I told you, I am too weary, Aballister shot back—and he knew Druzil understood that he was being punished. Better that you are with me? the wizard scoffed. I sent you on a most important mission, and you failed. Better to face Cadderly alone, I say, than with an unreliable and troublesome imp at my side. I don’t yet know what happened to facilitate the destruction of the undead assassin, Druzil, but if I find that you were in any way involved, your punishment will not be pleasant.
More likely it was your own son, Druzil’s mind growled back.
The wizard sent a wave of unfocused mental energy at the imp, an anger so profound that Aballister hadn’t taken a moment to give it words. Druzil would know that his reference, once again, to Cadderly as Aballister’s son had struck a sensitive nerve, even though Aballister was sure he’d taken care of the problem.
You will seek out the bodies of Cadderly and his friends, Aballister answered after a moment. Then you will walk back to me, or flap those weak wings of yours when the wind permits. I’ll tolerate little more from you, Druzil. ’Ware the next storm I send out to the mountains.
With that, Aballister broke off the connection, leaving Druzil alone and cold in the snow, pondering the wizard’s warning.
Truly, the imp was disgusted by the ridiculous accusation and by Aballister’s continual threats. He had to admit, though, that they carried some weight. Druzil couldn’t believe the devastation Aballister had rained on Nightglow and the surrounding mountains. But Druzil was cold and miserable, deep in the wintry mountains, and constantly had to shake the fast-accumulating snow off his leathery wings.
He certainly didn’t like where he was, but in a way, Druzil was relieved that Aballister had refused his request to bring him home. If indeed the young priest had somehow escaped Aballister’s fury—and Druzil didn’t think that at all impossible—then Druzil preferred to be far away when Aballister at last faced his son. Druzil had once battled Cadderly in mental combat and had been overwhelmed. The imp had also fought against the woman, Danica, and had been defeated—even his poison had been ineffective against that one. Druzil’s repertoire of tricks was fast emptying where the young priest was concerned.
But these mountains! the imp thought.
Druzil was a creature of the lower planes, a dark realm mostly of black fires and thick smoke. He didn’t like the cold or the wet feel of the wretched snow, and the glare of sunlight on the mountain slopes pained his sensitive eyes. He had to go on, though, and would, eventually, have to return and face his wizard master.
Eventually.
Druzil liked the ring of that thought. He brushed the snow from his wings and gave a lazy flap to get him up into the air. He decided that searching for Cadderly and his friends would be a foolhardy thing, so he veered away from the settling mass of misplaced snow around Nightglow. Neither was his direction north, toward Castle Trinity. Druzil went east, instead, the shortest route out of the Snowflakes, a course that would take him down to the farmlands surrounding Carradoon.
“Prepare your defenses,” Dorigen said as soon as she entered Aballister’s room, unexpectedly and unannounced.
“What do you know?” growled the weary wizard.
“Cadderly lives!”
“You have seen him?” Aballister snapped, coming fast out of his chair, his dark eyes coming to life with an angry sparkle.
“No,” Dorigen lied. “But there are still wards blocking my scrying. The young priest is very much alive.”
Reacting in quite the opposite way Dorigen had expected, Aballister erupted in laughter. He slapped a hand on the arm of his chair and seemed almost giddy. Then he looked to his associate, and her incredulous expression asked many questions.
“The boy makes it enjoyable!” the old wizard said to her. “I have not faced such a challenge in decades.”
Dorigen thought he’d gone quite insane. You have never faced such a challenge, she wanted to scream at the man, but she kept that dangerous thought private.
“We must prepare,” she said again, remaining calm. “Cadderly is alive, and it might be that he escaped your fury because he’s much closer than we anticipated.”
Aballister seemed to sober at once, and turned his back to Dorigen, his skinny fingertips tapping together in front of him. “It was your scrying that led me to assail Nightglow,” he reminded her.
“It was Druzil’s guidance, more than my own,” she corrected, sincerely afraid to accept blame for anything, given Aballister’s unpredictable and incredibly dangerous mood.
