level and while it did not affect the Gremul or the humans, the Morg clearly suffered. He did not sense his solitude had been broken, until something large and hirsute with long sinewy arms and legs detached itself from the shadows and lunged at him.
The companions stepped over the Morg’s body and listened intently for any sign their presence had been noted. A dull silence pressed down on them. This area of Serranguard appeared deserted.
Arridel Thorne tensed. He did not trust the stillness, for he knew it had eyes and ears.
At this point, Gywna took the lead. The Wraith Sword felt heavy in her hand, its hilt slippery from her sweat. Hesitantly she moved forward with Arridel Thorne at her heels. Taz and Jennadil stepped into line behind them with Adelyis and Lassendil as rear guard.
They could not risk carrying a torch to light their way, so Gywna would have to navigate them through darkness until they reached the inhabited parts of the Keep. As long as she moved slowly, Gywna was not worried about losing her way. Despite that many people found its interior claustrophobic and dim, she associated Serranguard with the happiest period of her short life. As an independent only-child, she had slipped away from her nanny many a time to explore Serranguard’s tunnels and passageways—only to have a beating when she returned from her adventures.
Now, she thought carefully about the best route to the Lord’s Tower, once her father’s domain. Only his most trusted aides and servants were permitted entry, and Gywna and her mother had only been allowed in on special occasions.
The quickest route to the Tower was naturally the most dangerous. They could take the central stairwell up to the third level and cut straight down the main passageway. However, to take such a route would be suicidal. She needed to take them on a quieter, longer route where there would be shadows to hide in.
“Which way will you lead us?” Arridel whispered over her shoulder, making Gywna jump.
“There is a way,” she said when her heart had dislodged itself from her throat and settled back in her ribcage. “We will spend most of our time in darkness—but if we stay on this level I can find a narrow stairwell on the other side of the castle that very few know of. It’s barely wide enough for a grown man to squeeze through and it will take us up three levels so that we emerge a short distance from the entrance to the Lord’s Tower.”
She sensed that the others approved of her plan and for the first time since setting off from Falcon’s Mount, she felt like a help rather than a hindrance.
“Lead the way Gywna,” Jennadil encouraged.
Even after her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Gywna was barely able to discern her surroundings. It was damp and unpleasantly cold down here, which seemed to have driven most of the Morg up to higher levels. Unfortunately, the last time she had used that stairwell—to hide from her father after she broke his favorite statuette—was when she was ten years old. Even then, it had not been easy to find.
Gywna had wondered about the stairwell’s purpose upon its discovery but had barely given it a thought since. Serranguard had stood, commanding over the northern reaches of Delm Forest and the rich farmland to the south-west for nearly three millennia and during that time a lot had occurred within the its walls that had never been recorded in the annals of history. The stairwell had obviously been built by one of the fortress’s former city-lords, but had been left partially finished.
It would not be easy to find the stairwell, working by feel in the clammy darkness. To stop them from losing each other, the companions placed a hand on the shoulder of the individual they followed. In Jennadil’s case, he grasped a handful of Taz’s thick, tangled pelt and hoped the Gremul was not riddled with lice.
They moved slowly down the main corridor to where the vast inner stairwell curled up through the castle’s central core. Shafts of watery, dusty light—the remnants of glimmering torchlight from high above —filtered down the inner stairwell, briefly illuminating the gloom. The company traveled carefully here, expecting to find another Morg sentry but the entrance to the stairwell was unguarded. They moved past the stairs, through floating dust motes and, moments later, re-entered the oppressive darkness.
It was a time-consuming, hesitant journey through the rabbit warren of passageways in Serranguard’s belly. A few times Gywna took them in the wrong direction, only to reconsider and retrace her steps. Often, she halted and concentrated on the memories she had of this level. Each of Serranguard’s four levels were built with a completely different style of corridor layout. It had been constructed in this fashion to confuse any invading force, but the trouble was that it meant even those dwelling inside Serranguard got lost regularly.
The hours crept by with the agonizing slowness that only unpleasant experiences can create. Finally, when the others were beginning to suspect their guide had gotten them well and truly lost, Gywna found the entrance to the hidden stairs.
It was easy to miss and Gywna had actually walked past the opening. Then, she hesitated and turned back. Remembering the stone seat with the twisted pedestal to one side, she soon found the niche she was looking for.
“Someone light a torch,” Gywna ordered.
Moments later light flared and they all looked away, blinking rapidly as their eyes adjusted. Arridel Thorne held the torch aloft. The shadows gave his gaunt face a ghoulish look as he gazed down at the narrow niche. The entranceway was hidden to one side behind a stone pillar, but appeared to be only half the height of a normal doorway.