She sighed, noticing Aballister subtly nod in agreement. “Prepare …” she started to say a third time, but the wizard spun around suddenly, his scowl stealing the words from her mouth.
“Oh, we shall prepare!” Aballister hissed though gritted teeth. “Better for Cadderly if he’d fallen to the storm!”
“I will instruct the soldiers,” Dorigen said, and she turned for the door.
“No!” The word stopped the woman short. She slowly turned her head to look back over her shoulder at Aballister.
“This is personal,” Aballister explained, and he led Dorigen’s quizzical gaze across the room to the swirling ball of mist hanging on the far wall, the entrance to his extradimensional mansion. “The soldiers will not be needed.”
They looked down from a high perch to new battlements and a single tower. From the outside, Castle Trinity didn’t seem so remarkable, or so formidable, even with the new construction that had been done. Vander, who had seen the tunnel networks beneath the rocky spur, assured them otherwise. Work on the new walls was slow with winter blowing thick, but guards were in abundance—humans mostly—pacing predetermined routes, rubbing their hands together to ward away the icy breeze.
“That is the main entrance,” Vander explained, pointing to the center of the closest wall. A huge oaken, ironbound door was set deep into the stone, enveloped by walkways and parapets, and many soldiers. “Beyond that door is a cave, barred by a portcullis, and a second, similar door. We will find guards, well-armed and well-trained, positioned every step of the way.”
“Bah, we’re not for going straight in the front door!” Ivan protested, and the yellow-bearded dwarf found rare allies for his grumbling. Danica readily agreed by reminding everyone that their only chance lay in stealth, and Shayleigh even suggested that perhaps they should have come out with Carradoon’s army at their heels.
Cadderly hardly listened, though, trying to think of some magic that might get them in, but that wouldn’t overly tax his still-limited energies. His friends had remained optimistic, believing he could handle the situation. Cadderly liked their confidence in him, he only wished he shared it. That morning, leaving the cave, with the sky shining blue, Ivan had scoffed at the storm that had hit Nightglow, had called it a simple wizard’s trick, and berated Aballister for not being able to aim straight
“First rule in shootin’ magic!” the dwarf had bellowed. “Ye got to hit the damned target!”
“Oo oi!” Pikel had heartily agreed. Then the green-bearded dwarf, too, had made light of it all with a quiet, “Hee hee hee.”
Cadderly knew better. Images of Aballister’s fury, slamming the mountain itself into surrender, stayed with him all morning.
He shook the unpleasant thoughts away and tried to focus on the situation at hand. “Is there another way in?” he heard Danica ask.
“At the base of the tower,” Vander answered. “Aballister brought us … brought the Night Masks in that way, through a smaller, less guarded door. The wizard didn’t want the common footsoldiers among his force to know he’d hired outside assassins.”
“Too much open ground,” Danica remarked.
The tower was set some distance behind the two nearly finished perpendicular walls, and though the tower, too, had apparently not been completed, it stood an imposing thirty feet high, with temporary battlements ringing its top. Even if the friends managed to get past the guards on the closest walls, just a couple of archers up in that tower could make life
miserable for them.
“What tricks ye got to keep them off our backs while we make the run?” Ivan asked Cadderly, gruffly slapping the young priest on the shoulder to force him from his private contemplations.
“The shortest route would be from the right, from below the spur,” he reasoned. “But that would leave us running uphill, vulnerable to many defensive measures. I say we come in from the left, down the slope of the rocky spur and around the shorter wall.”
“That wall’s guarded,” Ivan argued.
Cadderly’s wry smile ended the debate.
The friends spent the better part of the next hour in a roundabout hike to a point on the rocky spur far above Castle Trinity. From that angle, around the side of the largest wall, they could see scores of soldiers, including large, hairy bugbears, ten-foot-tall ogres, and even a giant. Cadderly knew that Castle Trinity’s defenses would be quite a test—for his friends’ trust in him, and for his own abilities. If that formidable force intercepted them before they got inside the back door, all would be lost.
The tower was fully thirty yards back from the front wall and more than forty yards away from the outermost tip of the perpendicular wall, the wall they had to run around. Ivan shook his hairy head, and Pikel added an occasional, “Oo.” Even the dwarves, the most battle-hardened members of the troupe, didn’t think the idea feasible.
But Cadderly remained undaunted. His smile hadn’t ebbed an inch. “The first volley will alert them—the second should get them into positions where we might get near the wall,” he explained.
The others looked around at each other in confusion, their expressions incredulous. Most eyes centered on Shayleigh’s quiver and the hand crossbow at Cadderly’s side.
“On my cue, when the third volley of flaming pitch soars out for the front wall, we go for the tower,” Cadderly went on. “You lead the charge,” he said to Danica.
Danica, though she still had no idea of what “volleys” the young priest was talking about, smiled wryly, apparently pleased that Cadderly didn’t seem to be patronizing her, wouldn’t try to protect her when the situation called for each of them to perform specific, and dangerous tasks.
“If the archers up above catch sight of us,” Cadderly continued, to Shayleigh in particular, “we’ll need you to cut them down.”
“What volley?” Shayleigh demanded, tired of the cryptic game. “What flaming pitch?”
Cadderly, already falling away, deep into his spell-casting concentration, didn’t reply. In a moment, he was chanting, singing softly, and his friends hunched down and waited for the divine magic to take effect.
“Wow,” muttered Pikel at the same moment that one of the guards along the front gate cried out in surprise. Balls of flaming pitch and large spears appeared in midair, thundering down near the wall. Soldiers scrambled and dived from the gate. The giant hoisted a slab of stone and put it in front of him like a shield.
It was over in just a moment, with no fires left burning and no apparent damage to the stonework. The soldiers remained under cover, though, calling frantic orders and pointing out many apparent artillery pieces hiding in the ridges beyond the gates.
Cadderly nodded to Danica, and she and Shayleigh began the procession from the side, slipping from stone to stone. The diversion had apparently worked thus far. Few guards seemed concerned with the high ground to the side of the walls.
The second illusory “volley” roared in farther down the front wall, well beyond the main gates, luring the enemy’s attention to the vulnerable corner where the third wall would be built. As Cadderly had predicted, those soldiers along the side wall rushed into defensive positions behind the thicker front wall.
Again the explosions lasted only a few heartbeats, but the guards were in a near-panic, huddled tight against the battlements and the base of the wall. Not a single eye turned to the southwest, to the higher ground from which the companions approached.
Danica and Shayleigh led them up to the abandoned wall without incident, all but tiptoed along its base away from the front wall, and peered around to the empty courtyard.
Cadderly moved in front of the group and held his hand up to keep his friends back. He concentrated on the front wall and reached out to the particles of air around him, seeing their nature revealed in the notes of Deneir’s song. Slowly and subtly, using triggering prayers and the energy of divine magic, the young priest altered the composition of those particles, brought them together, and thickened them.
A heavy mist swelled up around the front wall, and around the front half of the uncompleted courtyard.
“Go,” Cadderly whispered to Danica, and he motioned for the dwarves to follow and for Shayleigh to come into a position where she could see the tower.
Without hesitation, the brave monk ran off, zigzagging across the rough, frozen ground.
On impulse, Cadderly took Shayleigh’s arrow from her hand. “Get it up on top of the tower,” he instructed, casting an enchantment over it and handing it back.
Danica was twenty yards out, halfway to the tower, before anyone there noticed her. Three archers took up their bows and started to call out when Shayleigh’s arrow smacked solidly into the shoulder of one. The man went down in a heap, and the other two broke into a frenzy, their mouths wagging wide as they tried to cry out for their companions manning the front gate.
Not a sound came from the top of the tower, though, thanks to the field of magical silence Cadderly had cast on the elf maiden’s arrow.
The remaining two enemy archers opened up on Danica, but her course was too erratic and her agility too great. Arrows skipped off the frozen ground, snapping apart as they struck, and Danica, rolling and diving, cutting sharper angles than the soldiers could anticipate, never came close to being hit.