“Were these stairs made for men?” he grumbled. “They look more suited to Gremul!”
Taz gave a long, soft, warning growl at the disparaging tone with which this comment was uttered.
“The entrance and the exit are the narrowest parts,” Gywna explained. “I’ll climb through first. Pass me the torch.”
They all looked on as Gywna got down on her hands and kne
es and squeezed through the narrow gap. Arridel passed the torch through to her and one by one each of the company followed.
Inside, it was so narrow they all had to turn sideways. Thick cobwebs brushed over them. The stairs themselves were roughly hewn and covered in a thick layer of dust. No one appeared to have used them of late.
Gywna looked about her and compared the sensation of being inside the cramped space with her experience eight years earlier. Of course, she had been a lot smaller physically but the cobwebs and dust had not changed much. The dust she stood in was undisturbed. However, there was something different about the stairwell—something she did not remember from last time. She tensed and looked about her warily.
“Is something amiss?” Arridel asked from behind her.
“Not really,” Gywna replied, trying to decide if something actually was amiss or if her senses were playing tricks on her. “Only there is something changed about these stairs. It’s nothing I can see but the air smells and feels different somehow.”
“It smells rotten,” Jennadil piped up. “There must be a dead animal somewhere about.”
“That must be it,” Gywna agreed, although she was not sure that was the cause of her wariness either. However, she did not want to appear as if she was deliberately stalling so, using her sword to cut her way through the dense cobweb curtain, she began moving upwards. Behind her, the others cautiously picked their way up the narrow stairs.
Jennadil, the tallest of the group, had to bend his neck to prevent taking all the cobwebs with him. With cobwebs this size there were bound to be a lot of big spiders about, he thought with a shiver. He stopped worrying about spiders however when he reminded himself that with each step he was getting closer to the most dangerous predator of all, lurking in his lair atop the Lord’s Tower. Since they had entered the tunnel on the fringes of Delm Forest, Jennadil had thought obsessively about the dangerous task they would soon face. If they actually reached Morgarth Evictar—for it seemed to him that their trek across Serranguard was taking longer than the entire journey from Falcon’s Mount.
When Arridel had taken him and Adelyis aside next to the dungeon trap door, and explained the workings of the three stones they carried and the spell they would have to summon, Jennadil had listened mutely. His magical abilities were reduced to inane party tricks when compared with the massive spell he would soon have to conjure. Despite Lassendil’s words of encouragement, he still felt a fraud. However, this time he would keep his feelings to himself. There was nothing to be gained in whining anymore, for the time for turning back had long since run out.
At the back of the group, Lassendil hung back a little and looked about him. He disliked this place. From the moment he had entered, the very air had made the fine hair on the back of his neck stand up; and it was not because it was any colder in here than outside in the corridor. The air in the hidden stairs was rancid and unpleasant. Indeed, it did smell as if something decayed.
In front of her brother, Adelyis had picked up her skirts and was climbing carefully. Unlike Jennadil, her thoughts were not focused on the upcoming confrontation as they should have been. Worries for Will Stellan crept into her mind and distracted her. She knew she had to focus her energy and thoughts on the battle ahead, but as soon as she relaxed her guard Adelyis’s thoughts always returned to Will. Would they even find him alive?
Gywna’s limbs ached with accumulated fatigue. How long was it since she had last rested? The endless hours since they had entered the tunnel seemed to merge into one long, exhausting and terrifying ordeal. Arridel carried the torch, lighting her way while she hacked at the sticky cobwebs. The Wraith Sword was so sharp that the cobwebs parted easily but her arm muscles were starting to burn from the strain. She was not as physically fit as the others. Only stubbornness prevented her from stopping for a break every few yards.
The stairs wound up, almost vertically in places and at times, they became so narrow the companions could barely squeeze through. The rotting smell, which had been faint at the bottom of the stairs, got stronger as they climbed. The air here had a strange dryness compared to the rest of the castle. Dust irritated their eyes and caught in the back of their throats.
As she climbed, the feeling of unease that had bothered Gywna upon entering the hidden stairs increased. At times, it felt as if dozens of furry spiders were crawling down her spine, and since cobwebs surrounded her, Gywna had to resist the urge to pull up her hood just in case something nasty dropped down her neck.
It was not an easy stairwell to climb and as a result, their progress was slow. After a while, Gywna halted to catch her breath and looked back at the others. Their eyes looked hollowed in the torchlight and the Gremul’s eyes glowed back at her.