“Hee hee hee,” chuckled Pikel, running with Ivan far behind the monk and thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.
Shayleigh returned the fire with vicious accuracy, skipping arrows in between the parapet stones and forcing the guards to concentrate more on keeping their heads down than on firing at Danica. Still the men tried futilely to cry out, to warn their associates of the peril.
Vander scooped up Shayleigh, settled her atop his broad shoulders, and ran after the dwarves.
Cadderly focused once more on the front wall, loosing another illusory volley to ensure that the soldiers would remain tight in their holes. Smiling at his own cleverness, the young priest raced off after his friends.
As Danica reached the base of the tower, the door burst open and a swordsman rushed out to face her. Always alert, she rolled headlong and came up within his weapon’s descending arc, the ball of her fist connecting under his chin and driving him away. Above Danica, one of the archers leaned out, angling for a killing shot. Shayleigh’s arrow, loosed before he’d even drawn his bow, sank deep into his collarbone.
The other archer, tight against the corner of a squared stone, responded with a shot that caught Vander in the chest, but the arrow did little to slow the giant. Howling and growling, Vander yanked out the puny bolt and hurled it away.
Her angle improved by the fact that she was ten feet above the ground on the firbolg’s shoulders, Shayleigh smiled grimly and loosed another arrow. It skipped off the squared stone and ricocheted into the enemy archer’s eye. The man fell back in agony, obviously screaming—but again, not a sound came from the enchanted area.
Ivan and Pikel disappeared into the tower behind Danica, and Cadderly could see that there was some fighting within. The young priest ran with all speed, slipping in on Vander’s heels, but by the time he, the firbolg, and the elf maiden got there, the five goblin guards of the tower’s first floor were already dead.
Danica kneeled in front of another doorway across the small chamber, studying its lock. She pulled the clasp off of her belt and straightened it with her teeth then gently slipped it in and began working it side to side.
“Hurry,” bade Shayleigh, standing by the outer door. Across the courtyard, cries o
f, “Enemies in the tower!” could be heard. The elf maiden shrugged—the silence was no more—and leaned out the door, shooting off an arrow or two to keep the enemy forces back. One quiver empty, her second growing lighter, she regretted her decision to join in the battle in the valley.
Cadderly pulled her in by the elbow and closed the door. It was an easy thing for the priest to magically reach into the essence of the wood, to swell it and warp it so that the portal was sealed tight. Vander piled the dead goblins against the door as added security, and again all eyes focused on Danica.
“Hurry,” Shayleigh reiterated, her words taking on more weight as something heavy slammed against the tower door.
With a grin to her companions, Danica slipped her makeshift lockpick behind one ear and pushed open the door, revealing a descending stairway.
Cadderly looked at the passage curiously. “Not heavily guarded nor trapped?” he mused aloud.
“It was trapped,” Danica corrected him.
She pointed to a wire along the side of the jamb, secured in place with the other part of her belt. None of them had the time to admire the skilled monk’s handiwork, though, for another, louder crash sounded on the outer door, and the tip of an axe blade poked through the wood.
Ivan and Pikel pushed ahead of Danica and rambled side by side down the stairs. Vander and Shayleigh went next, the firbolg using his innate magic to reduce himself to the size of a large man. Next came Cadderly then Danica, who turned back, and with a subtle twist of her makeshift pick, locked the door and rearmed the trap.
Another door blocked the way at the bottom of the stairs, but the dwarf brothers lowered their heads, locked arms, and picked up their pace.
“It may be warded!” Cadderly called out to them, understanding their intent.
The Bouldershoulders blew through the door, a series of fiery explosions erupting on their heels as they tumbled down in the midst of shattered and smoking wood. The two had been fortunate indeed to get through the portal so quickly, for tiny darts protruded from both doorjambs, dripping poison. In the underground tunnels beyond the door, the blare of horns sounded—probably magical alarms, Cadderly thought.