“Not long now,” Gywna explained, her voice husky with dust and weariness. “We have but a short climb before …”
She never finished her sentence.
In that instant, two skeletal claws, covered in decaying flesh, sprang from the curtain of cobwebs ahead and grabbed Gywna Brin about the throat.
The others recoiled as a wraithlike specter, swathed in rags, with wild bloodshot eyes, long, matted grey hair and rotting limbs, broke through the cobwebs. The loathsome creature flung Gywna about the narrow space like a rag doll and would have surely broken her neck if Arridel, following close behind Gywna, had not sprung forward and stabbed it with the short sword he carried. The thing screeched, let go of Gywna and fastened its claw about Arridel’s sword, tearing it from his hands. It bore down on the wizard and, with a demented shriek, raised the sword to pierce him through.
Moving quickly, still choking and retching from the feel of the rotting fingers grasping around her neck, Gywna swung her Wraith Sword in an arc. The sword seemed to move of its own accord in her hands; slicing the creature right through its torso. The blade imbedded deep inside its body. When Gywna pulled it free, the steel was dry—this being did not appear to bleed. Arridel’s sword clattered down the stone steps and was retrieved by Taz.
The creature gave a great howl and slumped against the wall. The companions looked on in fascinated horror as their attacker’s decayed form shriveled before their eyes. It was as if invisible maggots were tearing and rending its rotting flesh.
Within seconds, there was nothing left; it seemed to melt into the steps. Only its stench lingered in the air.
Gywna slumped back against the wall, coughing and rubbing her neck. Arridel leant over her, his raw-boned face ashen.
“Gywna,” he hunkered down and looked into her eyes. “Did that creature cut you?”
Gywna coughed and shook her head. “No, but it nearly succeeded in tearing my head off,” she wheezed.
Arridel let out the breath he had been holding. “Fortune is with you child,” he murmured. “For if it had broken your skin you would be transforming before our very eyes into the same creature.”
Gywna stared at him. Her eyes were enormous on her pale face.
“Arridel, what was that?” Jennadil’s voice shook when he finally managed to speak.
The older wizard turned and looked down at the others. “Do any of you know what that creature was?” he asked incredulously.
All of them, even Adelyis, shook their heads.
Arridel sighed, his face looking even gaunter than previously. “It was a Tunnel Wight—a creature borne of evil. It lives as a parasite near its host. Warlocks and evil wizards have always used them as guardians to their lairs. They are almost impossible to slay, although it would seem that they have no resistance against the Wraith Sword. That is just as well for where there is one there is usually another.”
The others looked around nervously at this, drawing their swords as they did so.
“The only fortune in meeting a Tunnel Wight is the knowledge we are very near its master,” Arridel explained. “Morgarth Evictar is close by.”
Listening to Arridel, Jennadil supposed he should have felt grateful for this tidbit of information b
ut instead of reassuring him, it made his bowels turn to water. Gywna Brin did not look any happier than Jennadil. White faced and shaky on her feet, she led the way, with extreme caution this time, up the almost vertical stairs. A short while later the stairs ended.
A large sandstone block partially obscured the exit. Gywna and Arridel stood aside while Taz threw himself up against the block, shifting it just enough for them to squeeze out into the corridor beyond. Here, on Serranguard’s upper level, the castle was lit by small windows high up on the outer walls. Pale amber light filtered in and pooled on the pitted stone floor, giving the corridor a jaundiced hue.
“The entrance to the Lord’s Tower is at the end of this corridor to the left,” Gywna whispered, her throat still hoarse.
“There will be Morg waiting,” Lassendil warned. “We can no longer hide in the shadows. Ready yourselves for combat.”
No sooner had Lassendil spoken when a company of Morg, swathed in their signature black capes, rounded the corner. Upon spying the intruders, the Morg drew their weapons and crept towards them.
Gywna’s encounter with the Tunnel Wight had left her badly shaken. The sight of these Morg, who were far more frightening than she had anticipated, brought her close to tears—but before she had time to gather her wits, the Morg were upon them.
Their leader would have thrust his sword through Gywna’s belly if Lassendil had not leapt between them. He cut the Morg down and flung the kicking corpse aside.
For the second time, Gywna’s life had been spared—and the realization jolted her out of fear and into action. She saw that Jennadil and Adelyis were fighting back to back, and she rushed to their aid. They both wielded their swords clumsily and were on the verge of being overwhelmed when Gywna, her sword flashing silver in the dim light, sliced her way through the fray and positioned herself between them and the hacking, clawing Morg.